The Curse of the Wer.. - Site de Thomas - Free

SHIFTING SHAPES OF THE WEREWOLF
evidence of the ‘posthuman’ (a term which has been widely used in
critical discourse to denote a postmodern selfhood.)
As Chapter 6 argues, the animation of the figure of the cyborg (and,
to a lesser extent, the vampire) as representative of a ‘postmodern’
subjectivity in popular and critical discourse would seem to suggest
that the werewolf might also help us to imagine and perhaps enact
or embody the ‘posthuman’. The werewolf’s nature–culture boundary
crossings, corruption of the purely ‘human’, and demonstration that
the modernist project of selfhood leads to pain and torment certainly
invite readings that celebrate its capacity for the expression of such
a state of being. Although representations of the werewolf in Gothic
fiction have certainly been appropriated for such purposes, many other
visualizations of lycanthropy have been ignored by critics, primarily
because they have appeared mostly within the genre of fantasy, a
genre that has been overlooked by theorists of subjectivity. While the
fragmented, plural subjectivities featured in the genres of horror and
science fiction have been celebrated for their subversion of modernist
paradigms of selfhood, the apparent commitment within fantasy to
notions of a unified and harmonious subjectivity has been dismissed
as nostalgic and conservative.
Yet fantasy’s frequent combination of feminist and environmentalist
perspectives with an emphasis on spirituality and ethics (via romanticism,
Jungian theory and New Age philosophy) poses many challenges
to dominant representations of a dualistic subjectivity, and suggests
a number of ways in which subjectivity might be rethought. Further,
although fantasy narratives do tend to link subjectivity to notions of
organic wholeness, they also routinely displace the centrality of the
individual, showing the self to be subject to broader cycles of life and
death and a more panoramic or epic ordering of reality. Indeed, fantasy
frequently represents an experience of absence from or transcendence
of self. While such notions remain dependent upon the presence of a
self — as evidenced by fantasy protagonists’ ‘return’ to subjectivity
after such encounters with the ‘not-self’ — the resumption of subjective
awareness in fantasy often preserves the sense of connection with and
respect for others and the environment that has been facilitated by
9