Center for Monster Studies @ UC Santa Cruz

A photo of two Saint Mary's University professors (Dr. Lindsay Macumber at left and Dr. Michele Byers on the right). They are wearing monster costumes created by students at NSCAD University.

It's looking strangely monstrous this week around Saint Mary's University, as the university hosts Nova Scotia’s first #MonsterFest. It's a sister event to the @ucscmonsters.bsky.social Festival of Monsters in California. Read about it in SMU News: loom.ly/KsXIDOI #MonsterFest2025 #artswithimpact

Fun fact about the cover of Monster Theory: I did not realize there was a monster's head embedded within the green and blue swathe until I saw the cover projected behind me at the recent @ucscmonsters.bsky.social conference. The book is almost 30 years old and yes I just realized.

Hoping for some academic help...updating my readings in a Monsters class & would love a book that focuses on different monsters (zombie, vampire...) from histor/cult perspective. I've used (& enjoyed!) Asma's On Monsters and Poole's Monsters in America, but both are a bit dated by now. Thoughts?

Gretchen McNeil, Nat Cassidy and Alma Katsu hold up their books after the Oh the Horror panel at Bookshop Santa Cruz, part of the 2025 Festival of Monsters

Thank you for being part of our Festival of Monsters!! We enjoyed having you and @gretchenmcneil.bsky.social and @natcassidy.bsky.social at @bookshopsantacruz.bsky.social yesterday. Safe flight.

Thank you for coming! It gives us great joy to see the connections made between interdisciplinary arts through monster studies.

Thank you, @ucscmonsters.bsky.social!

As a cognitive scientist and science journalist, I never expected to attend an academic conference on monsters, and I didn't expect to be blown away by what I learned.

(🧵in comments)

Winding down my time in California. Gig at @bookshopsantacruz.bsky.social was wonderful! Monster Symposium at @ucscmonsters.bsky.social was a delight. My brain is bursting w/new ideas, resources. As always, I took too few photos, though

The conference takes accessibility seriously. This means all our conferences are online and they are free to speakers. We offer accessibility training. We provide slides ahead of time with alt-text, encourage written copies of papers, provide a code of conduct and clear guidelines on the day 1/

Michael Chemers, director of the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies, opens the 2025 Festival of Monsters.

The Festival of Monsters has begun!!

David Livingstone Smith an image of a monster image that says “Negro Rules,” an example of how African Americans have been monsterized as a way of dehumanization. At the 2025 Festival of Monsters in Santa Cruz, Calif.

David Livingstone Smith gives his opening keynote for the 2025 Festival of Monsters in Santa Cruz.

In genuine cases of dehumanization that person is transformed not into a louse or a rat, but a monstrous demonic human being — paraphrasing David Livingstone Smith at his opening keynote for the 2025 Festival of Monsters.

David Livingstone Smith gives the opening keynote at the 2025 Festival of Monsters in Santa Cruz, Calif.

David Livingstone Smith is giving the keynote speech for the 2025 Festival of Monsters. He is sharing his view that dehumanization is the attitude of conceiving of others as less-than-human creatures.

Discover the Irish Pantheon: An Easy Guide for Beginners A review of Pantheon: The Irish by Morgan Daimler. The latest book brought to you by Moon Books touches on the engmatic Irish pantheon

Review: Pantheon: The Irish by Morgan Daimler #gifted scousedruid.com/2025/10/05/r... @moonbooksci.bsky.social @morgandaimler.bsky.social #Bookreview #Pagan

Talking Tales of the Undead Get ready for the season with vampires, ghouls and zombies!

If you’re in Santa Cruz at 6:30 pm this Wednesday, join Center Director Michael Chemers, Renee Fox and Kim Lau as they talk tales of the dead at the Santa Cruz Public Library’s Downtown Branch. santacruzpl.libnet.info/event/14673822

Front cover of Japandamonium.

Open page of book showing illustrations with translation and annotations.

Open page of book showing illustrations with translation and annotations.

