Monstrum : the vampire in the detective story /

My approach to the vampire detective highlights its connections to the private detective's story and reveals the monstrous investigators' debt to early feminist forms of detection -specifically in their reformation of the' other' and of traditional forms of power and authority. Seen in this light the movement of horror's imaginary 'other' into the rational world of detection can be seen as not an abrupt breach of detection's realist conventions, but an almost seamless transition into symbolic spaces that point to the detective's primary function -- to make sense of the senseless. It is in this light that I explore the monster that is a detective as a symbol that is also a sense-maker, and a quintessential postmodern figure. I argue that the distinctions between monsters and 'others', and between popular narratives and postmodern religion have faded, culminating in a character that can not only model 'otherness' as an exemplary condition, but also provide strategies for modeling the form of active postmodern subjectivity that postmodern theorist Jim Collins' (1989) conceives of as heretical activity.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A. Popular Culture

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Faculty of Humanities

Department dc:contributor.department

Popular Culture Program

Grantor

Brock University

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Stikkelbroeck, Caroline.

• Vampires in literature.
• Detective and mystery stories.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10464/1408

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:brocku.scholaris.ca:10464/1408