The Politics of Monstrosity from Beowulf to Slender Man

Through lenses like queerness, blackness, and femininity, this course will explore how monstrosity comes to be defined and informed by political motives, public anxieties, and notions of normativity. Texts/films include Beowulf, The Faerie Queene (Edmund Spenser), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), Dracula (Bram Stoker), Fledgling (Octavia Butler), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (dir. Jim Sharman), and Pan’s Labyrinth (dir. Guillermo del Toro).