Another intriguing opportunity from the Monsters and the Monstrous Project:
One day Workshop: Demons in the Body (July 2014: Oxford, United Kingdom)
Location: United Kingdom
Workshop Date: 2014-07-28
Date Submitted: 2014-05-07
Announcement ID: 213581
One day Workshop: Demons in the Body
Monday 28th July 2014
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Participation:
This workshop intends to bring people interested in the meaning and purpose of traditional beliefs in demons and vampires in Southeast Europe together to share ideas and to try to draw the line between “our part of Europe” and “their part of Europe”. Further it will also explore the ways in which these ideas, both positively and negatively, can be seen to inform many contemporary narratives of disease, the supernatural and the undead. In particular, the day will aim to explore the relationship between illness, disease, demons, vampires and the body. It will seek to bring together practitioners and academics to look at alternative concepts of illness, especially to discuss the idea of ‘infection’ with a focus on Southeast European Folk belief and the theories of Paracelsus about illness-bringing demons, to have a clear examination of the concept of demons as figurations of illness and assess the ways of dealing with them / healing the ill ones. The over-arching purpose of the day is to attempt to get a new look on the vampire and his role in Southeast European folklore and the ways in which the past remains as an ‘undead’ presence in the modern world.
Workshop I: Demonic Bodies: Illness and Disease in Southeast European Folk Belief:
Opening proposal of Areas to be discussed lead by Peter Kreuter:
The idea of disease as something brought into the human body from external sources – and demons and vampires in particular – was and partially still is at the heart of Southeastern European folk belief. But this concept is not only located in the Balkans, neither is it only a concept of the popular belief. This concept is typified in the work of Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim (1493-1541), better known as Sobriquet Paracelsus, who rejected the medicine of the ancestors as embodied in Hippokrates and Epikur and Galen as well as the knowledge found in the main books of the day, and started to create his own medical theories about illness and health. One of his concepts was that of disease as something brought into the human body from the outside by the use of demons and spirits. Those tiny demons entered the human bodies and caused by their existence or by their negative attitudes all kind of illness. A variation of that belief was also widespread across Bulgaria and Romania: people believe also in the negative effect of demons. The difference here is that each demon brings his typical disease. They do not necessarily enter the body but their closeness to human beings makes people getting sick or even die.
The vampire is also a kind of demon – a dead person unable to get over in the other world (call it paradise, call it by any other name). In contrary to the image of the Dracula-like vampire we know in the Western literary tradition, the vampire of the Balkans does not suck blood, but makes people die by his presence in the room or near the bed a person lies in.
So demons can be seen as the key to understanding beliefs about illness and disease – demons and demonic figures in South-eastern Europe and their relationship to either mankind or illness. This workshop will follow the principles and aims of Inter-Disciplinary.Net (IDN). IDN was set up to bring academics and practitioners together to discuss research, ideas, good practice and best practice: to help individuals to think critically and think with an inter-disciplinary lens.
Topics:
-The concept of illness and disease in the theories of Paracelsus
-Demons of illness in Southeast European folkloric belief
-The vampire of the Balkans
-The discussion about the vampire in 18th century enlightened literature
-Demons and vampires today in South-eastern Europe
To be followed by an open discussion of the topics in a round-table situation.
For this purpose, a couple of texts (in English) will be provided in advance to audience. At the end, a deeper understanding for the development of the idea of illness coming from outside shall be created as well as some deep insights in how rural communities deal with an attack from the outside, may it be a disease, may it be someone who functions like a disease.
Workshop II: Plague or Panacea: Vampires and Disease on Film from Nosferatu to Twilight…and Beyond:
Opening proposal of areas to be discussed lead by Simon Bacon:
From the vampires first appearance on film it has been connected with the ideas of blood, contagion and disease. Yet whilst this carries on much of the ideological intent of earlier periods, signifying otherness or spiritual and racial impurity, many narratives can be seen to reverse this idea, showing the vampire to either a resource for human longevity or an example of a post-human future. Through a consideration of key films, some well known and others not so, this workshop will examine many of the conflicting views held about the vampire and its place in relation to human health and vitality. Further it will also consider the ways in which earlier folkloric views, and what Judith Halberstam calls their “monstrous. or monsterizing, technologies” can be seen to operate within these more contemporary texts and what they might say about 21st century western culture. As such the workshop will be divided in to two parts exploring the positive and negative views of the vampire. In the first part, films, such as Nosferatu (1922), Atom Age Vampire (1960), Ganga & Hess (1973), The Hunger (1983) Trouble Everyday (2001) and Twilight (2008) utilise the idea of the vampire as being the manifestation of something unclean, excessive and other, and consequently contagious. In the other section, movies and series such as Son of Dracula (1943), Ultraviolet (2006), Perfect Creature (2006), Vampire Diaries (2009-present) and Let Me In (2010) examples vampirism as being a “disease” that produces autonomy and agency and a form of human becoming.
