S8EB: Monstrous Others with Rachel Dean-Ruzicka

We explore how Stranger Things signals a new monstrous moment, moving from unknowable creatures to human-made villains, and what that shift says about power, identity, and culture. Along the way, we ask how animals get coded as monsters and when their agency is reclaimed or removed in film and TV.

Date Recorded: 22 April 2025

Featured: 

• Tolerance Discourse and Young Adult Holocaust Literatureby Rachel Dean-Ruzicka 
• Paranormal Maturation: Uncanny Teenagers and Canny Killers by Rachel Dean-Ruzicka 
• Of Scrivens and Sparks: Girl Geniuses in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction by Rachel Dean-Ruzicka 
• Monster Culture (Seven Theses) by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
• The Monster Theory Reader by  Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
• The Angel of Indian Lake by  Stephen Graham Jones
• Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
• Stranger Things
• Cocaine Bear
• Mickey 17
• Okja
• Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No. 9
• Nature Trail to Hell
• Monsters, Heroes, and Others: Unpacking Power in Media and Politics through Race or Species

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Chapters

• 23:16 [Ad] Nature Disturbed
• 24:04 (Cont.) S8EB: Monstrous Others with Rachel Dean-Ruzicka

Transcript

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 0:50

This is another I will podcast. You know, almost all of those paranormal teenagers, which is of course what we also have in Stranger Things, they become sort of the, you know, judge jury and often executioner of the of the serial killers, right? So they they become murderers themselves. And in the books that are a series, you could argue that, of course, they become a ser serial killer of serial killers, right? Uh using their paranormal abilities.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:35

It's gonna just hitch on the back of uh season eight, where we focused on animals and media. Rachel, who is my guest today, was originally supposed to be part of the group of people that were talking about film and TV, but because of a whole host of different things that were going on, that wasn't possible. But I'd heard Rachel speak about Stranger Things when I was in the US, and I thought, oh, it's so interesting. She's picking up so many different uh tenets and threads that we talk about throughout the season, including matters related to race and gender, but also how we view animals in film and TV. And of course, it was tied to Stranger Things, which at the time when we had this discussion, season four had closed and we had a really good talk. And season five was still coming in the future. And as I record this introduction, uh season five is gonna air, uh, the second part of season five is gonna air in a couple of days. And with any luck, this is gonna be released to you once the whole of season five is open and out there. So that's all to say. If you haven't watched Stranger Things yet, uh up until the end of season four, then there are spoilers in this episode. So be mindful of that. And while we spend a great deal of time talking about Stranger Things, in particular Vecner and the way he's a monster and monster fied, uh we talk about the idea of monsters more generally as well. I will put a caveat in that I do think we could have spent more time focusing on animals. If you listen to the grad review, this was a critique I had of the season overall. Uh, but I in some ways it was it was interesting. We spoke about representation of animals often, but um, you know, but as uh the folks in the grad review said, maybe I'm being a bit too harsh. But anyway, I still think that this concept of monster is very generative and very helpful when it comes to thinking about animals and the ways in which they're represented in media. Uh, there's a lot to say about this kind of interconnection between fantasy and reality, between animals and monsters. And I just think it's a very uh interesting and cool line of inquiry that could be quite generative. Anyway, it is uh um so it is something that Rachel's been thinking about a fair bit, uh, or at least monsters a fair bit. And we have an excellent conversation today. That's just yeah, I think I'm even more excited by it now that I've seen the direction that season five of Stranger Things is going, because it raises a whole bunch of questions about Vecna. And something we didn't get into in this episode is this idea of like the hive mind, uh, which I find quite fascinating. Anyway, let me tell you a little bit about Rachel. But Rachel Dean Rizzica is a senior lecturer of writing and communication at Georgia Tech, where she has been since 2015. She holds an MA degree in literature from Colorado State University and a PhD in American culture studies from Bowling Green State University. Her research is broadly in popular culture studies, including publications on young adult holocaust literature, uh, the podcast My Favorite Murder, and various comics. And some of these different interests do come up in this episode today. But her current project is on the transmedia world of Netflix's hit show, Stranger Things. She loves podcasts, and her cat, Steven, Stephen, spending time with friends and reading way too many books. And you'll pick up on all of these threads while we speak and I think focus on stranger things and the ways in which monsters come up in film and TV. We also dip a little bit into the ways in which they're shown in podcasts as well as in books. Um yeah. Okay, I think I've said enough. It's interesting, it's really cool. Uh, thank you so much, Rachel, for joining me on the show. Thank you, listeners, for joining me throughout the course of the year. As you're listening to this, we will be uh tracking towards the end of 2025. So thank you so much for joining me on the show this year. Thank you especially to all of you who have left reviews. Um, it really makes a huge difference if you've left the review on Apple, Podcast, Podcast, or wherever it is you listen. Thank you, Then Okay, let's get to the show. So, thank you so much for joining me on the show today to talk a little bit about film and TV and monsters and stranger things, and we'll we'll see where we're going. But perhaps we can just start things off with learning a little bit about you and your work. Uh, how did you come to be interested in thinking about animals and media? Or like what on earth made you stop thinking about stranger things?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 6:05

Yeah, so it's interesting. Like, um my desire to kind of talk about stranger things was related to wanting to find something more pleasant to study uh than my previous research, um, because I previously worked on young adult holocaust literature. Uh so I was trying to find something that was uh yeah, just basically um lighter than that. And I so I was working on friendship, but I was like, I'd really like to do a project related to friendship. And of course, at the core of Stranger Things is the friendship between like these four boys, right? So that was where my interest started. Um, but it has shifted from there to being much more about, much more about like kind of identity more broadly. Um, and also like really as I think about the sort of transition of like how monsters are represented in it um from you know much less human uh and much more animal-like to much more human as the as the series goes on.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 7:16

Were you were you always part of animal studies, or is this kind of your first venture into thinking about animals and media?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 7:22

No, I wouldn't say that I've done a lot um specifically on uh on animal studies, um, but I am very interested in monsters, uh which I suppose is a kind of subset of it, right? I really like um cryptids, which are, you know, kind of I would define them as regional monsters. So things like Bigfoot or um the Mothman from West Virginia, or you know, all of these kind of creatures that uh are sort of folklore related, but also really tied to particular locales. I'm currently trying to put my foot down with some podcasters online about whether or not vampires and werewolves are cryptids, because I do not think that they are. Um they're a different thing uh because they don't have that kind of regionality. They're pretty universal in in their presentation. And so anyway, so yeah, I kind of have a fascination just in general with like monsters, like the function of monsters, what it is that they're kind of doing culturally. And so yeah, that's really what I've been thinking about pretty, pretty closely for the past, you know, the past year or so. And I'm gonna be teaching a class on kind of monsters and others in the fall that will be an extension of that.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 8:42

