Influential Books

I've been brainstorming for a co-created blog, Books Combined. The request reads as follows:  

Better than anyone, we think authors understand the power of books, and the ways that books can change us, and our perspective on the world. Would you be willing to write around 800 words about the books that have had a significant impact on your life, be it personally, politically, or intellectually? 

Because I just published a book with my co-writer called Monstrous Nature: Environment and Horror on the Big Screen, my first thought was to take a look at the books cited there that most powerfully influenced the work--highlighting a focused intellectual impact on my life.

The list did get pretty long, but I thought I might write about one of them here to see if this focus might work.

Marion Copeland's Cockroach provided a more complex perspective on the insect and its strengths for a chapter on cockroach horror, for example.   Copeland notes multiple positive associations with cockroaches in her book-length Cockroach, as well. Because “of its predilection for the dark” (81), Copeland suggests, the cockroach has become associated with “the unconscious and the power of the id” (81). In Thailand, Australia, South America, and French Guiana, cockroaches serve as food, medicine, and folk tale source. Copeland suggests that studies by anthropologists and explorers reveal that “rather than racking their brains for effective ways to destroy cockroaches, these cultures found the cockroach a useful neighbor, rich in protein and effective for many human diseases. They also seem to have recognized how useful they were to the environment” (81-2). Copeland also notes that cockroaches contribute to cancer research (131).
 
Other studies of cockroaches she highlights emphasize their physical and intellectual strengths by making explicit connections between cockroaches and humans. According to Copeland, “as in humans, female cockroaches have stronger immune responses than males and the very young and very old have weaker responses than mature adults” (131). As early as 1912, studies at Summer Teacher’s College in St. Louis showed that cockroaches could learn to “overcome their innate aversion to light” (135). They were also found capable of running a maze, even without their heads, a feat few animals could grasp (135). 

We can learn from the cockroach, Copeland asserts.   In Cockroach, Copeland even argues, “our survival as a species may depend on discovering a saviour [sic] who looks at us from many-faceted eyes that replace our own myopic human view with the cockroach’s ‘very long view indeed’” (168). I too think we can learn from cockroaches. They're not only "monstrous nature." They're also amazing creatures with skills.

Stranger Things and The Nest

After finishing the first season of Stranger Things (2016-) on Netflix, I was impressed with the stylish homages to 1980s films from Spielberg (Poltergeist, E.T., Jaws, Close Encounters, etc.) and John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing, etc.) (among others), as well as the novels of Stephen King. We see overt references to Cujo in one scene, and the logo broaches Christine. State Trooper O'Bannons name also references Alien, written by Dan O'Bannon, and Chief Hooper's name broaches Predator. These are just a few of the homages in the series, but they also point to one of the touch points for horror--monstrous nature. Much of Stranger Things draws on skeptical views of science found in horror and sci fi films, highlighting a mad scientist and monster created by his flawed experiments. The wooded "Indiana" (shot in Georgia) setting amplifies its themes, especially when the "underneath" space is introduced. These same monstrous nature ideas are explored explicitly in another 1980s film--The Nest (1988)

The Nest explores the possible disastrous consequences of a biological experiment that turns roaches into flesh-eating fiends. The Nest copies Alien (1979) with its focus on the corporate science connection, ultimately leading to the discovery of a queen and her brood hidden deep in a cave outside an idyllic California coastal town. The film serves as a warning against genetic modifications of cockroaches, a transformation that turns bugs into horrifically anthropomorphized monsters. Negative associations with the insects heighten their monstrous qualities as they take center stage from the film’s opening until its closing denouement. These cockroaches are first established as pests that must be eradicated but transform into monsters that may ultimately destroy humanity instead. 

The film opens in the small harbor town of North Port where Sheriff Richard Tarbell’s (Franc Luz) switchboard officer has been getting strange calls about missing animals, calls that are immediately connected to insects when Tarbell finds a cockroach in his coffee at a diner counter. The presence of cockroaches is also reinforced when the librarian reveals that something—mice or insects—has eaten all of the binding out of her library books. The central cockroach drama, however, intertwines with a subplot of the film, a love triangle Tarbell creates between himself and two women, the diner’s owner Lillian (Nancy Morgan) and his previous girlfriend Elizabeth (Lisa Langlois). The reigniting of Tarbell and Elizabeth’s romance begins to solve the mystery broached by the cockroach evidence. When Elizabeth takes a walk toward the hideout of their youth, she finds a “no trespassing” sign labeled “Intec Development.” A German Shepherd’s cries of agony stop her, and when she reaches him, his flesh has been eaten down to the bone. Tarbell investigates and retrieves something that looks like insect droppings on the dog, yet village mayor Elias urges Tarbell to hold off on searching the Intec property for more evidence. He claims Intec is building condominiums to bring revenue to the island. 

