Mediating vulnerability : : comparative approaches and questions of genre / / edited by Anneleen Masschelein, Florian Mussgnug, Jennifer Rushworth.

• Superior document: Comparative literature and culture
• TeilnehmendeR: Masschelein, Anneleen, 1971-; Rushworth, Jennifer, 1987-; Mussgnug, Florian, 1974-
• Place / Publishing House: London : : UCL Press,, [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Comparative literature and culture.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (x, 262 pages).

Mediating Vulnerability examines vulnerability from a range of connected perspectives. It responds to the vulnerability of species, their extinction but also their transformation. This tension between extreme danger and creativity is played out in literary studies through the pressures the discipline brings to bear on its own categories, particularly those of genre. Extinction and preservation on the one hand, transformation, adaptation and (re)mediation on the other. These two poles inform our comparative and interdisciplinary project. The volume is situated within the particular intercultural and intermedial context of contemporary cultural representation. Vulnerability is explored as a site of potential destruction, human as well as animal, but also as a site of potential openness. This is the first book to bring vulnerability studies into dialogue with media and genre studies. It is organised in four sections: 'Human/Animal'; Violence/Resistance'; 'Image/Narrative'; and 'Medium/Genre'. Each chapter considers the intersection of vulnerability and genre from a comparative perspective, bringing together a team of international contributors and editors. The book is in dialogue with the reflections of Judith Butler and others on vulnerability, and it questions categories of genre through an interdisciplinary engagement with different representational forms, including digital culture, graphic novels, video games, photography and TV series, in addition to novels and short stories. It offers new readings of high-profile contemporary authors of fiction including Margaret Atwood and Cormac McCarthy, as well as bringing lesser-known figures to the fore.

Table of Contents

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Information -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of contributors -- Introduction: on/off limits -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 1 What if they could speak? Humanized animals in science fiction -- Victor Frankenstein meets Charles Darwin -- Listening to a dog's voice -- The freak children of the bomb -- Genetic engineering, or the new Frankensteins of the third millennium -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 2 Rewriting the myth: consideration of the Minotaur in Georgi Gospodinov's The Physics of Sorrow -- 'The Case of M.': a story of abuse 'The Green Box': an anti-anthropocentric revolution -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 3 A vulnerable predator: the wolf as a symbol of the natural environment in the works of Ernest Thompson Seton, Jack London and Cormac McCarthy -- Introduction: real vs mythical wolves -- Seton and the trapper story -- London's hybrid heroes -- McCarthy's vulnerable predator -- Conclusion: the endangered wolf -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 4 Retelling the Parsley Massacre: vulnerability and resistance in Danticat's The Farming of Bones -- The massacre and its context -- Narrating the massacre Conclusion: narration and community -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 5 Toni Cade Bambara's vulnerable men -- Juxtaposing the deviant: representations of vulnerability -- Narrating disability, narrating ideology? -- Challenging (in)vulnerability -- Towards 'Blackhood': conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 6 The Secret Agent -- fictionalizing history: Joseph Conrad and Stan Douglas -- A Simple Tale of the Nineteenth Century -- A moment in flux -- Looping time -- From Hitchcock to the multiscreen -- The process of suture -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 7 New worlds: violent intersections in graphic novels Introduction: new worlds and contrapuntal readings -- A world before violence -- First encounters -- Violent intersections -- New worlds -- Glimmers of hope: a new new world? -- Conclusion: documents of suffering and the future -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 8 Ludic space in horror fiction -- Urban space in 'The Shadow over Innsmouth' -- Formalizing action in video games -- Virtual spaces in horror literature -- Conclusion: horror fiction and vulnerability -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Ludography -- 9 Graphic stories of resistance: a comic memoir of becoming -- The dignity to fail and to differ Writing in a minor key -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 10 The cryptographic narrative in video games: the player as detective -- Narrative cryptography -- Structure of cryptographic narrative within video games -- The function of cryptographic narrative in video games -- The case of Five Nights at Freddy's -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Gameography -- 11 Narrating pornographic images: photographic description and ekphrasis in De fotograaf by Jef Geeraerts -- Visuality in pornographic prose -- Literature and photography.