And what do monsters do culturally? So like what is the if you've got these kinds of if if most folklores have monsters and monsters are kind of pervasive in our um media and the ways in which we try to get through stories and ideas, what's the what's the function? Why, why, why are monsters there, I guess?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 9:02

They are, you know, representative of uh they can do so many different things, right? Like they're representative of uh sort of potentially breaking cultural norms, right? They can be representative of like othering in various different ways. Um they uh function to function to give us like kind of a, I don't know, like almost a contained place to sort of think about some of our fears, right? And there's a bunch of really interesting kind of monster studies out there, right? Like there's Jeffrey Jerome Cohn's like seven theses on monsters, and Jeffrey Weinstock also has a really interesting piece on monsters and monstrousness. And so, and taxonomy is a really big thing with monsters, as it is kind of in the animal world, right? Like defining and naming and sort of like coming up with uh logic of monsters seems to be a very, a very big deal. I mean, if we take this to the back to Stranger Things, right? Um, that's what the monster manual is all about, right? Like a taxonomy of monsters and like definitions of their capabilities, essentially, right?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 10:15

Is that kind of just a Western artifact, this desire to organize monsters or fantastical creatures? Uh, or is this something uh and sorry, forgive me, I know that you're not an anthropologist, but just is this in your reading, is this kind of organization of different creatures uh uh a feature of many cultures?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 10:34

That's a really good question. Um, I don't think I can speak to like I don't think I can necessarily speak to non-Western cultures. Um yeah, desire for categorization. It's something that's worth thinking about though. Uh because I think, yeah, I don't know. Um it's a good question. Um, but yeah, I I don't know how how sort of culturally specific it is to want to like have these clear definitions.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 11:07

Um I think we do get some pleasure from them though. Um whether they're because I was I was reading a little bit about Hindi film prior to this as well, and just the the how they're used, kind of the monsters are used to almost pivot against some like Hindi gods or Hindi beliefs and how they're mobilized in different films. And I mean, I don't know enough about uh Bollywood to unpack this, but I think it would be quite interesting to just think through how these different monsters feature. Um, but I wonder the reason I say pleasure, I think there is some sort of pleasure in categorization, um, where you see it even with birders or people going out, you you you want to kind of know the animal and somehow being able to um define or label or name gives you this like access to knowledge. There's some sort of pleasure in knowing that categorization. And I and I suspect the same is true when it comes to categorizing monsters. Like you talk to people that do dungeons and dragons or know the monster manual, they they get really into and excited about knowing the intricacies of these different uh creatures and the ways in which they interact with one another. It's a whole like ecology, right?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 12:17

And actually, you know, as I was thinking about it, right? Like if you're thinking about Japan, like um their sort of version of cryptids, I would say, are yokai, right? The little kind of regional demons. Um and they always seem to be, and I am not an expert on yokai at by any stretch, but I did go to a yokai museum when I was in Japan last summer, which was great. Uh it was in a little town called Oboke, if anyone ever is in the middle of nowhere, uh Shikoku, Japan. Um, but like I think so often the yokai really kind of function as like warnings, right? Like, don't um like there's this demon that lives at this particular point in the creek, right? Which could then be a warning to like, okay, just be careful, right? Like, don't drown, um, essentially, right? Like you need to, you need to watch yourself because a lot of them are, you know, they're threatening in various different ways, and also extremely silly looking often. But I think that that's uh that's also like yeah, a very, very specific regionality, I think you get um within within Yokai as as opposed to like, I mean, cryptids can be very uh very specific regionally as well. But then you also have things like Bigfoot, where it's just sort of like, yes, everywhere, not everywhere, but a lot of places in America will will claim Bigfoot as their sort of local monster.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 13:44

Something you mentioned in your your presentation, uh Georgia Tech was that that at least in popular media or Hollywood-based kind of film and TV, monsters are undergoing a change. I think you said you said we are in a different monstrous moment, which I thought was such a nice uh phrase. And you unpacked them, spoilers alert, I guess I'll say this in the introduction at some point because we're definitely going to be talking about Stranger Things. I think, I mean, I'd never thought about how monsters change. So they they might be regionally different, um, you know, and reflective of different cultures and practices, but they've also, even within the same culture, have changed dramatically over time. Uh, and and in Western culture, Hollywood film and TV, you're seeing this change in monsters. Could you maybe walk us through that change a little bit?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 14:37

Yeah, so what I was kind of thinking about um in the presentation that I gave at Georgia Tech, which was really again about the sort of transformation of monsters, uh, and then also kind of comparing uh the right now ultimate big bad of uh Stranger Things, um, which since the fifth season has not come out yet. That's why I say um, you know, the the current one, because we don't really know uh where it's gonna go. But I was kind of comparing it to um, you know, one of the things that Weinstock talks about in his essay that's in the monster theory reader is the way in which towards the end of the 20th century, right, monsters become very attractive and things that you would like to emulate, things that you would like to potentially be. And you can see that, of course, in I mean, his examples include things like uh um interview with a vampire, right? Or we could look at uh some of the vampires from Buffy, a vampire slayer, or um obviously the extreme sort of end of that is Twilight, right? Where uh the monsters are just like objects of desire, right? Uh more than they are anything else. Uh and Stranger Things is not doing that, right? It is not presenting to us an attract. I mean, it's not presenting to us a monster that we would that we would like to be. Um Vecna is very even in even as a human, he was very upsetting um in in his sort of presentation. And then as he transforms into this kind of scarred, like burned out creature, it's definitely something very different than than the you know desire to want to be one of these monsters. And it's some of that is its 80s, you know, nostalgia aspects, right? I mean, Becca definitely has it uh resonance in like Nightmare on Elm Street, right? Um, and Freddie Krueger in that kind of scarred like presentation. But I think it's important to think about like monsters not being things that we that we want to be and sort of how this is potentially a different monstrous moment, especially as we're seeing Vecna, you know, as a white man and sort of a middle class, like, you know, conventionally attractive, whatever white man transform into this like really horrific being. Unlike, of course, like our you know, white men that we have in Interview of the Vampire or in In Twilight, yeah, uh where like that horrific aspect just isn't isn't there, right? Like they maintain their sort of air of beauty, no matter what.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 17:30

