Sunday, October 13, 2019

CFP Not Dead, But Dreaming: Reading Lovecraft in the 21st Century (11/30/2019)

CFP: Not Dead, But Dreaming: Reading Lovecraft in the 21st Century
In CFP On September 5, 2019
https://www.fantastic-arts.org/2019/cfp-not-dead-but-dreaming-reading-lovecraft-in-the-21st-century/

Edited Volume CFP

Not Dead, But Dreaming: Reading Lovecraft in the 21st Century

In the one hundred and twenty-nine years since his birth, H. P. Lovecraft’s reputation has grown beyond all expectation. Not only has he influenced generations of readers, but he has also influenced scores of people in areas such as filmmaking, television, comics, music, and literary theory. Because interest in Lovecraft continues to grow, our intention is to explore some of the reasons why he has become so influential—and so indispensable—since the early 1990s. From his stories of human degeneration that started with “The Tomb” and “Dagon” to the cosmic horror that culminated in The Shadow out of Time and “The Haunter of the Dark,” the less than 20 years that Lovecraft devoted to a career in fiction produced narratives that remain popular among a growing number of readers who follow his work from multiple areas of interest. Additionally, Lovecraft’s literary production in general has also become increasingly relevant from an academic perspective since at least the 1990s. In this volume, we want to reflect on the possible reasons for Lovecraft’s expanding popularity and the significance of his legacy as we entered the digital age. Consequently, we are interested in research that focuses on the significance of Lovecraft’s work from the 1990s to the present day.

Possible topics to explore in the work of Lovecraft and its connection with the 1990s to the present might include, but are not limited to:

• The Anthropocene
• Influence in videogames
• Lovecraft Adaptations, including his influence on film and art in general
• Lovecraft’s philosophical thought
• Lovecraft’s poetry
• Lovecraft related RPGs and LARs
• Lovecraftian families
• Object Oriented Ontology
• Posthumanism
• Postmodernism

Please send a proposal of about 500 words, for chapters of 6000-7000 words, and a short biography to Tony Alcala antonio.alcala@tec.mx or Carl Sederholm csederholm@gmail.com, by 30 Nov 2019.

Contributors can expect to be selected and notified by 15th December 2019. The deadline for submission of completed articles will be 30 May 2019.

CFP Horror(s) of Childhood and Adolescence (Spec Issue of Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura) (1/31/2020)

CFP: Horror(s) of Childhood and Adolescence
In CFP On September 29, 2019
https://www.fantastic-arts.org/2019/cfp-horrors-of-childhood-and-adolescence/

Please find pasted below the call for papers for the next issue of Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura [Childhood: Literature and Culture], a biannual journal published at the University of Warsaw, Poland. The theme of the issue is Horror(s) of childhood and adolescence, and the deadline is January, 31, 2020.

The first issue of the journal is here: https://www.journals.polon.uw.edu.pl/index.php/dlk/issue/view/18.
All papers are peer-reviewed and, if accepted, published in open access without any article processing fees.

Call for papers 1/2020

To read more about the journal, including our submission procedure, please visit our platform: http://www.journals.polon.uw.edu.pl/index.php/dlk (to change the language to English, please click the ‘globe’ button of the page). You can also find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dlkuw/.

Yours faithfully,

Maciej Skowera

Vice-director of the journal  Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura [Childhood: Literature and Culture



Horror(s) of childhood and adolescence

On the one hand, within literary and film studies, the notion of horror is used as a genological category. On the other hand, as an aesthetic category, it is referred to various cultural texts: literary works, films, and TV series as well as theatrical performances and video games. Anita Has-Tokarz, in a monograph Horror w literaturze współczesnej i filmie [Horror in Contemporary Literature and Film] (2010), even considers it to denote “an effect [of dread] exerted on the recipient by a [cultural] text” (p. 51; our own translation). We would like to devote the third issue of “Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura” to the relations of childhood and adolescence with horror – understood in all these ways – which are visible in three fields of consideration.