To be followed by an open discussion of the topics in a round-table situation.
For this discussion four or five films will be discussed in depth to explore the ways in which they carry the signifiers and meaning of previous incarnations of the undead into the present and the ways in which, contemporary versions might reinforce or subvert the processes of “monsterization”.
Audience:
Medical Staff interested in the subject
Historians with a specialisation in History of Medicine or Ethics of Medicine
Academics
Folklorists
Media Studies
Popculture and film enthusiasts
Places on this workshop are capped so we invite expressions of interest for people thinking of attending and for them to send a statement of their interest and experience/expertise to the organising chairs by Friday 4th July 2014:
Peter Mario Kreuter: kreuter@ios-regensburg.de
Simon Bacon: simonmonster@inter-disciplinary.net
Rob Fisher: demonbody1@inter-disciplinary.net
Schedule:
The day will begin with registration between 9.00am and 10.00am Monday 28th July 2014 and will be followed by a series of presentation sessions and workshops. Refreshments and a 2 course sit-down lunch will be provided. After the final workshop and summation of the days discussions and the event will end with a wine reception.
Registration Fee: £85. This Includes:
-conference registration fee
-discounted rate off any Inter-Disciplinary Press or Fisher Imprints publications
-access to the conference project initiative support materials
-morning coffee break with coffee, tea, fruit juice, fresh fruits, cakes
-2 course waiter served lunch
-afternoon coffee break with coffee, tea, fruit juice, fresh fruits, cakes
-Wine Reception
Workshop Leaders:
Peter Mario Kreuter, Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (Regensburg) Germany
Simon Bacon, Independent Researcher
Organising Committee:
Rob Fisher: Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Selected works will also be published in a special issue of the Monsters and the Monstrous Journal in 2015. Details of the journal can be found here: http://monstersjournal.net/
For further details of the workshop, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/courses-and-workshops/2014-2/demons-in-the-body/
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Priory House
149B Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1993 882087
Fax: +44 (0)870 4601132
Email: demonbody1@inter-disciplinary.net
Visit the website at http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/courses-and-workshops/2014-2/demons-in-the-body/
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Monsters and the Monstrous Conference (UK 7/25-27/14)
Not sure how I missed this:
12th Global Conference: Monsters and the Monstrous (July 2014: Oxford, United Kingdom)
Location: United Kingdom
Conference Date: 2014-07-25
Date Submitted: 2013-11-14
Announcement ID: 208595
12th Global Conference: Monsters and the Monstrous
Friday 25th July – Sunday 27th July 2014, Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Presentations:
This years Monsters and the Monstrous conference will focus on the mechanisms of monstrosity itself and the forms of othering and difference that cause a society, a culture and a historical moment to label someone or something as monstrous. As such, whilst iconic monsters such as Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula can themselves be seen to embody a particular cultures sexual, racial, and even biological anxieties, we wish to focus on those forms of abjection that can be seen to have initiated or fueled such a “monstrous” response. Contemporary examples might include paedophiles, parents in the widest sense (mothers and usually step-fathers in particular) who kill their children, sex offenders and even immigrants. More recently, reactions to bankers, the perceived greed of corporations, and even natural phenomenon (global warming, tseunami’s, tornado’s) have elicited similar responses. Consequently it is both the groups, even phenomena, that are othered or seen to “polute” and destabilse the normalised “us” of society, and the reasons and mechanisms of why and how that we wish to explore.
These monstrous technologies, as labelled by some theorists, or what we might also call the mechanics of monstrosity are utilised by ideologies of patriarchy, nationalism, imperialism and capitalism, to name but a few, to victimise those that defy or exceed categorisation or that threaten to corrupt or dissolve the hetero-normative subject and the societal “I”. Whilst this points to the monsterisation of groups, or individuals that fail to belong to the “group,” due to their, gender, sexuality, disability or ethnicity, it also suggests the inherent monstrosity of the group, culture, ideology that creates and enforces such systems of demarcation and exclusion. As such the nature of the machinery of monstrosity created, maintained and disseminated by and throughout a particular culture will also be examined. It is also worth noting of course that whilst such mechanisms differentiate between those that are included and excluded, that even with the category of the “us” there are often further sub-divisions of purity and privilege, or what we might call “non-monstrosity.” Here then hierarchies of class, caste, gender and ability can be seen to be equally monsterising in the way it differentiates both inside and outside the category of “us”.
