CFP Medieval Monsters as Modern Monsters (virtual) (9/15/2024; ICMS Kalamazoo 5/8-10/2025)

Medieval Monsters as Modern Monsters: Exploring Continuums of the Monstrous (virtual)

Sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture and Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association

Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa


60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)

Hybrid event: Thursday, 8 May, through Saturday, 10 May, 2025

Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2024

Session Information

Medieval monsters and ideas about them remain at the base of many of our modern conceptions of monsters and the monstrous, but few studies have explored the tracks of these ongoing traditions for representing monstrosities in the post-medieval world. It is our intention in this session to shed some light on these creations and their impact today.

We seek in this panel to unite the fields of Medieval Studies, Medievalism Studies, Monster Studies, and Popular Culture Studies to highlight the links between medieval monstrosities and their post-medieval incarnations and successors.

We hope presenters will explore both continuity and change in addressing how terrors rooted in the medieval world have been portrayed beyond the Middle Ages and/or how modern monstrosities seem to draw indirectly from medieval traditions.



Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com.

Submission Information

The process for proposing contributions to sessions of papers, roundtables and poster sessions for the International Congress on Medieval Studies uses an online submission system powered by Confex. Be advised that submissions cannot be accepted through email. Rather, access the direct link in Confex to our session at https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6429. You can also view the full Call for Papers list at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call.


Within Confex, proposals to sessions of papers, poster sessions and roundtables require the author's name, affiliation and contact information; an abstract (300 words) for consideration by session organizer(s); and a short description (50 words) that may be made public. Proposals to sessions of papers and poster sessions also require a title for the submission (contributions to roundtables are untitled).


Proposers of papers or contributions to roundtables for hybrid sessions should indicate in their abstracts whether they intend to present in person or virtually.


If you need help with your submissions, the Congress offers some resources at the Particpating in the Congress page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/participating-congress. Click to open the section labeled “Propose a Paper” and scroll down for the Quick Guide handouts.



Be advised of the following policies for participating in the Congress:


You are invited to propose one paper (as a sole author or as a co-author) for one session of papers. You may propose a paper for a sponsored or special session or for the general sessions, but not both. You may propose an unlimited number of contributions to roundtables and poster sessions, but you will not be scheduled to actively participate (as paper presenter, roundtable discussant, poster author, presider, respondent, workshop leader, demonstrator or performer) in more than three sessions.


Further details on the Congress’s Policies can be found at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/policies-guidelines.



A reminder: Presenters accepted to the Congress must register for the full event. The registration fee is the same for on-site and virtual participants. For planning, the cost for the previous year’s event is posted at the Congress’s Registration page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration.


If necessary, the Medieval Institute and Richard Rawlinson Center at Western Michigan University offer limited funding to presenters. These include both subsidized registration grants and travel awards. Please see the Awards page at the Congress site for details at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.


For more information on the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please visit our website at https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/.

For more information on the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, please visit our website at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.

CFP Dinosaurs in Film, Literature, and the Arts Collection (9/25/2024)

Dinosaurs in Film, Literature, and the Arts

deadline for submissions:
September 25, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Rachel Carazo

contact email:
rachel.carazo@snhu.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/05/01/dinosaurs-in-film-literature-and-the-arts

This collection seeks essays on dinosaurs in film, literature, and the arts. The Jurassic Park franchise solidified the presence of dinosaurs in the pop cultural imagination, but there have been other media and dinosaur portrayals that have captured the public's imagination. Topics can include, but are not limited to:

-Studies of specific films

-Studies of specific novels

-Studies of special effects renderings of dinosaurs

-Artwork with dinosaurs

Chapters will be due in April 2025. Chapters should be approximately 5,000 to 7,000 words, with Chicago-style endnotes and a bibliography page.

Abstracts and a brief bio should be submitted by September 25, 2024, to Rachel Carazo: rachel.carazo@snhu.edu



Last updated August 1, 2024

CFP H(a)unted Grad Conference (9/8/2024; 10.25/2024)

H(a)unted

deadline for submissions:
September 8, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Georgetown University English Graduate Student Association (EGSA)

contact email:
egsa@georgetown.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/08/07/haunted

H(a)unted

October 25, 2024

________________________________________________________________________

“O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted.”

- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“If he looked into her face, he would see those haunted, loving eyes.”

- Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

“A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism.”

- Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto



Living in the present, we are often haunted by remnants of the past—especially unresolved issues from our history—and by apprehensions about the future, such as the looming fear of robots taking control over humanity. For this conference, we explore the interplay of the terms “haunted” and “hunted” and propose a new term, “h(a)unted,” to mark the generative interchanges between them.

Throughout history, the socially, politically, and economically dominant agents have often “hunted” weaker opponents to assert their power. Conversely, literature and other forms of media have provided outlets where the oppressed, “hunted” subjects can, in turn, haunt their perpetrators, thereby reversing power dynamics. Our proposed term “h(a)unted,” however, also invites us to call into question the assumed causal relationship between “haunted” and “hunted,” highlighting that these phenomena can occur simultaneously or even in potentially reversible order, with haunting preceding being hunted in certain contexts.

The English Graduate Student Association of Georgetown University seeks proposals from various disciplines and theoretical approaches addressing, but not limited to, the following questions: Who has been h(a)unted? How have experiences of h(a)unting been envisioned and represented? How have the meanings of the words “haunted” and “hunted” and their interrelations been registered in different forms of media? What is the nature of being h(a)unted? Which cultural forms and genres have most richly captured the experiences of being h(a)unted?

This conference welcomes an interdisciplinary dialogue inviting scholars in a range of fields including literary, studies, film and media studies, history, philosophy, sociology, political science, postcolonial studies, trauma studies, environmental studies, critical race studies, diaspora studies, narrative studies, and other related fields of study within the combined thematic, theoretical, and critical orientation provided by “h(a)unted.”



Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

● Memories and Traces

● Ghosts and Monsters

● Silencing and Silenced

● Borders and Boundaries

● Incompleteness in Context and Form

● Alternative Forms of Storytelling

● Balance and Imbalance

● Mythology

● Appearance and Disappearance

● Spirituality

● Aesthetic Forms

● Homecoming



Please submit (1) a 300-word abstract, including the title of your proposed paper, and (2) a 100-word bio as an attached document in an email with the subject line “Conference_[Full Name]” to egsa@georgetown.edu by September 8, 2024.

Proposals may also be considered for inclusion in Predicate, EGSA’s interdisciplinary journal in the humanities, which will be published in Spring 2025.



Last updated August 8, 2024

CFP Horror Cinema and Class Critique: Between Reaction and Revolution (9/30/2024; NeMLA 3/6-9/2025)

Horror Cinema and Class Critique: Between Reaction and Revolution

deadline for submissions:
September 30, 2024

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

contact email:
ryustealonso@stetson.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/08/06/horror-cinema-and-class-critique-between-reaction-and-revolution


56th NeMLA Annual Convention, March 6-9, 2025 in Philadelphia, PA

Horror’s current market(able) shock value and reinvigorated political potential for social commentary have contributed to a wave of narratives and diverse voices that, both before and behind the camera, unearth the genre’s thought-provoking aesthetics while offering fresh takes on social anxieties, fears, and traumas. In this complex landscape, class dynamics permeate horror’s texture both diegetically and extra-diegetically. On the one hand, narratives, tropes, and characters can be read according to their relation to class; on the other, an effective material critique must concentrate on the apparatus that is horror, taken as an object able to defy—or conversely, reinforce—bourgeois ways of seeing/being.

For years, we have invited scholars from various disciplines to reflect on horror from this perspective: our collective has been growing, bringing to the fore methodological tools that have successfully influenced the study of the genre through a Marxist lens. In light of the 2025 NeMLA theme, we are interested in discerning the forces that animate horror by investigating its relation to the ominous ideology of capital.

Together with the accepted discussants, we look forward to considering some pressing questions: In the current crisis of visual culture, is horror still a persuasive apparatus that employs fear to thrust dominant ideologies upon us? Or does the genre radically destabilize the imposed social order through the interpellation of fear, chaos, and violence? Could these opposing dynamics coexist, and if so, what are the contours of horror’s contradictions?

