Queer Monsters and Monstrous Queers: Abominable Others in Literature and Film
What makes a monster? While monsters take on multiple forms—vampires, werewolves, cannibals, demons, the undead, and the uncanny, to name a few—societies from all over the world remain collectively enamored by the mystery, danger, and grotesquerie of monsters. Monsters and monstrosity inhabit cultural imaginaries as much as historic landscapes, insofar as such concepts construct, explain, or critique “the vulnerable, pathetic fantasy we distort in our simultaneous search for love and property… [t]he mystery we eliminate to create the revolt of simple things, goods, that desire mystery” (William Carlos Williams).