&Now 2019 Conference

How do we 'grotesque' gender?

Why might we want to do so in the current moment?

We will explore female monstrosity and the grotesquing of gender in our current moment. While the 19th-century gothic deployed the monstrous feminine to illuminate the dark side of/other to the Victorian ideal of the domestic household angel, in our era, feminine monstrosity has the potential to serve as an explicit form of resistance to *any* stable notion of gender. In poetry, the term 'gurlesque' was coined to describe experimentally bold work that reappropriates the female gothic in a burlesque, witty fashion. What can the novel do differently with this impulse? How do narrative writers deploy monstrosity to interrogate the very notion of the ‘female’ and to render gender itself as grotesque, exorbitant, unstable, unsavory? What new monsters can we unleash?

Diverse in both our identities (sexualities, genders, races, ages, class origins, etc.) and narrative strategies, we will explore points of convergence and divergence in our uses of the grotesque. Each panelist will give a short reading, comment on their work in relation to that of the others, and engage in frank, frisky, and grotesque-y dialogue with one another and the audience.