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Becoming Monster
An essay in nineteen parts, where writer-critic Christopher Higgs investigates how a monster is not born but formed. What are the circumstances that can turn a person into a monster, and what are the ramifications of becoming one? Scanning art, philosophy, literature, and television, Higgs is on the hunt not just for the world’s monsters, but for the monstrousness that hides in the depths of human nature. Then again: “What do we mean when we say human,” Higgs asks, “and what do we mean when we say nature?” These unstable definitions are as dangerous as any monster hiding in man’s stories. Part treatise, part warning, Becoming Monster is a critical study of the very nature of the grotesque. The Cupboard is thrilled to put the beastly thing in your hands.
63 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2013
21 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Higgs
9 books23 followersAuthor of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF MARVIN K. MOONEY, AS I STAND LIVING, BECOMING MONSTER, and assembler of ONE.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 20, 2018
The Cupboard is an interesting publishing venture that I've been impressed with so far. Check them out and support them.
Higgs essay felt a little uneven, partly because of the varying definitions of monster, monster being one who is outside the human group,. The paradox is that it is good to be a monster when the human group is monstrous.
Higgs essay felt a little uneven, partly because of the varying definitions of monster, monster being one who is outside the human group,. The paradox is that it is good to be a monster when the human group is monstrous.
December 30, 2013
David Grandy called my attention to Richard Dawkins calling attention to G.G. Simpson’s assertion that “all attempts to answer that question before 1859 [the year Darwin published Origin of the Species] are worthless and . . . we will be better off if we ignore them completely.” Pay no attention to the human behind the definition of “human,” we’re told–or perhaps, warned. After all, paying close attention to the ways the human has been defined historically will certainly upset Fundamentalist-minded atheists and Christians alike; the folks who fear the liminal, the shifting, the outer rims, the ungraspable, the uncontrollable, the monster.
Fortunately, most philosophically-inclined folks aren’t persuaded or frightened enough by the Dawkins dictum to avoid looking over the sweep of available history of literature, philosophy, art, religion, science, to ponder what makes humans human. Christopher Higgs is one such thoughtadventurer. Just in time for Halloween, the Florida State professor and experimental fictionist has published a little essay in nineteen parts on this topic called Becoming Monster. It’s a snappy, thoughtful, challenging but accessible rumination on the idea that humans are both determined and determining, defining and defined, acted and acted upon, always becoming.
Appropriately enough, Higgs describes his little chapbook as “a kind of Frankensteinian fragmentation of critical, theoretical, and cultural material” with all the risk that entails (7). He doesn’t confine his source material to the reflections of Kant, Foucault, Bataille, Rorty, Deleuze and Derrida, but reaches to the more literary-philosophical products of de Beauvoir, Mary Shelley, Sylvia Plath, Henry Miller, on to pop cultural references from Jerry Springer and Pat Robertson. All throughout Higgs calls attention to the ways monsters are defined–sometimes the label is adopted with pride (“self-made monsters,” Higgs calls them, p. 23), other times it is assigned by others, with sometimes-monstrous results. Above all, being monster (like being human), then, involves certain ways of being in relation to others–sometimes an identity desired by the monster, sometimes projected onto the monster by a society of half-monster-half-human (might we call such a hybrid a plain old monster, or simply, “human”?).
The last page might’ve been appropriately designed to hold a mirror, like the weird bendy ones in some of my daughter’s books. Instead, he has a picture of the Duluth lynchings of 1920. Three black men accused of rape, later exonerated, reveal that the accuser has been the real monster. “Humans cannot admit they are monsters,” Higgs concludes.
“They must create the illusion of bifurcation” (58).
This attractive little book is only 5 bucks from The Cupboard. It’s worth the read.
Fortunately, most philosophically-inclined folks aren’t persuaded or frightened enough by the Dawkins dictum to avoid looking over the sweep of available history of literature, philosophy, art, religion, science, to ponder what makes humans human. Christopher Higgs is one such thoughtadventurer. Just in time for Halloween, the Florida State professor and experimental fictionist has published a little essay in nineteen parts on this topic called Becoming Monster. It’s a snappy, thoughtful, challenging but accessible rumination on the idea that humans are both determined and determining, defining and defined, acted and acted upon, always becoming.
Appropriately enough, Higgs describes his little chapbook as “a kind of Frankensteinian fragmentation of critical, theoretical, and cultural material” with all the risk that entails (7). He doesn’t confine his source material to the reflections of Kant, Foucault, Bataille, Rorty, Deleuze and Derrida, but reaches to the more literary-philosophical products of de Beauvoir, Mary Shelley, Sylvia Plath, Henry Miller, on to pop cultural references from Jerry Springer and Pat Robertson. All throughout Higgs calls attention to the ways monsters are defined–sometimes the label is adopted with pride (“self-made monsters,” Higgs calls them, p. 23), other times it is assigned by others, with sometimes-monstrous results. Above all, being monster (like being human), then, involves certain ways of being in relation to others–sometimes an identity desired by the monster, sometimes projected onto the monster by a society of half-monster-half-human (might we call such a hybrid a plain old monster, or simply, “human”?).
The last page might’ve been appropriately designed to hold a mirror, like the weird bendy ones in some of my daughter’s books. Instead, he has a picture of the Duluth lynchings of 1920. Three black men accused of rape, later exonerated, reveal that the accuser has been the real monster. “Humans cannot admit they are monsters,” Higgs concludes.
“They must create the illusion of bifurcation” (58).
This attractive little book is only 5 bucks from The Cupboard. It’s worth the read.
March 31, 2022
Approaching this as an academic contribution to Monster Studies will likely result in disappointment, as Christopher Higgs primarily delivers a general survey of humanity’s relationships with monsters rather than deliver a philosophical treaty that recontextualizes that relationship in a significant way.
July 21, 2019
Higgs very nicely incorporates historical events to teach his reader why monsters are a necessity in the system of belonging. It is definitely a page-turner, and you can read this in about an hour and be thinking of it for days.
June 24, 2014
"Rock and Roll is your enemy. And I'm your enemy."
May 1, 2020
A nice little essay on monsters that works well as a companion piece to Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” It lacks organization/shape but is written in a lively, engaging style. I also appreciate that he brings Agamben, Deleuze, and Derrida into the conversation, however briefly...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews