FORUM
A Monstrous Pedagogy
Jacob Hughes
Washington State University
W hile having students in the freshman composition classroom write
essays concerning vampires, zombies, mummies, and werewolves
may seem like an exercise purely in the fantastical or the trivial, unpacking
such cultural phenomena provides them with a veritable cornucopia of critical
thinking opportunities. Furthermore, students get the chance to contribute ideas
to a relatively untapped area of academic inquiry, challenging them to extend
key intellectual faculties possessed by experienced writers: rhetorical awareness,
research acumen, sensitivity to multiple perspectives, and investment into a series
of ideas in a body of work over the course of a semester and beyond. Better yet,
you won’t be reading arguments about gun control or abortion, at least not framed
in the usual manner. Students will have to look into and beyond the familiar—
both with regards to monstrous manifestations and themselves—as this approach
insists significant cognizance of their cultural surroundings.
I can generally orient my writing sequence in terms of popular culture studies,
though anthropology, history, and psychology are equally important considerations.
In all likelihood, every society expresses latent anxiety through cultural forms,
and individuals exhibit varying degrees of fear or uneasiness regarding these
socially constructed phenomena: monsters are manifested representations of these
anxieties. Anthropologist Mary Douglas has written about cross-cultural taboos
on pollution, how these beliefs not only reinforce social pressures but also show
how social order is maintained “by dangers which threaten transgressors” (3).
Douglas’ use of the term “pollution” is not literal: it concerns the cultural norms
on “purity,” in either a physical or spiritual sense. Monsters are an example of
the “dangers” that she is referring to and often serve to function as deterrents
to bad behavior. “Slashers” such as Friday the 13th and Halloween, for example,
feature characters known for killing misbehaving teens. Vampires and zombies in
Western culture are directly representative of the pollution Douglas refers to: both
creatures infect their victims, turning them into walking corpses, operating on the
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uncomfortable border between life and death. Cultural assumptions concerning
epidemiology aside, this fluid exchange is quasi-sexual, especially in the case with
vampires, who sap the vitality from their victims.
In exposing cross-cultural similarities concerning taboo, Douglas assists in
establishing a broader theoretical lens through which all cultures are equally, and
somewhat objectively, regarded. In this way, monsters are tools used to analyze a
given society. Douglas argues that “defilement is never an isolated event” and that
“it cannot occur except in view of a systematic ordering of ideas” (51). Essentially,
this means that defilement is culturally constructed, as are all hierarchical orderings,
whether they concern class, ethnicity, social position, or any other human means
of classification.
Most monsters have deep roots in folklore. Vampires, werewolves, and ghosts,
among many others, manifest in a variety of ways in popular mythologies
throughout the span of written and oral tradition. Monsters exhibit various levels of
cultural sophistication and complexity. The Frankenstein Monster, for example, has
undergone numerous cultural transformations throughout time and place since its
inception. Spawning from an ambivalence towards “galvanism” and other emerging
19th-century medical advancements, The Monster has adapted to his changing
cultural surroundings, eventually resulting in Boris Karloff ’s misunderstood
Depression-era corpse, Kenneth Branaugh’s sensitive yet bitterly flawed creature
that hearkens unto critiques against genetic manipulation technology of the 1990s,
and countless other manifestations. (For an especially useful analysis of the monster’s
transformation throughout time, see Susan Tyler Hitchcock’s Frankenstein: A
Cultural History.) Highlighting the differences a monster exhibits between its
expressed forms throughout time and place is an especially helpful critical thinking
exercise and provides many avenues into paper-topic development.
Monsters are rife throughout almost every aspect of contemporary media:
advertising, television serials, films, books, children’s toys, magazines, music,
and any other number of arenas. Composition classes can readily harness the
pervasiveness of monsters in popular culture, and forms the basis for my own
freshman composition writing sequence. Exploring monsters in the classroom
must push beyond the superficial; as with any other aspect of human culture,
monsters are pervasive for a series of reasons. Aspects of both elite and folk culture
must be taken into consideration. The rules, standards, and norms that characterize
behavior exhibited in a given society are not only reflections of, but also influences
on all art forms.
