The Monstrous Fantastic Conference Paper Abstracts - International ...

Of all of the character transformations in the re-imagined television series Battlestar Galactica (BSG), Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace’s transformationfrom human being to monstrous ‘thing’ is the most remarkable production of otherness. The series depicts the ongoing conflict betweenhumanity and the Cylons, an artificially created race of robotic soldiers and ships, cyborg-like Hybrids and organic humanoids. After thestraightforward ‘human vs. machine,’ ‘us vs. them’ ideological positioning in the miniseries, the narrative in the following four seasonsincreasingly questions essentialist conceptions of identity. Within the complex web of relations that develops between humans and Cylons,many character transformations signal an interrogation of how beliefs in essential differences are naïve and promulgate untenable socialstructures—something audiences and critics alike have appreciated about the series. In contrast, Starbuck’s strange becoming renders herdistinct from everyone else, human and humanoid Cylon alike, because it is never clear what she becomes. As she is the character in the serieswho has been consistently presented as human in her compelling combination of flaws and talent, her change prompts questions about theeffects of her metamorphoses. In this paper, I argue that Starbuck is made monstrous in her transformation from human being to thing, andthis monstrosity functions as a catalyst that allows BSG to move back towards an ideology of difference in which an individual’s essential‘nature’ determines her or his personal and social identity.Classical Reception in Battlestar Galactica: Myths and Monsters in the Third MillenniumBeth Severy-HovenMacalester CollegeGlen Larson based his 1978-9 TV series Battlestar Galactica on stories from the Hebrew bible inflected by Mormonism: following catastrophe, apatriarchal commander leads survivors across a void toward a promised land. These Colonials also use Greek and Egyptian names and imageryto hint at ancient contact with our earth. Appropriately for a Cold War story, the refugees’ enemies are godless – robotic Cylons created byalien reptiles. Intriguingly, in re-imagining this universe in 2003, Ronald Moore and David Eick dramatically redistribute ancient Mediterraneantraditions. Egyptian and biblical allusions are stripped from the Colonials, who worship a largely Greek pantheon. The Cylons are both rebelliouscreations of humans and monotheistic, and their belief in one God drives the genocidal attack on their creators which launches the plot. Usinga concept of ‘myth’ articulated by sociologist of nationalism Duncan Bell, I examine how the new series engages in myth-making, that is, howthe past projected into a technologically advanced future explores issues of identity in North America immediately post 9/11. In myth,says Bell (2003:76): “Time and place combine and are encoded...shaping the feelings of community and the construction of an inside/outsidedistinction, framing national identity in terms of a story about history and (a specific, often imagined) location.” Battlestar Galacticamanipulates the past to create complex, sometimes conflicting categories of us and them, members and monsters. In 2003 Cylon monotheistsavowing holy war are implicitly Islamic, whereas the Colonials are Western via their exclusive association with ancient Greece, the ‘birthplace ofWestern civilization’. But another narrative about these traditions complicates that identification, namely that Christianity triumphed overpolytheism, that monotheism is how ‘we’ evolved into ‘us’. Long before the finale cast the series as an origin myth, BSG was an active agent inwhat Bell would call the American mythscape.130. (H) The Medium is the Monster: Peter Straub PalmChair: Edward HowarthLongwood UniversityMonsters, Detectives and Prose Style in Peter Straub’s The Hellfire ClubJoe SandersShadetree ScholarFollowing the publication of the Blue Rose trilogy and of The Hellfire Club [1996], commentators assumed dispassionately (The Encyclopedia ofFantasy [1997]) or jubilantly (Joshi’s The Modern Weird Tale [2001]) that Peter Straub had turned from writing dark fantasy to detectivethrillers. Actually, Straub’s fiction has always been centered on uncanny intrusions into normal life, which his characters attempt to resolve inthe least distressing ways possible. Detective fiction actually is a kind of anti-horror fiction because it assumes that a persistent person whoconcentrates really hard can resolve anomalies in our experience, can even correct unpleasant or threatening situations, while horror assumesthat human understanding and control are impossible. But the detective’s assurance is frequently less than convincing. In fact, a lingeringdoubt of any person’s power to “solve” crimes and resolve doubts has always been part of detective fiction, from Sherlock Holmes’ errors in “AScandal in Bohemia” to such modern stories as Chester Himes’ Blind Man with a Pistol. Such uncertainty is a rich breeding ground for horror, inworks such as John Dickson Carr’s The Burning Court or John Connolly’s overwrought Charlie Parker novels. Straub’s “thrillers” lurk on theoutskirts of this territory, at the borders of the supernatural. The Hellfire Club’s prologue, “SHORELANDS, JULY 1938,” sets up levels ofperception for the reader. First, there are objects, physical things that can be put into lists; people would prefer to operate on this level, even ifthat means denying the implications of how they encounter such physical objects. Then there are other people, beings transformed byimagination into unsettling or “terrifying” creatures; encounters with them are to be put off as much as possible. This short narrative ispresented as solid fact, valuable information that the characters in the novel will assemble only gradually in the course of the action. Still,Straub uses the word “uncertain” twice in the first paragraph to describe the immediate observer and her observations. Appearing later in theaction, people who confidently offer interpretations are mistaken or lying. We are, in short, stuck in a world we don’t understand and arejustifiably wary of understanding better. People in that situation are bound to be victims of others who see more and who aren’t afraid ofexploiting their understanding. This is the condition of Nora Chancel, in the hands of preternaturally cunning Dick Dart. Eventually, Nora alsolearns to see and manipulate what she sees—but that does not change the threateningly inchoate nature of the world. In fact, Nora managesto conceptualize her situation in terms of ghosts, demons, and monsters. She could be right. Thus it is not a mistake to see The Hellfire Club interms of dark fantasy as we respond to the uncertainty Straub’s writing encourages throughout the novel, continuing his exploration of thelimits of human understanding. This hesitant, uncommitted style is perhaps the safest way to proceed in the presence of monsters.Machen a Mess: Deliquescent Monsters in Fiction by Stephen King, Arthur Machen and Peter StraubBernadette Boskey