Monsters Are Everywhere, and a Scholar Explains Why
Here Be Monsters
In 2025, monsters seemed to be everywhere: Donald Trump called immigrants "monsters," his opponents threw the word back, and monsters filled movies and pop music. When the author's three-year-old daughter asked, "What is a monster?", the author turned to monster studies, a niche academic field, and to Michael Chemers, director of the Center for Monster Studies at UC Santa Cruz, who argues that monster theory illuminates our times.
He immediately launched into a speech about all the ways "monster theory" can illuminate the problems of our times: zombies and environmental collapse, werewolves and fascism, vampires and gender equality.