2026 Fall/Winter Reading Group

This set of readings explores monsters and monstrosity as a way of thinking about the unsettling, excessive, excluded, and disavowed dimensions of organizational life.

People are endlessly intrigued, horrified, and in awe of monsters and the monstrous. Monsters are mis-proportioned or misshapen, they transgress boundaries and gobble up what is around them. We hide from, construct, and hunt monsters. We fantasize about becoming the monster, coopting their power. At the same time, we fear our monstrous aspects. Monstrosity contains or gives birth to inconceivable combinations, highlights the carnivalesque, and manifests the grotesque. It distorts reality almost beyond recognition.

Organizing is inherently about harnessing, while denying, the monstrous aspects of both human-ness and what emerges from collective activities. The authors in this set of readings invite us to ask how organizations produce monsters and what those monsters reveal about the organizations that create them. What gets pushed to the margins? Whose bodies become too much, too old, too different, or too disruptive? What must be denied or disavowed for an organization to maintain its sense of order? What do organizations make monstrous—and what do we learn when we look at what they would rather keep hidden?

We invite you to join us in an excursion into the shadows, the “borderlands” (Thanem, 2006, p. 31), to confront and embrace the disturbed and disturbing and the possibilities they embody.

To join contact Mindy Duncan: mindy@surfacingtheorganization.com

Reading List

September 17, 2026

Thanem, T. (2006). Living on the edge: Towards a monstrous organization theory. Organization, 13(2), 163-193.

Available on GoogleScholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=toeFKT4AAAAJ&cstart=20&pagesize=80&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=toeFKT4AAAAJ:9yKSN-GCB0IC

Suggested film: Monsters, Inc.

October 15, 2026

Berkowitz, H. (2027) Organizational monsters and the shaping of systemic irresponsibility, Journal of Organizational Sociology, 5(1), accepted.

Available on HAL: https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-05700214v1

Suggested music (referenced in article): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnu_uvaHUDk 

Suggested film: Alien (1979). Watch trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ5lPt9edzQ 

November 19, 2026

Riach, K. and Kelly, S. (2015) ‘The Need for Fresh Blood: Understanding Organizational Age Inequality Through a Vampiric Lens’. Organization, 22(3): 287-305.

Available on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274286680_The_need_for_fresh_blood_Understanding_organizational_age_inequality_through_a_vampiric_lens

Suggested film: Nosferatu (2024)

December 19, 2026

Vachhani, S. (2014). Always different? : Exploring the monstrous-feminine and maternal embodiment in organisation, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, Vol. 33 Iss 7 pp. 648 – 661. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/EDI-05-2012-0047

Available at University of Bristol: https://web.archive.org/web/20180724060316id_/https://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/68972352/Vachhani_R3_edited_CLEAN.pdf

January 21, 2027

Beyes, T. (2019). Uncanny matters: Kafka’s burrow, the unhomely and the study of organizational space. Ephemera, 19(1), 179-192.

Available at Ephemera: https://ephemerajournal.org/sites/default/files/2022-01/19-1beyes%2520%25281%2529.pdf

Suggested film: Backrooms (2026)