I'm not sure there's an abstract, but it does start with a long summary of the contents:
This thesis examines contemporary monster romance as a literary and cultural form in which monstrosity becomes central to romantic fulfilment. It focuses on a corpus of one hundred contemporary monster romance texts, with close readings of A Soul to Heal, Deceived by the Gargoyles, Wicked Creation, Wolves and Whipped Cream at Hallow’s Cove, Whispers of the Deep, The Revenant’s Heart, The Saltwater Curse, and A Darkness So Sweet. The thesis argues that monster romance enacts a sustained reversal of the traditional relationship between self and Other. Rather than positioning the Other as something to be feared or excluded, these texts construct the monster as the primary site of desirability and ethical relationality. The concept of the Preferred Other captures this shift, highlighting how difference is not only accepted, but actively preferred over normative human alternatives. This reversal is not simply thematic, but structural, shaping the conditions under which desire is articulated and fulfilled. By consistently aligning human masculinity with absence, insufficiency, or harm, and monstrosity with care, stability, and emotional depth, these texts reconfigure the boundaries of desirability itself.
The thesis situates monster romance within scholarship on monstrosity, romance, gender, desire, and power. Monster theory, particularly Cohen and Halberstam, is used to understand the monster as a culturally meaningful figure whose body marks difference, instability, and boundary-crossing. Romance scholarship, especially Radway, provides a framework for reading popular romance as a serious cultural form concerned with emotional fulfilment, care, and gendered desire. The theoretical framework also draws on Foucault’s understanding of power and biopower, Ahmed’s work on orientation, Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism, Connell’s theory of masculinity, Butler’s theory of gender performativity, Hall’s work on representation, and hooks’s critique of consuming the Other. Methodologically, the thesis combines cultural analysis, quantitative pattern-tracking across the corpus, and close reading of selected primary texts.
Chapter One establishes the cultural context for the project by examining reproductive autonomy after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the rise of manosphere discourse, and the polarisation of gender relations. The chapter argues that contemporary heterosexual intimacy is shaped by legal uncertainty, bodily risk, and declining trust. These conditions do not directly cause monster romance, but they help explain why fantasies that move romantic fulfilment away from ordinary human masculinity may become culturally meaningful.
Chapter Two turns to the literary corpus and develops the concept of the Preferred Other. It argues that monster romance repeatedly reverses the traditional position of the monster by making the nonhuman love interest preferable to human alternatives. The chapter shows that this preference is not dependent only on human male violence, since the monster remains preferred even in texts without direct human male threat. It also argues that monster romance reconstructs masculinity through ethical intimacy, care, consent, emotional openness, and communication. Finally, the chapter suggests that the genre queers heterosexuality by directing desire toward bodies that remain visibly nonhuman As [sic] opposed to than [sic] restoring romance to familiar human embodiment.
Chapter Three brings the cultural and literary arguments together by interpreting monster romance as a compromise fantasy. The chapter argues that the genre does not simply reject romance, masculinity, or heterosexual desire, but rearranges them. The monster allows romance to preserve intensity, protection, devotion, and fulfilment while distancing these pleasures from ordinary human masculinity and its social authority. In this way, monster romance becomes both a critique of patriarchal power and a fantasy that remains ambivalently attached to some of romance’s older structures.
The thesis concludes that contemporary monster romance should be taken seriously because it reveals how desire adapts under cultural pressure. Its central contribution is the concept of the Preferred Other, which names a structure in which the monster is not redeemed by becoming normal, but chosen while remaining Other. Monster romance therefore does not offer a simple escape from patriarchy or a clean feminist utopia. Instead, it exposes a contradiction within contemporary desire: romance remains deeply wanted, but ordinary masculinity has become increasingly difficult to trust as the figure through which fulfilment can be imagined. (1-3)
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Across the corpus, monstrous masculinity is repeatedly characterised through emotional attentiveness, communicative openness, and caregiving behaviours that contrast sharply with more traditional masculine ideals centred on emotional restraint and dominance. Instead of presenting emotional vulnerability as weakness, these texts frequently position it as a core component of desirability. (38)
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This emphasis on communication is particularly visible in the treatment of consent. Across the corpus, consent is rarely presented as a brief procedural moment before intimacy, but instead structures the emotional logic of romantic interaction itself. Physical intimacy is frequently preceded by verbal reassurance, emotional negotiation, or explicit discussions of comfort and boundaries. The significance of these consent scenes lies in the way they transform restraint into a desirable masculine trait. In many romance structures, erotic tension is produced through urgency, pursuit, or the hero’s inability to control desire. Monster romance often keeps the intensity of desire, but redirects its meaning by making restraint part of the monster’s appeal. (39-40)
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The monster is not a random erotic object, but a figure through which the genre makes dissatisfaction with ordinary masculinity narratively and emotionally legible. (47)
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The monster’s dominance is still a form of power, but it is staged through fantasy, negotiation, and emotional responsiveness. That does not make the politics simple. It means the genre is working through the problem of desiring power without wanting the institutions that usually support it. (55)
I'm not sure there's an abstract, but it does start with a long summary of the contents:
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