1st Edition
Monstrous Utopias Performance and the Radical Possibility of Hope
Introduction — Wicked Prisms: Monstrosity as Vor-Schein
Michael Mark Chemers and Analola Santana
PART I. THE MONSTER AS SIGNAL
1. The Monstrous Body is a Discursive Body
Subbah Mir and Maryam Naeem
2. “There Be Dragons...Awashed in the New World”
Quanda Johnson
3. The Monstrous-Feminine in Performances by Florentina Holzinger
Ekaterina Trachsel
4. Many Monsters in One: Ipi Zombi? And Post-Apartheid South African Sociophonics
Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.
5. Who is the Monster? Naming the Monster as Performative Act in Koreeda Hirozaku’s Monster (2023)
Jessica Nakamura
PART II. LOOKING THROUGH THE MONSTER’S EYES
6. “Here Comes the Hurricane”: Confronting Environmental Monstrosity through Comedic Performance
Xochitl Clare
7. Haunting the Genre: The Transformative Power of Immersive Performance in Haunted Attractions
Riana Slyter
8. Walk Toward The Sunset: Epidemic as Test in Melungeon Narrative
E.J. Westlake
9. Revenge of the Monster Queer: The Cosmic Horror and Eldritch Liberation of Drag
Quest Sky Zeidler
10. Dancing the Monstrous: Manifestations of Female Sexuality in Horror
Natalie Zervou
PART III. THE MONSTER IS US
11. Fearing the Monster Within: Abjection and Empathy in The Whale
Jennifer-Scott Mobley
12. Dreams of Carcosa: The Utopian Space of Weird Horror and Theatre or a Reparative Reading of The King in Yellow
Ian Downes
13. Monstrous Embodiments: The Artistic and Political Potential of Drag Practices in Buenos Aires
Agustina Trupia
14. Vultures and Mud: The Transformational Ecologies of Ochún Ibú Kolé
Solimar Otero
15. Teratological Becoming(s): Exploring Black Religion Through Monstrous Performance
DeAnna Daniels
Biography
Michael Mark Chemers is Professor and Chair of the Department of Performance, Play & Design at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA; the author of The Monster in Theatre History: This Thing of Darkness (Routledge, 2018); the co-editor, with Analola Santana, of Monsters in Performance: Essays on the Aesthetics of Disqualification (Routledge, 2022) and The Figure of the Monster in Global Theatre (Routledge, 2024), and with Ekaterina Trachsel and Gerald Siegmund of Staging Monstrous Bodies (Routledge, 2025); and the founding Director of the UCSC Center for Monster Studies.
Analola Santana is Associate Professor of Theater at Dartmouth College, USA. She is the author of Teatro y Cultura de Masas: Encuentros y Debates (2010) and Freak Performances: Dissidence in Latin American Theatre (2018), which considers the significance of theatrical practices that use the “freak” as a medium to explore the continuing effects of colonialism on Latin American identity. She works as a professional dramaturg and is a company member of Mexico’s famed Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes.
