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>> It's Halloween.
>> Yay.
[SCREAMING AND APPLAUSE]
>> And this is our fourth year
to bring you something
kind of exciting for Halloween,
something that's both scholarly
and maybe a little spooky.
>> I think.
>> A little bit.
>> It should touch in
the right spots.
>> I think so.
So we have something
about monsters.
How wonderful is that?
And ancient monsters, ancient
fears, monster as a mirror of
cultural anxiety.
I think it's fair to say that
this something exciting to me.
It's part of my research
and part of yours as well.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
As a cultural topic, it finds
its foundation there.
So it's of inherent interest.
>> So, in terms of medieval
literature, in terms of
contemporary culture and popular
culture, as well as
anthropology.
>> Yep.
>> What could be more exciting
than that?
Okay, so we're going to split
this into two sections, and then
we'll do Q&A at the end?
>> Yep, that's the plan.
>> In that case, I'm just going
to sashay over here.
>> Good, good, good.
Well, good afternoon, everybody,
and my job is to sort of get us
started by talking a little bit
about what a monster is.
So it seems pretty
straightforward.
Although, if you start thinking
about it and trying to pick the
word apart, it actually may not
be that straightforward, because
a monster could be something
that is a physical manifestation
but it could also be a
reflection of behavior too.
You do monstrous things, right?
So we want to be more specific,
and we want to narrow it down
here to a specific set of
concepts.
So the word itself helps us
a little bit.
A little linguistics in there.
Monster derives from Latin,
monstrum, which means,
that which reveals,
that which warns.
So this may not necessarily be
what we exactly expect right
away when we're talking about
this.
Monster, then, takes on sort of
this kind of aura of being an
omen to tell of danger or as a
warning perhaps to something
that might be coming.
This fellow Pierre Bersuire
wrote in the 14th century the
Repertorium morale, and he
defined monsters very well
I think.
He said, "Monsters are creatures
from outside, beyond, or
contrary to nature.
Such things are called monstria
from monstrando, either because
they show or signify some future
event or because they exemplify
some moral or spiritual flaw."
So that's interesting.
It kind of adds a twist to it.
It's not just about sort of a
warning about the future, but it
also brings into this
this concept that maybe
they represent some kind of
error in judgment or a bad or
a not moral act.
So these are kind of
interesting.
And then also adding into this,
this idea of outside or
contrary to nature.
It makes it, by definition then,
a categorical violation.
So what does that mean?
That sounds like a lot of kind
of fancy talk for a very basic
idea.
And that is, all things fit into
sort of a category, and when you
look at an apple, for example,
you expect to see an apple.
You don't expect the apple to
have arms and legs and a long
tongue or something like that,
right?
If it had those things, that
would be a categorical violation
and, therefore, by definition,
monstrous.
Right?
So that's what we're dealing
with.
That's what we want to talk
about.
Monsters.
Let's look at some of the
characteristics of monsters.
Here would be an example of sort
of a grotesque hybrid.
So here you have a human head
that has sprouted these
arthropod sort of legs and is
scrambling around on the floor.
That's not normal.
That's a categorical violation.
[LAUGHTER]
No good.
Right?
So that's definitely a monstrous
sort of thing.
Monsters also are typically
huge.
They're disproportionately large
in size.
So, for example, in the Odyssey,
you've got the giant cyclops
that is holding Odysseus and his
men captive.
And there, this is a giant.
It's monstrous in size.
And giants come into that, not
just cyclops, but giants in
general fit that category
Monsters are typically
mysterious and menacing.
So here you have a satyr where
you've got sort of the part
goat, part human, part other
things mixed in together.
And although there's no
threatening sort of action going
on here, it is very sort of
curious, and we tend to be more
suspicious of things that don't
sort of fit our expectations.
So, again, mysterious and
menacing can be part of this.
Oh, yeah, and they also
typically eat people.
[LAUGHTER]
That's the other thing that
monsters are particularly
good at.
So here we have an early kind of
a woodcut of a werewolf doing
its business.
So they typically eat people
and, therefore, have this sort
of negative connotation.
So, my part of this business
is about looking at sort of
how old this concept is.
Where does this concept of
monster come from?
How long have we been living
with this?
Now, we can look at old medieval
pictures, and we can clearly see
that this goes back and has some
antiquity into the dark ages
probably for sure.
Certainly there's been as many
monsters, there's been monster
slayers that have gone with
that.
There's Beowulf and Grendel and
there's St. George and the
dragon.
Even Odysseus could fall under
that realm.
So, how long, how far back can
we push this?
Well, I would argue that maybe
we could push this back to the
very beginning.
To the very sort of roots of
human consciousness.
We weren't always this way,
the way that we are now.
We have relatively little fear
of, for example, other
predators.
We hunt a lot of things, but
there aren't a lot of things
that hunt us.
So, is it possible that going
back into the very faintest
echos, our very most distant
cultural and sort of even
genetic memory, we could even
talk about this idea of being
afraid of the things that hunt
us, the things that have hunted
us traditionally.
Here you have an
australopithecine skull, a very
distant ancestor of ours who
very clearly met an unfortunate
end.
These guys were more dinner than
they were actually anything
else.
So the idea, then, of being
afraid of things that hunt us
could be a very good start for
where monsters might come from.
And if we wanted to kind of look
at this in a little bit more
detail, we could jump forward
here, forward right, relative
term, to 35,000 years ago, and
the very first cave art, what
people were drawing and
expressing themselves and what
they were thinking about.
And we know this stuff best from
southern Europe.
So here's an example of some of
the earliest cave art that's
ever been discovered, and it
comes from a place called
Chauvet Cave.
Chauvet Cave is a very large
cave system.
The scale here is 20 meters to
the inch.
So it goes deep, deep into the
rock face here.
And there's a funny little
pattern here with the art.
There's lots of images here, but
what tends to be in the front of
the cave are things that people
were eating.
Horses, bison, auroch, which is
the progenitor to cows.
And the further you get back
into this cave, the darker, the
scarier, the hard to access
regions, you start finding these
other things, like bears.
Bears, very powerful creatures
these cave bears.
Big, strong.
Lived in this cave, actually,
and would have been a threat to
humans.
So it's not too surprising that
we see their depictions at least
up front, right?
Lions.
I know we don't like to think
typically that there were lions
in Europe because it seems out
of place, but in southern Europe
they had lions.
And again, lions would have been
competitors for food with
humans.
So they would be hunting the
bison, humans would be hunting
the bison and, of course, humans
being about prey size for lions,
especially women and children,
these would be something that
might be very scary.
Even rhinos, which we don't tend
to think of as being dangerous,
they actually nearsighted.
They don't have very good sense
of smell.
They're startled very easily.
You get a lot of deaths each
year from being gored from
rhinos.
Again, shows up in the back of
the cave.
Lions and, of course, the art
itself is interesting.
This idea of being in motion and
lions being a scary thing tucked
away.
Tucked in the back in a
manageable way.
Controlled.
Hyenas, cheetah.
In this case, all sort of
competitors, dangerous things
that are part of this world that
these people perceive.
So do you think they might have
had some anxiety then about
these things being out there?
And, of course, a way to deal
with that anxiety is to create
it and then control it.
Helps us to deal with that
anxiety.
This one's always fun.
A field day, right?
For all of those out there
because the images show, of
course, the lions, you see
another lion, you see a bison,
and then you see this women's
genitalia.
Talk about Freud, right?
Here's all these things mixed
together.
Anxieties and fears all kind of
pulled together into this one
sort of realm.
And it wasn't just cave art.
They made objects, like this
lion man.
This one comes from Germany.
Not very big, but the body of a
man with a lion's head.
Whoops.
Categorical violation.
[imitating sustained siren]
Be aware.
Danger.
So this tells us that the
consciousness of these things,
as time goes on, is becoming
more and more acute.
As we get more in control of our
environment, as we are better
hunters, as we bring these
dangerous populations under
control, the nature of the art
changes, and we start seeing
human representation for the
first time and humans that are
categorical violations.
The little devil here, which is
a human face with some sort of
horns or protrusions from
the top.
This one is more obvious.
They call him the sorcerer.
But you've got an auroch or
an ibex's head attached to
a human body.
Strange.