Firstly: the child in horror fiction. Culture, especially popular culture, eagerly casts children in the roles of disturbingly mysterious, mediumistic, frightening, demonic beings, or even torturers – but also in the roles of victims, specially protected individuals, objects of interest of variously presented evil, as well as heroes and heroines who are the only ones that can fight this evil. From the classic examples, it is enough to recall the teenage girl, Regan, from The Exorcist directed by William Friedkin, the young antichrist from The Omen franchise, and children’s characters from Stephen King’s prose – e.g. The Shining, Children of the Corn, Pet Semetary, or It – and from many famous screen adaptations of his works. Such figures – demonic children, but also children as saviours – have appeared in many popular films in recent years, such as John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place, Jennifer Kent’s Babadook, or Ari Aster’s Hereditary; in TV series, to mention the American Horror Story anthology by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, Stranger Things by the Duffer brothers, The Haunting of Hill House by Mike Flanagan (loosely based on the novel by Shirley Jackson); in video games, e.g. The Last of Us by the Mighty Dog studio and American McGee’s Alice series; and, finally, in literature, like Josh Malerman’s already filmed novel, Bird Box. It is also worth to mention the approaches other than the Anglo-Saxon ones: the dreadful child presented by the classics of Japanese horror cinema in which it is an embodiment of tragedy and mystery, and where childhood is stigmatised by unimaginable suffering from which the protagonists cannot free themselves (e.g. The Ring and Dark Water by Hideo Nakata, or Ju-On: The Grudge by Takashi Shimizu); Spanish, Portuguese, Mexican, and South American representations, connected to folklore, traditional beliefs, and fairy tales, such as Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth or J. A. Bayona’s The Orphanage; the cruel children from German and Austrian works, e.g. Goodnight Mommy by Veronica Franz and Severin Fiala. We would like to look at the ways in which children’s characters are used both in the classics of the genre and in the latest cultural production.

Secondly: children’s and young adult horror fiction. In the last dozen or so years, we have been experiencing a renaissance of horror literature for young people. The literary roots of such works date back to the tradition of the 19th century and, inter alia, to the so-called pedagogy of fear, while in the 20th century, classical examples are the works by John Bellairs, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, and Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Today, many authors display both the ludic and reflective dimensions of horror, such as Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), Ian Ogilvy, Chris Priestley, or Neil Gaiman and, in Poland, Marcin Szczygielski and Grzegorz Gortat. The issue of horror in cultural texts for children and young adults has become the subject of research of many scholars, both in Poland, especially Katarzyna Slany, and abroad, including Jessica R. McCort, Michael Howarth as well as Anna Jackson, Karen Coats and Roderick McGillis, Monica Flegel, Christopher Parkes, Chloé Germaine Buckley, K. Shryock Hood, Laura Hubner. To continue the considerations they have undertaken, we would like to invite authors to examine the strategies of creating horror fiction for young recipients – not only literary works, but also those from other media, such as films, TV series, video games, comic books.

Thirdly and lastly: childhood and adolescence as a horror. In this problem area, the concept of horror will be understood the most broadly. Such plots and motifs appear in works addressed both to adults (including biographical and autobiographical pieces) and children and young adults. The dominance of the Arcadian tone in cultural texts for young people is a thing of the past; for several decades, there has been a clear tendency to raise drastic subjects, tabooed before, such as domestic violence, sexual abuse, addictions, suicides, etc. 13 Reasons Why, a famous TV series created by Brian Yorkey (adapted from the novel by Jay Asher), Euphoria by Sam Levinson, Stephen Chbosky’s novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower and its screen adaptation directed by the writer, The Lovely Bones by Jodi Picoult and Peter Jackson’s film based on this work, Dom nie z tej ziemi [The House Out of This World] by Małgorzata Strękowska-Zaremba, The Book Everything by Guus Kuijer, or transgressive picturebooks (like those by Gro Dahle and Svein Nyhus) – are just a few of the many examples. Another issue is the horror of childhood and adolescence in dystopias and post-apocalyptic narratives, those for adult audiences (The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and a TV series inspired by this prose, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and a film based on it) and those for young adults (Suzanne Collins’s trilogy The Hunger Games, Veronica Roths’s Divergent series, and screen adaptations of these works, or Meto by Yves Grevet) and children (Woolvs in the Sitee by Margaret Wild and Anne Spudvilas). Social problems with a destructive impact on childhood and adolescence, reflected or extrapolated in many cultural texts, are therefore another issue we encourage potential authors to explore.

We invite you to consider various aspects of the relations of childhood and adolescence with horror in diverse cultural texts for different audiences. We are interested in cross-sectional articles and case studies about works created in the 19th, 20th, and 21st century. The three problem areas we identified – the child in horror fiction, horror for children and young adults, and childhood and adolescence as a horror – do not cover such a complex issue fully; therefore, the editorial team is open to other proposals, going beyond the proposed topics.