Michael Delahoyde of Washington State University approaches this issue from a
literary standpoint and through his undergraduate seminar explores how monsters
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function as “dark-side representations of cultural values” (par. 1). Delahoyde’s
seminar forms the primary basis from which I derive my own writing sequence.
Questions concerning what makes certain monsters monstrous within a given
cultural context, as well as discourse on the horrific effectiveness of particular
monsters, also figure prominently. Delahoyde uses a variety of texts, spanning
various media forms, though he does not sacrifice understandings of “literature
as literature” in favor of purely cultural examinations. Rather, he employs cultural
studies to add depth to a broader critical investigation of monstrous and horrific
representations. Ultimately, his course is designed to expand academic literary
discourse on this topic beyond a largely enthusiast-dominated genre.
Due to the rich and relatively untapped academic reservoirs of monsters studies
as pointed out by Delahoyde, I have constructed an introductory composition
class that capitalizes on monsters not only in cultural and literary readings, but
also as explorations of the self, social fears, and a multiplicity of other issues.
For example, the study of monstrous manifestations can be used to deconstruct
societal attitudes towards hate. Zombie films are especially useful for analysis in
this case. George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead martyrs its African-American
protagonist, the only truly sensible character in the film, to a group of white
authorities and vigilantes who cannot recognize him as one of the living. Though
the course’s primary aim is in instructing composition, the example mentioned
above and others like it will be prevalent in class discussion.
The sequence itself is comprised of five distinct papers that seek to solve the
focus question presented at the beginning of the semester: what can monsters
tell us about ourselves and society? This question is inherently self-reflective
and is accessible to students from all cultural backgrounds. In exploring these
phenomena with the framework that they represent repressed fears, anxieties, and
embed themselves within the collective consciousness of their respective societies,
students are given the opportunity to reflect on and “face their fears” in a meaningful
manner. Foremost, this sequence is designed to assist in the development of critical
thinking skills, to dig deeper into topics that students will most likely have only
examined the surface of. Students will learn to apply this discourse on monsters to
multidisciplinary concerns, considering the social, environmental, historical, and
other factors pertinent to understanding cultural phenomena.
The first paper operates as an introduction to the inundation of monsters in
all sectors of society, and serves to draw attention to phenomena that most people
take for granted. Why is Frankenberry cereal so effectively advertised with a
monster? Why are television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer popular? Why
are monsters found everywhere, inhabiting a myriad of caricatures, attitudes, and
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states of being, from bubble-gum to films? The primary challenge that students face
with effectively completing this assignment is in deepening their analysis beyond
cursory explanations. These can include, but certainly are not limited to “monsters
are cool,” “Monsters are frightening and therefore cathartic,” etc. The catharsis
explanation is a start but will require more probing explanations. This assignment
is intended to bring forth aspects of culture that are overlooked because they are
in fact so common. I typically employ a handout, functioning as a discussion tool,
that highlights the commercial pervasiveness of monsters, replete with images of
children’s toys, soap, bowling advertisements, video games, movies, books, articles
of clothing, and anything else interesting. The most successful undertakings of
this project, then, avoid sweeping generalities or concrete answers to the pervading
question. Rather, they focus on some specific aspect of the popular culture monster
phenomenon and how it has been effectively marketed. Why, for instance, is it
significant that monster bubble-bath is popular? One would think that Mummies
and the Frankenstein’s Monster would fail in selling sanitation products -- walking
corpses don’t exactly seem to promote good hygiene.
