Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Meet the Monster,” an exploration of monsters and monstrosity in legend, literature, and our own minds, with Larissa “Kat” Tracy, visiting faculty at University of Maryland, Baltimore County and former professor of medieval literature.
Throughout history human minds have given rise to monsters as representations of our worst fears. In literature, monsters also have served a much broader purpose, as devices used in social or political commentary to cry out against corruption, inequality, and political and scientific despotism.
Spend a thoughtful evening getting to know things that go bump in the night with Dr. Kat Tracy, a scholar of all things saucy and nasty and the vice president of an academic society devoted to the study of medieval monsters and cryptozoology.
Taking us on a journey through time, she’ll help us get to know some of the earliest human-form monsters in world literature and culture. We’ll will look at the monstrous figures in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Dante’s Inferno, and Old Norse sagas, as well as at werewolf narratives from France, vampire tales from around the world, and ancient Greek myths.
We’ll trace the evolution of monsters in literature through the advent of the Gothic horror novel, and we’ll look at what monsters have come to represent in cultural festivals such as Diá de los Meurtos and Halloween, which brings monsters to our front doors.
Dr. Tracy will tackle questions such as: What makes a monster? How do monsters reflect our fears and our desires? Why are we so drawn to some monsters, like vampires, that we even find them sexy? (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open at 5. Talk begins at 6:30.)
Image: A colored etching of a “Peruvian harpy” dating to the 1700s. (Public Domain / Wellcome Collection.)