Vol. 1 No. 1 (2020): Journal of Gods and Monsters Special Issue: The Monstrosity of Displacement
Monsters are often defined as those unfortunate beings displaced from the “normal,” and in the inaugural issue of The Journal of Gods and Monsters, we are exploring this displacement and the role of religious traditions in its construction, maintenance, and complication. Such beings labeled as monsters might be displaced from biology, such as the cynocephalic protagonist of the Greek Life of St. Christopher. Then again, a monster’s displacement could be cultural, as seen in contemporary efforts by some Burmese Buddhists to displace and monstrosize the Rohingya minority. Or it could be soteriological, like the transhistorical phenomenon of Jews and Muslims being made into monsters via their exclusion from some structures of Christian salvation.
In this special issue, we present three methodologically-diverse submissions that tackle the issue of monstrosity and displacement from a wide range of regional and temporal arenas, including 1960s West Virginia, 16th-century France, and 1940s science fiction literature. We also present reviews of new and important materials in the field of Monster Theory.