Just in time for Hallowe’en: Professor James Wright and former Music Assistant-Director Alexis Luko (now Director of the School of Music, University of Victoria) are pleased to announce the release of their co-edited anthology Monstrosity, Identity and Music: Mediating Uncanny Creatures from Frankenstein to Videogames (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). From the publisher:
Taking Mary Shelley’s novel as its point of departure, this collection of essays considers how her creation has not only survived but thrived over 200 years of media history, in music, film, literature, visual art and other cultural forms. In studying monstrous figures torn from the deepest and darkest imaginings of the human psyche, the essays in this book deploy the latest analytical approaches, drawn from such fields as musicology, critical race studies, feminist studies, queer theory and psychoanalysis. The book interweaves the manifold sounds, sights and stories of monstrosity into a conversation that sheds light on important social issues, aesthetic trends and cultural concerns that are as alive today as they were when Shelley’s landmark novel was published 200 years ago.
Included in the volume are essays by Professors Wright and Luko, along with Music faculty member John Higney and former Carleton Film Studies professor (Andre Loiselle, now Dean of Arts at St. Thomas University, NB).
Monstrosity, Identity and Music is available now in hardcover and ebook format.