Monsters

Monsters of Modernity explores the contemporary human condition through a selection of globally iconic monsters. In each chapter, the authors explore monsters for what they reveal about the world in which we live and for the ways that they enable us to address critical issues facing humanity. Although monsters might be feared and thought of as threatening, the authors show how each monster brings us to a deeper appreciation of various aspects of our troubled world, from gender relations, to the lasting impacts of colonisation, to neoliberalism, to the fragility of humanity’s place in the world in the Anthropocene. Monsters of Modernity explores new ground in the conventions of authorship and scholarship, including through the highly personal and subjective perspectives in each chapter, and even the absence of an Introduction. This book will be a valuable companion to anyone interested in the study of monsters as well as those seeking engaging ways to explore and teach key global issues. Open Access text available at: http://kismet.press/portfolio/monsters-of-modernity/

Escrito em meados do século XIV o livro Viagens de Jean de Mandeville foi um dos mais difundidos em fins da Idade Média. Existem mais 250 manuscritos diferentes em diversas línguas. Para o desenvolvimento da presente pesquisa utilizamos a edição traduzida por Susani Silveira Lemos França. A obra é dividida em duas partes e narra o deslocamento do suposto cavaleiro, Jean de Mandeville, por terras orientais, mesclando o real e o imaginário. Assim, nesta comunicação, buscamos compreender o maravilhoso presente no livro, possuindo como foco, em especial, os monstros com deformidades físicas. Tais seres possuíam diferentes imperfeições, como, por exemplo, orelhas que chegam até o joelho, cabeça de cachorro, pés de cavalo, pedra no lugar dos olhos, entre outros. Em sua grande maioria essas gentes são descritas como habitantes de ilhas, entretanto, também aparecem no deserto e no continente. Utilizaremos autores entre eles, por exemplo, Jacques Le Goff (1985), Claude Kappler (1986), Ana Teresa Pollo Mendonça(2007), Miguél Ángel Ladero Quesada (2007) e outros.

The ningen, a giant, sub-Antarctic aquatic humanoid, is a mythical creature  created by Japanese Internet users in the mid:2000s. Since its inception it has crossed over  into  international  Internet  contexts  and  has  been  embellished  and  inflected  in  various  ways.  As  such  it  forms  an  element  within  modern  media:lore,  joining  a  host  of  pre: constituted  mythic/folkloric  creatures  and  more  modern  inventions.  One  of  the  most  notable aspects of ningen media-lore is that the creature was conceived as an inhabitant of  sub:Antarctic  waters,  which  have  not  traditionally  been  perceived  to  be  rich  in  crypto-zoological  entities.  Within  this  location  it  has  been  closely  associated  with  Japan’s  Southern Ocean whaling fleet and can, in this regard, be understood as a manifestation of  a  modern  aquapelagic  imaginary.  The  article  identifies  that  the  original  location  of  the  ningen’s  story  is  not  merely  incidental  to  its  circulation  and  elaboration  but  is,  rather,  a  key  element  of  its  emergence  as  a  Japanese  figure  and  a  continuing  aspect  of  its  significance in a broader, international arena.

“Not all monsters do monstrous things,” Lydia Martin tells Meredith in season four of MTV’s Teen Wolf. How can ‘monstrous’ be defined, when everyone is a supernatural creature, a so-called “monster”, anyway? Where does the line of ‘monstrous’ and ‘human’ blur, and why is such a distinction necessary? Most importantly, are Scott McCall and his pack monsters?

This article focuses on the relationship between Scott McCall as a True Alpha and his friends (his chosen pack) in order to explore how Teen Wolf reflects on identity construction via the “pack.” I aim to discern how Scott’s ideologies bring his pack together through additional intersections of race, education, and culture. Predominantly, the fact that Scott is a True Alpha, someone who “rises purely on the strength of the character, by virtue, by sheer force of will” is important due to the delineated morals and ethics that set him apart from other Alphas presented on the show. Teen Wolf’s season 3A and 3B specifically plays with the concept of monstrosity by warping the perceptions of Scott’s friends and pack to their biological families, their classmates, and even to one another when their darker natures are unveiled.

