Our Vampires, Ourselves
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.31 (678 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0226032027 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-03-30 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Nina Auerbach shows how every age embraces the vampire it needs, and gets the vampire it deserves. Working with a wide range of texts, as well as movies and television, Auerbach locates vampires at the heart of our national experience and uses them as a lens for viewing the last two hundred years of Anglo-American cultural history."Auerbach has seen more Hammer movies than I (or the monsters) have had steaming hot diners, encountered more bloodsuckers than you could shake a stick at, even a pair of crossed sticks, such as might deter a very sophisticated ogre, a hick from the Moldavian boonies.Auerbach has dissected and deconstructed them with the tender ruthlessness of a hungry chef, with cogency and wit."—Eric Korn, Times Literary Supplement"This seductive work offers profound insights into many of the urgent concerns of our time and forces us to confront the serious meanings that we invest, and seek, in even the shadiest manifestations of the eroticism of death."—Wendy Doniger, The Nation"A vigorous, witty look at the undead as cultural icons."—Kirkus Review"In case anyone should think this book is merely a boring lit-crit expositionAuerbach sets m
There is, after all, more in vampire metaphors than meets any one mind's eye." . "My central idea: that vampirism springs not only from paranoia, xenophobia, or immortal longings, but from generosity and shared enthusiasm. This strange taste cannot be separated from the expansive impulses that make us human." Our Vampires, Ourselves is not your ordinary work of literary criticism, but rather an entertaining, thought-provoking tour of the history of vampires in Western civilization. Auerbach implicitly rejects the Freudian and Jungian interpretations of these figures as either psychosexual metaphors or archetypes, preferring to see them in sociopolitical terms. The v
An interesting take on the familiar Cogently argued, thoughtfully presented, entertainingly written. Since purchasing this book when it was first published, I've reread parts of it many times, just for the enjoyable and lively style of argument. Sure, there are many points I disagree wi. Christopher Weaver said Why Do Cultural Ctitics Have To Write Like This?. OK--I know that Nina Auerbach is a famous, groundbreaking feminist literary critic. I don't disagree with many of her points in this book. (Though I'm innately suspicious of any system that fits as perfectly as hers does. She never seems to find an ex. M. Jones said An Interesting Take. For those who aren't interested in a Lit Crit approach: Don't bother to read it, then complain that it's focused on Literary Criticism! If you bother to know what you're getting into however, and want to approach it not as a collection of horror stori