Religion Call for Papers | @relcfp

Details

• Call for Papers: The Gods and Monsters Conference 2026
• March 26 - 29, 2026
• Texas State University, San Marcos Texas, 78666

Call for Papers

This is the second meeting of “Gods and Monsters,” an interdisciplinary academic conference. The conference seeks to gather graduate students, established and emerging scholars, and independent researchers to explore the intersection of monstrosity and the sacred-both broadly defined. Our previous conference resulted in an edited volume entitled Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous (Lexington, 2021) and the creation of a peer-reviewed online journal, The Journal of Gods and Monsters.

The theme of this year’s conference is “Communities and their Monsters.” Our plenary speakers will examine how monsters have been deployed in such media as folklore and horror movies to tell stories that reflect the experiences of diverse ethnic, cultural, racial, and geographic communities; however, these same media may also serve to “monsterize” subaltern communities.

Topics include but are not limited to

• The state of “monster theory” as espoused by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, J. Halberstam, Timothy Beale,and others.
• Monsters, demons, and fantastic creatures described in religious texts.
• Monstrous creatures described in contemporary folklore and cryptozoology.
• Monsters in fictional media such as novels, film, television, comic books, and video games
• The deployment and consequences of discourse used to “monsterize” specific groups of people
• Monsters, the sacred, and pedagogy
• The phenomenology of encounters with monsters

The deadline for submissions is October 15th.

• This is an in-person conference. We regret that we do not have the resources to offer “hybrid” panels.
• All presenters must register for the conference. There is a reduced registration free for those who are not presenting and merely wish to observe.
• Proposals should include a brief bio and an abstract (200-300 words).
• Please direct all questions and paper proposals to Joseph Laycock [email protected] or Natasha L. Mikles [email protected]u.