We also invite you to send texts unconnected with the issue’s subject matter to our Varia and Reviews sections.

Article submission deadline: 31.01.2020

CFP Spoofing the Vampire: What We Do in the Shadows and the Comedic Vampire (expired)

Apologies for having missed this. If offers an innovative approach to the type.

CFP: Spoofing the Vampire: What We Do in the Shadows and the Comedic Vampire
In CFP On May 30, 2019
https://www.fantastic-arts.org/2019/cfp-spoofing-the-vampire-what-we-do-in-the-shadows-and-the-comedic-vampire/

Spoofing the Vampire: What We Do in the Shadows and the Comedic Vampire

Editors: Simon Bacon & Ashley Szanter

contact email: spoofingthevamp@gmail.com


Project Overview

Editors Bacon and Szanter seek original essays for an edited collection on What We Do in the Shadows (2014) and the Comedic Vampire. While the majority of films, television series, comics, games and books portray the vampire as a deeply dramatic, Gothic figure, there are many examples of the vampire and its generic trappings as a source of comedy. Much of this is down to genuine comedic moments and situations, but often, and of particular interest here, is the parodying, pastiching, and self-referencing within the vampire genre itself and the spoofing of other vampire narratives. What We Do in the Shadows, both the original movie and the television series, is a well known example of this, but as early and as varied as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Barton: 1948) The Munsters (Burns: 1964-66), and Dance of the Vampires (Polanski: 1967), purposely nod and wink at earlier vampire texts. The vampire is nothing other than egalitarian in its targets choosing political, sexual, social and religious topics to lampoon, as well as innocent children, lovelorn teenagers, and the nostalgic elderly, the comedic vampire has spread its bat wings and taken a pretty bumpy flight into our homes and canons. This collection will explore the figure of the comedic vampire in all its incarnations and the implications of taking a beloved dramatic figure a little less seriously.

Chapters in the proposed collection can focus on aspects or intersections between one or more of the following categories:

– Notable comedic vampire film What We Do in the Shadows (2014) by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement or the recent FX television adaptation of the same name.
– Examinations of the place/function of comedy in the vampire film genre. What role should comedy, laughter, or satire hold within the broader vampire zeitgeist? Consider Dark Shadows (2012), Fanged Up (2017), Vampires Suck (2010), Hotel Transylvania film series (2012-2018), Vampire Academy (2014), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Suck (2009), Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire (2000), Dracula: Dead and Loving it (1995), Son of Dracula (1974), or any others not mentioned on this list.
– Address contemporary comedic vampire fictions through a particular scholarly lens.
– Political and social satire and/or comedy in a vampire work of fiction.
– Explore the comedic vampire phenomenon in written vampire fiction. Texts for consideration may include those by MaryJanice Davidson, Christopher Moore, Charlaine Harris, Gerry Bartlett, and especially the Fat Vampire series by Johnny B. Truant.
– The comedic vampire as the result of genre exhaustion for both the traditional vampire genre as well as the paranormal genre. Have we taken the dramatic vampire to its limits? Have audiences bored of the dramatic vampire tropes?
– Nationalism/national identity through comedy: Vampires (2010), Ko?ysanka (2010), Strigoi (2009).
– (Un)intentional comedy extracted from serious vampire content: Twilight series, True Blood, Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Buffy the Vampire Slayer [film or series], The Lost Boys, Dark Shadows television series, Blade film series. Could either be humor woven into the drama or external parodies.
– Address comedic vampires and intersectionality. Of particular interest to the editors are non-binary gender and sexuality, feminism, and alternative masculinity.
– The use of comedic vampires with narratives meant for children and young adults: Count Von Count, Count Duckula, Bunnicula, Young Dracula, Vampirina, Scream Street, and Vampire Sisters.

Abstract Due Dates

Preference will be given to abstracts received before Friday 26th July 2019. Abstracts should be no longer than 350 words and be accompanied by a current CV.

Final manuscripts of 5,000-6,500 words should be submitted in MLA style by Friday 28th February 2020.

Contact us and send abstracts to spoofingthevamp@gmail.com

CFP 9th Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses (1/13/2020; Montreal 7/9-12/2020)

The 9th 'Slayage' Conference on the Whedonverses

Full details and submission form at https://www.scw9.ca/cfp--submit.html.

