About the event
As long as humans have been making media, we have been making media about monsters. From neolithic paintings of monsters in the Cave of Beasts and the myriad monsters of Homer’s Odyssey, to the now-classic monsters of 19th-century Gothic literature and the creature features of 20th-century cinema, to zombie video games and Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour, our fascination with monsters has spanned across nearly every medium.
While monstrosity is complex and its manifestations manifold, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen has theorized that the monster will defy easy categorisation, that it is an embodiment of a specific cultural moment, and that it will evolve and shift to ensure its survival through the ages. While it has often been accepted that media can be a cipher for a specific cultural moment, new directions in media studies, particularly theories of intermediality, find even more similarities between media and the monster: intermediality posits that media categories are not actually as solid as we may like to believe, and that media forms evolve and shift over time while maintaining traces of their predecessors in their new forms.
This conference aims to explore the relationship between monsters and the media in which they are portrayed, and the way monsters and monster theory can help us better understand media itself. It will feature keynote talks, presentations, and interactive workshops from special guests – notably, two keynote talks from Maisha Wester (Indiana University Bloomington) and Megen de Bruin-Molé (University of Southampton), an interactive monster design workshop by Kyla Jernigan (Fulbright Hungary Awardee 2025) titled 'Monsters of Our Own Making: A Monster Design Workshop', and a book talk from Intermediality MSc graduate Sam Fern.
You can find the full programme on the conference website.
How to attend
This event is free to attend, and open to all. Registration is required, and can be done via Microsoft Form.
