A peer-reviewed journal of studies in horror and related areas.
MONSTRUM 3.1 (September 2020) & MONSTRUM 3.2 (January 2021)
Issue 3.1, September 2020 | ISSN 2561-5629
Feature Editors, Stacey Abbott & Simon Brown
Feature Editors, Stacey Abbott & Simon Brown
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Editor's Introduction to MONSTRUM 3.1
Welcome to the third incarnation of MONSTRUM, a forum for scholars of the macabre, the monstrous, the sensational, exploitation, dark speculation, and all sorts of other critical subversions of reality as we know and accept it. Published in Montréal by a scholarly community called the Montréal Monstrum Society (MMS), MONSTRUM is an open-access, blind peer-reviewed, ISSN-listed publication. We are proud to provide a forum for established and developing scholars, as well as undergraduate and college-level students in our "Student Forum."
All content is available in downloadable PDFs. Scroll down below the Editors' Introduction to browse the contents of MONSTRUM 3. |
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MONSTRUM 3 presents a special feature, a "virtual symposium" devoted to the series Supernatural, which ends its 15-year run in fall 2020. Edited by Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown, Supernatural — The End of the Road: A Reflection will be published in two parts. "Part One: THEN" appears below, with "Part Two: NOW" follows in early 2021. This rather uncommon splitting of the virtual symposium is due to production delays in the final seven episodes of Supernatural, the result of Covid-19 quarantines. With some of the essays in the feature requiring the final episodes to complete their analyses, we made the decision to make MONSTRUM 3.1 a cliffhanger.
As Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown write in their Introduction to this virtual symposium, Supernatural has weathered the contingencies of shifts in show-runners and networks, and has negotiated multiple time slots and distribution modes, from syndication to streaming. All the while the series has remained remarkably, almost monolithically consistent in style, tone and theme in a rapidly changing television (horror) landscape. Yet Supernatural is no mere TV relic. In the seven essays included in "Part One: THEN," readers will find discussions of Supernatural's complicated broadcast history in the UK (Brown), and of its status as a "tentpole" series for the still-young network, The CW (Giannini). Also included are essays on the show's trenchant (and often prescient) apocalypticism in both narrative and theme (Abbott); on the consistent centring of Dean Winchester in its musical selections and orchestral themes (Halfyard); on its melancholy nostalgia for the 'weightless' naïveté of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (Giannini and Woofter); and on its dogged focus on fraught masculinity at the expense of all else (including enduring women characters) (Jowett). Rounding out this first part of the symposium is an insightful and poignant "exchange" between Will Dodson and Huxley Bailey reflecting on how eight years of appointment viewing of Supernatural has undergirded their relationship as stepfather and stepdaughter, and created a sense of "uncanny inclusion" in their blended family.
"Part Two: NOW," the follow-up to this virtual symposium, appears below in the form of Issue 3.1. This second part wraps up the MONSTRUM 3's special feature on Supernatural with essays that, as Abbott and Brown note in their Introduction, "reflect upon the finale and its impact, focusing on fandom, religion, the Gothic, and the philosophical underpinnings of the show."
As Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown write in their Introduction to this virtual symposium, Supernatural has weathered the contingencies of shifts in show-runners and networks, and has negotiated multiple time slots and distribution modes, from syndication to streaming. All the while the series has remained remarkably, almost monolithically consistent in style, tone and theme in a rapidly changing television (horror) landscape. Yet Supernatural is no mere TV relic. In the seven essays included in "Part One: THEN," readers will find discussions of Supernatural's complicated broadcast history in the UK (Brown), and of its status as a "tentpole" series for the still-young network, The CW (Giannini). Also included are essays on the show's trenchant (and often prescient) apocalypticism in both narrative and theme (Abbott); on the consistent centring of Dean Winchester in its musical selections and orchestral themes (Halfyard); on its melancholy nostalgia for the 'weightless' naïveté of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (Giannini and Woofter); and on its dogged focus on fraught masculinity at the expense of all else (including enduring women characters) (Jowett). Rounding out this first part of the symposium is an insightful and poignant "exchange" between Will Dodson and Huxley Bailey reflecting on how eight years of appointment viewing of Supernatural has undergirded their relationship as stepfather and stepdaughter, and created a sense of "uncanny inclusion" in their blended family.