Slayage: The Journal of Whedon Studies, the Whedon Studies Association, and conveners Lorna Jowett, Cynthia Burkhead, and Kristopher Woofter solicit proposals for the ninth biennial Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses (SCW9). This conference dedicated to the imaginative universe(s) of Joss Whedon and his primary collaborators (e.g., Marti Noxon, Tim Minear, David Greenwalt, Jane Espenson, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, etc.) will be held on the downtown campus of Dawson College, Montréal, Québec, Canada, from 9-12 July 2020. Kristopher Woofter of Dawson College will serve as local arrangements chair.

We welcome proposals of 200-300 words (or an abstract of a completed paper) on any aspect of the following topics.

Whedon's Work:
Whedon’s television and web texts (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and [who knows?] The Nevers, and the "reboot" of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, produced by Monica Owusu-Breen);
his films (Serenity, The Cabin in the Woods, Marvel’s The Avengers, Much Ado About Nothing, Avengers: Age of Ultron);
comics (e.g. Fray, Astonishing X-Men, Runaways, Sugarshock!, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel: After the Fall, Angel & Faith, and the Buffy and Angel comics from Boom! Studios); or any element of the work of Whedon and his collaborators.

The Post-Whedon TV Landscape: With the idea that ‘Whedon studies’ might include a range of creative work by Whedon collaborators and others influenced by his work, exclusive of Whedon’s involvement, proposals may address
series like Veronica Mars (Rob Thomas), Grimm (David Greenwalt), iZombie (Rob Thomas, Diane Ruggiero), Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa), Lucifer (Tom Kapinos), Stranger Things (Ross and Matt Duffer), and others;
paratexts, fandoms, or Whedon’s extracurricular—political and activist—activities, such as his involvement with Equality Now.

​Presentations may come from any disciplinary perspective: literature, history, communications, film and television studies, women’s and gender studies, queer and trans studies, religion, linguistics, music, cultural studies, genre studies, and others. In other words, multidisciplinary discussions of the text, the social context, the audience, the producers, the production, and more are all appropriate. A proposal/abstract should demonstrate familiarity with already-published scholarship in the field, which includes dozens of books, hundreds of articles, and nearly twenty years of the blind peer-reviewed journal, Slayage.

An individual paper is strictly limited to a reading time of 18-20 minutes, and we encourage, though do not require, self-organized panels of three presenters. Proposals for workshops, roundtables, or other types of sessions are also welcome. Submissions by both graduate and undergraduate students are invited; undergraduates should provide the name, email, and phone number of a faculty member willing to consult with them (the faculty member does not need to attend). Proposals should be submitted online through this SCW9 webpage (see below) and will be reviewed by program chairs Rhonda V. Wilcox and Cynthia Burkhead, and local arrangements chair, Kristopher Woofter.

Proposal Format: Proposals of 250-300 words for individual papers should include a title, projected thesis, identification of the corpus, and sense of the theoretical approach. Proposals for workshops, roundtables, or other types of sessions should include a title, a description of the session's organizing theme, and a list of the names, affiliations, and contact info of potential presenters; proposals for the papers that comprise the session would be sent individually by potential presenters, indicating their presentation as part of a proposed session.

Submissions must be received by Monday, 13 January 2020. Decisions will be made by Monday, 2 March 2020.


Questions regarding proposals can be directed to Slayage ​editor Rhonda V. Wilcox at the conference email address: slayage.conference@gmail.com.

CFP Vampires: Consuming Monsters and Monstrous Consumption (Spec Issue of Revenant) (1/18/2020)

“Vampires: Consuming Monsters and Monstrous Consumption”
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/09/16/%E2%80%9Cvampires-consuming-monsters-and-monstrous-consumption%E2%80%9D

deadline for submissions: January 18, 2020

full name / name of organization: Revenant: Critical and Creative Studies of the Supernatural

contact email: brooke.cameron@queensu.ca


Call for Proposals
“Vampires: Consuming Monsters and Monstrous Consumption”



Revenant: Critical and Creative Studies of the Supernatural is a peer-reviewed, online journal looking at the supernatural, the uncanny, and the weird. Revenantis now accepting articles, creative writing pieces and book, film, game, event, or art reviews for a themed issue on ‘Vampires: Consuming Monsters and Monstrous Consumption’  (due 18 January 2020), guest edited by Dr Brooke Cameron and Suyin Olguin.