Open page of book showing illustrations with translation and annotations.

Another really cool book recommendation for #MythologyMonday is Japandamonium by @hirokoyoda.bsky.social and @mattalt.bsky.social. It's a translation of Toriyama Sekien's 18th century yokai encyclopedias and includes the illustrations with translation and annotations, see the images below.
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Front cover of 'The Book of Japanese Folklore'

Illustration of a white nine-tailed fix and red torii in a forest.

Illustration of a tengu, winged being with long red nose.

Open page of book with text about bakeneko and nekomata and illustration to match.

My next #MythologyMonday book recommendation is 'The Book of Japanese Folklore' by Thersa Matsuura (@uncannyjapan.bsky.social). It introduces a collection of yokai with Thersa's wonderful storytelling and gorgeous illustrations by Michelle Wang. She's also got a #yokai oracle deck on the way.

Two books, Japanese Folktales has an illustration of Kintaro on the cover, Strange Tales from Japan has a ghostly figure on the front.

My final book recommendations for today's #MythologyMonday are for anyone looking for Japanese folktales. The first book by Yei Theodora Ozaki is a collection of the most well-known Japanese tales and the second book by Keisuke Nishimoto is a larger collection containing many lesser known tales.

CFP: A Time of Monsters The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...

If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.

Metastatic Masculinity: Penetrating the Male Body in Crimes of the Future. Dr. Spencer D. C. Keralis, Univeristy of Missouri - Kansas City

Excited to return to #FestivalOfMonsters at @ucscmonsters.bsky.social in October with @samlangsdale.bsky.social and @passableghost.bsky.social. Our panel, Monstrous Transformations: Bodies, Gender, and the Disruption of the Social Self, is all about body horror, ecological collapse, and St. Vincent.

illustration showing a large werewolf holding a pumpkin seated next to a woman holding a giant pumpkin in her lap carving it with a small knife. They are in a pumpkin patch under a full moon

It's pumpkin month!!

Publication day is October 2nd tomorrow. Launch tonight for the first day of the London Month of the Dead at Highgate Cemetery!

Fee Greening in conversation: Katharine Briggs’s Dictionary of Fairies Artist Fee Greening, inspired by Gothic fairytale and medieval illumination, illustrates a new edition of Briggs’s Dictionary of Fairies.

Join us on Tues for our next online talk: Fee Greening in conversation about her work, influences, and her illustrated edition of Briggs’s Dictionary of Fairies, published last month. Tues 7 Oct, 19:00 BST on Zoom. Tickets £6.00 (£4 for members with promo code) www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fee-greeni...

'as a rich and fascinating overview and introduction to British folklore this book is really essential reading for anyone interested in the subject. I know I’ll be returning to my copy again and again' - a lovely review of #Folklore on @shinynewbooks.bsky.social shinynewbooks.co.uk/folklore-a-j...

Here we are in horror month.
Are you set to read certain books or watch specific horror movies in the weeks ahead?
any you haven't read or seen before?
or returning to old classics or personal favourites?

@natcassidy.bsky.social

A skeletal monster with a skeleton bird on its tongue is the poster image for the 2025 Festival of Monsters, Oct. 15-18 in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Only 2 weeks before the Festival of Monsters! Keynote 10/15 by David Livingstone Smith, conference 10/16-17, and a day of events including a panel with @almakatsu.bsky.social Nat Cassidy, and @gretchenmcneil.bsky.social at @bookshopsantacruz.bsky.social on 10/18. Details monsterstudies.ucsc.edu

How is the human defined in relation to such things as apes and #zombies ? Join us at 4pm tomorrow, March 11, at @ucsantacruz.bsky.social Cowell Provost House to hear Dr. Surekha Davies talk on her new book Humans: A Monstrous History and perhaps provide an answer. monsterstudies.ucsc.edu/davies

Reminder that the amazing Dr. Surekha Davies comes to UC Santa Cruz next Tuesday for a talk. Join us!

Join us tonight! 👇🏽