Module Information

This module introduces the world of the monstrous to geography students, paying particular attention to issues of inclusion and exclusion, the construction of monstrous landscapes and the making of modern-day monsters to inhabit them. 'Monsters' have become an intriguing subject of academic inquiry from a range of disciplines, including Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Biology and Cartography as well as Geography. Long dismissed as religious or occult inspired imaginaries, it has become evident that such entities are very much a part of the social context within which they operate. Indeed, a number of academics have declared the 'monstrous' to be a relatively recent phenomena, in the sense that this semiotically-laden term emerged as the necessary 'constitutive outside' of a Western, modern science, wherein a purified, rationally-based form of truth-finding developed at the expense of non-materialist understandings of the world, namely religion and the occult. In the process, a 'deconstructive' reassessment of the history of science has recently begun, pointing to instances wherein a modernist desire to categorise ideas, practices and things has proceeded through the simultaneous rejection of the anomalous, the hybrid and the ambiguous; in other words, we are witness to increasing inquiry into the manner in which modernity makes, and subsequently lives with, its own monsters.

From this initial introduction to the world of the monstrous, the module goes on to explore particular aspects of it, dwelling on the social context within which the expulsion of those ideas and practices deemed to be 'monstrous' proceeded as well as specific examples of entities deemed to be 'monstrous' from strange beasts in the French countryside and the disembodied voices of early telephone users to crypto-animals and a new crop of cyborg citizens. The lectures are formed around key, largely chronological themes - Enlightenment Wars, Victorian Inquiry, Fortean Times, Out of Place/ Out of Scale and Popular Culture - which are illustrated via in-depth case studies.

Lecture One: Introduction to the Module: Modernity and its Many Monsters
Lecture Two: Enlightenment Wars: Philosophy, Religion and Magic
Lecture Three: Case Studies: French Revolutionary Politics and the 'Beast of Gevaudan'; English Theology and the Conjuring of Spirits
Lecture Four: Victorian Inquiring Minds: The Emergence of Modern Science
Lecture Five: Case Studies: Mesmer, Influence and the Scientific Method; Experimenting with Electricity
Lecture Six: Fortean Times: The Production of Monstrous Knowledges
Lecture Seven: Case Studies: British Metaphysics and the Strange Career of Alistair Crowley; American 'Alien' Anxieties and the 'Mothman'
Lecture Eight: Out of Place/ Out of Scale: The Making of Monsters
Lecture Nine: Case Studies: Hidden Animals; Cyborg Citizens
Lecture Ten:Monsters and Popular Culture: From Frankenstein to Most Haunted