CFP Of God and Monsters Conference (11/1/2018; Texas State U 4/4-6/2019)

Sorry to have missed posting this sooner:

Of God and Monsters
April 4th – 6th 2019
Texas State University San Marcos, TX

http://www.theofantastique.com/2018/08/30/call-for-papers-of-gods-and-monsters-at-texas-state-university/

Judith Halberstam famously claimed that monsters are “meaning machines” that can be used to represent a variety of ideas, including morality, gender, race, and nationalism (to name only a few). Monsters are always part of the project of making sense of the world and our place in it. As a tool through which human beings create worlds in which to meaningfully dwell, monsters are tightly bound with many other systems of meaning-making like religion, culture, literature, and politics. Of Gods and Monsters will provide focused space to explore the definition of “monster,” the categorization of monsters as a basis of comparison across cultures, and the relationship of monsters to various systems of meaning-making with the goal of understanding how humans have used and continued to use these “meaning machines.”

The Religious Studies program at Texas State University, therefore, welcomes submissions for our upcoming conference on Monsters and Monster Theory. Through this conference, we hope to explore the complex intersections of monsters and meaning making from a variety of theoretical, academic, and intellectual angles. Because “monsters” are a category that appears across time and cultural milieus, this conference will foster conversations between scholars working in very different areas and is not limited in terms of cultural region, historical time, or religious tradition. As part of fostering this dialogue, conference organizers are thrilled to announce that Douglas E. Cowan will serve as this event’s keynote speaker, while archival researcher and cryptid expert Lyle Blackburn will offer a second plenary address. Conference organizers anticipate inviting papers presented at this conference to submit their revised papers for an edited volume.

If interested, please submit an abstract with a maximum of 300-words to TexasStateMonsters@gmail.com by November 1st, 2018. Final decisions on conference participation will be sent out by the first week of December. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact conference organizers Natasha Mikles (n.mikles@txstate.edu) or Joseph Laycock (joseph.laycock@txstate.edu).

CFP Withcraft Hysteria: Performing Witchcraft in Contemporary Art and Pop Culture (proposals by 10/1/2018)

CFP: WITCHCRAFT HYSTERIA: Performing Witchcraft in Contemporary Art and Pop Culture
https://www.fantastic-arts.org/2018/cfp-witchcraft-hysteria-performing-witchcraft-in-contemporary-art-and-pop-culture/
August 14, 2018

Type:
Call for Papers

Date:
October 1, 2018

Location:
California, United States

Subject Fields:
Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Cultural History / Studies, Popular Culture Studies, Theatre & Performance History / Studies, Women’s & Gender History / Studies

WITCHCRAFT HYSTERIA. Performing witchcraft in contemporary art and pop culture.

We seem to be living in bewitched times. Witches are everywhere, or rather: victims of alleged witch hunts pop up all over the place, preferable on Twitter or other social media. Pop-stars perform as witches, like Katy Perry in her performance at the 2014 Grammy awards, where she appeared in a cowl before a crystal ball, while later dancing with broomsticks as poles. Beyoncé’s visual album “Lemonade” (2016) made several explicit references to black witchcraft rituals. Azealia Banks proclaimed in the same year on Twitter that she practiced “three years worth of brujería” (brujería, Spanish: witchcraft) and tweeted––while cleaning the blood-smeared room used for her animal sacrifices––“Real witches do real things”. Marina Abramovic’s performance piece “Spirit Cooking” (1996) was used in the ominous Pizzagate conspiracy theory of 2016, accusing Abramovic and the Hillary Clinton campaign in practicing witchcraft rituals and occult magic. Clinton and other influential women in politics–such as Nany Pelosi and Maxine Waters––get labeled as witches and Sarah Palin partakes in a ritual to secure her electoral win and “save her from witchcraft”. Meanwhile, thousands of people coordinate binding spells against political leaders (#bindtrump) and Silvia Federici’s seminal book “Caliban and the Witch” moved from the bookshelf to the bedside table for many art professionals.

