Monster Tomes

Welcome to our digital collection of monster-centric research and thought leadership. Here you will find academic writings, podcasts, websites, fiction/non-fiction books, and many more monstrous constructs.

 
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
 
 
 

Ward Shelley’s “History of Science Fiction”

 
 
 
“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.”
— Neil Gaiman
 
 

Podcasts & Blogs

 
 
“Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: ‘Here are our monsters,’ without immediately turning the monsters into pets.”
— Jacques Derrida
 
 
 
 
“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters.”
— Francisco Goya
 
 

Academic Journals & Publications

  • Barrett, Tracy and Terry Kleeman. The Ancient Chinese World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.

  • Bates, Roy. Chinese Dragons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print.

  • Binyon, Laurence. The Flight of the Dragon. Great Britain: Butler & Tanner, 1911. Print.

  • Blust, Robert. “The Origin of Dragons.” Anthropos, Bd. 95, H. 2. (2000): 519-536. JSTOR. Web. 28 Feb. 2012.

  • Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. New York: Apostrophe S. Productions, 1988. Print.

  • Ci, Lin. Chinese Painting. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print.

  • Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, ed. Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Print.

  • Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200 – 600. Eds. Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro, and Patricia Ebrey. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001. Print.

  • Cutter, Robert Joe. Cao Zhi (192 – 232) and His Poetry. Dissertation, University of Washington. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1983. (Publication No. 8319400.) Print.

  • Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1966. Print.

  • Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print.

  • Ebrey, Patricia Buckley and Maggie Bickford. Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics. Massachusetts: 60 Harvard University Press, 2006. Print.

  • Eno, Robert. “Shang state religion and the pantheon of the oracle texts.” Early Chinese Religion Part One: Shang through Han (1250 BC – 220 AD). Ed. Marc Kalinowski and John Lagerwey. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2009. Print.

  • Fong, Wen C. Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy 8 Century. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992. Print.

  • Garrett, Valery M. "Chinese Dragons: Embroidered Symbols Of Power And Protection." Piecework 17.6 (2009): 44-46. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 28 Feb. 2012.

  • Garrett, Valery M. Chinese Dragon Robes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print.

  • Gilmore, David D. Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Print.

  • Girard, Rene. Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1977. Print.

  • Girard, Rene. The Scapegoat. Yvonne Freccero, trans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Print.

  • Goodfellow, Sally W. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980. Print.

  • Hargreaves, Joyce. A Little History of Dragons. New York: Walker Publishing Company, Inc., 2009. Print.

  • Jones, David E. An Instinct for Dragons. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

  • Lee, Sherman E. A History of Far Eastern Art. 5th ed. Ed., Naomi Noble Richard. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1994. Print.

  • Littlejohn, Ronnie L. Daoism: An Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2009. 61 Print.

  • Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature (New York: Zone Books, 2001).

  • McCausland, Shane. First Masterpiece of Chinese Painting: The Admonitions Scroll. New York: George Braziller, 2003. Print.

  • The Monster Imagined: Humanity’s Recreation of Monsters and Monstrosity. Eds. Laura K. Davis and Cristina Santos. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2010. Print.

  • Morgan, Diane. Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History: A Story of a Human Obsession. Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2008. Print.

  • The Original I Ching Oracle. Trans. Ritsema, Rudolf and Shantena Augusto Sabbadini. London: Watkins Publishing, 2005. Print.

  • Powers, Martin J. Pattern and Person: Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical China. USA: President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2006. Print.

  • Rudolf Wittkower, Rudolf, ‘Marvels of the East: A Study in the History of Monsters’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), 159-197.

  • Asa Simon Mittman with Peter J. Dendle, eds., The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012).

  • Rebecca Soares (2018) Morbid Curiosity and Monstrous (Re)Visions: Zombies, Sea Monsters, and Readers (Re)Writing Jane Austen, Women's Writing, 25:4, 429-442, DOI: 10.1080/09699082.2018.1510078

  • Rijken, Conny. " Threats, Monsters and the ‘Refugee Crisis’". Tilburg Law Review 22.1-2 (2017): 267-275. https://doi.org/10.1163/22112596-02201013 Web.

  • Steuber, Jason, ed. China: 3,000 Years of Art and Literature. Welcome Books, 2007. Print.

  • Valerie I.J. Flint, ‘Monsters and the Antipodes in the Early Middle Ages and Enlightenment,’ Viator 15 (1984), 65-80.

  • Xin, Yang, Xu Naixiang, and Li Yihua. Art of the Dragon. Ed. Yim Lai Kuen. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1988. Print.

  • Zhao, Qiguang. A Study of Dragons, East and West. New York: Peter Lang, 1992. Print.

Have more monster literature to add?

The monster is an ever-evolving academic concept and this is a living, breathing body of work. We welcome contributions and suggestions. If you are inclined to contribute, please send us the details below.