“Monstrosity in Fantastic Literature” In her dissertation, titled “’Impossible Tales’: Language and Monstrosity in the Literary Fantastic,” Irene Bulla reads nineteenth and twentieth-century fantastic literature through its monstrous figures. She shows how Western fantastic literature engages with monstrosity as a linguistic problem and uses it to explore the limits of discourse. The monster is a bizarre, uninterpretable sign, whose disruptive presence allows for a critique of overly confident, rational constructions of ‘reality.’ First Thursday Graduate Scholar Talks take place the first Thursday of each month during the academic year. The talks provide young scholars an opportunity to make a generalist presentation on their research to a cross-disciplinary audience ready to listen carefully and ask good questions. EPIC members help give the Ph.D. students a useful learning experience and at the same time learn about something that may be well beyond their own scholarly interests. Complimentary lunch provided. RSVP required.
