One is not born a monster; the monster is produced. From Beowulf to Ruthven to Dracula to cyborgs, ‘monster’ is a cultural construction, a humanly-produced non-human. This seminar invites scholars to discuss the monster both as a literary figure and as the representation and construction of a cultural and political identity. Through this, it aims to explore the question of where, why, and how monsters are produced, and what these monsterized creatures "show" about the communities that "produce" them. 

The seminar discusses how theory, from Freud's "the uncanny" to Cohen's "monster theory" to Creed's "monstrous feminine," can help us understand monsterization.  The monsterized body is pushed outside the category of the "human" and thus outside the status of a rights-bearing subject. In this respect, monsterization  begs the question of rights.  This seminar aims to understand and make visible how the process which "produces" the Other as a monster, works in relation to rights. In Of Monsters and Migrants, Peter Arnds traces this process through Carl Schmitt's concepts of sovereignty and the "state of exception" and Agamben's biopolitics: to monsterize the migrant, the stranger, the refugee allows one to push them outside the protection of the law. As Arnds shows, the question of who — and what — monsterizes is therefore also the question of who is, or is not, recognized as a rights-bearing subject. 

The second focus of the seminar is the reclamation of the monster. Susan Stryker's "My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix" identifies the trans body with Frankenstein's creature. It reverses the accusation of the "unnatural," constructed body and transforms the words "monster" and "creature" into terms of power reclamation, self-representation, and resistance. The monster is not only a position produced by the powerful but also one that can be reclaimed by those who are monsterized. What else can we see in monsters beyond the gendered or racial Other?   

We encourage scholars working in different areas—literary studies, television, film and anime studies, law and human rights theory, postcolonial and critical race theory, queer and trans theory—to offer new definitions of, and reflections on, the category of the monster. We invite papers around the following questions: How does the monster negotiate who counts as "human" and who counts as a subject of human rights? What social, political, or legal aspects make a body a monster? What strategies do those who are monsterized use to reclaim their representations and rights? How do different media construct the relationship between monsters and rights?