The Monstrous Fantastic Conference Paper Abstracts - International ...

a serpent cause her to doubt her very species? By examining this passage from Through the Looking-Glass in the context of Victorianperceptions of childhood and of monstrosity, I complicate our understanding of what it meant to be both child and monster in the age of thecult of childhood.Monstrous Responses to Charles Finney’s The Circus of Dr. LaoDaniel CreedBroward CollegeSince 1935, The Circus of Dr. Lao has been examined in few critical studies. While the text has been ignored for many reasons, Finney’s work iswritten in a seemingly disjointed style of vignettes that seem “more familiar today than when it was originally published” (Wolfe 283).However, Finney’s novel is not disjointed, but well organized. The order in which the characters encounter the advertisement for the circus inthe morning paper is the same order their episodes occur within the circus, implying a carefully crafted order of perception and reception ofthe fantastic. Through their interactions with the fantastic, the residents of Abalone, Arizona, (and readers of the text) tap into a desire tocommune with creatures of nature that are more powerful, more pure, and more fantastic than they; to traverse space and time, examiningtheir lives from an immortal point of view. Here is the world of the fairy-story, where man is monstrous (Frank Tull provides a very thoroughexample) and the fantastic is natural (the Hound of the Hedges), written in a style that is similar to attending the circus itself. The vignettes areechoes of the multiple acts of the circus, and readers confronting the text need to imagine themselves in the auditorium of a modern circus,where acts enter, perform, and leave, culminating in the main event, where the short acts they have witnessed previously converge intosomething grander. It is through the small acts that Finney expresses his displeasure with the hypocrisy and complacency of 1930s Americansociety, and in the main event (Woldercan) his attitude about his primary world is evident, for what saves Woldercan has failed in Abalone,because the people refused to believe, to sacrifice their preconceptions and prejudices and embrace the fantastic when they were presentedwith it.28. (PCS) Dark Lords and Creatures of The Night: The Monstrous in Fandom Vista BChair: Karen HelleksonIndependent ScholarNormalizing the Monster and Marginalizing the Reader: Twilight as Popular RomanceKelly BudruweitWestern Illinois UniversityThe presentation focuses on close readings of a selection of fan fictions (amateur-authored, Internet-published stories) based on vampire textworlds. Although a general ‘rule’ in fan fiction is to stay true to the logic of the fictional universe the fanfic authors write about, fanfic texts alsoillustrate resistance to elements in it. Of particular interest is the resistance to the de-fangedness of contemporary romantic vampires whocontrol their bloodlust and integrate themselves in human societies where they often function as protectors of the less powerful humans. Invampire fan fiction, based on True Blood, Twilight, and The Vampire Diaries, there is a clear tendency to recuperate the danger and monstrosityof the trope: to leave the vampire fanged, once again. Re-fanging the vampire in fan fiction implies reclaiming its predatory status as well as theamorality connected to both bloodlust and the transgressive sexuality traditionally associated with vampires. Of interest is therefore how thereworked, dangerous vampire in the fanfic texts comes to resemble the marginalized but fascinating monster of earlier periods. Incontemporary vampire texts, metaphysical issues are central, and often linked to the theme of the soulless vampire. The choice of a morallyresponsible life which contemporary vampires such as Edward Cullen, Stefan Salvatore and Bill Compton make is largely based on theirconviction that transformation into a vampire entails a loss of the human soul and, thus, eternal damnation: moral and metaphysical issueswhich are variously negotiated in fan fictions featuring re-fanged vampires. Through analyses of fanfics narrated from a predatory vampire’spoint of view I discuss which characteristics and values fan fiction authors associate with the re-fanged vampire and highlight which aspects ofthe contemporary text worlds fanfic authors challenge through their reworkings.Re-fanged Monsters: Good, Evil and the Search for a Soul in Vampire Fan FictionMaria LeavenworthUmeå UniversityTwilight is one form of escapism that has been difficult to escape. Often, in spite of attempts at resistance, readers have found themselvesinexorably drawn into the magnetic field of a world which promises passion without any of the usual drawbacks, like change or death. If, asPeter Brooks asserts, “plot is the internal logic of the discourse of mortality” (Reading for the Plot 22), then we might assume that it isn’t thedesire for the plot which drives readers to inhale Twilight at high speeds. Rather, it might be the opportunities for identification with theprotagonist, which provide a world in which all desires are fulfilled, and fulfilled forever. However, in spite of the possibilities offered by variousTwilight-centered cultural experiences, this fantasy cannot last forever. Thus, my presentation would focus on answering the question: Whathappens to readers of Twilight when the last page is turned? With a view to answering this question, I will examine the normalization of themonstrous, which occurs to the degree that the books can hardly fit within the horror genre. Instead, what we have may be a slightly scaryromance. Thus, the experience of reading Twilight could be understood better from the perspective of Janice Radway’s Reading the Romance,a study of (primarily) middle-aged women who spend their free-time reading romance novels. Meanwhile, I will also attempt to illuminate thecomplex relationship between reader identifications of the “gothic” and the “romantic,” drawing on Michael Gamer’s study of canon formationduring the late 18th/early 19th centuries. Such a reading might account for the way that, in divesting vampires of their monstrous qualities,Stephenie Meyers divests the monstrous of its subversive potential.