Now, some of that might be from
the fact that hunting was done
by, for example, dressing in the
skins of an animal to perhaps
get in and amongst the animals
to do the hunting.
But that doesn't always explain
all of the various pieces.
Like this.
Here is not something that's
hunting.
Here is something that is
walking on two legs, wearing
this headdress, and is
definitely part human, part elk,
part owl.
Some kind of categorical
violation.
At the dawn of history, when
writing first comes into place,
6,000 years ago, the writings
that people made in Mesopotamia,
where today Iraq and Iran are,
the writing that people are
doing is at first about numbers
and it's about accounting, but
almost right away, on the heels
of things, they're talking about
this.
They're talking about their
monsters, their gods and
goddesses.
And here, Tiamat, one
representing the primeval chaos,
the goddess of the ocean,
has this scaly reptilian body,
bird legs and talons.
This creature was slain by
Marduk.
And, again, the idea is to
control the anxiety coming
about here.
So we've seen a switch now.
People aren't so concerned about
natural predators as they are
about the bigger title primal
forces out there, like the wind
and the ocean.
Things they can't control.
So Labbu, a sea beast, huge
dimensions, and, again, not a
surprise, killed by someone.
We've got to keep it under
control.
Pazuzu, in this case an
interesting character because
this guy is evil.
Everybody acknowledges him as
evil, but they summon him to get
rid of other evils.
So apparently he was fairly
territorial and so as a
consequence was able to sort of
help people in these times of
need, but I suspect probably
with a bit of a price tag that
would come with it.
But again, categorical
violation.
King of the evil spirits of
the air.
So again, that primal force
of nature.
Anzu, the divine storm bird,
shown here with a lion's head,
a bird with a lion's head.
Lamashtu, particularly evil
female demon who stole children
from mothers while
breastfeeding.
Gnawed on their bones,
drank their blood.
Wow.
Does it get any worse than that?
This is a piece from, this is a
clip from a cuneiform tablet,
and it talks about what Lamashtu
is about.
The daughter of heaven who
tortures babies.
Her hand is a net.
Her embrace is death.
She's cruel, raging, angry,
predatory.
Predatory, right?
A runner.
A thief.
The daughter of heaven.
She touches the bellies of women
in labor.
She pulls out the pregnant
woman's baby.
The daughter of heaven is one of
the gods, they acknowledge the
power and strength of this
individual, but definitely and
evil presence.
So it goes on to, of course,
give that categorical violation
description, which tells us
that, again, this is something
to be feared.
Lilitu, storm and wind demon.
Later a demon of the night.
So, again, these primal forces,
the night, the air, these are
all sort of important concepts
to sort of think of.
Hold on, we'll catch you
in Q&A here.
Humbaba, this one is a little
unusual.
Kind of a human or humanoid type
representation but very
different in the effects.
When he looks at someone,
it's the look of death.
Humbaba's roar is a flood,
his mouth is death, and his
breath is fire.
He can hear a hundred leagues
away any, and then they weren't
sure what that particular symbol
meant, but they think it's
rustling, in his forest.
A protector of the gods and of
the primal forest.
Raised by Utu, the sun, the
guardian of the cedar forest.
Very interesting that a set of
resources guarding this broader
set of their pantheon is a
monster.
And they use this monster to
keep people away.
So the monsters we see here are
all old.
It's an old thing.
It's as old as our
consciousness.
As long as we've been thinking
like we think, these have been
here, and they've been
companions with us, which makes
us wonder why.
Why is that the case?
Well, part of it may have to do
with the fact that monsters are
ultimately, in a way, a
reflection of us, a reflection
of our anxieties, and they can't
exist without us because we and
they are linked together.
So whether it's feeling bad
about how someone was treated,
or if it's something that can't
be stopped by technology, that's
a fear that we have.
The fear that we're going to do
something wrong to somebody and
it's going to catch up with us.
The monster that attacks us in
our sleep that we can't control.
It's all those factors out
there.
For the earliest people, it's
those predators that are out
there competing with us and
consuming us.
Then it becomes about being able
to try and control nature.
And we personify these things
and then we try and hold them
down.
And then, finally, as if science
should abolish all of this, it
should make it all go away
because we understand all this
stuff now.
