This collection of eighteen essays explores the meanings and depictions of beauty and the abject in art (from Renaissance portraiture to the canvasses of Salvador Dali); photography and the representation of the body; film (from the horror genre and gay/lesbian sexuality to socio-political problems); literature (from classical lyric and pastoral drama to the contemporary verbal arts); cultural studies (from the femme fatale and James Bond to vampires and monsters); architecture; and linguistics. These essays not only examine the theme from a variety of media and critical perspectives, they also scrutinize and challenge traditional notions of beauty and the abject.

The Editors: Leslie Boldt-Irons is Professor of French at Brock University (St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada), where she teaches primarily twentieth-century literature and French culture and civilization. She translated into English Georges Bataille s L experience interieure in 1988 and edited a collection of essays, On Bataille, in 1995. She has published and delivered papers on the works of Artaud, Camus, Blanchot, Malraux, Kristeva, and Baudrillard, among other authors.

Corrado Federici is Professor of Italian in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Brock University (St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada). He has translated from the Italian Luciano Nanni s Communication: The Power of Location: Essays on Adespotic Aesthetics (Peter Lang, 2000) and Biancamaria Frabotta s Italian Women Poets. An Anthology. He is also co-editor of Literary Texts and the Arts: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Peter Lang, 2003) and Images and Imagery: Frames, Borders, Limits Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Peter Lang, 2005). He has also written numerous articles and book chapters on modern Italian novelists and poets.

Ernesto Virgulti is Associate Professor of Italian and former Chair of the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Brock University (St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada), where he teaches a variety of courses in Italian language, literature, cinema, and pedagogy. His publications and research interests include Medieval European and Italian literature (especially Boccaccio s Decameron), literary theory (narratology, semiotics), and Italian cinema. He also has published translations and a book on the playwright Luigi Pirandello s Cosi e (se vi pare)."