CENTRE FOR MYTH STUDIES
University of Essex
OPEN SEMINAR
Mythical Monsters and the Monstrous in Myth:
Harpies and Erinyes in Modern Fiction
Dr Ana González-Rivas Fernández
Autonomous University, Madrid
Thursday 2 November 2023
7.30 – 9.00 pm (GMT)
Online
All welcome
To register for this Zoom event, please email: pps@essex.ac.uk (mention CMS open seminar)
Monstrous is everything that challenges the normative, that transgresses aesthetic, ethical, and moral laws. Despite our efforts to conceal it, the monstrous ends up revealing itself, scandalizing and terrifying us because it threatens our harmonious conception of the world and confronts us with our darker side. Consequently, the monstrous has been repudiated and expelled from our lives in order to regain a more coherent and stable self-structure. It is then relegated to the vast territory of the margins, a place where everything that endangers what is acceptable according to the hegemonic power ends up. Throughout
history, there have been many monsters who have embraced their state of exclusion, experiencing it as a just punishment for their transgressive nature. However, in the postmodern era, a new discourse of empowerment has also been introduced, in which monsters have decided to stop being victims and have begun to reclaim their monstrosity as a mark of identity. Within the framework of this discourse lies the volume Monstruosas [The Female Monstrous], edited by Covadonga González-Pola and Cristina del Toro
(Tinta Púrpura, 2019). The work, composed of ten horror stories written by female Spanish authors, narrates the tales of ten female monsters inspired by myths from various cultures. In this presentation, I will focus the analysis on the stories “Wings of the Wind” by Caryanna Reuven (inspired by the Harpies) and “The Stone of Sorrow” by Lola Robles (which delves into the world of the Erinyes). The analysis of these two tales will allow us to observe how classical mythology is employed in the service of a feminist discourse in which the monstrous-feminine functions simultaneously as an instrument of denunciation and identity assertion within a traditionally patriarchal system.
Ana González-Rivas Fernández is an Associate Professor in the Department of English
Philology at the Autonomous University of Madrid. She holds a Ph.D. in Philology and bachelor’s degrees in Classical Philology and English Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid. Her doctoral thesis examines the literary and cultural relationships established between Greco-Latin literature and Anglo-American gothic literature. She has undertaken various postdoctoral research stays at the National University of Tucumán (Argentina), Baylor University (Texas, United States), the Open University (London, United Kingdom), and the University of Essex (Colchester, United Kingdom). Her research interests encompass topics related to Anglo-American Gothic and Fantastic Literature, Comparative Literature, the Reception of Greco-Latin Classics, Myth Criticism, Cultural Transfers, Intermediality, and Popular Culture. In her academic publications, she has analyzed the works of authors such as Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Charles Robert Maturin, Edgar Allan Poe, M. R. James, and the Pre-Raphaelites, among others. She currently serves as the secretary of Asteria (International Association of Myth Criticism) and holds positions on the governing boards of SELGYC (Spanish Society of General and Comparative Literature) and EAPSA (Edgar Allan Poe Spanish Association).
Essex Myth 