Predator: A Memoir, A Movie, An Obsession

Speaker:

Ander Monson

15 Nov 2023

6:00 PM

Sun Room, Memorial Union

Co-sponsors:

Pearl Hogrefe Fund
Humanities Iowa
MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment
Department of English
Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government)

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Pearl Hogrefe Visiting Writers Series

A sincere and playful book that lovingly dissects the film, Predator also offers questions and critiques of masculinity, fandom, and their interrelation with acts of mass violence.

In his first memoir, Ander Monson guides readers through a scene-by-scene exploration of the 1987 film Predator, which he has watched 146 times. Some fighters might not have time to bleed, but Monson has the patience to consider their adventure, one frame at a time. He turns his obsession into a lens through which he poignantly examines his own life, formed by mainstream, White, male American culture. Between scenes, Monson delves deeply into his adolescence in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Riyadh, his role as a father and the loss of his own mother, and his friendships with men bound by the troubled camaraderie depicted in action and sci-fi blockbusters.

Ander Monson is the author of nine books, including Neck Deep and Other Predicaments, Vanishing Point, Vacationland and Predator: A Memoir, A Movie, An Obsession. A finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award and a National Book Critics Circle in criticism, Monson is also a recipient of a Howard Foundation Fellowship, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, the Annie Dillard Award for Nonfiction, the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award in Nonfiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He edits the magazine DIAGRAM (thediagram.com), the New Michigan Press, Essay Daily (essaydaily.org). He directs the MFA program at the University of Arizona. For more about the author: https://otherelectricities.com/index.html

The University Book Store will be onsite selling Monson's books at the event.

This lecture was recorded and can be viewed on the Available Recordings page.

Pearl Hogrefe Visiting Writers SeriesA sincere and playful book that lovingly dissects the film, Predator also offers questions and critiques of masculinity, fandom, and their interrelation with acts of mass violence.  In his first memoir, Ander Monson guides readers through a scene-by-scene exploration of the 1987 film Predator, which he has watched 146 times. Some fighters might not have time to bleed, but Monson has the patience to consider their adventure, one frame at a time. He turns his obsession into a lens through which he poignantly examines his own life, formed by mainstream, White, male American culture. Between scenes, Monson delves deeply into his adolescence in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Riyadh, his role as a father and the loss of his own mother, and his friendships with men bound by the troubled camaraderie depicted in action and sci-fi blockbusters.   Ander Monson is the author of nine books, including Neck Deep and Other Predicaments, Vanishing Point, Vacationland and Predator: A Memoir, A Movie, An Obsession. A finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award and a National Book Critics Circle in criticism, Monson is also a recipient of a Howard Foundation Fellowship, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, the Annie Dillard Award for Nonfiction, the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award in Nonfiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He edits the magazine DIAGRAM (thediagram.com), the New Michigan Press, Essay Daily (essaydaily.org). He directs the MFA program at the University of Arizona.  For more about the author:  https://otherelectricities.com/index.html  The University Book Store will be onsite selling Monson's books at the event.This lecture was recorded and can be viewed on the Available Recordings page.