Exploring the Cultural Mechanics of Social Inequality and Global Cultural Interdependence

This article illustrates the role that General Studies courses in the Humanities can play in educating students about the complex dynamics by which cultural production may reflect, support, or change social structures, issues, and norms, through the specific examples of two English courses offered for General Studies credit at MSU Denver: “Monsters and Monstrosity” and “Vampire Films.” Grounded in a cultural-criticism approach to textual analysis, the courses read monsters as symbolic keys to the cultures that produce them. The terrifying and repulsive qualities of monsters invariably operate on the boundary between self and other. As an abject Other, the monster serves to reinforce our sense of what is different/non-normative/threatening, and the stamp of monstrosity legitimizes cultural bias, often perpetuating social marginalization and inequality.