But we want to tell people about, I guess, both of your books and, you know, where they can find them when they'll be coming out.

Yeah, great.

So my Substack, which I started, I guess, about three and a half years ago now, you know, I started my Substack because I wanted to do something a little bit more public-facing, a little bit more made for, you know, people who are interested in things rather than writing for academics, which was something I'd been doing for decades by this point.

And I talked to a friend who is like a very public-facing writer, and she said, oh, you should look into developing a Substack.

And so I started trying to do it, and I set myself a task.

I said, okay.

We are living in the post-Dobbs era in the United States.

And also Taylor Swift playing that character was incredible, too.

And more importantly, how did the idea of this book come to you?

Well, by training, I'm a medievalist.

So the first books that I wrote were in my field in medieval literary, cultural, and theological studies.

And I spent a lot of time doing that.

And I still teach medieval literature very frequently.

But about five or six years ago, I got asked by a colleague if I wanted to team teach a course on the history of horror.

And I said, yeah, that sounds great.

What does that medium cinema allow horror to do in terms of both reinforcing those pressures and at the same time exposing them?

Tell us about your field of expertise, and more importantly, how did the idea of this book come to you?

Hmm.

Well, um, by training, I'm a medievalist, so the first books that I wrote were in my field in medieval literary, cultural, and theological studies.

Um, and I spent a lot of time doing that, and I still teach medieval literature very frequently.

But about five or six years ago, um, I got asked by a colleague if I wanted to team teach a course on the history of horror, and I said, "Yeah, that sounds great." Actually, at first I said no, but then when we agreed that we would do seven hundred years of horror and make it really ambitious and start with Dante, I got excited about it, and so then I said yes, and we started teaching the history of horror together.

Um, and then in 2022, we were teaching that class, and I taught the film Rosemary's Baby, uh, which I taught as a film that is really a parable about the horrific consequences that come when women are denied reproductive autonomy and reproductive self-determination.

So for those who haven't seen it, Rosemary's Baby has a fairly straightforward plot line.

What does that medium cinema allow, what, I mean, horror, to do in terms of both reinforcing those pressures and at the same time exposing them?

Tell us about your field of expertise, and more importantly, how did the idea of this book come to you?

Hmm.

Well, um, by training, I'm a medievalist, so the first books that I wrote were in my field in medieval literary, cultural, and theological studies.

Um, and I spent a lot of time doing that, and I still teach medieval literature very frequently.

But about five or six years ago, um, I got asked by a colleague if I wanted to team teach a course on the history of horror, and I said, "Yeah, that sounds great." Actually, at first I said no, but then when we agreed that we would do 700 years of horror and make it really ambitious and start with Dante, I got excited about it, and so then I said yes, and we started teaching the history of horror together.

Um, and then in 2022, we were teaching that class, and I taught the film Rosemary's Baby, uh, which I taught as a film that is really a parable about the horrific consequences that come when women are denied reproductive autonomy and reproductive self-determination.

So for those who haven't seen it, Rosemary's Baby has a fairly straightforward plot line.

What does that medium cinema allow, what, I mean, horror to do in terms of both reinforcing those pressures and at the same time exposing them?

Tell us about your field of expertise, and more importantly, how did the idea of this book come to you?

Hmm.

Well, um, by training, I'm a medievalist, so the first books that I wrote were in my field in medieval literary, cultural, and theological studies.

Um, and I spent a lot of time doing that, and I still teach medieval literature very frequently.

But about five or six years ago, um, I got asked by a colleague if I wanted to team teach a course on the history of horror, and I said, "Yeah, that sounds great." Actually, at first I said no, but then when we agreed that we would do 700 years of horror and make it really ambitious and start with Dante, I got excited about it, and so then I said yes, and we started teaching the history of horror together.

Um, and then in 2022, we were teaching that class, and I taught the film Rosemary's Baby, uh, which I taught as a film that is really a parable about the horrific consequences that come when women are denied reproductive autonomy and reproductive self-determination.

So for those who haven't seen it, Rosemary's Baby has a fairly straightforward plot line.

What does that medium cinema allow, I mean, horror to do in terms of both reinforcing those pressures and at the same time exposing them?

Um, how do you think that self-awareness and conflict change the way we understand her story as a monster?

Oh, that's such a good question, and I mean, I have a, I have a multi-part answer, and I'll try to keep it short.

Medea is a fascinating test case 'cause she absolutely is monstrous.

She's absolutely in this lineage for the same reasons that everybody else is in this lineage, no question about it.

And even Euripides, you know, who writes this, like, horrific play about her, is very careful to enforce a certain amount of compassion on her from the audience, right? And he does that in many different ways, one of which is we get to see her having remorse.

We get to see her not wanting to do this thing, but feeling as though she has no other choice than to do it because of the way that patriarchal forces are bearing down on her.

So Euripides gives her a chance to speak up, which is already a big deal, but the other thing he does is Euripides puts another character into the story who's the Athenian king, right? And the Athenian king finds out, oh, Medea's been screwed over by Jason, and even the Athenian king is like, "Ugh.

I'm curious, why do you think that there is still such a cultural discomfort when it comes to allowing women that kind of complexity?

I mean, is it really just that the concept of femininity was seen by so many men as inherently threatening to their power?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know about the concept of femininity, but there are certainly, there, in my opinion, and this is r- really kind of at the central of monstrous bitch, there are sort of three to four core traits that a demonic representation of a woman will have in the Western patriarchal tradition, no matter when you look, right? Like 2500 BCE Mesopotamia, it's there.

500 BC Greece, it's there.

200 CE Rome, it's there.

Late antiquity Europe, it's there.

Middle Ages, it's there.

Right.

Yes.

Yes.

That's right.

But I think the answer for me is that we are living in a culture, an Anglo-American, Anglo-European, and generally global culture, in which women are being dehumanized left, right, and center.

And one of the oldest forms that that dehumanization takes is is the comparison between human women and breeding dogs, bitches, right? Actual breeding dogs.

And if you go back and look at the lineage of monstrosity that I look at in Monstrous Bitch, going all the way back to Mesopotamia, again in Greece, again in Rome, again in the medieval period, again in the early modern period and forward, there is often this conflation of female monstrosity with female dogs.

So one of the most common descriptors of this Mesopotamian demoness, Lamashtu, is that she's dog-like or has the head or face of a wolf.

So what is it you particularly love about this film?