Poison and the Popular Imagination - by Lorna Piatti-Farnell (Hardcover)

About the Book

Bringing together the work of international scholars, this book investigates the well-known conceptualization of poison as connected to seemingly contrasting ideas of 'deviousness', 'insidiousness' and 'usefulness, ' demonstrating how these understandings manifest in a variety of culturally informed discourses and narrative contexts across popular culture.

Book Synopsis

Bringing together the work of international scholars, this book investigates the well-known conceptualization of poison as connected to seemingly contrasting ideas of 'deviousness', 'insidiousness' and 'usefulness, ' demonstrating how these understandings manifest in a variety of culturally informed discourses and narrative contexts across popular culture.

Taking an interdisciplinary and transnational approach, contributors to this volume consider poison as a powerful metaphorical entity that recurrently appears across narrative formats and contexts, including film, television, comics, video games, children's literature, and boardgames. Through both historical and fictional accounts - which are explored in equal terms as part of the same cultural narrative - this book re-assesses the place occupied by poison in the popular imagination, establishing its presence as one that is simultaneously nefarious and culturally romanticized. Contributors demonstrate how discourses of poison in popular culture are often interconnected with representations of gender, ethnicity, class, cultural identity, and environmental discourses on an intersectional level.

Ultimately, through its recounting of tales about poison and poisoners, this book also reveals parallels to some of the deepest narratives about our societies, both historic and contemporary: what we fear, what we desire, and how we see ourselves at a specific moment in time.

Review Quotes

"This collection is truly a wicked pleasure for any reader interested in the fascinating strands of poison's cultural history. From the alluring aesthetics of fairy-tale poison to the political intricacies of toxic consumption throughout film, videogames, literature and more, these essays throw light on the most insidious and elusive of substances." --Monica Germanà, Reader in Gothic and Contemporary Studies, University of Westminster, UK

"Poison may be deadly if consumed but as subject matter for cultural enquiry it is delicious: this book is an intoxicating mix of approaches to the fascinating world of poisons laced throughout popular culture and history." --Kirstin Mills, Senior Lecturer of Graduate Research, Macquarie University, Australia

"This wonderful edition potently mixes poison's diverse cultural constructions, media reimaginings, and physical realities. Spanning the poisonous "femme fatales" of Ancient Greek myth to those of Roald Dahl's short stories and American film noir, the materialities of poison from developing celluloid to creating clothes, the pleasures of poisoning our enemies in role-playing and video games, considering famous "poison" figures from Cleopatra to Poison Ivy, and poisonous tropes in the Potter-verse, One Piece, and New Korean cinema, Poison and the Popular Imagination has something for every reader - pick your poison." --Lynn Kozak, Associate Professor of History and Classical Studies, McGill University, Canada

About the Author

Lorna Piatti-Farnell is Academic Dean at SAE Creative Media Institute in Auckland, New Zealand.