Festival of Monsters 2022

Bringing the Spooky Back to UC Santa Cruz!

THE 2022 FESTIVAL IS PAST. Thank you to everyone who made it a success. Please check out our photo gallery and winning horror fiction. See you in 2023!

Held May 20-22, 2022, the UC Santa Cruz Festival of Monsters will be a weekend of scholarship, social events, and art focused on monsters and their hidden meanings. Scholarly presentations are framed by a film screening, theater events, a book reading, and a fabulous Monsters’ Masquerade Ball. All events, except Amduat, are free and open to the public. The Monsters’ Ball requires an RSVP (see below). Parking for events held on the campus will be $5.

All UC Santa Cruz COVID policies apply. Attendees must either have a Green Clearance Badge (UCSC Students) or a UCSC Symptom Check Clearance email (Visitors/Employees.) Visitors must also show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test. Masks required. See https://arts.ucsc.edu/covid-protocols for details.

The Festival of Monsters is presented by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies and made possible through the support of the Arts Research Institute; the Department of Performance, Play & Design; Oakes College; Porter College; Bookshop Santa Cruz; and the generosity of James Gunderson and Peter Coha.

Schedule of Events

Paul Wegener in his 1920 silent film Der Golem

FRIDAY, MAY 20

7 p.m. Der Golem film screening @ UC Santa Cruz, Digital Arts Research Center (DARC) Room 108. Free. A landmark of early horror cinema, this 1920 silent film was directed by Paul Wegener. Set in medieval Prague, it tells the story of a rabbi with sorcerous knowledge who conjures a clay monster to protect his people from a pogrom. Our production features UCSC students providing an instant soundtrack!

SATURDAY, MAY 21

9-10:30 a.m. Monstrous Nationhood panel @ UC Santa Cruz, DARC Room 308. Free. Moderated by Prof. Elizabeth Swensen (DANM, UCSC), this panel of monster scholarship includes author Johanna Isaacson (Stepford Daughters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror, coming Sept. 2022 ) on “Haunted Domesticity and Anti-colonial Revision in Bustamante's La Llorona;” Rafael Franco (Ph.D. candidate, Literature, UCSC) on “Monstrous Maps: Cartography as a Form of Violence in Stoker's Dracula;” and Drew Richardson (Ph.D. candidate, History, UCSC) on “Raising the National Spirit(s): The Ino Mononoke Roku, Place-Making, and Monsters in Miyoshi, Japan.”

11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Grendel’s Mother staged reading @ UC Santa Cruz, DARC Room 308. Free. A new, feminist adaptation of the story of Beowulf, this performance is directed by playwright Kirsten Brandt and stars Kinan Valdez, Artis Anderson, Patty Gallagher, Zoe Adams, and Abi Coomes.

1:30-2 p.m. Riva Lehrer reads from Golem Girl @ UC Santa Cruz, DARC Room 308. Free. Lehrer – whose portraiture transforms the myths told of disabled bodies – will read a selection from her acclaimed biographical novel Golem Girl. In her book, Lehrer “tells her stories about becoming the monster she was always meant to be: glorious, defiant, unbound and voracious,” says Disability Visibility Project founder Alice Wong.

2:15-3:45 p.m. Making the Contemporary Monster roundtable @ UC Santa Cruz, DARC Room 308. Free. Moderated by Monster Studies Center Director Michael M. Chemers, this panel brings together bioethicist Rosemarie Garland Thomson and horror writer Mike Carey (live via Zoom) with Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, the founder of the field of Monster Studies, for a conversation about monsters in the modern age.

8 p.m. Monsters’ Masquerade Ball @ The Tannery World Dance & Cultural Center, 1060 River St Suite #110, Santa Cruz. Free, but RSVP necessary. See form at the bottom of this web page. It’s a Halloween-in-May Masquerade Ball. Come as your favorite monster! Prizes for Best Costume. Meet and party with some of the most illustrious monster scholars of the day.

SUNDAY, MAY 22

3 p.m. Amduat: The 12 Hours of Ra @ UC Santa Cruz, Theater Arts eXperimental Theater. $8-$18. Tickets available at http://ucsctickets.com. Laura Boutros’ Amduat is an immersive multi-media theater piece in which major figures from Egypt’s Pharaonic Era take theatergoers on a “docent tour,” encountering mythological counterparts along the way. This performance will include a special presentation by the Center for Monster Studies. More information about the show available at https://arts.ucsc.edu/news_events/amduat-twelve-hours-ra.