After exploring different areas of an intellectual space in which they have already
been immersed, students will then undertake the second project of their semester,
which involves an analysis of a particular monster pertinent to a culture other than
the student’s own. Since the last paper focuses on popular culture, this research
venture is designed to give students an outside look at how the rules, standards,
and norms of a society affect its expression of the horrific. This assignment includes
a research aspect, which prepares students for a more extensive library outing later
in the semester. More importantly, this project provides a material framework for
critical evaluations of cultural norms beyond superficial explanations. Essentially,
the sequence moves from the familiar into the alien. The primary difficulty that
students face is in avoiding making deterministic and sweeping generalizations
about another society. I typically preface this assignment with cultural sensitivity
training of some kind—a useful tool for writers regardless of any course theme.
In addition, it may prove beneficial to provide resource suggestions and topical
directions to students, sans exonerating them from a library expedition. Many
students are initially overwhelmed by the breadth of possibilities, and even more
so by the relative obscurity some of some monsters. Normally I do not require
that students research their monster beyond an encyclopedia entry (though they
may find plenty of other pertinent sources that directly discuss the monster in
question). Rather, students should concern themselves with employing other
sources—most notably those found in anthropology, history, and psychology—to
support their arguments on the cultural significance of their monster. The Irish
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Dullahan, the Hawaiian Menehune, “Raw-Head and Bloody-Bones” of Irish
folklore, the English “Spring-heeled Jack,” the Chinese Madame White Snake,
and the North American Windigo have all been cross-cultural paper topics in the
past. One student wrote about the Manananggal of the Philippines, a vampire-like
witch who detaches her upper torso so that she can fly, arguing that the creature
represents repressed post-colonial anxiety over the duality between newly adopted
western mores and indigenous customs.
The first two papers primarily serve to orient monsters in a cultural sense;
the following effort concerns societal projections of the monstrous onto others.
Few other focused approaches can assist students so well in realizing the concept
of “the other.” Monsters are the veritable embodiment of the other, especially
when effectively portrayed. Shelley’s Monster, for example, is born as a near tabula
rasa and due to the neglect of his creator cannot integrate into society. He is
a deformed and profane creation, eventually turning to murder and fulfilling
the societal expectation. Students must explore cognitive and social hierarchies,
humans defining themselves based on what they are not, and the reasons for those
distinctions. How does a given culture treat those who are not viewed as “normal,”
and what monsters are reflective of this dynamic? Beowulf is a particularly useful
text to supplement this unit. The monster Grendel is a “border-stepper,” living on
the fens (neither strictly land nor water), who has no known father. By his nature,
Grendel violates the norms of the warrior-society he attacks. Along the same lines
however, Beowulf himself fights alone, exhibits super-human strength, and is
unusually solitary. Thus, monsters are “othered” in differing ways, which serves as a
useful model for student analysis and consideration of their own society’s tendency
to classify some people as inherently different from the rest. Numerous paper topics
can stem from this discussion. Many students explore issues of racism and privilege
particularly well. How racism and ethnocentrism affect cultural projections of
fears provide some particularly rich avenues. For example, one student of mine
wrote about how certain racial stereotypes are directly reflected in particular film
monsters. A recent submission argued that influential and intelligent monsters,
such as Dracula, are primarily portrayed as white on film, while pathetic creatures
such as King Kong are reflective of anxiety concerning people of color. Especially
helpful in the overall scope of this assignment is Timothy K. Beal’s “Our Monsters
Ourselves,” an article that explores how “religious discourse can serve political
rhetoric in making monsters out of others” (B19). Beal points out that monsters
“put a face on our otherwise vague sense of impending doom,” and reveal “our
desire to find a scapegoat for our fears and anxieties” (B19), all framed in post 9/11
discourse. Beal helps students avoid the quagmire of orienting their topics with
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only the individual in mind, organizing their thoughts to regard a more collective
framework of societal interplay.
In supplement to this assignment, I have students compose an essay outlining
an experience in which they were regarded as a monster, taking into special
consideration any instances or trends that may have labeled, or is labeling,
them as an “other” in a particular social context. Analysis of the specifics and
reasons for this stigma in these contexts is paramount. Again, going beyond
superficial explanations will likely posit the main hurdle to surmount for most.
