Saturday, March 9, 2024

CFP for Grad Students: Power of Horror Compels You: Exploring Historic and Modern Iterations of Horror (Spec Issue of Scaffold) (05/31/2024)

The Power of Horror Compels You: Exploring Historic and Modern Iterations of Horror


deadline for submissions: May 31, 2024

full name / name of organization: Scaffold: Journal of the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture

contact email: scaffoldjournal@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/02/28/the-power-of-horror-compels-you-exploring-historic-and-modern-iterations-of-horror



The Power of Horror Compels You: Exploring Historic and Modern Iterations of Horror



Jack Halberstam argued of Bram Stoker’s seminal horror text that “Dracula is otherness itself.”In doing so, he contextualized the novel’s configuration of the period’s social anxieties towardsexuality, modernity, and antisemitism through the vampire figure. Further, Halberstam suggests that “Dracula is indeed not simply a monster, but a technology of monstrosity,” encompassing a perspective of the horror genre which recognizes its fundamental capacity to express anxieties and fears about the contemporary world.



Written eight decades before Dracula, Frankenstein often earns Mary Shelley the title “themother of science fiction.” At the same time, this novel also converges around conventions of Gothic fiction and horror to express anxieties about modern technology and science and its relationship to the human, concepts which remain integral to contemporary examples of the genre across mediums.



When writing about modern horror Mikal Gaines reflects how the genre has largely evolvedbeyond its historical depictions of Black and BIPOC individuals as casualties or monsters to thedriving force of the story. Gaines addresses how racism in Jordan Peele’s Get Out functions as the monster, and narrativizes the horror of racialization. Per Gaines’ argument, Peele draws on the tradition in the horror genre of complicating perspectives on race or class, as many argue George Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead film did.



The standards of monstrosity of a particular era manifest in its films, television series, novels,games, and other materials in or adjacent to the horror genre. The definition of horror or monstrousness changes continuously according to the evolution of culture and societal normsand as generic themes and modes of horror enter into the broader cultural consciousness. This call for papers seeks articles that explore what contemporary horror deems monstrous, in what ways, and how this presentation has changed over time. We hope to present an interdisciplinaryexploration of how the horror genre has influenced aspects of contemporary culture, including its narratives across media forms and beyond media.



Possible topics for exploration include but are not limited to:

  • A close reading of modern (2010 and later) horror novels, films, television series, or games that critically analyze their relationship to modernity
  • The evolution of an archetype: how have depictions of original horror icons (the vampire, the zombie, Frankenstein, etc.) changed over time? How have they been typified, particularly in their more modern iterations?
  • The transition of depictions of horror icons across media - how have depictions of, for example, zombies, changed across media, such as in the Night of the Living Dead film, the Walking Dead comic or TV series, the Last of Us video game?
  • Real-world ‘horror’ (climate themes, pandemic themes)
  • How have modern horror video games tackled their subjects compared to older iterations in the same or similar series?
  • Topics that explore how horror conventions change across media modes
  • The true crime phenomenon - the rise in popularity of true crime media and its influence on the broader cultural consciousness
  • Exploring the aesthetic differences in presentations of horror across different media modes
  • Compare the evolution of horror in different national contexts
  • Address the lineage of horror in relation to its Gothic origins to a contemporary understanding of the genres



We are seeking articles of 5000-7000 words for publication in the next issue of Scaffold: the Journal for the Institute of Comparative Studies of Literature, Art, and Culture, an open-access graduate student journal. Articles will be double-blind, peer-reviewed, and published digitally through OJS. More information can be found here: https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/J-ICSLAC/index

Please email proposals of approximately 300-500 words to scaffoldjournal@gmail.com, including a brief author bio, by April 29th 2024. Accepted authors will be informed by early May, with full articles due for review by August 5th 2024.



Issue publishes December 2024.


Last updated March 6, 2024

CFP Southern Gothic Area (6/15/2024; PCAS/ACAS 10/17-19/2024)

THE SOUTHERN GOTHIC AT PCAS/ ACAS 2024


deadline for submissions: June 15, 2024

full name / name of organization: Popular Culture / American Culture Association in the South

contact email: SouthernGothicPCAS@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/03/04/the-southern-gothic-at-pcas-acas-2024


Steeped in the wide-flung diaspora of the Gothic mode, the Southern Gothic is one of the most prominent ways the South is represented in media and culture. Represented in the works of writers as varied as Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and William Faulkner to Cormac McCarthy, Cherie Priest, and Jesmyn Ward, whether categorized as a form, a style, or a genre, the Southern Gothic is bound up with the specificity of regional cultural anxieties about race, class, gender, sexuality, history, and geographic identity itself. From its most stereotypical depictions to more nuanced, complex interpretations, the Southern Gothic shapes the wider perception of regional identities in ways that invite our contemporary scholarly engagement.



The Southern Gothic area of the Popular Culture / American Culture Association in the South (PCAS/ ACAS) invites proposals for individual presentations, roundtable discussions, or full panels of 3-4 papers at the 2024 PCAS/ ACAS Annual Conference, to be held October 17 - 19, 2024 in Greenville, SC.



Topics might include (but are in no way limited to):

  • representations of the Southern Gothic in film, TV, and literature
  • adaptation(s) of Southern Gothic literature
  • the Southern Gothic in popular music
  • Global elements of/ approaches to the Southern Gothic
  • the Southern Gothic in new media (games, podcasts, graphic novels, etc.)
  • the emergence of “Southern noir” as a subgenre
  • race, class, gender, and/ or sexuality in the Southern Gothic
  • Southern true crime as a cultural phenomenon
  • documentary and the Southern Gothic
  • Southern Gothic tourism
  • monsters in the Southern Gothic: vampires, zombies, ghosts, etc.
  • mental health narratives in the Southern Gothic
  • specificity—or generality—in Southern Gothic geographies
  • pedagogical approaches to/ uses of the Southern Gothic
  • the spectre of history in the Southern Gothic
  • sites of intersection between the Southern Gothic and other genres/ modes

PCAS/ ACAS is dedicated to working toward equity, diversity, and inclusion both within our organization and in academia at large. As such, we particularly welcome submissions by underrepresented and marginalized scholars across categories such as race, gender, sexuality, ability, and employment status (e.g., graduate students and non-tenure track or unaffiliated/ independent scholars).

To propose a presentation (of 20 minutes or less) or a roundtable discussion for the Southern Gothic Area, please send the following to Area Chair Stephanie Graves at SouthernGothicPCAS@gmail.com by June 15, 2024:

Name of presenter(s), institutional affiliation (if applicable), & email address for each presenter


Type of submission (individual paper, roundtable, or full panel)


Presentation abstract (250 words or fewer)


Indication if you need access to A/V (not all rooms have A/V available—if you don’t indicate the need, you may be scheduled in a room without AV)

Submission deadline is June 15, 2024; notifications of acceptance will be sent by July 1, 2024.

PLEASE NOTE: In order to be considered for the Southern Gothic Area, please follow the instructions above rather than submitting through the PCAS/ ACAS website.Everyone is invited to submit one academic paper and can, in addition, participate in one round-table discussion or creative session. Only those proposals intended for the Southern Gothic area should be submitted as outlined above; the PCAS/ ACAS website has an online submission form for the General Call.



Last updated March 6, 2024

Friday, March 8, 2024

CFP Preternatural in Popular Culture (6/15/2024; NEPCA Online and Dudley, MA 10/3-5/2024)

Call for Papers: Preternatural in Popular Culture


Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association

2024 Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture Association

Nichols College (Dudley, MA) and Zoom, 3-5 October 2024


Proposals due by 15 June 2024



The Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) invites submissions under the general theme of the Preternatural in Popular Culture.


For this year, submissions should focus on creatures and/or creations that exist above, beyond, and/or outside the natural world and the ways these entities are represented in popular culture (anime, comics, fiction, film, manga, streaming video, television, etc.) from across time and space.


The Monsters & the Monstrous Area is among NEPCA’s largest areas, and we often have blocks of sessions running across the full event. To best accommodate everyone, single presentation submissions are preferred over panel submissions.


Please direct any questions or concerns to Michael A. Torregrossa, Monsters & the Monstrous Area Chair, at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com, and check out our blog Popular Preternaturaliana: Studying the Monstrous in Popular Culture for ideas and past sessions. The blog can be accessed at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.



Conference Information



The 2024 Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) will host its annual conference this fall as a hybrid conference from Thursday, 3 October, through Saturday, 5 October. Presenters will be required to become members of NEPCA for the year.


Virtual sessions will take place on Thursday evening and Friday morning via Zoom, and in-person sessions will take place on Friday evening and Saturday morning at Nichols College, in Dudley, Massachusetts.