The Nest also constructs scientists as monsters when Intec sends an entomologist, Dr. Morgan Hubbard (Terri Treas), to the island to examine the devoured dog. Dr. Morgan serves as a typical representative of the inhuman and perhaps “mad” scientist seen in most classic monster movies. Dr. Hubbard’s response to these incidents emphasizes the negative portrait of science and scientists in the film. Instead of the fear felt by the rest of the community, Dr. Hubbard seems enamored by the roaches and explicitly anthropomorphizes them. For example, when the cockroaches attack a trapped cat, she exclaims, “very brave, very strange creatures,” a point emphasized by the few predators that can threaten the cockroach. These strengths add to the town’s danger but also draw on cockroach mythology. 

Because they have been genetically modified in an Intec lab, the roaches have developed new powers, more concretely illustrating human and god-like qualities associated with them. Because she has produced them, Dr. Hubbard embraces these new superior but deadly qualities, naming them nymph cockroaches. She lauds their ability to reproduce without the contributions of male counterparts, but when she puts her gloved hand near them in a large lab container, they quickly bite it, highlighting their move from human prey to predator. As a “mad” scientist, however, she seems sexually excited by the mangling of her hand, refusing to remove it until Elias pulls it out before the roaches devour it. Despite these warning signs, Dr. Hubbard tells Elias she can control the roaches and asks for twenty-four hours to solve the problem. 

Beth’s examination of Elias’s papers begins to reveal the truth about these cockroaches’ genetic alteration. Instead of condos, Intec has built a research facility where, according to Hubbard, her experiments are benevolent rather than destructive and meant to create cockroaches that will destroy all other roaches and then die without reproducing. Instead the cockroaches have grown so powerful that even a lethal pesticide can’t destroy them. A solution arises when they realize the roaches have become social animals and must have a nest and a queen to guide them.

The final sinister scenes of the movie emphasize a possible solution to the horror of this now monstrous nature. As Beth explains, if they destroy the caves, they will destroy the nest, suggesting that if they destroy the horror setting, the monstrous insect horror will also disappear. The roaches all go toward the queen in the caves like “a collective unconscious,” making an overt connection to an anthropomorphized cockroach mythology. In the cave where the nest is hidden, Dr. Hubbard is destroyed by a roach figure built out of multiple human skeletons. Tarbell and Beth escape the cave before it explodes, and the two kiss, an ending that perhaps satisfactorily resolves the insect conflict in the film but leaves gaps in the love triangle connecting with it. In The Nest, both science and the cockroach become monstrous, but only the bugs and the mad scientist die, perhaps signifying the need to destroy our worst selves. In Stranger Things, science also destroys.

Our New Book Released! Monstrous Nature: Environment and Horror on the Big Screen

Monstrous Nature: Environment and Horror on the Big Screen

Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann

Link to the book page for orders:  

http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Monstrous-Nature,677228.aspx

Godzilla, a traditional natural monster and representation of cinema’s subgenre of natural attack, also provides a cautionary symbol of the dangerous consequences of mistreating the natural world—monstrous nature on the attack. Horror films such as Godzilla invite an exploration of the complexities of a monstrous nature that humanity both creates and embodies.

Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann demonstrate how the horror film and its offshoots can often be understood in relation to a monstrous nature that has evolved either deliberately or by accident and that generates fear in humanity as both character and audience. This connection between fear and the natural world opens up possibilities for ecocritical readings often missing from research on monstrous nature, the environment, and the horror film.

Organized in relation to four recurring environmental themes in films that construct nature as a monster—anthropomorphism, human ecology, evolution, and gendered landscapes—the authors apply ecocritical perspectives to reveal the multiple ways nature is constructed as monstrous or in which the natural world itself constructs monsters. This interdisciplinary approach to film studies fuses cultural, theological, and scientific critiques to explore when and why nature becomes monstrous.

Praise for the book:

“From cannibals to cockroaches, Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann fill a major gap in the field with this wide-ranging treatment of horror in ecocinema. Scholarship of this kind contributes tremendously to the expansion of ecocriticism from the study of ‘literature’ per se to the understanding of how environmental themes, such as anthropomorphism and gendered landscapes, occur in visual culture.”—Scott Slovic, coeditor of Numbers and Nerves: Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data 

“Compelling. . . . Clear and meticulous. Another tremendous contribution to the field of ecocinema studies.”—Stephen Rust, coeditor of Ecocinema Theory and Practice

“[Readers] will find in this new book solid scholarship, broad research in the cinematic references necessary to approach the topics, and insightful analysis and juxtaposition of films . . . all contributing to our understanding of how ‘horror’ is among us now in the very real prospects of violent and sudden climate change.”—Charles J. Stivale, editor of Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts

English Studies High School Summer Camp Showcase

July, 30, 2016

10:00 a.m.

