Overview of Thesis #1: The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body

"Vampires, burial, death: inter the corpse where the road forks, so that when it springs from the grave, it will not know which path to follow. Drive a stake through its heart: it will be stuck to the ground at the fork, it will haunt that place that leads to many other places, that point of indecision. Behead the corpse, so that, acephalic, it will not know itself as subject, only as pure body. The monster is born only at this metaphoric crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain cultural moment— of a time, a feeling, and a place. The monster’s body quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy (ataractic or incendiary), giving them life and an uncanny independence. The monstrous body is pure culture. A construct and a projection, the monster exists only to be read: the monstrum is etymologically “that which reveals,” “that which warns,” a glyph that seeks a hierophant. Like a letter on the page, the monster signifies something other than itself: it is always a displacement, always inhabits the gap between the time of upheaval that created it and the moment into which it is received, to be born again. These epistemological spaces between the monster’s bones are Derrida’s familiar chasm of différance: a genetic uncertainty principle, the essence of the monster’s vitality, the reason it always rises from the dissection table as its secrets are about to be revealed and vanishes into the night." (Cohen 37, 2020)

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Monster Culture (Seven Theses). In: Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew, ed. 2020. The Monster Theory Reader. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=6006888.

In his chapter, Cohen argues that a monster’s physical form is never neutral—it reflects the cultural context in which it is imagined. In other words, what frightens one generation may seem tame to another because fear is historically and socially constructed. In our second week of class, we will examine how the monster’s body becomes a canvas for cultural anxieties, values, and norms. Cohen and other scholars demonstrate this by looking at Dracula. Dracula’s appearance has changed over time, with each version embodying the fears and desires of its era. In this way, monsters are cultural texts that reveal what a society finds threatening or taboo at a given moment.

Assigned readings:

-Giuliani, Gaia. 2020. Monsters, Catastrophes and the Anthropocene: A Postcolonial Critique. 1st edition. Vol. 1. United Kingdom: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781351064866.

Read and annotate pp. 29-49

-Sámano Córdova, Gerardo. 2023. Monstrilio: A Novel. Zando. [Book available at the bookstore, also available as an audiobook]

Read pp. 1-16

Assignments to be completed this week:

📚 Hypothesis annotations week 2 (01/15)

☀️ In-class activity (bring materials to create a group collage)

Meeting slides - January 16