Rising from the darkness, monsters bring to light the parts of our world we might rather see hidden. They come forth in times of growing prejudice, discrimination and othering. The 2024 Festival of Monsters (Academic Conference October 16-18) —hosted by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies — explores the way monsters and tropes of monstrosity pervade our culture.

Held on the beautiful UC Santa Cruz campus, the 2024 Festival includes the conference, plus a performance, a live podcast recording and the Monsters Ball. This year’s academic conference includes panels on monstrous ecologies, black monstrosity, zombies, body horror and more. Independent video game designer and activist mattie brice and Professor Jerry Rafiki Jenkins (author of Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction) will give the keynote talks.

For more information, please visit: https://www.monsterstudies.ucsc.edu/2024fest

The 2024 Festival of Monsters is grateful for the support of Porter College; Oakes College; The Arts Research Institute; The Humanities Institute; Sigfried and Elizabeth Mignon Puknat Endowment; University of California Humanities Research Institute; the UC Santa Cruz Department of Literature; the UC Santa Cruz Department of Performance, Play and Design; Crown College; James Gunderson and Peter Coha.