CFP The Playful Monster Conference (7/31/2026; Winchester/Hybrid 9/24-25/2026)

Call for Papers: The Playful Monster

deadline for submissions:
July 31, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Winchester School of Art

contact email:
theplayfulmonster@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/05/11/call-for-papers-the-playful-monster


Call for Papers
The Playful Monster
24–25 September 2026

The monster, conventionally understood, is a figure of dread. It is meant to signal threat, invasion, disgust: something to be fled from, fought against, or kept at a safe distance. But that is only part of the story. Monsters also give pleasure. We look for them in horror games, not only to be frightened but to enjoy the encounter. We buy creature plushies and bring them into our rooms, where they become small, quiet, oddly comforting companions. We copy monstrous gestures, voices, and movements in play with friends, turning fear into performance or shared amusement. So this is one of the questions the conference wants to open up: what it means for the monster to become playful — and how we might understand those moments when play does not dispel fear, but becomes caught up with it.

The Playful Monster is a conference hosted by Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. It looks at how monsters are made playful, and how the monstrous appears in playful ways across games, media, and everyday culture. What interests us is the space where monsters and horror come into contact with games, toys, and play. We welcome contributions from people working in game studies, play studies, monster studies, horror studies, media studies, cultural studies, and related areas. But part of the interest of the conference is also in the work that happens between these fields: in asking how monsters, horror, games, toys, and play begin to come together, and what kinds of questions this makes possible.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Monsters in video games, toys, plush culture, and collectibles.
• Horror gameplay and pleasurable fear
• Cute and comic monsters
• Monsters, nostalgia and the affective pull of the past
• Monstrosity across media forms
• Material encounters with monsters
• Where fear and pleasure meet
• Memory studies
• Queer theory

The conference will be hybrid, so people can take part either in Winchester or online.
We welcome proposals for individual papers of 15 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of discussion.
Abstracts of around 300 words should be submitted to: theplayfulmonster@gmail.com
Please include a short bio with your abstract, saying a little about your research background and the questions your work is concerned with.

The conference will take place on 24–25 September 2026.
The submission deadline is 31 July 2026.
Decisions will be communicated by 25 August 2026.

For those joining us in person, the conference will take place in Winchester, a small cathedral city in the south of England. The campus sits within walking distance of the city centre, with its river, cathedral, and, for those with a taste for literary geography, the house where Jane Austen spent her final years. This is not quite the reason for the conference, of course, but it may be a further reason to make the journey.

For participants based beyond the UK who wish to attend in person, we are happy to provide a letter of invitation to support a visa application.

If you would like to attend online, please let us know when you submit your abstract, and tell us what time zone you are in. We will try to take this into account when putting the programme together.


Last updated May 27, 2026

CFP Gothic Nature, Issue VI (7/25/2026)

**Gothic Nature, Issue VI: Call for Papers**

deadline for submissions:
July 25, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Gothic Nature

contact email:
gothicnaturejournal@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/05/06/gothic-nature-issue-vi-call-for-papers

**Call for Papers, Reviews, and Creative Pieces**

Gothic Nature: New Directions in Ecohorror and the EcoGothic

Issue VI: Unthemed Issue

Deadline for abstracts and pitches: 25th July 2026

‘You cannot adapt to extinction’. —Vanessa Nakate

‘The development of ecocriticism itself can been read as a type of Gothic story. If imagined figuratively as if it were a horror film, the field of ecocriticism is at a point where it is confronting the monster that has been hidden in the basement’. —Tom J. Hillard

The Gothic Nature journal offers a unique space in which critical and creative writers, thinkers, and artists alike can come together to productively engage with the anxieties arising from our increasingly troubled co-existence with the more-than-human world. Since its inaugural publication in 2019, the journal has showcased a multitude of wide-ranging explorations into ‘Gothic Nature’, moving in 2022 to an alternately themed model, with our first Special Themed Issue on Haunted Shores, and our most recent on Decolonising the EcoGothic. Our next issue, Issue VI, will be open, meaning that there is no specific theme beyond interrogating the dark entanglements between ‘Gothic’ and ‘Nature’—and so we are excited to hear from potential contributors on all things to do with ecoGothic and ecohorror.

Interdisciplinary and transmedia approaches are welcome, including analyses of literature, film, television, digital media, and visual culture. We are keen, too, to include and celebrate a diversity of new and more established voices alike in these materials.

For Gothic Nature VI, we invite proposals for papers of 6-8,000 words that critically reflect, engage with, and explore any aspect and interpretation of ‘Gothic Nature’.

Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• Gothic activism and environmental justice
• Regional and transnational ecoGothic and ecohorror
• Gothic ecology, Gothic geology, Anthropocene Gothic
• Extinction
• Eco apocalypse
• Themes of rot, ruin, and decay
• Climate crisis
• Gothic diets and 'Frankenstein food': meat eating, vegetarianism, and veganism
• Gothic guilt and the environment
• Heavy weather
• Queer ecology
• Ecofeminism
• Eco-Marxism
• Religion, cults, and the ecoGothic
• Decolonising ecohorror and the ecoGothic
• Unearthing dread: Gothic land
• Horror and ecocentrism
• Haunted and spectral environments (seas, skies, swamps, wildernesses, etc.)
• Genre and ecocriticism
• Ecophobia
• Animal, vegetal, and mineral monstrosity
• Re-enchantment through darkness
• Tropical Gothic
• Petrogothic
• EcoGothic tourism
• Plastics and pollution
• Trans-corporeality, toxic sublime, polluted bodies, and ecological grotesque

For articles, please send abstracts of 500 words, as well as a brief biography of 150 words, to Dr Harriet Stilley at gothicnaturejournal@gmail.com by Thursday 25th July 2026 (or feel free to contact me informally should you wish to talk through ideas or have any queries). Full drafts papers will be due late 2026/early 2027 and we intend to publish Summer 2027.

If you are interested in writing a review or submitting a creative piece, please send in any pitches or expressions of interest to us by Thursday 25th July. Our Book Review Editor, Dr Jimmy Packham, and Film, TV, & Game Review Editor, Emma Davies, will support our review contributors, and first drafts will be due in November 2026.



About the Gothic Nature Journal

Gothic Nature is an interdisciplinary and peer-reviewed open-access academic journal seeking to explore the latest evolutions of thought in the areas of ecohorror and the ecoGothic. It publishes articles, reviews, interviews, and original creative pieces united in their interrogation of the darker sides of our relationship with the nonhuman and provides a space for all scholars working at the intersections of ecocriticism, Gothic and horror studies, and the wider environmental humanities. Gothic Nature aims to provide deeper understandings of the importance and implications of our monstrous, sublime, spectral, and uncanny constructions of Nature in the cultural imagination and productively explore how Gothic and horror might factor in our conceptions and experiences of contemporary real life ecological crisis.