For more information about the conference and to submit a proposal, please visit our NEPCA’s dedicated Conference site at https://nepca.blog/2024-conference-page/. Be prepared to answer the following questions about your proposal:

  • Proposal Type (Single Presentation or Panel)
  • Modality (in person or virtual)
  • Subject Area
  • Working Title
  • Academic Affiliation (if any)
  • Abstract (250 words)
  • Short bio (50-200 words)
  • Accommodations
  • Preferences for when to present


The submissions site will be open until 11:59 PM (EDT) on 15 June 2024.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

CFP Seventh Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2024 (3/31/2024; San Diego/Online 5/31/2024)

The Seventh Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2024


deadline for submissions: March 31, 2024

full name / name of organization: Horror Writers Association

contact email: AnnRadcliffeCon@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/02/28/the-seventh-annual-ann-radcliffe-academic-conference-at-stokercon-2024


The Seventh Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2024


Conference Date: Friday, May 31, 2024

Conference Location: San Diego Mission Bay Marriott, 8757 Rio San Diego Drive, San Diego, California, USA, 92108 and via Hopin

Conference Website: https://www.stokercon2024.com



From the mysterious lights in the windows of the William Heath Davis House to the footsteps in the seemingly empty rooms of the Old Point Loma Lighthouse, San Diego has long been home to stories of the uncanny. The 2024 StokerCon convention is eager to channel the creative potential of San Diego’s history, culture, and communities.

Likewise, the co-organizers of the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference look forward to interrogating, exploring, and re-imagining the field of horror and gothic studies. The Ann Radcliffe Conference is intended as a research showcase within Stokercon, as well as an opportunity for building community and collaboration. Therefore, we invite all interested scholars, researchers, creators, academics, and non-fiction writers to submit presentation abstracts for completed research projects, works-in-progress, and projects invested in the academic analysis of the horror genre and its history in all its forms. As in previous years, this conference will be held in a hybrid format, with both in-person panels and recorded online presentations available via Hopin.

We are eager to receive abstracts that expand the scholarship across horror and gothic studies. This can include, but is by no means limited to, analyses and critiques of fields or formats such as:

  • Art
  • Cinema
  • Comics/Manga
  • Literature
  • Music
  • Poetry
  • Television
  • Video Games
  • Cartoons/Anime


We invite papers that take an interdisciplinary approach to their subject matter and welcome scholarship that considers a diverse range of readings, interpretations, and application of theories. This includes work from a variety of interdisciplinary and transmedial fields including, but not limited to:

  • Critical race theory
  • Film theory and analysis
  • Gender/LGBTQIA+ theory
  • Historical analysis and interpretation
  • Archival research
  • Literary theory and analysis
  • Pedagogical approaches to horror and the gothic
  • Intersections with psychology, biology, and the history of medicine
  • Philosophical approaches


Presentation and Submission Guidelines

Please upload a 250 – 300 word abstract to https://horrorwritersassociation.submittable.com/submit/96e2b49b-09f6-4c... by March 31, 2024. Responses will follow as soon as possible.


Presentations should adhere to a 15-minute time limit, in order to ensure adequate time for discussion and commentary.


Please note in your abstract whether you plan to present your work in person or virtually. For those presenting virtually, recordings will need to be sent by April 15, 2024.

Please address any questions to AnnRadcliffeCon@gmail.com



In support of HWA’s Diverse Works Inclusion Committee goals, the Ann Radcliffe Academic co-chairs encourage the widest possible diverse representation to apply and present their scholarship in a safe and supportive environment. For more information, please see the Diverse Works Inclusion Committee Mission Statement at: http://horror.org/category/the-seers-table/

The Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is part of the Horror Writers Association’s Outreach Program. Created in 2016 by Michele Brittany and Nicholas Diak, the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference has been a venue for horror scholars to present their work alongside professional writers and editors in the publishing industry. The conference has also been the genesis of the Horror Writer Association’s first academic release, Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays, composed entirely of AnnRadCon presenters, released by McFarland in February, 2020.

Membership to the Horror Writers Association is not required to submit or present, however registration to StokerCon 2024 is required to be accepted and to present. Information regarding StokerCon registration, including day passes and full event registration, can be found on the Stokercon website: https://www.stokercon2024.com. There is no additional registration or fees for the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference outside StokerCon registration. If interested in applying to the Horror Writers Association as an academic member, please see www.horror.org/about/.



Last updated March 6, 2024

CFP Sixth Biennial Dr. Henry Armitage Memorial Scholarship Symposium of New Weird Fiction and Lovecraft-Related Research (5/24/2024; Providence, RI 8/15-18.2024)

The Sixth Biennial Dr. Henry Armitage Memorial Scholarship Symposium of New Weird Fiction and Lovecraft-Related Research

NecronomiCon Providence convention in Providence, RI
15-18 August, 2024
Location: Omni Hotel, Providence – Bristol/Kent Room, 3rd floor

Symposium Chairs: Dr. Elena Tchougounova-Paulson, editor of Lovecraftian Proceedings (Hippocampus Press)
Symposium Co-Chair: Prof. Dennis P. Quinn 

CALL FOR PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS:

The Dr. Henry Armitage Memorial Scholarship Symposium seeks Lovecraftian and Weird Fiction related research for the NecronomiCon Providence convention. Providence, RI, August 15-18, 2024

The Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council (the organizer of NecronomiCon Providence) invites submissions for the upcoming Armitage Symposium, a conference that will be held within the convention. The Symposium is substantially dedicated to the life and works of the Providence-based Weird fiction writer, the father of Cosmic horror, H.P. Lovecraft, but also to his milieu, his literary contemporaries, predecessors and successors in the Weird/horror/Gothic/Neo-Gothic lore. For many decades, Lovecraft’s legacy has been the central topic for challenging discussions, and many prominent scholars have joined in debates, followed by significant textual insights, great literary discoveries, and numerous high-quality academic publications. The Armitage Symposium in 2024 will continue to explore Lovecraft’s works in relation to classic and contemporary Weird fiction, science fiction, other similar genres of horror/Gothic/Neo-Gothic literature, modern philosophy (phenomenology and epistemology), literary theory, linguistics, cultural history and cultural theory, archaeology, ethnography, etc.


Possible topics for 15-minute papers might include:

  • Lovecraft’s influence on the American or, broadly, Western literary canon
  • Lovecraft and Cosmic mythology
  • Lovecraftian Mythos as a cultural phenomenon
  • Lovecraft and religion/mysticism, and race/gender studies
  • Lovecraft and Eurocentrism: origins and complexities
  • Lovecraft’s correspondence as pre-blogging/travelog
  • “Arkham House” and its heritage: further discoveries in its archival history
  • Horror/Supernatural/Gothic fiction: its origins, historical frames and defining terms
  • The works of potent and influential masters such as Dunsany, M.R. James, and Clark Ashton Smith
  • Modern literary and cinematic perspectives in Lovecraftiana and the Supernatural
  • Women in Lovecraftiana/Weird fiction in the past, present, and future
  • Contemporary philosophy of weird, horror, and the supernatural: interpretive approaches

Traditionally, the Armitage Symposium has aimed to foster explorations and disseminations of Lovecraft’s elaborate cosmic mythology, and how this mythology was influenced by, and has come to influence, numerous other fiction writers, historians, art critics, philosophers, archivists, bibliographers of the past and the present. However, all submissions that contribute to interconnecting new linguistic and literary theoretical concepts in academic Lovecraftiana/horror studies are very welcome.

Specifically for the Armitage Symposium, we are particularly interested in submitting works from academics: undergraduates, PhD students, post-graduates, independent scholars, established researchers. Presenters should be prepared to deliver a fifteen to twenty-minute oral presentation, and are invited to submit a manuscript for possible inclusion in the peer-reviewed Lovecraftian Proceedings no. 6.

For consideration, interested scholars should submit an abstract (of around 250-300 words) in Word format along with a short bio (around 100 words) to the symposium chair, Dr Elena Tchougounova-Paulson, at tch.elena15@gmail.com.

The deadline for submissions is May 24, 2024. Early submissions are encouraged.

In addition to these talks, NecronomiCon Providence will also feature numerous traditional panels and presentations, given by many of the top names in Lovecraftian studies and the global Weird Renaissance. For more information on the Armitage Symposium, or the overall convention and the themes to be explored, please, visit our website: necronomicon-providence.com.





About the Symposium:

The Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council (the organizer of NecronomiCon Providence) hosts the Armitage Symposium to showcase academic works that explore all aspects weird fiction and art, from pop-culture to literature, including the writings and life of globally renowned weird fiction writer, H.P. Lovecraft. Topics of value include the influence of history, architecture, science, and popular culture on the weird fiction genre, as well as the impact that weird and Lovecraftian fiction has had on culture.

In past years, the Armitage Symposium has aimed to foster explorations of Lovecraft’s elaborate cosmic mythology, and how this mythology was influenced by, and has come to influence, numerous other authors and artists before and since. Additionally, we promote all works that foster a greater, critical, and nuanced understanding weird fiction and art (and related science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.).