Everyone knows that vampires suck. They suck blood, and they suck the life out of you. Still, we cannot help but feel drawn to these mysterious creatures—through feelings of repulsion and/or desire—because they manifest such deviant appetites. This special issue of Revenant celebrates our continued fascination with the blood-sucking nosferatu. We wish to explore the idea of the vampire as a monster defined by theories of consumption, from bodily appetites and ravenous hunger to dissident desires and cannibalism. Looking at the Victorian period and beyond, we are also interested in modern adaptations or rereadings of vampire narratives.



Since its first appearance in modern culture, the vampire has been defined by acts of deviant consumption. Even if not engaged in drinking human blood, this monstrous creature has always been written as a parasite sucking the life out of his human counterparts. Nick Groom, in his touchstone study, The Vampire(2017), talks about early folk narratives of reanimated corpses revisiting and predating upon family and friends (e.g., the Arnold Paole case [c. 1726]). Later, literature of the nineteenth-century wrote this parasitic creature into popular imagination as a body of unruly desire. Bram Stoker’s iconic Dracula(1897) gives us the perverse vampire whose consumption of blood resembles both a sexual act and a corruption of the religious sacrament of communion. However, other early narratives avoid graphic accounts of bloodlust and instead focus on the terror of parasitic relationships (Polidori’s The Vampire[1819] & Byron’s ‘Giaour’ [1813] are early examples of this approach). Similarly, Le Fanu’s Carmilla(1872) explores the idea of dissident consumption and lesbian desire, while Marryat’s The Blood of the Vampire(1897) traces a relationship between colonial exploitation and the parasitic monster.



More recent narratives have had fun with the theme of consumption in representations of the undead nosferatu. There is the vegetarian vampire in Meyer’s Twilight saga (2005–8), and those that are tied to questions of capitalist consumption in Dracula 2000(2000). In a reversal of the power dichotomy, we also have humans marketing and drinking vampire blood in Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries(2001–13). This is not to mention the abundance of fan fiction on, and film adaptions of, vampire stories signaling our own ravenous cultural appetites for representations of this libidinal Other. Furthermore, the consumer-friendly vampires in twentieth- and twenty-first century works present us with a very new or ‘post-Victorian’ vampire who can be, as Nina Auerbach suggests, ‘everything we are’ because of his relationship to food (Our Vampires, Ourselves[1995] 130). Matt Haig’s The Radleys(2010), as well as Kevin Williamson’s and Julie Plec’s television adaptions of L. J. Smith’s literary series, The Vampire Diaries(2009–17), are even more avant-garde (or ‘post-Victorian’) in their representation of contemporary vampires who enjoy partaking in ‘human’ acts of eating and drinking.In every case, the vampire is defined as ‘Other’ because of appetites that challenge or draw attention to human rules of consumption.



We invite abstracts that discuss the vampire as a body of consumption in literature, film, television, art, or any other cultural narrative. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:


  • Vampires and food
  • Vampire diets (vegetarian or carnivore)
  • Bodies of sexual desire in vampire fiction
  • Gendered appetites in vampire fiction
  • Appetite and the vampire child
  • Deviant desires and the vampire body
  • Consumptive bodies and vampirism
  • Vampiric appetites in transnational and postcolonial vampires
  • Consuming the Other
  • Curbing vampiric appetites
  • Consuming vampires in popular literature
  • Neo-Victorian vampires


For articles and creative pieces (such as poetry, short stories, flash fiction, videos, artwork, and music): please send a 300–500 word abstract and a short biography by 18 January 2020. If your abstract is accepted, the full article (maximum 7000 words, including Harvard referencing) and the full creative piece (maximum 5000 words) will be due 1 June 2020.



Additionally, we are seeking reviews of books, films, games, events, and art that engage with vampires (800–1,000 words in length). Please send a short biography and full details of the book you would like to review as soon as possible.

Further information, including Submission Guidelines, is available at the journal site: www.revenantjournal.com.

Please e-mail submissions to brooke.cameron@queensu.ca. If emailing the journal directly at revenant@falmouth.ac.ukplease quote ‘vampire issue’ in the subject box.



Last updated September 23, 2019
This CFP has been viewed 453 times.

CFP Japanese Horror: New Critical Approaches to History, Narratives and Aesthetics (Extended Deadline) (11/25/2019)

Call for Chapters: Japanese Horror: New Critical Approaches to History, Narratives and Aesthetics (Extended Deadline).
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/09/24/call-for-chapters-japanese-horror-new-critical-approaches-to-history-narratives-and

deadline for submissions: November 25, 2019

full name / name of organization: Subashish Bhattacharjee (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Ananya Saha (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina)

contact email: jhorrorvolume@gmail.com


Call for Chapters: Japanese Horror: New Critical Approaches to History, Narratives and Aesthetics (Extended Deadline).



