abhuman

[Joel S. Berson]

At 2/13/2011 01:59 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Not in OED but scores of GB hits:
>
>
>1997 _Australasian Victorian Studies Journal_ III 47 [GB: not verified in
>print]: [Kelly Hurley's] organising principle for her investigations of
>these texts is "the abhuman," a term she borrows from the horror writer
>William Hope Hodgson to denote the possibilities of "the ruination of
>traditional constructs of human identity."
>
>2000 Michelle A. Masse' in David Punter, ed. _A Companion to the Gothic_
>(Oxford: Blackwell) 240: By foregrounding the loss of all boundaries, or
>dissolution into the abhuman, Hurley addresses issues of race and
>masculinity in the Gothic that evidence themselves as 'hysterical nausea.'
>
>It sort of means "no longer fully, significantly, or recognizably human."

Or perhaps more monstrous, as in Abby Normal?

Joel

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