Gods And Monsters 2026 Program

Comal Foyer

Flowers Hall 230

Opening Remarks, Dean Brennan, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts

Keynote Speaker, Dr. DeAnna Daniels “Cosmic Folkways: Theorizing the Black Atlantic Monstrous”

DeAnna Monique Daniels is an Assistant Professor of Africana and Religious Studies & Classics at the University of Arizona, with a Ph.D. in Religion from Rice University, granted in 2023. DeAnna's scholarly interest focuses on Black religion, the intersections of gender, sexuality, and disability, Black speculative fiction and horror, popular and visual culture, and art and aesthetics. She is currently working on her first manuscript, Thinking through the Slash: Horror’s Entanglement in Black Religious Thought and Culture.

Flowers Hall Foyer

Monsters and Gender Anxieties

Comal 116

• Moderator: Jacques Parker
• Terra Wallin, “From Witch to Wife: Feminist Monstrosity and Spiritual Warfare in Christian Digital Spaces”
• Norma E. Cantú, “The Tale of La Llorona—Change and Continuity”
• J Selke, “Revisiting the Phenomenologically Actual: On Trans Demons and Contemporary Moral Panic”

Monsters in Cinema and Anime

Flowers Hall 230

• Moderator: Joseph Laycock
• Niraj Raju, “The Urban-Monstrous: Blanchotian Phenomenology and the Ontological City”
• Bryan Brown, “Revelation Without Visualization: Cinematic Monsters in the Inner Psyche v. Outer Manifestation”

Extraterrestrial Encounters

Comal 103

• Moderator: Bryan Brown
• Molly Johnson, “Beyond the Insect as Abject? Extraordinary Encounters with Mantis Beings”
• Lee Weiss, “Limits of the Ordinary: Cattle Mutilation and Religious Experience”
• Caleb Densman, “Whales in Space: The synthesis of Aquatic and Cosmic iconography in 20th and 21st century Genre Fiction”

Fantastic Creatures of China and Tibet

Comal 116

• Moderator Lauren Mayes
• Guo Wo, “Animals as Gods and Monsters in Ancient Chinese Hagiography and Religious Fiction”
• Learned Foote, “Tibetan Demonesses & Daemonic Grounds”
• Eric Mortensen, “The Wonders of Reality versus Scholarly Apologetics: Tibetan Lake Bull Stories and Monstrous Assumptions.”

Examining Monstrous Personages, East and West

Comal 116

• Moderator: Nick Brotherton
• Amanda Brown, “The Fierce Buddhist Deity Yamāntaka: Eradicating and Controlling the Monstrous”
• Eric M. Zsebenyi, “Drinking the Blood of Ego: The Goddess Vetālī, A Wrathful Dharma Protector”
• Edmund P. Cueva, “From Human to Monster: Transformation and Cultural Judgment in Graeco-Roman Antiquity”
• Lauren Mayes, “A Matrix of Worthlessness: A Philological Approach to Demonic Identity”

Roundtable Discussion - Pelts or Portals: Cryptid Identity in the 21st Century

Comal 103

• Josh Paddison (moderator)
• Blake Smith
• Jeb Card
• Justin Mullis

“The Monsters We Inherit: Louisiana Folklore through a Historical Lens”

Flowers Hall 230

Kyle Crosby is the creator and host of Louisiana Dread, a widely followed historical-folklore project that blends rigorous research with accessible storytelling for an audience of more than 200,000. His work has been featured at universities, museums, and cultural institutions across the Gulf South, where he examines the intersections of history, mythology, and regional identity. 

Comal 116

His House (2020) 

Directed by Remi Weekes, this is a folk horror film about South Sudanese refugees.

Christians Making Monsters, Past and Present

Comal 116

• Moderator: Rachel Schwaller
• Nick Brotherton, “Christianity Has Created This Monster; What Will It Do Next?”
• Jason Roberts, “Of Gods and Monsters… and Prophets”
• Jacob Doss, “Monks and their Monsters: Monsterization as a Function of Reform Polemic in the Twelfth Century”

Monsters and Popular Culture

Comal 103

• Moderator: Terra Wallin
• Jacques Parker, “The Religiously Insane in Zombie Video Games: Differing Definitions of Human”
• Josh Paddison, “Monstrous Religions in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Political Cartoons”

Monsterizing the Marginalized

Comal 116

• Moderator: DeAnna Daniels
• Christa Mullis and Justin Mullis, “’Never, I know, but half your child!’: Morality, Myth, and the Monsterization of Autism and Autistic People”
• Rachel Schwaller, “The Monstrosity of Unsettlement: A Case Study of Houseless Encampment in Lawrence, KS  1870 to 2020.”

Thai Ghost Stories

Comal 103

• Moderator: Natasha Mikles
• Richard Dixon Riddle, “Khemjira Must Survive: Queer Longing and Thai Spirituality at the Intersection of Thai Rhetoric”
• Graeme Wend-Walker, “The Monster We Might Be: Thai Horror’s Quest for Selfhood”

Cryptids and the People Who Love Them

Comal 116

• Moderator: Justin Mullis
• Daniel Alan Jones, “Monsters, Cryptids, and Culture: A Cryptozoology Ethnography”
• Blake Smith, “Scriptids: An Ouroboric Ecosystem of Fact, Fiction, and Folklore”
• Jeb Card, “Spectral Squatchin’: A Collision of Communities”
• Sydney Davidson, “From Frog to Man to Wizard: Local and Extralocal Perceptions of the Loveland Frogman”

The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment

201 San Marcos Springs Dr

UpRoot Event Space 
(Above the Root Cellar Café)

215 N LBJ Dr