The 8th Global Conference on Monsters and the Monstrous will be held in September at Oriel College, Oxford, England. The deadline for submitting papers has passed, but those lucky enough to have a ticket to attend can look forward to papers and discussions on topics such as: civilization, monsters and the monstrous; horror, fear and scare; enemies (political/social/military) and monsters; the iconography of the monstrous; and the monster in literature, among others. The papers appear to be locked up (temporarily, for about two or three years) in expensive academic books after the conference. But there are a clutch of substantial ebooks freely available from earlier conferences:—
The Monstrous Identity of Humanity (proceedings of the 5th conference). Lovecraft fans may be interested in the papers: “Jumping, Yelling, Screaming : the spooky art of John Carpenter”; “The Concept of Monstrosity in 19th Century Medical Thought”; “The Rise of Reanimation in Science and Modern Medicine”, among others.
Dark Reflections, Monstrous Reflections: Essays on the Monster in Culture (proceedings of the 4th conference). Lovecraft fans may be interested in the papers: “The Monstrous Hero : medicine and monster-making in late Victorian literature”; “Fantasies of Female Monstrosity in American Horror Fiction” (relevant perhaps to Lilith in ‘The Horror at Red Hook’, etc); “Our Gods are Monsters : popular cultural representations of the evolution of religion”; and “Div (Demon) : the most noxious creature in ancient Iranian myths”, among others.
The Role of the Monster (proceedings of the 3rd conference). Lovecraft fans may be interested in the papers: “Limits of Knowledge and Edge of the Human in Dialogue With the Unheard”; and “Rational, Magical or Monstrous Spaces? : press responses to London’s main drainage system, 1865-68″, among others.
Where Fear Lurks : perspectives on fear, horror and terror. This contains the essays: “The Destruction of the Hero: an examination of the hero’s purpose in Lovecraft’s works”; and “Terror and the Gothic Sublime : presenting the unrepresentable”, among others.
The Ranges of Evil. This contains the essay: “The Evil Experiment : masculine science in Arthur Machen’s fiction”.
Also free as PDF ebooks of collected essays are:— Vampires : Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil; Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil; and There Be Dragons Out There : confronting fear, horror and terror.
And if, after all that lot, you’re still slavering for more papers on monsters, three similar conferences in the USA allow free and open access to all their papers here. Including: “In The Misty Moorlands : monsters of the Anglo-Saxon world“; and “Mad Scientists : creating the monster“.
The full-text of all these papers, and more, can be searched using the specialist JURN search-engine.
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