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Sunday, October 04, 2020

CFP: Monsters and the Monstrous, April 2021

"I'm hated, execrated, those I meet are repelled by me. They want me crucified, and maybe their feelings are all too justified," sang the American band The Bastard Fairies in their 2010 title track "Man-Made Monster." The lyrics of the song oscillate between cackling threats of murder and cannibalism, and the lament, "It didn't have to be this way, I'm a man-made monster led astray." Such is the paradox of the monster and its appeal: simultaneously a true threat, and the object of sympathy.