We are thrilled to accept proposals that effectively blend movie analyses with theoretical discourses that attempt to answer these inquiries. Please submit abstracts of 200-250 words in English by September 30, 2024, at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21191. Accepted participants must send their paper draft no later than February 1, 2025, to be shared with the collective. Essays should be between 10-15 pages, double-spaced, and include a “Works Cited” section. All participants are expected to read each other’s work before the session and provide a one-paragraph response to one person as assigned by the chairs.

If you have any questions regarding the roundtable, please contact the organizers directly: Valeria Dani (vd76@cornell.edu) and Ruth Z. Yuste-Alonso (ryustealonso@stetson.edu).


categories
film and television
interdisciplinary
popular culture
twentieth century and beyond

Last updated August 8, 2024

CFP Dark Entries: Rethinking the Horror in Folk Horror Conference (9/13/2024; online 10/11/2024)

Dark Entries: Rethinking the Horror in Folk Horror

deadline for submissions:
September 13, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Brooke Cameron and Noah Gallego

contact email:
noahrgallego@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/08/06/dark-entries-rethinking-the-horror-in-folk-horror

Dark Entries: Rethinking the Horror in Folk Horror

Deadline: Friday, September 13, 2024

Symposium Date: Friday, October 11, 2024

Format: Online (via Zoom, EST)

Abstract: 150 words + short biographical statement + time zone

Submit to: brooke.cameron@queens.edu.ca and noahrgallego@gmail.com

Organizers: Brooke Cameron, Ph.D. (Queens’ University at Kingston, Ontario, CA) and Noah Gallego, M.A. (California Polytechnic State University, Pomona, USA)

Keynote: Nina Martin, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Film Studies (Connecticut College, USA)



In response to revived interest in folk horror amid rumors of a new installment of the iconic film, The Blair Witch Project (1999), we are seeking proposals from interested scholars from across the disciplines and professional paths that critically engage with the genre of folk horror for a one-day online symposium.



Folk horror, according to Adam Scovell (2017:7), can be broadly understood as

• A work that uses folklore, either aesthetically or thematically, to imbue itself with a sense of the arcane for eerie, uncanny or horrific purposes.
• A work that presents a clash between such arcania and its presence within close proximity to some form of modernity, often within social parameters.
• A work which creates its own folklore through various forms of popular conscious memory, even when it is young in comparison to more typical folkloric and antiquarian artifacts of the same character. [1]

Presenters are welcome to explore the genre across multiple media, including, but not limited to: literature, film, television, video games, internet, and music.



The symposium will be held over Zoom at no cost. We will be on EST time, so, if accepted, please plan according to your respective time zones.



We expect the general time frame to be between 9:00am - 6:00pm EST, with each session lasting approximately 90 minutes; each presenter will have about 15-20 minutes to present with about 10 minutes after for Q&A. They may present a traditional paper or creative work. (A Google Slides/PPT/etc. presentation is not required but encouraged!). While we understand that under certain circumstances presenters may refrain from having their cameras on, we strongly recommend those who are able to show themselves in the spirit of fostering community.



Depending on the continuity of the content of the submissions, we may group presenters according to a common theme, but at this time, we are not accepting panel proposals. However, if you would like to be considered for a specific session, please make a note in your submission what kind of theme you would like to be a part of.



Please send abstracts of 150 words as well as a brief (100 word) biographical statement highlighting your status, institutional affiliation(s), scholarly awards or achievements, etc. to brooke.cameron@queens.edu.ca and noahrgallego@gmail.com by September 13. In your document, please also indicate your time zone so you may be slated at an appropriate time.



The status of proposals will be revealed after the deadline has passed. Presenters may expect confirmation as soon as a week after.



Please direct any and all inquiries to us. We look forward to your submissions!



[1] Scovell, Adam. 2017. Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange. Liverpool University Press.