It doesn't.
It just amplifies it, and it
continues to be a growing
presence here.
So that's what my
contribution is.
It's a little time depth here, a
little sort of basic run on
monsters, and I'm going to turn
it over to Dr. Auld who's going
to give you the good stuff on
the more recent monsters out
there.
>> Oh, I've got wonderful ones
too.
[APPLAUSE]
You know, George, I have to tell
you, I was tempted to go,
well let's just go back
through yours.
Let's go back through yours
because I recognized some of
those, and it was so very
exciting.
For myself, I have to say that
within reading about medieval
texts and ancient Greek and
Roman texts about monsters, I
just found so many things that
connected me to the things that
I'd see on TV, to the films, to
contemporary novels.
That's part of what interests me
so much.
And I love that you're talking
about these creatures as
predators because I think it's
so darn interesting that
sometimes we have monsters who
aren't necessarily predators.
It's not necessarily the monster
who breaks in and takes
something.
Sometimes we merely see a
monster, and the mere fact that
it exists is enough to break
those categories and terrify us.
Even if the monster doesn't live
next door.
The mere fact that it's living
somewhere makes us kind of crazy
angry.
So we're going to look again at,
we're going to look again at
category crisis, and we're going
to start with the absolute
beginning here, the harbinger of
category crisis.
This comes from
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen,
Monster Theses, and it's part of
something called Monster Theory.
And this theory, this kind of
analysis, this particular text
was a decade old just this year.
So this idea, one of the
earliest ideas is dragons.
And if you think about it, they
break physical categories, land,
sky, water.
They're both part worm, they're
part bird.
And they suggest a devolution, a
return to an earlier or more
primitive physical form.
And if you think about dragons,
dragons are medieval and they're
ancient and maybe they're kind
of contemporary too.
There's a book jacket at the
bottom here for Who Goes There?
which is written by
John Campbell.
This is a classic of science
fiction, and it becomes a film
called The Thing.
And it's this beautiful science
fiction story of something where
the shape doesn't quite hold.
You can see it as a dog.
You actually showed a picture of
The Thing earlier, and that was
its arachnid form where it's got
a person's face and it's got
kind of a spider body.
And it's so darn dangerous
because it's as if it's moving
through evolution at its
own rate.
And, of course, one of the
wonderful things is this thing
shows up essentially in a
spaceship.
So it flew to get there.
And it's kind of both a dragon
and something from the stars.
Okay, so let's see.
One of my favorite ever dragons,
everybody loves dragons, one of
my favorite ever dragons,
Gojira, Godzilla, and you have
two images of him.
I particularly, again, like that
darn dragon form.
I like that darn dragon form
because in some cases you can
really see the primitive aspects
of it.
You can really see it as an
older body.
As a matter of fact, does
anybody think that a lot of
dragons look a little like
dinosaurs?
Yeah.
There is an argument that in
some cases people found the
bones, they found fossilized
bones, and they couldn't
necessarily tell how old those
bones were but they recognized
them as the interior pieces of a
creature.
And, thus, they started telling
these stories about dragons.
But when I say that, even as I
say that, I think of, you
mentioned Beowulf.
Beowulf gets killed by a dragon.
That's the end of the story.
He may have kicked Grendel's
butt, but he's put out.
He's finished.
Done in, as it were, by a
dragon.
But the European dragons are
often very different than the
eastern dragons.
The eastern dragons are often
powerful, tremendous,
supernatural, but they tend to
be the good guys in a lot of
cases.
And one of the figures I find so
fascinating here with Gojira is
that essentially that was kind
of, well, maybe it was both an
eastern dragon and a western
dragon both come together.
Talk about category crisis.
So that's one of my very
favorite ones.
Again, have an eye out on size.
George was great about talking
about these monsters.
In the corner there, only hell
could breed the giant Gila
monster.
It's a dragon except for that
it's also something that's
really not all that big and not
all that terrifying.
Maybe a little scruffy looking
running around in the desert.
But this tremendous fear that
it's going to get out of
control.
That it's going to get too big.
That it's going to maybe revert
to a size that used to be
common.
Again, like the dinosaurs.
Okay, there's our western
dragons in their classic style.