Selected talks will be presented together as part of the Armitage Symposium, a mini-conference within the overall convention framework of NecronomiCon Providence, 15-18 August 2024. Presenters will deliver fifteen-minute oral presentations summarizing their thesis, and are invited to submit a brief manuscript for possible inclusion in a proceedings publication.

For more information on the Armitage Symposium, or the overall convention and the themes to be explored, please visit our website: necronomicon-providence.com – where we will post updates and details as they develop over the final weeks leading to the convention. In addition to these talks, NecronomiCon Providence will feature numerous traditional panels and presentations given by many of the top names in the global weird renaissance.

The 2024 CALL FOR PRESENTATION PROPOSALS can be downloaded here: Armitage-Symposium-CFA-2024.pdf

Thursday, February 29, 2024

CFP Godzilla at 70 (Spec Issuse of Humanities) (expired 1/15/2024)

Sorry I missed this:

Godzilla at 70: The Giant Monster’s Legacy in Global Popular Culture


deadline for submissions: January 15, 2024

full name / name of organization: Steve Rawle/York St John University

contact email: s.rawle@yorksj.ac.uk

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/12/04/godzilla-at-70-the-giant-monster%E2%80%99s-legacy-in-global-popular-culture


Call for Papers: "Godzilla at 70: The Giant Monster’s Legacy in Global Popular Culture"

A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787).



The 3rd of November 2024 is Godzilla’s 70th birthday, marking the anniversary of the release of Honda Ishiro’s Gojira in 1954. The film’s legacy is immense, as one of the most significant exports of Japanese culture. To mark this milestone, this Special Issue will explore that legacy and impact. The first part of the twenty-first century has witnessed a global renaissance for giant monsters. While giant monsters have been a recurring feature of classical mythology and twentieth century film and television, the early part of this century has been marked by a global expansion of popular culture expressions of gigantic monstrosity. Whether this is the resurrected figures of Godzilla and King Kong, the giant mutant dinosaurs of the Jurassic World films, the Mind Flayer in Stranger Things, or Cthulhu’s fleeting appearance in the HBO adaptation of Lovecraft Country, huge monsters have left significant footprints on mainstream popular culture.



Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has brought the “Big G” to AppleTV+, but new Japanese media have also featured strongly in this global renaissance: animated Toho features Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (Godzilla: Kaiju wakusei, 2018), Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (Godzilla: Kessen Kidō Zōshoku ToshiI, 2018) and Godzilla: The Planet Eater (Godzilla: Hoshi o Kū Mono, 2018) Godzilla Singular Point (Gojira Shingyura Pointo, 2021), Kadokawa’s anime Gamera Rebirth (2023), and Production I.G.’s adaptation of Shimizu Eiichi’s Ultraman manga (2019-2023) have all been brought to international audiences by Netflix. Toho’s live action films, Shin Gojira (2016) and Godzilla Minus One (Gojira Mainasu Wan, 2023) have both received (or are about to receive) international distribution and some critical acclaim, representing a return to the nuclear-inspired roots of the first Gojira film.



This Special Issue will explore the cultural significance and fascination with mega-sized monsters in Godzilla’s wake. While smaller monsters, such as vampires, werewolves, and especially zombies, have received significant focus in many academic works, the biggest monsters have often been left less explored. This Special Issue looks to address this gap in order to explore the contemporary fascination with giant monsters, their meanings and audiences. The most famous giant monsters in popular culture—often referred to using the Japanese term kaiju (lit. strange beasts)—have generally been seen as metaphors for global cultural anxieties (Barr, 2016), problematic depictions of race (Erb, 2009), as reflections of historical environmental concerns (Rhoads and McCorkle, 2018), representations of ‘imaginations of disaster’ (Sontag, 2009; Napier, 1993) or, more conventionally, as a specifically Japanese response to the trauma of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (Tsutsui, 2004, and many others). Contemporary depictions both extend and intensify such discourses while simultaneously reinterpreting such creatures. Therefore, this Special Issue invites contributions that engage with depictions of giant monsters in all forms of global popular culture (including, but not limited to, film, television, video games, comics and literature), with proposals looking at a range of theoretical perspectives, such as monster theory, gothic studies, ecocriticism, post-colonialism and transnationalism, critical race theory, cult media studies, fandom and audience studies, being particularly welcome.



Works cited

Barr, Jason (2016), The Kaiju Film: A Critical Study of Cinema’s Biggest Monsters. Jefferson: McFarland.

Erb, Cynthia (2009), Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture. 2nd ed. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Napier, Susan J. (1993), ‘Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira’, The Journal of Japanese Studies 19 (2): 327–51.

Rhoads, Sean, and Brooke McCorkle (2018), Japan’s Green Monsters: Environmental Commentary in Kaiju Cinema. Jefferson: McFarland.

Sontag, Susan (2009), ‘The Imagination of Disaster’, in Against Interpretation and Other Essays by Susan Sontag, 209–25. London: Penguin.

Tsutsui, William (2004), Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.



Submissions:

If you are interest in contributing to this issue, please send a 250-word abstract to s.rawle@yorksj.ac.uk by 15th January 2024. Please also address any queries to me at the same address.



Timeline:

15th January 2024: abstract deadline

29th January 2024: acceptance notifications sent

1st August 2024: deadline for first drafts

3rd November 2024: issue launch at ‘Godzilla at 70’ symposium



Last updated December 7, 2023
This CFP has been viewed 541 times.

CFP Twentieth Anniversary Slayage Conference (3/15/2024; hybrid 7/18-21/2024)

Twentieth Anniversary Slayage Conference


deadline for submissions: March 15, 2024

full name / name of organization: Association for the Study of Buffy+ (ASB+)

contact email: slayage.conference@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/01/17/twentieth-anniversary-slayage-conference


Slayage: The International Journal of Buffy+ and the Association for the Study of Buffy+ invite proposals for the twentieth anniversary  Slayage Conference—the tenth biennial (SC10). Devoted to creative works and workers of the ‘fuzzy set’ surrounding Buffy the Vampire Slayer, SC10 will be held on the campus of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, on 18-21 July 2024. This twentieth anniversary conference will be organized by Local Arrangements Chair Lewis Call.

We welcome proposals of 200-300 words (or an abstract of a completed paper) on any aspect of Buffy+ television, film, comics, and web texts. The name Buffy recalls the significance of scholarly examinations of feminism, but Slayage is much more. The “plus” is meant to be a sign of inclusivity, both for scholars and texts.

The plus-mark is meant to invite analyses of not only Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, etcetera, but also the work of all the various creators—writers, directors, actors, editors, composers, etc.-involved with those texts as well as (primarily visual) media more or less resembling Buffy (where ‘resemblance’ is likewise subject to further discussion). In other words, the plus-mark indicates the “fuzzy set” of which Buffy is the center. Drawing on Brian Attebery's description in Strategies of Fantasy, the fuzzy set is “defined not by boundaries but by a center.” Hence, a scholar applying to Slayage Conference 10 might use Buffy as a yardstick to tell us why we should consider their chosen topic to be part of this fuzzy set, which might include the following,

“high stakes TV” with a kick-ass young female lead;


movie or book series concerned with the frequent irruption of the supernatural into the mundane;


texts that feature snarky humor and linguistic play; strong characterization, an emphasis on relationships, and long story arcs spanning a season or more; moral dilemmas; stylish but affordable boots; starship captains with tight pants; or other stylistic, aesthetic, or thematic issues associated with Buffy, Angel, Firefly, etc.

Moreover, the “plus” specifically alludes to LGBTQIA+, too, one of the important touchstones of the original series. The complexities of queerness are part of the intriguingly nuanced nature of many of these texts. The conference was established to provide a venue for writing about good work, but good works are not perfect, and scholarship should strive to see clearly. LGBTQIA+ texts and scholars have been an important part of this clear-sighted assessment, and SC10 would be strengthened by further contributions in light of contemporary scholarship.

Importantly, the “plus” is meant to refer to the need to counteract a “minus”—that is, the scarcity of Latinx and Black, Indigenous, Person of Color representations in Buffy (the Original Sin of the Buffy text) as well as problematic representations in that and related texts. Since Kent Ono’s 2000 essay “To Be a Vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” scholars have been examining these matters. However, a great deal remains to be done—again, not just on Buffy but also on related texts.

Multidisciplinary approaches (literature, philosophy, political science, history, communications, film and television studies, women’s studies, religion, linguistics, music, cultural studies, art, and others) are all welcome. A proposal/abstract should demonstrate familiarity with already-published scholarship in the field, which includes dozens of books, hundreds of articles, and over twenty years of the peer-reviewed journal Slayage. Proposers may wish to consult the annotated Oxford University Press bibliography on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as the Slayage contents list and the bibliography housed at the ASB+ website.

