Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain On Difficult Middles

This study examines the monsters that haunt twelfth-century British texts, arguing that these strange bodies express fears and fantasies about community, identity, and race during the period. Cohen finds the origins of these monsters in a contemporary obsession with blood, both literal and metaphorical.

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is Professor of English at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. His work has long explored identity, postcoloniality and monstrosity in medieval literature. He is the author of Medieval Identity Machines and Of Giants, and the editor of The Postcolonial Middle Ages, Thinking the Limits of the Body, Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, and Monster Theory. His essays have appeared in numerous journals, including Speculum, New Literary History, Exemplaria, and the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

Introduction: In medias res * Acts of Separation: Shaping Communal Bodies * Between Belongongs: History's Middle * In the Borderlands: The Identity od Gerald of Wales * City of Catastrophes * The Flow of Blood in Norwich * Epilogue: In medias res
Introduction: In medias res * Acts of Separation: Shaping Communal Bodies * Between Belongongs: History's Middle * In the Borderlands: The Identity od Gerald of Wales * City of Catastrophes * The Flow of Blood in Norwich * Epilogue: In medias res