Kristen Wright is a PhD Candidate at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Her research interests include Renaissance drama and poetry, monsters, folklore, and travel literature.

• IntroductionKristen D. Wright Part I: Searching for MonstersHow Ignorance Made a Monster, Or: Writing the History of Vlad the Impaler without the Use of Sources Leads to 20,000 Impaled TurksPeter Mario KreuterUnveiling the Truth through Testimony: The Argentinean Dirty WarAdriana SpahrFanatics and Absolutists: Communist Monsters in John le Carré’s Cold War FictionToby ManningPart II: Desiring the MonstrousQueer Race Play: Kinky Sex and the Trauma of RacismDejan KuzmanovicAbsolute Beasts? Social Mechanics of Achieved MonstrosityWilliam RedwoodPart III: Writing MonstersUtopian Leprosy: Transforming Gender in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and History in the Strugatsky Brothers’ The Ugly SwansElsa BouetMonstrosity and the Fantastic: The Threats and Promises of Monsters in Tommaso Landolfi’s FictionIrene BullaPart IV: Gazing at Monsters‘This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine’: Man's Monstrous Potential in The Tempest and TitusAndronicus Kristen D. WrightPaedophilic Productions and Gothic Performances: Contending with Monstrous IdentityJen BakerCreeper Bogeyman: Cultural Narratives of Gay as MonstrousSergio Fernando JuárezFull Metal Abs: The Obscene Spartan Supplement of Liberal DemocracyCarlo Comanducci