 |
customer@davidpublishing.com |
 |
3275638434 |
 |
 |
| Paper Publishing WeChat |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
A Monster We Love: Dexter’s Reproductive Futures
Randal Rogers
Full-Text PDF
XML 1475 Views
DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2016.09.005
University of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada
While there has been significant scholarly attention to the Showtime Series Dexter (2006-13) and the fundamental choice between being good or evil that its protagonist Dexter Morgan must make, this article advances scholarship in three ways. Firstly, it examines Dexter’s final twist in plot and the decision Dexter makes to finally embrace his “dark passenger” to argue for the necessity of the plot twist to the series, which scholarship has not yet performed. Secondly, by situating Dexter’s decision within a framework focused on reproductive futurism, a revised and more nuanced approach to Dexter’s ontological dilemma can be proffered. Finally, by locating Dexter’s dark passenger within the theoretical frames of reproductive futurism and community this article adds an important dimension to notions of the monster conventionally rooted in theories of identity and subjectivity. In the final moments of the series everything changes for Dexter as his identity is redeemed for a reproductive future without guarantees, which this article argues is germane to considerations of biopolitics and community in the contemporary period.
Dexter, reproductive future, biopolitics, community, serial killers, monsters, redemption
Barber-Callaghan, D., & Barber, N. (2010). Rita’s rocky relationships. In B. DePaulo (Ed.), The psychology of Dexter (pp. 193-205). Dallas, TX: Smart Pop.
Butler, J. (2005). Giving and account of oneself. New York: Fordham University Press.
Byers, M. (2010). Neoliberal Dexter? In D. Howard (Ed.), Dexter: Investigating cutting edge television (pp. 143-156). London and New York: L. B. Tauris.
Dietz, J. (2013). Episode review: Dexter series finale. Metacritic. Retrieved from http://metacritic.com
Edelman, L. (2004). No future: Queer theory and the death drive. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Esposito, R. (2011). Immunitas: The protection and negation of life. (Z. Hanafi, Trans.). Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity.
Green, S. (2011). Dexter Morgan’s monstrous origins.Critical Studies in Television, 6(1), 22-35.
Guggenbuhl-Craig, A. (1980). The emptied soul: On the nature of the psychopath. Puttnam, CT: Spring Publications.
Howard, D. (2010). Harry Morgan (post)modern Prometheus. In Douglas Howard (Ed.), Dexter: Investigating cutting edge television (pp. 61-77). London and New York: L. B. Tauris.
James, M. Jr. (Creator). (October 2006-June 2013). Dexter (Seasons 1-8). [Television series].
Mauro, M. (2010). It’s all about Harry: Is the Morgan family a narcissistic family? In B. DePaulo (Ed.), The psychology of Dexter (pp. 163-179). Dallas, TX: Smart Pop.
Mullins, M. (2010). The scientist and the serial killer. In B. DePaulo (Ed.), The psychology of Dexter (pp. 79-93). Dallas, TX: Smart Pop.
Reisch, G. (2011). Know thyself? In R. Greene, G. Reisch, and R. Robinson-Reisch (Eds.), Dexter and philosophy (pp. xi-xiv). Chicago and Lasalle, Ill.: Open Court.
Schmidt, D. (2005). Natural born celebrities: Serial killers in American culture. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Seltzer, M. (1998). Serial killers: Death and life in America’s wound culture. New York and London: Routledge.
Zizek, S. (2002). Welcome to the desert of the real. London and New York: Verso.