Monster's Ink (ENG 2710)

The ancient story of Beowulf is famous for its’ monstrous foes fought within it. Grendel and his mother, along with the fire-dragon, are usually what readers recall about the poem. We often remember the monsters in media more so than the hero, but why is that?

One of the more remarkable points I find in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is when the monster, watching cottagers and their daily lives, stumbles upon books and reads these texts in an effort to make himself more “human.” The monster, a creation of scientific experimentation and not human by birth, seeks to become more human, more acceptable, and more understood. Indeed, the questions he asks of himself are central to the core of human self-understanding

Got a monstrous concept to teach next semester There’s a zombie for that.
Inviting creatures into the classroom helps students analyze history, culture and everyday life, says Adam Golub, associate professor and graduate program advisor in American studies. His book “Monsters in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching What Scares Us” shares writings from instructors who the use cultural fascination with monsters to motivate students while discussing a wide range of academic subjects.

In 18th century aesthetic and moral criticism, the word ‘monster’ signified ugliness, irrationality and all things and events unnatural. It was viewed as the antithesis of neo-classical values of harmony and unified composition. A monster portrayed an image of deformity and irregularity. In literary terms, it involved works that crossed the boundaries of reason and morality, presenting excessive and viciously improper scenes and characters.

I teach about monsters. I teach about zombies and werewolves and witches and vampires and Bigfoot and King Kong and all kinds of imaginary creatures. I teach students how to study and learn from monsters, how to analyze and contextualize monsters. I teach students that monsters change over time, that they adapt to our shifting fears and anxieties, that studying monsters can tell us something about what we desire and what we fear and what we can’t bear to imagine. I teach students that studying monsters can, in fact, reveal something about ourselves—about the ways we’ve chosen to organize, categorize, surveil, repress, and, at times, try to escape who we are. Monsters are us, I tell my students. When we study them, we study ourselves.

What is a monster? Is it something that hides in the darkness waiting to scare us, or simply a projection of our own fears and uncertainties? Whether a tall tale, superstition, mythical creature, or all of the above, monsters inhabit a special place in art, fiction, and history. Join Chelsea Jacks on a tour of the monsters and creatures that lurk between the pages of the works in Special Collections, as she examines why supernatural and mythic beings have such a inescapable grasp on our imaginations and culture.

In December 1495, Rome was devastated by four days of heavy flooding. After the deluge subsided, rumors began to swirl about a terrible monster that had washed up onto the banks of the Tiber. The creature was said to be a grotesque pastiche of human and animal body parts: it had, among other peculiarities, the head of a donkey, the breasts of a woman, the bearded visage of an old man on its behind, and a tail crowned with a roaring dragon’s head.

An exhibition curated by students enrolled in Frankenstein: Origins and Afterlives taught by Dr. Amy Pawl and Dr. Corinna Treitel, Fall 2017 – Spring 2018.

These works are the first ones the Creature encounters when living in isolation near an exiled French family after his creation. They provide the Creature with his unorthodox education, consisting of various subjects including politics, religion, and human suffering. The Creature develops individually, learning that the world extends beyond his experiences in the woods. The texts were chosen, here, in a range of languages to represent the diverse origins of the books that he discovers.

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States. Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use.

The John Hay Library underwent extensive renovations to the first floor in 2014, providing enhanced research and study space in the restored main Reading Room, a separate fully-updated Special Collections Reading Room, an expanded Exhibition Gallery, a new Consultation Room, and a convenient Student Lounge.