About the Author

Jonathan Strauss is Professor of French at Miami University. He is the author of Subjects of Terror: Nerval, Hegel, and the Modern Self and of Human Remains: Medicine, Death, and Desire in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Fordham).

Reviews

"I recommend reading this book by dim light--from candles or gas if possible. But don't let this enjoyable horror tale's lithe prose fool you. Serious theoretical work connects the cholera, corpses, miasmas, necrophiliacs, prostitutes, rag pickers, sewage, and other forms of "abjection" explicated in this volume... This is an intricately interdisciplinary work, which would nevertheless speak fluently with older approaches from intellectual history and the history of ideas. Informed broadly by the wide arc of continental theory--including phenomenology and hermeneutics, dialectics, existentialism, post/structuralism, and above all psychoanalysis--Strauss also incorporates notable elements of visual studies, comparative literature, and recent interest in "literature and science." He smoothly blends literary history, criticism, and theory with political history, criticism, and theory." - Peter S. Soppelsa, H-Urban, October 2012