Yeah, you you had up this great image of of um I was gonna say Tom Jones, but that's not the right Tom. Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise and Vecna uh juxtapose with one another and saying, you know, one you want to one you want to kiss, the other you don't. And there is there is a kind of sensuality and a sexuality to oftentimes, I think, especially vampires. Vampires seem to be very housed in sex and desire in in ways that other monsters, and again, I'm not someone who studies this, but just someone who likes to watch these things. True blood as well. Vampires were all sexy, even if they weren't always tasteful, they were sexy and they were dripping in sex in ways that other monsters, I think, perhaps don't. And Vecna here is just he's he's um he's gross. You you don't want to be near him. He's he's like the epitome of what you don't want to be or become, in effect, yeah.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 18:25

And his his method of like murder is likewise really gross, right? Again, if we think about like sort of the sexuality or the sexiness of vampires, there's always much to be made of the penetration aspect of like, you know, teeth into neck, essentially. Um, and that, and the that sort of form of consumption and attack, uh, as well as like kind of mesmerism, right? And all of these sorts of things that that again are like a lot oftentimes it's presented as pleasurable, right? The the vampire attack. Vecla, on the other hand, right, like will break all of your bones in like hideous fashion. There's nothing, you know, sort of sensual or attractive or anything about it. It is it is like shocking and gross as opposed to like any sort of, yeah, really. And and you know it's happening, right? And it's scary, all of these things that you don't necessarily have when you're thinking about sort of vampire uh attacks.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 19:32

Are you seeing a movement towards making humans more monstrous in these kinds of films, in horror films and in sci-fi films? Um, you know, like again, I think back to old school, you know, like Godzilla and where animals were animals became gigantic or scary in some way, and they were the monster, uh, the baddie in the film that drove the film. Whereas I don't I don't know if this is a correct interpretation, but it feels like there's a lot of films and TV genres that are kind of framing nature as fighting back. And instead of animals being the villains, it's humans in some shape or form, or human consumption, or human habits that have become the kind of villains or the monsters, the story plot drivers.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 20:23

Yeah. Um yes, I'm gonna think about that for just a second. Um in terms of like sort of the environment kind of pushing back. I think you know, maybe one of the clearest examples of that would be like Annihilation, you know, Jeff Vandermeer's book, and then the film, whatever you thought about the film, right? Like A lot of people didn't like it. I think you almost have to take them as two entirely separate documents because they in some ways have so, so little relationship to each other. And I think then it's easier to kind of appreciate both of them, uh, if you're not necessarily thinking of them totally in relation to each other, but that is an aside. But if you see something, I mean, something like that, right, which is very much about like environment pushing back, right? Um, but yeah, I mean, that's a really strong sort of um like weird text, right? And I use weird as like with the capital kind of W in terms of like sort of weird fiction, which is one of the things that I spoke about in that uh presentation as well, right? Like thinking about uh weird monsters, and that's how kind of we start with Stranger Things. We get the same kind of thing with the weird monsters of um, you know, area X and the way in which like yeah, nature has definitely become unpredictable to the point of like um monstrosity, which is not really I mean, it it works perfectly like an allegory for climate change as well, right? So yeah, I mean you get like you get this kind of unpredictability and weirdness, right? And I and that's really what you have in the first season of Stranger Things as well with the monsters, right? They are unpredictable and weird and you do not know what they want. It's they are very inhuman, right? Uh they are also like not something that you would want to be, because they are, you know, sort of dog-like creatures whose faces open essentially in this like sort of flowery way to have a bunch of teeth. So they have kind of a animal plant sort of hybrid nature because they do look very floral when they open. But we move from that kind of weirdness uh to something else in Stranger Things, right? So it's like threatening nature, nature of an again, a weird or indeterminate um aspect in the first couple seasons of Stranger Things, and then eventually we move to like, oh, okay, it's actually several layers of white guys, right? It's basically like uh white guys all the way down as um as the like ultimate ads of the series.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 23:57

Yeah, it's a really uh interesting observation. And and you think that that's reflective of this kind of moment at which the quote unquote straight white man has kind of become uh a focus, I think, of people talking about you know challenges in society and and a lot of uh blame kind of being pushed in that direction.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 24:20

Yeah. Um, I mean I I don't want to speak for creators, obviously, um but like I do think the I do think that the transition that happens in Stranger Things from these kind of weird monsters to like a focus on you know this one particularly troubled kid who then becomes like uh the kind of ultimate evil in the show. I think that was a really interesting choice. And initially I was kind of disappointed in it because I liked the indeterminacy. Um, but at the same time, one of the things that I think that it's doing that's kind of interesting and important is using the space of 80s nostalgia to explore honestly similar issues as we were dealing with in the 1980s, right? Like there's a lot of overlap in between like, you know, sort of Cold War politics and US-Russia relationships, right? Having an entertainer as uh president uh that we've been, you know, sort of suffering through here, like the kind of uh very different but um but also very like you know, discussed pandemics of like the AIDS epidemic and uh obviously COVID um and the blame that's being placed uh currently um by the administration. And then just kind of disagknowledgement of like, no, you know, we're not gonna, we're not gonna sort of deal with this. So we've got a lot of like kind of similarities, right? But I see Stranger Things doing things in a very reacting in a very different way than a lot of 80s pop culture did, right? So it's not doing the same kind of uh punishment for its characters that we see in a lot of, well, if we think about like kind of 80s slashers, right? Like and the thing that ultimately became a joke in a movie like Scream, that we have uh, you know, if you if you go and have casual sex, right, you'll be um, you're gonna die. Like there's the the list of rules, right? Yeah, so sort of like the punitive aspects of of 80s pop culture for anyone who stepped outside of the norm, or also just like the casual um homophobia, right, that was really kind of baked into so much of uh 80s pop culture. All of that gets shifted in Stranger Things, and we're not seeing the same kind of uh reactions towards characters who step outside of a very limited set of norms, right? And I think to go along with that, we have like the creation of uh the monsters as, you know, white men with varying kind of levels of power. Because of course, behind Vecna, there's, you know, um Dr. Brenner in the lab, right, which is what really has created all of all of this uh, you know, sort of split. Well, well, the program of like, you know, working with sort of paranormal kids, which are you could see as kind of monstrous in their own ways, right? He's really behind everything. So we do have this kind of like figure um behind even the like the figure of Vecna, the monstrous kind of monstrous Vecna, but um but both of them, right, start in this sort of same identity position as like middle-class white white guys.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 28:03

