he Center for Monster Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz is an interdisciplinary research, arts, and outreach organization focused on the ways monsters and tropes of monstrosity both perpetuate and contravene forms of social and cultural injustice. Each year we host a Festival of Monsters that brings together scholars, artists, students, and members of the general public to consider these issues.
Our 2024 Festival of Monsters (Oct. 16-19 in beautiful Santa Cruz, California) is an academic conference that includes scholarly panels as well as performances, readings, and presentations from monster-makers in theater, literature, film, games, television and other media.
We invite proposals for 20-minute papers or presentations on any aspect of monsters or monster studies. In Academic Year 2024-25, the University of California Humanities Research Institute's annual theme is "Care and Repair," while the annual theme for The Humanities Institute at UCSC is "Humanity." Presentations on the relationship of monsters to either of these themes are particularly welcome.
Papers and presentation proposals from all disciplines are welcome. Because participants in the Festival include members of general public as well as people from within the academic community, we ask that proposals consider the Festival's mixed audience. We welcome complex theoretical concepts, project postmortems, and scholarly intervention, but please make sure your abstract articulates the terms and stakes of your presentation as clearly as possible.
Please submit 250-word abstracts and 50-word bios by April 15, 2024 here.
Created 18 March 2024