An individual paper is strictly limited to a maximum reading time of 20 minutes, and we encourage, though do not require, self-organized panels of three presenters. Proposals for workshops, roundtables, or other types of sessions are also welcome. Submissions by graduate and undergraduate students are invited; undergraduates should provide the name, email, and phone number of a faculty member willing to consult with them (the faculty member does not need to attend). A limited number of hybrid slots will be provided. Proposals should be submitted online to slayage.conference@gmail.com and will be reviewed by program chairs James Rocha, Jessica Hautsch, and Rhonda V. Wilcox. Submissions must be received by March 15, 2024. Decisions will be made no later than March 31; however, a rolling response to early submissions will be provided.  Questions regarding proposals can be directed to the conference email address: slayage.conference@gmail.com.



Last updated January 17, 2024
This CFP has been viewed 479 times.

CFP Dead or Alive: The Future of Zombie Studies (expired 2/15/2024)

Sorry to have missed this:

Dead or Alive: The Future of Zombie Studies Edited Collection


deadline for submissions: February 15, 2024

full name / name of organization: Tim Lanzendörfer and Marlon Lieber

contact email: tlanzend@em.uni-frankfurt.de

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/01/16/dead-or-alive-the-future-of-zombie-studies-edited-collection


Call for Papers for an Edited Collection

Dead or Alive: The Futures of Zombie Studies

Edited by Marlon Lieber and Tim Lanzendörfer

We are inviting abstract submissions for an edited collection entitled Dead or Alive: The Future of Zombie Studies. The proposed volume is intended to situate research into the zombie, and the figure of the zombie itself, in the wake of its apparent decline of cultural currency. If, about a decade or so ago, a large number of commentators could and did claim a “global explosion of zombie mania” (Hubner et al. 2015, 3), things have become noticeably more quiet in the 2020s. We understand this as an occasion to take stock of zombie studies and to think about what it will and can do in the future. In asking about the state of zombie studies, we ask both about the state of zombie studies and of zombie studies: both about the ostensible object and the potential disciplinary formation.

We are looking for essays that the ask the question of what the specific state of studying the zombie as a cultural figure is across media and across disciplines, how it is used now, in what contexts, what it promises for the future, and how it is related to other figures of cultural importance. These essays should go beyond individual readings of zombie fictions, even if they might well be grounded in them, and discuss the ways in which studying this singular figure offers disciplinarily relevant insights. What is the state of the zombie as a cultural figure in the first place, in a globalized cultural space where its appearances range from Korean and Senegalese cinema to Western European and American literature to globally-played videogames?

We are looking for essays that specifically hone in on the question of what it means, and will mean, to think about the work on zombies as zombies studies. These essays should pursue the possibility and desirability of institutional frameworks for the study of zombie, perhaps especially as read against (conservative) political backlash against degree programs with unconventional foci. What kinds of disciplinary locations or transdisciplinary utility exist for zombie studies? How, for that matter, might the “zombie” in “zombie studies” permit us to ask questions about the larger horizon of the danger facing the humanities (who is undead here?)? How are “zombie studies” received in public? What theoretical frameworks exist or need to be produced for zombie studies?

The proposed collection thus will intervene notably both in the presumed field of zombie studies as well as in larger constellations of thinking about the humanities. While considerable work exists reflecting on aspects of this project, the vast majority of discussions of the zombie have reflected on its cultural historical significance and meaning. Actual theoretical interventions have been rare, with a lack up until now of a truly synthetic and encompassing take on zombie studies. The proposed collection will be potentially field defining: it will set out both an agenda and a set of potential avenues forward for zombie studies, even as it critically examines the assumptions under which zombie studies are meaningful.

We are soliciting 350-400 word abstracts (plus a short biographical sketch) by February 15, 2024. We will select contributors by March 1. The currently intended publisher for this collection, if accepted, is Rutgers UP, which has already expressed an interest in seeing a submission. Full contributions should be available no later than September 15, 2024.

Please send abstracts to tlanzend@em.uni-frankfurt.de and / or lieber@em.uni-frankfurt.de.


Last updated January 17, 2024
This CFP has been viewed 461 times.

CFP Afterworlds: Communication and Representation of the Afterlife (Spec Issue of ECHO) (3/17/2024)

CFP - Afterworlds: Communication and Representation of the Afterlife


deadline for submissions: March 17, 2024

full name / name of organization: ECHO – Interdisciplinary Journal of Communication Languages, Cultures, Societies

contact email: rivista.echo@uniba.it

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/02/20/cfp-afterworlds-communication-and-representation-of-the-afterlife


Afterworlds

Communication and Representation of the Afterlife



Life after death is a fiction. It imagines a world other than our own […] Fiction is also a kind of life after death and, in contemporary culture, the afterlife finds its most pervasive and diverse manifestations in the forms of narrative fiction.

(Bennett 2012, p. 1)



Imagining, depicting, and contemplating otherworldly realms characterize the afterlife as a cross-cultural constant throughout world history, dating back to the inception of human imagination questioning the limits of existence and the potential for transcending its boundaries. However, in the last century, representations of life after death have undergone a profound transformation, intertwining ancient traditions with new perspectives, sparking a fertile and ongoing debate.

Recent reflections on death and its aftermath, encompassing interdisciplinary studies like Thanatology, have significantly expanded and revitalized the field of contemplation on the after-life. Departing from well-established narratives and supported by enduring cultural traditions, the exploration of the afterlife has expanded to encompass various 'other' and relational forms between pre- and post-death.

Literature and the arts have grappled with the challenge of narrating life after death, adopting schemes and conventions that often defy socio-cultural norms. Fictional narratives often go beyond the simplistic life/death binarism, expanding their semantic field to explore the ways and the worlds where ‘after’ and ‘before’ meet, proposing intricate relationships and spatial dimensions. While death is often considered unspeakable, attempting to translate it into narrative, images, and experiences is an anthropological constant, as “]death and dying are always culturally defined and embedded in a system of cultural beliefs and values" (Kalitzkus 2004, p. 142). It is no coincidence that the afterlife - like fiction itself (Lavocat 2016) - has often been thought of in terms of a 'territory', a real 'possible world' (Pavel 1986) with distinct nomenclatures (such as the Greco-Roman Hades, Norse Valhalla, the Bardo of Tibetan Buddhism, Christian Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise) and recognizable rules governing access and movements within its boundaries.

The imagery associated with afterworlds extends beyond physical spaces to encompass their inhabitants. Myths, religions, literary traditions, and popular folklore are interwoven with a myriad of figures—deities, revenants, ghosts, vampires, zombies, and more. These entities collectively challenge the conventional dichotomy between life and death, prompting a reconsideration of what common sense might suggest. Speculative inquiry into the afterlife not only witnesses the semantization and signification of life after death but also serves as a lens to study the cultural systems producing these narratives. Death, as a crucial anthropological experience, becomes a prism to interrogate the ideology, conventions, hopes, fears, and anxieties of an era.

Even the process of secularization, which has notably impacted the Western world since the modern age, has not hindered artistic representations of the afterlife. In a context of profound transformation, these representations have discovered novel modes of expression. Furthermore, the upheavals of the twentieth century and the post-modern era, accompanied by various changes, have influenced the depiction of the afterlife. This transformation often takes on a completely secular and immanent perspective.

In contrast to theorists like Philippe Ariès (1975), who suggested the isolation of death in heterotopic places, in a Foucauldian sense, numerous historical and artistic events, in decentralizing the subject, have uncovered and rediscovered narratives about death and the afterlife. These narratives transcend the life/death dualism, problematizing imaginative possibilities across different media, resulting in 'other' spaces narrating 'the other beyond life' in diverse ways. The afterlife is not merely an imagined space giving substance to human fears but is also symbolically linked to passage, borders, memory, and the hope for future survival.

The aim of this issue is to delve into the diverse meanings and narrative approaches employed in depicting afterworlds within contemporary literature and the arts. Submissions that examine representations of the afterlife from a comparative standpoint, spanning various national literatures or exploring inter-art relations, will be especially welcomed. The call encourages contributions that consider these themes both synchronically and diachronically, providing a comprehensive exploration of the evolving portrayals of afterworlds across different temporal and cultural contexts.



Deadlines:

Abstract (500 words): 17th March 2024

Notification of acceptance: 14th April 2024

Article submission: 23rd June 2024

Publication: 30th November 2024

Length of articles: max 7000 words

To submit an article, write to: rivista.echo@uniba.it



Potential research lines include but are not limited to:
  • Narratives of Afterlife Spaces
  • Narratives Beyond Life
  • Narratives of the Afterlife Influencing Attitudes Towards Death
  • Autotanatographic Narratives and Narrators who Tells after Death
  • Digital and Virtual Afterlife
  • Multicultural Perspectives on Afterlife Narratives
  • Spaces and Border Crossing
  • Figures of the Afterlife and the Return of the Repressed
  • Mythical (and non-mythical) Figures in Afterworlds Narratives
  • Cultural Memory and Narratives of the Afterlife
  • Intertextuality in Representations of the Afterlife
  • Temporal Aspects in Narrating Life Beyond Death


Essential Bibliography

Bassett, D. J. 2022, The Creation and Inheritance of Digital Afterlives: You Only Live Twice. Springer International Publishing, Berlin.