This call for proposals then asks for consideration of the above in relation to differing cultures and societies as well as specific historical moments that produced and utilised ideologies of monstrosity, in terms of sex, gender, ethnicity, disability, class etc., to delineate notions of societal inclusion and exclusion, and various hierarchies within them.
Examples of the above can be seen in, but are not exclusive to, the following categories:
Collective, Social, National
- neighbours, enemies and outsiders – real and imaginary lands
- supernatural realms and spiritual otherness
- human, non-human and animal
- colonialism, post-colonialism and borderlands
- barbaric acts, piracy, cannibalism, genocide
- surveillance, control and dissemination
Gender and Sexuality
- heteronormativity, male hierarchy, patriarchy, matriarchy and feminism
- LGBTQ
- asexual, non-sexual, hermaphrodite and non-reproduction
- alternative sexual practices, pedophilia, bestiality, necrophilia
Individual, Internal
- skin colour, hair colour, blemishes, tatoos, piercing
- fashion, costume, cosmetics and body enhancement
- customs, rites and religious practice
- disability, body difference, chronic conditions and mental health - class, caste, age, language, dialect
Phenomena
- natural disasters, acts of God, global warming and extreme weather - ideological monsters, economic collapse/crisis and GM crops and foodstuffs
- media, internet and virtual spaces, hacking, trolling and bullying - WMD’s, chemical weapons, warcrimes and enhanced torture
Proposals for panels and alternative forms of presentation are strongly encouraged on the above and any related topics.
In order to support and encourage interdisciplinarity engagement, it is our intention to create the possibility of starting dialogues between the parallel events running during this conference. Delegates are welcome to attend up to two sessions in each of the concurrent conferences. We also propose to produce cross-over sessions between these groups – and we welcome proposals which deal with the relationship between Monsters and the Monstrous and Sexuality and Ethnicity.
What to Send
Proposals will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday 14th February 2014. If a proposal is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 16th May 2014. Proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Monsters12 Proposal Submission
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs .
Rob Fisher: m12@inter-disciplinary.net
Simon Bacon :simonmonster@inter-disciplinary.net
The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.All proposals accepted for and presented at the conference must be in English and will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected proposals may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.
Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract for presentation.
For further details of the conference, please visit: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/call-for-papers/
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Priory House
149B Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1993 882087
Fax: +44 (0)870 4601132
Email: m12@inter-disciplinary.net
Visit the website at http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/call-for-papers/
12th Global Conference: Monsters and the Monstrous (July 2014: Oxford, United Kingdom)
Location: United Kingdom
Conference Date: 2014-07-25
Date Submitted: 2013-11-14
Announcement ID: 208595
12th Global Conference: Monsters and the Monstrous
Friday 25th July – Sunday 27th July 2014, Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Presentations:
This years Monsters and the Monstrous conference will focus on the mechanisms of monstrosity itself and the forms of othering and difference that cause a society, a culture and a historical moment to label someone or something as monstrous. As such, whilst iconic monsters such as Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula can themselves be seen to embody a particular cultures sexual, racial, and even biological anxieties, we wish to focus on those forms of abjection that can be seen to have initiated or fueled such a “monstrous” response. Contemporary examples might include paedophiles, parents in the widest sense (mothers and usually step-fathers in particular) who kill their children, sex offenders and even immigrants. More recently, reactions to bankers, the perceived greed of corporations, and even natural phenomenon (global warming, tseunami’s, tornado’s) have elicited similar responses. Consequently it is both the groups, even phenomena, that are othered or seen to “polute” and destabilse the normalised “us” of society, and the reasons and mechanisms of why and how that we wish to explore.
These monstrous technologies, as labelled by some theorists, or what we might also call the mechanics of monstrosity are utilised by ideologies of patriarchy, nationalism, imperialism and capitalism, to name but a few, to victimise those that defy or exceed categorisation or that threaten to corrupt or dissolve the hetero-normative subject and the societal “I”. Whilst this points to the monsterisation of groups, or individuals that fail to belong to the “group,” due to their, gender, sexuality, disability or ethnicity, it also suggests the inherent monstrosity of the group, culture, ideology that creates and enforces such systems of demarcation and exclusion. As such the nature of the machinery of monstrosity created, maintained and disseminated by and throughout a particular culture will also be examined. It is also worth noting of course that whilst such mechanisms differentiate between those that are included and excluded, that even with the category of the “us” there are often further sub-divisions of purity and privilege, or what we might call “non-monstrosity.” Here then hierarchies of class, caste, gender and ability can be seen to be equally monsterising in the way it differentiates both inside and outside the category of “us”.
