I need to watch more TV:
Events at last week's NecronomiCon Providence were featured on The Rhode Show with an interview with organizers Niels Hobbs and Carmen Marusich. You can view the segment at http://wpri.com/2017/08/14/necronomicon-returns/.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
CFP New series from MIP: Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons: Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity (open)
New series from MIP: Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons: Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity – Call For Proposals
New scholarly book series from Medieval Institute Publications:
Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons: Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity
This series is dedicated to the study of monstrosity and alterity in the medieval and early modern world, and to the investigation of cultural constructions of otherness, abnormality and difference from a wide range of perspectives. Submissions are welcome from scholars working within established disciplines, including—but not limited to—philosophy, critical theory, cultural history, history of science, history of art and architecture, literary studies, disability studies, and gender studies. Since much work in the field is necessarily pluri-disciplinary in its methods and scope, the editors are particularly interested in proposals that cross disciplinary boundaries. The series publishes English-language, single-author volumes and collections of original essays. Topics might include hybridity and hermaphroditism; giants, dwarves, and wild-men; cannibalism and the New World; cultures of display and the carnivalesque; “monstrous” encounters in literature and travel; jurisprudence, law, and criminality; teratology and the “New Science”; the aesthetics of the grotesque; automata and self-moving machines; or witchcraft, demonology, and other occult themes.
Geographical Scope: Unrestricted
Chronological Scope: Late Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern
Further Information: For questions or to submit a proposal, please contact the acquisitions editor, Erika Gaffney (Erika.Gaffney@arc-humanities.org) or visit our website: www.mip-archumanitiespress.org.
For more information, please download the Monsters, Prodigies, & Demons series flyer
Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons: Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity
This series is dedicated to the study of monstrosity and alterity in the medieval and early modern world, and to the investigation of cultural constructions of otherness, abnormality and difference from a wide range of perspectives. Submissions are welcome from scholars working within established disciplines, including—but not limited to—philosophy, critical theory, cultural history, history of science, history of art and architecture, literary studies, disability studies, and gender studies. Since much work in the field is necessarily pluri-disciplinary in its methods and scope, the editors are particularly interested in proposals that cross disciplinary boundaries. The series publishes English-language, single-author volumes and collections of original essays. Topics might include hybridity and hermaphroditism; giants, dwarves, and wild-men; cannibalism and the New World; cultures of display and the carnivalesque; “monstrous” encounters in literature and travel; jurisprudence, law, and criminality; teratology and the “New Science”; the aesthetics of the grotesque; automata and self-moving machines; or witchcraft, demonology, and other occult themes.
Geographical Scope: Unrestricted
Chronological Scope: Late Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern
Further Information: For questions or to submit a proposal, please contact the acquisitions editor, Erika Gaffney (Erika.Gaffney@arc-humanities.org) or visit our website: www.mip-archumanitiespress.org.
For more information, please download the Monsters, Prodigies, & Demons series flyer
CFP Gothic Animals: Uncanny Otherness and the Animal With-Out (edited collection) (11/7/2017)
An intriguing theme:
Gothic Animals: Uncanny Otherness and the Animal With-Out (edited collection)
deadline for submissions: November 1, 2017
full name / name of organization: Ruth Heholt and Melissa Edmundson
contact email: me.makala@gmail.com
Gothic Animals: Uncanny Otherness and the Animal With-Out
'The boundary between the animal and the human has long been unstable, especially since the Victorian period. Where the boundary is drawn between human and animal is itself an expression of political power and dominance, and the ‘animal’ can at once express the deepest fears and greatest aspirations of a society' (Victorian Animal Dreams, 4).
'The animal, like the ghost or good or evil spirit with which it is often associated, has been a manifestation of the uncanny' (Timothy Clark, 185).
In the mid nineteenth-century Charles Darwin published his theories of evolution. And as Deborah Denenholz Morse and Martin A. Danahay suggest, 'The effect of Darwin’s ideas was both to make the human more animal and the animal more human, destabilizing boundaries in both directions' (Victorian Animal Dreams, 2). Nineteenth-century fiction quickly picked up on the idea of the 'animal within' with texts like R.L. Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and H. G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau. In these novels the fear explored was of an unruly, defiant, degenerate and entirely amoral animality lying (mostly) dormant within all of us. This was our animal-other associated with the id: passions, appetites and capable of a complete disregard for all taboos and any restraint. As Cyndy Hendershot states, this 'animal within' 'threatened to usurp masculine rationality and return man to a state of irrational chaos' (The Animal Within, 97). This however, relates the animal to the human in a very specific, anthropocentric way. Non-humans and humans have other sorts of encounters too, and even before Darwin humans have often had an uneasy relationship with animals. Rats, horses, dogs, cats, birds and other beasts have, as Donna Haraway puts it a way of 'looking back' at us (When Species Meet,19).
Animals of all sorts have an entirely different and separate life to humans and in fiction this often morphs into Gothic horror. In these cases it is not about the 'animal within' but rather the animal 'with-out'; Other and entirely incomprehensible. These non-human, uncanny creatures know things we do not, and they see us in a way it is impossible for us to see ourselves. We have other sorts of encounters with animals too: we eat animals, imbibing their being in a largely non-ritualistic, but possibly still magical way; and on occasion, animals eat us. From plague-carrying rats, to 'filthy' fleas, black dogs and killer bunnies, animals of all sorts invade our imaginations, live with us (invited or not) in our homes, and insinuate themselves into our lives. The mere presence of a cat can make a home uncanny. An encounter with a dog on a deserted road at night can disconcert. The sight of a rat creeping down an alley carries all sorts of connotations as does a cluster of fat, black flies at the window of a deserted house. To date though, there is little written about animals and the Gothic, although they pervade our fictions, imaginations and sometimes our nightmares.
This collection is intended to look at all sorts of animals in relation to the Gothic: beasts, birds, sea-creatures, insects and domestic animals. We are not looking for transformative animals – no werewolves this time – rather we want essays on fictions about actual animals that explore their relation to the Gothic; their importance and prominence within the Gothic. We invite abstracts for essays that cover all animal/bird/insect/fish life forms, from all periods (from the early Modern to the present), and within different types of media – novels, poetry, short stories, films and games.
Topics may include (but are not bound by):
Please send 500 word abstracts and a short bio note by 1 November 2017 to: Dr Ruth Heholt (ruth.heholt@falmouth.ac.uk) and Dr Melissa Edmundson (me.makala@gmail.com).
The collection is intended for the Palgrave MacMillan 'Studies in Animals and Literature' series. Completed essays must be submitted by 1 July 2018.
'The boundary between the animal and the human has long been unstable, especially since the Victorian period. Where the boundary is drawn between human and animal is itself an expression of political power and dominance, and the ‘animal’ can at once express the deepest fears and greatest aspirations of a society' (Victorian Animal Dreams, 4).
'The animal, like the ghost or good or evil spirit with which it is often associated, has been a manifestation of the uncanny' (Timothy Clark, 185).
In the mid nineteenth-century Charles Darwin published his theories of evolution. And as Deborah Denenholz Morse and Martin A. Danahay suggest, 'The effect of Darwin’s ideas was both to make the human more animal and the animal more human, destabilizing boundaries in both directions' (Victorian Animal Dreams, 2). Nineteenth-century fiction quickly picked up on the idea of the 'animal within' with texts like R.L. Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and H. G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau. In these novels the fear explored was of an unruly, defiant, degenerate and entirely amoral animality lying (mostly) dormant within all of us. This was our animal-other associated with the id: passions, appetites and capable of a complete disregard for all taboos and any restraint. As Cyndy Hendershot states, this 'animal within' 'threatened to usurp masculine rationality and return man to a state of irrational chaos' (The Animal Within, 97). This however, relates the animal to the human in a very specific, anthropocentric way. Non-humans and humans have other sorts of encounters too, and even before Darwin humans have often had an uneasy relationship with animals. Rats, horses, dogs, cats, birds and other beasts have, as Donna Haraway puts it a way of 'looking back' at us (When Species Meet,19).