Historically, was it normal, I suppose, to have and I mean I'm trying to think about this myself with the films I watched growing up, who were the bad guys? You know, so I I know in general people of colour were underrepresented in films. Often, if you had a horror film or a thriller of sorts, um generally the first character who would die or be killed off would be a person of colour. It almost became a meme at some point where you you would know who would die because it would be the person of colour who would die first. That's changed, I think, quite dramatically in in recent years. Or I I would I mean it doesn't seem to be as predictable as it once was when I was growing up. But have you seen a change in kind of who the monsters in films are? So again, when I was growing up, I remember a lot of white villains, but they were kind of charged with things like being a Russian, for example, uh reflective of the Cold War dynamics that you were talking of. Um I think I'm just trying to I'm wondering whether historically you saw baddies being represented in a racialized way, or if it's just been white representation through and through as both good representations and bad representations in in film and TV.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 29:14

Well, for quite a while we had like the um generic kind of terrorist uh as the as the monster in various different films, and that the that terrorist tended to be you know sort of racially quoted as generically Middle Eastern, right? And I'm thinking of like the first Iron Man film here, or you know, kind of things that are happening in the in the 2000s.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 29:39

But yeah, I think like Russian and German was almost again like a go-to that the baddie would open their mouth and they would have a Russian or German accent. And you're right, or terrorist slant post-um post-9-11.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 29:52

Yeah. And I think like for a long time, and I've like joked about this in other presentations. I mean, joked, it's because it's sad, but like for a long time, our most reliable sort of monstrous other was uh the Nazi, right? Some sort of figure of the Nazi or like um amalgamation of thereof, right? Like if you look at like other sort of versions of um of Marvel, what are they? They're the red, whatever, red skull, red. I think it's red skull. It's something like that. Um anyway, but they were essentially, right? Like Nazis.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 30:31

Um, yes, they used to have the uniforms and everything. It was very clearly like SS insignia, like inspiring. I remember them.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 30:39

Yeah, absolutely. They're do remember their big portion of like Agents of Shield, that television show that was on for a while. Um, and you get a lot of um, you know, very much like even in that one, you even get like representations of like Nazi medical experimentation. Um so uh so yeah, I mean, I think for a long time it was like a reliable human monster was the Nazi. Somehow that seems not to have done a whole lot for not for getting people to resist fascism. Uh, I don't understand why we spent all of this time saying Nazis are bad. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, but but maybe they're not. I mean, there are some very fine people on both sides, right? To quote President Trump from um his first administration, uh talking about a neo-Nazi rally. Um so, well, and I mean our current Secretary of Defense has neo-Nazi tattoos. I mean, it's we're hoping he gets fired this week.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 31:43

Um Did you bring up an important point here about the politics of representation, right? In if and I mean I think this maybe speaks to the question of the the monstrous white man as well. Like, is there a danger in the kind of you know, the the representation of Nazis constantly as the monstrous other maybe also devalued just how serious we're talking about here in terms of a historical epoch, uh a movement? The Reich was just really terrible. And it became something almost of a meme in films that it lost a lot of its kind of significance of saying, Well, we're talking about something really serious here, and perhaps even backlash in that you started to have groups of people that didn't want to constantly be the villainous others. Um, I mean, in in a more local context, I know uh District 9, um, which was a great monstrous movie, right? Of showing a South African um in it in effect an immigration officer managing illegal aliens, but they had actually made them actual aliens, becoming an alien himself. And the villains in that film were shown as Nigerian. And it was illegal to show this film in Nigeria because Nigerians are just tired of being framed as the villainous others. Um, so yeah, it's just it's it's it's an interesting play there because there is it's a cultural moment, it's reflective of a cultural moment, but it does perhaps also run the risk of alienating and reinforcing the very types of um, yeah. I'm I'm mentioning there a whole bunch of problematic things here, but I hope you're understanding my point right now.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 33:24

Yeah, I mean, I think the the danger of creating like sort of a flat um monstrous other in the character of a like oh historical reality is that it doesn't acknowledge the kind of nuance of that history, right? Which does make it then easier to, I think, to simplify and to and and to kind of not take as seriously, right? And I do talk about this a little bit in my in my first book, which is um tolerance discourse in young adult holocaust literature. The danger, I think, is in like creating this sort of flat monstrous other that then doesn't acknowledge the like sort of nuance of how you got there, right? And the assumption that these people were just monsters means that you could kind of assume that that's never gonna happen again because the people around you aren't monsters, right? Everyone's everyone's human. And so I think it it does a disservice in like sort of not delving into like the nuance of like how Nazism, you know, came to came to be, right? And how why people joined, and you know, the many and very different logics for joining the party. Um I'm not saying uh this is also a big part of that chapter, is like sort of figuring out a space where you can have understanding but not forgiveness, right? And sort of being like, okay, I get that you made this choice, but it was still like it still puts you on the wrong side of history, that choice, right?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 35:03

No, of course. But it's such an important space. I think that to have a generous space towards the monstrous other is perhaps it's something a lot of us don't want to do. We don't want to hear the person we don't agree with, and not only don't agree with, but whose views and actions we find um abhorrent or completely objectionable. Um but I'm one, I'm not too sure that I think we can find ourselves in these objectionable positions, sometimes unwittingly. Uh there is a, there is, you know, what's happening to the the Uyghur people right now uh in China, and most of us are consuming, you know, there are there are tons of goods that are made in these areas and regions. And how do we respond? Uh, do are we bad people? Um, we're not necessarily the ones uh creating these camps and doing this to the people, but we are implicated in what's happening. Um, so I guess that the boundaries of the monstrous other or if we're all monstrous in some shape or form. And this is so tricky because I think again, it's not to like, like you say, not to to forgive, but perhaps to really take seriously an understanding of how someone can become monstrous.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 36:13