"Part Two: NOW," the follow-up to this virtual symposium, appears below in the form of Issue 3.1. This second part wraps up the MONSTRUM 3's special feature on Supernatural with essays that, as Abbott and Brown note in their Introduction, "reflect upon the finale and its impact, focusing on fandom, religion, the Gothic, and the philosophical underpinnings of the show."
ONLINE SUPERNATURAL DISCUSSION PANELS BY "CONTINUAL"
In November of 2021, the online conference series "Continual" spoke with the editors and contributors to this special issue in two panels, one covering the show's "Themes and Portents" and a second covering the show's "TV Industry Impact." Both panels are available for viewing below.
In November of 2021, the online conference series "Continual" spoke with the editors and contributors to this special issue in two panels, one covering the show's "Themes and Portents" and a second covering the show's "TV Industry Impact." Both panels are available for viewing below.
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Announcing the SCMS Horror Studies SIG Graduate Student Essay Prize
MONSTRUM is pleased to collaborate with the Horror Studies Scholarly Interest Group (SIG), part of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), in the selection and publication of their annual prize-winning graduate student essay. Selected by a jury of SCMS-SIG scholars and the MONSTRUM editors, this inaugural essay by Rachael Ball tightens the theoretical gap between the practical and digital body horror special effects, and their ostensibly distinct embodiments and presence in relation to profilmic space and spectator.
STUDENT FORUM
As part of MONSTRUM's continuing commitment to developing scholars, Issue 3.1 ends with John Abbott College student Laura Hebert's discussion of embodied audience identification in Kathryn Bigelow's Blue Steel, and Dawson College Student Patrick Charles Poulin's discussion of the ambiguities of monstrosity and limits of representation traced in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
Contributors to issue 3.1: Stacey Abbott, Huxley Bailey, Rachael Ball, Simon Brown, Will Dodson, Erin Giannini, Janet K. Halfyard, Laura Hebert, Lorna Jowett, Patrick Charles Poulin, Kristopher Woofter.
Acknowledgments: The editor would like to thank Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown for proposing and editing the virtual symposium on Supernatural, to the contributors for their insights, and to our peer reviewers and editorial board for their commitment to horror studies. Cover image credits: TV screen static (stock footage/public domain) & pentagram (freesvg.org).
MONSTRUM is supported by an editorial board of respected scholars in horror and related fields. We thank our collaborators, instructors, contributors and peer reviewers for making MONSTRUM possible.
MONSTRUM is pleased to collaborate with the Horror Studies Scholarly Interest Group (SIG), part of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), in the selection and publication of their annual prize-winning graduate student essay. Selected by a jury of SCMS-SIG scholars and the MONSTRUM editors, this inaugural essay by Rachael Ball tightens the theoretical gap between the practical and digital body horror special effects, and their ostensibly distinct embodiments and presence in relation to profilmic space and spectator.
STUDENT FORUM
As part of MONSTRUM's continuing commitment to developing scholars, Issue 3.1 ends with John Abbott College student Laura Hebert's discussion of embodied audience identification in Kathryn Bigelow's Blue Steel, and Dawson College Student Patrick Charles Poulin's discussion of the ambiguities of monstrosity and limits of representation traced in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
Contributors to issue 3.1: Stacey Abbott, Huxley Bailey, Rachael Ball, Simon Brown, Will Dodson, Erin Giannini, Janet K. Halfyard, Laura Hebert, Lorna Jowett, Patrick Charles Poulin, Kristopher Woofter.
Acknowledgments: The editor would like to thank Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown for proposing and editing the virtual symposium on Supernatural, to the contributors for their insights, and to our peer reviewers and editorial board for their commitment to horror studies. Cover image credits: TV screen static (stock footage/public domain) & pentagram (freesvg.org).
MONSTRUM is supported by an editorial board of respected scholars in horror and related fields. We thank our collaborators, instructors, contributors and peer reviewers for making MONSTRUM possible.
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MONSTRUM is grateful for the generous support of the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (FRQSC). / MONSTRUM est reconnaissant du généreux soutien du Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (FRQSC).
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Click this link to download a single PDF of MONSTRUM 3.1 in its entirety.
(Download may take a minute or two.)
Click the titles or images below for downloadable PDF versions of the individual features, articles, and reviews. (It is normal that some articles will take a bit of time to download.)
