Speaker Series – Race, Gender, and Monsters: What Vampires and Werewolves Reveal About Ourselves and Our Culture
June 6 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Why do some monsters seem to resonate through time? What do they say about our social and cultural anxieties around difference—in particular race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, and ability?
This talk explores the shifting meanings vampires and werewolves have taken in popular culture, with a particular focus on the 1980s through the 2000s. In addition, these figures will be compared to the early Universal horror film monsters Dracula and The Wolf Man. Discover how the monsters we love tell us a great deal about ourselves and our changing cultural ideas about difference.
Bernadette Marie Calafell (she/her) is professor and chair of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at Gonzaga University specializing in Latinx/o/a Studies, women of color feminisms, and LGBTQ Studies. In addition to writing, teaching, and traveling across the country talking about monsters for the last ten years, Calafell is the author of Latina/o Communication Studies: Theorizing Performance and Monstrosity, Performance, and Race in Contemporary Culture. She earned her PhD in communication from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
The CCHM Speaker Series season is sponsored by the Clark County Historic Preservation Commission. This month’s presentation is co-hosted with Fourth Plain Forward and brought to you by Humanities Washington and the League of Women Voters of Clark County. Admission is free and open to all.
For more information, contact the museum at 360-993-5679 or [email protected]
