The Monstrous Fantastic Conference Paper Abstracts - International ...

71. (VPA) Monstrous Music MagnoliaChair: Jen GunnelsNew York Review of Science FictionDo Androids Dream of Robotic Actors? An Examination of the Delay Between the Twin Golden Ages of Sci-Fi and Broadway, and the Dawn ofthe Mega-SF-MusicalJen SchillerMontclair State UniversityThis paper dissects SF and Broadway historically and thematically, looking at how they changed between the dawn of the “Golden Age” and theearly 1980s, paying special attention to transitions which Science Fiction and Broadway underwent between the 1960s-1970s, and analyzing theSF musicals from the 1980s to understand why it worked on stage during this era.Ludology, Narratology, Hobby: Games Workshop as a Business and Theoretical ModelNeal BakerEarlham CollegeThis paper analyzes the value proposition of Games Workshop Group PLC, a London Stock Exchange quoted company whose core products areWarhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40,000, to underline the importance of what might appear to be "para-game" activities.The Monstrous Fan: Otherness and Lady Gaga’s Little MonstersArnau Roig MoraUniversitat de Barcelona/University of IllinoisThis paper will examine the shifting relationship between Lady Gaga’s “fame-seeking” discourse and the embracement of monstrosity increating a queer metaphor for otherness, resulting in an empowering discourse for, and around, her fans. It aims to explore the connectionbetween the monster metaphor and the empowerment of otherness in general and queerness in particular, interrogating Lady Gaga’sdiscourse on “Little Monsters” and queer politics, as well as fan readings and rewritings of the “Little Monster” subculture and Gaga’s work.72. (H/IF) The Post-Monsters DogwoodChair: Douglas FordState College of FloridaBreach: The Monstrous MundaneJason EmbryGeorgia Gwinnett CollegeIn China Mieville’s novel, The City and the City, the agency known as Breach, is feared by all citizens of Beszel and Ul Quoma. Breach appearsomniscent, omnipotent, and invisible to insiders and quaint fairy tale to outsiders until its powers are tested during a homicide investigation inBeszel. The novel takes place in two cities on top of one another. They are not separated by geography in the traditional sense. They areseparated by culture, law, architecture, fashion, language, history, industry, politics, and most importantly, Breach. Citizens of one or the othercity must will themselves to unsee neighbors, adjacent buildings, and cars as they make their through their own respective cities for fear thatthey will breach and be taken by the mysterious and frightening Breach—ever present, ever watching. Pedestrians struggle to unhear foreignconversations taking place mere feet from them, grosstopically, but politically and effectively located in another city. Drivers must avoidnoticing and hitting foreign drivers on the many of the same roads because to acknowledge their presence constitutes breach. As all citizensknow, to breach means to disappear, so citizens of both Beszel and Ul Quoma fearfully follow the protocols of unseeing, unhearing, andunknowing those who inhabit the other city. In this novel, Breach begins as a neo-boogey man and ends as yet another governing system thatsimply moves through the motions without knowing its original purpose. Inspector Tyador Borlu, of the Beszel police, begins as a wary believer,always averting his eyes just in time to avoid breach, and ends as Breach himself. His path highlights the problems of polical and governmentalsystems that have been allowed too much power and and subjected to too little accountability. I would argue that Breach represents the veryreal monstrosity of govermental power wielded too freely and the necessary people who consent to this power out of fear and lack ofinformation. I will argue, using Brian McHale’s Postmodernist Fiction and Theodor Adorno’s Negative Dialectics, that Breach willfully separatesthe people in Beszel and Ul Quoma, effectively pitting them against one another in order to justify itself and its power. This ovelaying of cities isone method found within postmodern narrative that symbolizes the separate spheres of humans engaged in a celebration of their ceaselessself-obsession and condemnation of the Other.