Edited by Subashish Bhattacharjee (Jawaharlal Nehru University),

Ananya Saha (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Cathedra of Film and Literature

http://artes.filo.uba.ar/la-literatura-de-las-artes-combinadas-ii



The cultural phenomenon of Japanese Horror has been of the most celebrated cultural exports of the country, being witness to some of the most notable aesthetic and critical addresses in the history of modern horror cultures. Encompassing a range of genres and performances including cinema, manga, video games, and television series, the loosely designated genre has often been known to uniquely blend ‘Western' narrative and cinematic techniques and tropes with traditional narrative styles, visuals and folklores. Tracing back to the early decades of the twentieth century, modern Japanese horror cultures have had tremendous impact on world cinema, comics studies and video game studies, and popular culture, introducing many trends which are widely applied in contemporary horror narratives. The hybridity that is often native to Japanese aestheticisation of horror is an influential element that has found widespread acceptance in the genres of horror. These include classifications of ghosts as the yuurei and the youkai; the plight of the suffering individual in modern, industrial society, and the lack thereof to fend for oneself while facing circumstances beyond comprehension, or when the features of industrial society themselves produce horror (Ringu, Tetsuo, Ju on); settings such as damp, dank spaces that reinforce the idea of morbid, rotten return from the afterlife (Dark Water)—these are features that have now been rather unconsciously assimilated into the canon of Hollywood or western horror cultures, and may often be traced back to Japanese Horror (or J-Horror) cultures. Besides the often de facto reliance on gore and violence, the psychological motif has been one of the most important aspects of Japanese Horror cultures. Whether it is supernatural, sci-fi or body horror, J-Horror cultures have explored methods that enable the visualising of depravity and violent perversions, and the essence of spiritual and material horror in a fascinating fashion, inventing the mechanics of converting the most fatal fears into visuals.



The proposed volume will focus on directors and films, illustrators and artists and manga, video game makers/designers and video games that have helped in establishing the genre firmly within the annals of world cinema, popular culture and imagination, and in creating a stylistic paradigm shift in horror cinema across the film industries of diverse nations. We seek essays on J-Horror sub-genres, directors, illustrators, designers and their oeuvre, the aesthetics of J-Horror films, manga, and video games, styles, concepts, history, or particular films that have created a trajectory of J-Horror cultures. Works that may be explored in essay-length studies include, but are not limited to, Kwaidan, Onibaba, Jigoku, Tetsuo: The Iron Man and its sequels, Audition, Fatal Frame, the Resident Evil game franchise, Siren, Uzumaki, Gyo, Tomie, besides the large number of Japanese horror films that have been remade for the US market, including Ringu, Ju on, Dark Water, and Pulse among others, and a host of video games with Western/American settings (such as the Silent Hill franchise) and film adaptations (Resident Evil franchise)—analysing the shift from the interactive game form to consumable horror in the cinematic form. For adaptations, we are also looking for essays that analyse the shift from the interactive game form or image-and-text form to consumable audiovisual horror in the form of cinema and vice versa. Analyses of remakes could also focus on the translatability of Japanese horror vis-à-vis American or Hollwood-esque horror, and how the Hollywood remakes have often distilled western horror cinematic types to localise the content.



Directors, designers and manga artists working in the ambit of Japanese horror cultures who may be discussed include, but are not limited to, Nobuo Nakagawa, Kaneto Shindo, Masaki Kobayashi, Hideo Nakata, Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Ataru Oikawa, Takashi Shimizu, Hideo Kojima, Junji Ito, Kazuo Umezu, Shintaro Kago, Katsuhisa Kigtisu, Gou Tanabe and others. Other issues that may be explored in J-Horror cultures may include the issue of violence and gore, gender and sexuality, sexual representation, the types of the supernatural, cinematic techniques and narrative techniques and others.



At this stage we are looking for abstracts for proposed chapters up to 500 words within November 25th, 2019, but complete papers will be well received. The papers must be written according to the MLA stylesheet, following the rules of the 7th Edition handbook, with footnotes instead of endnotes. All submissions (Garamond, 1.5 pt line spacing) must be accompanied by an abstract (200-250 words) and a short bio-biblio of the author. Images, if used, should preferably be free from copyright issues—sourced from creative commons/copyright-free sources, or permissions should be obtained from relevant copyright holders.



