Subject I have a lot of interest in and the author seems to have done a lot of work/research. Wed love to have you back! Monsters in America Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting. He decides to make a movie about his experience. For him, this place is the opposite of realhe has to do everything in front of strangers. Synopsis: From our colonial past to the present, the monster in all its various forms has been a staple of American culture. InMonsters in America,Scott Poole asks these thought-provoking questions while traveling through American history following the evolution of the monster over time. Suppose someone wanted to trace American history through the common coffee cup. Enter your email address to subscribe to That's What She Read and receive notifications of new posts by email. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Component 2: Summary. Please provide specific examples to support your answers. Poole does justice to judgment; the focus of some horror films. 20% Contact us I feel like three stars is generous for a book that did not bring me any new insights, but it was neither especially good nor especially bad. In Virginia's sectional differences, what natural boundary marked the dividing line between the traditional thinkers and those desiring reforms to have greater representation? Monsters in America instead should acknowledge monsters exist in every culture, every tribe, every era. After Steve hears the verdict, he turns to OBrien for a hug. for a customized plan. Its cohesive, cursory, and has a smattering of typos. Poole argues that "Monstrous metaphors in American historical life have a way of becoming realthey are intertwined with attitudes and social structures that make the monster possible. Insightful and brilliant! While Poole is an academic his book is anything but dry. [Pooles] book is sufficiently clear and engaging for general readers to enjoy and would make a worthwhile addition to undergraduate course in American history or culture. Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. The atheist taught that inflicting suffering while enjoying the process is human nature. Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting, Review, Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Epigraph, Preface: With a Warning to the Unsuspecting Reader, Introduction: The Bloody Chords of Memory. A must read for fans of horror and monsters! It is a frightening world we live in, yet the horrific things in our literature and culture play a vital part in helping us reach some understanding, and even some peace about them. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. to start your free trial of SparkNotes Plus. Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! It is a frightening world we live in, yet the horrific things in our literature and culture play a vital part in helping us reach some understanding, and even some peace about them. Poole summarizes, Perhaps our own beliefs about monsters and their intractable nature help to produce the monsters we fear the most (164). I heard the author on Coast to Coast, and even though he had that dry, flat Midwestern accent (sort of like Margaret Hamilton in "The Wizard of Oz") I knew I had to get the book. This is such an interesting and compelling about our connection to the monstrous and the monstrous' role in expressing national anxieties in our popular media. Excerpt. A well informed, thoughtful, and indeed frightening angle of vision to a persistent and compelling American desire to be entertained by the grotesque and the horrific. Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com, "This book will inspire, motivate and challenge anyone who cares a whit about the written word, the world of ideas, the shape of our communities. Poole wants to tell a story and take his readers on a journey, and he definitely does so. Learn how your comment data is processed. Visit the new website for more about the book, upcoming events, and to keep up with Scott Poole's blog. We are sorry. SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The Monster feels completely alienated: "none among the myriads of men" will take pity on him. That's What She Read by All opinions expressed are uniquely my own. A.Universal white male suffrage B.Public education C.Child labor D.Temperance. A masterful survey of our grim and often disturbing past, Monsters in America uniquely brings together history and culture studies to expose the dark obsessions that have helped create our national identity. Component 3: Vocabulary. This is an important book that Id recommend very highly. It is super nasty, and blood ends up everywhere. A masterful survey of our grim and often disturbing past, Monsters in America uniquely brings together history and culture studies to expose the dark obsessions that have helped create our national identity. Steve calls the movie Monster because that is what the prosecutor has called him. Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2017. on me, relax. Steve Harmon, a Black sixteen-year-old, sits in his jail cell and writes in his notebook. What becomes disturbingly apparent is that most of Americas hatred of the Other is based in Christian religious belief. Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership. serial killers, each generation faced its own challenges and highlighted its fear within its own monsters. Read the chapter-by-chapter Summary & Analysis, a Full Book Summary, or Full Book Analysis of Monster. Enter your email below to sign up for our weekly newsletter& download your FREE copy of this ebook! Indeed, the reader may struggle as I did with the leaps Poole makes between monster movies and American social ills. Monsters are not just fears of the individual psyche, historian Scott Poole explains, but are concoctions of the public imagination, reactions to cultural influences, social change, and historical events. Friedrich Nietzsche believed we are the monsters. Steve records suicidal thoughts and violent prison incidents. OBrien tells Steve he will have to testify on his own behalf and put some distance between himself and King. (And as someone who lives with a history PhD and who briefly pursued graduate studies in history myself, I like to believe that I know from whence I speak.) Pooles bibliography is an additional treat as it includes many excellent books for further reading or study - "1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America" and "Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen" were two titles that jumped out at me thats so full that one could even write their own treatment on the subject. Our main man wonders how anyone can get used to the slammer. For me, there are intertwined. Analysis The monster tells Victor:"You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being." Victor refuses and then later relents to the monster's wishes. Fall 2022 Most Anticipated Books for Christian Readers! From our colonial past to the present, the monster in all its various forms has been a staple of American culture. Not only is it written in a fun, easy to relate to voice, but it is also chock full of info. March 4, 2023, SNPLUSROCKS20 Monsters in America is W. Scott Poole's interpretive history. Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. 335 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in. The evidence that Poole provides . | Unless specifically stated in the review, I have purchased all books reviewed. Steve writes about his fear, anger, and pain and his rising sense of panic about the outcome of his trial. Excellent study of the machinery of monsters and their meaning in American history. Indians, the physically disabled, African-Americans, deep-sea animals or mammals, science is a powerful motivator and caused society to vilify those that do not fit the acceptable mold. on 2-49 accounts, Save 30% Consulting newspaper accounts, archival materials, personal papers, comic books, films, and oral histories, Poole adroitly illustrates how the creation of the monstrous "other" not only reflects society's fears but shapes actual historical behavior and becomes a cultural reminder of inhuman acts. Poole never assumes a 1-1 metaphor, but he does show how common themes (the reemergence of the vampire at different points in American history, for example) are useful shorthand for working through these anxieties. Discount, Discount Code Definitions of the monster, he adds, change over time and with each generation. For the record, I'm *not* well versed on the horror genre due to my fear of almost every popular culture monster. She tells the jury that James King and Steve Harmon, along with two other criminals, robbed a drugstore. Want 100 or more? Bloodshed and hatred are universals in human nature and Pooles book is a very unsettling history of its American manifestation. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless. It was the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award recipient, an ALA Best Book, a Coretta Scott King Honor selection, and a National Book Award finalist. (Greg Garrett, Faithful Citizenship blogger and author of, One Fine Potion: The Literary Magic of Harry Potter, (John David Smith, Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte), W. Scott Poole is Professor of History at the College of Charleston. The tendency to view American monsters as primarily psychological archetypes ignores how closely they have reflected actual historical events and actual historical victims.". Renew your subscription to regain access to all of our exclusive, ad-free study tools. Freedman, Jonathan. Sophfronia Scott - The Seeker and the Monk [Review], James Atwood - Collateral Damage - Brief Review, Emily M.D. Date. But Africans were still human and had their morals, yet the Europeans saw them as a type of monster during the slave trade era. While Poole is an academic his book is anything but dry. Subscribe now. $18.74/subscription + tax, Save 25% Dont have an account? Regardless of the gruesome event, whether it's the Salem Witch Trials back in the 1600s or 9/11 just 10 years ago, one thing remains constant: Americans are obsessed with them. Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves. Perhaps monsters are made in our society more purposefully than we realize. on 2-49 accounts, Save 30% that Poole have used to describe the events of . It's a comprehensive look into ghoulish, weird, and woke world--10/10. This book is really good, a look at our monsters in a social conceptional way. In the end, though, I could easily see assigning parts of this book to undergraduates. Highly recommended. Howard Thurman Books An Introductory Reading Guide. Mrs. Henry testifies to being in the drugstore and seeing two young Black men arguing with the store owner. Penn State folklorist Bill Ellis called the book "required reading for anyone who wants to understand the dark roots of America culture." Here's where you'll find analysis of the main themes, motifs, and symbols in Monster. His footnotes have left me with a massive pile of additional books to read. Judging from the verbiage, Pooles sub-text for the American monster is conservative-Christian-white-heterosexual-Republican. Briggs makes the first closing argument in the case. Poole's examples are well-chosen and well-explicated. Conflicting anxieties about race, class, gender, sexuality, religious beliefs, science, and politics manifest as haunting beings among the populace. Monsters in America (2nd ed.) Excellent study of the machinery of monsters and their meaning Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! The jail guards come in, and everyone lines up against the wall while they get rubber-gloved. He compares himself with the other prisoners. No longer just something that goes bump in the night, Mr. Poole showcases that monsters have more meaning and shed more insight into society than one might have previously suspected. (Christopher James Blythe, Florida State University, (John W. Morehead, editor, www.TheoFantastique.com). American history comes at us dripping with gore, victims lying scattered on the ground, eldritch moonlight revealing creeping horrors you never learned from your eighth grade history textbook. Lovecraft in print. Solely focused on the horrors, readers would think that no Christian or church stood against the aberration of Scriptural teaching; but such was the case with missionaries and abolitionists. It was the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award recipient, an ALA Best Book, a Coretta Scott King Honor selection, and a National Book Award finalist. Dorothy Sayers Where to Start with her Mystery Novels? If you, like me, are both a person that loves old monster movies and cares about history, you'll find this book to be a fun read. Filmmakers create celluloid illusions with that in mind. on 50-99 accounts. That being said, however, if you are a teacher who needs to get a class full of barely literate college freshmen to understand what it means to read / think about things in historical context, Poole's introduction, "The Bloody chords of Memory," is readable and accessible even for a group of resistant and vaguely engaged (at best) 18 year olds. An unexpected guilty pleasure! This isnt a book for the squeamish as Poole details how a horror film like Candyman is based in fact to a great deal. I hated this book. An unexpected guilty pleasure! Numerous scholars explore the cultural and political implications of monster and horror films for the times from which they emerge. Few scholars connect such implications across broader expanses of time to reveal how intrinsically monsters and the horrific have been bound up in the history of America. A.They would back the federal government against another state B.They would support, What issue was at the root of the nullification crisis of 1832, which turned many Virginia Republicans against Andrew Jackson? wish it felt more american- some of the trends were too broad, and I wish thered been more emphasis on early America (e.g. Wed love to have you back! A masterful survey of our grim and often disturbing past, Monsters in America uniquely brings together history and culture studies to expose the dark obsessions that have helped create our national identity.Monsters are not just fears of the individual psyche, historian Scott Poole explains, but are concoctions of the public imagination, reactions to cultural influences, social change, and historical events. Please use a different way to share. Mr. Pooles evidence is as intriguing as it is informative. IE- minorities = what we are anxious about / obsessed with = the monstrous = monsters. I was pretty fascinated through this whole book. Dorothy Sayers Poems Five of Our Favorites! Christopher Columbus came to the Americas searching for gold, slaves, and monsters. A monster, in most cases, is something that challenges human morality or customs, or rather, a single group of people's moralities. I want to start out by saying that I absolutely love the notion behind this book. Historian W. Scott Poole distinguishes himself by focusing on the American context, providing a history told through the personified expressions of our anxieties and fears. An excellent history of the American obsession with monsters, Poole analyzes our religious and nationalist beliefs to see how we have dealt with the Other in our long, horrifying existence as a nation. Poole offers an insight on America's fascination with monsters. All content on this blog is protected under US copyright by Michelle Shannon. From Victorian-era mad scientists to modern-day serial killers , new monsters appear as American society evolves, paralleling fluctuating challenges to the cultural status quo. creating and saving your own notes as you read. For my own part, I have been studying and writing about Gothic horror for some years. She explains that some jurors have decided against him just because he is young and Black, so Steve has to make the jury see him as different from the other defendants.