Right. Yeah, the way in which people are radicalized, right? Um and there's a lot, I mean, there's obviously tons of research that has been done on this, but one of the things that sticks with me is that like the language of like sort of extremist groups is that of inclusion and sort of friendship towards the people that that are also in their group, right? Um people don't join radical hate groups because they feel hated within them, right? They feel seen and like they belong. And then, you know, that is that's the draw, right? So so yeah, I mean it's it's kind of fascinating, right? The the way in which, again, sort of think about like, okay, you know, to to join this group, right, or whatever, you must be, you must be like an awful person. But if the group is saying, like, you know, you're a friend, you belong here, we appreciate your viewpoints, right? We listen to you, all of that kind of stuff, that's what's that's what's the draw, right? Is that feeling seen and appreciated by others.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 37:22

Yeah, and I think the same goes with like conspiracy theories and those types of things, right? Like there is a logic. Um, I think people come to their views, again, no matter how objectionable, through and and perhaps through I think too easily sometimes we say a lack of education. Um, I I don't know if that's necessarily the answer. Sometimes we say education is the answer, but I think it's there are logics behind how people come to believe what they believe. And I think understanding what is the next step in that belief or how you come, like how does someone come to believe that the world is flat? Like, and really believe it. Like to take like really to take them seriously that this is something they believe that there's a huge conspiracy and the world is lying to them. How do you reach that position? And I don't think it can be just an answer of a lack of education. I think there is there's there's more going on there, right?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 38:13

Right. Yeah. And that's yeah, that's so interesting too, right? And I haven't spent a lot of time sort of studying conspiracy theories, um, but but I do find that also kind of fascinating. And in some ways, it seems like uh in some ways for to me it feels like putting putting all of your distrust kind of in one basket and being like, okay, well, I know that this, like, they are lying to me about this, right? Um, and so then maybe you don't have to think about like all these other things. You're just like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna choose this one thing, I'm gonna stand on this hill, whether it's anti-vaxxing or flat earth or you know, whatever. Um, and then all of a sudden, and I like I said, I don't know, this is just me speculating, but like you don't uh yeah, you you get to not think about all these different other like sort of nuanced things, and you just get to say, well, here's my mind in the sound, right?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 39:13

Um and I think in some ways this is what you were saying, uh, you know, to bring it back to Stranger Things um with Vikna was showing his backstory was perhaps creating that kind of generous space of understanding how he became monstrous, um de-flattening, de-flattening the monster, uh, I suppose. Um, another question I had, and and I'm liking this thread that we're following of monstrous others, because I think animals are often viewed as monstrous others as well. Have you found in the kind of well, I've got two questions as we were talking about. One, is a monster and a villain the same thing? I'm inclined to say no. And then two, have you found that the more monstrous someone becomes or is represented in film and TV, the more animal-like they become?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 40:04

Hmm, that's a good question. Um I don't think monsters and villains have to have to be the same. I mean, I think, you know, we've seen a variety of different presentations um in cartoons that highlight that, right? Of course, Monsters Inc. or Shrek or like any number of other things, right? That does kind of emphasize like just because these people, you know, look different or are in fact monsters in some way does not mean that they are the the bad guys of the series, right? I too though, I mean, uh the first thing that I thought of when you kind of referenced um like Monsters and Others being more animal-like in film and TV, I went back to Buffy, right? And how the vampires their face facial change when they, you know, sort of vamp out or whatever it is that you want to say, um, is much more, you know, kind of animal. Um so I think like in some cases, yes, right. Um I think it really depends on what type of yeah, what type of monster we're dealing with, because it is such a broad term, which is why it's so useful in so many ways, and also why the taxonomies of it I think people have fun with, right? Because it is like very, very broad. Um but I do think, yeah, often The sign that someone is enacting those monstrous desires, right, is more of an animal representation.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 41:38

And animals as monsters in your kind of experience with thinking through monsters, how much so I understand that we've got those kind of weird monsters and we've got um you know humans represented as monstrous, uh, but animals as as monsters in in film. I mean, obviously we've we think here of Jaws, Jaws comes to mind immediately, uh, and a lot of damage for kind of sharks and shark uh conservation, um, piranhas and piranha. Uh and they, I think in some ways you've got the same flattening happening, but differently to how we were talking about the like Nazi monster. You've uh would you agree?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 42:20

Yes, definitely. And I think, yeah, Jaws is obviously the first thing that comes to mind. I know there's also some grizzly movies, but there was cocaine bear from maybe like two years ago. Um Yeah, weird.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 42:33

Just like I just like why? Why? Why? And someone put money towards this idea as well. This for me is always the thing. I'm like, of all the films and all the things, you've got the human saints upon you, like, well, if that got budgeted, then anything's game, right?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 42:46

I mean, cocaine bear, I mean, it is like a real story, right? Of I mean, not the movie version, right? But a guy really did throw a brick of cocaine out of a flight because he was worried that that the police were going to catch him. A bear really did find it and eat it and die, not become addicted to cocaine, but as you would expect, just died instead. Later, though, that bear they discovered the bear with the cocaine. The bear gets taxidermied, it goes all of these different places, right? So it um for a while it's in uh in Georgia where I live. For a while, it's in like a nature center in Georgia, and then that nature center flooded. So they put everything in storage, and then that storage shed got robbed, and so cocaine bear eventually makes its way to Vegas. Cocaine Bear is now back in Kentucky, and I have indeed visited, visited him in his new home in a store called Kentucky for Kentucky. So the Cocaine Bear saga is kind of fascinating.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 43:52

But you just made that much more okay. I must be honest, I've only watched the preview to Cocaine Bear, and I was like, why? What on earth? What like good in the world is this movie going to do? Um, but perhaps it sparks this kind of interest where you can learn about uh kind of a uh history of a bear, but why don't make a movie about that? And this the I mean it's such a more interesting story, I think, right? The reality of what happened to the bear, you know, before death, uh during death and after death, like then you're really challenging yourself to try and tell a complex story instead of just making the bear monstrous, right?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 44:28

Yeah. No, it's a it's it's a much more interesting story, I think, than uh just you know, bear gets addicted to cocaine and goes crazy. I've and I'm like, I'm in the middle of reading um uh Stephen Graham Jones like his Indian Lake trilogy, which is all kind of a love letter essentially to slasher films. Um but right now where I'm at in one of the books, there's a bear attack happening that has been kind of aided by a human. The human is sort of using the bears as a weapon, which is interesting. And so in that case, right, like the the bears are causing a lot of violence, right? And it's slasher-based, so it is very bloody. But um the whole time, like the acknowledgement is like, oh, but like these bears have been drawn here by a human, right? This is they're used as a weapon, not that it's not like sort of their own bear compulsion to attack humans, which I think is a is a smart choice on um Stephen Graham Jones' part, right?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 45:36

