Literary Theory: Feminine Monstrosity: Embracing the Taboo in Modern Fiction

This critical lecture looks at the ways that women, and feminine identifying peoples, have been denied power throughout modern history, how patriarchal structures rely on fiction as a necessary mechanism in reinforcing and validating these foundations through continued use of demonizing and infantilizing stereotypes.Furthermore, Calvert argues that these mechanisms often serve as catalysts, inducing the very monstrosity that women, and female identifying peoples are then punished for. Calvert interrogates how modern feminist fiction seeks to transform qualities that have typically been classified as “bad” in favor of a renewed understanding of those qualities as healing, natural, powerful, and necessary.

What you’ll walk away with:

• Examine how historical and structural patriarchy weaponizes fiction to reinforce demonizing and infantilizing stereotypes against women and feminine-identifying people.

• Analyze the theoretical frameworks of Kristy Butler and Barbara Creed to understand how societal expectations act as catalysts for manufactured “monstrosity.”

• Explore contemporary feminist masterworks like Nightbitch, Chouette, and The…