This call for proposals then asks for consideration of the above in relation to differing cultures and societies as well as specific historical moments that produced and utilised ideologies of monstrosity, in terms of sex, gender, ethnicity, disability, class etc., to delineate notions of societal inclusion and exclusion, and various hierarchies within them.
Examples of the above can be seen in, but are not exclusive to, the following categories:
Collective, Social, National
- neighbours, enemies and outsiders – real and imaginary lands
- supernatural realms and spiritual otherness
- human, non-human and animal
- colonialism, post-colonialism and borderlands
- barbaric acts, piracy, cannibalism, genocide
- surveillance, control and dissemination
Gender and Sexuality
- heteronormativity, male hierarchy, patriarchy, matriarchy and feminism
- LGBTQ
- asexual, non-sexual, hermaphrodite and non-reproduction
- alternative sexual practices, pedophilia, bestiality, necrophilia
Individual, Internal
- skin colour, hair colour, blemishes, tatoos, piercing
- fashion, costume, cosmetics and body enhancement
- customs, rites and religious practice
- disability, body difference, chronic conditions and mental health - class, caste, age, language, dialect
Phenomena
- natural disasters, acts of God, global warming and extreme weather - ideological monsters, economic collapse/crisis and GM crops and foodstuffs
- media, internet and virtual spaces, hacking, trolling and bullying - WMD’s, chemical weapons, warcrimes and enhanced torture
Proposals for panels and alternative forms of presentation are strongly encouraged on the above and any related topics.
In order to support and encourage interdisciplinarity engagement, it is our intention to create the possibility of starting dialogues between the parallel events running during this conference. Delegates are welcome to attend up to two sessions in each of the concurrent conferences. We also propose to produce cross-over sessions between these groups – and we welcome proposals which deal with the relationship between Monsters and the Monstrous and Sexuality and Ethnicity.
What to Send
Proposals will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday 14th February 2014. If a proposal is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 16th May 2014. Proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Monsters12 Proposal Submission
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs .
Rob Fisher: m12@inter-disciplinary.net
Simon Bacon :simonmonster@inter-disciplinary.net
The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.All proposals accepted for and presented at the conference must be in English and will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected proposals may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.
Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract for presentation.
For further details of the conference, please visit: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/call-for-papers/
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Priory House
149B Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1993 882087
Fax: +44 (0)870 4601132
Email: m12@inter-disciplinary.net
Visit the website at http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/call-for-papers/
Monday, May 26, 2014
Diestro-Dópido's Pan's Labyrinth
An informative new guide to the film:Pan's Labyrinth
Mar Diestro-Dópido
Series: BFI Film Classics
25 Oct 2013
Paperback
9781844576418
104 pages
Guillermo del Toro's cult masterpiece, Pan's Labyrinth (2006), won a total of 76 awards and is one of the most commercially successful Spanish-language films ever made. Blending the world of monstrous fairytales with the actual horrors of post-Civil War Spain, the film's commingling of real and fantasy worlds speaks profoundly to our times.
Immersing herself in the nightmarish world that del Toro has so minutely orchestrated, Mar Diestro-Dópido explores the cultural and historical contexts surrounding the film. Examining del Toro's ground-breaking use of mythology, this book resists a definitive reading of the film – instead exposing the techniques, themes and cultural references that combine in Pan's Labyrinth to spawn an uncontainable plurality of meanings, which only multiply on contact with the viewer.
This special edition features an exclusive interview with del Toro and original cover artwork by Santiago Caruso.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Horror(s) of War
2. Vidal and Amnesia
3. Ofelia and Memory
4. The End...
Coda: Interview with Guillermo del Toro
Notes
Credits
Bibliography
Mar Diestro-Dópido is a film critic based in London. She is a regular contributor to, and researcher for, Sight & Sound, and has written for Little White Lies, Dazed & Confused and Vertigo, as well as various academic books and journals.
Thoughts on Hotel Transylvania
The animated feature film Hotel Transylvania offers insight into the (after)lives of the Universal Studios monsters following their appearance in the films of the 1930s. The film focuses on Dracula and his young daughter and how the two must come to accept humans as good people rather than (as the film initially presents) threats to their very existence. The other monsters are much more reluctant to embrace humanity, but the appearance of a young human in their hitherto human-free enclave (the eponymous Hotel Transylvania) helps them all to change their views.
Overall, this is a cute family-friendly film, though the final scene (an attempt to mimic the finale of Shrek II) is rather incongruous.