To um and I think it's a reflective of a broader shift. Uh, you know, again, those those films, Jaws, piranha, they were of a particular time and genre, and this was kind of animals gone wild type thing. Like, why are they doing this with just straight up monster? You know, there would be a very subtle, no, not subtle, there would be a very simple um backstory, but really nothing fleshed out or gave any sort of justification. Whereas I think more and more now, when you're finding animals committing violence in films, behind it, they're very rarely blamed for their violence. And this raises some interesting questions about the kind of aid, it's it's it's almost in some ways opposite to what I was saying or asking earlier about like nature fighting back. Um, because on the nature fighting back and animals kind of being the agents of nature fighting back is seeing animals as agents, you know, pushing back against uh human wrongdoing. But here, if it's always humans behind, it's it's it's a double-edged sword, because in some respects the animals are losing their agency in the film as well. Um and I can't think of any examples, but I uh I feel like what you're saying rings true, where animals being violent is just it's it's as a repercussion of human behavior. So humans remain the the monstrous, the monstrous others in the background, right?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 46:56

Yeah, and I was thinking in terms of like places where you have sort of animals that maintain their agency. Like I think I just saw Mickey 17 uh not too long ago.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 47:07

Um, and I think the the animals in that uh definitely The same director from Okta, which you can see, you can see he's he's obviously someone who thinks about. I mean, these are both not animals through and through, they're hybrids of sorts. But he's clearly someone who tries to think that sentience isn't only housed in sentience and agency isn't only housed in humans, right?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 47:33

Yeah, absolutely. I mean he's very smart about that. So um, so I think those movies are really, really interesting. Like both Okja and um Mickey 17 are both really interesting to think about, like, you know, sort of representation um and like collective and um and agency.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 47:55

Yeah. All right. Um I think we could talk about so much. I've got so many other things written down here on my notes. I've got like Stranger Things, I've got serial killer saturation, which I know you were writing about Nancy Drew and kind of the combination of teenagers taking down serial killers, which is which is also kind of, I think, a genre, this obsession with teenagers and high schoolers taking on the world is uh it's an yeah. Um like why? Why do we always choose that? Is it just because we assume adults are too busy to adults are too busy to deal with the monsters?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 48:30

Yeah, the yes, the subgenre of uh paranormal teenagers who defeat serial killers was not something that I expected I would find um when I went to go look for kind of subgenres in YA that I would like to write about, but I found it and I was like, well, that's really interesting. Um so uh so yeah, I mean, and and it that also is interesting in that, you know, almost all of those paranormal teenagers, which is of course what we also have in Stranger Things, they become sort of the the you know, judge jury and often executioner of the of the serial killers, right? So they they become murderers themselves. And in the books that are a series, you could argue that of course they become a ser serial killer of serial killers, right? Uh using their paranormal abilities. So it's an interesting kind of like like monstrous uh they use those kind of paranormal powers to defeat other monsters, right? Who are definitely, you know, killing people. Some of those serial killers are paranormal, some of them are not.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 49:39

Um, you know, kind of very through and through this kind of good versus bad, um, the tortured hero, because the tortured hero has to use violence, which they're objectionably opposed to, but must do it. Um so, or the anti-hero, right? Where you've got like a Wolverine type figure who's I mean, he's very animal in so many, so many ways, but he's uh he's yeah, he's an anti-hero. He doesn't want to be a hero, he's begrudgingly a hero, and we all love the begrudging, the the hero who doesn't want to be it but takes it on and uses violence when it must be. And it what is the what is the I guess final question before we we kind of go to your your quote, but what is the draw of horror and monsters? We started out thinking about culture and like how different cultures and I asked you, you know, what is the function there? But why are we so attracted to it? Why do we, why do we, even if we're scared of horror films and we don't like monsters and we don't enjoy the slashing and the gore, we many of us are drawn to watching the chaos.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 50:43

Like, what is that about? I know, and it's so interesting. Like, I because I actually don't watch a lot of horror films. I'm recently sort of engaging with that genre more. I read a lot of horror. Um but uh I I have I just have a hard time like watching it. I don't have a hard time kind of conceptualizing it a lot of the time. So I've listened to a ton of podcasts on horror films, basically. So I do find it kind of yeah, kind of fascinating that uh, well, a just like my own. My husband's been joking about getting me a patch that says like I only consume horror in podcast form or something. Because I've really listened to a very, very lot of horror movie podcasts many more than I've seen horror films.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 51:30

Um Are these like people narrating a horror? Like you're hearing people like is it like a an audio play? Um No no, it's like a it's a conversation about particular movies. So you've listened to the movie you've listened to the people talk about the movies but not watch the movies themselves. Okay. Yes.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 51:47

Although it's it's been really interesting because it's kind of helped me to find like what I where my kind of lines are and what I do and don't don't like about horror and like what I won't watch versus what like I'm willing to engage with. So um so it's made me much more nuanced about my like sort of you know perspective. Um Do you want to give a shout out to any of those horror film podcasts? Um one of them is uh random number generator random number generator horror podcast number nine. Wow. Um which is an extremely long name. Um I always stumble over it. It's um produced by the Welcome to Night Vale guys. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but um but it's two of them and it's really great. And the other one I have been listening to lately is Nature Trail to Hell. Uh yeah, they're both really enjoyable. So if you if you are horror squeamish like me, but would like to hear some people talk about horror films, especially two, it's they're both set up as kind of like one person is a huge fan and the other one is more squeamish about it. Um, so it's kind of a good good perspective for someone who is um who is squeamish.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 52:54

It's interesting you say that, because I do actually like I mean, I say we're drawn to horror, and I think we are generally as a collective drawn to horror, but there are so many different types of horror. Like when it's just gore and just blood, I'm I check out. I'm just like, this is not it's like for me, and maybe I'm more close to thriller, you know, the the kind of thriller horror edge where it's the suspense of the story and the potential, the potential of fear, right? Like that always sitting, which I hate it. Like I'm terrified. Same thing with roller coasters. I don't want to do it, but somehow there I am, sitting on the roller coaster, strapping it in, swearing. Um so yeah, I think there's this I guess that's what I was asking about, this like ambivalence. I think many of us have this uneasy consumption of horror, but we still consume it.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 53:43

