Babcock Lecture to Discuss How Globalization Breeds Fear
At 7 p.m. Thursday, April 25, Robert Tally Jr. will deliver the 2023-24 Babcock Lecture in the Eaton Lounge of Bresee Hall on the Hartwick College campus. In the presentation entitled “Mapping and Monsters,” Tally Jr. will discuss what he calls the “teratocene” or age of monsters.
Dystopian visions in our time are complemented by, and subsumed within, a broader sense of the monstrous world system, which increasingly seems to involve the presence of actual monsters—an “age of monsters.” As the processes of globalization become more starkly experienced, monsters are increasingly rendered invisible or unknowable as we find ourselves subject to an immense array of forces beyond our control.
In his presentation, Tally will discuss how monsters and monstrosities have developed into embodiments of unnamed terrors in our modern world, symbolizing aspects of globalization and making them examples of capitalist dread. Tally will examine the “dialectic of fear” in connection with ideologies of the undead, among other atrocities of our time.
Tally is a professor of English at Texas State University, where he teaches American and world literature, literary theory, and criticism. He is also the author of twelve books, including The Fiction of Dread: Dystopia, Monstrosity, and Apocalypse.
The Babcock Lecture is presented by the Babcock Chair in English, the Department of Literature Media and Writing, and the Visiting Writers Series at Hartwick College and is administered by the Babcock Chair in English. The chair was partially endowed by Cora A. Babcock, a graduate of Hartwick Seminary, in honor of Dr. James A. Pitcher, whose inspired teaching of English and theology at the seminary had influenced Babcock’s decision to teach. Later, after receiving further support from a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, the Babcock Chair’s endowment was increased to reward outstanding achievement by a member of the Hartwick College faculty.
For more information, please contact Bradley J. Fest, associate professor of English and Babcock Professor of English, at festb@hartwick.edu or 607-431-4921.