One particularly effective essay recently was composed by a Filipino-American
student, discussing her experience as a Balikbayan (an “Overseas Filipino”) on a
visit to Manila. She argued that her position in two cultures made her a “border-
stepper,” unable to fully identify with either tradition, nor fully accepted by either
society. Due to the potentially sensitive nature of these topics, students may
elect to create a hypothetical situation rather than imparting their own personal
experience. Naturally, this prompt allows for more controversial topics, many of
which result in sterling essays. However, I always caution students to consult me
before treading down such darker paths, as poor handling of highly controversial
materials is potentially disastrous.
Leading up to the final paper, students have explored their own reactions to
the popular world of monsters, followed by a cross cultural examination, moving
into a discussion of the other, and finally exploring what it means to be an other.
The last paper synthesizes this pattern of assignments. The final effort of the
semester will involve answering, significantly, the focus question presented at the
beginning of the class: what can monsters tell us about ourselves and society?
A portion of this paper operates as a reflective response to what students have
learned -- to systematically bring in elements from each of the previous papers
to form a new piece of scholarship. Students may revisit sources that they have
employed in their previous research effort, though without simply re-using old
citations; they must either paraphrase something different or analyze old thoughts
from another angle. No matter the case, all roads must lead to answering the
focus question. The primary challenge in answering such a broad problem is in
narrowing the argumentative scope so that students can address some specific
aspect of the issue. One particularly effective student paper addressed how the
rampant commercialization of monsters reflects a kind of consumer scapegoating:
consumers exercise power over what they are empowered to purchase.
Aside from their uses in the composition classroom, many other pedagogical
approaches are viable when using monsters. My approach and Delahoyde’s
are focused on English composition and literature perspectives respectively.
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Other disciplines have employed monstrous discourse in their curricula. In
the anthropology classroom, Turnham A. Murad provides strategies on how
effectively to handle the question of Big Foot’s existence (787). Essentially, Murad
introduces aspects of evolutionary theory, primate anatomy, ecology, paleontology,
the histories of philosophy and science, and cross cultural considerations such as
folklore, religion, and myth, providing students with the tools to critically analyze
academic and enthusiast pursuits in explaining this phenomenon. Providing both
physical and cultural evidence, Murad presents arguments from multiple angles
and allows students to formulate their own conclusions based upon the presented
evidence. Murad devotes an entire semester to exploring this topic, though the
purportedly enormous primate is not the only monster’s existence brought under
scrutiny: the Loch Ness monster, the Abominable snowman, and others also
receive attention.
As with any pedagogical approach, there are limitations and dangers in using
folk or popular culture interest to fuel coursework for an entire semester. When
exploring material that lacks immediately noticeable “serious” substance, it may
be difficult in some instances to convince students that such topics are worthy of
critical and academic consideration. More to the point, handling texts that may
appear superfluous or silly might mislead students into regarding the coursework
in general as easy or poorly considered. Worse still, it is dangerous to present
material that students are acquainted with in that they may be tempted merely
to uphold old stereotypes and assumptions. To my horror, one student came to
the conclusion that since the Loch Ness Monster myth originated in Scotland,
Scottish people are inherently more superstitious than Americans. Another defined
a particular religious faith as “monstrous.”
Although handling cases of racism and/or ethnocentrism in the classroom is
difficult, these instances can actually serve as rich pedagogical opportunities. Rather
than denounce students’ writing and language, I point out that their stereotyping
reactions actually serve to illustrate how monsters are used as scapegoats in a
practical sense. Furthermore, rhetoric couched in academic vocabulary is never
free from the potential of hate-speech. When students are made aware of this
potential, they attain a new perspective on how to regard their own writing.
Teaching students to analyze the significance and potential of their own language
as a cultural construction greatly bolsters their rhetorical awareness and critical
thinking skills in tandem. Revision strategies also benefit.
