Past, Present, Future: Medieval Monsters and Their Afterlives II
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture
Organizer Name
Michael A. Torregrossa
Organizer Affiliation
Independent Scholar
Presider Name
Whitney Dirks-Schuster
Presider Affiliation
Grand Valley State Univ.
Paper Title 1
Haunting Poltergeists: Historical and Cinematic Representations of Ghosts as Demonic Monsters
Presenter 1 Name
Rex Barnes
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Columbia Univ.
Paper Title 2
The Queer and the Dead: Medieval Revenants and Their Afterlives in In the Flesh
Presenter 2 Name
Elliot Mason
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Concordia Univ. Montréal
Paper Title 3
The Witcher’s Anal Eye: Monstrous Technologies of the Medievalized Other in Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Presenter 3 Name
Kevin Moberly; Brent Addison Moberly
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Old Dominion Univ.; Indiana Univ.-Bloomington
Paper Title 4
The Monstrous Mongols in Medieval Eurasia and Modern Day Film
Presenter 4 Name
Colleen C. Ho
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Univ. of Maryland
Start Date
12-5-2018 3:30 PM
Session Location
Schneider 1160
Description
The year 2018 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and, while this is certainly an important event, to celebrate it outside of its larger context is to ignore the rich history of the monstrous in Western tradition that underlies much of Shelley’s representation of the creature brought to life by Victor Frankenstein. Medieval texts, in particular, abound with monsters, and, like the creation of young Frankenstein, many of these remain prevalent in the minds (and, perhaps, fears) of modern-day audiences. Still, while Monster Studies has grown phenomenally as a discipline in recent decades, few have explored how medieval monsters, like their more modern counterparts, exist as part of an ongoing tradition from their point of origin in the medieval past to their most recent depiction in popular culture.
In furtherance of the goals of The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, we seek in this panel to unite Medieval Studies, Medievalism Studies, Monster Studies, and Popular Culture Studies to highlight points of contact between medieval monsters and their post-medieval representations. We hope to explore both continuity and change in addressing how these figures have been portrayed and to extrapolate from these trends to suggest how these monsters may be employed in future texts.
Michael A. Torregrossa
Past, Present, Future: Medieval Monsters and Their Afterlives II
Schneider 1160
The year 2018 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and, while this is certainly an important event, to celebrate it outside of its larger context is to ignore the rich history of the monstrous in Western tradition that underlies much of Shelley’s representation of the creature brought to life by Victor Frankenstein. Medieval texts, in particular, abound with monsters, and, like the creation of young Frankenstein, many of these remain prevalent in the minds (and, perhaps, fears) of modern-day audiences. Still, while Monster Studies has grown phenomenally as a discipline in recent decades, few have explored how medieval monsters, like their more modern counterparts, exist as part of an ongoing tradition from their point of origin in the medieval past to their most recent depiction in popular culture.
In furtherance of the goals of The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, we seek in this panel to unite Medieval Studies, Medievalism Studies, Monster Studies, and Popular Culture Studies to highlight points of contact between medieval monsters and their post-medieval representations. We hope to explore both continuity and change in addressing how these figures have been portrayed and to extrapolate from these trends to suggest how these monsters may be employed in future texts.
Michael A. Torregrossa