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

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May 12th, 1:30 PM

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