Overall, this is a cute family-friendly film, though the final scene (an attempt to mimic the finale of Shrek II) is rather incongruous.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
CFP Gothic and Uncanny Explorations Conference (6/9/14; Sweden 9/10-17/14)
[UPDATE] Gothic and Uncanny Explorations, 10-12 Sept. 2014 (Proposal deadline 9 June)
full name / name of organization:
Karlstad University, Sweden
contact email:
maria.holmgren.troy@kau.se, sofia.wijkmark@kau.se
Gothic and Uncanny Explorations
An interdisciplinary international conference
Wednesday 10 September – Friday 12 September 2014
Karlstad University, Sweden
Extended Second Call for Papers
The gothic, as a mode or genre, has become an increasingly widespread and noticeable cultural phenomenon during the last few decades. There is also a great interest in the closely related concept of the uncanny in a number of different contexts. In addition to playing a larger role in academia, the gothic and the uncanny have been integrated in our everyday vocabulary and thinking in recent years.
This conference will explore and analyze new developments of and cultural, academic, and historical trends related to the gothic and the uncanny; we want to scrutinize transformations and meanings in different contexts. We welcome paper or presentation proposals that deal with either the gothic or the uncanny, as well as those that examine the two together.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
Popular culture
Art
Genre
Media
Technology
Intermediality
Postcolonial perspectives
Transnational gothic
Fiction for children and young adults
The body
Environment
Fictional violence
The monstrous
Cultural anxieties
Theoretical considerations
Please send proposals for 20-minute papers or presentations to sofia.wijkmark@kau.se and maria.holmgren.troy@kau.se by 9 June 2014. Proposals should be max. 250 words. We look forward to receiving your proposal.
conference homepage: http://www.kau.se/litteraturvetenskap/gothic-and-uncanny-explorations
By web submission at 05/02/2014 - 12:45
full name / name of organization:
Karlstad University, Sweden
contact email:
maria.holmgren.troy@kau.se, sofia.wijkmark@kau.se
Gothic and Uncanny Explorations
An interdisciplinary international conference
Wednesday 10 September – Friday 12 September 2014
Karlstad University, Sweden
Extended Second Call for Papers
The gothic, as a mode or genre, has become an increasingly widespread and noticeable cultural phenomenon during the last few decades. There is also a great interest in the closely related concept of the uncanny in a number of different contexts. In addition to playing a larger role in academia, the gothic and the uncanny have been integrated in our everyday vocabulary and thinking in recent years.
This conference will explore and analyze new developments of and cultural, academic, and historical trends related to the gothic and the uncanny; we want to scrutinize transformations and meanings in different contexts. We welcome paper or presentation proposals that deal with either the gothic or the uncanny, as well as those that examine the two together.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
Popular culture
Art
Genre
Media
Technology
Intermediality
Postcolonial perspectives
Transnational gothic
Fiction for children and young adults
The body
Environment
Fictional violence
The monstrous
Cultural anxieties
Theoretical considerations
Please send proposals for 20-minute papers or presentations to sofia.wijkmark@kau.se and maria.holmgren.troy@kau.se by 9 June 2014. Proposals should be max. 250 words. We look forward to receiving your proposal.
conference homepage: http://www.kau.se/litteraturvetenskap/gothic-and-uncanny-explorations
By web submission at 05/02/2014 - 12:45
CFP Madness in the Woods (5/15/14)
Sorry for the slow posting:
Edited Volume: Madness in the Woods
Since the beginning of storytelling the narrative of being lost in the woods or of choosing to live in the woods as a heterotopian space has remained popular. While literary naturalists praise the woods‘ natural and sublime beauty, universal and national myths of the forest from the early settlement until today also include the dark, gothic and uncanny side of nature. Puritan thought associated the “hideous and desolate wilderness” (William Bradford) with the danger of getting lost in the woods where a pure soul might lose its sanity. Native American legends as well as European folktales draw a picture of haunted woods where spirits and ghosts dwell, but also as places where challenges are mastered and where the person who enters returns as somebody else.
We invite articles that focus on this dark side of forests in literature and film, that address the ambivalence of the forest’s offer for shelter and protection from the dangers of civilisation and the social sphere, but for the price of confrontation with the uncanny.
Submissions could include (but are not limited to):
How certain genres approach the topic
How the uncanny woods are represented in TV series
How ecological disasters, or environmental problems such as climate change or deforestation interfer with the narrator’s, protagonist’s or spectator‘s psyche.
How the dark and uncanny woods in colonizer and settler writings represent a liminal, irregulated space.
How the representation of the uncanny woods has changed over time.
How the woods are gendered, especially when they are uncanny.
How ecopsychology and disorders connect with the uncanny woods.
If you are interested in being included in this volume, please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short CV to heike.schwarz@phil.uni-augsburg.de and tina-karen.pusse@nuigalway.ie by the 15th of May, 2014.