Animals of all sorts have an entirely different and separate life to humans and in fiction this often morphs into Gothic horror. In these cases it is not about the 'animal within' but rather the animal 'with-out'; Other and entirely incomprehensible. These non-human, uncanny creatures know things we do not, and they see us in a way it is impossible for us to see ourselves. We have other sorts of encounters with animals too: we eat animals, imbibing their being in a largely non-ritualistic, but possibly still magical way; and on occasion, animals eat us. From plague-carrying rats, to 'filthy' fleas, black dogs and killer bunnies, animals of all sorts invade our imaginations, live with us (invited or not) in our homes, and insinuate themselves into our lives. The mere presence of a cat can make a home uncanny. An encounter with a dog on a deserted road at night can disconcert. The sight of a rat creeping down an alley carries all sorts of connotations as does a cluster of fat, black flies at the window of a deserted house. To date though, there is little written about animals and the Gothic, although they pervade our fictions, imaginations and sometimes our nightmares.
This collection is intended to look at all sorts of animals in relation to the Gothic: beasts, birds, sea-creatures, insects and domestic animals. We are not looking for transformative animals – no werewolves this time – rather we want essays on fictions about actual animals that explore their relation to the Gothic; their importance and prominence within the Gothic. We invite abstracts for essays that cover all animal/bird/insect/fish life forms, from all periods (from the early Modern to the present), and within different types of media – novels, poetry, short stories, films and games.
Topics may include (but are not bound by):
- Rats (plague and death)
- Dogs (black and otherwise)
- Killer bunnies
- Uncanny cats
- Alien sea creatures
- Horses
- Bulls
- Cows (perhaps with long teeth)
- Killer frogs
- Beetles, flies, ants, spiders
- Worms
- Birds
- Snakes and toads
- Whales/Dolphins
- Animals as marginalised and oppressed
- Animals in peril
- Animal and human intimacies and the breaking of taboos
- Exotic animals/animals in colonial regions (Africa, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, India)
- Demonic animals
- Dangerous animals (rabid dogs, venomous snakes, wolves)
- Invasive animals
- Animals and disease
- Domestic animals
- Uncanny animals
- Animals connected to supernatural beings (Satanic goats, vampire bats)
- Witchcraft and familiar spirits/animal guides
- Rural versus urban animals
- Sixth sense and psychic energy
Please send 500 word abstracts and a short bio note by 1 November 2017 to: Dr Ruth Heholt (ruth.heholt@falmouth.ac.uk) and Dr Melissa Edmundson (me.makala@gmail.com).
The collection is intended for the Palgrave MacMillan 'Studies in Animals and Literature' series. Completed essays must be submitted by 1 July 2018.
CFP PCA/ACA Vampire in Literature, Culture, and Film Area (10/1/2017)
The Vampire in Literature, Culture, and Film
deadline for submissions: October 1, 2017
full name / name of organization: Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA)
contact email: lnevarez@siena.edu
The Vampire in Literature, Culture, and Film Area is seeking papers for the national joint Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) meeting to be held March 28-31 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
We welcome papers on vampires in literature, culture, and film for presentation at the conference.
Topics that are of particular interest include, but are not limited to:
- Vampires and music
- The international vampire
- Twilight and its legacy (2018 marks the 10-year anniversary of the film Twilight and the publication of Breaking Dawn)
- Werewolves and vampires
- The work of Nina Auerbach
- The return of Anne Rice’s vampire Lestat
- Social justice and vampires
- The literary vampire
- The vampire on television (ex: The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, The Strain, The Passage)
- Pedagogy
- Vampire subculture and lifestyle
Please submit abstracts of 250 words by October 1, 2017 to the PCA/ACA database: https://conference.pcaaca.org/
We welcome the submission of complete panels of 3-4 presenters.
Responses/decisions regarding your proposals will be provided within two weeks of your submission to ensure timely replies.
For further information, please visit: http://pcaaca.org/the-vampire-in-literature-culture-film/ or contact the area co-chairs: Mary Findley (findley@vtc.edu) or Lisa Nevarez (lnevarez@siena.edu).
CFP Oh, The Horror: Politics and Culture in Horror Films of the 1980s (expired)
Sorry to have missed posting this sooner:
Oh, The Horror--The 1980s
Call for Paper (June 7, 2017)
Oh, The Horror: Politics and Culture in Horror Films of the 1980s
Kevin M Scott (Albany State University)
Connor M Scott (Georgia State University)
Contact email: ohthehorror80s@gmail.com
In the 1980s, a decade significantly known for Ronald Reagan, the Moral Majority, and the ascendance of the corporation as an aesthetic, Hollywood recovered from and reacted to the director-centric 1970s by reasserting studio control over mainstream cinema. With notable exceptions, the films of the 1980s were constructive—supporting a neater and more optimistic view of history and American culture—as opposed to the deconstructive films of the prior decade, challenging and, often, fatalistic. A simple review of Oscar nominees for the 1980s, compared to those of the 1970s, demonstrates that the capitalistic desires of the studios aligned neatly with an increasingly self-congratulatory culture and the fantasy of a return to an earlier, simpler, more conservative, whiter, United States.
By nature, however, the horror genre retains a bleaker view of society. In the 1980s, horror subverted corporate influences more often that other mainstream genres and did so both in covert support and critique of politics and values of the era. Because horror films were (and remain) lower budget productions and, hence, lower risk for studios, filmmakers enjoyed a greater degree of freedom. Some filmmakers used that freedom to reify “Reagan-era values” in violent and bloody ways (through figures like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and other slashers) while others offered dark critiques of the politics of the decade—the anti-militarism of George Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985) or the deconstruction of the nuclear family in Joseph Rubin’s The Stepfather (1987).
The editors are developing a new collection of essays with McFarland Books and seek essays investigating the ways horror films during the 1980s responded to the cultural, social, and governmental politics of the decade. We welcome essays from a variety of critical stances (theoretical, psychological, formal, and so forth), but the volume’s purpose is to explore how horror films functioned as a site of political, cultural, and social engagement and/or critique.
We especially welcome essay proposals that take these approaches:
The editors seek essays of about 6,000 words.
The audience for this volume is undergraduates through active scholars, though books on this topic will attract an audience among fans of the genre.
Please submit abstracts of 500 words or less to Kevin M. Scott and Connor M. Scott (ohthehorror80s@gmail.com) by August 1, 2017. Abstracts should be accompanied by a short biography. Notification of acceptance will be given by August 15, 2017. Completed essays will be expected by December 15, 2017. And please email us if you have any questions.
Below, find a short list of films we would be especially interested in seeing discussed in essays for the volume. The list is certainly not meant to be exclusive, and we welcome any productive discussion of other films.
1980
Alligator
Altered States
Cannibal Holocaust
Demented
Friday the 13th
The Fog
Maniac
Motel Hell
Mother’s Day
The Watcher in the Woods
1981
An American Werewolf in London
The Entity
The Evil Dead
Friday the 13th PT 2
The Fun House
Graduation Day
Halloween II
Hell Night
The Howling
The Incubus
Inseminoid
My Bloody Valentine
Night School
Omen III: The Final Conflict
Wolfen
1982
The Aftermath
Alone in the Dark
Basket Case
Cat People
Creepshow
Curse of the Cannibal Confederates
Friday the 13th Part III
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
The Last Horror Film
Poltergeist
The Thing
1983
Christine
Cujo
Eyes of Fire
House on Sorority Row
The Hunger
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Videodrome
1984
C.H.U.D.
