Monstrous Bodies: From Frankenstein to the Posthuman

Saint Louis University Madrid, April 23-24, 2026

Two centuries after Mary Shelley's Frankenstein first posed urgent questions about creation, responsibility, and what constitutes the human, we find ourselves once again confronting transgressive bodies that challenge boundaries—and monsters that reflect our deepest anxieties about the essence of humanity. Classic monsters are being reimagined with renewed urgency: Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein (2025) explicitly rejects AI and digital technology in favor of "old-fashioned craftsmanship" and practical effects, while Robert Eggers' Nosferatu (2024) and Luc Besson's Dracula (2025) resurrect the vampire to explore psychological trauma, isolation, and the burden of immortality—Eggers through the lens of female agency and Victorian pathologization, Besson through existential tragedy and centuries of alienation.

Meanwhile, body horror has emerged as a dominant mode of cultural critique, from films like The Substance (2024) that weaponize visceral transformation to expose ageism and misogyny, to literary works like Rahel  Yoder´s Nightbitch (2021), Cassandra Khaw's The Salt Grows Heavy (2023), or Jade Song's Chlorine (2023).

These works arrive at a crucial juncture: the Age of AI has intensified anxieties about what defines human intelligence, creativity, embodiment, and consciousness. In an era when machines can generate art, hold conversations, and simulate human thought, the figure of the monster—whether Frankenstein's creature, the vampire, or the body-in-transformation—becomes a powerful lens for examining the boundaries of the human.

This conference brings together foundational and emerging scholarship in monster studies, posthumanism, and body theory. Drawing on Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's "Monster Theory" (1996), Susan Stryker on trans monstrosity as resistance, and N. Katherine Hayles on posthuman embodiment, we examine how contemporary monsters challenge boundaries of the human. The conference engages established critical posthumanist frameworks (Haraway, Braidotti, Alaimo, Wolfe) alongside emerging voices pushing these conversations forward—including Oxana Timofeeva's work on the "non-human as such" that challenges posthumanism's own anthropocentrism, and Maria Hlavajova's explorations of art's role in posthuman futures. We particularly welcome papers that analyze how monstrous bodies function as sites of struggle, medical intervention, and cultural inscription—or that explore how monstrosity offers modes of resistance, reimagining boundaries of the human.

Possible Topics Include:

Monster Theory and the Posthuman Condition

• The monster as cultural symptom in contemporary posthuman theory (Alaimo, Braidotti, Haraway)
• Viral monsters and contagion narratives in the wake of pandemic experience
• AI anxiety and the return of the created monster in 21st-century Gothic

Bodies Under Capitalism

• Beauty terror and age horror in The Substance and contemporary body horror cinema
• Monstrous transformations as critiques of late capitalism and neoliberal body politics
• Wellness culture, optimization, and the production of the "failed" body

Gothic Feminisms and Queer Monstrosity

• Victorian anxieties reimagined: female agency and pathologization in Eggers' Nosferatu
• Trans embodiment and monstrous becoming in contemporary speculative fiction
• Reproductive horror and the monstrous-feminine from Rosemary's Baby to Titane

Disability and Monstrous Embodiment

• Crip monstrosity and the rejection of cure narratives
• Prosthetic bodies and cyborg identities in science fiction
• Mad studies approaches to the "monstrous" mind

Race, Colonialism, and the Monstrous Other

• Decolonizing monster studies: indigenous perspectives on shapeshifting and transformation
• The zombie as racial metaphor from Haiti to Get Out
• Afrofuturist reimaginings of monstrous embodiment

Technology, Creation, and Responsibility

• Laboratory life: from Shelley's workshop to CRISPR and synthetic biology
• Digital ghosts and virtual monsters in the age of deepfakes
• The ethics of creation "without responsibility" in AI and biotechnology

Environmental Monsters and Multispecies Encounters

• Climate horror and monstrous ecologies in the Anthropocene
• Fungal networks, viral agencies, and more-than-human monsters
• Toxic bodies and chemical transformations in environmental justice narratives

Submission Guidelines

We welcome proposals for:

• Individual papers (20 minutes)
• Pre-formed panels (3-4 papers)
• Creative presentations and performances
• Roundtable discussions

Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words, along with a brief biographical note (100 words), to  olivia.badoi@slu.edu by February 13.