Furthermore, by focusing this article on how the pack attempts a dual identity of ‘ordinary high school students’ while saving their hometown Beacon Hills from various supernatural evils, bent on either stealing Scott’s powers, or satisfying their own cravings for chaos and destruction, I will note how the choice to maintain “secret” identities questions how Scott and his pack not only see themselves, but how they think others will perceive them. To overcome these preconceived notions of Scott’s pack’s supernatural abilities as being synonymous with monstrous, they must first overcome their personal fears and help each other; after all, the stronger the pack, the stronger the Alpha.

Yokai is a catchall Japanese word for ghosts, demons, monsters, shape-shifters, tricksters, and other kinds of supernatural beings and mysterious phenomena. Although sometimes scary, these frightening beings are often portrayed as playful, relatable, and even cute; the experience of fear can also be amusing and fun. Explore all kinds of yokai and the ways that they became pop-culture sensations in Japan in this online exhibition.

https://yokai.moifa.org/#/

Review contained in
Kohnen, T. , Kohnen, T. , Weidle, R. , Heyl, C. , Freiburg, R. , Haekel, R. , Pittel, H. , Göhrmann, M. , Schulze-Engler, F. , Wells, A. , & Roxburgh, N. "Reviews". Anglistik, no. 32, vol. 2 (2021), pp. 149-77 [166-69].

This publication is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivatives 4.0.

Vivid in Japanese art and imagination are creatures that are at once ghastly and humorous. The Japanese word yokai generally refers to a range of supernatural beings such as ghosts, demons, monsters, shapeshifters, tricksters, and other strange kinds of creatures. While their status is commonly described as supernatural, they exist or appear in the natural, human world. Today, yokai are wildly popular in Japan. They are prevalent across contemporary entertainment genres such as manga (“comics”) and anime (“animation”) series, horror movies, and video games, and they also manifest as the subject of related material culture objects like game cards, character t-shirts, cuddly plushies, and collectable gashapon capsule toys. This diverse array of yokai imagery and materiality is deeply rooted in the past. Yokai images and their stories are enduring, and there is no question that what we see in hot commodities today is closely aligned with traditional Japanese folklore. Yokai: Ghosts & Demons of Japan explores yokai and their popularity in Japan through multiple perspectives of yokai: what they are, their associated tales, how people engaged with or interpreted yokai in different contexts, and why they remain so popular in Japan. The contributors to this book are among eminent scholars, creators, and promoters of various aspects of yokai culture. The interdisciplinary nature of this book’s presentation vibrantly illustrates yokai from different angles, allowing for a broad view of their cultural scope in Japan. In addition, the contributors delve into popular culture themes, connecting traditional folklore, folk art, and imagery to trends in Japan as well as in the United States.
Contributors: Felicia Katz-Harris, Komatsu Kazuhiko, Noriko Tsunoda Reider, Satoko Shimazaki, Michael Dylan Foster, Adam Kabat, Kagawa Masanobu, Zack Davisson, Yumoto Koichi, & Kono Junya.

“Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques” aims to create conversations on the impact of monstrosity and examples of the grotesque in discourse related to religion and the sacred. The tendency to populate religious landscapes with non-human entities, literally demonize opponents, perceive monsters as existing in far-reaching geographical borders (e.g., “the East” in Medieval Europe), and decorate sacred sites with grotesques is a trait shared throughout innumerable traditions. Recently the term "monster studies" was coined to cover the recent works dedicated to monsters by such authors as John Block Friedman, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, and Asa Mittman, who have helped to provide a framework for the study of such phenomena, not only in religious studies but also in literature, art history, and history. Through this framework, monsters and grotesques have been revealed as important markers of marginality, social boundaries, liminality, identity, cultural borders, and the “Other.”

In Monster Anthropology: Ethnographic Explorations of Transforming Social Worlds through Monsters, edited by Yasmine Musharbash and Geir Henning Presterudstuen. Forthcoming from Bloomsbury: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/monster-anthropology-9781350096257/. Discusses the cultural significance of stories about monsters lurking on roadways.

