Notes on Vermin
Seiten
2025
The University of Michigan Press (Verlag)
978-0-472-07720-5 (ISBN)
The University of Michigan Press (Verlag)
978-0-472-07720-5 (ISBN)
How and why modern literature came to love its pests
Vermin—rats, cockroaches, pigeons, mosquitoes, and other pests—are, to most people, objects of disgust. And vermin metaphors, likening human beings to these loathed creatures, appear in the ugliest forms of political rhetoric. Indeed, vermin imagery has often been used to denigrate poor, foreign, or racialized people. Yet many writers have reclaimed vermin, giving new meaning to creeping rodents, swarming insects, and wriggling worms.
Notes on Vermin is an atlas of the literary vermin that appear in modern and contemporary literature, from Franz Kafka’s gigantic insect to Richard Wright’s city rats to Namwali Serpell’s storytelling mosquitoes. As parasites, trespassers, and collectives, vermin animals prove useful to writers who seek to represent life in the margins of power. Drawing on psychoanalysis, cultural studies, eco-Marxism, and biopolitics, this book explores four uses for literary vermin: as figures for the repressed thought, the uncommitted fugitive, the freeloading parasite, and the surplus life. In a series of short, accessible, interlinked essays, Notes on Vermin explores what animal pests can show us about our cultures, our environments, and ourselves.
Vermin—rats, cockroaches, pigeons, mosquitoes, and other pests—are, to most people, objects of disgust. And vermin metaphors, likening human beings to these loathed creatures, appear in the ugliest forms of political rhetoric. Indeed, vermin imagery has often been used to denigrate poor, foreign, or racialized people. Yet many writers have reclaimed vermin, giving new meaning to creeping rodents, swarming insects, and wriggling worms.
Notes on Vermin is an atlas of the literary vermin that appear in modern and contemporary literature, from Franz Kafka’s gigantic insect to Richard Wright’s city rats to Namwali Serpell’s storytelling mosquitoes. As parasites, trespassers, and collectives, vermin animals prove useful to writers who seek to represent life in the margins of power. Drawing on psychoanalysis, cultural studies, eco-Marxism, and biopolitics, this book explores four uses for literary vermin: as figures for the repressed thought, the uncommitted fugitive, the freeloading parasite, and the surplus life. In a series of short, accessible, interlinked essays, Notes on Vermin explores what animal pests can show us about our cultures, our environments, and ourselves.
Caroline Hovanec is Assistant Professor of English and Writing at the University of Tampa.
Acknowledgements
Chapter One: Theorizing Vermin
Gregor Samsa
Definition
Verminous Sublime
Pesticide
The Creaturely
Ratwork
Chapter Two: The Verminous Thought
Rat-Man
Mosquito
Eating the Cockroach
Creepiness
The Unhomely
Chapter Three: Fugitive Movements
Sardonic Rat
Out of Place
Boll Weevil Blues
Mickey Mouse
Undercity
Chapter Four: The Parasite
Upstairs, Downstairs
Parasitology
Down the Drain
The Art of Commensalism
The Shared Table
Chapter Five: Surplus Life
Passenger Pigeon
Kitchenette Rat
The Rats of Trade
The Errant Swarm
Worms
Bibliography
| Erscheinungsdatum | 31.01.2025 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | Ann Arbor |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Natur / Ökologie |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-472-07720-1 / 0472077201 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-472-07720-5 / 9780472077205 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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