Edited Volume: Madness in the Woods
Since the beginning of storytelling the narrative of being lost in the woods or of choosing to live in the woods as a heterotopian space has remained popular. While literary naturalists praise the woods‘ natural and sublime beauty, universal and national myths of the forest from the early settlement until today also include the dark, gothic and uncanny side of nature. Puritan thought associated the “hideous and desolate wilderness” (William Bradford) with the danger of getting lost in the woods where a pure soul might lose its sanity. Native American legends as well as European folktales draw a picture of haunted woods where spirits and ghosts dwell, but also as places where challenges are mastered and where the person who enters returns as somebody else.
We invite articles that focus on this dark side of forests in literature and film, that address the ambivalence of the forest’s offer for shelter and protection from the dangers of civilisation and the social sphere, but for the price of confrontation with the uncanny.
Submissions could include (but are not limited to):
How certain genres approach the topic
How the uncanny woods are represented in TV series
How ecological disasters, or environmental problems such as climate change or deforestation interfer with the narrator’s, protagonist’s or spectator‘s psyche.
How the dark and uncanny woods in colonizer and settler writings represent a liminal, irregulated space.
How the representation of the uncanny woods has changed over time.
How the woods are gendered, especially when they are uncanny.
How ecopsychology and disorders connect with the uncanny woods.
If you are interested in being included in this volume, please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short CV to heike.schwarz@phil.uni-augsburg.de and tina-karen.pusse@nuigalway.ie by the 15th of May, 2014.
Farghaly's Unraveling Resident Evil
Unraveling Resident Evil: Essays on the Complex Universe of the Games and Films Edited by Nadine Farghaly
Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-7291-8
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4766-1440-3
notes, bibliographies, index
248pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2014
Price: $40.00
About the Book
Resident Evil is a multidimensional as well as multimedia universe: Various books, graphic novels, games and movies (the fifth one came out in 2012) all contribute to this enormous universe. The new essays written for this volume focus on this particular zombie manifestation and its significance in popular culture. The essayists come from very different fields, so it was possible to cover a wide range and discuss numerous issues regarding this universe. Among them are game theory, the idea of silence as well as memory, the connection to iconic stories such as Alice in Wonderland, posthumanism and much more. A lot of ground is covered that will facilitate further discussions not only among Resident Evil interested persons but also among other zombie universes and zombies in general. Most of these essays focus on the female figure Alice, a character revered by many as a feminist warrior.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Introduction: Unraveling the Resident Evil Universe 1
From Necromancy to the Necrotrophic: Resident Evil’s Influence on the Zombie Origin Shift from Supernatural to Science (Tanya Carinae Pell Jones) 7
Survival and System in Resident Evil (2002): Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through (Daniel Muller) 19
Why They Keep Coming Back: The Allure of Incongruity (Adam M. Crowley) 34
Opening Doors: Art-Horror and Agency (Stephen Cadwell) 45
Survival Horror, Metaculture and the Fluidity of Video Game Genres (Broc Holmquest) 62
The Strong, Silent Type: Alice’s Use of Rhetorical Silence as Feminist Strategy (Suzan E. Aiken) 80
"My name is Alice and I remember everything!" Surviving Sexual Abuse in the Resident Evil Films (James Stone) 99
The Woman in the Red Dress: Sexuality, Femmes Fatales, the Gaze and Ada Wong (Jenny Platz) 117
Chris Redfield and the Curious Case of Wesker’s Sunglasses (Nicolas J. Lalone) 135
Through the Looking-Glass: Interrogating the "Alice-ness" of Alice (Hannah Priest) 150
Thank You for Making Me Human Again: Alice and the Teaching of Scientific Ethics (Kristine Larsen) 167
Zombies, Cyborgs and Wheelchairs: The Question of Normalcy Within Diseased and Disabled Bodies (JL Schatz) 186
"I barely feel human anymore": Project Alice and the Posthuman in the Films (Margo Collins) 201
"Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast": Living Memory and Undead History (Simon Bacon) 216
About the Contributors 235
Index 237
About the Author(s)
Nadine Farghaly is a Ph.D. student at the University of Salzburg. She received an M.A. in English literature from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and a diploma in English and American studies from the University of Salzburg. She lives in Siegsdorf, Germany.
Keetley's Essays on AMC’s The Walking Dead and the Fate of the Human
“We’re All Infected”: Essays on AMC’s The Walking Dead and the Fate of the HumanEdited by Dawn Keetley
Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-7628-2
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4766-1452-6
notes, bibliography, index
256pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2014
Price: $35.00
About the Book
This edited collection brings together an introduction and 13 original scholarly essays on AMC’s The Walking Dead. The essays in the first section address the pervasive bloodletting of the series: What are the consequences of the series’ unremitting violence? Essays explore violence committed in self-defense, racist violence, mass lawlessness, the violence of law enforcement, the violence of mourning, and the violence of history.