Tarble Arts Center

Eastern Illinois University

Department of English

presents

English Studies Summer Camp SHOWCASE RECEPTION

OPENING ADDRESS

Melissa Ames, Camp Director

PART I. STUDENT PERFORMANCES & READINGS

Shakespeare in Play: Moving from the Page to the Stage

Instructor:  Melissa Caldwell

Students from this session will perform scenes from various

Shakespeare plays, showcasing their interpretations of the bard’s famous works.

Performers: Lillian Geil, Diamonte Kimble, Allison Mercer, Emily Moore, Isabella ORourke, Hannah Puckett, Hannah Rose Retzer, Kendall Tracey, Madelyn Whisenhunt, Elizabeth Zazyek

Spoken Word:  Writing & Performing Poetry

Instructor:  Olga Abella

After listening to and reading many different poets, the students in this session have crafted their own poems, and will each perform one of them.

Readers:  Casper Badovinac, TillieAnn Boliard, Evan Hinton, McClain Homann, Angelica King, Allison Mercer, Ryland Myers, Katherine Soucie, Dafne Valdez

P A R T I I . S T U D E N T  P R I N T & D I G I T A L W O R K S

Reading Images:  Picture Book to Graphic Novel

Instructor:  Fern Kory

Enjoy brief, focused "Reading Lessons" that give viewers a detailed look at the techniques and effects of visual   storytelling in a variety of graphic narratives.

Presenters:  Jillian Appel, Zachary Cook, Abbie Crowell, Dontykia Evans, Josh Fraser, Andrew Kinsella, Jennyfer Lara, Stephanie Las, Evan Marquart, Hannah Schmalshof, Emily Watters

Reviving the Dead:  The Walking Dead & Literary History

Instructor:  Angela Vietto

Students will share their creative and analytic responses to materials we've studied in our exploration of the ways concepts from literary history enriches our understanding of a text from the present, like The Walking Dead.

Presenters: Nicholas Bays, Zachary Cook, Noemi Guzman, Andrew Kinsella, Abigail Love, Gabrielle Manasco, Dylan Mason, Emily Watters, Austin Wendling, Dafne Valdez

A Novel Idea: How to Get Started, Keep Writing, & Learn About Book Publishing Biz

Instructor:  Letitia Moffitt

Representing their writing hopes for the future, students from this session present the first pages of the novels they worked to develop over the course of this week.

Presenters: Dewey Bowen, Tanner Lassak, Abigail Love, Grace McConville, Emily Moore, Liah Neudecker, Isabelle ORourke, Cheyenne Walker, Austin Wendling, Anna Yakey

Reel Images:  Gender, Genre, and the Movies in English Studies

Instructor:  Robin Murray

This digital showcase features Wiki pages students completed to provide a visual representation of each student's chosen genre and its representation of gender.

Presenters: Lillian Geil, Gabrielle Manasco, Harleen Mann, Dylan Mason, Amelia Pomfret, Hannah Puckett, Olivia Standerfer, Kendall Tracey, Madelyn Whisenhunt, Trevor Yurek, Elizabeth Zazycki

Frankenstein 2.0:  The Legend, The Reality, The Science

Instructor:  Randy Beebe

This digital showcase displays responses to the question of Frankenstein’s relevance in the 21st Century.  Taking their cue from the Creature’s lament

– “Of what a strange nature is knowledge!” – students created a descriptive yet analytical item that explores this enduring and vexing novel.

Presenters: Jillian Appel, Drew Chittick, Dontykia Evans, Josh Fraser, McClain Homann, Jennyfer Lara, Amelia Pomfret, Liah Neudecker, Rachel Staten, Cheyenne Walker, Anna Yakey

Becoming a Cultural Critic: Writing about Media & Popular Culture

Instructor:  Melissa Ames

This digital showcase features blogs focused on social

commentary and media analysis, showing off the students’

entrance into the world of cultural critics and public intellectuals.

Presenters: Nicholas Bays, Drew Chittick, Lita Elkendier, Shelbi Fisher, Keana Fox, Noemi Guzman, Maia Huddleston, Diamonte Kimble, Hannah Rose Retzer, Rachel Staten, Jordan Streeter

Spectacular Worlds & Social Commentary:  Science Fiction in Literature, Film & Television

Instructor:  Donna Binns

Spectacular Worlds students created Wiki pages based on their fa- vorite science fiction literary work, film, TV show, or video game

Presenters: TillieAnn Boliard, Dewey Bowen, Maia Huddleston, Stephanie Las, Harleen Mann, Evan Marquart, Ryland Myers, Hannah Schmalshof, Jordan Streeter, Trevor Yurek

Thinking Beyond the Page:  Experimenting with the Lyric Essay

Instructor:  McKenzie Dial

After spending the week exploring creative nonfiction, students from this session will share their own experiences through various forms of memoir writing.

Presenters: Casper Badovinac, Abbie Crowell, Lita Elkendier, Shelbi Fisher, Keana Fox, Evan Hinton, Angelica King, Tanner Lassak, Grace McConville, Katherine Soucie, Olivia Standerfer