Children of the Corn
Gremlins
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Silent Night, Deadly Night
1985
Day of the Dead
Fright Night
The Hills Have Eyes Part II
Lifeforce
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
The Return of the Living Dead
1986
Aliens
Class of Nuke 'Em High
The Fly
The Hitcher
Little Shop of Horrors
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
1987
Dark Tower
Evil Dead II
Killing Spree
The Lost Boys
Near Dark
Predator
Prince of Darkness
Hellraiser
Stepfather
1988
The Blob
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Maniac Cop
Pumpkinhead
1989
Dr. Caligari
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Last updated June 8, 2017
Oh, The Horror--The 1980s
deadline for submissions:
August 1, 2017
full name / name of organization: Kevin M. Scott and Connor M. Scott
contact email: ohthehorror80s@gmail.com
Call for Paper (June 7, 2017)
Oh, The Horror: Politics and Culture in Horror Films of the 1980s
Kevin M Scott (Albany State University)
Connor M Scott (Georgia State University)
Contact email: ohthehorror80s@gmail.com
In the 1980s, a decade significantly known for Ronald Reagan, the Moral Majority, and the ascendance of the corporation as an aesthetic, Hollywood recovered from and reacted to the director-centric 1970s by reasserting studio control over mainstream cinema. With notable exceptions, the films of the 1980s were constructive—supporting a neater and more optimistic view of history and American culture—as opposed to the deconstructive films of the prior decade, challenging and, often, fatalistic. A simple review of Oscar nominees for the 1980s, compared to those of the 1970s, demonstrates that the capitalistic desires of the studios aligned neatly with an increasingly self-congratulatory culture and the fantasy of a return to an earlier, simpler, more conservative, whiter, United States.
By nature, however, the horror genre retains a bleaker view of society. In the 1980s, horror subverted corporate influences more often that other mainstream genres and did so both in covert support and critique of politics and values of the era. Because horror films were (and remain) lower budget productions and, hence, lower risk for studios, filmmakers enjoyed a greater degree of freedom. Some filmmakers used that freedom to reify “Reagan-era values” in violent and bloody ways (through figures like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and other slashers) while others offered dark critiques of the politics of the decade—the anti-militarism of George Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985) or the deconstruction of the nuclear family in Joseph Rubin’s The Stepfather (1987).
The editors are developing a new collection of essays with McFarland Books and seek essays investigating the ways horror films during the 1980s responded to the cultural, social, and governmental politics of the decade. We welcome essays from a variety of critical stances (theoretical, psychological, formal, and so forth), but the volume’s purpose is to explore how horror films functioned as a site of political, cultural, and social engagement and/or critique.
We especially welcome essay proposals that take these approaches:
- Close readings of individual films and their engagement with the politics and culture of the era.
- Studies of particular filmmakers and the development of ongoing critiques or concerns within their films.
- Investigations of particular cultural and political themes (poverty, Barbara Creed’s idea of the “monstrous feminine,” the power of corporations, and so forth) in multiple films.
- The evolution within a subgenre over the decade (the slasher, religious/occult horror, and so forth) and how those changes reflected developments in American society.
- Discussions of how horror filmmakers interacted with the film industry and with American culture on an industry level.
The editors seek essays of about 6,000 words.
The audience for this volume is undergraduates through active scholars, though books on this topic will attract an audience among fans of the genre.
Please submit abstracts of 500 words or less to Kevin M. Scott and Connor M. Scott (ohthehorror80s@gmail.com) by August 1, 2017. Abstracts should be accompanied by a short biography. Notification of acceptance will be given by August 15, 2017. Completed essays will be expected by December 15, 2017. And please email us if you have any questions.
Below, find a short list of films we would be especially interested in seeing discussed in essays for the volume. The list is certainly not meant to be exclusive, and we welcome any productive discussion of other films.
1980
Alligator
Altered States
Cannibal Holocaust
Demented
Friday the 13th
The Fog
Maniac
Motel Hell
Mother’s Day
The Watcher in the Woods
1981
An American Werewolf in London
The Entity
The Evil Dead
Friday the 13th PT 2
The Fun House
Graduation Day
Halloween II
Hell Night
The Howling
The Incubus
Inseminoid
My Bloody Valentine
Night School
Omen III: The Final Conflict
Wolfen
1982
The Aftermath
Alone in the Dark
Basket Case
Cat People
Creepshow
Curse of the Cannibal Confederates
Friday the 13th Part III
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
The Last Horror Film
Poltergeist
The Thing
1983
Christine
Cujo
Eyes of Fire
House on Sorority Row
The Hunger
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Videodrome
1984
C.H.U.D.
Children of the Corn
Gremlins
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Silent Night, Deadly Night
1985
Day of the Dead
Fright Night
The Hills Have Eyes Part II
Lifeforce
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
The Return of the Living Dead
1986
Aliens
Class of Nuke 'Em High
The Fly
The Hitcher
Little Shop of Horrors
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
1987
Dark Tower
Evil Dead II
Killing Spree
The Lost Boys
Near Dark
Predator
Prince of Darkness
Hellraiser
Stepfather
1988
The Blob
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Maniac Cop
Pumpkinhead
1989
Dr. Caligari
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Last updated June 8, 2017
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
CFP The Popular and the Weird: H.P. Lovecraft and 21st Century Media Cultures (Spec Issue of Studies in Gothic Fiction) (9/10/2017)
The Popular and the Weird: H.P. Lovecraft and 21st Century Media Cultures
Special Issue of Studies in Gothic Fiction
Guest editors: Chloé Germaine Buckley (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Kerry Dodd (Lancaster University)
https://journal.bsdj.org.uk/index.php/SGF/announcement/view/6
In his seminal essay on the Gothic, titled “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” H. P. Lovecraft claims that “[t]he appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from every-day life.” The author’s interest in Gothic tales that aim to produce ontological and epistemological terror – tales set against a cosmic landscape in which humanity is an infinitesimal part – has subsequently distilled into a specific and often self-conscious style: the Lovecraftian Weird. Yet the draw of the Lovecraftian seemingly refutes its perceived “narrow” allure; indeed, contemporary examples capitalize upon, and often negotiate with, this estrangement. The Lovecraftian in popular culture finds varied and wide expression, ranging from dedicated fan-inspired adaptations, such as the work of The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, to the more disparate “chibithulhu” aesthetic. Popular culture continues to find inspiration in Lovecraft’s work, manifest in examples ranging from 2010 children’s television animation, Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated to the 2015 “video game of the year” Bloodborne. This call for papers invites discussion on this proliferation of Lovecraftian tropes in 21st century popular culture, disseminated between niche, or fan, sub-cultures and mainstream media to access the presence, function, and relevance of this form as the affirmation or contestation of the perceived detachment from cultural conventionality.
We encourage submissions based on a multitude of cultural forms interrogating any form of Lovecraftian media, but we are specifically interested in its cultural implications and associations. This special edition of Studies in Gothic Fiction aims to consider why and how Lovecraftian tropes and aesthetics are appropriated as an architecture of existential horror that acts as an intersection between various forms of cultural production.
Prospective papers may consider, but are not limited to, the following research questions:
This Special Edition encourages trans and interdisciplinary responses to these research questions, from literary analysis to ethnographic studies. Contributors may submit work that focusses on various aspects of (Sub)Cultural, Media, and/ or Literary Studies, including (though not limited to):
We invite articles of around 6000-8000 words in length to be submitted alongside a 200 word abstract, list of keywords and brief biographical note. Please submit articles in either .doc or .docx format to thepopularweird@gmail.com by September 10th, 2017. Articles should adhere to the MLA Style Manual.