Yeah. And I think like I mean, there's there's so many different sort of like explorations and explanations for this. Um, and I'm really looking forward to, I'm teaching a monsters and others class in the fall. Um and one of the one of the things that I'm looking forward to in that, because so often we, especially historically, right, um created kind of versions of monsters that aligned with characteristic traits of um like racial others or um or women or you know, people who had less power, essentially, right, in order to, you know, kind of maintain existent power structures. So like that kind of historical like aspect, I think it's really interesting to see uh non-white authors, right, uh pushing back against that, right? And so that's kind of what we're exploring in my class in the fall is, you know, how uh minority communities use the figure of the monster that has traditionally been kind of more aligned with them, um, instead to like push back against uh various power structures. And I don't have perfect examples yet because I'm still putting the class together, but um, but I'm really kind of excited uh about that. Um, but I think like if we think about, you know, sort of monsters get to be a site of, you know, kind of like if we go back to the vampires, right? Sexual sexual explanation uh exploration, well, explanation, exploration, or exploration of like desire ways that you couldn't directly kind of write about or present in Victorian times if we're thinking about, you know, sort of initial Dracula. Or you can think about the kind of like the way that the werewolf, you know, sort of allows people to kind of explore their animal side, right? Because werewolves or rare creatures in general are very obviously our most sort of human animal um monster.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 55:44

But they're often framed as uncontrolled, which I think is also like the human is in control, but the animal side is out of control. And yeah, definitely. And and that kind of animal representation, I think, in some ways is also quite uh, you know, unfair, I guess. Like this is leads to this idea of a wolf being completely dangerous and uncontrollable and vicious and violent, and it doesn't matter what you do, there is no controlling a wolf. And I mean, I don't want to draw a simple I think fantasy and monsters play the same as gaming, etc., play a role that there isn't a neat line to say, oh, because you've consumed that, you're gonna believe that. But um, it is just such a stable idea. Whereas if you look at wolf societies, they're really very structured and a lot of control and order. Um and yeah, there's just this idea of animals being uncontrolled just comes up constantly as a trope in in film, I think.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 56:39

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's interesting because I would say that you find that much more like in terms of kind of werewolf films. Whereas if you look to if you look to the romance uh genre, um, right, like shifter romances are not necessarily presenting uh like the animal side of the characters in that same, like universally sort of negative or uncontrolled light.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 57:05

All right, super in super interesting. Um I think I could probably talk to you about monsters and movies and film for a long, long time, but why don't we uh why don't we hear your quotes?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 57:14

Do you have a radio? I do. So this is um so uh this is from a forthcoming article on Stranger Things. Um it'll be out in the Journal of Hawaiian and the Unicorn in the fall. So uh Stranger Things uses transmedia storytelling to highlight the transformational and intersectional potential of queerness as it explores how toxic masculinity damages adults and children alike. The term toxic masculinity comes from psychological studies that concluded it's a constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, homophobia, and wanton violence. Uh it also includes a strong measure of the male proclivities that lead to resisting help. Um, and that's a quote from uh Driscoll and Greeley. Um, so every season has its toxic masculinity that functions as a threat to the other characters. One example is how this resistance to asking for help nearly kills Sheriff Hopper in season two as he tries to explore the dangerous tunnels under Hawkins cornfields on his own. Sometimes the threat comes from the patriarchal institutions like the military, which funds Dr. Brenner's experiments. Sometimes the threat is abusive fathers or patronizing authority figures. Generally, however, toxic masculinity is also tied to the characters who are straight, white, and middle class creating monsters out of Audrey Lord's mythical norm of American culture. So I thought I would, I thought I would read that one because it encapsulates, you know, a lot of what I'm kind of trying to do in this project, but also because I think questions about like sort of like toxic masculinity and dominance really tie into like how uh we see you know human-animal relationships. Um so I think we can, you know, kind of extend from like the things that I'm talking about here, but to the ways in which like kind of masculine domination of the animal world is very common and also obviously very problematic uh representationally. What would be masculine domination? Oh, I'm just sort of thinking of like, um, so I think just the idea that like man, and I use man specifically here, is going to control the animal world in some way, right? Uh or that they are the, you know, sort of perpetuators of violence against um, you know, the kind of other creatures, right? Like um Bambi or whatever, for example, or Bambi's mother, I suppose, um, more accurately. Uh so I think that that notion that like, you know, sort of humans are the top of the top of the food chain, um, and thus like uh we can sort of I guess what's the word that I want, um that we can really kind of I guess just you know sort of take advantage of anyone who's not kind of human, right? We can take advantage of humans too.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:00:24

Um, but then we're talking here about like human violence or human proclivities towards towards violence. And I suppose I mean when you talk there about toxic masculinity, there are some very specific ways in which men are affiliated and associated with violence, right? And organized violence. They're also some of the biggest victims of violence. Um again, organized violence, thinking about conflict and war. But there is I mean, yeah, it's just it's it's interesting to think through what is like is there a feminine form of violence? Do you know what I mean? Like, and we're not expecting you to answer, answer this, but like what is masculine violence versus feminine violence? Um, and and how would those take different I guess forms in in films such as the ones we're talking about here?

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 1:01:13

Yeah, that's a good question. And that's one that I haven't I haven't thought kind of in detail about um like what a particularly feminine coded violence would look like, um, or does look like I'm sure you know it absolutely exists. I mean, I think we could sort of think about like the way in which, you know, bad mothers are like particularly villainized.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:01:46

Um and that, like. But then is female violence just viewed as a form of like, let's say, neglect or and genuinely, I'm just trying to think through here because sometimes I think we do do this collapse of supposedly masculine violence with human violence, but there's got to be something kind of distinctive, perhaps, about, you know, like if a female character employs violence in the film, she could be employing a masculine form of violence, or is this kind of categorization unnecessary? This this what I'm trying to do, passing them apart. Um, like, is there something to be said about like brute force and brute violence and that somehow being more masculine in tone, then perhaps um, you know, and I don't want to pull on stereotypes here, but that kind of stereotype of, let's say, a woman um poisoning someone, it's it's violence, it's a violent act, but it's a different form of violence. But then perhaps in using that example and just reinforcing the same kinds of separation of man and woman uh in these tropes, uh, and I mean it gets really complicated. But I think when we're talking about something like toxic masculinity and masculine violence, it's perhaps helpful to just what is that violence? What is it that makes it masculine here? Or or um yeah, or is there a toxic feminine violence? And I'm not too sure there is. I don't know.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 1:03:06

