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- Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window Published by Oxford University Press, it is a fully-indexed, cross-searchable database containing dictionaries, language reference and subject reference works.
- Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online This link opens in a new window The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology offers concise, expert definitions and explanations of the key concepts in sociology, written by leading scholars in the field, including several faculty from Boston University. Content dating to 2015 is included. Entries range from short definitions of key terms to extended explorations of major topics in both classical sociology and contemporary developments in the field.
- St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture The entries cover topics and persons in major areas of popular culture: film; music; print culture; social life; sports; television and radio; and art and performance (which include theater, dance, stand-up comedy, and other live performance). The entries analyze each topic or person's significance in and relevance to American popular culture; in addition to basic factual information, readers will gain perspective on the cultural context in which the topic or person has importance.
- Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol & Addictive Behavior The title of the second edition, published in 2001, was modified to include addictive behaviors that did not involve drugs or alcohol. While paying close attention to the original vision and the broader scope reflected in the title change, we have tried to update and expand the work to include new and emerging topics and important developments in the many fields of addiction studies. We have included information on recent scientific discoveries and theories in behavioral neuroscience, which help to illuminate how addictive substances and behaviors affect the brain and the impact of these effects on behavior.
The Philosophy of Horror by
Introduction / Thomas Fahy -- Horror and the idea of everyday life: on skeptical threats in Psycho and The birds / Philip J. Nickel -- Through a mirror, darkly: art-horror as a medium for moral reflection / Philip Tallon -- The justification of torture-horror: retribution and sadism in Saw, Hostel, and The devil's rejects / Jeremy Morris -- Hobbes, human nature, and the culture of American violence in Truman Capote's In cold blood / Thomas Fahy -- Making their presence known: TV's ghost-hunter phenomenon in a "post-" world / Jessica O'Hara -- The vampire with a soul: Angel and the quest for identity / Amy Kind -- Ideological formations of the nuclear family in The hills have eyes / Lorena Russell -- Zombies of the world, unite: class struggle and alienation in Land of the dead / John Lutz -- The fall of the house of Ulmer: Europe vs. America in the gothic vision of The black cat / Paul A. Cantor -- From domestic nightmares to the nightmare of history: uncanny eruptions of violence in King's and Kubrick's versions of The Shining / John Lutz -- "Hot with rapture and cold with fear": grotesque, sublime, and postmodern transformations in Patrick Süskind's Perfume / Susann Cokal -- Shock value: a deleuzean Encounter with James Purdy's Narrow rooms / Robert F. Gross -- Making monsters: the philosophy of reproduction in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Universal Films Frankenstein and The bride of Frankenstein / Ann C. Hall -- Kitsch and camp and things that go bump in the night; or, Sontag and Adorno at the (horror) movies / David MacGregor Johnston.
Location: Mugar Stacks PN1995.9.H6 P45 2010 and OnlinePublication Date: 2010
Horror and the Horror Film by
Horror films can be profound fables of human nature and important works of art, yet many people dismiss them out of hand. 'Horror and the Horror Film' conveys a mature appreciation for horror films along with a comprehensive view of their narrative strategies, their relations to reality and fantasy and their cinematic power. The volume covers the horror film and its subgenres - such as the vampire movie - from 1896 to the present. It covers the entire genre by considering every kind of monster in it, including the human.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2012-06-25The Vampire: A New History by An authoritative new history of the vampire, two hundred years after it first appeared on the literary scene Published to mark the bicentenary of John Polidori's publication of The Vampyre, Nick Groom's detailed new account illuminates the complex history of the iconic creature. The vampire first came to public prominence in the early eighteenth century, when Enlightenment science collided with Eastern European folklore and apparently verified outbreaks of vampirism, capturing the attention of medical researchers, political commentators, social theorists, theologians, and philosophers. Groom accordingly traces the vampire from its role as a monster embodying humankind's fears, to that of an unlikely hero for the marginalized and excluded in the twenty-first century. Drawing on literary and artistic representations, as well as medical, forensic, empirical, and sociopolitical perspectives, this rich and eerie history presents the vampire as a strikingly complex being that has been used to express the traumas and contradictions of the human condition.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2018
The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters by Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2014
Guides to the Literature
Gothic, 2nd edition by