One of my favorite ideas is
about the 10th century there was
a common folklore about dragons
that if people got too high and
mighty and got a little too
proud, they could slowly devolve
into dragons.
That was one of the places that
dragons came from.
Ever heard somebody called a
worm?
The idea was that people could
become dragons.
And it always came from pride
and greed.
Possessiveness.
So all the sudden we're
inscribing those thing into this
fantasy figure.
And if you think about dragons,
they get really possessive about
where they live.
They get possessive if you
happen to steal a goblet.
Heaven for fend you should steal
a magic ring.
All of these things make them
angry, and they come after you
because it's pride and it's
greed.
All right, let's look at some
more.
Ancient monsters.
There we go.
One more kind of wonderful
Gojira there.
And I have to point out, has
anybody caught the connection
between Gojira and pride?
Because he actually came from
what?
The bomb, which a lot of people
looked at as an excess of pride.
Something that was man-made, man
evoked, and had to do with a
tremendous pride in controlling
the elements.
So Gojira works especially well.
But here's another one, and yes
it's naked.
The Donestre, and I thought of
that image you had.
We have to talk later.
I thought of the Donestre
because, of course, they're
lion-headed.
They're ancient monsters.
They're lion heads.
They're, well, they eat people.
I can't say they're people who
eat people because they're not
quite people.
But the idea is that they are
people eaters.
And in the Libra Monstrum, The
Big Book of Monsters, which is
an Anglo-Saxon text that's
connected with the Beowulf text
again and with a text that,
shockingly enough, might be kind
of fudged, which is Alexander's
letter to Aristotle.
We get a lot of these ancient
monsters that are captured, if
you will, by the medievals.
They're captured, they're
painted, they're discussed, and
the Donestre are wonderful.
They're dangerous to travelers.
They live somewhere in the east.
The mysterious east.
The far away east.
Potentially India.
They live somewhere there, and
what I really love about them is
that a Donestre would
recognize you.
He's living far, far away.
Thousands of miles away.
He'd recognize you as a
traveler, and he'd say, "Hi,
Cindy," and he'd say it in
English.
He would call to you in your own
language.
And that's a real category
breaker, isn't it?
That category of language is one
of the markers of the monster.
The fact that this thing,
completely not human, calls to
you in your own language and
convinces you sweetly to come
walk with him.
I'm a traveler just like you,
and in that way, the Donestre
will kind of sneak up, if you
will.
They'll take the traveler, and
then they'll eat it.
But when they're done, they cry.
They weep.
They weep because they are
Donestre.
And one of my favorite parts of
this is that monsters aren't
supposed to feel guilty, are
they?
Unless it's one of the things
that makes them so human, and,
thus, even scarier.
And talk about your category
breaking, can you guys see this
little tush of the Donestre and
his leg and his knee and then
his foot?
Have a look.
He's just stepped out of the
frame.
That's the best part is when
they step out of the frame they
kind of walk into your world,
don't they?
To the medievals this was
terrifying.
Maybe even to the ancients as
well.
What if there was a "foreigner"
who knew your language?
How could you be sure just who
this person is?
How terribly dangerous that is.
What a monster to know your
language and yet not be one of
your "kind."
Interesting.
Got to give you a local cannibal
here at least a little bit.
Anybody recognize this one?
>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> Yeah, Ed.
>> Ed Gein.
>> Yes indeed, Ed.
Okay, cannibals, whether they're
the Donestre or whether they're
local, homegrown, as it were,
break the categories of predator
and prey, and it's the
darnedest thing.
We're all supposed to be prey
together if a lion shows up,
right?
They are the lion.
They're just pretending
to be prey.
They're actually the predator.
And it's in this deception that
they are dangerous and
terrifying, and the mere fact
that they can lie with their
bodies and with their voices,
that's maybe one of the scariest
monsters of all.
And they suggest social
devolution so that not only
could bodies slide backwards
into something more primitive,
maybe people, maybe communities
could slide from an organized
situation where there are laws
and rules we all recognize into
something that's a free for all,
into something that's terribly
dangerous.
So be careful of cannibals who
address you in fine language and
offer you help.
And in that way, I have the
fictional Hannibal Lecter.