Website: Gothic Nature Journal – New Directions in Ecohorror and the EcoGothic
Instagram: @gothicnaturejournal
X: @gothicnaturejo



Founding Editor: Dr Elizabeth Parker
Editors-in-Chief: Dr Elizabeth Parker and Dr Harriet Stilley
Book Review Editor: Dr Jimmy Packham
Film, TV & Game Review Editor: Emma Davies
Blog Editor: JJ Mokrzewski
Website Designer: Michael Belcher
Editorial Board: Professor Stacy Alaimo, Professor Eric G. Anderson, Dr Scott Brewster, Dr Kevin Corstorphine, Dr Rachele Dini, Professor Simon C. Estok, Dr Tom J. Hillard, Professor Kim D. Hester Williams, Professor William Hughes, Dr Derek Johnston, Professor Dawn Keetley, Dr Ian Kinane, Dr Ashley Kniss, Dr John Miller, Professor Jennifer Schell, Professor Matthew Wynn Sivils, Professor Andrew Smith, Dr Samantha Walton


Last updated May 7, 2026

CFP Geographies of Horror Conference (10/1/2026; Croatia 5/20-21/2027)

Geographies of Horror

deadline for submissions:
October 1, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Department of English Studies (University of Zadar) in collaboration with The Society for the Study of the American Gothic (SSAG)

contact email:
geographyhorror@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/06/06/geographies-of-horror

Keynote speaker: Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (Central Michigan University)

May 20-21st 2027, University of Zadar (Zadar, Croatia)

The study of horror has always been inseparable from the question of space. From the shadowed corridors of Gothic castles to contemporary digital voids, spaces in horror are never just passive backdrops. They function as active agents that shape perception, destabilize subjectivity, and collapse the distinction between interior and exterior, revealing how fragile our sense of spatial coherence can be. This conference seeks to understand how spaces become haunted - materially, symbolically, psychologically, and technologically, and how these hauntings articulate broader cultural anxieties, historical traumas, and epistemological uncertainties.

In Gothic and horror traditions, fear unfolds through space, guiding perception, and encounters with the unknown. Early Gothic forms, such as castles and monasteries, establish models of spatial excess, enclosure, and architectural anxiety, while the haunted house transforms domestic familiarity into something uncanny. In modern and contemporary horror, this logic extends to urban environments, where entire cities and infrastructures become haunted. While urban legends and other unsettling narratives embed fear in everyday life, abandoned malls, transit systems, and brutalist structures evoke concepts such as “non-places,” characterized by transience and anonymity.

At the same time, horror increasingly stages the breakdown of spatial logic itself. Non-Euclidean geometries, infinite corridors, and paradoxical environments destabilize perception and challenge epistemological certainty. In these instances, space becomes fundamentally unknowable, aligning with cosmic horror and philosophical pessimism. These concerns extend into digital and virtual environments, where video games, online narratives, and immersive technologies generate new forms of spatial horror. Phenomena such as The Backrooms exemplify liminal, endlessly reproducible environments that evoke both familiarity and existential dread. Simultaneously, haunted space becomes internalized within the body and mind, as psychological and body horror depict interiority as fragmented and invasive.

With all this in mind, we welcome papers from across disciplines and media that examine the spatial dimensions of horror, including but not limited to:

• Gothic and classical haunted spaces
• Urban and infrastructural hauntings, including “non-places”
• Non-Euclidean, paradoxical, and incoherent spatialities
• Digital and virtual environments (games, online narratives, immersive media)
• The body and subjectivity as haunted spaces
• Ecological and environmental horror
• Spatial storytelling across literature, film, television, comics, and interactive media

The keynote speaker for the event will be Professor Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (Central Michigan University). He is a Professor of English at Central Michigan University, where he teaches a range of courses on American literature and popular culture. He is the founder and president of The Society for the Study of the American Gothic, the founder and general editor of the peer-reviewed journal American Gothic Studies, and the co-founder and past chair of the Modern Language Association Gothic Studies Forum. He also serves as the associate editor in charge of horror for the Los Angeles Review of Books and is currently the general editor for Bloomsbury Publishing’s six-volume Cultural History of Monsters series.

His research focuses on the “cultural work” performed by the Gothic in its various manifestations - the ways in which Gothic texts and practices give shape to culturally specific anxieties and desires. This interest has led him from considering, for example, how nineteenth-and early twentieth-century American women made use of Gothic conventions as a strategy to express discontentment with their circumscribed roles to thinking about the ways contemporary monsters reflect shifting American fears and aspirations.

To date, he is the author or editor of 34 books and more than 100 essays and book chapters on the Gothic, American literature, cult film, and popular culture.

Abstracts of 250–300 words, accompanied by a short bio (approximately 100 words) and 3-5 keywords, should be submitted to geographyhorror@gmail.com .

The deadline for the abstract submission is October 1st 2026.

Selected papers focused on American Gothic and horror themes will also be considered for publication in the American Gothic Studies Journal.



Last updated June 6, 2026

CFP Indigenous Gothic / Indigenous Horror: A Companion (10/1/2026)

Indigenous Gothic / Indigenous Horror: A Companion

deadline for submissions:
October 1, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Valerie L. Guyant / Montana State University - Northern

contact email:
valerie.guyant@msun.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/06/22/indigenous-gothic-indigenous-horror-a-companion

Call for Chapters

Horror has long been described as a genre about the unknown — the thing lurking just beyond the edges of civilization. But as Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet Nation) has written, horror uniquely allows "two timelines — the past and the present, the legacy of colonialism and the world of the story — to simultaneously exist. Not just exist, but intersect."[1] It is this capacity for temporal and cultural intersection that has made horror and the Gothic not merely accessible to Indigenous writers, but essential.

Scholars and critics have begun to recognize the emergence of what many term "Rez Gothic" — a mode of storytelling that deploys horror and the supernatural to illuminate inequity, cultural trauma, and Indigenous survival. Yet despite a proliferation of landmark texts and a genuine resurgence of Indigenous voices, the field lacks a comprehensive academic companion that accounts for the full breadth of this tradition across Nations, media, and forms. Indigenous Gothic / Indigenous Horror: A Companion aims to address that gap.

This edited collection will draw on examples from fiction, film, television, poetry, and comics to examine the ways Indigenous authors, filmmakers, and artists have engaged with and transformed the conventions of Gothic and horror across multiple traditions. We understand "Indigenous Gothic" and "Indigenous Horror" as interrelated but distinct modes, and welcome submissions that engage with either or both.

The collection is transnational: it will center the voices and creative traditions of a broad range of Native Nations within the United States, First Nations and Métis peoples of Canada, and Pacific Islander and Māori communities, among others.

In addition to academic chapters, the collection aspires to intersperse interviews with Indigenous elders and authors, allowing their voices to speak alongside and sometimes against critical interpretations. This structural choice is a form of intellectual and ethical

responsibility, one that positions community knowledge not as raw material for scholarly analysis but as expertise.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

· Fiction by Indigenous authors working in horror or Gothic modes: Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet Nation); Cherie Dimaline (Métis Nation of Ontario), Empire of Wild (2019); Waubgeshig Rice (Wasauksing First Nation / Anishinaabe), Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018); Darcie Little Badger (Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas), Elatsoe (2020); or A.A. Carr (Navajo/Laguna Pueblo), Eye Killers (1995); Witi Ihimaera (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki and associated iwi); Patricia Grace (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, Te Āti Awa); and Keri Hulme (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Māmoe),

· Horror and Gothic representation in Indigenous film and television, including Prey (2022, dir. Dan Trachtenberg, featuring a nearly all-Comanche cast), Reservation Dogs (FX/Hulu, co-created by Sterlin Harjo, Seminole/Muscogee Nation), Taika Waititi's (Māori/Te Whānau-ā-Apanui) work in horror-comedy including Wellington Paranormal (TVNZ, 2018–2022) and What We Do in the Shadows (2014), and Māori-inflected Gothic in New Zealand cinema.

· Comics, graphic novels, and sequential art with Indigenous Gothic content, including contributions to Marvel's Indigenous Voices anthology (featuring work by Jones and others).

· The use of ceremony, land, and the non-human as sites of horror or uncanny dread in Indigenous poetic traditions.

