Past, Present, Future: Medieval Monsters and Their Afterlives I
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
Anna Czarnowus
Presider Affiliation
Univ. of Silesia
Paper Title 1
Giants in the History of England: The Final Frontier and Steven Spielberg's The BFG
Presenter 1 Name
Geneviève Pigeon
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. du Québec-Montréal
Paper Title 2
The Monstrous Host: Hospitality and Hostility in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant
Presenter 2 Name
Matthew Vernon
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of California-Davis
Paper Title 3
Merlin the White(washed): The Entertainment Industry's Evasion of Merlin's Demonic Heritage
Presenter 3 Name
Michael A. Torregrossa
Paper Title 4
A Rapacious Daemon in King Arthur's Court: Re-designating Merlin as a Demonic Rapist in Arthuriana
Presenter 4 Name
Tirumular Narayanan
Presenter 4 Affiliation
California State Univ.-Chico
Start Date
12-5-2018 1:30 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 I
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