Monsters, Monsters Everywhere! Part I

Hello from Prague! Or, as they would say in Czech, Dorby’ den!

Today marks the second and final day of Progressive Connexions 1st Global Conference on Monsters: An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Project. Our the course of the two-day conference, 17 presenters (myself included) touched upon various aspects of the monster, the monstrous, and of monstrosity. The conference brought together scholars from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland, and Norway (among others) to consider the meaning of the monster, the monstrous female, cinematic and literary monsters, monsters theory, and monstrous bodies (You can check out the abstracts of the papers that were presented at the conference here).

I was in Prague to present on one aspect of my research with regards to the Anita Blake, the Vampire Hunter series. While a recap of my presentation is to follow, in short, I examined how notions of ability and (dis)ability are articulated in the series through the use of the monster metaphor by considering how “physical” differences mark the abled body and the disabled body through a comparison of how “physical” differences mark the monstrous and non-monstrous in the series. My analysis focused primarily on Skin Trade, the seventeenth novel in the series, but drew from all across the series. I applied a physical and metaphysical lens to the character of Anita Blake and looked at how her physical body, her relationships, her behaviour, and her preternatural abilities were depicted in the novel and how they were perceived and problematized by herself and other characters. Again, more to come on the findings and outcomes of my research in a future post.

This conference marked only the second time that I’ve presented on the Anita Blake series since my proposal defence and it was invigorating. One of the challenges of doing a PhD, and writing a dissertation, is that you have to devote so much time and energy to your own research project. Not only can this seem daunting, but it can also be scary - What if I make a mistake? What if I say something wrong? What if my research isn’t well-received or is seen as silly? What if I get bored of my project?

These are questions that I think ALL scholars, and particularly young scholars, ask themselves. Although, if I can be honest, when you get to read about, write about, talk about, and listen to (yay for audiobooks) vampires, werewolves, orgies, and interspecies or metaphysical sex, the risk of getting bored is highly unlikely.

Stay tuned for Part II of my conference recap, more on my conference presentation and other big news and blog posts coming down the wire! For now… It’s back to grading, grading and more grading.