· Anthology fiction and the construction of an Indigenous horror canon — including Never Whistle at Night (2023, ed. Shane Hawk), Zegaajimo: Indigenous Horror Fiction (2024, ed. Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler and Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm), and related collections.

· Intersections with gender, queerness, and disability within Indigenous horror including the centering of Indigenous women and Two-Spirit characters as protagonists rather than victims.

· Pedagogical questions: how do we teach Indigenous Gothic responsibly in university classrooms, and what do Indigenous horror texts demand of non-Indigenous readers and instructors?

OF NOTE

We particularly welcome abstracts from Indigenous scholars, community members, elders, and artists.

Proposals for interview contributions in lieu of traditional academic chapters are also welcome; please include a brief note on the proposed interview subject and their community affiliation.

Ideally, the finished collection will be organized geographically. Therefore, preference will be given to a variety of texts and approaches, especially if the subject text is placed geographically near the proposer, since land and place are often important.

Strong interest has been expressed by Bloomsbury Publishing

Finished chapters will be approximately 5,000–7,000 words and should adopt a primary text or a set of closely related texts to discuss the broader subject of Indigenous Gothic and horror.

Please submit abstracts of 300–400 words, alongside a short biographical note (75–150 words), to Valerie Guyant at Valerie.guyant@msun.edu by October 1, 2026. Draft chapters will be expected by May 30, 2027.

---

[1] Stephen Graham Jones, foreword to Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, ed. Shane Hawk (Random House Canada, 2023).



Last updated June 22, 2026

CFP Giant Monsters All-Out Attack: Kaiju Culture in the Twenty-first Century (10/31/2026)

Giant Monsters All-Out Attack: Kaiju Culture in the Twenty-first Century

deadline for submissions:
October 31, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Alex Adams, Independent Scholar

contact email:
c21kaijucollection@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/07/09/giant-monsters-all-out-attack-kaiju-culture-in-the-twenty-first-century



GIANT MONSTERS ALL-OUT ATTACK: Kaiju Culture in the Twenty-first Century

Edited by Alex Adams, independent scholar



The kaiju genre has never been so healthy. Godzilla, now an Oscar-winner thanks to the world-leading VFX of Godzilla Minus One (2023), stars in two global movie franchises at once, with the Legendary MonsterVerse expanding into TV, print media, and video games whilst a freshly announced ‘Godzilla Universe’ promises to deliver a comparable slate of output from Japanese originators Toho. Gamera, Ultraman, and Evangelion too, have been rejuvenated in recent years; giant monsters have made prominent appearances in both the MCU (Galactus in Fantastic Four: First Steps [2025]) and DCU (Kaiju in Superman [2025]); Chinese cinema has given us Abyssal Spider (2020) and The Monster is Coming (2024), South Korean The Host (2006). Broadening its territory from the conventional US-Japan B-movie axis, the giant monster movie has entered a new golden age, but we scholars are yet to catch up.

While Godzilla’s symbolic associations with nuclear weapons, Japanese historical trauma, and Cold War tensions are well-known, scholarship has yet to fully reckon with the multifaceted implications of the contemporary re-emergence of giant monsters as major cultural figures. How, for example, can we reconcile Godzilla’s progressive antinuclear political credentials with Adorno’s claim, in Minima Moralia (1951), that the fascination with giant monsters is a sublimated form of fascination with sovereign power – or indeed, how do we reckon with Shinzo Abe’s attempts to appropriate Shin Godzilla as an icon of his right-wing neoliberal government? How do we read the MonsterVerse’s conception of violently enforced natural hierarchy in a time of global fascist solidarities? There was much twentieth century talk of Cold War monstrosity, but are we yet able to talk of a post-9/11 kaiju? Kaiju stories have offered powerfully liberatory narratives and images to queer and neurodivergent people, but in the west at least they remain marked by the whiteness that characterizes so much mainstream science fiction; (how) is this complicated by the genre’s Japanese origins? To what extent is critical discourse on the kaiju genre marked by an implicit embarrassment about ‘unserious’ cultural production?

Explicitly connecting contemporary giant monsters to the twenty-first century political and social histories from which they emerge, this edited collection will critically explore the kaiju as an international cultural figure, analysing its capacious symbolic potentials and its ambiguous political promise. Essays on any kaiju text are welcome as long as they refer clearly to twenty-first century political and/or critical contexts. A range of formats and methods are welcomed: conventional academic analysis, experimental/creative methods, personal/autoethnographic essays, and more. Contributions from minoritized writers are actively encouraged.

Customary very long yet necessarily incomplete list of suggested topics:

• Power, violence, justice
• Neoliberalism and political spectacle
• Antifascism & anticapitalism
• Contemporary warfare
• Climate disaster, the Anthropocene, eco-politics, eco-fascism
• Monster Theory, animality, the more-than-human
• Nostalgia: genre prehistory, historical revision, rebooting
• The future: time travel, the end of the world, hope
• Race, racialisation, racism: simianisation, noble savages, slavery, biological determinism, white supremacy, whiteness, techno-orientalism, afrofuturism
• Kaiju & imperialism: alien civilisations, invasion, self-defence, emergency ethics
• Utopia: internationalism, geopolitics, perfected societies, class, the city
• Sex, gender: reproduction, transformation, parenthood, family
• The body and difference: neurodiversity, disability, embodiment
• Disreputable epistemologies and ontologies: occultism, conspiracism, para-archaeology, ufology, post-truth, etc.
• Mythology, classics, folklore
• Oceans, marine life, the planetary
• Religion, eschatology, apocalypse
• Robots, Mechas, AI, transhumanism, technology
• Genre fluidity: the relation of kaiju movies to science fiction, comedy, horror (particularly J-horror), children’s media, fantasy, wrestling, dance, sports, comedy
• Parody, mockbusters, badfilm
• Form crossover: kaiju in video games, comics, literature
• Franchise-building, intertextuality, sequelization
• Material culture: collecting, toys, physical media, advertising
• Audience reception & fan cultures: podcasts, social media, fan scholarship, conventions

300-word abstracts and short bios should be sent to c21kaijucollection@gmail.com by 31st October 2026. Queries and questions are welcome. Completed chapters will be in the 7500/8000-word range, although depending on the nature of the submission other lengths will be considered. Anything composed using any form of AI will not be considered.



About the editor: Alex Adams is an independent scholar writing a comprehensive intellectual history of Godzilla, Godzilla: A Critical Demonology, which is under contract with Headpress Books. They also co-edited an anthology of short stories and poetry about kaiju called Devastation Songs with Aaron Kent in 2024. In addition to Godzilla, they write on the representation of contemporary political violence. They have published four monographs, most recently Kill Box: Military Drone Systems and Cultural Production(Rowman & Littlefield, 2024). Read more at www.atadamswriting.com, and follow on social media at @gdemonology on Bluesky and Instagram.


Last updated July 9, 2026

CFP Horror in Tragedy / Tragedy in Horror (9/30/2026; NeMLA Newport RI 3/6-9/2027)

Horror in Tragedy / Tragedy in Horror

deadline for submissions:
September 30, 2026

full name / name of organization:
NeMLA

contact email:
gorlamia@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/07/07/horror-in-tragedy-tragedy-in-horror

While tragedy and horror are often treated as distinct genres, both traditions ask audiences to look steadily at what ordinarily repels them. From unburied corpses and undead monsters to violated kinship and failed agency, these spectacles produce fear, pity, disgust, and sorrow alongside fascination. This session explores what might be understood as a tragedy–horror continuum, examining the aesthetic, affective, and ritual overlaps between tragic and horrific representation across historical periods and media.