Bennett, A. 2012, Afterlife and Narrative in Contemporary Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Bernabè, A. 2015, “What is a Katábasis? The Descent to the Netherworld in Greece and the Ancient Near East”, in Les Études Classiques 83 (1-4), pp. 15-34.

Burden, D., Savin-Baden, M. 2019, Virtual Humans: Today and Tomorrow (1st ed.), Chapman and Hall/CRC, London.

Carroll, E., Romano, J. 2010, Your Digital Afterlife: When Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter Are Your Estate, What's Your Legacy?, Pearson Education, London.

Danese, R. M., Santucci, A., e Torino, A. 2020, Acheruntica: La discesa agli Inferi dall'antichità classica alla cultura contemporanea. Letteratura e antropologia. Argalía, Urbino.

Doležel, L. 1998, Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. (Parallax: Re-Visions of Culture and Society), Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

Edmonds, R. G. 2009, Myths of the underworld journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the “Orphic” gold tablets, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Falconer, R. 2005, Hell in Contemporary Literature: Western Descent Narratives since 1945, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.

Frankel, R., Krebs, V. J. 2021, Human Virtuality and Digital Life: Philosophical and Psychoanalytic Investigations, Routledge, London.

Foucault, M. 1966, “Les utopies réelles ou 'lieux et autres lieux', 07/12/1966”, disponibile su Radio France, https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/les-nuits-de-france-culture/heure-de-culture-francaise-les-utopies-reelles-ou-lieux-et-autres-lieux-par-michel-foucault-1ere-diffusion-07-12-1966-2759883

Gee, E. 2020, Mapping the Afterlife. From Homer to Dante, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Ghyselinck, Z., Fabietti, E. 2023 (eds.), Necrodialogues and Media: Communicating with the Dead in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century, De Gruyter, Berlin.

Hayes, E. T. 1994 (ed.), Images of Persephone: Feminist Readings in Western Literature, University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Herrero de Jáuregui, M. 2023, Catábasis: el viaje infernal en la Antigüedad, Alianza Editorial, Madrid.

Holtsmark, E.B. 2001, “The Katabasis theme in modern cinema”, in M. Winkler (ed.), Classical Myth and Culture in the Cinema, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 23–50.

Kalitzkus, V. 2004, “Neither Dead-Nor-Alive Organ Donation and the Paradox of ‘Living Corpses’”, in A. Fagan, Making Sense Of Dying and Death, Rodopi, New York.

Klapcsik, S. 2012, Liminality in Fantastic Fiction: A Poststructuralist Approach. McFarland, Jefferson.

Lavocat, F. 2016, Fait et fiction. Pour une frontière, Éditions du Seuil, Paris.

Linàres Sanchez, J.J. 2020, El tema del viaje al mundo de los muertos en la Odisea y su tradición en la literatura occidental, Universidad de Murcia.

Mbembe A. 2003, “Necropolitics”, in Public Culture, vol. 15, n. 1, Duke University Press, pp. 11-40.

Moreman, C. M. 2017, The Routledge Companion to Death and Dying, Routledge, London.

Pavel, T. G. 1986, Fictional Worlds, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Puglia, E., M. Fusillo, S. Lazzarin, e A. M. Mangini 2018 (a cura di), Ritorni Spettrali. Storie e Teorie Della Spettralità Senza Fantasmi, Il Mulino, Bologna.

Savin-Baden, M. 2021, Digital Afterlife and the Spiritual Realm, Chapman and Hall/CRC, London.

Sisto, D. 2020, La morte si fa social. Immortalità, memoria e lutto nell'epoca della cultura digitale, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino.

Sisto, D. 2020, Ricordati di me: La rivoluzione digitale tra memoria e oblio, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino.

Smith, E.L. 2001, The Descent to the Underworld in Literature, Painting, and Film, 1895-1950: The Modernist Nekyia, Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston.

Sozzi, M. 2009, Reinventare la morte. Introduzione alla tanatologia, Laterza, Bari.

Tanaseanu-Döbler, I., Ryser, G., Lefteratou, A., and Stamatopoulos, K. 2016 (eds.), Reading the way to the netherworld: Education and the representations of the beyond in later Antiquity, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen.

Wagner, R. 2012, Godwired: Religion, Ritual, and Virtual Reality, Routledge, London.

Weinmann, F. 2018, “Je Suis Mort”: Essai Sur La Narration Autothanatographique, Éditions du Seuil, Paris.

Wolf, M. J.P. 2012, Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation, Routledge, London.



ECHO – Revue Interdisciplinaire de Communication. Langages, cultures, sociétés

CFP numéro 6/2024



Last updated February 21, 2024
This CFP has been viewed 366 times.

CFP Metamorphosis, Transformation, and Transmutation (Spec Issue of Cerae) (3/31/2024)

Metamorphosis, Transformation, and Transmutation


deadline for submissions: March 31, 2024

full name / name of organization: Cerae Journal

contact email: editorcerae@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/12/06/metamorphosis-transformation-and-transmutation


Shifting – or transforming – between states of being is a feature of human and animal societies as well as of the wider living world and the cosmos. This act of shifting is experienced through both natural and unnatural processes and can be seen in all areas of life, from the reproductive cycles of organisms, to epochal changes undergone by entire societies, and everything in between. But transformations can also refer to distortions of reality, both deliberate and accidental, magical or real, as much as they can reflect genuine changes to an individual, an institution, a landscape, or even a society. Understanding how one thing becomes another was arguably a feature of much of medieval and early modern intellectual history – from Isidore to Aquinas, Albertus Magnus to Descartes and Newtown – and whole schools of thought could be founded and even wars fought over the differences.

Topics may include, but are not limited to the following:
  • Agricultural/environmental transformations;
  • Alchemy/medicine/science;
  • Literary and historiographical transformation;
  • Magical, mystical, and shapeshifting transformations;
  • Metamorphosis in relation to animals and plants;
  • Political and economic transformation/metamorphosis;
  • Shifting between states such as life stages, death or rites of passage;
  • Spiritual transformations;
  • The body as a site of transformation.

There is no geographic or disciplinary limitation for submissions, which can consider any aspect of the medieval or early modern world or its reception.

We invite submissions of both full-length essays (5000-8000 words) and varia (up to 3000 words) that address, challenge, and develop these ideas. Ceræ particularly encourages submissions from postgraduate and early career researchers, and there is a $200 AUD annual prize for the best postgraduate/ECR essay. Submissions should be sent to the editor (editorcerae@gmail.com), and submissions should follow the guidelines found on our submissions page (https://ceraejournal.com/submissions-2/). Please visit our Volume 11 page for further details on the submissions process (https://ceraejournal.com/volume-11-2024/).

The deadline for themed submissions is 31 March 2024.


Last updated December 7, 2023
This CFP has been viewed 1,280 times.

CFP Medieval Uncanny: Pearl Kibre Medieval Study 18th Annual Conference (expired 1/31/2024)

Sorry to have missed this:

The Medieval Uncanny: Pearl Kibre Medieval Study 18th Annual Conference

deadline for submissions: January 31, 2024

full name / name of organization: Pearl Kibre Medieval Study

contact email: medieval.study@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/11/10/the-medieval-uncanny-pearl-kibre-medieval-study-18th-annual-conference


What: Pearl Kibre Medieval Study 18th Annual Conference

Where: Hybrid, hosted through The Graduate Center, CUNY

When: Friday 3 May 2024


There’s a great deal of attention and sensitivity paid to continuities between the medieval period and the present day, continuities that animate projects as diverse as Geraldine Heng’s The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages to fan-studies readings of works like The Book of Margery Kempe, The Matter of Britain, and Roman de la Rose. This work (often correctly) insists that the medieval world never really went away; it was only dissolved into modernity. But despite the best efforts of scholars to make the vestiges of the Middle Ages intelligible, so many aspects of the period remain obscure, unruly, and decidedly weird. It is this weirdness that we are terming the medieval uncanny, the residue of the Middle Ages that resists simple functionalism. Following Stephanie Trigg and Carolyn Dinshaw, if we give up thinking of the medieval past as a static and knowable place, what can we do?