SPECIAL FEATURE (part one)
Supernatural — The End of the Road: A Reflection
Edited by Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown
Issue 3.1
Supernatural — The End of the Road: A Reflection
Edited by Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown
Issue 3.1
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"All Along the Watchtower" (12.23)
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“That’s a Scooby-Don’t”: The Melancholy Nostalgia
of “Scoobynatural” for Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? ERIN GIANNINI & KRISTOPHER WOOFTER |
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"Fan Fiction" (10.5)
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Suggested citation (Chicago) for essays in this Special Feature:
Jowett, Lorna. 2020. “Love/Hate: Supernatural THEN and NOW.” In "Supernatural—The End of the Road: A Reflection," edited by Stacey
Abbott and Simon Brown. Monstrum 3, no. 1 (September): 71-78.
Jowett, Lorna. 2020. “Love/Hate: Supernatural THEN and NOW.” In "Supernatural—The End of the Road: A Reflection," edited by Stacey
Abbott and Simon Brown. Monstrum 3, no. 1 (September): 71-78.
SCMS HORROR STUDIES SCHOLARLY INTEREST GROUP
GRADUATE STUDENT ESSAY PRIZE-WINNER
GRADUATE STUDENT ESSAY PRIZE-WINNER
HOLLOW MAN (Paul Verhoeven, 2000)
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STUDENT FORUM
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The Audience as Embodied Voyeurs
in Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel LAURA HEBERT John Abbott College, Montreal |
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O NATURE, 'Moby-Dick or The Whale' interior illustration, Rockwell Kent (1937, ink on paper laid on board)
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Moby-Dick : The Incomprehensible Monstrosity of the Whale
PATRICK CHARLES POULIN Dawson College, Montreal |
A peer-reviewed journal of studies in horror and related areas.
Issue 3.2, January 2021 | ISSN 2561-5629
Feature Editors, Stacey Abbott & Simon Brown
Feature Editors, Stacey Abbott & Simon Brown
Editors' Introduction to MONSTRUM 3.2
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Issue 3.2 concludes our special virtual symposium on the end of 15 years of Supernatural with "Part Two: NOW." Edited by Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown, part two of Supernatural — The End of the Road: A Reflection features essays by Regina Hansen and Galen Foresman on the show's religious and philosophical underpinnings, by Lynn Zubernis on fan response to some of the decisions of the final episodes, and by Melissa Edmundson on the way nostalgia functions as a structuring factor tying the series together.
We reserved our critical Reviews section as a compliment to MONSTRUM 3.2. Here, Will Dodson of UNC Greensboro discusses Shannon Blake Skelton's Wes Craven: Interviews (2019, University Press of Mississippi), and Sharon Mee of the University of New South Wales, Australia, discusses Adam Daniel's Affective Intensities and Evolving Horror Forms: From Found Footage to Virtual Reality (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). |
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Thanks once again to Feature Editors Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown and to all the contributors for their hard work and insights on a series that never failed to do things its own way.
For the introduction and individual essays, click the images or links in red below. Download may take a minute or two.
For the introduction and individual essays, click the images or links in red below. Download may take a minute or two.
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SPECIAL FEATURE (part two)
Supernatural — The End of the Road: A Reflection Edited by Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown Issue 3.2 INTRODUCTION to Part Two: NOW STACEY ABBOTT & SIMON BROWN |
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REVIEWS
Click the title or book cover for review.
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Click this link to download a single PDF of MONSTRUM 3.2 in its entirety.
(Download may take a minute or two.) |
Suggested citation (Chicago) for essays in this Special Feature:
Zubernis, Lynn S. 2021. “The SPNFamily: Supernatural and the Fandom Like No Other," edited by Stacey
Abbott and Simon Brown. Monstrum 3, no. 2 (January): 52-65.
Zubernis, Lynn S. 2021. “The SPNFamily: Supernatural and the Fandom Like No Other," edited by Stacey
Abbott and Simon Brown. Monstrum 3, no. 2 (January): 52-65.
MONSTRUM | Issue 3.1, September 2020 | Issue 3.2 January 2021 | ISSN 2561-5629
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MONSTRUM is grateful for the generous support of the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (FRQSC). / MONSTRUM est reconnaissant du généreux soutien du Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (FRQSC).
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