ISSN: 2156-2407
Special Issue of Studies in Gothic Fiction
Guest editors: Chloé Germaine Buckley (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Kerry Dodd (Lancaster University)
https://journal.bsdj.org.uk/index.php/SGF/announcement/view/6
In his seminal essay on the Gothic, titled “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” H. P. Lovecraft claims that “[t]he appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from every-day life.” The author’s interest in Gothic tales that aim to produce ontological and epistemological terror – tales set against a cosmic landscape in which humanity is an infinitesimal part – has subsequently distilled into a specific and often self-conscious style: the Lovecraftian Weird. Yet the draw of the Lovecraftian seemingly refutes its perceived “narrow” allure; indeed, contemporary examples capitalize upon, and often negotiate with, this estrangement. The Lovecraftian in popular culture finds varied and wide expression, ranging from dedicated fan-inspired adaptations, such as the work of The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, to the more disparate “chibithulhu” aesthetic. Popular culture continues to find inspiration in Lovecraft’s work, manifest in examples ranging from 2010 children’s television animation, Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated to the 2015 “video game of the year” Bloodborne. This call for papers invites discussion on this proliferation of Lovecraftian tropes in 21st century popular culture, disseminated between niche, or fan, sub-cultures and mainstream media to access the presence, function, and relevance of this form as the affirmation or contestation of the perceived detachment from cultural conventionality.
We encourage submissions based on a multitude of cultural forms interrogating any form of Lovecraftian media, but we are specifically interested in its cultural implications and associations. This special edition of Studies in Gothic Fiction aims to consider why and how Lovecraftian tropes and aesthetics are appropriated as an architecture of existential horror that acts as an intersection between various forms of cultural production.
Prospective papers may consider, but are not limited to, the following research questions:
- Why is the Lovecraftian prolific within such varied forms of media? Is there a marked distinction between “mainstream” and “fan” produced content? Does the intended audience affect the utilization and dynamic of its tropes?
- What is the attraction of Lovecraft in 21st Century popular culture? Does the recurrence of Lovecraftian tropes suggest their utilization as a tool to question epistemological destabilization, or do certain examples represent purely visual spectacle?
- How does the “affectivity” of cosmic horror translate into various forms of media? What is the significance of this pervasiveness, particularly its mode of dissemination, and the importance of this visceral horror within the outlined cultural intersection of mainstream and niche?
- How does the audience’s interaction with Lovecraftian media affect the format? Articles may focus on topic areas such as player involvement within roleplay, as well as the conceptualization inherent within Lovecraftian world building.
- How does the Lovecraftian act as an extension of Gothic media? Does the distinction and/or incorporation of the two suggest a specific cultural attraction of Lovecraftian media?
This Special Edition encourages trans and interdisciplinary responses to these research questions, from literary analysis to ethnographic studies. Contributors may submit work that focusses on various aspects of (Sub)Cultural, Media, and/ or Literary Studies, including (though not limited to):
- Contemporary Literary Fiction
- Contemporary Popular Fiction
- Film (from B movies to Blockbusters)
- Television Media
- Video Games and Gaming Cultures
- Marketing, merchandise and consumer culture
- Fan fiction and Fan cultures
- Gothic or Haunted New Media
- Online “fakelore” and viral memes
- Transmedia Storytelling
- Aural media, from radio plays to podcasts
- Board gaming, table-top roleplay and live-action roleplay
We invite articles of around 6000-8000 words in length to be submitted alongside a 200 word abstract, list of keywords and brief biographical note. Please submit articles in either .doc or .docx format to thepopularweird@gmail.com by September 10th, 2017. Articles should adhere to the MLA Style Manual.
ISSN: 2156-2407
Saturday, August 12, 2017
CFP New Approaches in Zombie Studies (9/30/17; NeMLA 2018)
New Approaches in Zombie Studies
Announcement published by Derek McGrath on Wednesday, August 2, 2017
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/189362/new-approaches-zombie-studies
Further details at https://dereksmcgrath.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/cfp-new-approaches-in-zombie-studies-northeast-mla-april-2018-pittsburgh-submission-deadline-93017/.
Type: Call for Papers
Date: September 30, 2017
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Subject Fields:
This session looks at zombies, including as they were defined by Night of the Living Dead, filmed in NeMLA’s host city Pittsburgh by local director George Romero.
While the zombie genre risks growing torpid (so to speak), it also has cemented itself as an area of study with easily discernible approaches and themes: zombies as representative of biological contagions, as commentary on mental lethargy in the social media age, as symbolic of neoliberal economics, and more. This panel will explore the following questions: How have zombies changed in recent years, in their composition, narrative format, and metaphorical status? What new insights can be garnered looking to earlier conceptions of the zombie, and conceptions from Haiti and around the world? How have zombies served as commentary on medicine, social media, anti-intellectualism, economics, and society?
Please submit 300-word abstracts, along with a short bio and any audio-visual requests, online before September 30, 2017, at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16935. Email questions to Derek McGrath, derekmcg@buffalo.edu.
The 49th Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association will meet April 12 to 15, 2018, at Pittsburgh’s historic Omni William Penn. More information is available at http://www.nemla.org.
Contact Info:
Derek McGrath, University at Buffalo
Contact Email: derekmcg@buffalo.edu
URL: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16935
Announcement published by Derek McGrath on Wednesday, August 2, 2017
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/189362/new-approaches-zombie-studies
Further details at https://dereksmcgrath.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/cfp-new-approaches-in-zombie-studies-northeast-mla-april-2018-pittsburgh-submission-deadline-93017/.
Type: Call for Papers
Date: September 30, 2017
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Subject Fields:
This session looks at zombies, including as they were defined by Night of the Living Dead, filmed in NeMLA’s host city Pittsburgh by local director George Romero.
While the zombie genre risks growing torpid (so to speak), it also has cemented itself as an area of study with easily discernible approaches and themes: zombies as representative of biological contagions, as commentary on mental lethargy in the social media age, as symbolic of neoliberal economics, and more. This panel will explore the following questions: How have zombies changed in recent years, in their composition, narrative format, and metaphorical status? What new insights can be garnered looking to earlier conceptions of the zombie, and conceptions from Haiti and around the world? How have zombies served as commentary on medicine, social media, anti-intellectualism, economics, and society?
Please submit 300-word abstracts, along with a short bio and any audio-visual requests, online before September 30, 2017, at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16935. Email questions to Derek McGrath, derekmcg@buffalo.edu.
The 49th Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association will meet April 12 to 15, 2018, at Pittsburgh’s historic Omni William Penn. More information is available at http://www.nemla.org.
Contact Info:
Derek McGrath, University at Buffalo
Contact Email: derekmcg@buffalo.edu
URL: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16935
Spineless: Online Horror and Narrative Networks (Spec Issue of Horror Studies) (8/15/2017)
Sorry to have missed this earlier; do note impending deadline:
Horror Studies – Special Issue – Spineless: Online Horror and Narrative Networks
Deadline for submissions: August 15, 2017
Contact email: tstuart9@uwo.ca
http://www.gothic.stir.ac.uk/uncategorized/cfp-horror-studies-online-horror-and-narrative-networks/
With the current spate of contemporary high-budget properties that have sought to engage and adapt online horror content, increasing attention has been turned to communities of amateur critics, writers, illustrators, and fans that work to create horror in digital space. Their influence has been felt in a variety of media, from the television series Channel Zero and Supernatural, to the film The Tall Man and video games like Slender and SCP: Containment Breach. Fora in Something Awful, “r/nosleep”, and the SCP Foundation represent attempts by massive communities to create negotiated fictions, imagining mythic spaces and enduring, horrific creatures. Likewise, fora dedicated to notoriously difficult horror texts like Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves provide a continual exegesis on the novel’s nested narratives and clues. Digital horror thus appears to be an engine driving the creation, production, and critical apparatus of contemporary horror fiction. Tina Marie Boyer, along with Andrew Peck and Shira Chess, has emphasized that these creations “obey the same rules of performativity, critique, embellishment, and progression as they do in the oral telling of the story” (Boyer 257). While these critics examine the anthropological infrastructure of online communities in their research, our interest lies in the possibility of literary criticism to provide a more focused reading of their individuated creations within the expectations of a genre.
In this special issue of Horror Studies, we invite contributors to consider how a genre responds to the creative energies of its own networked audience. “Spineless: Online Horror and Narrative Networks” will provide critical readings of the rapid, accretive mode of storytelling that has seen a rise in the wake of the digital. How are we to read and theorize these productions of an urgent, enthusiastic desire to be a part of a collective horror? Ultimately, the issue seeks to examine the increased prominence of online texts, the communities that build up around them, and how these come to inform mainstream productions of contemporary horror texts.