Enquiries and submissions are to be directed to Subashish Bhattacharjee, Ananya Saha and Fernando Pagnoni Berns at jhorrorvolume@gmail.com



Subashish Bhattacharjee is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of North Bengal, India. He edits the interdisciplinary online journal The Apollonian, and is the Editor of Literary Articles and Academic Book Reviews of Muse India. His doctoral research, on the cultures of built space, is from the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he has also been a UGC-Senior Fellow. His recent publications include Queering Visual Cultures (Universitas, 2018), and New Women's Writing (Cambridge Scholars, co-edited with GN Ray, 2018).







Ananya Saha is a PhD scholar in the Centre for English Studies, JNU, New Delhi. Her research is on the idea of the 'outsider' in Japanese and non-Japanese manga vis-a-vis globalization. Other research interests include Fandom and Queer studies, Translation theory and practice, New Literatures and so on. She has published in international journals, including Orientaliska Studier (No 156), from the Nordic Association of Japanese and Korean Studies. She is the co-editor of the volume titled Trajectories of the Popular: Forms, Histories, Contexts (2019), published by AAKAR, New Delhi. She has been the University Grants Fellow, SAP-DSA-(I) in the Centre for English Studies, JNU (2016-17), and has been awarded a DAAD research visit grant to Tuebingen University, Germany under the project "Literary Cultures of Global South."







Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns is an Assistant Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) - Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Argentina)-. He teaches courses on international horror film and is director of the research group on horror cinema “Grite.” He has published chapters in the books To See the Saw Movies: Essays on Torture Porn and Post 9/11 Horror, edited by John Wallis, Critical Insights: Alfred Hitchcock, edited by Douglas Cunningham, A Critical Companion to James Cameron, edited by Antonio Sanna, and Gender and Environment in Science Fiction, edited by Bridgitte Barclay, among others. He has authored a book about Spanish horror TV series Historias para no Dormir.



Contact Info:

subashishbhattacharjee@gmail.com;



citeron05@yahoo.com



Contact Email:

jhorrorvolume@gmail.com


Last updated September 24, 2019
This CFP has been viewed 756 times.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Survey and CFP on MLA's Approaches to Teaching Stoker’s Dracula (11/1/2019)

The MLA is seeking responses to a survey on Teaching Bram Stoker's Dracula. Full details follow as well as the related call for papers.

Contribute to an MLA Approaches Volume on Stoker’s Dracula
Posted 6 September 2019 by Michelle Lanchart
https://news.mla.hcommons.org/2019/09/06/contribute-to-an-mla-approaches-volume-on-stokers-dracula/

The volume Approaches to Teaching Stoker’s Dracula, edited by William Thomas McBride, is now in development in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature. Instructors who have taught this work are encouraged to contribute to the volume by completing a survey about their experiences. Information about proposing an essay is available at the end of the survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PQYKN6Z).



12. If you would like to propose an original essay for this volume, please submit an abstract of approximately 250–300 words in which you describe your approach or topic and explain its potential usefulness for students and instructors. The proposed essays should be pedagogically focused.

Note that if you plan to quote from student writing in your essay, you must obtain written permission from the student. Proposed essays should not be previously published.

Abstracts and brief CVs (4-page maximum) should be sent by e-mail to the volume editor, William Thomas McBride, at wmcbrid@ilstu.edu by 1 November 2019. You may also send queries, comments, and supplemental materials such as course descriptions, syllabi, assignments, and bibliographies as attachments (accepted formats are .doc, .docx, .rtf, and .pdf).



Thursday, October 3, 2019

CFP Supermatural Studies Winter 2020 Number (11/1/19)

Supernatural Studies Seeks Submissions for Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter 2020)
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/09/14/supernatural-studies-seeks-submissions-for-vol-6-no-1-winter-2020

deadline for submissions: November 1, 2019
full name / name of organization: Supernatural Studies
contact email: supernaturalstudies@gmail.com

Supernatural Studies

Call for Papers, Winter 2020 Issue

Supernatural Studies is a peer-reviewed journal that promotes rigorous yet accessible scholarship in the growing field of representations of the supernatural, the speculative, the uncanny, and the weird. The breadth of “the supernatural” as a category creates the potential for interplay among otherwise disparate individual studies that will ideally produce not only new work but also increased dialogue and new directions of scholarly inquiry. To that end, the editorial board welcomes submissions employing any theoretical perspective or methodological approach and engaging with any period and representations including but not limited to those in literature, film, television, video games, and other cultural texts and artifacts. 