This panel welcomes interdisciplinary approaches to the relationship between tragedy and horror in theater, film, literature, television, performance, and visual culture. Possible topics include abjection, affect, taboo, pollution, spectatorship, ritual, violence, mourning, trauma, revenge, monstrosity, catharsis, embodiment, psychoanalysis, genre theory, and adaptation. Papers may address how tragedy and horror construct communal affective experiences; how art and literature shape cultural understandings of taboo and trauma; or how horror inherits, transforms, or reimagines tragic structures.

The significance of this session lies in its effort to create a space for dialogue between fields that are often separated institutionally and generically despite their shared concerns with suffering, transgression, and collective spectatorship. By bringing tragedy and horror studies into conversation, this panel seeks to reconsider the boundaries between canonical and popular forms while illuminating how these shared spectacles mediate communal encounters with what culture cannot easily assimilate.

___

Please submit abstracts by September 30, 2026 through the NeMLA portal: https://cfplist.com/nemla/User/SubmitAbstract/22290



Last updated July 7, 2026

CFP Still Screaming: An Online Conference Celebrating 30 Years of 'Scream' (8/15/2026)

Still Screaming: An Online Conference Celebrating 30 Years of 'Scream'

deadline for submissions:
August 15, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Dr. Alissa Burger

contact email:
aburger@culver.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/07/07/still-screaming-an-online-conference-celebrating-30-years-of-scream


Still Screaming: An Online Conference Celebrating 30 Years of Scream



2026 marks the 30th anniversary of Wes Craven’s Scream (1996), which has had a profound impact on horror films and the slasher subgenre specifically. In the past three decades, Scream has become a franchise of seven films and a television series (2015-16, 2019). Scream has also expanded beyond the screen, reverberating throughout the popular culture landscape and serving as the foundation for a game, collectible figures, multiple Ghostface mask variations, and an entire collection of merchandise at Spirit Halloween (and elsewhere).



Proposals are invited for a one-day online conference celebrating Scream on Tuesday, November 24th, 2026.



Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Scream and slasher conventions
• Scream films as part of individual horror cycles (i.e. ‘90s horror, millennial horror)
• Sidney Prescott and the maturation of the Final Girl
• Variation, reworking, and subversion of the Final Girl figure (i.e. Jill in Scream 4, Tara and Samantha in Scream 5 and Scream 6, Tatum Evans in Scream 7)
• Role of evolving technologies (i.e. caller ID, cell phones, AI) in Scream films
• Themes of fame and notoriety within the Scream films
• Narrative construction and epistemology (i.e Stab franchise; role and process of adaptation in Scream 3; Sidney’s autobiology Out of Darkness in Scream 4)
• Characters’ perceptions of and responses to trauma in Scream films
• Spoofs of the Scream franchise (i.e. Scary Movie franchise, Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th)
• Scream merchandising (i.e. mask variations, collectibles, apparel)
• Scream and music (i.e. Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand,” character themes, Ice Nine Kills)
• The return (and loveability) of Matthew Lillard
• Family dynamics, secrets, and generational trauma in Scream films
• Scream at horror cons, fright fests, and other fan events

Individual presentations will be 15-20 minutes. Proposals should be 250-300 words and accompanied by a brief (~100) word bio. Proposals are due to aburger@culver.edu by August 15th, with notification of acceptance by September 15th.

Contact Dr. Alissa Burger (aburger@culver.edu) with any questions.



Last updated July 7, 2026

Call for Reviews: Gothic Nature Issue VI: TV and Film Reviews (11/1/2026)

Gothic Nature Issue VI: TV and Film Reviews

deadline for submissions:
November 1, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Gothic Nature

contact email:
emma.l.davies@bristol.ac.uk

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/06/02/gothic-nature-issue-vi-tv-and-film-reviews

Gothic Nature is a peer-reviewed, open access journal that engages with the Gothic conceptions of, and relationship to, the natural world. For the TV and film review section of its sixth issue, the journal seeks reviews for ecoGothic television series and films released in the last couple of years (2023–2026). Issue VI of the journal is unthemed, so there is no restriction on the types of film and TV we’d like reviews for. As a general guideline, we’d be interested to see reviews of the following (please note that this is not an exhaustive list, reviews of other relevant films and programmes are more than welcome):



Film:

Hokum (dir. Damien McCarthy, 2026)
The Caretakers (dir. Shugo Praico, 2025)
Humane (dir. Caitlin Cronenberg, 2024)
The Devil’s Bath (dir. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, 2024)
Fréwaka (dir. Aislinn Clarke, 2024)
Starve Acre (dir. Daniel Kokotajlo, 2024)
Iron Lung (dir. Mark Fischbach, 2026)



TV:

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen (Netflix, 2026)
The Last of Us (Season 2 – HBO, 2025)
Alien: Earth (FX / Hulu, 2025)
Teacup (Peacock, 2024)



Games:

Dredge (2023)
Strange Horticulture (2022)
Wytchwood (2021)



Reviews should be roughly 1,000 words in length. Summary of the work should not exceed 1-2 paragraphs to ensure that analysis is the focus. Reviews should be academic and critical with a clear argument and should engage with the following:

1) Why should the Gothic Nature community be interested in this text and your analysis of it;

2) why is the text significant to conversations on ecohorror/ecoGothic/Gothic Nature, and;

3) what does your analysis add to these conversations?



Please send reviews to Emma Davies at emma.l.davies@bristol.ac.uk.



Last updated July 6, 2026

CFP Seminar on Horror, Today: Genre, Mediation, Collapse (9/30/2027; NeMLA Newport, RI 3/6-9-2027)

CfP | NeMLA 2027 Seminar | Horror, Today: Genre, Mediation, Collapse

deadline for submissions:
September 30, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)

contact email:
vdani@hamilton.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/07/02/cfp-nemla-2027-seminar-horror-today-genre-mediation-collapse



NeMLA's 58th Annual Convention March 6-9, 2027 | Newport, RI


Which tools, discourses, and categories do we employ to understand horror today? How is the current regime of images and narrative control reshaping (or annihilating) our relationship with this category? How are we to rethink the instability between representation and event, the normalization of atrocity, and the breakdown of epistemology? As Eugene Thacker (2011) notes, “the world is increasingly unthinkable . . . To confront this idea is to confront an absolute limit to our ability to adequately understand the world at all.” After years of collective NeMLA conversations around cinematic horror, we look forward to receiving contributions that reflect upon horror by exploring its (algorithmically defined) diffusion and consumption. With this discussion, whose urgency lies in the accelerated mediatic (and mediated) circulation of brutality, we wish to explore the post-2023 instability of the distinction between representation, documentation, and aestheticization.

In a technological landscape increasingly saturated with horror, we are called to confront the ethics and politics of spectatorship by reconsidering the image's ontological status. In this light, horror is not reducible to affective intensity, nor to a genre: it rather functions as a structuring condition of mediation. Following this framework, we welcome interdisciplinary submissions exploring dark media that move beyond representational analysis toward critical theory, Marxism, film studies, and affective theory. Together, we strive to reflect upon the political implications hidden under regimes of continuous exposure, the new contours of horror as entertainment, and the collapse of epistemic distance.

Please submit an abstract of 200-250 words by September 30, 2026 on the NeMLA portal: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/22586

Accepted participants must submit their paper draft no later than February 1, 2027. Essays should be between 10 and 15 pages, double-spaced, and include a “Works Cited” section. All participants are expected to read each other’s work before the session and provide a one-paragraph response to one person as assigned by the chairs.

