Julia Larsen
Thesis title: The Monster, the Body, and the Medium: Reimagining the Monster for Post-Millennial America
Phd in Intermediality
Year of study: 1
- Intermediality: Literature, Film and the Arts in Dialogue
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC)
Contact details
- Email: s2343649@ed.ac.uk
PhD supervisors:
Background
Julia is a third year PhD student in Intermediality, working under the supervision of Prof Marion Schmid and Dr Inma Sánchez Garcia. Her current research centers on the representation of monsters in post-millennial American screen media.
She completed her MSc in Intermediality: Literature, Film and the Arts in Dialogue in 2023. Her thesis explored race, queerness, and the vampire in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire and its 2022 television adaptation. Before coming to Edinburgh, Julia worked as a high school English teacher, sharing her love of literature and creating a safe space for young people to be themselves.
When she isn't watching corny vampire movies (for research, of course) Julia enjoys crocheting and walking with her toy poodle, Mia.
Qualifications
MSc Intermediality: Literature, Film and the Arts in Dialogue - Distinction - University of Edinburgh
BA English Teaching - Brigham Young University
Undergraduate teaching
Julia has worked as a Guaranteed Hours Tutor for an assortment of undergraduate Enlgish literature courses, including Literary Studies 2A and Scottish Literature 1B.
Research summary
Julia's research aims to answer the question: What does America see as monstrous? She focuses on monsters in post-millennial American screen media, examining the relationship between the monster's markers of difference and politicized bodies in American culture, and analyzing how the monster morphs to both reflect and develop current cultural ideas of what is normal and what is monstrous. She traces modes of othering in foundational monster media -- from Victorian Gothic literature to early American travel writing -- and how those modes change or persist in contemporary American screen representations of monsters.
Current research interests
Adaptation, Intertextuality, The Gothic, Monster theory, Contemporary American screen media, Critical race theory, Feminist theory, Queer theory, Horror film, popular culturePapers delivered
"'Why Shouldn't I Write of Monsters?': Female Self-Authorship and Self-Determination in Afterlives of Bride of Frankenstein (1935)" - Frankenstein Symposium, 18 October 2025
"'You Ain't Even Human No More': Blurred Boundaries, Objectification, and Failed Masculinity in The Lighthouse (2019) - Unquiet Shores, Danse Macabre and Haunted Shores, 18-20 June 2025
The Monstrosity Between: The Remediated and Transcultrated Zombie, from Haiti to the United States - World Literature and Intermediality, University of Edinburgh, 13-14 March 2025
Reanimating History: Reviving the Haitian Zombie in Contemporary American Cinema - Times of memory. Histoires oubliées, Franco-Scottish Research Network in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 7-8 November 2024
"'Continue the Story': Revising the 1980s Slasher in Totally Killer (2023)" - Return of the Gothic 1980s: Sequels, Trilogies, Multiverses & Beyond, Manchester Metropolitan University, 20-21 June 2024
"'To Become Literally a House:' Intermediality and the Female Gothic in Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak (2015)" - Theories and Practices of Intermediality Today: An International and Interdisciplinary Workshop, University of Edinburgh, 14-15 March 2024