Essays of approximately 8500 words (including footnotes and works cited) should be sent to Riley McDonald (rmcdon8@uwo.ca) and/or Thomas Stuart (tstuart9@uwo.ca) by August 15, 2017. Horror Studies uses Harvard Style in its formatting; authors should consult http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/MediaManager/File/Intellect%20style%20guide.pdf and download the full style sheet.
Horror Studies – Special Issue – Spineless: Online Horror and Narrative Networks
Deadline for submissions: August 15, 2017
Contact email: tstuart9@uwo.ca
http://www.gothic.stir.ac.uk/uncategorized/cfp-horror-studies-online-horror-and-narrative-networks/
With the current spate of contemporary high-budget properties that have sought to engage and adapt online horror content, increasing attention has been turned to communities of amateur critics, writers, illustrators, and fans that work to create horror in digital space. Their influence has been felt in a variety of media, from the television series Channel Zero and Supernatural, to the film The Tall Man and video games like Slender and SCP: Containment Breach. Fora in Something Awful, “r/nosleep”, and the SCP Foundation represent attempts by massive communities to create negotiated fictions, imagining mythic spaces and enduring, horrific creatures. Likewise, fora dedicated to notoriously difficult horror texts like Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves provide a continual exegesis on the novel’s nested narratives and clues. Digital horror thus appears to be an engine driving the creation, production, and critical apparatus of contemporary horror fiction. Tina Marie Boyer, along with Andrew Peck and Shira Chess, has emphasized that these creations “obey the same rules of performativity, critique, embellishment, and progression as they do in the oral telling of the story” (Boyer 257). While these critics examine the anthropological infrastructure of online communities in their research, our interest lies in the possibility of literary criticism to provide a more focused reading of their individuated creations within the expectations of a genre.
In this special issue of Horror Studies, we invite contributors to consider how a genre responds to the creative energies of its own networked audience. “Spineless: Online Horror and Narrative Networks” will provide critical readings of the rapid, accretive mode of storytelling that has seen a rise in the wake of the digital. How are we to read and theorize these productions of an urgent, enthusiastic desire to be a part of a collective horror? Ultimately, the issue seeks to examine the increased prominence of online texts, the communities that build up around them, and how these come to inform mainstream productions of contemporary horror texts.
- How have the new infrastructures of digital media influenced the form and structure of popular online horror stories?
- How do online fora demonstrate a conceptual bleed between fictional creation, discussion, and analysis?
- What are the affective responses to digital horror content?
- How do digital archives of horror such as the “Creepypasta” site constitute communities? How do these archives engage with the essential ephemerality of their texts?
- If weird fiction can be characterized by exploring the limits to knowledge and perception, are these elements dramatized (or complicated) in the communal creation of these online worlds?
- How does the circulation of digital horror worlds or characters (i.e., the multiple Youtube series about the Slenderman) engage in implicit or explicit dialogue with one another?
- How do online horror communities engage other digital spaces and creations (from chat rooms to conspiracy theories to meme-culture)?
- How do recent popular culture representations of communal digital space as haunted (i.e., Unfriended) negotiate the same interests as actual online communities?
- Can we see in digitally-influenced texts like “Candle Cove” and The Raw Shark Texts and attempt to update the Gothic’s epistolary tradition?
Essays of approximately 8500 words (including footnotes and works cited) should be sent to Riley McDonald (rmcdon8@uwo.ca) and/or Thomas Stuart (tstuart9@uwo.ca) by August 15, 2017. Horror Studies uses Harvard Style in its formatting; authors should consult http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/MediaManager/File/Intellect%20style%20guide.pdf and download the full style sheet.
Lovecraft Annual No. 11 Now Available
New Scholarship on H. P. Lovecraft Edited by S. T. Joshi
https://www.hippocampuspress.com/journals/lovecraft-annual/lovecraft-annual-no.-11-2017
$15.00
ISSN 1935-6102
ISBN 978-1-61498-203-6
August 2017
200 pp
Table of Contents
Personal Tragedy in “The Thing on the Doorstep”
W. H. Pugmire
Lovecraft’s Greek Tragedy
Duncan Norris
On Lovecraft’s Lifelong Relationship with Wonder
Jan B. W. Pedersen
Some Philological Observations on “The Horror at Red Hook”
Armen Alexanyan
New York, Culture Shock, and a Glimpse of the Future in “He”
Cecelia Drewer
H. P. Lovecraft in “The Sideshow”
Lovecraft and the Argosy
David E. Schultz
Aristeas and Lovecraft
Claudio Foti
“All Things Are Noble Which Serve the German State”: Nationalism in Lovecraft’s “The Temple”
Géza A. G. Reilly
H. P. Lovecraft’s Determinism and Atomism: Evidence in R. H. Barlow’s
“The Summons”
Marcos Legaria
Lovecraft and Arrival: The Quiet Apocalypse
Duncan Norris
Letters to the Coryciani
H. P. Lovecraft
Sinister Showmen and H. P. Lovecraft
Gavin Callaghan
Reviews
Briefly Noted
Lovecraftian Proceedings No. 2 Now Available
Edited by Dennis Quinn
https://www.hippocampuspress.com/journals/lovecraftian-proceedings/lovecraftian-proceedings-no.-2
August 2017
ISBN 978-1-61498-190-9
$20.00
~250 pp
Cover art by Pete Von Sholly
Lovecraftian Proceedings is the Official Organ of the Dr. Henry Armitage Memorial Symposium.
A key part of NecronomiCon Providence, the Armitage Symposium fosters exploration of Lovecraft as a rationalist who created an elaborate cosmic mythology, and how this mythology was influenced by, and has come to influence, numerous other authors and artists.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Dennis P. Quinn
Abbreviations
Dreams of Antiquity: H. P. Lovecraft's Great Roman Dream of 1927
Byron Nakamura
The Poet’s Nightmare: The Nature of Things According to Lovecraft
Sean Moreland
Reordering the Universe: H. P. Lovecraft’s Subversion of the Biblical Divine
René J. Weise
Resisting Cthulhu: Milton and Lovecraft’s Errand in the Wilderness
Marcello Ricciardi
“The Discriminating Urban Landscapist": Tradition and Innovation in the Architectural Writings of H. P. Lovecraft
Connor Pitetti
Tentacles in the Madhouse: The Role of the Asylum in the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft
Troy Rondinone
Unspeakable Languages: Lovecraft Editions in Spanish
Juan L. Pérez-de-Luque
Color out of Mind: Correlating the Cthulhu Mythos Universe to the Autism Disorder Spectrum
Lars G. Backstrom
Darwin and the Deep Ones: Anthropological Anxiety in "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and Other Stories
Jeffrey Shanks
The “Inside” of H. P. Lovecraft’s Supernatural Horror in the Visual Arts
Nathaniel R. Wallace
H. P. Lovecraft’s Optimism
Matthew Beach
Insider, Outsider: From the Commonplace to the Uncanny in H. P. Lovecraft’s Narration and Descriptions
Daphnée Tasia Bourdages-Athanassiou
Introduction
Dennis P. Quinn
Abbreviations
Dreams of Antiquity: H. P. Lovecraft's Great Roman Dream of 1927
Byron Nakamura
The Poet’s Nightmare: The Nature of Things According to Lovecraft
Sean Moreland
Reordering the Universe: H. P. Lovecraft’s Subversion of the Biblical Divine
René J. Weise
Resisting Cthulhu: Milton and Lovecraft’s Errand in the Wilderness
Marcello Ricciardi
“The Discriminating Urban Landscapist": Tradition and Innovation in the Architectural Writings of H. P. Lovecraft
Connor Pitetti
Tentacles in the Madhouse: The Role of the Asylum in the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft
Troy Rondinone
Unspeakable Languages: Lovecraft Editions in Spanish
Juan L. Pérez-de-Luque
Color out of Mind: Correlating the Cthulhu Mythos Universe to the Autism Disorder Spectrum
Lars G. Backstrom
Darwin and the Deep Ones: Anthropological Anxiety in "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and Other Stories
Jeffrey Shanks
The “Inside” of H. P. Lovecraft’s Supernatural Horror in the Visual Arts
Nathaniel R. Wallace
H. P. Lovecraft’s Optimism
Matthew Beach
Insider, Outsider: From the Commonplace to the Uncanny in H. P. Lovecraft’s Narration and Descriptions
Daphnée Tasia Bourdages-Athanassiou
H. P. Lovecraft, Georges Bataille, and the Fascination of the Formless: One Crawling Chaos Seen Emerging from Opposite Shores
Christian Roy
Ripples from Carcosa: H. P. Lovecraft, True Detective, and the Artist-Investigator
Heather Poirier
Lovecraft for the Little Ones: ParaNorman, Plushies, and More
Faye Ringel and Jenna Randall
Contributors
Appendix
Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Dr. Henry Armitage Memorial Scholarship Symposium,
NecronomiCon Providence 20-23 August, 2015
Chair: Dennis P. Quinn
Index
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Call for Creative Works for Monsters and Monstrosity: A Tribute to Mary Shelley (9/30/2017; NeMLA 2018)
Monsters and Monstrosity: A Tribute to Mary Shelley (Creative)
Proposals by 9/30/2017
Submit to https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16946
Primary Area / Secondary Area
Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing
Chair(s)
Richard Johnston (United States Air Force Academy)
Session Description
1818 marks the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. To honor Shelley’s enduring novel, and to compliment the critical panel on the literature and culture of 1818, this roundtable welcomes creative work, in any genre, on monsters or the idea of monstrosity. The thematic possibilities are limitless but include: racial, cultural, sexual, and/or class alterity; animals, humans, and/or the trans-human; children, adolescents, and/or adults; or systemic monstrosities in economics, education, industrialism, law, medicine, politics, religion, and/or war. In the interest of including as many voices and as possible, participants will be asked to limit presentations of original creative work to 10 minutes.