Resumen
En coincidencia con el centenario en 2012 de los legendarios Estudios Universal, este trabajo propone unexhaustivo análisis crítico sobre la construcción de sus principales símbolos terroríficos, la mayoría inspirados en la literatura, que entre los años 1923 y 1941 conformaron la estructura mitogénica del denominado “monstruo clásico”. Tanto en la etapa silente, como con la irrupción del sonoro, las películas de terror de la Universal marcaron un paso imprescindible en la evolución de este género canónico, y a ellas se debe buena parte del ingente desarrollo posterior del mismo.

Abstract:
In coincidence with 2012 legendary Universal Studio´s centenary, this paper proposes an exhaustive critical analysis on the construction of its principal terrifying symbols, the majority inspired by literature, which between 1923 and 1941 shaped the myth structure of the socalled “classic monster”. In both stages, silent and sonorous movies, the terror of Universal Studios marked an indispensable step in the evolution of this canonical genre, and to them it is owed a good deal of its enormous later development.

There can be little doubt that monsters and other evil entities have found a permanent place in people's conceptual systems. This is hardly surprising as there have been many monstrous types which during various stages of societal and cultural development, people have encountered. One of the possible reasons why monsters survive so persistently in culture and language is that in fact they are within (internal) and thus eternal. What people perceive as monstrous and the way they visualise monstrosity may vary. However, the basic components will come from a predictable repertoire of loathsome and grotesquely distorted features. Gilmore (2003: 190) states that "[t]he organic components constituting the monster are symbolic manifestations of emotions displaced, or projected in visual form". This could be explained by the fact that more and more frequently, various vile creatures seem to emerge as grisly and disturbing news-stories of monstrous people engaging in inhuman acts of particular cruelty. Seeing monsters for what they are, Gilmore (2003: 191) asserts that "there is always a non-fixed boundary between men and monsters. In the end, there can be no clear division between us and them, between civilisation and bestiality". Cultural models of fear-inducing objects or events owe as much to instinct as to folk wisdom and classical mythology-Greek mythology in particular. Various narratives which frame particular emotions, such as fear, carry a strong telic element (Kövecses, 2006: 89). This is partly why the modern narratives utilise the language of myth or folk stories to formulate particular world-views, ethical values and emotional responses. It is a common occurrence for people today to be prisoners of their fear, particularly because many, if not most, horrors are manmade. This multidisciplinary paper aims at demonstrating how modern monsters and demons emerge from fear induced narratives.

A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, Blackwell Companions in Art History, 2nd ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2019) (a collection of thirty-nine original essays from leading and upcoming scholars in the field, each historiographically analyzing one of a systematic and editorially determined range of subjects in the development of Romanesque and Gothic art history; eleven new essays were added to the revised original thirty essays of the first edition; this includes my introductory essay, "A Sense of Loss: An Overview of the Historiography of Romanesque and Gothic Art").

1. Introduction
A Sense of Loss: An Overview of the Historiography of Romanesque and Gothic Art
Conrad Rudolph

2. Artifex and Opifex – The Medieval Artist
Beate Fricke

3. Vision
Cynthia Hahn

4. Materials, Materia, "Materiality"
Aden Kumler

5. Reception of Images by Medieval Viewers
Madeline H. Caviness

6. Narrative, Narratology, and Meaning
Suzanne Lewis

7. Formalism
Linda Seidel

8. Gender and Medieval Art
Brigitte Kurmann-Schwarz

9. Gregory the Great and Image Theory in Northern Europe During the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Herbert L. Kessler

10. Iconography
Shirin Fozi

11. Art and Exegesis
Christopher G. Hughes

12. Whodunit? Patronage, the Canon, and the Problematics of Agency in Romanesque and Gothic Art
Jill Caskey

13. Collecting (and Display)
Pierre Alain Mariaux

14. The Concept of Spolia
Dale Kinney

15. The Monstrous
Thomas E. A. Dale

16. Making Sense of Marginalized Images in Manuscripts and Religious Architecture
Laura Kendrick

17. Definitions and Explanations of the Romanesque Style in Architecture from the 1960s to the Present Day
Eric Fernie

18. Romanesque Sculpture in Northern Europe
Colum Hourihane

19. Modern Origins of Romanesque Sculpture
Robert A. Maxwell

20. The Historiography of Romanesque Manuscript Illumination
Adam Cohen

21. The Study of Gothic Architecture
Stephen Murray

22. France, Germany, and the Historiography of Gothic Sculpture
Jacqueline Jung

23. Gothic Manuscript Illustration: The Case of France
Anne D. Hedeman

24. “Specially English”: Gothic Illumination c.1190 to the Early Fourteenth Century
Kathryn A. Smith

