Monster Writing – vulnerability, writing and bodies of text

Abstract

The concept of Monster Writing explores the relationship between writer and text in moments of writing difficulties -- not least those moments when the text seems to have a mind of its own and work against the intentions of its ‘creator’. Monster Writing has been developed as a workshop series by Katrine Meldgaard Kjær (ITU) and I, and in this talk I introduce the structure of the workshop format as well as the interconnections between writing, vulnerability and monsters. I approach the monster not as a figure of ‘evil’ but as a figure of otherness and difference, as well as a figure of more-than-human agency. The monstrous body, like the body of text, is created from bits and pieces, such as other people’s thoughts and ideas as well as the experiences of the author, and in this hybrid form the monstrous text-body may help us rethink and reimagine the collaborative aspects of all writing and therefore the inherent vulnerability of the writing process. By approaching the text as a monster, I also explore what it might mean to take responsibility for one’s creation – even (or especially) in moments when it fills its creator with insecurity, doubt or shame.

Bio:

Line Henriksen is a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Malmö and Media Studies at the IT University of Copenhagen. She holds a PhD in Gender Studies from Linköping University and an MA in Modern Culture and Cultural Communication from the University of Copenhagen. She is the author of the monograph In the Company of Ghosts – Hauntology, Ethics, Digital Monsters (2016), and her research interests include monster theory, hauntology and creative writing as method and ethics.