Proposals by 9/30/2017
Submit to https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16946
Primary Area / Secondary Area
Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing
Chair(s)
Richard Johnston (United States Air Force Academy)
Session Description
1818 marks the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. To honor Shelley’s enduring novel, and to compliment the critical panel on the literature and culture of 1818, this roundtable welcomes creative work, in any genre, on monsters or the idea of monstrosity. The thematic possibilities are limitless but include: racial, cultural, sexual, and/or class alterity; animals, humans, and/or the trans-human; children, adolescents, and/or adults; or systemic monstrosities in economics, education, industrialism, law, medicine, politics, religion, and/or war. In the interest of including as many voices and as possible, participants will be asked to limit presentations of original creative work to 10 minutes.
Sunday, August 6, 2017
CFP Sexy Beast: Amorous Monsters, Incest, and Bestiality in Medieval Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian Literature Panel (9/30/20147; NeMLA 2018)
Sexy Beast: Amorous Monsters, Incest, and Bestiality in Medieval Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian Literature Panel at NeMLA 2018
Announcement published by David Pecan on Wednesday, June 28, 2017
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/184541/sexy-beast-amorous-monsters-incest-and-bestiality-medieval
Type: Call for Papers
Date: April 12, 2018 to April 15, 2018
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
A Call for Papers for the 49th NeMLA Annual Conference, April 12th-15th, 2018, Pittsburgh, PA.
Sexy Beast: Amorous Monsters, Incest, and Bestiality in Medieval Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian Literature
The realistic and fantastic narratives of the early medieval world contain no shortage of encounters that stretch, challenge, and break accepted social guidelines. The theoretical analysis of non-traditional modes of desire, other-worldly wish fulfilment, and human-animal relations in the literatures of medieval Northern Europe offers opportunities for the provocative consideration of mythopoetic ritual, social syncretism, source study, literary innovation, authorial or cultural fetish, and the iconography or design features of the material culture of early Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, and Scandinavia. Eco-criticism, psychoanalytic and gender theory, and linguistic and cultural poetics provide a lens for the discussion of sexualized monster combat, romantic encounters with otherworldly or mythic entities, cross-species or magical seduction, angelic ravishments, the sexualized negotiation of clan or family structure, and the totemic representation of monstrous or animalistic couplings.
The deadline for abstract submission is September 30th, 2017. Please submit 200 to 400 word abstracts to this panel via the official NeMLA website and follow the instructions posted there. https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/cfp
This panel is hosted by Professor David Pecan, SUNY Nassau.
Contact Info:
This panel is hosted by Professor David Pecan, SUNY Nassau. It is requested that all abstract submissions be sent through the NeMLA website at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/cfp
Contact Email:
david.pecan@ncc.edu
Announcement published by David Pecan on Wednesday, June 28, 2017
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/184541/sexy-beast-amorous-monsters-incest-and-bestiality-medieval
Type: Call for Papers
Date: April 12, 2018 to April 15, 2018
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
A Call for Papers for the 49th NeMLA Annual Conference, April 12th-15th, 2018, Pittsburgh, PA.
Sexy Beast: Amorous Monsters, Incest, and Bestiality in Medieval Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian Literature
The realistic and fantastic narratives of the early medieval world contain no shortage of encounters that stretch, challenge, and break accepted social guidelines. The theoretical analysis of non-traditional modes of desire, other-worldly wish fulfilment, and human-animal relations in the literatures of medieval Northern Europe offers opportunities for the provocative consideration of mythopoetic ritual, social syncretism, source study, literary innovation, authorial or cultural fetish, and the iconography or design features of the material culture of early Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, and Scandinavia. Eco-criticism, psychoanalytic and gender theory, and linguistic and cultural poetics provide a lens for the discussion of sexualized monster combat, romantic encounters with otherworldly or mythic entities, cross-species or magical seduction, angelic ravishments, the sexualized negotiation of clan or family structure, and the totemic representation of monstrous or animalistic couplings.
The deadline for abstract submission is September 30th, 2017. Please submit 200 to 400 word abstracts to this panel via the official NeMLA website and follow the instructions posted there. https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/cfp
This panel is hosted by Professor David Pecan, SUNY Nassau.
Contact Info:
This panel is hosted by Professor David Pecan, SUNY Nassau. It is requested that all abstract submissions be sent through the NeMLA website at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/cfp
Contact Email:
david.pecan@ncc.edu
CFP New Approaches to Gothic Literature (9/15/2017; ASECS 2018)
New Approaches to Gothic Literature: Panel at 2018 ASECS Annual Meeting, March 22-25
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/07/14/new-approaches-to-gothic-literature-panel-at-2018-asecs-annual-meeting-march-22-25
deadline for submissions: September 15, 2017
full name / name of organization: Geremy Carnes
contact email: GCarnes@lindenwood.edu
As the bicentennial of the publication of the early Gothic’s masterpiece, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, 2018 is an ideal time to reconsider how we understand the aesthetic qualities, ideological underpinnings, historical development, and cultural work of Gothic literature. Derided as juvenile or worse through most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Gothic has enjoyed a resurgence in interest among scholars in recent decades—and of course, it has never lost the interest of popular audiences. This panel seeks papers from scholars of literature, history, art history, religion, science and technology studies, and other fields which break new ground in the study of the Gothic, a genre that is at once instantly recognizable and yet elusive of easy definition. Papers that seek to bridge the gap—or to thoughtfully chart out the terrain of the gap—between scholarship on early Gothic literature and scholarship on the Gothic in contemporary popular culture are particularly welcome.
Please send abstracts of 350 words to GCarnes@lindenwood.edu by September 15, 2017.