25. From Institutional to Private and from Latin to the Vernacular: German Manuscript Illumination in the Thirteenth Century
Michael Curschmann

26. Glazing Medieval Buildings
Elizabeth Pastan

27. Toward a Historiography of the Sumptuous Arts
Brigitte Buettner

28. Reliquaries
Cynthia Hahn

29. East Meets West: The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States
Jaroslav Folda

30. Gothic in the Latin East
Michalis Olympios

31. Art and Liturgy in the Middle Ages
Eric Palazzo

32. Architectural Layout: Design, Structure, and Construction in Northern Europe
Marie-Thérèse Zenner

33. Sculptural Programs
Bruno Boerner

34. The Art and Architecture of Female Monasticism
Jeffrey F. Hamburger

35. Cistercian Architecture
Peter Fergusson

36. Art and Pilgrimage: Mapping the Way
Paula Gerson

37. "The Scattered Limbs of the Giant": Recollecting Medieval Architectural Revivals
Tina Waldeier Bizzarro

38. Medieval Art Collections
Janet Marquardt

39. The Modern Medieval Museum
Michelle P. Brown

Summary in English
The book describes the earliest history of tsar Peters Kunstkamera. It explaines why Peter needed a Kunstkamera.
What the function of Kunstkamera's was in Peters time.
Why Peter bought two big naturalia collections for his Kunstkamera in Holland. How he bought these two collections of the Amsterdam Apothecary Albert Seba and the Amsterdam botany and anatomy professor Frederick Ruysch.
How these collections in Russia were used by the first scientists. What parts of the collection still are today still kept in Petersburg musea.

The figure of the giant has a long history in literature, from the Bible to classical epic poetry to the chanson de geste tradition of the Middle Ages. This project looks at this manlike form of monster in two anonymous works of the medieval English Alliterative Revival. In my analysis of the Alliterative Morte Arthure, I analyze the rich physical description of the giant King Arthur encounters on Mont Saint-Michel, using the giant’s body to understand the poet’s ideas about monstrosity, and how the concept is employed to retell an existing Arthurian legend in a way that responds to the cultural and political anxieties of late-fourteenth-century England, events such as the Peasants’ Rebellion in 1381 and the deposition of King Richard II in 1399. In my analysis of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I also analyze the Green Knight’s detailed physical description to explore the Gawain-Poet’s own conception of monstrosity, one that stands in compelling contrast to that of the Alliterative Morte Arthure poet. I explore how the Gawain-poet uses this alternate view of the monstrous to produce what I read as a possible critique of the political system of late-fourteenth-century England. I posit that in both these works, the monster serves as more than just an antagonist for the hero; both King Arthur and Sir Gawain are significantly transformed by their encounter with the monstrous, a transformation triggered by a confrontation not with the monstrous other but the monstrous self.

Chimère est emblématique des créatures hybrides : véritable assemblage de trois animaux réels,  « lion par devant, dragon par derrière et chèvre par le milieu»  pour reprendre la description d’Hésiode dans sa Théogonie, elle est un hapax, il n’y a qu’une seule Chimère qui a une histoire particulière et c’est donc de cette créature spécifiquement dont il sera question dans cette étude.

In Philip Kaufman's 1978 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, women are presented as educated, sensible, independent, and sexually liberated. Yet, when they speak up, denouncing a sudden change of behavior in their companions, the men they confide in dismiss their concerns as emotional and irrational. This article highlights and analyzes the gender relations in the film, focusing on men's silencing of women to prevent them from questioning the current relations of power and authority. Their knee-jerk reaction of discrediting women precipitates the threat to humanity, as their warnings go unheeded. More importantly, it reveals men's own inadequacies, as they navigate a changing world in which women now have knowledge, self-awareness, expectations, and a voice to articulate them.

