{"id":4332,"date":"2026-09-07T09:34:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/?p=4332"},"modified":"2026-09-07T09:34:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:34:42","slug":"the-playful-monster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/2026\/09\/07\/the-playful-monster\/","title":{"rendered":"The Playful Monster (Conference, 24-25 September 2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Monsters are often figured as objects of fear, disgust, and threat. Yet monsters can also be playful, pleasurable, cute, and comforting. Join us and explore how the monstrous becomes playful across games, media, and everyday culture, and what happens where horror, games, toys, and
\nplay meet!<\/p>\n

Thursday 24 and Friday 25 September 2026<\/span>
\n<\/span> British Summer Time (BST, UTC+1)<\/span><\/p>\n

Winchester School of Art, Harvard Lecture Theatre (63A \/ East Building, Level 3) and MS Teams. Full programme below.<\/p>\n

Thursday 24 September \u2014 Harvard Lecture Theatre (WSA 63A \/ East Building, Level 3) and Online<\/a><\/b><\/h1>\n

09:30\u201310:00\u00a0 Welcome and opening<\/b><\/h2>\n

10:00\u201311:00\u00a0 Keynote Address<\/b><\/h2>\n

Ewan Kirkland<\/b><\/p>\n

Monstrosity and Modernity: Contained, Categorised and Captured Monsters in Video Games<\/span><\/p>\n

10:00\u201310:40 Presentation\u00a0 |\u00a0 10:40\u201311:00 Audience Q&A<\/span><\/p>\n

11:00\u201311:30\u00a0 Tea break<\/b><\/p>\n

11:30\u201312:45\u00a0 Horror Icons, Nostalgia and Monstrous Attachment<\/b><\/h2>\n

11:30\u201311:45\u00a0 David Edwards<\/b> \u2014 How Mother’s Boy Jason Reinvented Himself to Be the Horror Genre’s Cosy Companion<\/span><\/p>\n

11:45\u201312:00\u00a0 Gabi Garcia<\/b> \u2014 How You Never Outgrow Vampires: Childhood Media, Nostalgia, and the Affective Afterlife of the Vampiric Figure<\/span><\/p>\n

12:00\u201312:15\u00a0 Jordi Mart\u00edn Pons<\/b> \u2014 Why We Keep Monsters Close: Bes, Grogu, and the Affective Life of Grotesque Bodies<\/span><\/p>\n

12:15\u201312:45\u00a0 <\/b>Panel discussion and audience Q&A<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

13:00\u201314:00\u00a0 Lunch<\/span><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

14:00\u201315:15\u00a0 Monstrous Play, Performance and Desire<\/b><\/h2>\n

14:00\u201314:15\u00a0 Ruikang Wu<\/b> \u2014 Ludic Zombie: The Playful Monster<\/span><\/p>\n

14:15\u201314:30\u00a0 Anna Mangnus<\/b> \u2014 Collaborative Fear: Horror, Performance, and the Pleasures of Terror in Tabletop Role-Playing Games<\/span><\/p>\n

14:30\u201314:45\u00a0 Klemens Franz<\/b> \u2014 Beyond Monster Combat: Ludic Structures of Monstrosity in Analogue Games<\/span><\/p>\n

14:45\u201315:15\u00a0 <\/b>Panel discussion and audience Q&A<\/span><\/p>\n

15:30\u201316:00\u00a0 Tea break<\/b><\/p>\n

16:00\u201316:50\u00a0 Locating Monsters: Code and Liminal Space<\/b><\/h2>\n

16:00\u201316:15\u00a0 Samuel Pegg<\/b> \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s There! But Where?\u201d The Monster Under the Code and the Hunt for AI<\/span><\/p>\n

16:15\u201316:30\u00a0 Amonie Song<\/b> \u2014 The Relief of Being Hunted: Monsters as Locators in Liminal-Space Horror<\/span><\/p>\n

16:30\u201316:50\u00a0 <\/b>Panel discussion and audience Q&A<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Friday 25 September \u2014 Online<\/a><\/b><\/h1>\n

09:30\u201311:00\u00a0 Monstrous Bodies, Childhood and Material Culture<\/b><\/h2>\n

09:30\u201309:45\u00a0 Jacinta Dietrich and Tess Ezzy<\/b> \u2014 Monstrous Children: The Monster as Neuronormative Transgression<\/span><\/p>\n

09:45\u201310:00\u00a0 Tianni Xu<\/b> \u2014 Topophilia, Topophobia, and Monstrous Embodiment: The Kowloon Walled City in Paranormal HK<\/span><\/p>\n

