The QSSlab attended the Monster Fest conference hosted by Saint Mary’s University this October, running from the 28th – 31st. Monster Fest is an international conference that focuses on the historical, cultural, and political significance of monstrosity.
The study “Frankenmetrics: Assembling a scholarly record of monsters” was presented, authored by Kellie Dalton, Maddie Hare, Geoff Krause, Summer Wilson, and Philippe Mongeon. This bibliometric analysis investigates what scholarship has been written about the four monsters Vampires, Frankenstein, Zombies, and the Wolfman, featured as the main characters of the 1962 Halloween hit song “The Monster Mash”, considered quintessential monstrous figures popularized in cinema, pop culture, and literature. Using data from OpenAlex, resulting works were analyzed to uncover what scholarship has been written about monsters and how it has changed over time, what is the geographic distribution of monster scholarship, and what topical communities exist in monster research?
Read the bibliometric analysis here
View the slides for Monster Fest conference here