In the company of wolves

In the company of wolves presents further research from the Open Graves, Open Minds Project. It connects together innovative research from a variety of perspectives on the cultural significance of wolves, wild children and werewolves as portrayed in different media and genres. We begin with the wolf itself as it has been interpreted as a cultural symbol and how it figures in contemporary debates about wilderness and nature. Alongside this, we consider eighteenth-century debates about wild children ­– often thought to have been raised by wolves and other animals – and their role in key questions about the origins of language and society. The collection continues with essays on werewolves and other shapeshifters as depicted in folk tales, literature, film and TV, concluding with the transition from animal to human in contemporary art, poetry and fashion.

This volume of essays presents innovative research from a variety of perspectives on the cultural significance of wolves, children raised by wolves, and werewolves, as portrayed in different media and genres.

In the company of wolves presents further research from the Open Graves, Open Minds Project. It connects together innovative research from a variety of perspectives on the cultural significance of wolves, wild children and werewolves as portrayed in different media and genres.We begin with the wolf itself as it has been interpreted as a cultural symbol and how it figures in contemporary debates about wilderness and nature. Alongside this, we consider eighteenth-century debates about wild children ­– often thought to have been raised by wolves and other animals – and their role in key questions about the origins of language and society. The collection continues with essays on werewolves and other shapeshifters as depicted in folk tales, literature, film and TV, concluding with the transition from animal to human in contemporary art, poetry and fashion.

Preface - Sam GeorgeIntroduction: from preternatural pastoral to paranormal romance - Sam George and Bill HughesPart I : C ultural images of the wolf, the werewolf and the wolf-child1 Wolves and lies: a writer's perspective -Marcus Sedgwick2 ‘Man is a wolf to man’: wolf behaviour becoming wolfish nature - Garry Marvin3 When wolves cry: wolf-children, storytelling and the state of nature - Sam George4 ‘Children of the night. What music they make!’: the sound of the cinematic werewolf - Stacey AbbottPart II: Innocence and experience: brute creation, wild beast or child of nature5 Wild sanctuary: running into the forest in Russian fairy tales – Shannon Scott6 ‘No more than a brute or a wild beast’: Wagner the Werewolf, Sweeney Todd, and the limits of human responsibility – Joseph Crawford7 The inner beast: scientific experimentation in George MacDonald’s 'The History of Photogen and Nycteris' – Rebecca Langworthy8 Werewolves and white trash: brutishness, discrimination and the lower-class wolfman from The Wolf Man to True Blood – Victoria AmadorPart III: Re-inventing the wolf: intertextual and metafictional manifestations9 ‘The price of flesh is love’: commodification, corporeality, and paranormal romance in Angela Carter’s beast tales – Bill Hughes10 Growing pains of the teenage werewolf: Young Adult literature and the metaphorical wolf – Kaja Franck11 ‘I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself’: the metafictional meanings of lycanthropic transformation in Doctor Who – Ivan PhillipsPart IV: Animal selves: becoming wolf 12 A running wolf and other grey animals: the various shapes of Marcus Coates –Sarah Wade13 ‘Stinking of me’: transformations and animal selves in contemporary women’s poetry – Polly Atkin14 Wearing the wolf: fur, fashion and species transvestism – Catherine SpoonerBibliographyIndex