Monsters have many uses in composition beyond those presented in my
writing sequence, and can easily avoid semester-long considerations. Smelstor and
Weiher note that aside from teaching students to “deeply acquaint” themselves
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with “superficial knowledge” characteristic of popular culture, instructors are
empowered to provide students tools that allow them to explore and recognize
the uses of formulaic constructions, such as how horror movies are paced and
constructed (43). Thus, while analyzing popular composition structures and their
effectiveness, Smelstor and Weiher provide opportunities for their students to
reflect on their own writing styles, a tactic that need not devote itself to a semester-
long writing sequence. The social motivation behind the American proclivity
towards romance novels can easily pair with a consideration of horror’s prevalence,
for example, for a viable one-time paper topic.
Smelstor and Weiher’s strategy primarily orients itself in terms of what is
popular to students. Monsters themselves are certainly not universally cherished
as popular: in my experience, most students groan at the prospect of analyzing
monsters for an entire semester. However, the organization of a composition class
employing them as an area of focus need not serve as a breeding ground only
for enthusiasts, nor should it alienate those students completely disinterested in
monsters. Monster-worship, or the reverence of anything for that matter, is not
the goal. The goal is to explore territory that students initially feel acquainted with
in some degree, or at least assume is insignificant, so that they may broaden their
interpretive lenses on and outside of their own worldviews. I always receive a batch
of responses that follow a nearly clichéd pattern now: “I never knew that monsters
had so much to say about society, and I never thought to dig as deeply as you
made us.” I don’t believe I have ever turned any of my students into monster-fans
or horror movie lovers, but this approach has allowed me to successfully provide
them with tools that expand their critical thinking abilities.
Crossing the borders of normal pedagogical material in the composition
classroom can greatly assist in vitalizing student involvement, and eventually their
interest. Moreover, the topic of monsters as dark-side cultural manifestations
provides a heretofore largely overlooked opportunity for students to explore and
produce original scholarship. Breaking down “high” and “low” culture binaries is
also a viable and hopefully constructive effect on student views concerning cultural
texts. Ultimately, the study of monsters can lend itself well to critical dissection if
presented and applied well. ❈
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Works Consulted
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Composition and Communication 13 (1962): 60-61.
Beal, Timothy K. “Our Monsters, Ourselves.” The Chronicle of Higher Education Nov. 9, 2001:
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Beowulf: A Prose Translation. Ed. E.T. Donaldson and Nicholas Howe. New York: W.W. Norton
and Co., 2001.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Perf. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Anthony Head, Nicholas Brendan, and
Alyson Hannigan. 20th Century Fox Television, 1997-2003.
Delahoyde, Michael. Syllabus for Monsters in Literature. http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/
monsters06.html. Retrieved November 26, 2006.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger. 1966. London: Routledge Classics, 2006.
Frankenstein. Perf. Boris Karloff. Universal, 1931.
Friday the 13th. Dir. Sean S. Cunningham. Perf. Betsy Palmer and Kevin Bacon. Georgetown
Productions, 1980.
Halloween. Dir. John Carpenter. Perf. Donald Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis. Compass
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Hitchcock, Susan Tyler. Frankenstein, A Cultural History. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.,
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3840. Blackwell Publishing. Retrieved November 25, 2007.
Kirby, Dan. “Popular Culture in the English Classroom.” The English Journal 65 (1976): 32-
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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Perf. Kenneth Branagh, Robert De Niro,
Helena Bonham Carter, John Cleese, and Ian Holm. American Zoetrope, 1994.
Murad, Turhon A. “Teaching Anthropology and Critical Thinking With the Question ‘Is There
Something Big Afoot?’” Current Anthropology 29 (1988): 787-789.
Night of the Living Dead. Dir. George Romero. Perf. Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Harry Cooper,
and Helen Cooper. Image Ten, 1968.
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Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. New York: Signet Classics, 2000.
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English Journal 65 (1976): 41-46.
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