Refanging the Conversation

Giving Voice to the Monstrous

Abstract

This zine was developed as part of a panel session at the 2026 Festival of Monsters in Santa Cruz, California.

In contemporary academia, the conference panel has too often become a defanged space—a toothless ritual of polished monologues that prioritizes the delivery of fixed knowledge over the slippery intellectual experimentation essential to Monster Studies. This interactive roundtable, sought to reimagine the conference as a site of active, monstrous production. Drawing on the radical traditions of culture jamming and craftivism, and innovative practices like critical making and research-creation, this session replaced the traditional paper presentation with collective action.
The session began with a curated dialogue among the participants, reflecting on our own scholarly monstrosity. We explored how our own research voices have been shaped, silenced, or monsterized by institutional norms, asking: What does it mean to speak with a monstrous tongue in an age of increasingly homogenized discourse? 
Moving from theory to praxis, the panel pivoted into a participatory zine-making session integrating Lynda Barry’s Scribble Monster Jam exercise. We provided supplies, and invited the audience to contribute panels, text, and other monstrous interventions to a hybrid publication in the tradition of the surrealist exquisite corpse. We considered the polyvocal writing and performance of films like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride, and invited the audience to evoke their own monstrous voices in the making.