The essays in the second section explore an equally urgent question: What does it mean to be human? Several argue that notions of the human must acknowledge the centrality of the body—the fact that we share a “blind corporeality” with the zombie. Others address how the human is closely aligned with language and time, the disappearance of which are represented by the aphasic, timeless zombie.
Underlying each essay are the game-changing words of The Walking Dead’s protagonist Rick Grimes to the other survivors: “We’re all infected.” The violence of the zombie is also our violence; their blind drives are also ours. The human characters of The Walking Dead may try to define themselves against the zombies but in the end their bodies harbor the zombie virus: they are the walking dead.
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Introduction: "We’re All Infected" (Dawn Keetley) 3
Part I: Society’s End
The Zombie Apocalypse Is Upon Us! Homeland Insecurity (Philip L. Simpson) 28
Burying the Living with the Dead: Security, Survival and the Sanction of Violence (Steven Pokornowski) 41
Walking Tall or Walking Dead? The American Cowboy in the Zombie Apocalypse (P. Ivan Young) 56
Asserting Law and Order Over the Mindless (Angus Nurse) 68
Rest in Pieces: Violence in Mourning the (Un)Dead (Laura Kremmel) 80
Roadside "Vigil" for the Dead: Cannibalism, Fossil Fuels and the American Dream (Christine Heckman) 95
Mass Shock Therapy for Atlanta’s Psych(ot)ic Suburban Legacy (Paul Boshears) 110
Part II: Posthumanity
Apocalyptic Utopia: The Zombie and the (r)Evolution of Subjectivity (Chris Boehm) 126
Nothing But the Meat: Posthuman Bodies and the Dying Undead (Xavier Aldana Reyes) 142
Human Choice and Zombie Consciousness (Dawn Keetley) 156
"Talking Bodies" in a Zombie Apocalypse: From the Discursive to the Shitty Sublime (Gary Farnell) 173
Zombie Time: Temporality and Living Death (Gwyneth Peaty) 186
Afterword: Bye-Gone Days: Reflections on Romero, Kirkman and What We Become (Dave Beisecker) 201
Bibliography 215
List of Episodes 227
About the Contributors 229
Index 233
About the Author(s)
Dawn Keetley works in the department of English at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
CFP Animals Representations in Visual Media (6/30/14)
A head's up courtesy of the NEPCA blog (and posting from H-Announce):
CFP - Screening the Non/human: Animals Representations in Visual Media
Call for Papers Date: 2014-06-30
Date Submitted: 2014-04-26
Announcement ID: 213297
CFP
Screening the Non/human: Animals Representations in Visual Media
Non/human animals are consistently represented in film, television, and advertising as a means of entertainment in a diversity of ways that often overlook the oppressive dynamics that impede a politics of animal liberation. Certainly, mass media is a powerful force in our everyday lives because it both reflects and creates our culture. We are constantly bombarded with messages from a variety of sources that promote not only products we ought to buy, but also the attitudes that inform us what is and what is not, important. It follows that should a culture depict nonhuman animals as unimportant, then non/human animals are treated accordingly. While opinions may vary as to the influence that media has on nonhuman animals, most will agree that media has become a permanent part of our culture, and should be examined in more depth.
Whether it be Ms. Piggy selling bacon for Denny’s, the latest Disney film, or the rampant abuse of animals in the filming of The Hobbit, the non/human is an ever-present part of media representation that often goes unacknowledged by academic writing. This book seeks to fill that gap in research so as to seriously address the question of non/humans within visual media as a mode of representation and lived politics. In short, this book seeks to address the question on the role mass media plays with respects to non/human animals.
We are seeking chapters that explore the following avenues of interests:
Animal abuse within television, film, and advertising
Speciesism as a lens of analysis for media studies
Representations of animals within children’s movies and television
Animals as metaphors
Animals as educational programming (like discovery channel, animal planet, ect.)
Animals as sports programming (horse/dog racing, championship dog/cat shows, hunting, etc.)
Animal representations on social media (youtube, facebook, etc.)
Poststructuralist readings of non/humans within the media
Marxist interpretations of animals within the media
Intersectional analysis concerning race, gender, sexuality, disability, and colonialism
Liberatory interpretations of media that situate alternatives to problematic modes of representations
Criticisms of animal welfare in advertisements by animal rights organizations
Comparative analysis between American and international representations of the non/human
Legal analysis of laws serving to protect animals being used in the media
At this time we are not seeking chapters concerning animal representations in literature, art, or poetry. However, our list is non-exhaustive and we are open to submissions that take on new approaches that would be useful in understanding how animals are (ab)used on the screen. This project is designed to become part of the Institute of Critical Animal Studies’ Lexington Book Series.
