Turning to monster to learn about humanity : presentation of findings from caring monsters - the research project

• Popular culture; literature, movies and comics, is full of monsters. Monsters that both scare and amuse. Through history people has been fascinated, feared and amused by the idea of mysterious creatures, the monsters. Passing stories and constructing the “monsters” are part of all cultures and over times, although the representation of monsters are projected in variance over time and are historical and contextual bounded. Just as monsters are the binary opposition of the ‘good citizen’, monsters also perform as embodied representations of the “Other”. Monster is therefore best understood as embodiment of difference, a breaker of categories and a resistant other. Monsters are “tricksters” challenging our coding of the world by challenging our knowledge. The monster ask us how we as humans perceive the world and about our perception of difference. The aim of this project is to explore the caring activities of monsters in popular culture. The project will catalog monsters’ caring activities around the globe and analyze why, when and under what circumstances monster characters actually do care. In this presentation the initial analyzes of data gathered from the project website (http://www.caringmonsters.com/) will be presented. The initial readings based on a straight forward content analysis of why monsters sometimes go out of character and suddenly engage in some kind of caring activities will be presented. The result will contribute to a critical discussion of the impact of caring and the ethics of caring from which we could learn about humanity, when reflecting upon it from an “outside” and monstrous perspective.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

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