The Stories Monsters Tell

Every Halloween, monsters take over our streets, our porches, and our screens. Back before they were decorations and disguises, these creatures were trying to tell us something.

Frankenstein's creature, Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde: each one gave shape to a fear its author felt compelled to explore. Long before costume aisles and movie makeup, monster stories were a way for a culture to discuss what it was afraid of at that moment, whether that was science outrunning conscience, a threat slipping past the community's edges, or the person we might become when no one's watching.

We'll dig into where our most enduring monsters came from, the metaphor buried in each one's fear, and why some of these stories have outlasted the eras that produced them.

Joining us on October 15 is Emily Zarka, an instructor of English at Arizona State University, known on campus as its resident monster expert. She created and hosts Monstrum, a PBS Digital Studios series tracing the origins and cultural meaning of monsters from folklore, mythology, and pop culture, and hosted the PBS documentary Exhumed: A History of Zombies. Her first book, The Spotter's Guide to Cryptids, is coming February 2027.