I think, yeah, and I was going back to sort of thinking about Stranger Things and 11, right? Or Jane, like our main heroine in the in the series, and how she does perpetuate violence against others, right? Both human and and not human. Her violence though really tends to be um for the most part but um deployed uh in when she's trying to protect others. So it tends not to be because in many ways, like she and Vector are kind of similar in their powers, right? They have this kind of telekinetic, you know, ability and he uses his to kill, whereas she tends to use hers to protect, which may involve, you know, harming others for sure, whether it's trying to protect herself when she's very young or protect like her friends. So that is, I think, what you know, what the line that they use in the show to kind of separate out like Vecna from from Eleven. Um and they really push this, I push this notion in season four of like, you know, she's got some repressed memories and like it sort of seems as though she killed all the other children in the lab when, you know, she didn't, it was Vecna. They don't do that reveal until the very end of the season, right? So it's kind of leaving you in question. And you know, she does attack someone for bullying her, but not like it was on she was under emotional threat, not under, you know, sort of threat of physical violence. So like season four kind of raises questions about like, oh, is 11 gonna be the bad guy? And then and then resolves like no, okay, she's not. Uh I don't know what they'll do with season five. I hope I hope that they don't turn her or Will into into bad guys. But but I think yeah, it's sort of like the the site of the site of that violence, right, is the um and the like who who it's being perpetuated on. And again, I'll just go back to Stranger Things, right? And sort of think about like, okay, like the sort of toxic masculinity here, right, is that the that like compassion is bad, right? This is toxic masculinity, not me saying compassion is bad, right? And that's a huge conversation right now um in America, the idea that uh, you know, um, you know, Elon Musk's uh definite stance is that like, you know, compassion is the enemy. Um and so I think we see that like in the way that more powerful characters will abuse less powerful characters, right? And I think that is like sort of a that is kind of a toxic masculine form of violence, right? Use of power to abuse others. Um and, you know, sort of lack of consideration for anyone other than yourself.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:06:17

Yeah, it's it's definitely um interesting. I mean, violence is such a and like all of these concepts we talk about, like monsters, et cetera, it is such a huge concept, but it is I mean, it is interesting to kind of just unpack and think through the different, it's not singular, right? And to unpack and think through the the ways in which it manifests, because I think monsters and violence do tend to go hand in hand. Even if monsters aren't always villainous, there's often a lot of violence around monsters. Um and and sometimes I think how we kind of code or understand that violence in film or popular culture has to do less with the act of violence itself. So I think you could have Vecna and Eleven doing exactly the same act, killing the same whatever creature is opposite them. But I think their justification somehow for the killing ends up shaping whether or what kind of violence it is, or their the extent of their regret after the violent act has happened. But there could also be, I think, and I mean the extent to which we then collapse up with different characters or things becomes tricky. But anyway, it's really interesting. And I feel like we're starting a whole new episode now, and then I just want to kind of get into it because my my brain is trying to unfurl this because it really is fascinating to think through. But I think let's uh let's wrap up. We'll leave it there on a cliffhanger, the same way season four is after sort of a cliffhanger. And um hopefully we will revisit some of these ideas in the future. Before you go, can you just tell us um you've you've hinted at some of what you're working on now. Um perhaps you can just tell us uh a bit more explicitly what you're working on now, and if people want to get in touch with you about some of your work, how they can do so.

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka : 1:07:59

Yeah, absolutely. So um so as I said, uh that uh quote that I read is from a forthcoming article in the journal The Lion and the Unicorn, which is a children's slit journal. And it'll be a special issue on um queer media for uh children and young adults. So that should be out in the fall, um, which I'm very much looking forward to. And that's really me sort of building into a larger book project on you know the transmedia world of stranger things. So not just the show, but also the comics and the podcast and the novels. And in about a week, I'm gonna be going to New York to see the Broadway play, which I am very excited about, which is Vecna's backstory. So I'm sure I will have a lot more to say about Monstrous Vecna after that. So yeah, that's the that's the kind of bigger project right now. But yeah, uh, you can find my work though mostly in kind of like children's and young adult journals and journals and edited collections. I do have an article also about my favorite murder in the podcast um coming out this summer in uh let's see, South Central Journal, South Central MLA journal, S-C-M-L-A. Um, but yeah, you can um find me on Blue Sky, actually. My tag on there is Dr. Rachel DR. And uh you can also um find me through Georgia Tech. So if you would you know like to look me up and and send me an email. Yeah, it's Rachel Dean Ruzika, and I am at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:09:35

Wonderful. Thanks. I'll make sure that I put uh links to those in the show notes and uh as and when the uh articles come out, just let me know and I'll update those for people to get them. Uh thank you, Rachel, so much for uh dealing with my absurd questions today and uh for helping me think through what monstrous others are. Um a really interesting topic and idea. And I know we didn't really speak about animals that much, but I do think that there is usefulness in kind of thinking through monstrous others and animals. Uh, definitely. Yeah. I look forward to doing some of that work myself in future. So thank you, thank you so much uh for being on the show. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Thank you to Rachel for being an amazing guest and for helping me to think a little bit more about the interconnection between animals and monsters, as well as other markers of identity. It was really interesting. As always, thank you to Animals of Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics Apple for sponsoring this podcast, and as well as to the Pollination Project, the School of Modern Language, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, as well as the School of Literature, Media and Communication at Georgia Tech University for co-sponsoring this season. They uh sponsored the project that was operated by Natalie Tobias and Helen that was looking at the interconnections of animals, race, and media. A really awesome, uh big and important project. And I'm so thankful to them for including me in it and viewing ways in which podcasts can be part of scholarly knowledge dissemination. So thank you so much. It's been a delight working with you over the course of this year. The babe music was composed by Gordon Clark and the logo designed by Jeremy John. This episode was produced, hosted, and edited by myself.

Siobhan O'Sullivan: 1:11:20

This is The Animal Tib with me, Claudia Hopenfelder.com. That's I R O A R P O D.com.