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Session 7b: Past Monsters Still Reaching Out
Chair: Nicola Goc

Generating Monsters: Rethinking Past, Present, and Future
Esther Lezra

No abstract presently available

Monsters as Emissaries of Tradition’s Secrets
Rafal Kochanowicz

It is a commonly shared truth that contemporary mass cultures’ texts seem more and more often to discard the elements of realistic convention of storytelling in favour of presenting the reality in the form that is far from being common to the readers’ day-to-day experience. It can be even stated, that it is the presence of these “other”, rivaling with the shared reality, worlds that makes many of the mass cultures’ text so appealing (fantasy and science-fiction genres, computer games etc.) and ever popular. One of the elements being the basis upon which these „other” worlds are created is the presence of creatures, personas and „monsters” originating from distant cultural heritage (myths, fairy-tales, legends) within their landscapes and cosmology. The issue would not be worth rising a question or doubt if it wasn’t for the fact that it is these beings that often become the emissaries of meanings and ideas linking the human civilization’s past with the present, and even projecting what is yet to come in the future. What seems intriguing is the diversity and complexity of roles and functions ascribed to the “bestiary” in the realm of popular culture – ranging from the simplest representations –fear and terror evoking “objects to kill” being the means of gaining experience credits in computer games – to the more meaningful presence – as the equivalents of “the sacred” (sacrum) in fantasy and science fiction genres. The proposed presentation is thought of as a review and discussion of the abovementioned roles and functions of the “monsters” (with consideration given to the phenomenon of myths’ decline, as described for.ex. by Mircea Eliade) and the modes of approaching the aspects of culture’s tradition in virtual realities. In other words, I will try to find answers to the following questions:
- why does the world of popular culture need the monsters?
- to what extent does their presence reveal the secrets of the past?
- what additional meanings do the “creations” of past (ancient) times gain in the postmodern world?

Hermeneutics of the Monster
Nane Cantatore
x

Since its origins, the monster has been a catalyst of universal semantical interactions: from the magical meanings of primeval cultures to the mythological strata of ancient narratives, up to the medieval allegories contained in the bestiaries, the characteristics of the monstrous corresponds to the descriptions of fundamental elements of human environment, social and moral as well.
The process of demystification and desacralization that is parallel to the affirmation of the scientific standpoint of Enlightment directly involves this semantical universe, and deeply transforms the processes of signification and the construction of meanings of the monstrous.
Taking into account a possible map of this pathway, I would like to explore the organization of the semantics of the monstrous in modern narrations, taking into considerations two basic directions from a philosophical point of view. On the one hand, there is the side of demystification, which comprehends the signs of the monstrous as the traces to a reality that can be explained in terms of rational thought – it is the case of The Hound of Baskerville by Arthur Conan Doyle or The Murders of the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe; on the other hand, we can find investigations based on rational principles which discover the existence of magic and supernatural, as it is the case of The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffmann, or very punctual taxonomies of the incredible as it is the case of Horla by Maupassant. In both cases, the monstrous is capable to maintain, even if reversed, its fundamental affinity with a universe of signs and reaffirm the essentiality and centrality of the monster in the system of our cultural references. Most of all, the monstrous is always the starting point of a game of interpretation, being the hidden reality that explains an inexplicable reality; and the adventure of monster hunters are, from the mythological figures of Perseus and Theseus to the modern characters of Van Helsing and the various heroes of science fiction, in the first place adventures of interpretation.

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