Some of Hannibal's
characteristics, as he is a
character, some of his
characteristics, though, are
taken from actual serial killers
and cannibals.
So in the same way that in that
big book of monsters that you
look at and you go, they just
made that up, that's not real,
well, perhaps it is real in
certain times and certain
places.
Perhaps there are folks out
there who are disturbed enough
to enact these behaviors.
It seems as if there are, which
doesn't necessarily mean they're
supernatural, but it might mean
that they're monsters.
And there's certainly something
that, boy, the culture gets
really scared of.
And it's really scared, well,
it's scared enough to try to
control Hannibal Lecter.
It's scared enough to try to
control a criminal.
But maybe one of the scariest
things is when you can't tell
that someone is a criminal.
And the culture is frightened
of that.
Okay, another quote from
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen.
"The monster's body is a
cultural body."
And I throw that out to you only
because what it means to be
different, even maybe what it
means to look like a criminal,
seems to be something that our
culture decides upon.
[INAUDIBLE]
Isn't it interesting that
the cultural body, the culture
tells us what the body may look
like and what's inappropriate,
and there's even a monstrosity
to those of us today who dress
up for Halloween.
If you were to wear these
costumes at other times, you
might get a bit of grief because
the culture has accepted some
things in the body and some
things it says, no, no.
One of my favorites here,
this is Abarimon.
They're found in Scythia.
Their feet are turned backwards.
Their feet are turned backwards
because they're on the other
side of the globe and clearly
you need that.
[LAUGHTER]
And you find yourself looking at
it and going, that's the oddest
thing in the world.
I personally find it unlikely
that they exist.
I don't know.
You know.
The Donestre I'm working with.
These guys, maybe not.
The monster dwells at the gates
of difference.
Maybe they're the maker for when
things are very, very different.
And maybe we mark them to try to
identify them as different.
I married a monster from outer
space.
He didn't look like that when
she married him.
He changed.
I'm just saying.
He changed and, sure enough, he
was able to "pass as one of us."
That bodily fluidity.
That idea that shapes don't
hold.
It's interesting because it
suggests that if you're going to
protect yourself from monsters,
you need to keep a real eye out
for anybody, any body, who's
a little bit different.
And what an interesting cultural
fear that if we could just
examine everybody, if we could
just control them carefully and
keep an eye on them, then we'd
be able to root out the
monsters.
And all the sudden that starts
sounding kind of scary because
what if I don't fit?
What if I've got a little bit
more difference than the culture
accepts?
Yeah.
I understand going after the
lion.
Personally, I don't care if
somebody is wearing a lion head
over everything else.
The gates of difference.
Think about that one.
I brought you Blemmyes,
another one from
The Big Book of Monsters.
The Blemmyes, these people live
in the deserts of Libya.
Their necks are on their chests.
They lack heads and necks.
Shakespeare says they've got to
be cannibals.
And I love their bodies.
Their bodies are so fascinating
to me because I think
they're real.
I think it's, I don't know that
they were cannibals.
I think Shakespeare was
fudging it.
Anybody who's in
Titus Andronicus' class, yeah,
he did indeed get a little crazy
with things.
But I want you to look at those
shapes, and I want you to
picture a human being shaped the
same as all of us, human being
carrying a shield in front of
herself or himself, and they
duck their head down.
What you'd have is you'd have
the appearance of eyes and a
face, and you'd have someone
very wisely hiding behind that
shield.
It's entirely possible that the
Blemmyes did exist.
As a matter of fact,
Scholasticus, like you got
nothing better to do, go read
Scholasticus, argued that one of
the tribes that was attacking
certain groups were
the Blemmyes.
So this was actually a name of
a tribe.
Again, not terribly far off.
Don't you like the one that's
just looking over the shoulder
and kind of smiling?
Smiling over their butt a bit.
By the way, where does reason
reside in the human body?
Where do you think reason might
reside?
Here?
If there's nothing to actually
to reason about what you eat,
then all of a sudden, your
reasoning is directly related to
your appetite.
Reason with no filter but
appetite, that's, appetite with
no filter I should say, that's
interesting.
And how often that is put on
another culture.
You know them.
They can't control their
appetites.
Again, a cultural marker that
makes someone else monstrous.