Last updated July 18, 2017
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/07/14/new-approaches-to-gothic-literature-panel-at-2018-asecs-annual-meeting-march-22-25
deadline for submissions: September 15, 2017
full name / name of organization: Geremy Carnes
contact email: GCarnes@lindenwood.edu
As the bicentennial of the publication of the early Gothic’s masterpiece, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, 2018 is an ideal time to reconsider how we understand the aesthetic qualities, ideological underpinnings, historical development, and cultural work of Gothic literature. Derided as juvenile or worse through most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Gothic has enjoyed a resurgence in interest among scholars in recent decades—and of course, it has never lost the interest of popular audiences. This panel seeks papers from scholars of literature, history, art history, religion, science and technology studies, and other fields which break new ground in the study of the Gothic, a genre that is at once instantly recognizable and yet elusive of easy definition. Papers that seek to bridge the gap—or to thoughtfully chart out the terrain of the gap—between scholarship on early Gothic literature and scholarship on the Gothic in contemporary popular culture are particularly welcome.
Please send abstracts of 350 words to GCarnes@lindenwood.edu by September 15, 2017.
Last updated July 18, 2017
CFP Penny Dreadful Collection (expired)
Just came across this today. Sorry to have missed it earlier. I wish the organizers good luck in compiling the collection.
Penny Dreadful; Gothic Reimagining and Neo-Victorianism in Modern Television
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/03/28/penny-dreadful-gothic-reimagining-and-neo-victorianism-in-modern-television
deadline for submissions: May 15, 2017
full name / name of organization: J. Greenaway/ S. Reid
contact email: j.greenaway@mmu.ac.uk
Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) has become one of the most critical well-regarded shows of the post-millennial Gothic television revival, drawing explicitly on classic tropes, texts and characters throughout its three-season run. However, despite the show’s critical success and cult following, a substantive academic examination of the show has yet to be undertaken.
This edited collection seeks to address the current lack within Gothic studies scholarship, and situate Penny Dreadful as a key contemporary Gothic television text. This collection will seek to trace the link between the continued expansion of Gothic television, alongside the popular engagement with Neo-Victorianism. In addition, the collection seeks to examine notions around the aesthetic importance of contemporary Gothic that become particularly prominent against the narrative re-imaginings that occur within Penny Dreadful. This collection explores exactly where Gothic resides within this reflexive, hybridized and intertextual work; in the bodies, the stories, the history, the styling, or somewhere else entirely?
Possible contributions could include, but are no means limited to the following:
What the proposal should include:
An extended abstract of 500 words (for a 6,000-word chapter) including a proposed chapter title, a clear theoretical approach and reference to some relevant sources.
Please also provide your contact information, institutional affiliation, and a short biography.
Abstracts should be sent as a word document attachment to j.greenaway@mmu.ac.uk or stephanie.m.reid@stu.mmu.ac.uk by no later than May 15th 2017 with the subject line, “Penny Dreadful Abstract Submission.”
Last updated March 28, 2017
Penny Dreadful; Gothic Reimagining and Neo-Victorianism in Modern Television
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/03/28/penny-dreadful-gothic-reimagining-and-neo-victorianism-in-modern-television
deadline for submissions: May 15, 2017
full name / name of organization: J. Greenaway/ S. Reid
contact email: j.greenaway@mmu.ac.uk
Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) has become one of the most critical well-regarded shows of the post-millennial Gothic television revival, drawing explicitly on classic tropes, texts and characters throughout its three-season run. However, despite the show’s critical success and cult following, a substantive academic examination of the show has yet to be undertaken.
This edited collection seeks to address the current lack within Gothic studies scholarship, and situate Penny Dreadful as a key contemporary Gothic television text. This collection will seek to trace the link between the continued expansion of Gothic television, alongside the popular engagement with Neo-Victorianism. In addition, the collection seeks to examine notions around the aesthetic importance of contemporary Gothic that become particularly prominent against the narrative re-imaginings that occur within Penny Dreadful. This collection explores exactly where Gothic resides within this reflexive, hybridized and intertextual work; in the bodies, the stories, the history, the styling, or somewhere else entirely?
Possible contributions could include, but are no means limited to the following:
- Gothic adaptation and/or appropriation?
- Pastiche and parody and Gothic aesthetics
- ‘Global Gothic’ in the sense of its commercialisation
- Neo-Victorianism (styling, politics, economics); as well as explorations of the impact of ‘historicizing’ Gothic
- Representation of gender within the text, specifically female monstrosity
- The Post/Colonial context, as well racialized characterisation and presentation
- The reworking/restyling of monsters in contemporary Gothic
- Consideration of a ‘Romance’ aesthetic and how this alters conceptions of ‘Gothic’ texts and the influence of ‘romantic’ themes/styles in contemporary Gothic
What the proposal should include:
An extended abstract of 500 words (for a 6,000-word chapter) including a proposed chapter title, a clear theoretical approach and reference to some relevant sources.
Please also provide your contact information, institutional affiliation, and a short biography.
Abstracts should be sent as a word document attachment to j.greenaway@mmu.ac.uk or stephanie.m.reid@stu.mmu.ac.uk by no later than May 15th 2017 with the subject line, “Penny Dreadful Abstract Submission.”
Last updated March 28, 2017
CFP Silent Horror Panel (8/7/2017; SCMS 2018)
Sorry for posting this so late:
Silent Horror
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/06/22/silent-horror
deadline for submissions: August 7, 2017
full name / name of organization: Murray Leeder/University of Calgary
contact email: murray.leeder@ucalgary.ca
This is a CFP for a panel at the 2018 meeting of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), to be held March 14-18, 2018 at the Sheraton Centre, Toronto, ON, March about which you may read here: http://cmstudies.site-ym.com/?page=conference.
With the term “horror film” not entering widespread use until the early 1930s, “silent horror” is perhaps an inherently anachronistic concept. And yet few would deny that the fundamentals of the horror film were established in the silent era. We are accustomed to thinking of many of the important works of German Expressionism (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), Orlacs Hände/The Hands of Orlac (1924), Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam/The Golem: How He Came Into The World (1920) and more) as horror films. From the United States, the cycles about deformity (many starring Lon Chaney and directed by Tod Browning) and the largely theatre-derived comic horror film, emblematized by The Bat (1926) and The Cat and the Canary (1927) became part of the emerging paradigm of the horror film. Other parts of the world saw other productions that would come to be claimed as horror, notably Häxan/Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922) and Kurutta Ippēji/A Page of Madness (1926).
This panel seeks a variety of papers on the history, aesthetics and themes of the silent horror film, exploring multiple facets of a fascinating, neglected topic.
Please send 300-word abstract, 200-word biography, and 3-5 citations to Murray Leeder (murray.leeder@ucalgary.ca) by August 7, 2017.
Last updated June 22, 2017
Silent Horror
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/06/22/silent-horror
deadline for submissions: August 7, 2017
full name / name of organization: Murray Leeder/University of Calgary
contact email: murray.leeder@ucalgary.ca
This is a CFP for a panel at the 2018 meeting of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), to be held March 14-18, 2018 at the Sheraton Centre, Toronto, ON, March about which you may read here: http://cmstudies.site-ym.com/?page=conference.
With the term “horror film” not entering widespread use until the early 1930s, “silent horror” is perhaps an inherently anachronistic concept. And yet few would deny that the fundamentals of the horror film were established in the silent era. We are accustomed to thinking of many of the important works of German Expressionism (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), Orlacs Hände/The Hands of Orlac (1924), Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam/The Golem: How He Came Into The World (1920) and more) as horror films. From the United States, the cycles about deformity (many starring Lon Chaney and directed by Tod Browning) and the largely theatre-derived comic horror film, emblematized by The Bat (1926) and The Cat and the Canary (1927) became part of the emerging paradigm of the horror film. Other parts of the world saw other productions that would come to be claimed as horror, notably Häxan/Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922) and Kurutta Ippēji/A Page of Madness (1926).
This panel seeks a variety of papers on the history, aesthetics and themes of the silent horror film, exploring multiple facets of a fascinating, neglected topic.
