Held on the beautiful UC Santa Cruz campus, the 2025 Festival of Monsters academic conference (Oct. 15-18) includes panels on cannibalism, classic monsters, child monsters and the monsters of childhood, Chicanix Nuclear Gothic and more. David Livingstone Smith, Kim Lau and Jeffrey Jerome Cohen will give this year's keynote talks.
The main conference will take place on the UC Santa Cruz campus on Oct. 16-17, with a reception and opening talk Oct. 15 at the Museum of Art and History and a day of pubic events in downtown Santa Cruz on Oct. 18.
The registration fee includes a welcome reception the evening of Oct. 15, breakfast and lunch on Oct. 16 and 17, a closing Monsters Ball on the evening of Oct. 17, and all conference events. All conference presenters and attendees should register for the conference at https://bit.ly/2025MonsterEvent by Monday, Sept. 15, 2025.
The conference costs $275 for tenure track faculty and $225 for graduate students, contingent faculty and independent scholars. Current UC Santa Cruz students, staff and faculty may attend the conference for free. The free registration for DOES NOT include food. Visit https://bit.ly/UCSCMonster25 for UCSC-affiliated registration. If you are a UCSC-affiliated presenter at the conference, please contact Center staff for a code and register at https://bit.ly/2025MonsterEvent.
Although conference events will be taking place on campus, we have reserved a conference room block at the Courtyard by Marriott Santa Cruz. Please use this link —https://bit.ly/MonsterHotel25— by Sept. 15 to reserve your room at the conference rate of $132/night plus tax. We will provide transportation between the hotel and campus conference events.
Sponsors for the 2025 Festival of Monsters include Porter College; The Arts Research Institute; The Humanities Institute; the Sigfried and Elizabeth Mignon Puknat Endowment; the UC Santa Cruz Department of Literature; the UC Santa Cruz Department of Performance, Play and Design; Bookshop Santa Cruz; Atlantis Fantasyworld; Game Santa Cruz; and James Gunderson.