This conference will explore the uncanny and related terms– the weird, the abject, the spectral–  that describe the moment of rupture which can’t be assimilated by modern perspectives or previous experience, an experience common to contemporary readers and medieval ones. These are moments when a modern reader becomes very aware of the temporal and cultural distance of the Middle Ages, or when a character experiences a sudden shift from the normal to the fantastic. We also notice shifts within medievalist representations of the period, moving from technicolor epics to more somber, weirder stories. These modern adaptations use medieval culture as intertext, marshaling the medieval setting to produce a product that is truly uncanny. We welcome projects that explore these moments of distance, and what they tell us about the potential for uncanniness to be generative in the face of disconnection, unfamiliarity, or surprise.


Submissions might address the following topics:


  • The weird and the eerie in lais, fabliaux, memento mori, etc.
  • Mystics and unconventional relationships to devotion
  • Psychoanalytic theory and medieval texts
  • Human and non-human relationships
  • Cousins of the uncanny (the Gothic)
  • Uncanny medievalisms in film, video games, contemporary literature, etc.


Nonmedievalists, nonacademics and scholars outside the field of English are encouraged to apply. To submit your application, please fiill out the google form here.


Questions may be directed to medieval.study@gmail.com. Abstract Deadline: January 31 2024

Registration Deadline: April 1 2024


Last updated November 15, 2023

This CFP has been viewed 330 times.


CFP Gothic Imagination of Walt Disney Studios (2/12/2024)

Sorry to have missed this:

The Gothic Imagination of Walt Disney Studios: Fear, Horror and the Uncanny in the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’

deadline for submissions: February 12, 2024

full name / name of organization: Diana Sandars / University of Melbourne

contact email: sandars@unimelb.edu.au

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/12/14/the-gothic-imagination-of-walt-disney-studios-fear-horror-and-the-uncanny-in-the-


“The Gothic Imagination of Walt Disney Studios: Fear, Horror and the Uncanny in the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’.”

Editors A/Prof Allison Craven (James Cook University, Australia) and Dr Diana Sandars (University of Melbourne)


Since the 1920s, in its animated and live-action media, Walt Disney Studios has imagined dark, fearful, and horrifying characters and scenarios amidst the legendary hype of Disneyland as the ‘happiest place on earth’. While a disparate critical literature exists exploring Disney’s darkness (for instance, see Nelson; Allan; Whitley; Philips; Piatti-Farnell), this special issue seeks to examine its potential as a purveyor of Gothic. If the early cinema adapted nineteenth-century Gothic conventions in ways that are largely unchanged (Elferen), Disney’s animated films are among the earliest and most striking examples. Skeleton Dance (1929, among the Silly Symphonies) is a prototype - set in a graveyard, and combining imagery from Gothic melodrama and humour from vaudeville (Piatti-Farnell 2019) - while German Expressionist influences and the growing cultural interest in horror (Allan) became fully fledged in feature animation with the evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Many Disney productions since are replete with princesses in Gothic castles (Piatti Farnell) in various states of ruin (see Ross; Swann), or dive into uncanny oceans and submarine worlds (Sandars), or Gothicise quasi-historical dramas, or encompass all range of magical households,Hoffmanesque fantasies, Radcliffian forest dalliances, and the more-than-human sublime. While critique of “Disneyfication” of fairy tales is extensive (Schickel; Zipes), the “Disneyfication” of horror and Gothic in these productions, as well as its theme parks and merchandise, remains under-recognised and under-researched.


We invite papers probing Disney(fication of) Gothic from a range of perspectives to consider its effects, aesthetic and material. Where and when, for instance, do Disney’s practices of adaptation and self-homage (Cecire) impact the Gothic canon? How do iconic creatives like Tim Burton influence Disney Gothic? Where does Disney’s grotesquerie sit within the transgressive range of “body Gothic” (Reyes) in horror literature and film? How do Goth(ic) paratexts of iconic characters in fan cultures disrupt Disney’s branding? How does Disney’s comic horror - from Skeleton Dance to Hotel Transylvania - align with Catherine Spooner’s (2017) notion of ‘happy Gothic’? When are these imaginings merely Disney-esque, and when do they speak to the hauntedness of the human condition? Can the ‘happiest place on earth’, with its ideological penchant for ‘happy endings’ (Craven; Piatti-Farnell 2018), really perpetuate or expand the ‘Gothic imagination’?


We seek abstracts of 250-300 words (plus 50-word author biographies) outlining proposed essays of 6500 words (including notes and references). Send to Allison Craven (allison.craven@jcu.edu.au); or Diana Sandars (sandars@unimelb.edu.au) by 12 February 2024.

 


Works Cited 


Allan, Robin. “European Influences on Early Disney Feature Films.” In A Reader In Animation Studies, edited by Jayne Pilling. Indiana University Press, 1997. pp 241- 60.  


Cecire, Maria Sachiko, “Reality Remixed: Neomedieval Princess Culture in Disney’s Enchanted,” in The Disney Middle Ages: A Fairy-tale and Fantasy Past, edited by Tison Pugh & Susan Aronstein. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. p243 - 259


Craven, Allison. Fairy Tale Interrupted: Feminisms, Masculinities and Wonder Cinema. Peter Lang, 2017.


Elferen, Isabella Van. Gothic Music: The Sounds of the Uncanny, University of Wales Press, 2012.  


Nelson, Thomas A. “Darkness in the Disney Look.” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 2, 1978, pp. 94–103. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43795664.  


Philips, Deborah. Fairground Attractions: a Genealogy of the Pleasure Ground. Bloomsbury, 2012.


Piatti-Farnell, Lorna, ed. Gothic Afterlives: Reincarnations of Horror in Film and Popular Media. Lexington Books, 2019. 


Piatti-Farnell, “Blood Flows Freely: The Horror of Classic Fairy Tales.” In The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature, edited by Kevin Corstorphine & Laura Kremmel. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. pp. 91 -100.


Reyes, Xavier Aldana. Body Gothic–Corporeal Transgression in Contemporary Literature and Film. University of Wales Press, 2014


Ross, Deborah. “Escape from Wonderland: Disney and the Female Imagination.” Marvels & Tales, vol. 18, no. 1, 2004, pp. 53–66.  


Sandars, Diana. “Wayfinding and Finding a Way to Intercultural Storytelling in Moana: Charting Disney’s Gothic in an Oceanic Creation Story.” In Gothic in the Oceanic South: Maritime, Marine and Aquatic Uncanny in Southern Waters. Routledge. (Forthcoming 2024).


Schickel, Richard. The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney. Simon and Schuster,1968.


Spooner, Catherine. Post-millennial Gothic: Comedy, Romance and the Rise of Happy Gothic. Bloomsbury, 2017.


Swan, Susan Z. “Gothic drama in Disney's Beauty and the Beast: Subverting Traditional Romance by Transcending the Animal‐human Paradox”. Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 16, no.3, 1999, pp. 350-369. 


Whitley, David. The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation. Ashgate, 2008.


Zipes, Jack. The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films. Routledge, 2011.


Last updated December 15, 2023

This CFP has been viewed 1,042 times.


CFP Rotting Corpses: Ecocritical Approaches to Death and Decomposition (9/1/2024)

Edited Collection: Rotting Corpses: Ecocritical Approaches to Death and Decomposition

deadline for submissions: September 1, 2024

full name / name of organization: Ashley Kniss, Stevenson University

contact email: ashley.anne.kniss@gmail.com

Editors: Sara Crosby, Carter Soles, and Ashley Kniss

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/01/12/edited-collection-rotting-corpses-ecocritical-approaches-to-death-and-decomposition


In Julia Kristeva’s seminal work, The Powers of Horror, she describes decay as the “contamination of life by death” (149). She goes on to write that “a decaying body, lifeless, completely turned into dejection, blurred between the inanimate and inorganic, a transitional swarming, inseparable lining of a human nature whose life is indistinguishable from the symbolic—the corpse represents fundamental pollution” (109). Kristeva’s work has influenced countless treatments of Gothic horror, helping to define the parameters of an unstable genre and explain why the corpse features so heavily in a genre where bodies, especially dead ones, are de rigueur. However, as scholars devote more attention to the ecoGothic and ecohorror, the role of the corpse is changing. The rotting corpse, dead or undead, is as multifaceted in ecohorror as the macro- and microinvertebrates that swarm within it. On one hand, the corpse remains a site of uncanny blurring between the familiar, human form and that which is alien, frightening, and inhuman. On the other hand, the corpse, especially when it rots, is also a site that teams with nonhuman life, a thriving ecosystem unto itself that represents potential hybridities, posthuman potentialities, and layers of transcorporeal encounters. Corpses in ecohorror rise from both biodiverse swamplands as well as petroleum-rich wells. Ecohorror’s corpses are not limited to the human, but also extend to the enormous corpses of the monsters in creature features. Ecohorror’s corpses are useful, disgusting, beautiful, and funny. Moreover, rotting corpses in ecohorror challenge the anthropocentric reactions of disgust that Kristeva outlines in The Powers of Horror, and evince new ways of conceptualizing the common materiality that binds the human and the nonhuman together.


