Anthropology of monstrosity: othering, excluding, abjecting, building social order. Significance of fantastic monsters' imagery in the past and present.

elective courses
general courses

Fluency in English: writing, reading and speaking.

Blended learning

We will know both the general theories of monstrosity, and the specific examples of imaginary monsters. We will examine the genesis of the figures of Vampire, werewolf and ghost in the folkloric beliefs, and next we will trace the history of the evolution of these figures in literature and then in films. We will think of which ideologies, complexes, fears and convictions each figure was a carrier in the first literary realisations of 19th century and how their significance have changed through decades. We will also analyse West-East relations through and within western and non-Western Monster Narratives.

During the course we will know both the general theories of significance of imaginary monstrosity, and the specific examples of imaginary monsters, in the diachronic and synchronic approach, mainly in Western culture, but upon students’ wish we can give our lessons more comparative character, focusing on the relations West-East as expressed through monstrous narratives of Western and non-Western cultural environments.

We will examine the genesis of the figures of Vampire, werewolf and ghost in the folkloric beliefs, and then we will examine the first literary realisations (Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe). We will see the cultural, social and political conditions in which those works were created and then we will think of which ideologies, complexes, fears and convictions each figure was a carrier in 19th century, century of the first monster literature works. 

Subsequently we will examine the manner in which those figures migrated from literature to the film (studio Hammer films). We will notice the change in the creation of the monsters’ figures in the second part of 20th century (from Anne Rice’s The Interview with the Vampire to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer series), we will think about the sources of the change: we will analyse the range of socio-cultural changes that occurred in Western civilisation (Waves of feminism, emancipation of minorities, decolonisation, sexual revolution). We will see the emergence of new monstrous figures such as cyborgs.

Then we will think about the creations of fantastic figures in 21st century. We will recognise the two kinds of creation: traditional one, rooted in 19th century ways of representing vampires and werewolves as monsters; and the new one, showing them as heroes, models of behaviour (such as vampires in Twilight saga). We will think what the presence of these two creations tells about the contemporary society and culture.

For the comparative dimension we will see trans-migrations and (re)adaptations of monsters’ figures between cultures. We will se how figures used for othering the East in Western narratives, can be intercepted and used in non-Western narratives, whatever to imitate the West or to resist its (global) domination. We will analyse (post)colonial encounter through and within western and non-Western Monster Narratives.

The list below is not a final plan of lectures, but rather a framework in which I shall operate, a pointing of the topics and texts I would like to present during lectures.

Introduction: the notions of Monster, monstrosity. The Monster and the Other. Monster’s body a a visual sign of Otherness.

J. Kristeva, Powers of horror. An Essay on Abjection

D. Harraway, A Cyborg Manifesto.

2. Folkloric sources.

E. Petoia, Vampires and werewolves. Sources, history, legends from antiquity to the present.

P. Barber, Vampires, Burial and Death, Yale, 1988, fragments.

3. History of the shift: Monster narrative’s birth in modernity. First monsters’ literature.

J. W. Polidori, Vampire

M. Schelley, Frankenstein

B. Stoker Dracula

G. Waggner, The Wolf Man (1941, film)

4. Monsters and medical discourse.

N. Groom, The Vampire. A New History, New Haven and London, 2018, fragmenty.

G. Agamben Homo sacer, fragments.

5. Monstrosity as an epidemic

racial contexts: Dale Hudson, Vampires and Transnational Hollywood, 2017, fragments;

religious contexts: Susan Chaplin, The Postmillennial Vampire…., 2017, fragments

movies and series to choose: I am Legend, Being human, V-Wars, The Strain

6. Criminal discourses

L. Wacquant, Moralism and Punitive Panopticism: Hunting Down Sex Offenders, in: Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity, Duke, 2009, pp. 209-239.

J. Chessex, The Vampire of Rozpraz 2007.

7. Sexual discourses: monsters as unnatural, deviant and gender discourses: monsters and women, femininity, female body.

J. Weeks, The invention of sexuality, in: Sexuality. Second Edition, New York, 1986.

A. Hobson, U. M. Anyiwo, Gender in Vampire Narrative, fragmenty/D. Baker Hospitality, Rape and Consent…, fragments.

Hammer Studio movies (fragments), Anne Rice novels (fragments), F.F. Coppola Dracula (fragments), True blood series (fragments), J. S. Le Fanu Carmilla and adaptations (fragments).

8. Colonial, racial, antisemitic discourses.

- Bhabha/Spivak (?)

Lenny A Ureña Valerio, Disease, Race, and Space in: Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920, Athens, 2019.

B. Stoker Dracula, Hemlock Grove (series).

9. Monsters’ evolution. Sign of emancipation or old meanings in new narratives?

b. hooks Mariginality as site of resistance

J. Passos, Postmodern Gothic: Teen Vampires, in: I. Ermida, Dracula and the Gothic in Literature, Pop Culture and the Arts, 2016.

S. Meyer, Twilight (fragments)

Twilight and philosophy (fragments, mostly: Rebecca Housel articles)

10-11. West versus East, East versus West: double mirroring

on the case(s) chosen by students (Japan, India, Russia, Poland).

Student:

◦ can describe and submit to the deep, all-embracing analysis genesis and direction of evolution of the imagery of the vampire, werewolf, ghosts in diverse time periods,

◦ can interpret the works including fantastic figures and situate them on the broader cultural background of the specific era. Student analyse the cultural work in relation with socio-historical background of the era,

◦ has the ability of drawing conclusions, discussing, making judgments and argumentations about historical and cultural problems,

◦ sees fantastic imageries, including the pop-cultural ones, as an important tool to examine the cultural specificity of a society and era, and to examine inter-cultural relations; student understands the interdependence between the culture and other domains of life.

Presence and activity (essay or interview for those wishing to improve their final notes or those transgressing the limit of acceptable absence).