Current Theme (2025-26)

The 2025-26 academic year Symposium theme is “Monsters.”

Symposium 25-26: monsters. Showing images of many different monsters across different genres, including Frankenstein, pikachu, an angler fish

From time immemorial, across every culture, monsters are allegorically woven into the tapestry of human existence. Whispered in the dark, told around campfires, canonized in popular media; we love to scare ourselves. From the big bads in cautionary tales to the misunderstood Other given sympathy in retellings, monsters threaten established social structures and moral order. But the effect is mixed. A monster might expose a lot about our humanity or could reveal a lack thereof. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche cautions, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

The etymological root, moneo, gives a sense of the larger purpose of monsters: to remind, warn, instruct, or foretell. Considered broadly, the term could include everything from aliens, ghosts, mythical creatures, or mutated animals. It might even refer to a naturally occurring animal that is massive in size and/or infrequently seen, like deep sea monsters. Monsters might be human-made like Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, occur naturally like Big Foot, or come from another dimension like the Demogorgon in Stranger Things. Sesame Street’s educational monster Muppets and the catchable pocket monsters from Pokémon offer another avenue for monsters to exist, including lucrative, trademarked product tie-ins. Humans themselves might be labelled a “monster.” Perhaps they are an inventor whose technologies are used to carry out monstrous means. Or the title is bestowed when they violate a social taboo, marking them as less-than-human.

This year’s Symposium will examine monsters from a variety of disciplines and approaches. The discourse generated will tackle monsters expansively, aiming to capture the spectrum and significance of monsters in our world.

Courses

“Monster” is a term we use for those who commit egregious crimes against society’s moral norms. But societal norms change: what might be considered acceptable, or even necessary, in one era, becomes monstrous in another. When a society transitions, what should be done about its “monsters”? Should they be punished? Forgiven? Something in between? In this course, we will explore how “monsters” are made and unmade, and consider whether (and how) to hold people accountable for behaviors that might have been normalized in the past. We will look at examples of societal transitions, real (South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission) and imagined (Nick Fuller Googins’s futuristic novel The Great Transition). Finally, we will turn to our society’s most urgent crisis, climate change, and think about how the witting and unwitting “monsters” of the fossil fuel age might make amends as part of a just energy transition.

Guided by core concepts from health and medical humanities, sociology, disability studies, and critical theory, this interdisciplinary course will examine and interrogate human health and difference and its representation in film and literature. Students will study the medical versus social model of disability, analyze primary works of film and literature, and devise a multi-media group project that applies their new knowledge to their professional field of study.

This course examines how language is used to define, marginalize, and regulate what societies perceive as "monstrous"—whether literal monsters in folklore and media or metaphorical ones in social and political discourse. Key questions include: How do cultures use language to construct and reinforce the divide between the normal and the monstrous? What do the words used to describe monsters reveal about cultural anxieties related to gender, race, disability, and deviance? How do monsters communicate, whether through speech, body language, or other forms of expression? To explore these themes, the course will draw from a range of sources, including linguistics, literature, media, music, and film.

Based on the serialized TV show concept of Monster of the Week made popular by shows like "The Outer Limits" and "The X-Files" and B-Movie Marathons hosted by characters like Elvira and The Crypt Keeper, the class will dive into the creation of a new monster each week. Dissecting what makes monsters distinct and then creating them from supplied or found objects from Cryptids and Mythical Beasts to Universal Classic Movie Monsters, from grotesque fiends to friendly Muppets, even Godzilla, the king of the Monsters.

We will address ideas and reality about "monsters" from philosophical and material perspectives, drawing upon epistemology and science to investigate how humans come to conceive of other creatures and fellow humans as monstrous. Themes will include: evolutionary monsters; the eugenics movement and ideas about the monstrous; pollution, radiation and fear of "mutants," genetic engineering, de-extinction, and creation of monsters; cryptozoology and the quasi-scientific search for monsters.