This enduringly popular book has become a classic in the expanding and increasingly popular field of Gothic Studies. This long awaited new edition contains a new chapter on 'Contemporary Gothic', an expanded section on American Gothic and more discussion of the gothic in women's film and writing throughout the book. It is also updated in relation to media and technology with further discussion of stage sensations and photography as well as engaging with all major texts and criticism since initial publication in 1995. With the added benefit of series features such as a glossary and annotated further reading section, this remains the ideal guide to the Gothic.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2013
A New Companion to the Gothic by
The thoroughly expanded and updated New Companion to the Gothic, provides a series of stimulating insights into Gothic writing, its history and genealogy. The addition of 12 new essays and a section on 'Global Gothic' reflects the direction Gothic criticism has taken over the last decade. Many of the original essays have been revised to reflect current debates Offers comprehensive coverage of criticism of the Gothic and of the various theoretical approaches it has inspired and spawned Features important and original essays by leading scholars in the field The editor is widely recognized as the founder of modern criticism of the Gothic
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2012
Open Graves, Open Minds: Representations of vampires and the Undead from the Enlightenment to the present day by
Open graves, open minds relates the Undead in literature and other media to questions concerning genre, technology, consumption and social change. It features original research by leading scholars (Dr Sam George is a frequent commentator on the contemporary vampire; Dr Catherine Spooner, a pioneer of the study of Contemporary Gothic; and Dr Stacey Abbott is the author of the seminal work on the vampire in film and TV). The essays cover texts both familiar and unexpected, bringing debates around fictional vampires into the twenty-first century where they are currently enjoying a vogue.This wide-ranging collection forms a coherent narrative which follows Enlightenment studies of the vampire's origins in folklore and folk panics, tracing sources of vampire fiction, through Romantic incarnations in Byron and Polidori to Le Fanu's Carmilla. Further essays discuss the undead in the context of Dracula, fin-de-siècle decadence and Nazi Germany together with early cinematic treatments. The rise of the sympathetic vampire is charted from Coppola's Dracula, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight. More recent manifestations in novels, TV, Goth subculture, young adult fiction and cinema are dealt with in discussions of True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and much more.The book is essential reading for those who wish to explore open graves with an open mind: scholars of literature and film, enthusiasts of all things vampiric and writers of Undead fiction. The Transylvanian notebooks of the award-winning novelist Marcus Sedgwick conclude the study, shedding light on recent trends in young adult fiction. Sedgwick lays bare the writing process for budding novelists and creative writers in the genre.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2015
Zombie Theory: A Reader by
Zombies first shuffled across movie screens in 1932 in the low-budget Hollywood film White Zombie and were reimagined as undead flesh-eaters in George A. Romero's The Night of the Living Dead almost four decades later. Today, zombies are omnipresent in global popular culture, from video games and top-rated cable shows in the United States to comic books and other visual art forms to low-budget films from Cuba and the Philippines. The zombie's ability to embody a variety of cultural anxieties--ecological disaster, social and economic collapse, political extremism--has ensured its continued relevance and legibility, and has precipitated an unprecedented deluge of international scholarship. Zombie studies manifested across academic disciplines in the humanities but also beyond, spreading into sociology, economics, computer science, mathematics, and even epidemiology. Zombie Theory collects the best interdisciplinary zombie scholarship from around the world. Essays portray the zombie not as a singular cultural figure or myth but show how the undead represent larger issues: the belief in an afterlife, fears of contagion and technology, the effect of capitalism and commodification, racial exclusion and oppression, dehumanization. As presented here, zombies are not simple metaphors; rather, they emerge as a critical mode for theoretical work. With its diverse disciplinary and methodological approaches, Zombie Theory thinks through what the walking undead reveal about our relationships to the world and to each other. Contributors: Fred Botting, Kingston U; Samuel Byrnand, U of Canberra; Gerry Canavan, Marquette U; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington U; Jean Comaroff, Harvard U; John Comaroff, Harvard U; Edward P. Comentale, Indiana U; Anna Mae Duane, U of Connecticut; Karen Embry, Portland Community Colle≥ Barry Keith Grant, Brock U; Edward Green, Roosevelt U; Lars Bang Larsen; Travis Linnemann, Eastern Kentucky U; Elizabeth McAlister, Wesleyan U; Shaka McGlotten, Purchase College-SUNY; David McNally, York U; Tayla Nyong'o, Yale U; Simon Orpana, U of Alberta; Steven Shaviro, Wayne State U; Ola Sigurdson, U of Gothenburg; Jon Stratton, U of South Australia; Eugene Thacker, The New School; Sherryl Vint, U of California Riverside; Priscilla Wald, Duke U; Tyler Wall, Eastern Kentucky U; Jen Webb, U of Canberra; Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Central Michigan U.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2017