- Definitional challenges – when did the horror film begin and how far can this generic label be usefully extended. (for example, can/should certain of early cinema’s trick films be include under the heading “horror film)?
- Different national traditions of silent horror
- The relationship of silent horror to other genres (comedy, melodrama, the Western, fantasy, science fiction, romance, etc.)
- The relationship of screen horror to theatre (especially in the U.S. in the 1920s).
- Griffith and horror (The Avenging Conscience (1914), One Exciting Night (1922))
- Adaptations and cultural respectability (Poe, Shelley, Stevenson, Hugo, etc.)
- Individual monsters and horror themes (vampires, lycanthropes, apes, the Devil, disfigured persons, ghosts, etc.)
- Horror and the avant-garde
- Post-silent era silent horror, and the role of silent era pastiche in later films (Guy Maddin, William Castle’s Shanks (1974), The Call of Cthulhu (2005))
- -- Key figures, both famous (Chaney, Browning, Paul Leni, F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, Karl Freund, etc.) and neglected
Please send 300-word abstract, 200-word biography, and 3-5 citations to Murray Leeder (murray.leeder@ucalgary.ca) by August 7, 2017.
Last updated June 22, 2017
CFP The New Urban Gothic (8/30/2017)
The New Urban Gothic, Call for Chapters
Announcement published by Ruth Heholt on Wednesday, July 12, 2017
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/186828/new-urban-gothic-call-chapters
Type: Call for Papers
Date: August 30, 2017
We are seeking abstracts for chapters for an edited collection entitled: The New Urban Gothic. Urban Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction, Gothic crime fiction, and television whose narratives spring from discourse on industrial and post-industrial urban society. Often dystopic, it was pioneered in the mid-19th century in Britain and the United States. Much has been written on 19th century Anglo-centred Urban Gothic fiction and vampiristic, monstrous Urban Gothic, but less has been written on the 21st century reimagining and re-serialisation of the Urban Gothic in mechanised, altered, disabled, and dystopic states of being. Nor has writing on the Urban Gothic departed from the canonical London location or considered the Urban Gothic as the prime progenitor of the genre of Crime Fiction. The intention, therefore, is for The New Urban Gothic to explore the resurgence in serialised and grotesque narratives of degeneration, ecological and economic ruin, dystopia, mechanised future inequality, and crime narrative as evidenced in literature and new forms of media in an international context. Submissions are welcomed that address the historic specificities of urban difference and Gothic traditions, as well as inter-disciplinary studies and contemporary texts that link urban crime fiction and the Gothic.
Topics may include (but are not bound by):
Deadline for final chapters of no more than 7,500 words (including notes and references): 1 May 2018.
Contact Info:
Please send a 300-500 word abstract including keywords, along with 50-100 words of biodata to the editors h.millette@soton.ac.uk and ruth.heholt@falmouth.ac.uk by 30 August, 2017.
Contact Email:
h.millette@soton.ac.uk
Announcement published by Ruth Heholt on Wednesday, July 12, 2017
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/186828/new-urban-gothic-call-chapters
Type: Call for Papers
Date: August 30, 2017
We are seeking abstracts for chapters for an edited collection entitled: The New Urban Gothic. Urban Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction, Gothic crime fiction, and television whose narratives spring from discourse on industrial and post-industrial urban society. Often dystopic, it was pioneered in the mid-19th century in Britain and the United States. Much has been written on 19th century Anglo-centred Urban Gothic fiction and vampiristic, monstrous Urban Gothic, but less has been written on the 21st century reimagining and re-serialisation of the Urban Gothic in mechanised, altered, disabled, and dystopic states of being. Nor has writing on the Urban Gothic departed from the canonical London location or considered the Urban Gothic as the prime progenitor of the genre of Crime Fiction. The intention, therefore, is for The New Urban Gothic to explore the resurgence in serialised and grotesque narratives of degeneration, ecological and economic ruin, dystopia, mechanised future inequality, and crime narrative as evidenced in literature and new forms of media in an international context. Submissions are welcomed that address the historic specificities of urban difference and Gothic traditions, as well as inter-disciplinary studies and contemporary texts that link urban crime fiction and the Gothic.
Topics may include (but are not bound by):
- Industrialization, Mechanisation and future dystopia in the Urban Gothic
- New serializations of the Urban Gothic (Dickens – Netflix, etc.)
- Outsiders (Gender, Race, or the Orient) in the New Urban Gothic
- Identity and Belonging in the New Urban Gothic
- Dark Tourism and the New Urban Gothic
- Political Aesthetics (Grotesque) of the New Urban Gothic
- LGBTQi and the New Urban Gothic
- Disability and Mental Health in the New Urban Gothic
- Sci-Fi and the New Urban Gothic in Space.
- Gaming and the New Urban Gothic (X-Box, PS 3, Wii, PC, etc.)
- Graphic Novels and the New Urban Gothic (Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, etc.)
- Regional New Urban Gothic (Sheffield, New Orleans, Ontario, etc.)
- Dockside New Urban Gothic (Limehouse, Hong Kong, Gdansk, Liverpool, Vancouver, etc.)
- Japanese New Urban Gothic (or Korean, Chinese, Indian, Canadian etc)
Deadline for final chapters of no more than 7,500 words (including notes and references): 1 May 2018.
Contact Info:
Please send a 300-500 word abstract including keywords, along with 50-100 words of biodata to the editors h.millette@soton.ac.uk and ruth.heholt@falmouth.ac.uk by 30 August, 2017.
Contact Email:
h.millette@soton.ac.uk
CFP New Approaches in Zombie Studies (9/30/2017; NeMLA 2018)
New Approaches in Zombie Studies
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/08/01/new-approaches-in-zombie-studies
deadline for submissions: September 30, 2017
full name / name of organization: Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
contact email: derekmcg@buffalo.edu
This session looks at zombies, including as they were defined by Night of the Living Dead, filmed in NeMLA’s host city Pittsburgh by local director George Romero.
While the zombie genre risks growing torpid (so to speak), it also has cemented itself as an area of study with easily discernible approaches and themes: zombies as representative of biological contagions, as commentary on mental lethargy in the social media age, as symbolic of neoliberal economics, and more. This panel will explore the following questions: How have zombies changed in recent years, in their composition, narrative format, and metaphorical status? What new insights can be garnered looking to earlier conceptions of the zombie, and conceptions from Haiti and around the world? How have zombies served as commentary on medicine, social media, anti-intellectualism, economics, and society?
Please submit 300-word abstracts, along with a short bio and any audio-visual requests, online before September 30, 2017, at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16935. Email questions to Derek McGrath, derekmcg@buffalo.edu.
The 49th Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association will meet April 12 to 15, 2018, at Pittsburgh’s historic Omni William Penn. More information is available at http://www.nemla.org.
Last updated August 4, 2017
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/08/01/new-approaches-in-zombie-studies
deadline for submissions: September 30, 2017
full name / name of organization: Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
contact email: derekmcg@buffalo.edu
This session looks at zombies, including as they were defined by Night of the Living Dead, filmed in NeMLA’s host city Pittsburgh by local director George Romero.
While the zombie genre risks growing torpid (so to speak), it also has cemented itself as an area of study with easily discernible approaches and themes: zombies as representative of biological contagions, as commentary on mental lethargy in the social media age, as symbolic of neoliberal economics, and more. This panel will explore the following questions: How have zombies changed in recent years, in their composition, narrative format, and metaphorical status? What new insights can be garnered looking to earlier conceptions of the zombie, and conceptions from Haiti and around the world? How have zombies served as commentary on medicine, social media, anti-intellectualism, economics, and society?
Please submit 300-word abstracts, along with a short bio and any audio-visual requests, online before September 30, 2017, at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16935. Email questions to Derek McGrath, derekmcg@buffalo.edu.
The 49th Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association will meet April 12 to 15, 2018, at Pittsburgh’s historic Omni William Penn. More information is available at http://www.nemla.org.
Last updated August 4, 2017
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