In this class we will explore the way musicians create and sell their own characters/mythologies, and what those characters reveal about our culture. Taylor Swift will be the headliner, but we will look across both time and genre. As a final project, students will "invent" their own pop star or indie band, or write fiction about one, or even make original music.

Society has long been captivated by women who kill. Is it because we expect women to nurture, not murder, or is it because on some level we understand their buried rage? This course examines the cultural, psychological, and historical narratives surrounding female murderers, exploring how their crimes are perceived differently from those of men by society and by those who run the justice system. Through an analysis of true crime and the media that surrounds it, we will interrogate the societal expectations of femininity, the intersection of gender, violence, and punishment, and how these stories serve as a reflection of collective fears, desires, and suppressed rage. What does it mean that true crime is the most popular podcast genre, and 75% of those listeners are women? Why do some judges choose to “chivalrously” protect “evil” women, while others punish them harshly? Why are we so obsessed with Candy Montgomery that two mini-series were made? How did Aileen Wuornos’s actions inspire an Oscar-winning film and multiple songs?

Witches are everywhere; you can follow them on WitchTok or buy their crystals on Etsy, you can even browse their books in Barnes & Noble. But what does “witch” as a subversive gendered category tell us about histories of gender, sexuality, and race? This course takes a deep dive into the aberrant, the deviant, & the feral through literature, film, and art featuring gendered monsters. Together we will explore: how did the monstrous feminine become a useful cypher for cultural and political anxieties around gender, race, colonialism? What do witches, hags, killer moms, and succubi have to do with Enlightenment-era science and medicine?

Monsters have haunted our imagination and shaped the course of human history. People invent monsters to express fears about environmental phenomena, psychological forces, and strangers they perceive as threats. Throughout the world, monstrosity has served as a tool for othering: the monster is always alien, not human, not one of us. But what if instead of fearing monsters, we embraced them as portals to a better understanding of ourselves? What if we recognized monsters as more-than-human kin? In this class, we examine encounters between humans and their monsters: from beasts, to microbes, to aliens, to artificial intelligence. We will exercise our creative imagination to think beyond conventional ideas of the human "self" and to appreciate our weird and complicated entanglements with the multiple biological and technological “others" transforming our societies.

How does a vampire sustain its energy needs? What metabolic adaptations help a dragon breathe fire? This course explores the fundamental principles of metabolism through the lens of popular monsters and mythical creatures. Using engaging illustrations and case studies, students will uncover how real biological energy processes—can explain the fantastical abilities of werewolves, zombies, and other legendary beings. Through interactive discussions and creative problem-solving, students will apply scientific concepts to fictional scenarios, deepening their understanding of how organisms process energy. No prior science background required—just curiosity and imagination!

The figure of the zombie has undergone fascinating transformations over time. Zombies began their existence in Haitian folklore as undead laborers bound to serve their makers, a mythic embodiment of the horrors of slavery. When they arrived in U.S. popular culture they took on a new form, becoming symbols of mindless violence and apocalyptic breakdown. Zombies have stood in for fears of disorder, consumerism, disease, and much more. This course will explore the history, development, and social significance of the zombie, including the changing anxieties that the zombie genre has reflected, its visions of how society might reform after the existing order has been swept away, and the question of what it means for a person to be robbed of their humanity.

Sporting events and communities often employ symbols like mascots, anthems, flags, chants, and rituals to inspire unity, identity, and collective joy. But what happens when those symbols shift, evolving into tools of repression, violence, or dehumanization? In this interdisciplinary course, we examine how symbols and structures in sport transform into monstrous agents of harm, crossing cultural, legal, and ethical thresholds. Blending tropes of monsters and villains with sport, modern sociology, and literature, students will analyze how revered aspects of sport reflect our fears, displace responsibility, and expose broader anxieties about race, gender, power, and identity.

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Current Theme (2025-26)

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Current Faculty Cohort

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