Bringing Light to Twilight

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Giselle Liza Anatol

      Pages 1-11

3. Literary Contexts: Past and Present

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

      PDF

   2. The Wolf in the Woods: Representations of “Little Red Riding Hood” in Twilight

      • Margaret Kramar

      Pages 15-29

   3. Textual Vampirism in the Twilight Saga: Drawing Feminist Life from Jane Eyre and Teen Fantasy Fiction

      • Kristina Deffenbacher, Mikayla Zagoria-Moffet

      Pages 31-42

   4. Serial Experiments in Popular Culture: The Resignification of Gothic Symbology in Anita Blake Vampire Hunter and the Twilight Series

      • Carole Veldman-Genz

      Pages 43-58

   5. Twilight, Translated

      • Kim Allen Gleed

      Pages 59-68

   6. Variations, Subversions, and Endless Love: Fan Fiction and the Twilight Saga

      • Maria Lindgren Leavenworth

      Pages 69-81

   7. True Blood Waits: The Romance of Law and Literature

      • Meredith Wallis

      Pages 83-95

4. Gender and Sexuality

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 97-97

      PDF

   2. Wake Up, Bella! a Personal Essay on Twilight, Mormonism, Feminism, and Happiness

      • Tammy Dietz

      Pages 99-112

   3. “When you kiss me, I want to die”: Arrested Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Twilight Series

      • Rhonda Nicol

      Pages 113-123

   4. “One is not born a vampire, but becomes one”: Motherhood and Masochism in Twilight

      • Merinne Whitton

      Pages 125-137

   5. Of Monsters and Men: Toxic Masculinity and the Twenty-First Century Vampire in the Twilight Saga

      • Tracy L. Bealer

      Pages 139-152

   6. The Other Edward: Twilight’s Queer Construction of the Vampire as an Idealized Teenage Boyfriend

      • Joseph Michael Sommers, Amy L. Hume

      Pages 153-165

5. Class, Race, and Green Space

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 167-167

      PDF

   2. “Embraced” by Consumption: Twilight and the Modern Construction of Gender

      • Michael J. Goebel

      Pages 169-178

   3. Fashion Sucks … Blood: Clothes and Covens in Twilight and Hollywood Culture

      • Angie Chau

      Pages 179-189

   4. Trailing in Jonathan Harker’s Shadow: Bella as Modern-day Ethnographer in Meyer’s Twilight Novels

      • Joo Ok Kim, Giselle Liza Anatol

      Pages 191-205

   5. The Great American Love Affair: Indians in the Twilight Saga

      • Brianna Burke

      Pages 207-219

The essays in this collection use the interpretative lens to interrogate the meanings of Meyer's books, making a compelling case for the cultural relevance of Twilight and providing insights on how we can "read" popular culture to our best advantage.

• culture
• fiction
• gender
• law
• novel
• space
• Wolf

"A timely collection of scholarly essays on Stephanie Meyer s enormously popular Twilight series which, for better or for worse, has fundamentally altered our reading and understanding of vampires . . .a valuable resource for academics and non-academics alike, not only to trace the cultural and literary impact of the Twilight series, but also to help provide clear literary analysis and cultural contextualization." - Franz J. Potter, Associate Professor, National University

"Shattering the notion that Twilight is not worthy of academic study, Bringing Light to Twilight offers diverse array of approaches to the saga from a wide range of disciplines. An illuminating analysis of the series, this anthology is a discerning response to the Twilight phenomenon and a must-read for scholars of popular culture, media studies, and literature." - Natalie Wilson, author of Seduced by Twilight: The Allure and Contradictory Messages of the Popular Saga

GISELLE LIZA ANATOL is Associate Professor of English at the University of Kansas, USA, and the editor of two previous books, Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays (Praeger 2003) and Reading Harry Potter Again: New Critical Essays (Praeger 2009). She has published extensively on representations of motherhood in contemporary Caribbean literature, and representations of race and ethnicity in contemporary children's literature.  She has blogged about her research into the Twilight phenomenon for the University of Stirling's web forum, 'The Gothic Imagination.'

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