“I’m not hysterical, I’m homicidal!”: The Monstrous Feminine

What makes a woman monstrous? Her body? Her race? Her desires? This course aims to analyze monstrous women and femmes and the factors which have created them. We will do so by tracing key canonical monsters (as in Carmilla and Frankenstein) and their afterlives reproduced in works by contemporary people of color (such as Ling Ma’s Severance). We will dissect key theories, including the titular Monstrous Feminine by Barbara Creed, and unveil the ways writers exemplify or weaponize the fears associated with the feminine. Above all else, this course will peel back the question: Who is the monster?