If you have any questions regarding the seminar, please contact the organizers directly: Valeria Dani (vdani@hamilton.edu) and Ruth Z. Yuste-Alonso (ryustealonso@stetson.edu).

CFP Oceanic Horror (9/30/2026; NeMLA Newport, RI 3/3-9/2027)

Oceanic Horror

deadline for submissions:
September 30, 2026

full name / name of organization:
NeMLA

contact email:
phillipzapkin@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/07/01/oceanic-horror


As we meet in Newport, an island at the edge of the Atlantic, this panel invites papers about ocean-based horror media. Oceans, seas, and other waterways have been central to human culture throughout history, offering both opportunities to build communities across the waves and the threat of lonely, painful death through drowning or isolation through shipwrecks. Add to these latter fears the strange (from a terrestrial perspective) and sometimes disconcerting forms of ocean life, and humanity has generated a rich body of horror stories and myths based on the ocean—from the monstrous Homeric whirlpool Charybdis, to Japanese yokai like the Nure-onna or Bake-kujira, to broadly shared myths about mermaids or sea serpents, to shark-based horror like the Jaws franchise and its imitators, to supernatural pirates like the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, to existential horror like Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse.

This panel invites papers about any aspect of oceanic horror, welcoming proposals from different literary/cultural traditions and with different theoretical focuses. By bringing together various presentations, this panel intends to enact the conference theme of empowering community by finding links between how people across cultures and times have negotiated oceanic anxieties. Because experiences of the sea are ubiquitous throughout many cultures, finding common ground in myths, legends, and stories about ocean-based terror provides a lens for identifying shared human experiences.

To paraphrase Martin Brody from Jaws, “you’re gonna need a bigger conference.”

Please submit 200-300 word abstracts through the NeMLA panel submissions page at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/22329. Submissions are due by 30 Sept. 2026.

The NeMLA conference will be held in Newport, RI from 6-9 Mar. 2027.

CFP NEPCA Monsters & the Montrous Area 2026 - UPDATED DEADLINE (7/1/2026; Online 10/15-17/2026)

CFP NEPCA Monsters & the Montrous Area 2026 - UPDATED DEADLINE


The Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association (a.k.a. NEPCA) seeks proposals for inclusion in NEPCA’s 2026 annual conference.


The event will run as a virtual conference from Thursday, October 15th, through Saturday, October 17th. Virtual sessions will take place via Zoom throughout the day on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Registration will open up in mid-July. The registration fee is expected to be around 50 USD.


The Monsters & the Monstrous Area welcomes proposals that investigate any of the things, whether mundane or marvelous, that scare us. Through our sessions, we hope to pioneer fresh explorations into the darker sides of the intermedia traditions of the fantastic (including, but not restricted to, aspects of fairy tale, fantasy, gothic, horror, legend, mythology, and science fiction) by illuminating how creative artists have both formed and transformed our notions of monsters within these sub-traditions in texts from various countries, time periods, and media and for audiences at all levels. Our primary goal is to foster a better understanding of monsters in general and to examine their impact on those who receive their stories as well as on the world at large.


In addition, as a component of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, the Monsters and the Monstrous Area is also especially interested in fostering discussion and debate on the monsters and the monstrous of the Northeastern United States (here defined as New England and New York). Topics might include the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, Annabelle, the Borden Family Murders, the Bridgewater Triangle, the Conjuring House, the Dover Demon,  the Gloucester Ghoul, the Gloucester Sea Serpent, the Legends of Sleepy Hollow, the New England Gothic tradition, the New England Vampire Panic, the New England Witchcraft Hysteria, the Palatine Light, and the life, works, and legacies of local Gothic/horror authors such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, John Greenleaf Whittier, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Joe Hill, Washington Irving, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, and H. P. Lovecraft.


NEPCA prides itself on holding conferences that emphasize sharing ideas in a non-competitive and supportive environment. We welcome proposals from graduate students, independent scholars, disciplinary professionals, junior faculty, and senior scholars. NEPCA conferences offer intimate and nurturing sessions in which new ideas and works-in-progress can be aired, as well as completed projects.


The call will be open until Wednesday, July 1st, by 5 pm EDT. Submissions should be made directly at https://www.northeastpca.org/call-for-papers. This site offers full information on the submission process and a link to send your proposal to us. If you have any questions about the conference, please reach out to the Executive Secretary, Lance Eaton (northeastpopculture@gmail.com).


Questions on the Monsters & the Monstrous Area can be directed to the area chair, Michael A. Torregrossa (popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com). The area maintains a series of blogs that offer resources and potential topics. Please access them at Popular Preternaturaliana: Studying the Monstrous in Popular Culture (https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/).

Kalamazoo 2026 Sponsored Session - Magics, Marvels, Metamorphoses, and Monsters: Horrors of the Medieval Past, Present, and Future

Here are the final details on our sponsored session for this year's International Congress on Medieval Studies.

Magics, Marvels, Metamorphoses, and Monsters: Horrors of the Medieval Past, Present, and Future

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)/Online through Confex

Session 282: Friday, 15 May 2026, 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Co-Sponsored by Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association; Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, International Society for the Study of Medievalism

Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College; June-Ann Greeley, Sacred Heart University.

Presider: June-Ann Greeley, Sacred Heart University 

1 - The Dragon and the Witch in the Medieval Greek Romance Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe

Rui Carlos Fonseca, Univ. Madeira; Centro de Estudos Clássicos, Univ. Lisboa

This paper examines the roles of the Dragon and the Witch in the fourteenth-century Greek romance Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe. Due to their actions contrary to human nature, both magical figures are killed by royal male characters.

Rui Carlos Fonseca is Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Madeira, Funchal, and Researcher at the Centre for Classical Studies, University of Lisbon. He holds a Ph.D. in ancient Greek literature (2013). Among other publications, he is the author of Epopeia e Paródia na Literatura Grega Antiga (2018). He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Classical Studies, working on Byzantine vernacular romance (2015–2021). His research interests focus on Homeric poetry, Byzantine literature, and Reception studies.

2 - Medea Translated and Erased: Late Medieval Depictions and Reconfigurations of Medea

Molly Bronstein, Univ. of Toronto

This paper examines Medea’s reception in Middle English and Middle French, arguing that a distinct division in her more notable representations—that is, a tendency to either to erase or amplify her sorcery—makes her an especially fraught and useful figure for the violence of textual lineage and translation.

Molly Bronstein is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto's English Department as well as Victoria College, where she teaches literary studies and creative writing. She previously earned her PhD in Comparative Literature and Medieval Studies from UC Berkeley in 2022 and has also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Her research focuses on translation history and Ovid’s medieval reception. (She's also a horror and fantasy writer with an interest in the ongoing legacy of monsters and witches in recent speculative fiction.)

3 - “She is not known to God:” The Female Giant as Familial and Social Horror

Tina Boyer, Wake Forest Univ.

This paper analyzes giantesses in the German epic Eckenlied, arguing their true horror stems from social transgression, not physical monstrosity. By fighting like men, they challenge patriarchal norms, embodying medieval anxieties about female autonomy, kinship, and the “wild” woman outside patriarchal control, revealing a complex gendering of the monstrous.

Tina Boyer is an Associate Professor of German at Wake Forest University. Her research interrogates the intersections of medieval German literature and linguistics. She is the author of “The Giant Hero in Medieval Literature” (Brill 2016) and has published extensively on topics ranging from medieval religious morality to contemporary digital folklore, including work on the Slender Man mythos. Her recent scholarship includes a co-edited special edition on "Conceptions of Race in Premodern German Studies” for the journal Seminar, forthcoming at the end of the summer.