One more real one from
The Big Book of Monsters .
The sky pods lived in India.
They spent their days taking
shelter under their single great
big foot.
Well, once more, the idea, and
this is common amongst monster
scholars, which kind of sounds
sketchy, but it's a common idea
that some of the people
traveling may have seen
individuals performing yoga and
holding positions that seemed
"unnatural."
Category breakers.
They held those positions.
They were from a foreign place.
They lived in a different way.
They looked physically
different.
They brought these back.
And I have to tell you, many
people would look at the woman
doing the yoga move and say
that's not natural.
But, of course, maybe it is.
It's just that we don't
recognize it.
And don't you just love him
taking shade under his foot.
He doesn't look like somebody
who would hurt you, does he?
What's he going to do, hop over
and attack you?
But his body doesn't fit the
cultural markers of the body,
and it's from far away.
It's from far away.
So you've got to be careful, got
to look out for them.
All right, we have some more
Blemmyes, and I'd love to tell
you that that outfit on the
other side there is a costume,
but it's not.
That's science again.
That's science again.
And sure enough, those are the
Blemmyes who've been taken in
and at this point painted over,
and all of a sudden, you have
someone meeting the Blemmyes and
controlling them.
And that would be Alexander,
Alexander the Great, who's
perceived to be a man of great
reason and great control because
you've got to watch out for
those monsters.
You never know when they're
going to sneak in.
I think people would recognize
the Blemmyes.
Okay, I've given you a dog
head here.
The dog heads were absolutely
great.
St. Christopher is identified as
a dog head.
Cynocephali essentially.
Just dog head, that's all it
means.
According to at least one of the
ancient stories on this,
and I believe it's
Wonders of the East.
The dog heads live in India.
They bark at one another.
They live in caves.
They use bows.
They use javelins.
They use swords.
But they're people except for
their dog heads.
Another interesting one places
the dog heads in Japan.
Again, this needs to be far
enough out of the way that we
aren't worried about them.
Far enough out of the way.
One of the arguments for the dog
heads is that what people were
actually seeing or hearing were
great apes, and it looked like a
person but the face was wrong.
It wasn't a human face.
That becomes such a marker
of our humanity.
And the language wasn't quite
human, so they were barking.
With St. Christopher,
interestingly enough, even
though he's a dog head, his
language, and this is biblical
language, his language of
Christianity, those words were
so magic that even with the dog
head people understand him.
And in that way, you can see how
that inscription has got all
kinds of cultural meaning.
The animal made human through a
specific religious word and a
kind of power and even magic.
One last one for you here, and
that is fear of the monster is
really a kind of desire.
Again, this is from
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen.
I've given you some lovely
vampires here.
Some kind of pretty vampires.
You guys looked at one earlier
where a werewolf was biting a
woman in half, and is that maybe
Gilles de Rais?
Yeah, the loup-garou,
which many people think was an
actual person who had some
problems and chewed people up.
Fair to say?
Okay, great.
I don't know that he looked
fabulous doing it.
I don't know that he actually
got ears or anything else,
but he's very fierce.
That's the idea.
Isn't it interesting that
vampires, on the other hand,
tend to be looking what?
Well, here, come on up, George.
Look.
Suave.
[LAUGHTER]
The marker of vampire is suave
How scary is it if the really
pretty ones are dangerous?
How frightening is it?
As a matter of fact, I don't
think we should trust him.
He's in a suit.
Anybody ever seen him in that
suit before?
[LAUGHTER]
I don't recognize that cultural
body, sir, I'm sorry.
>> Violation.
>> Violation.
On the other hand,
it's kind of cute.
It's a nice suit, isn't it?
He's well groomed.
Isn't it interesting because,
you know, we're really afraid of
the monster but everybody in
here is looking for him.
We desire the monster.
We want to see him.
We want to find him.
We want to see where they live.
We want to keep an eye on them
so that fear of the monster
leads to us searching for maybe
even making monsters, but
keeping our eye on them.
Fear of the monster is a kind
of desire.
We want our monsters.
We want to keep an eye on them
because they're part of the
marker that makes us human and
them something else.
And I think we're ready for Q&A.
[APPLAUSE]