Palgrave Studies in Monstrosity

Palgrave Studies in Monstrosity is a cutting-edge academic book series exploring the cultural, political, and pedagogical significance of monstrosity. From historical trauma and racialized bodies to queer horror and speculative futures, the series examines how monsters reflect, challenge, and reimagine power, identity, and resistance across global contexts. We welcome bold, interdisciplinary scholarship that confronts the monstrous in all its forms—on the page, on screen, and in the classroom.

Monstrosity refers to the social and cultural process of marking certain bodies, identities, or behaviors as deviant, threatening, or abnormal. It functions as a tool of power—used historically to define who belongs and who is excluded, to justify control or violence, and to reinforce norms around race, gender, ability, sexuality, and citizenship. At the same time, it can be reclaimed as a site of resistance, transformation, and radical possibility.

Scholars like Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (Monster Theory) have argued that monstrosity reflects the fears and anxieties of a society, while thinkers such as Sara Ahmed, Frantz Fanon, and Gloria Anzaldúa help us understand how exclusion, racialization, and hybridity function in processes of social control. In Black Studies and queer theory, figures like Saidiya Hartman, Jack Halberstam, and Katherine McKittrick have explored how monstrosity intersects with histories of violence, resistance, and the reimagining of identity. Rather than a fixed trait, monstrosity is a shifting label—sometimes imposed, sometimes reclaimed—that reveals who is seen as fully human, and who is not.

This series is for scholars, educators, and cultural critics who explore monstrosity as a lens for analyzing identity, power, and resistance. We especially invite contributions from those working in Black Studies, American Studies, Queer Studies, Disability Studies, and Global Cultural Studies—particularly those centering marginalized voices and radical pedagogies.

Yes. Palgrave requires that all lead authors and volume editors hold a PhD. If you do not have a doctorate, we encourage you to collaborate with a PhD-holding scholar as a co-editor or co-author. Contributors to edited collections may be advanced graduate students or practitioners, but the project must be led by someone with a doctoral degree.

We are interested in a wide range of topics that explore monstrosity as a cultural, political, historical, or pedagogical construct. These include (but are not limited to):

• Racialized and gendered constructions of monstrosity
• Black horror, Afrofuturism, and speculative fiction
• Queer, trans, and nonbinary embodiments and aesthetics
• Disability and the grotesque body
• Colonialism, empire, and the politics of the monstrous

• Indigenous cosmologies and decolonial horror
• Non-Western folklore, postcolonial trauma, and cinematic horror traditions and the grotesque
• Latinx borderlands, hybridity, and cultural survival
• Digital monstrosity, algorithmic bias, and surveillance
• Historical uses of monstrosity to regulate behavior, health, or morality
• Teaching monstrosity: radical pedagogy, SoTL, and classroom praxis
• Folklore, myth, and ancestral monsters
• Environmental crisis, eco-horror, and posthumanism
• Policing, incarceration, and criminalized bodies
• Intersectional and global approaches to fear, deviance, and resistance

We encourage interdisciplinary and experimental approaches and are especially interested in work that centers marginalized voices and challenges dominant norms.

Not exclusively. While figures like vampires, zombies, and werewolves are part of the cultural vocabulary of monstrosity—and we absolutely welcome scholarship on them—our definition goes beyond supernatural beings. We’re interested in how people, bodies, and identities have been constructed as “monstrous” in real-world contexts: through racism, colonialism, ableism, transphobia, and other systems of power.

Monstrosity includes fictional representations and the social processes that dehumanize or other marginalized groups. It also includes how those labeled “monstrous” resist, reclaim, or transform that identity. So yes, bring us your vampires—but also your fugitives, rebels, queers, witches, outlaws, and visionaries.

We accept three main types of submissions monographs, edited collections, and short-form Palgrave Pivots:

• Monographs – These are single-author scholarly books, typically 70,000–100,000 words, offering a sustained and original argument on a specific topic related to monstrosity.
• Edited Collections – These bring together multiple contributors around a shared theme or concept. They are ideal for interdisciplinary projects or collaborative approaches to the monstrous and typically include an introduction and chapters by different authors.
• Palgrave Pivots – These are short-form scholarly works, usually between 25,000 and 50,000 words. Pivots allow authors to publish cutting-edge research quickly and are perfect for projects that are too long for a journal article but not quite a full book.

All formats may include pedagogical materials such as teaching guides, syllabi, or classroom assignments.

Yes—especially if they intersect with cultural analysis, representation, or monstrosity. We welcome proposals that explore how science, technology, engineering, and medicine construct or challenge ideas of the monstrous. Topics might include bioethics, AI and digital monsters, racialized science, environmental horror, or the body as a scientific site of monstering.

Yes. We enthusiastically welcome SoTL proposals that explore how monstrosity can be taught, theorized, or used as a critical framework in the classroom. We are especially interested in work that incorporates inclusive, radical, or justice-based pedagogies—whether through case studies, assignments, reflective essays, or curricular design in disciplines such as literature, history, media studies, STEM, or cultural studies.

Yes. We welcome proposals from Student Affairs professionals whose work engages with monstrosity, identity, and cultural representation in co-curricular spaces. We are especially interested in critical perspectives on diversity education, inclusive programming, campus activism, and how student life intersects with themes of power, resistance, and the monstrous—both in theory and in practice.

Yes. All books published in Palgrave Studies in Monstrosity undergo rigorous peer review. Each proposal is evaluated by both the series editors and external expert reviewers to ensure scholarly quality, originality, and relevance. Full manuscripts are also subject to additional peer review prior to publication, in accordance with Palgrave’s academic publishing standards.

Dr. U. Melissa Anyiwo is Associate Professor of History and Director of Black Studies at the University of Scranton. A Nigerian-British scholar, she specializes in race, gender, diversity, and visual archetypes, with over twenty years of experience researching racialized and gendered representations of monstrosity—particularly vampires. She is also Co-Chair of the Vampire Studies Area for the Popular Culture Association.

Dr. Amanda Jo Hobson is Associate Director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Her work explores performance, horror, and the intersection of diversity, equity, and inclusion in media and education. She is a scholar of gender, cultural studies, and monstrosity, with a particular interest in pedagogy and representation in speculative genres.

We’re happy to help! If you have additional questions or would like to discuss whether your project is a good fit, please reach out to the series editors at: monstrositystudies@gmail.com

We welcome informal queries and are glad to support you in shaping your proposal.