Notes on vermin / Caroline Hovanec.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hovanec, Caroline.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pests in literature.

Literature, Modern--20th century--History and criticism.

Literature, Modern.

Literature, Modern--21st century--History and criticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (205 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2025.

Summary:

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.

Notes:

Title from eBook information screen..

Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-189) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472904822

0472904825

OCLC:

1451110777

Access Restriction:

Open Access Unrestricted online access