If interested, please submit a 300-500 word abstract as well as a 150 word bio to Dr. JL Schatz (debate@binghamton.edu) and Dr. Amber George (drambergeorge@gmail.com) by June 30th, 2014. Expected date for finished papers will be September 30th, 2014. If you have questions concerning content of submissions, the nature of Critical Animal Studies, or anything else in relation to this project please don’t hesitate to contact us.
CFP - Screening the Non/human: Animals Representations in Visual Media
Call for Papers Date: 2014-06-30
Date Submitted: 2014-04-26
Announcement ID: 213297
CFP
Screening the Non/human: Animals Representations in Visual Media
Non/human animals are consistently represented in film, television, and advertising as a means of entertainment in a diversity of ways that often overlook the oppressive dynamics that impede a politics of animal liberation. Certainly, mass media is a powerful force in our everyday lives because it both reflects and creates our culture. We are constantly bombarded with messages from a variety of sources that promote not only products we ought to buy, but also the attitudes that inform us what is and what is not, important. It follows that should a culture depict nonhuman animals as unimportant, then non/human animals are treated accordingly. While opinions may vary as to the influence that media has on nonhuman animals, most will agree that media has become a permanent part of our culture, and should be examined in more depth.
Whether it be Ms. Piggy selling bacon for Denny’s, the latest Disney film, or the rampant abuse of animals in the filming of The Hobbit, the non/human is an ever-present part of media representation that often goes unacknowledged by academic writing. This book seeks to fill that gap in research so as to seriously address the question of non/humans within visual media as a mode of representation and lived politics. In short, this book seeks to address the question on the role mass media plays with respects to non/human animals.
We are seeking chapters that explore the following avenues of interests:
Animal abuse within television, film, and advertising
Speciesism as a lens of analysis for media studies
Representations of animals within children’s movies and television
Animals as metaphors
Animals as educational programming (like discovery channel, animal planet, ect.)
Animals as sports programming (horse/dog racing, championship dog/cat shows, hunting, etc.)
Animal representations on social media (youtube, facebook, etc.)
Poststructuralist readings of non/humans within the media
Marxist interpretations of animals within the media
Intersectional analysis concerning race, gender, sexuality, disability, and colonialism
Liberatory interpretations of media that situate alternatives to problematic modes of representations
Criticisms of animal welfare in advertisements by animal rights organizations
Comparative analysis between American and international representations of the non/human
Legal analysis of laws serving to protect animals being used in the media
At this time we are not seeking chapters concerning animal representations in literature, art, or poetry. However, our list is non-exhaustive and we are open to submissions that take on new approaches that would be useful in understanding how animals are (ab)used on the screen. This project is designed to become part of the Institute of Critical Animal Studies’ Lexington Book Series.
If interested, please submit a 300-500 word abstract as well as a 150 word bio to Dr. JL Schatz (debate@binghamton.edu) and Dr. Amber George (drambergeorge@gmail.com) by June 30th, 2014. Expected date for finished papers will be September 30th, 2014. If you have questions concerning content of submissions, the nature of Critical Animal Studies, or anything else in relation to this project please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Monday, May 5, 2014
CFP Journal of Dracula Studies
Sorry for the late post:
Journal of Dracula Studies
full name / name of organization:
Anne DeLong/Curt Herr
contact email:
journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu
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 folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics.
Submissions should be sent electronically (as an e-mail attachment in .doc or .rtf). Please indicate the title of your submission in the subject line of your e-mail.
Please follow the 2009 updated MLA style.
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.
Submissions must be received no later than May 1, 2014, in order to be considered for the 2014 issue.
Send electronic submissions to journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu
Contact: Dr. Curt Herr or Dr. Anne DeLong
cfp categories:
film_and_television
gender_studies_and_sexuality
journals_and_collections_of_essays
popular_culture
victorian
By web submission at 02/10/2014 - 16:16
Journal of Dracula Studies
full name / name of organization:
Anne DeLong/Curt Herr
contact email:
journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu
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 folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics.
Submissions should be sent electronically (as an e-mail attachment in .doc or .rtf). Please indicate the title of your submission in the subject line of your e-mail.
Please follow the 2009 updated MLA style.
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.
Submissions must be received no later than May 1, 2014, in order to be considered for the 2014 issue.
Send electronic submissions to journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu
Contact: Dr. Curt Herr or Dr. Anne DeLong
cfp categories:
film_and_television
gender_studies_and_sexuality
journals_and_collections_of_essays
popular_culture
victorian
By web submission at 02/10/2014 - 16:16
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