What Makes a Contemporary Werewolf? The Semiological Analysis of Articles about the “Werewolf of Tamnava County”

Abstract

The paper offers a semiological analysis of narratives about the “werewolf of Tamnava County” which were published in Serbian daily newspapers in June 2005. I will attempt to show the ways in which the folk appropriation of terms from scientific discourse is used to lend legitimacy to stories about the mysterious pest, and how this kind of speech about werewolves is nothing new. Narratives about the “werewolf of Tamnava County” will be broken down to their constitutive elements which will be interpreted singularly. Finally, the paper will offer a number of possible interpretations of the function these narratives hold within the specific context of human-animal relations in which they are created.