10:00\u201310:15\u00a0 Ece Ar\u0131han and Bal\u0131m \u0130slamo\u011flu<\/b> \u2014 Cute Has Teeth: Fugglers and the Semiotics of Kimo-Kawaii<\/span><\/p>\n

10:15\u201310:30\u00a0 Dalia Mostafa Abdulrahman<\/b> \u2014 Playable Death: Mummies, Safe Corpses, and Children’s Literature<\/span><\/p>\n

10:30\u201311:00\u00a0 <\/b>Panel discussion and audience Q&A<\/span><\/p>\n

11:00\u201311:15\u00a0 Tea break<\/b><\/p>\n

11:15\u201312:30\u00a0 Game Systems, Miniatures and Playable Monstrosity<\/b><\/h2>\n

11:15\u201311:30\u00a0 Wenqing Nan (Selina)<\/b> \u2014 Growing Decay in Your Palm: Playing with Nurgle Monsters from Warhammer 40,000<\/span><\/p>\n

11:30\u201311:45\u00a0 Yaraslau I. Kot<\/b> \u2014 Interactive Exorcism: The Grotesque Transformation of Aggressors into Playful Monsters and Monster Metaphors as Trauma Processing in Ukrainian Wartime Games<\/span><\/p>\n

11:45\u201312:00\u00a0 Thomas Apperley, Will Hill, Ville Kankainen, Jukka S\u00e4rkij\u00e4rvi and Ian Sturrock<\/b> \u2014 The Art of the Monstrous: The Divided Visual Cultures of Early Tabletop Role-Playing Games<\/span><\/p>\n

12:00\u201312:30\u00a0 <\/b>Panel discussion and audience Q&A<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

12:30\u201313:30\u00a0 Lunch<\/span><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

13:30\u201315:00\u00a0 Digital Horror, Intimacy and the Uncanny<\/b><\/h2>\n

13:30\u201313:45\u00a0 Jiang Luyin<\/b> \u2014 Why We Need the Monster at Arm’s Length: Playful Intimacy and the Afterlife of Horror<\/span><\/p>\n

13:45\u201314:00\u00a0 Christina Fawcett<\/b> \u2014 Cozy Horror and Playing the Uncanny<\/span><\/p>\n

14:00\u201314:15\u00a0 Gregory Blomquist<\/b> \u2014 Confronting the Unknowable: The Reapers and Sublime Monstrosity in Mass Effect<\/span><\/p>\n

14:15\u201314:30\u00a0 Elena Mart\u00edn-Gil<\/b> \u2014 Enemies to Lovers: Evolution of Vampire Tropes and Emergence of the Charismatic Vampire<\/span><\/p>\n

14:30\u201315:00\u00a0 <\/b>Panel discussion and audience Q&A<\/span><\/p>\n

15:00\u201315:15\u00a0 Tea break<\/b><\/p>\n

15:15\u201316:45\u00a0 Domestic Monsters: Family, Desire and Affect<\/b><\/h2>\n

15:15\u201315:30\u00a0 Kristine Ask and collaborators<\/b> \u2014 Fear, Thirst, and Fan Culture: The Erotic Appeal of Game Monsters<\/span><\/p>\n

15:30\u201315:45\u00a0 Scott Ennis<\/b> \u2014 From Closure to Play: The Emergence of the Playful Monster in Modern Children’s Literature<\/span><\/p>\n

15:45\u201316:00\u00a0 Noah Borgen<\/b> \u2014 Playing Angry Dad: Dysregulated Fatherhood, Safe Fear, and the Family Practice of Declawed Reactivity<\/span><\/p>\n

16:00\u201316:15\u00a0 Phoebe Santillan<\/b> \u2014 When Monsters Become Desirable: Erotic Attraction and the Pleasures of the Monstrous<\/span><\/p>\n

16:15\u201316:45\u00a0 <\/b>Panel discussion and audience Q&A<\/span><\/p>\n


Please contact conference organiser Ruikang Wu with any questions: rw1m22@soton.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monsters are often figured as objects of fear, disgust, and threat. Yet monsters can also be playful, pleasurable, cute, and comforting. Join us and explore how the monstrous becomes playful across games, media, and everyday culture, and what happens where horror, games, toys, and play meet! Thursday 24 and Friday 25 September 2026 British Summer … Continue reading “The Playful Monster (Conference, 24-25 September 2026)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99787,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1034611,1034612,1034614,1034613,1034615,1034609,712558,1034610],"class_list":["post-4332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","tag-conference","tag-desire","tag-games","tag-horror","tag-keynote","tag-monster","tag-pgr-community","tag-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99787"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4332"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4339,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4332\/revisions\/4339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsapgr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}