This article argues that 1950s American science-fiction films reproduce elements of landscape paintings to evoke the aesthetic experience of the sublime. For example, the arrangement of shots in which monsters dwarf humans is taken directly from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century landscape painting, with monsters replacing vistas. I discuss the philosophical underpinnings in these images and tie them to the atomic bomb. This reading provides an aesthetic analysis of such films, whereas previous scholars have mostly been concerned with reading these images as metaphors.

Is Medea a monstrous entity? And if she is, to what extent?
In attempting to answer these questions, this paper will focus on the representative strategies adopted by Euripides’ Medea, Hesiod’s Theogony and Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica. These authors never use the explicitly marked vocabulary of monstrosity in the characterization of the heroine; however, the paper will show how a veiled ‘teratological’ connotation of Medea is always latent in their texts.

La escritora argentina Mariana Enríquez pone de relieve las intersecciones entre la violencia y las mujeres en Latinoamérica con su colección de cuentos Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego. Situados en la contemporaneidad, sus cuentos tienen mujeres que fungen como eje principal de las tramas y que, extrañamente, se obsesionan con ciertos tipos de violencia auto infligidas. Los cuentos que analizaré presentan mujeres que toman la violencia y la utilizan como arma: es decir, la violencia se convierte en un escape, en una forma de liberarse de muchas de las exigencias u obligaciones impuestas por la sociedad heteronormativa. Protagoniza el primer cuento un grupo de mujeres que se autodenomina las «mujeres ardientes», pues deciden (re)tomar el ritual de la quema en la hoguera para quemarse voluntariamente, mientras que, en el segundo cuento, hallamos a una niña que se refugia en la automutilación de manera obsesiva. Con esta presentación pretendo señalar las instancias textuales en las que la violencia se convierte en una herramienta de libertad para las mujeres que retrata Enríquez. La escritora argentina ahonda lo que sugieren Gabriela Polit Dueñas y María Helena Rueda: la violencia como una forma de supervivencia (7). El primer cuento a analizar, titulado «Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego», se vale del contexto social actual, sobre todo de los feminicidios y del alza en la violencia de género que experimentamos diariamente. La escritora se enfoca en los feminicidios que se dan en Argentina, en donde las mujeres suelen morir quemadas por sus parejas o exparejas. Cabe recordar lo que comentan Caputi y Russel sobre el feminicidio: es un acto impulsado por el odio que surge

Scholarship on monstrosity has often focused on those beings that produce fear, terror, anxiety, and other forms of unease. However, it is clear from the semantic range of the term “monster” that the category encompasses beings who evoke a wide range of emotions. I suggest that scholars have largely displaced first-person accounts of the monstrous and those accounts which do not rely upon horror oranxiety, and I propose a three-category system to correct this displacement. These categories draw from Derrida’s notion of the domestication of the monster and Žižek’s notion of a “fantasy screen” for the monstrous. These categories encourage further research, both between categories of the monstrous and categories that would not typically fit within this descriptor.

This essay provides an introduction to the topic of demons and the means of opposing them in ancient Mesopotamia during the early third to late first millennia BCE. Demons and witchcraft were integrated aspects of the Mesopotamian world. They could threaten individuals, often causing illness or ill fortune, as well as target society as a whole, encroaching upon the protected and ordered world of the Mesopotamian city. There were a number of ways to counter such threats, such as protective amulets and incantantions, but the foremost, particularly in the first millennium BCE, was the figure of the ašipu, or exorcist. A trained ritual professional, the ašipu had a range of tools at his disposal, as well as the protection and sanction of the gods. This article provides an introduction to the issue of demons and exorcism by presenting four key aspects of this complex topic: first, an overview of characteristics and role of demons in Mesopotamia; second, a summary of the two notable demonic figures known as Lamashtu and Pazuzu; third, the demonic and chaotic figure of the witch; and fourth, an overview of the ašipu and his methods.

Adomnán's sixth-century "Life of St. Columba" has often been used to "bolster" belief in the Loch Ness Monster, yet specific historical and cultural analysis of Adomnán tends to completely separate  Adomnán’s story about St. Columba from the modern myth of the Loch Ness Monster, and finds an earlier and more culturally significant use of Celtic “water beast” folklore along the way. Judicious application of Critical Theory and structural analysis can discredit any strong connection between kelpies and water-horses on the one hand and the modern “media-augmented” creation of the Loch Ness Monster on the other. Without St. Columba, the myth of the Loch Ness Monster falters,
for belief in the creature can be seen to rest upon several oft-cited but easily discredited foundations.