4 - Illuminated Nightmares: Marginal Monsters in Medieval Manuscripts and Their Digital Afterlives

Cristian Vechiu, Independent Scholar

How did medieval readers experience the grotesque creatures lurking in manuscript margins? Through analysis of reader interactions and material evidence, this paper reconstructs the medieval encounter with marginal monsters and explores how these liminal beasts created "movements of the mind" that shaped perceptual strategies still active today.

Cristian Vechiu is an independent researcher whose work focuses on medieval mysticism and Renaissance esoterism, while maintaining a close look upon the religious ideas of Late Antiquity (as a nexus from which streamed major spiritual practices and conceptions from the Early Middle Ages to the end of the Renaissance). He has a PhD in theology and religious studies at the University of Bucharest, with a thesis on Anselm’s last treatise, De concordia. During his PhD he was a short-term fellow at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He recently participated at the XXIII International Association for the History of Religions World Congress, with a presentation titled “Being a Scholar as an Outsider”. For the last ten years he has been teaching courses in the history of religions at a cultural NGO in Bucharest.

CFP NEPCA Monsters & the Monstrous Area (6/15/2026; Online 10/15-17/2026)

CFP NEPCA Monsters & the Monstrous Area 2026


The Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association (a.k.a. NEPCA) seeks proposals for inclusion in NEPCA’s 2026 annual conference.


The event will run as a virtual conference from Thursday, October 15th, through Saturday, October 17th. Virtual sessions will take place via Zoom throughout the day on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Registration will open up in mid-July. The registration fee is expected to be around 50 USD.


The Monsters & the Monstrous Area welcomes proposals that investigate any of the things, whether mundane or marvelous, that scare us. Through our sessions, we hope to pioneer fresh explorations into the darker sides of the intermedia traditions of the fantastic (including, but not restricted to, aspects of fairy tale, fantasy, gothic, horror, legend, mythology, and science fiction) by illuminating how creative artists have both formed and transformed our notions of monsters within these sub-traditions in texts from various countries, time periods, and media and for audiences at all levels. Our primary goal is to foster a better understanding of monsters in general and to examine their impact on those who receive their stories as well as on the world at large.


In addition, as a component of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, the Monsters and the Monstrous Area is also especially interested in fostering discussion and debate on the monsters and the monstrous of the Northeastern United States (here defined as New England and New York). Topics might include the Borden Family Murders, the Bridgewater Triangle, the Legends of Sleepy Hollow, the New England Gothic tradition, the New England Vampire Panic, the New England Witchcraft Hysteria, and the life, works, and legacies of local Gothic/horror authors such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Joe Hill, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, and H. P. Lovecraft.


NEPCA prides itself on holding conferences that emphasize sharing ideas in a non-competitive and supportive environment. We welcome proposals from graduate students, independent scholars, disciplinary professionals, junior faculty, and senior scholars. NEPCA conferences offer intimate and nurturing sessions in which new ideas and works-in-progress can be aired, as well as completed projects.


The call will be open until Monday, June 15, by 5 pm EDT. Submissions should be made directly at https://www.northeastpca.org/call-for-papers. This site offers full information on the submission process and a link to send your proposal to us. If you have any questions about the conference, please reach out to the Executive Secretary, Lance Eaton (northeastpopculture@gmail.com).


Questions on the Monsters & the Monstrous Area can be directed to the area chair, Michael A. Torregrossa (popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com). The area maintains a series of blogs that offer resources and potential topics. Please access them at Popular Preternaturaliana: Studying the Monstrous in Popular Culture (https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/).

CFP Journal of Dracula Studies 2026 (6/1/2026)

Journal of Dracula Studies

deadline for submissions:
June 1, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Journal of Dracula Studies

contact email:
journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/04/10/journal-of-dracula-studies



The Journal of Dracula Studies is open for submissions for its upcoming 2026 issue. We invite manuscripts of scholarly articles (4000-6000 words) on any of the following: Bram Stoker, the novel Dracula, the historical Dracula, the vampire in literature including folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics. Submissions should be sent electronically (as an e-mail attachment in .docx). Please indicate the title of your submission in the subject line of your e-mail.

Please follow MLA style. Examples of papers published in the Journal are available at https://research.library.kutztown.edu/dracula-studies/. Contributors are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions and ensuring observance of copyright.

Manuscripts will be peer-reviewed independently by at least two scholars in the field.
Copyright for published articles remains with the author. Send electronic submissions to journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu


Last updated April 13, 2026

CFP Promises of Monsters: Those Haunting Feminist Speculative Fiction (3/14/2026; MLA 2027)

2027 MLA CFP: The Promises of Monsters: Those Haunting Feminist Speculative Fiction

deadline for submissions:
March 14, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Ezgi Hamzaçebi / MLA 2027

contact email:
ezgi.hamzacebi@ozyegin.edu.tr

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/03/04/2027-mla-cfp-the-promises-of-monsters-those-haunting-feminist-speculative-fiction

This panel explores the promises and provocations of monstrous and ghostly figures in feminist and queer speculative fiction, focusing on gendered human and nonhuman bodies. We are particularly interested in how monsters articulate socially ingrained fears and anxieties about women, queer communities, and the nonhuman world, as well as the desires and apprehensions they evoke toward the impossible, the fantastic, or the supernatural. Contributors might consider how these monstrous imaginings shape, challenge, or expand the category of “us,” offering critical insights into who is included, who is excluded, and on what grounds. By interrogating these entanglements, the panel seeks to illuminate how feminist and queer speculative fiction uses the figure of the monster to question normative assumptions, open new imaginative possibilities, and rethink the ethical and social stakes of inclusion, otherness, and coexistence.

*Please submit a 250-word abstract and a brief bio by March 14.

ezgi.hamzacebi@ozyegin.edu.tr

https://mla.confex.com/mla/2027/webprogrampreliminary/Paper33661.html



Last updated March 10, 2026

CFP Ninth Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2026 (3/27/2026; Pittsburgh/Hopin 6/5/2026)

The Ninth Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2026

deadline for submissions:
March 27, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Horror Writer's Association

contact email:
AnnRadcliffeCon@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/03/12/the-ninth-annual-ann-radcliffe-academic-conference-at-stokercon-2026

The Ninth Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2026

Conference Date: Friday, June 5, 2026

Conference Location: The Westin Pittsburgh, 1000 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, and via Hopin

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

Stokercon 2026 will be the tenth anniversary of Stokercon, and the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is delighted to be a part of this banner year. Along with the HWA, we look forward to reflecting on the history of Stokercon and the horror genre, while considering the potential of our future. We are thrilled to be hosting our 2026 and 2027 conferences in Pittsburgh, home to the University of Pittsburgh’s Horror Studies Center, Horror Studies Collection, and a wealth of historic sites and horror-related venues to explore. We are delighted to take part in this banner year, and to prepare for our own ten-year anniversary in 2027. With these milestones in mind, the co-organizers of the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference are pleased to announce our call for papers. 

This year, we are eager both to welcome traditional academic presentations and to encourage inventive proposals and formats that engage with the study and critique of the horror genre and its media. This year, we especially seek to engage with the stories, histories, and cultures of Pittsburgh and the wider Appalachian region, as well as with the history of the HWA and Stokercon itself. 

The Ann Radcliffe Conference serves as a research showcase within Stokercon for scholars of horror, and an opportunity for building community and collaboration among participants. We look forward to continuing this tradition by inviting all interested scholars, researchers, creators, academics, and non-fiction writers to submit 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. Please note that while this conference is slightly different in its format and approach, all Stokercon participants are welcomed to take part in the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference, and to submit proposals for presentation. 

