Hanrui Chen (The New School)
hrch@****.com (Log-in to reveal)
This panel examines the political and cultural role of monstrosity in representing revolution, social struggle, and political discourse. This session invites proposals to examine how myths, literature, and media deploy monstrous figures to represent, contest, or reimagine the antagonistic relationship full of tension between ruling classes and the multitudes they seek to control. Proposals may either focus on a specific monster image, such as Minotaur or Medusa, to discuss its diachronic evolution in connotation and denotation, or examine the manifestations of certain or several monster images in synchronic texts. Theoretical discussions of monster theories themselves are also highly welcome.
Throughout the history of political thought and cultural production, multitudes and mobs that stir up disturbance across the nation, whether revolutionary or reactionary, have frequently been portrayed by the images and metaphors of monstrosity. From the many-headed hydra which was adapted into a political discourse in the early modern age and later revisited by historians such as Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, to contemptuous terms toward the insurrectionists such as swarms or locusts described in Samuel Dolbee's Locusts of Power, monstrosity and various of dehumanizing terms have long been employed as a signifier through which fears of insurrections are expressed.
Yet the imagination of monsters also penetrates the trajectory of resistance. Antonio Negri’s imagination of the political monster and swarm intelligence shapes the monster into a collective entity nourishing power and autonomy. The depiction of grotesque or excessive bodies in myth, folklore, and literature, also produces monsters as a symbol of resistance against assimilation into the dominant regime. This session welcomes proposals that examine how myths, literature, and media across different eras and regions employ monstrous figures to reflect, contest, or reimagine struggles against the ruling classes when those in power are unable to respond to real-world issues. This session also invites proposals that dive into the essence of the ruling class itself, discussing why the ruling classes always cannot avoid slipping into tyranny and become the very monsters they exclude and oppose.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
l Monstrous figures that challenge social boundaries, reveal societal anxieties, or critique colonial history
l Monsters as insurgents and monsters as ruling classes
l The antagonistic relationship full of tension between ruling classes and the multitudes they seek to control
l How magic, monstrosity and ghostliness manifest themselves at the political stage
l Queer theory and monsters
l Discussion on monster theories themselves, for instance how do monsters help us interpret culture