This collection seeks essays that feature the rotting corpse in ecohorror, addressing topics such as but not limited to corpses in relation to

  • Posthumanism
  • Transcorporeality
  • Materiality
  • Disgust
  • Hybridity
  • Monsters
  • Pop Culture
  • Petrohorror
  • History
  • Burial Traditions
  • Green Burial
  • Aesthetics and Beauty of the Corpse
  • Folk Traditions and the Dead
  • Animal Corpses
  • The gothic
  • Ecohorror
  • Extinction
  • The Anthropocene
  • Spirituality
  • Race, Sex, Gender
  • Nonhuman decomposition
  • Mythology
  • Graveyards, Cemeteries, and Crypts
  • Relics and Religion
  • Corpses in Videogames


Please submit a 250 word proposal/abstract to ashley.anne.kniss@gmail.com  along with your name, affiliation, and a short 50-word bio by September 1st, 2024.


Last updated January 17, 2024


CFP Celebrating 215 years of Edgar Allan Poe (8/2/2024; online 10/5-6/2024)

CFP: Celebrating 215 years of Edgar Allan Poe

deadline for submissions: August 2, 2024

full name / name of organization: Noah Gallego

contact email: eap215conference@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/01/09/cfp-celebrating-215-years-of-edgar-allan-poe


Deadline: August 2, 2024


Conference Date(s): October 5-6, 2024


Format: Online (via Zoom)


Abstract: 200 words + short biographical statement + timezone


Submit to: eap215conference@gmail.com 


Ring in the Halloween season by celebrating the life and works of the U.S.’s grandfather of Goth, Edgar Allan Poe! Scholars from across all disciplines are invited to convene for a (tentatively) two-day conference on the weekend of his 215th deathday where we will critically examine the Tomahawk’s works, including his poetry, prose, novel, and essays. (Other media such as theatrical, televised, or cinematic adaptations of his work may also be considered, provided they relate back to the author’s legacy and work. For instance, any of the Universal Studios adaptations or Scott Cooper’s loosely biographical The Pale Blue Eye (2022) or the recent Mike Flanagan production The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) may be explored).


Lenses through which to consider presentations may include but are not limited to:

  • Orientalism
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Feminism
  • Marxism
  • Gothic
  • Corporeality 
  • Other-than-human
  • Gender, sexuality, and/or queerness
  • Spatiality and Temporality
  • Race
  • Narratology
  • New Materialism
  • Disability
  • Trauma
  • Monstrosity and Abjection
  • Religion, spirituality, the occult, and theology
  • Ecocriticism 
  • Rhetoric and Poetics


Please submit abstracts of 200 words as well as any and all inquiries to eap215conference@gmail.com. Please also provide a short biographical note of up to 100 words in addition to your timezone in order to best arrange presentation times for those outside of PST. This conference will be held online at no charge. The Zoom link will be sent out the week prior. 


Last updated January 17, 2024


Saturday, February 17, 2024

Journal of Dracula Studies 2023

 The latest volume of the Journal of Dracula Studies has arrived.


Journal of Dracula Studies 25 (2023)

Table of Contents

A Wild(e) Story: Vampiric Disease as Gender Transgression in Victorian England

Sophie Bradley


Bedding Down in the Monster's Den: Reading Domesticity, Masculinity and Homoeroticism within Count Dracula's Castle

Ellese Patterson


Vampiric Sideways Growth at the Fin de Siecle: The Intersection of Youth, Race, and Queerness in Florence Marryat's The Blood of the Vampire

Kelsey Shawgo


Construction of Imperial Otherness in Dracula (1897) and Dracula in Istanbul (1928)

Y. Su Kolsal



Saturday, November 11, 2023

CFP Theorizing Cyborgs, Elves, and Vampires: Popular Genres in the Academy (2/2/2024)

Theorizing Cyborgs, Elves, and Vampires: Popular Genres in the Academy

deadline for submissions:
February 2, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Binghamton University Comparative Literature Department

contact email:
swhite32@binghamton.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/11/07/theorizing-cyborgs-elves-and-vampires-popular-genres-in-the-academy


The Comparative Literature Graduate Student Organization at Binghamton University invites proposals for papers discussing popular genres for our graduate conference scheduled for April 12-13, 2024.



There has been a heightened academic interest in popular genres within the last decade. Scholars have approached these texts from a variety of lenses, and—with our graduate conference—we hope to make space for further research through various forms of critical engagement. In addition to welcoming essays regarding individual texts and specific genres, we are also interested in examining the state of popular genres in the academy, and especially encourage submissions engaged with non-Western texts and theory.



We welcome essays which focus on:

  • Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction
  • Horror Fiction
  • Thriller and Mystery
  • Young Adult Fiction
  • Graphic Novels
  • New Media Formats (TV, Video Games, Hypertext, Transmodal, etc.)



We seek essays which approach these genres primarily through one of the following academic approaches:

  • Queer Theory
  • Women and Gender Studies
  • Decolonial or Postcolonial Studies
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Ecocritical Studies
  • Posthumanism
  • Media and Materiality Studies
  • Analytic and Continental Philosophy
  • Marxist Thought
  • Or any other academic approach which opens meaningful inquiry into these genres.



Please send all inquiries and proposals (a title, 250-word abstract, and 100-word bio) to Sarah White at swhite32@binghamton.edu. The deadline for proposals is February 2, 2024. Panels will be decided and participants informed by February 16, 2024.



Last updated November 9, 2023

CFP Vampire Studies Area PCA (11/30/2023; Chicago 3/27-30/2024)

Vampire Studies (PCA/ACA National Conference) March 27-30 2024

deadline for submissions:
November 30, 2023

full name / name of organization:
Popular Culture Association

contact email:
pcavampires@gmail.com


source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/09/13/vampire-studies-pcaaca-national-conference-march-27-30-2024


PCA CONFERENCE 27-30 March 2024, CHICAGO, IL

The Vampire Studies Area of the PCA welcomes papers, presentations, panels, and roundtable discussions that cover all aspects of the vampire as it appears throughout global culture.

The complicated issue of consent is central to all vampire texts, from being fed upon, to being transformed (infected) without consent or one that is informed, freely given, by individuals responsible for negotiating, maintaining, and communicating their on-going consent. In various media and art, sexual assault is often used as a narrative device to motivate characters, as an initiator of power, or the beginnings of a revenge narrative arc. This year we specifically welcome papers, panel presentations, or creative pieces that grapple and explore the ways in which consent functions in vampire narratives. We encourage scholars to consider the ways that power dynamics, social identities, and cultural contexts have shaped conversations over time about consent within vampire tales.

We also look forward to submissions addressing media focusing on the ways in which vampires explore issues of race, ethnicity, and inclusion.

As well as this broad theme we also encourage papers, presentations, and panels that cover any of the following:Products where sexual violence is used as a core narrative trope or motivating factor ie Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire.
The vampire bite and consent in shows like the Vampire Diaries, True Blood, First Kill, Dracula
The Non-Western Vampire (i.e. Black, Asian, Latino/a/x, African, Aboriginal)
The vampire on legacy television shows (i.e., Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Moonlight, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals)
The vampire on recent television shows (i.e., First Kill, The Passage, Interview with the Vampire, Vampire in the Garden, Fire Bite)
Legacy Cinematic vampires (i.e., Nosferatu, Interview with the Vampire, Near Dark, Twilight, Dracula Adaptations etc.)
Recent Cinematic Vampires (i.e., Night Teeth, Morbius, Monster Family etc.)
Vampire Cultures and Contexts (i.e. vampire RPGs or other gaming universes, fan studies, graphic novels, Tik Tok & other social media platforms)
Vampires and the Marginalized (i.e., race, gender, sexualities, national origin)
Genres (i.e. Gothic Horror, Urban Fantasy, Romance, Steampunk, Early Readers, Children’s Picture Books, Young Adult, Erotica, Comedy)
Historic and contemporary vampiric locations and geographies (i.e. cemeteries, castles, cities)
The Horror Vampire, Byronic vs Hedonistic, or Horror vs Romantic
Vampire Studies (i.e., the vampire in the classroom, vampire scholarship)

And anything and everything in between!

To have your proposal/abstract considered, please submit your proposal/abstract of approximately 250 words at the Popular Culture Association Website. We also accept complete panel proposals of 3-4 people.

We do not currently accept papers from fledgling/undergraduate scholars, but you can submit your proposal to the Undergraduate Area. We encourage you to get involved in our vibrant vampire community by joining one of our social media spaces and attending our conference events such as our business meeting. film screening, other roundtables, and sessions.

