'Scary Monsters: The Hopeful Undecidability of David Bowie (1947-2016)'

Abstract

This article considers, and renders more accessible, the figure of the Monster. It will first provide a theoretical framework for understanding this historical legal category and contemporary social theory template for the outsider. In doing so, it will draw, in particular, on the work of Michel Foucault and Georges Canguilhem, work which understands the monster in terms of a double breach, of nature and law. However, the article will supplement their theoretical and historical observations with a recognition of the monster’s intrinsic hopefulness. For the purposes of rendering the monster more accessible, and to dramatise its component parts, the article will draw on counter-cultural icon, and monster writ large, David Bowie, as a vehicle for bringing the monster to life. Through Bowie, we will journey through the territory of sex, gender and sexuality, human/animal hybridity, and the sacred and profane and, in the process, consider some key categorical distinctions that the monster brings to crisis.