by Debbie Felton During a recent trip to NYC’s MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), I stumbled across a beautiful little piece of surrealist art by Leonora Carrington. The Surrealists often used imagery from Greek and other mythologies to express the fantastical and dreamlike aspects of the unconscious and irrational mind, and Carrington’s work is no… Read more Monstrous Surrealism: “And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur”
In Inuit mythology, which dates back 4,000 to 5,000 years, the tupilaq was originally conceived of as a hybrid avenging monster-spirit created by an angakkuq, an Inuit shaman.
Several congenital birth defects are named for mythological monsters. Today, we’re focusing on two specific genetic abnormalities, one named for the Sirens and another for the Cyclops.
We here at The Ancient Monsters Blog recently had an exciting opportunity: the chance to discuss the development of an upcoming television series, Hangry Harpies. Our guests are Rebecca Lauren, Creator/Producer/Actor, and Meredith Ginsburg, Director of the pilot episode. The mythological Harpies are best known from the story of Jason and the Argonauts, in which… Read more Adapting Ancient Myth: “HANGRY HARPIES”
From fifty-headed primordial monstrous canine to three-headed pet of Hades, Cerberus is renowned for being the vicious guard dog of the Greek and Roman underworld, tasked with keeping the dead in and the living out. But his reputation seems largely unearned, given the rather large number of live humans who managed to infiltrate Hades.
What do you think of when you hear the phrase “monstrous insects”? Do you get a mental picture of prehistoric giant dragonflies from the works of Jules Verne? Or of the giant, radiation-mutated bugs omnipresent in films from the 1950s that arose in the wake of atomic testing? Would it interest you to know that giant insects existed long before that— in the imagination of the ancient Greeks?
Perception of the Gorgons as monsters, both in antiquity and in later reception, comes as a result of these early literary and artistic representations that effectively “other” the sisters’ appearances. They are fearsome, dangerous, and—despite having the shape of women—inhuman, which makes them monstrous.
Today’s guest, Dr. Anactoria Clarke, is on the Regional Academic Staff of The Open University, UK, where she is a Staff Tutor in English Literature. Dr. Clarke has not one but two PhDs, the first in English Literature and the second in Classics!
Here Professor Denson, who previously spoke with us about Charybdis, has a very new take on some extremely old sea monsters.
Today’s guest is Ryan Denson, currently Assistant Professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. He has previously written in depth on Charybdis’ eerie nature in a 2023 article for the interdisciplinary journal Preternature entitled “Monstrous Disembodiment and Ontological Uncertainty in Charybdis.”