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Articles on Monsters
Displaying 1 - 20 of 34 articles
Shinto and Buddhist ideas about interconnectedness have deeply influenced Japan, shaping centuries-old rituals and stories whose impact continues today.
The field of ‘monster studies’ looks at how texts reflect ideas about what’s evil, weird or scary.
With the longest coastline in England, serpent myths abound in Essex.
A mermaid with face of a monkey and body of fish has reignited interest in the Japanese ningyo
The ‘Disneyfication’ of fairies has helped us forget their darker origins.
In myths and songs, Hairypeople were understood as human-like but uncivilised. Different responses to them in two Warlpiri communities show how colonisation has changed these monsters too.
Hollywood loves a good monster battle, and where better to turn for inspiration than the animal kingdom? Traits from real animals can provide clues about the fighting prowess of Kong and Godzilla.
Fear of a disease that seemed to turn people into beasts might have inspired belief in supernatural beings that live on in today’s creepy Halloween costumes.
In the project Erasing Frankenstein, students, educators and incarcerated women collaborated to created an erasure poem of Mary Shelley’s classic text, and publicly showcase their work.
How do you solve a problem like Godzilla? It’s not too tricky to work out if you are a mathematician…
Popular monsters often reflect humanity’s greatest fears. Godzilla, with its destructive rampages, is the foremost monster for our age of environmental threat.
All monsters make their mark on the communities they haunt. Some are cheeky and mischievous, some are mysterious, others are downright evil.
The earliest surviving example of man-to-wolf transformation is found in The Epic of Gilgamesh, from around 2,100 BC. But the werewolf as we now know it first appeared in ancient Greece and Rome.
Christopher Columbus’ 1492 voyage was really a journey into the unknown. Centuries of conventional wisdom had conditioned him to believe that bizarre beasts and ‘monstrous men’ would be awaiting him.
Megalodons are the latest Hollywood monster to leap out of the fossil record, but what else is lurking in prehistoric seas?
Even if mermaids aren’t real, they’ll likely feature in human stories for many years to come. Very few mythical creatures are found in so many diverse cultures, across so many years without changing.
Towns are embracing their eccentric visitors as a way to boost their struggling economies.
Monster movies are currently rampaging across the globe. Their popularity shows us how Hollywood’s place in world cinema is changing.
The Shape of Water is an entertaining movie, but it also has a timely, allegorical message about the challenges we may face with new scientific discoveries, and our willingness to accept difference.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor of Research, University of Hertfordshire
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Senior Lecturer and Head of Anthropology, Australian National University
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Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, UNSW Sydney
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Honorary Senior Lecturer, Australian National University
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Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Associate Professor, Global Studies, RMIT University
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Professor of Art History, California State University, Chico
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Research Associate in Evolutionary Biology, University of Adelaide
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Conducting research in Civil-Military Relations, University of Bath
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Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State University
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Author & illustrator, University of Cambridge
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Lecturer in Victorian Literature, University of St Andrews
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Senior Teaching Fellow in Archaeological Practice, University of Bristol
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Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, University of Birmingham
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Teaching Fellow in Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
