Special issue Call for Papers

Supernatural liminalities in MTV’s Teen Wolf

Teen Wolf (2011-17) was an Urban Fantasy television series which follows a Californian teenager (Scott McCall) during his journey as a high school sophomore. After being turned into a werewolf, Scott has to step up to become the supernatural protector of his hometown, his friends and his family against multiple antagonists, in a clash between good and evil that subverts many of the expectations of the genre. As a piece of media, the show had a significant impact in popular culture in the mid 2010s and prompted the development of a fandom that, in turn, helped model modern fan spaces. This importance in fandom is reflected in the existing literature on Teen Wolf, which has focused more on that aspect than on the show’s unique supernatural lore, one which combines elements from multiple mythologies as well as tropes from gothic horror, urban fantasy and young adult fiction. This show, in sum, has helped model current perspectives on werewolves and other supernatural creatures, but this impact has not left a significant mark in scholarly literature.

The supernatural element is central in a story about werewolves and other fantastic creatures but, as it happens with many other works of supernatural fiction, the creatures, monsters and characters exist in the limit between the known and the unknown. This intradiegetic liminal aspect, this position in the margins of scientific understanding, public perception and the natural order serves in many cases as a lens to project and participate in extradiegetic discourses about social borders and boundaries.

In this special issue of the Supernatural Studies (ISSN 2325-4866) journal, we want to discuss the various liminalities that exist in Teen Wolf. This consciously-broad term has been chosen to include any border and marginal spaces, from those physically shown on screen to metaphorical ‘third spaces’ that affect the depiction of supernatural characters.

★KEYWORDS: Teen Wolf, media studies, supernatural literature, Gothic horror, urban fantasy, werewolves

★ABSTRACT SUBMISSION: Please, send your title and a 200 word abstract with a short bibliography before the 15th July 2025 for a preliminary assessment.

★PAPER FORMAT: 5,000 - 8,000 words, including notes but excluding Works Cited, and follow the MLA Handbook, 8th ed. (2016). Supernatural Studies is an Open Access publication. Papers are expected to be ready by the 10th of January, 2026.

Please, do not hesitate to ask if you have any further questions. Send your queries and abstracts to javiermj[at]ugr[dot]es.

J. Martínez and G. Gillies (guest special editors)

Suggested bibliography

Andrianova, Anastassiya. 2016. ‘Teen drama with a bite: human animality in Teen Wolf’, Supernatural Studies, 3.1: 65-84.

Bernhardt-House, Philip. 2006. ‘The werewolf as queer, the queer as werewolf, and queer werewolves’, in Queering the Non-Human, ed. by Noreen Giffney and Myra Hird (London: Ashgate), pp. 159-84.

Brembilla, Paolo. 2016. ‘The pervasive architecture of MTV’s Teen Wolf’, in Breaking the Media Value, ed. by Klaus Zilles, Joan Cuenca and Josep Rom (Barcelona: Ramon Llull University), pp. 51-8.

del Castillo Aira, Itxaso. 2020. ‘La bestia que hay en mí. Análisis de la representación de la masculinidad en la serie de licántropos adolescentes Teen Wolf (2011-2017)’, in Ana Mª Botella; Monia Rodrigo; Roberto Moreno López (eds.) Investigando sobre tendencias en análisis de contenidos de vanguardia (Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch), pp. 79-89.

Elliott-Smith, Darren, 2023. ‘Queer-Wolves and Wolf-Boyz and Were-Bears, Oh My!’: Queering the Wolf in New Queer Horror Film and TV. In Ardel Haefele-Thomas (Ed.), Queer Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (Edinburgh University Press), pp. 154–173.

Evans, Tania and Madeline Pettet. 2018. ‘The magical is political: deconstructing the gendered supernatural in Teen Wolf’, Fantastika, 2.1: 68-80.

Fradegardi, Mauro. 2016. ‘Teen Wolf, licantropia e adolescenza: temi e figure’, Brumal, 4.1: 79-106.

Franck, Kaja. 2020. ‘Growing pains of the teenage werewolf.’ In In the Company of Wolves: Werewolves, Wolves, and Wild Children, ed. by Sam George and Bill Hughes (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 163-77.

Germanì, Monica. 2012. ‘Being human? Twenty-first century monsters’, in The Gothic in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture, ed. by Justin Edwards and Agnieszka Monnet (London: Bloomsbury), pp. 57-70.

Kendal, Evie and Zachary Kendal. 2015. ‘Consent is sexy: gender, sexual identity, and sex positivism in MTV’s young adult television series Teen Wolf (2011-)’, Colloquy, 30: 26-42.

Martínez Jiménez, Javier. 2023. ‘Lycaon and classical versipelles in MTV’s Teen Wolf’, Thersites 17: 212-44.

―― . 2024. ‘Lycanthropus adulescens: the classical element in MTV’s Teen Wolf (2011–17)’, Classical Receptions Journal, 16.2: 209-228.

McMahon-Coleman, Kimberley. 2014. ‘"I was hoping it would pass you by": dis/ability and difference in Teen Wolf’ in Remake Television: Reboot, Re-use, Recycle, ed. by Carlen Lavigne (Lanham: Lexington), pp. 141-53.

――, and Roslyn Weaver. 2012. Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture: A Thematic Analysis of Recent Depictions (Jefferson NC: McFarland).

Santos, Daniela & Franca, Vanesa. 2018. ‘Ressonância da tradição bestiária medieval na série Teen Wolf’, V Congresso de Ensino, Pesquisa e Extensão da UEG (Goias: Universidade de Goias), 7 p.

Schrackmann, Petra. 2015. ‘Heulen im Patchworkrudel: Jugendliche Werwölfe in den TV-Serien Teen Wolf und Wolfblood’, Kids+media 15: 55-83.

Stafford, Tim. 2020. “Like and Lycanthropy: The New Pack Werewolf According to Tyler, Tyler and Taylor.” In New Queer Horror Film and Television, edited by Darren Elliott- Smith and John Edgar Browning (Wales: University of Wales Press), pp. 169–88.

Thomas, Tracey. 2017. ‘Spot the monster: pack, identity, and humanity in MTV’s Teen Wolf’, in Monsters and Monstrosity in 21st-Century Film and Television, ed. by Cristina Artenie and Ashley Szanter (Montreal: Universitas Press), pp. 91-105.