We are eager to receive abstracts that expand scholarship, analysis, and theory across horror and gothic studies in fields or formats including (but certainly not limited to): 

• Art
• Cinema
• Comics/Manga
• Literature
• Music
• Podcasts/Radio
• Digital and Analog Media
• Poetry
• Television
• Video Games
• Cartoons/Anime

We invite presentations 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 viewpoints, scholarly backgrounds, and transmedial fields including, but not limited to:

• Critical race theory
• Environmental Studies
• Film theory and analysis
• Gender/LGBTQIA+ theory
• Historical analysis and interpretation
• Archival research
• Literary theory and analysis
• Popular responses and audience studies
• Pedagogical approaches to horror and the gothic
• Intersections with psychology, biology, and the history of medicine
• Philosophical approaches
• The history of the HWA and Stokercon, including the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference

Presentation and Submission Guidelines Please upload a 250 – 300 word abstract to SUBMITTABLE LINK (https://horrorwritersassociation.submittable.com/submit) by March 27, 2026. Responses will follow as soon as possible.
Accepted 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 17, 2026.

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 2026 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.stokercon.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 14, 2026

CFP Monster Media Conference 2026 (3/15/2026; Edinburgh/Hybrid 6/18-19/2026)

Not sure how I missed posting this sooner.

Monster Media Conference 2026

deadline for submissions:
March 15, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Julia Larsen / University of Edinburgh

contact email:
monstermediaconference@gmail.com


source:

As long as humans have been making media, we have been making media about monsters. From neolithic paintings of monsters in the Cave of Beasts and the myriad monsters of Homer’s Odyssey, to the now-classic monsters of 19th-century Gothic literature and the creature features of 20th-century cinema, to zombie video games and Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour, our fascination with monsters has spanned across nearly every medium. While monstrosity is complex and its manifestations manifold, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen has theorized that the monster will defy easy categorization, that it is an embodiment of a specific cultural moment, and that it will evolve and shift to ensure its survival through the ages (“Monster Culture (Seven Theses)”). While it has often been accepted that media can be a cipher for a specific cultural moment, new directions in media studies, particularly theories of intermediality, find even more similarities between media and the monster: intermediality posits that media categories are not actually as solid as we may like to believe (Lúcia Nagib and Anne Jerslev, Impure Cinema: Intermedial and Intercultural Approaches to Film), and that media forms evolve and shift over time while maintaining traces of their predecessors in their new forms (Jay Bolter and David Gruisin, Remediation: Understanding New Media). This conference aims to explore the relationship between monsters and the media in which they are portrayed, and the way monsters and monster theory can help us better understand media itself. We are interested in papers on the following topics (or any others that deal with the intersection of monsters and media):



Media about monsters

Vampire movies, zombie video games, ghost novels, etc.


Media that is itself monstrous

Remix/mashup, adaptation, hybrid media forms, etc.


Relationships between monster narratives and their mediums


How medial affordances affect constructions of monstrosity


Media as part of the telling of monster narratives/part of the construction of monstrosity


Adaptations, transmediations, and retellings of monster narratives


Media forms that, like the monster, defy boundaries


Monstrosity in non-narrative media forms

Fashion, music, painting, photography, sculpture


Monsterizing effects of mediation


Using monster theory to better understand medial phenomena/using medial theory to better understand monstrosity



In addition to academic papers, we are interested in showcasing practical and artistic works that use monstrous medial approaches. These could take many forms, including a film screening, a visual art piece, a musical performance, a literature reading – or whatever else your monstrous mind can dream up!



We will also feature keynote talks, presentations, and interactive workshops from special guests – check our website for updates.

Monstrous media that inspired the organizers:

Monograph: Gothic Remixed: Monster Mashups and Frankenfictions in 21st-Century Culture, Megen de Bruin-Molé


Article: “Vampire Adaptation”, Thomas Leitch


Film: Ringu, Hideo Nakata


Novel: Jane Bites Back, Michael Thomas Ford


Video Game: Layers of Fear: Legacy, Bloober Team



The conference will take place 18-19 June 2025 at the University of Edinburgh. Remote participants are welcome and will present their works virtually.



Please submit a title and 250-word abstract to monstermediaconference@gmail.com by 15 March 2026. In your email, please include your name, what type of submission you are proposing (paper or practical work), and if you expect to be presenting in-person or remotely.




Last updated January 29, 2026

CFP 2026 Armitage Symposium (5/24/2026; Providence, RI 8/13-16/2026)

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

NecronomiCon Providence convention in Providence, RI

13-16 August, 2026

Location: Omni Hotel, Providence

Symposium Chair: Dr. Elena Tchougounova-Paulson, editor of Lovecraftian Proceedings (Hippocampus Press)

Source: https://necronomicon-providence.com/the-armitage-symposium/.

CALL FOR PRESENTATION PROPOSALS:

The Dr. Henry Armitage Memorial Scholarship Symposium seeks Lovecraftian and Weird Fiction related research for the NecronomiCon Providence convention. Providence, RI, August 13–16, 2026. The Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council (organizer of NecronomiCon Providence) is seeking submissions of academic presentations that explore all aspects of the Gothic-Neo-Gothic-Weird-Uncanny, from literature and fine arts to the cinema and pop culture, including the life and literary legacy of world-acclaimed horror writer and essayist, H. P. Lovecraft, as well as any topics related to weird fiction, classic and contemporary, cosmic/folk/body horror, ghost stories and ghostlore, etc.

The Symposium is mainly 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 predecessors, contemporaries, and current successors of the genre. From his premature death in 1937 until today, Lovecraft’s legacy has been a key theme for difficult conversations and challenging debates, which gave an opportunity to many prominent scholars to engage: it resulted in great insights and, subsequently, in critically important publications. The Armitage Symposium-2026 will continue to explore Lovecraft’s works in relation to classic and contemporary weird fiction, science fiction, dark fantasy, supernatural, and other similarly related genres as well as modern philosophy, cultural history, cultural and literary theory, linguistics, archaeology, ethnography, visual arts, media studies etc.

A small selection of potential topics for 15-minute presentations include:

• Lovecraft’s influence on the Western literary canon
• Lovecraft and the modern interpretation of Cosmic mythology
• Lovecraftian Mythos as a cultural phenomenon
• Lovecraftian grimoire as a precursor to modern metafiction
• Lovecraft’s literary criticism in relation to religion/mysticism
• Lovecraft and race/gender studies
• Lovecraft and pop-culture: from fandom to anti-fandom
• Lovecraft’s correspondence as a prime example of ego-documentation
• Haunted by the past – spooked by the present: the origins of Lovecraftian cinema
• Weird/Horror/Gothic fiction: defining a canon
• “Weird Tales” and other horror pulp fiction magazines: their origins and archival history
• Women in Lovecraftiana/weird fiction in the past, present and future
• Contemporary philosophy of horror and weird: exegetical 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 works by 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. 7. 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, 2026. Early submissions are encouraged. For more information on the Armitage Symposium, or the overall convention, please visit our website:

necronomicon-providence.com.

CFP Otherness: Essays and Studies - Spring 2026 (2/15/2026)

Otherness: Essays and Studies - Spring 2026

deadline for submissions:
February 15, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Centre for Studies in Otherness

contact email:
otherness.research@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/12/05/otherness-essays-and-studies-spring-2026

The peer-reviewed e-journal Otherness: Essays and Studies is now accepting submissions for its 2026 general issue.