Submissions should be 5,000 to 8,000 words, including notes but excluding Works Cited, and follow the MLA Handbook, 8th ed. (2016); notes should be indicated by superscript Arabic numerals in text and pasted at the end of the article. International submissions should adhere to the conventions of U.S. English spelling, usage, and punctuation. Manuscripts should contain no identifying information, and each submission will undergo blind peer review by at least two readers. Contributors are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions and ensuring observance of copyright. Submissions should be emailed to supernaturalstudies@gmail.com as an attached Microsoft Word file. The deadline for guaranteed consideration for the Winter 2020 issue is 1 November 2019. Submissions received after this date will be considered for the winter issue or a subsequent issue at the discretion of the editors.

www.supernaturalstudies.com


Last updated September 23, 2019

CFP Fourth Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon UK (10/31/19; Scarborough UK 4/16-19/2020)

Call for Presentations: The Fourth Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon UK

deadline for submissions: October 31, 2019
full name / name of organization: StokerCon / Horror Writer's Association
contact email: annradcon@gmail.com
 
  

The Fourth Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon UK

Abstract Submission Deadline: October 31, 2019

 

 

The Fourth Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon UK

Conference Dates: April 16-19, 2020

Conference Hotel: The Royal and The Grand Hotels, Scarborough, UK

Conference Website: https://stokercon-uk.com/

 

The Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference co-chairs invite all interested scholars, academics, and non-fiction writers to submit presentation abstracts related to horror studies for consideration to be presented at the fifth annual StokerCon which will be held April 16 – 19, 2019 in Scarborough, UK.

 

The Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is an opportunity for individuals to present on completed research or work-in-progress horror studies projects that continue the dialogue of academic analysis of the horror genre. As in prior years, we are looking for completed research or work-in-progress projects that can be presented to with the intent to expand the scholarship on various facets of horror that proliferates in:


  • Art
  • Cinema
  • Comics
  • Literature
  • Music
  • Poetry
  • Television
  • Video Games
  • Etc.
 

We invite papers that take an interdisciplinary approach to their subject matter and can apply a variety of lenses and frameworks, such as, but not limited to:

 
  • Auteur theory
  • Close textual analysis
  • Comparative analysis
  • Cultural and ethnic
  • Fandom and fan studies
  • Film studies
  • Folklore
  • Gender/LGBT studies
  • Historic analysis
  • Interpretations
  • Linguistic
  • Literature studies
  • Media and communications
  • Media Sociology
  • Modernity/Postmodernity
  • Mythological
  • Psychological
  • Racial studies
  • Semiotics
  • Theoretical (Adorno, Barthes, Baudrillard, Dyer, Gerbner, etc.)
  • Transmedia
  • And others
 

Conference Details

 
Please send a 250 – 300 word abstract on your intended topic, a preliminary bibliography, and your CV to AnnRadCon@gmail.com by October 31, 2019. Responses will be emailed out starting early November 15 to the end of the month. Final acceptances will require proof of StokerCon registration.

Presentation time consideration: 15 minute maximum to allow for a Question and Answer period. Limit of one presentation at the conference.

There are no honorariums for presenters.

 

Organizing Co-Chairs

 
Michele Brittany, Nicholas Diak, and Kevin Wetmore Jr.

Email: AnnRadCon@gmail.com

 
 

The Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is part of the Horror Writers Association’s Outreach Program. Created in 2016 by Michele Brittany and Nicholas Diak, the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference has been a venue for horror scholars to present their work. The conference has also been the genesis of the Horror Writer Association’s first academic release, Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays, comprised entirely of AnnRadCon presenters and slated to be released by McFarland in the fall of 2019.

 

Membership to the Horror Writers Association is not required to submit or present, however registration to StokerCon 2020 is required for to be accepted and to present. StokerCon registration can be obtained by going to https://stokercon-uk.com/. There is no additional registration or fees for the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference outside StokerCon registration. If interested in applying to the Horror Writer’s Association as an academic member, please see www.horror.org/about/ .

 

StokerCon is the annual convention hosted by the Horror Writers Association wherein the Bram Stoker Awards for superior achievement in horror writing are awarded.


Last updated July 19, 2019