Explores concepts of monstrosity in Western civilization from Beowulf to Jurassic Park. We live in a time of monsters. Monsters provide a key to understanding the culture that spawned them.

So argue the essays in this wide-ranging and fascinating collection that asks the question, What happens when critical theorists take the study of monsters seriously as a means of examining our culture? In viewing the monstrous body as a metaphor for the cultural body, the contributors to Monster Theory co...