Artwork by Emily Dykstra of Ball State Univeristy, Bingo Night. The Digital Literature Review The Digital Literature Review is a journal showcasing undergraduate student work in literature and cultural studies. The journal is produced by undergraduate students at Ball State University who are involved in the Digital Literature Review immersive learning project. Our goal is to provide a forum where undergraduate students can showcase their research projects and disseminate their valuable contributions to ongoing academic conversations. The Digital Literature Review is published annually in the spring. The deadline for submissions is in early January. We welcome original articles relating to each year’s theme. Articles should range from 3000-5000 words: every article is reviewed by undergraduate students on the journal’s editorial team. Notification of initial decision is in February. All authors receive constructive feedback concerning submissions. Further information regarding the Digital Literature Review is available at bsuenglish.com/dlr. The Digital Literature Review requires first publication rights. All other exclusive rights as defined in the Copyright Law, Section 106, will reside with the author. An ISSN number will be obtained for future issues. Digital Literature Review, vol. 4 (2017). © Ball State University. All Rights Reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article to [email protected]. The Digital Literature Review gratefully acknowledges Ball State University’s support for the pubication of this journal. Cover art by Sarah James of Ball State University. 11 DLR Staff Editoral Department Team Leader Cassandra Haven Natali Cavanagh Emma Hartman Leah Heim Alexis Lawhorn Aidan McBride Noah Patterson Troi Watts Maggie Weeks-Foy Publicity Department Team Leader Emily Barsic Keith Jackson Design Department Team Leader Shannon Walter Sarah James KJ Ross-Wilcox Contributors Madeline Grosh Rose Franklin Rachel Wright-Marquez Faculty Advisor Joyce Huff Associate Professor of English Teaching Assistant Kathryn Hampshire 2 Introduction: Monsters hroughout history, cultures have tried to understand monsters through creating legends, studying these tales, and, finally, watching them transform as society’s fears evolve. Children growT up hearing of dragons in the mountains and monsters under their beds, and they come of age watching horror films and reading monstrous literature. While society might label any villain or outsider a monster, an academic study of these creatures strives to understand what exactly makes them monstrous. While we may perceive them as monsters based on something as simple as their physical appearance or their potential for violence, it is what these beings represent that we truly fear. Before analyzing monsters, one must first engage with them in spaces that they occupy. Novels such as Dracula, by Bram Stoker, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, provide historical context regarding what monsters have signified throughout time. Likewise, the works of H. P. Lovecraft and Rudyard Kipling show us that monsters are diverse beings that resist easy categorization. Modern monsters, as exhibited through films like The Babadook (2014), reveal what we fear now and how we interpret these anxieties today. Together with the other creeping creatures and bloodcurdling beasts that make up the genre of monstrous literature, these texts embody various types of monsters in different time periods, allowing for a broader understanding of what makes a monster. As we grapple with the challenge of defining the monstrous, scholars utilize critical theory that can help answer these questions. Standing at the forefront of monster theory is scholar Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, author of “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” Within this article, Cohen attempts to explain what monsters are and why we fear them. Through engaging with his scholarship, we can better understand the role of monsters within society. Cohen argues that monsters reveal fears, desires, and undercurrents of their culture. As monsters disappear into the shadows and emerge in other times and places, the changes they undergo reflect the new social, cultural, and historical ideas of the time. This evolution makes monsters even harder to understand and enhances their potential to inflict terror. While a monster might overstep boundaries and binaries, it also acts as a projection of an alternate self, one that can indulge in fantasy and freedom, escaping the rigidity of society and culture. Finally, Cohen touches upon the baseline reason why we study monsters: they are inherently human creations. While monsters captivate humanity because of their origin in societal fears, monsters become even more fascinating