Monsters in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching What Scares Us
Edited by Adam Golub and Heather Richardson Hayton
Foreword by W. Scott Poole; Afterword by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
McFarland, 2017

About the Book

Exploring the pedagogical power of the monstrous, this collection of new essays describes innovative teaching strategies that use our cultural fascination with monsters to enhance learning in high school and college courses. The contributors discuss the implications of inviting fearsome creatures into the classroom, showing how they work to create compelling narratives and provide students a framework for analyzing history, culture, and everyday life. Essays explore ways of using the monstrous to teach literature, film, philosophy, theater, art history, religion, foreign language, and other subjects. Some sample syllabi, assignments, and class materials are provided.

Table of Contents

Foreword (W. Scott Poole)
Introduction: Monstrous Pedagogies
Adam Golub and Heather Richardson Hayton
Part I–Teaching Difference: The Monster Appears
Teaching Monsters from Medieval to Modern: Embracing the Abnormal (Asa Simon Mittman)
Gender, Sexuality and Rhetorical Vulnerabilities in Monster Literature and Pedagogy (Pamela Bedore)
Creating Visual Rhetoric and the Monstrous (Nancy Hightower)
Monsters as Subversive Imagination: Inviting Monsters into the Philosophy Classroom (Jessica Elbert Decker)
Part II–Transforming Space: The Monster Roams
Locating Monsters: Space, Place and Monstrous Geographies (Adam Golub)
White Settlers and Wendigos: Teaching Monstrosity in American Gothic Narratives (Bernice M. Murphy)
Meeting the Monstrous Through Experiential ­Study-Abroad Pedagogy
(Kyle William Bishop)
Using Zombies to Teach Theatre Students (Phil Smith)
Part III–Disrupting Systems: The Monster Attacks Studying Gods and Monsters (Joshua Paddison)
Monsters in the Dark Forest of Japanese Grammar (Charlotte Eubanks)
High School Monsters: Designing Secondary English Courses (Brian Sweeney)
The Monster Waiting Within: Unleashing Agon in the Community
(Heather Richardson Hayton)
Afterword: Monster Classroom (Seven Theses)
(Jeffrey Jerome Cohen)