• English & American cultural studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.251-285
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• 2014

Monsters cannot speak. They have been objectified and represented through a particular concept 'monstrosity' that renders the presence of monsters effectively simplified and nullified. In contemporary monster narratives, however, the site of monsters reveals that they could be the complex construction of society, culture, language and ideology. As going into the structure that concept is based on, therefore, meanings of monsters would be seen to be highly unstable. When symbolic language strives to match monsters with a unified concept, their meanings become only further deferred rather than valorized. This shows the language of monsters should disclose the self-contradiction inherent in 'monstrosity,' which has made others—namely beings we define as 'different' from ourselves in culture or physical appearance—embodied as abject and horrifying monsters. Unable to be understood, accepted, or called humans. I analyse Frankenstein and Dracula that firmly converge monstrous bodies into a symbolic meaning, demonstrating how this fusion causes problems in the multicultural society. I especially emphasize the undeniable affirmation of expurgated others we need to have empathetic relations with, because their difference, unfamiliarity, and slight divergences are likely to be defined as abnormalities. In the multicultural society, thus, we must learn to embrace diversity, while also having to recognize there are many others that have been thought of as monsters; ironically enabling us to think about an undeniable imperative of being responsive to other people. In this respect, the monstrous inhuman goes to the heart of the ethical undercurrent of multiculturalism, its resolute attempt to recognize and respect someone else's difference from me. A focus on empathetic relations with others, thus, can strengthen the process of creating social mechanisms that do justice to the competing claims of different cultural groups and individuals.

• American Studies
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.57-78
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• 2019

The story of Lizzie Borden has served as a creative impetus in the American imagination; following the hundred years after the Borden murders, a remarkable body of creative work has been produced. Ann Schofield asserts that the Borden story has become an "ur-text for the contemplation of power, of patriarchy, [and] of sexuality" (92). In reading Mary Wilkins Freeman's "The Long Arm" (1895), this essay re-considers Schofield's claim that the Borden story and its subsequent renditions enable a revisionary take on female subjectivity and resistance to patriarchal order. More specifically, this essay examines how Freeman's text (one of the first to fictionalize the saga of Lizzie Borden) reflects back the gendered subjectivity in the in the gothic mirror for us to consider whether that reflection began as an image of subjection or that of autonomy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.55 no.6 s.96
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• pp.141-158
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• 2005

This study was motivated not only by the important role of the special make-up effects in films, but also by the prominent contributions created by make-up artists. The first objective was to study of Jack Pierce, Dick Smith, Tom Savini, Rick flake., and Stan Winston's impact in the most challenging and creative field of all make-up artistry. The second objective was to examine both affinities and differences in artistic styles as well as in make-up techniques through a comparative study of special make-up effects of horror and sci-fi movies in the 20th century films produced by Hollywood studios. The sci-fi films were designed to thrill the audience through the potential of futuristic ideas by fantastic special effects of futuristic creatures such as an extra-terrestrial, a mutant, a robot and a cyborg. In contrast, the horror films were designed to frighten the audience with more reliance on horrifying special effects including a vampire, a werewolf, a zombie and a psycho killer. Their features were shown in a common thread (masquerade, otherness and surrealism) as well as a number of different themes between horror and sci-fi films (transformation vs. extension, satanism vs. monstrosity, and primitivism vs. futurism).

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.327-345
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• 2012

This paper explores how gender, sexuality, momism and national security are intertwined in the POW fictions of the Korean War, revealing the blurred demarcation line of the private and the public during the Cold War era. Works such as Night and Valley of Fire reveal the weakened manhood of the soldiers who were brainwashed or easily succumbed to the enemy during their imprisonment. The novels commonly attribute their weakness to materialism and spiritual corruption prevalent in the society, in addition to mass media including TV. Moreover, a social critic like Phillip Wily provokes the polemical idea of "Momism" which was ardently circulated among some male circles. In Manchurian Candidate, momism is integrated into incest and homosexuality, epitomized by Raymond and his mother. The novel illustrates how momism can be dangerous to national security and devastate the growth of manhood. Mrs. Iselin, a masculinized middle-aged woman, becomes a 'monster' whose overweening desire for power overrides any maternal concern for her son. Such 'monstrosity' exposes the danger of a woman who can castrate a man and manipulate a society. To a certain extent, the same tendency can be found in Turncoat and Night. Both novels reveal how the love of mother brings detrimental impact on boys who become prey to the communist's brainwashing in the POW camps. In short, the POW novels betray society's patriarchal concerns with women's emerging power threatening its ideology.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.408-411
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• 2005

Schistosomus reflexus is the most common monstrosity found in cases of bovine dystocia and it occurs mostly in cattle. Caesarian section performed and retracted abnormal foetus from dystocia in Holstein cow. It was the first observed schistosomus reflexus Holstein calf in Korea. The body and chest walls were bent laterally and dorsally leaving the thoracic and abdominal viscera exposed. Clefts of the sternum from part of the defect in which there is, simultaneously, lordosis, dorsal reflection of the ribs and complete eventration of viscera, severe ventral curvature of the spinal column, non-union of the pelvic symphysis and dorsal reflection of the pelvic bones with the occiput of the head lying near the sacrum. The limbs are usually ankylosed. The liver was abnormal in shape and cystic in nature. The lung was smaller and thymus were bigger than those of the normal calf, The ruminant stomach was normal, however, abomasum distended with amnionic fluid. The other organ including heart, spleen and internal organ have normal shape.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.231-266
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• 2010

This paper explores hybridity and hybridized relations that see mixings and crossings as the first moment of multicultural society. References to hybridity often assume that the definition and orientation of the term are located within biology; that is, hybridity constitutes a mixing of two formally discrete objects. In this regard, there seems to be a dialectical preoccupation with purity that goes hand in hand with discussions of hybridity. This dialectical reference to hybridity privileges whole, complete entities as the original instance before mixing, and in this way purity becomes reified. My analysis of hybridity foregrounds mixings that occur at the level of the social, not exclusively at the level of the biological. Hybridity contexts the myth of monoculturalism in the United States and foregrounds multiculturalism as the initial context around which difference has begun to be conceived. In destabilizing the myth of racial origins, this paper attempts to establish a retroactive construction of purity, which is historically, ideologically, and ethnically examined in Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Through this work composed of disparate narratives discourses, Anzaldua employs physical differences to ward off the colonial desire that has defined others as objects which are to be controlled. In this regard, this paper pursues the way that physical differences could be repositioned in terms of 'hybridity' that has been related to the cultural, historical, economical significations of borderlands. The space of borderlands is also a place marked psychologically; it will turn differences mobilized in the borderland into an acute consciousness that makes us recognize 'otherness' within ourselves. In sum, this paper attempts to elaborate the productive and creative interactions among disparate languages, classes, genders, and ideas, which will draw attention to their own interlocking nature.