Otherness: Essays and Studies publishes research articles from and across different scholarly disciplines that examine, in as many ways as possible, the concepts of otherness and alterity. We particularly appreciate dynamic cross-disciplinary study.

“To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But it also means: to be taught.”
― Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority

Otherness is complex and multivalent term. Otherness is defined by difference, both via outside markers and internal characteristics. Otherness is also a means by which we define ourselves. Thus the concept is inevitably bound with conceptions of selfhood, making it fundamental for discussions of subjectivity, social, cultural and national identity, and larger discussions of ontology. In light of more recent theory and criticism, the assumed line between the self and the other, the defining boundary of identity construction, is blurred, and as such the entire concept of otherness has become intricate and problematic.

In recent years, the concept has become even more salient, as boundaries become increasingly tested, identities challenged, and difference ever more powerfully promoted. As bell hooks reminds us, “when the dominant culture demands that the Other be offered as a sign that progressive political change is taking place … it invites a resurgence of essentialist cultural nationalism” (Black Looks 1992). With that resurgence, we find the discussion of otherness ever more important. It is this concept, otherness, in all of its complexities and nuances that we seek to explore and discuss through Otherness: Essays and Studies.

Past projects from the Centre, and past issues of the journal, have brought together articles from the fields of cultural theory, continental philosophy, sociology, postcolonial studies, psychoanalysis, gender studies, Gothic studies, animal alterity, the performing arts, fandom and celebrity studies, postmodernism and poststructuralist theory, and the consideration of the post-linguistic turn in their consideration of otherness. This journal invites submissions dealing with aspects of critical, socio-political, cultural, and literary exploration, within the scope of studies in otherness and alterity.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

Otherness in Cultural Representation

The Representation of Otherness in Popular Culture

Race, Otherness, and Mediated Representation

Cultural Appropriation, or The Commodification of the Other

Hybridity, Creolization, and the Global Other

Representations of Otherness in the Global South

Precarity, Otherness and Marginalization

Otherness and the Non-Human Animal

Ethics, Responsibility, and the Other

Memory, History, Trauma, and Otherness

Sexuality, Gender, the Body and the Other

Otherness, Phenomenology, and Lived Experience

Absolute Otherness vs. Self-Same Other

Monstrosity, Spectrality and Terror of the Other

Uncanny or Abject Others; or The Familiar Other

The Sublime or the Unimaginable Other

Otherness and the ‘Post-Racial’

Political Otherness, Democracy, and the Post-Truth Era

Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and the Identity of the Other

Articles should be between 5,000 – 8,000 words. All electronic submissions should be sent via email with Word document attachment formatted to Chicago Manual of Style standards (Author-Date) to the editor Matthias Stephan at otherness.research@gmail.com. See the submission guidelines at www.otherness.dk/journal for more details.

While we accept papers on a rolling basis, consideration for the next general issue will cut off on Feb 15, 2026.


Last updated December 8, 2025

CFP Haunting Revisions: The Female Gothic Across Time and Media (3/1/2026)

Haunting Revisions: The Female Gothic Across Time and Media

deadline for submissions:
March 1, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Special Issue of Women's Studies on the Female Gothic

contact email:
Haunting_revisions_submissions@mailfence.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/12/12/haunting-revisions-the-female-gothic-across-time-and-media

Call for Publications

Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Taylor & Francis)

**Special Issue on

Haunting Revisions: The Female Gothic Across Time and Media**

Guest Editors:
Dr. Cindy Murillo, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Dr. Jennifer Nader, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Overview

The Female Gothic has long served as a vibrant site of cultural critique and imaginative resistance. From its eighteenth-century origins to its twenty-first-century reinventions, the mode has provided women—and now feminist, queer, trans, and nonbinary creators across media—with narrative tools for exploring domestic captivity, gendered violence, racial haunting, queer desire, environmental dread, and the uncanny dimensions of embodiment. Foundational scholarship by Ellen Moers (1976), Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar (1979), and later Diana Wallace (2009) and Andrew Smith (2009) has shaped the field, while more recent work increasingly examines the Female Gothic’s global, intersectional, and multimedia transformations.

This special issue, Haunting Revisions: The Female Gothic Across Time and Media, emerges from the panel “Unhomely Heroines: Rewriting the Female Gothic in American Fiction,” presented at the American Literature Association Symposium on the Female Gothic (October 17, 2025). The panel’s high attendance, lively discussion, and subsequent scholarly inquiries demonstrated a pressing need for renewed interdisciplinary engagement with the Female Gothic—especially given the profound cultural upheavals that have reshaped feminist discourse since the last major collected study in 2009 (Wallace & Smith).

Why Now?

Although scholars continue to publish monographs and articles on Gothic women’s writing, there has not been a recent special issue of Women’s Studies dedicated to revisiting the Female Gothic in light of the past decade’s cultural, political, and technological shifts. These include:

• The global #MeToo movement and feminist protest cultures
• Potential rollbacks of women’s voting and property rights through revived coverture frameworks
• Legal assaults on reproductive rights following the overturning of Roe v. Wade
• Rising visibility of trans and queer identities amidst escalating backlash
• Renewed racial justice movements and examinations of colonial hauntings
• Fictional and nonfictional digital Gothic forms (podcasts, TikTok horror, glitch aesthetics, AI-generated Gothic, virtual hauntings)
• Climate crisis, domestic precarity, and post-pandemic isolation reconfiguring the home as both sanctuary and site of terror

In this context, the Female Gothic has not faded—it has expanded, taking on new forms to express contemporary anxieties, desires, and resistances. Recent scholarship by Monica Germanà (2022), Gina Wisker (2016), and Maisha Wester (2012) highlights the evolving forms of the Female Gothic across global, racial, queer, and intersectional frameworks, making a 2027 special issue both timely and necessary.

Aims of the Special Issue

This special issue seeks to:Re-examine the Female Gothic through transnational, intersectional, and multimedia lenses.
Investigate how contemporary social and political pressures reshape Gothic tropes.
Explore the ways women and gender-minority creators use the Gothic to articulate trauma, agency, resistance, and radical imagination.
Highlight global, queer, racial, environmental, and posthuman approaches that extend the boundaries of Female Gothic scholarship.
Foster interdisciplinary conversations across literature, film, television, digital media, music, art, and performance.

We welcome full-length scholarly articles (approximately 20–30 pages), shorter essays, interviews, creative-critical forms, and interdisciplinary approaches.

All submissions will undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review process.

Topics May Include, but Are Not Limited To:

• Historical and Global Female Gothic Traditions
• Race, Coloniality, and Haunting
• Queer, Trans, and Nonbinary Gothic
• Digital, Virtual, and AI Gothic Media
• Domesticity, Intimacy, and Reproductive Futures
• Environmental and EcoGothic Perspectives
• Posthuman, Abject, and Embodied Gothic
• Female Gothic in Film, Television, Music, and Games
• Archival, Historical, and Recovery Work



Key Dates

Abstract Submission Deadline: March 1, 2026
Notification of Acceptance: April 10, 2026
Full Article Submission: August 10, 2026
Peer Review Decisions: October 10, 2026
Revisions Due: January 10, 2027
Final Copy Deadline: February 20, 2027
Publication: Mid-2027

Submission Guidelines

Please email a 250-word abstract (with 3–5 keywords) and a short bionote to:

Haunting_revisions_submissions@mailfence.com by March 1, 2026.

Completed manuscripts will be submitted through Women’s Studies’ editorial system after abstract approval.


Last updated December 12, 2025