This essay looks at " horror " both as a narrative (literary and especially cinematic) genre and as a trans-genre, postmodern social and cultural milieu, one in which horror has become entangled with excessive, pathological fantasy and enjoyment. First, the traditional, 19th-century literary-Gothic motifs (excess, monstrosity, transgression, and uncanny doubling) will be explored in the light of such psychoanalytic concepts as the uncanny, extimacy, and the " subject-beyond-subjectivization. " Then the reworking or transformation of these motifs, especially the monster motif, in contemporary " postmodern " horror films like Hitchcock' s Psycho (1960) and Jonathan Demme' s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) will be discussed. This " new Monster " will be described in terms of the superego, aggression, and perversion in our contemporary " culture of enjoyment " ; a key notion here is the move from Freudian superego as the collective moral voice of society (moral conscience) to Lacanian superego as perverse command to " enjoy ourselves. " The essay' s final section offers some psychoanalytical-ethical reflections on reading contemporary, horror-immersed culture.

Monsters of Modernity explores the contemporary human condition through a selection of globally iconic monsters. In each chapter, the authors explore monsters for what they reveal about the world in which we live and for the ways that they enable us to address critical issues facing humanity. Although monsters might be feared and thought of as threatening, the authors show how each monster brings us to a deeper appreciation of various aspects of our troubled world, from gender relations, to the lasting impacts of colonisation, to neoliberalism, to the fragility of humanity’s place in the world in the Anthropocene. Monsters of Modernity explores new ground in the conventions of authorship and scholarship, including through the highly personal and subjective perspectives in each chapter, and even the absence of an Introduction. This book will be a valuable companion to anyone interested in the study of monsters as well as those seeking engaging ways to explore and teach key global issues. Open Access text available at: http://kismet.press/portfolio/monsters-of-modernity/

Desde los cinocéfalos que moraban en los confines del mundo conocido hasta los fantasiosos superhéroes radioactivos que habitan más allá de la ficción, los monstruos han acompañado al ser humano desde los orígenes del tiempo y han dado forma a un imaginario que ha ido evolucionando al ritmo que marcaba la mentalidad de cada época. Por ello, los pintorescos blemias, los esciápodos o las temibles criaturas del mar que plagaban los libros de viajes y enciclopedias medievales fueron desplazándose según avanzaban los conocimientos geográficos hasta ceder su lugar a monstruos más cotidianos, como los gigantes, enanos o bicéfalos que animaban las cortes europeas. Posteriormente, y gracias al impulso de la ciencia y la antropología decimonónicas, el criminal, el enfermo y el “salvaje” ocuparon el terreno de lo monstruoso, dando lugar a los zoológicos humanos y freaks shows que proliferaron por todo el mundo “civilizado”. Y es que, los monstruos, sea cual fuere su época y condición, siempre han sido el centro de todas las miradas.

Buscando precisamente esta visualidad como hilo conductor, Marta Piñol Lloret ha seleccionado diez artículos escritos por destacados investigadores en la materia a nivel internacional, que tratan de acercarse a la figura del monstruo a través de la percepción que hemos tenido de él a lo largo de la historia. Las ópticas dispares que confluyen en este estudio ofrecen una completa visión de conjunto que no sólo aclara qué y cómo es aquello que denominamos monstruoso, sino que, por oposición a la diferencia, nos habla también de lo que somos nosotros mismos y, muy especialmente, nos enfrenta a nuestros miedos.
PARTICIPAN: José Julio García Arranz; Pablo Castro Hernández; Alberto Baldi; Mª Alejandra Flores de la Flor; Elena del Río Parra; Ricardo Guixà Frutos; Cecilia Eudave; Renato Bermúdez; José Joaquín Rodríguez Moreno.

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between man and landscape in Old Eng¬lish literature starting from the assumption that, during the Middle Ages, landscape was not merely a physical space, but it was rather a complex dimension involving religious and moral aspects. Examples from poetic and prose texts will show how the natural world was usually hostile and inhospitable. Mappae mundi will help determine how the Anglo-Saxons considered themselves in relation to the environment.