If you have questions, contact us at pcavampires@gmail.com Also, follow us on Twitter @pca_vampires or join our Facebook groups PCA Vampire Studies and Vampire Scholars.


categories
cultural studies and historical approaches
ethnicity and national identity
film and television
gender studies and sexuality
popular culture

Last updated September 18, 2023

CFP Queer/ing Horror: Video Essays at the Intersection of Horror and Queerness (Spec Issue of Monstrum) (11/15/2023)

CFP: Queer/ing Horror: Video Essays at the Intersection of Horror and Queerness

deadline for submissions:
November 15, 2023

full name / name of organization:
MONSTRUM 7.2 (December 2024)

contact email:
daynarama@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/10/17/cfp-queering-horror-video-essays-at-the-intersection-of-horror-and-queerness


CFP: Queer/ing Horror: Video Essays at the Intersection of Horror and Queerness
MONSTRUM 7.2 (December 2024)
Guest Editor: Dayna McLeod

In What’s the Use? (2019), Sara Ahmed examines “queer use as reuse” (198). She posits, “If I have considered queer use as how we dismantle a world that has been built to accommodate some, we can also think of queer use as a building project” (219-221). Here she highlights the potentiality of queer use, emphasizing its capacity to deconstruct a world full of biased systems, and facilitate creative and productive practices. How might we consider “queer use as reuse” (198) in videographic criticism of queer horror? What interventions, analysis, and critique might we manifest if we look at the form of the video essay in relationship to queer/horror media objects? Ahmed writes, “Queer use can also be about not ingesting something; spitting it out; putting it about. If queer use is not ingesting something, not taking it in, queer use can also be about how you attend to something” (207-8).

Submissions are now open for Monstrum 7.2, a special issue entirely comprised of video essays that “attend to” the intersections of horror and queerness. We seek proposals for 2–7-minute video essays that take up, speak to, or relate Ahmed’s notion of queer use in relation to horror. Likewise, video essayists might consider re/readings of the monstrous, where it is located, and how it is constructed (Jack Halberstam, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters, 1995); dis/identification practices and pleasures in queering and circulating negative and positive affect found in horror (Michael J. Faris, “The Queer Babadook: Circulation of Queer Affects” in The Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetoric, 2022); and/or how “queer horror has turned the focus of fear upon itself, on its own communities and subcultures” (Darren Elliott-Smith, Queer Horror Film and Television: Sexuality and Masculinity at the Margins, 2016, 197).

We are interested in how the video essayist might situate queerness relative to horror through the analysis of specific media objects and/or texts and their formal techniques as productive, disruptive, interventionist, analytical, methodological, and/or confrontational. Does horror be/come in the process of queering or through its queer re/use? How/does horror lie within queerness itself? Video essayists may also consider the medium of the video essay or source media-object as ‘the body’, where the medium itself (film, television, web-based media object, etc.) and its production are horrific: What does the construction of the media object tell us about queer horror? What is the horror? How do queers and queerness encounter and contend with it? What might queer reuse of queerness look like through a horror lens? What are queer re-telling and reviewing practices of horror?

Accepted proposals will also be asked to submit an accompanying statement of 750-1000 words to accompany the published video essay.

Proposal Guidelines
Proposals should include the following elements:Title: A descriptive title for your video essay.
Abstract: A concise summary (250-300 words) of your proposed video essay, identifying your object of study, and outlining the central thesis, methodology, and approach.
Methodology/Approach: Describe the methods and techniques you intend to use in your video essay, including how you plan to convey your ideas visually and aurally.
Thesis: Clearly articulate the main argument or concept you will explore in your video essay regarding the relationship between concepts of ‘horror’ and ‘queer’.
References: Provide a preliminary list of key texts, media objects, etc., that inform your project.

Timeline
The written component will be formatted according to standards set out in the current Chicago Manual of Style. Please see the Monstrum submission guidelines for more information: https://www.monstrum-society.ca/submissions--soumissions.html
Proposal Deadline: November 15, 2023
Notification of Acceptance: December 15, 2023
Submission of Final Video Essay and Artist's Statement: July 1, 2024
Revisions: July-November 2024
Publication: December 2024

For inquiries or further information, or to submit a proposal, please contact Dayna McLeod at daynarama@gmail.com




Last updated October 18, 2023

CFP National PCA Monsters Area (11/30/2023; Chicago 3/27-30/2024)

Note: We are NOT affiliated with this area or its endeavors. 


Monsters, Monstrosities, & the Monstrous

deadline for submissions:
November 30, 2023

full name / name of organization:
Popular Culture Association

contact email:
colleen.karn@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/09/16/monsters-monstrosities-the-monstrous


Monsters, Monstrosities, & the Monstrous CFP

Do you do monster scholarship? If so, we encourage you to consider submitting a paper to the new Monsters, Monstrosities, & the Monstrous area of the Popular Culture Association for the PCA National Conference in Chicago, March 27-30, 2024. https://pcaaca.org/page/nationalconference

Our special topic area (hopefully to become a standing area) will finally provide a home for everything monsters at PCA. We are proud to be the sister area of Vampire Studies who inspired us to create this area for the rest of the monsters. Please join us in exploring the themes, influences, and impact of the monster as a cultural and historical touchstone.

Across the globe and throughout the centuries, the label of monster has been invoked to separate the “natural” from the “unnatural” and the acceptable from the socially unacceptable. Whether referring to mythological creatures, the Victorian creations that have become standards through Universal film adaptations, or as a shorthand to denigrate othered peoples, the monster has no shortage of applications and, sometimes, reevaluations.

We specifically welcome papers or presentations that focus on the use of the monster as a teaching tool or educational lens.

As the term monster has a wide application, topics can be anything from the inhabitants of Sesame Street to medieval studies to medical oddities. Potential paper topics include:
  • Children’s books, toys, or related media
  • Film and television including remediations and transmediations
  • Literary texts
  • Board games, RPGs, video games, and pinball
  • Monsters queering societal norms and the monster as Other
  • Propaganda materials
  • Freakshows and oddities

As part of our “Emerging Monster Scholars” initiative, we are accepting a limited number of papers from undergraduates to showcase and support these future researchers in the field of monster studies. We will be asking applicants for these slots to provide information about an instructor who can attest to the strength of the proposed material and who will help prepare them for a national conference presentation.

Scope of the paper topics accepted under this area: From Grendel to Grover and Hannibal Lecter to high rises, topics in this area span the monstrous in form, behavior, and theory.

List of example paper titles: “Using Cohen’s Seven Monster Theses When Teaching Frankenstein,” “Monsters Helping Children Understand Death in A Monster Calls,” “Monstrifying the Other for Entertainment: From Freak Shows to B-Movies,” “The Monster and his Monstrosity: H. H. Holmes’ Murder Hotel,” and “Deromanticizing the Monster in What We Do in the Shadows.”

Submission requirements: Please submit an abstract (maximum of 300 words).

Contact: Colleen Karn: colleen.karn@gmail.com or David Hansen: hansend@baycollege.edu



Last updated September 18, 2023

Saturday, October 14, 2023

CFP The Mummy Edited Collection (12/15/2023)

Call for Chapters: The Mummy Edited Collection


Editors, Michele Brittany and Sean Woodard
Contact Email: mummybookproject@gmail.com

Abstract Deadline: December 15, 2023

Chapter Drafts Deadline: June 15, 2024

Essays sought for an edited collection focused on Universal Pictures’ The Mummy franchise.

While academic research has been focused on various releases of The Mummy (1932, 1959, 1999, and 2017), there has not been a singular scholarly text devoted to the film franchise.

We seek proposals for chapters that approach the subject matter with theoretical concepts that will appropriately meet the rigorous expectations of an academic work, but through a prose style that shall be accessible for both an academic audience and a general readership.

The purpose of this edited collection is to place The Mummy into a cultural and theoretical context, as well as critically analyze the franchise, its connections to other genre films, and its continued influence.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:
  • Resurgent interest in Brendan Fraser/“Brenaissance”
  • Stephen Sommers as an auteur
  • Representation of Egypt in popular culture and early filmic representation
  • Eastern mythology/culture/religion
  • Exoticism of non-western cultures
  • Post/De-colonialism
  • Heroic representation
  • Body horror
  • Eco-horror/Ecocriticism
  • Gender representation
  • Toxic depictions in film
  • Queer/LGBTQ+ representation
  • Meme/GIF culture
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Generational nostalgia
  • Element of music/film scoring
  • Genre hybridity
  • Film cycles/reboots/retcons (such as The Scorpion King, The Mummy animated series, Universal Classic Monsters, Hammer Studios, Dark Universe, etc.) and related adventure/archaeological-driven films (such as Ark of the Sun God, The Sphinx, The Librarian franchise, etc.)


Please send abstracts of 300 – 500 words with a working title and five (5) keywords, accompanied by a short third-person author bio (100 words max), to mummybookproject@gmail.com as a Word document. The collection is being considered by a leading academic press.