The title “Witchcraft Hysteria” follows the inscription on the monument dedicated 1992 to the Salem Witch Trials (1692), that were informed by European-US-American witchcraft discourses of their time and in turn were highly influential on today’s discussions.

For this publication, we want to investigate the revival and the current interest in the figure of the witch and the performance of witchcraft in contemporary art, visual culture and pop culture. The figure of the witch as icon of historical significance and present relevance in art and politics has only gained in its cultural impact. Our project focuses on performance strategies of “performing witchcraft” in a contemporary context, focusing on the last two decades.

Relevant paper topics may consider, but are not limited to:

• The figure of the witch in contemporary art and culture
• Contextualizing Witchcraft Hysteria in Theater, Film, Television, Streaming Media, Social Media, etc. in their historical representations and current manifestations
• Witchcraft (Hysteria) and Performance Studies
• Witchcraft and feminist (art) practice
• Practicing Witchcraft as political protest
• The politics of being (labeled) a witch
• Queer-Feminist perspectives on Witchcraft
• (Intersectional) Questions of Gender, Class and Race and Witchcraft

Schedule

Proposals (500 words): October 1, 2018

Final Papers Due: January 16, 2018 [I assume this is an error for 1/16/2019]

Submission of Final Revised Papers for Publication: March 4, 2018 [likewise, I assume this is an error for 3/4/2019].

Publication: Summer, 2018 [again, I assume this is an error for Summer 2019]

Please submit a 500-word proposal and a 200-word biography to both editors: Johanna Braun (johannabraun@g.ucla.edu) and Katharina Brandl (katharina.brandl@unibas.ch) by October 1, 2018.

Contact Info:
Katharina Brandl

University of Basel, Switzerland

Johanna Braun
Erwin Schrödinger Research Fellow at University of California, Los Angeles

Contact Email:
johannabraun@g.ucla.edu

CFP Stephen King Area (10/1/2018; PCA/ACA Washington DC 4/17-20/2019)

CFP: Stephen King Area (2019 PCA National Conference), Washington D.C.
https://www.fantastic-arts.org/2018/cfp-stephen-king-area-2019-pca-national-conference-washington-d-c/
July 24, 2018

Stephen King Area (2019 PCA National Conference)

deadline for submissions:
October 1, 2018

full name / name of organization:
Patrick McAleer/Popular Culture Association

contact email: stephenkingpca@gmail.com



Stephen King Area

2019 PCA/ACA Annual National Conference

Washington D.C.: Wednesday, April 17th-Saturday, April 20th

The co-chairs of the Stephen King Area—Philip Simpson of Eastern Florida State College and Patrick McAleer of Inver Hills Community College—are soliciting papers, presentations, panels and roundtable discussions which cover any aspect of Stephen King’s fiction and film for the Annual National Joint Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference to be held in Washington D.C. from April 17th-April 20th 2019. Papers, presentations, and panels can cover King’s experimentation with medium (e-books, graphic novels, TV series), his more recent fictions, including his Dark Tower series, and anything in between. Indeed, feel free to view past programs of the PCA/ACA conference at www.pcaaca.org to see what has been covered during recent conferences.

To have your proposal/abstract considered for presentation, please submit your proposal/abstract of approximately 250 words through the PCA/ACA Database—http://ncp.pcaaca.org/ — by October 1st, 2018. Here you will submit your paper proposal/abstract and also provide your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information. Responses/decisions regarding your proposals will be provided within two weeks of your submission to ensure timely replies. Of course, should you have any questions specific to the Stephen King Area, please send an e-mail to stephenkingpca@gmail.com and we will be happy to assist you.

Complete panel proposals of 3-4 people are also welcomed, as are proposals for roundtable discussions with two or more featured speakers and a moderator. For more information, visit the PCA/ACA at www.pcaaca.org.