[Commlist] New book: The Mummy on Screen: Orientalism and Monstrosity in Horror Cinema

*/The Mummy on Screen: Orientalism and Monstrosity in Horror 
Cinema/***(Bloomsbury)

Basil Glynn (Middlesex University)

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-mummy-on-screen-9781788314084/

The Mummy is one of the most recognizable figures on screen and is as 
established in the popular imagination as virtually any other monster, 
yet the Mummy has until now remained a largely overlooked figure in 
critical analysis of the cinema. In this new study, Basil Glynn explores 
the history of the Mummy film, uncovering lost and half-forgotten movies 
along the way, revealing the cinematic Mummy to be an astonishingly 
diverse and protean figure with a myriad of on-screen incarnations. In 
the course of investigating the enduring appeal of this most 'Oriental' 
of monsters, Glynn traces the Mummy's development on screen from its 
roots in popular culture and silent cinema, through Universal Studios' 
Mummy movies of the 1930s and 40s, to Hammer Horror's re-imagining of 
the figure in the 1950s, and beyond.

**

“The mummy has long been neglected in horror criticism as a stiff and 
lifeless movie monster. But /The Mummy on Screen/ finds a beating heart 
beneath the bandages. With exhaustive research and deft analysis, Basil 
Glynn lifts the shroud on the mummy and finds a fascinating and 
malleable monster whose mute body nonetheless speaks volumes about the 
Orientalist imagination.” – *Andrew Scahill, Assistant Professor of 
English, University of Colorado Denver, USA,*

“If the Mummy has enjoyed considerably less critical attention or regard 
than its fellow movie undead, Basil Glynn rectifies that neglect in this 
persuasive reappraisal, tracing the beat of the cloth-wrapped feet in an 
authoritative and illuminating study of an enduring and deceptively 
versatile movie monster.” –*Leon Hunt, Senior Lecturer in Film and TV 
Studies, Brunel University, UK,*

“Glynn not only shows us the origins of the shambling terror … he takes 
us on an intellectually thrilling tour of the orientalist assumptions 
western audiences bring to the fictional mummy. Glynn will make you 
wonder why you ever cared so much about zombies and vampires in this 
accessible and brilliant examination of a truly terrifying monster that, 
until now, has never been given its due. Beware the mummy's curse! But 
read this book anyway.” – *W. Scott Poole, Professor of History, College 
of Charleston, USA *and author of *Monsters in America *and* Wasteland: 
The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror,*

“Glynn's observation that the Mummy has 'stalked . . . its way through 
the movies, largely unappreciated by critics, academics and cultural 
commentators' is an astute, if unfortunate one. Just as the Mummy is 
often without voice in the cinema, the same may largely be said of its 
presence in academic literature. Glynn's book isn't just welcome: it's 
essential. The Mummy, as Glynn points out, is perhaps the cinema's most 
lucrative yet (paradoxically) unappreciated teratological figure. /The 
Mummy on Screen's/ legibility and wealth of research will make it 
indispensably useful. Undergraduate students will love it-graduate 
students will appreciate its accessibility; professors will wish they 
had written it.” – *John Edgar Browning, Georgia Institute of 
Technology, *author and editor of* Zombie Talk: Culture, History, 
Politics, The Forgotten Writings of Bram Stoker*, and *Dracula in Visual 
Media,*

“The time has come to understand and embrace the Mummy's ongoing 
cultural relevance. Glynn unwraps the archetypal Mummy's relentless 
trajectory from ancient artefact to modern attraction!” –*Victoria 
McCollum, Lecturer in Cinematic Arts, Ulster University, Northern Ireland.*

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