because we can not only study them as physical beings but also as lore and legend: Why did society create this monster? What does this figure say about the identity of humans and our society? We can find tools for answering these questions in psychological theories, such as the abject, the grotesque, the sublime, and the uncanny. Abjection examines the limits and influences of a person’s perceived identity and pays special attention to objects that blur the lines between the self and the other. For example, any substance that was a part of the body but leaves it becomes abject, such as urine, vomit, and feces. Monsters are often associated with some form of the abject in that they reflect certain human qualities while simultaneously possessing attributes that are completely alien. The grotesque, on the other hand, refers to liminal creatures that commonly cross accepted borders (i.e., human and animal). As the monster straddles the line between opposing groups, it simultaneously fits 3 into both and neither category; elements that are united in a grotesque creature are not blended together or reconciled in a pleasing way. Rather, the seemingly paradoxical contradiction that the creature embodies creates discomfort or fear within the onlooker. Another internal paradox common in our encounters with the monstrous is the tension between marvel and displeasure, a concept encompassed in the sublime. Sublimity stems from sources such as the natural world, obscurity, fear, power, vast spaces, infinity, and more. Our respect for the unknown coalesces with uncertainty, bringing about internalized and repressed fears. Finally, the uncanny is rooted in the well-known, something that has always been familiar yet is now somehow different. The uncanny grows in that which is repressed and is increased when it is felt in real life, rather than in a fictional world; the uncanny also occurs when something that has been repressed returns in fictional form, as well as in real life. In the ways outlined within these theories, monsters force humanity to confront forces outside of our own control. While composing an issue dedicated to the study of monsters and monster theory, we have attempted to understand the origins of monsters—dating back to fairy tales and mythic legends—along with modern ramifications, interpretations, and theories. The papers “The Sociocultural Feminist Implications of ‘Rumpelstilkskin’,” by Emily Barsic, Emma Hartman, and Alexis Lawhorn, and “The Cultural Significance of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’” by Aidan S. McBride, KJ Ross-Wilcox, and Madeline M. H. Grosh, both work to analyze the true monsters in fairy tales. Keeping with stories from legend, the papers “The Fate of a Materialistic Buddhist: A Cultural Edition of ‘Jikininki’ by Lafcadio Hearn,” by Natali Cavanagh, Sarah James, and Shannon Walter, and “Tradition vs. Innovation and the Creatures in Spirited Away,” by Emma Hartman, analyze myths and spirits from Japanese culture. However, while many monsters live in stories and legends, they also have the ability to invade modern culture, as exhibited through the paper “Toxicity in Themes of Control: An Analysis of the Anglo-Western Cancer Rhetoric in A Monster Calls,” by Natali Cavanagh. Some of the articles featured in this issue take a look at the way we depict forms of monstrosity using contemporary social critiques. The papers “Villainy and Women: A Critical Edition of James Baldwin’s ‘The Quest of Medusa’s Head,’” by Cassandra Grosh, Noah Patterson, and Maggie Weeks-Foy, and “‘Who Killed the World?’: Monstrous Masculinity and Mad Max,” by Kathryn Hampshire, seek to analyze monsters through the lenses of monstrous masculinity and the dichotomy of maidens and villains, forming the ideals of womanhood. Other papers continue a modern sense by analyzing onscreen monsters. Delving into film, the following papers analyze depictions of cinematic monsters throughout the last seventy years: “Monstrous Women: Exploring Historical Witchcraft and its Presence in The Witch,” by Noah Patterson, “The Cinematic Killer: Cameras and Peeping Tom,” by Madison Wilde, and “Africa Speaks?: Black Monsters and Revisionary History in Horror Films,” by Arlette Hernandez. These papers analyze murder, gender, and race relations within the context of what makes a monster in these various films. Monsters also appear in serialized form through television shows. “Zombies Say More Than ‘Uungh’: A Walker’s Social Commentary,” by Shannon Walter focuses on monsters within the popular television show The Walking Dead while “Predator vs. Prey: The Human Monstrosity in Attack on Titan,” by Emily Griffis, looks at monsters within a translated version of the anime Attack on Titan. Within our fourth issue of the Digital Literature Review, we engage with