MLA 2017 Special Session: Monster Studies: Literature, Culture, and Theory (Deadline 3/10/16)

full name / name of organization: 
Chris Koenig-Woodyard / University of Toronto

This is a call for abstracts for a proposed special session on "Monster Studies" for the MLA in Philadelphia, 5-8 January, 2017. Abstracts are due on Friday, 11 March, 2016, and proposals for special MLA sessions are due on 1 April, 2016. Thus there are two rounds of acceptance: abstracts for a hoped-for panel, and the official acceptance of the panel for the 2017 MLA.

The proposed session will explore and expand the depth and breadth of the emerging field of "Monster Studies." Papers can explore monsters and the monstrous as the primary focus of scholarly inquiry in literary, humanities and cultural studies, and as a secondary focus--that is, as a pedagogical tool or method, for instance, in teaching composition and the humanities.

Papers can address:

-specific things, creatures, beings, and monsters (zombies, werewolves, vampires, goblins, dragons, ogres, aliens, cyborgs and mutants, to name a few)

-the evolution and transformation of specific things, creatures, beings, and monsters that we have hated, dreaded, and eradicated, but now have warmed to

-monsters that span the zoological to the cryptozoological; the natural to the supernatural and the technological; and the terrestrial to the extra-terrestrial

-monsters that appear in a variety of genres and forms: in literature of the speculative and the fantastic (fantasy, gothic, and science fiction; poetry, prose, drama, graphic novels); in painting, illustrations, photography, television and film

-monsters from a wide range of national literary and cultural traditions and historical time periods--from the mythological to the contemporary

-theories of monsters and the monstrous from a range of historical, cultural, critical, sexual, racial, aesthetic, interdisciplinary, and theoretical perspectives

Abstracts are not limited to the above and all questions about the centre and circumference of this session are welcome. Abstracts are due by 11 March, 2016. Please email your abstract and a 300-word biography to chris.koenig.woodyard@utoronto.ca