Last updated August 8, 2024

CFP Making Madnesses in Early Modern England (8/12/2024; RSA Boston 03/20-22/2025)

Making Madnesses in Early Modern England (RSA Boston, March 20-22, 2025)

deadline for submissions:
August 12, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Avi Mendelson / RSA Conference, Boston, 2025

contact email:
amendel@brandeis.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/08/05/making-madnesses-in-early-modern-england-rsa-boston-march-20-22-2025

In John Ford’s raucous tragicomedy, The Lover’s Melancholy (1628), the proto-psychiatrist Corax attempts an experimental treatment on his forlorn melancholic patients: he stages a masque – acted by the allegorical figures of psychic ailments, including Dotage, Phrenitis, Hypochondria, St. Vitus’ Dance, Hydrophobia (rabies), and Lycanthropia (the delusion that you’ve transformed into a wolf) – in order to shake his afflicted clients out of their melancholic funk. Pulling from Robert Burton’s massive tome, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Ford’s play showcases the sheer variety of madnesses – even within a subgenre such as “melancholy” – that were active, endemic, and of great dramatic interest in early modern England. These madnesses, as trailblazing scholarship by Carol Thomas Neely, Bridget Escolme, and Duncan Salkeld has shown, were also imbedded within a network of other rhetorical structures – from the medical to the astrological; from political fears of sedition to witchcraft legislation; and from early modern theatre to modern dramatic reimaginings of mental health from that era.

Playwrights from the period were obsessed with mental illness – and not just Shakespeare with his well-known depictions of madness in Macbeth, King Lear, and The Comedy of Errors, among other dramas. The singing madmen in The Duchess of Malfi beg to “howl some heavy note” for the play’s harassed and tortured heroine; the rabidly jealous doctor Alibius in The Changeling rents out his medically incarcerated patients as wedding entertainment. London’s Bethlem Hospital (also known as “Bedlam”) – though intended as a charity – was often described as a space where squalor, neglect, and abuse ran rampant. In addition to Bethlem, physicians such as Richard Napier wrote extensive medical records, which we could access, of the mentally ill people he treated in Buckinghamshire. Given all of the above, this panel seeks papers that explore any way madness was portrayed in early modern England.



A list of potential questions and topics that is in no way exhaustive:

*Showing how madness intersects with other realms of subjecthood: race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability.

*Links between madness and the arts: music, theater, poetry, rhetoric, or painting.

*Reading madness through a Disability Studies lens. Is madness always a disability? Can it be an advantage?

*Connections between madness and the supernatural or preternatural: witchcraft, demonic possession, werewolves, or lunar disturbance.

*What is the relationship between madness and discourses of love/pleasure?

*Reading madness through histories of medicine, disease, emotion/affect, or dreams/visions.

*Representations of early modern doctors and “psychiatric” hospitals.

*Why do some characters fake madness in these plays? What’s the difference between real and spurious madness?

*Analyzing how early modern madness is depicted either in modern stage productions or via other media (films, paintings, graphic novels, websites, etc.).

*How can we foster a mad or mental illness positive pedagogy? Can early modernists blend historical discussions of madness, with activism and advocacy for those with mental illness?





Please submit the following materials to Avi Mendelson, at amendel@brandeis.edu, by August 12th to be considered for this panel: Your field of study; your paper title (15 words maximum); an abstract (200 words maximum); a one page abbreviated CV (.pdf or .doc upload); PhD completion date (past or expected); full name / current academic affiliation / email address. Please note that the RSA is very strict about word count, and will not accept entries that go beyond the maximum word limit.




Last updated August 8, 2024

CFP Seen and Unseen in Supernatural Literary Contexts of the Long-Nineteenth Century (8/31/2024; SAMLA 11/15-17/2024)

The Seen and Unseen in Supernatural Literary Contexts of the Long-Nineteenth Century

deadline for submissions:
August 31, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Ben P. Robertson / Troy University

contact email:
bprobertson@troy.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/08/05/the-seen-and-unseen-in-supernatural-literary-contexts-of-the-long-nineteenth-century


The Seen and Unseen in Supernatural Literary Contexts of the Long-Nineteenth Century
South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) Conference
15-17 November 2024
Jacksonville, Florida, USA



From ghosts in Shakespeare’s plays to mysterious curses in the poetry of Tennyson, literary depictions of the supernatural provide important sites of division between the seen and the unseen. This panel will explore how authors from diverse cultural backgrounds leverage supernatural phenomena as critical components of their literary explorations of identity in the long nineteenth century. Ironically, that which is unseen often serves as a catalyst for transformative personal development that brings the unseen into the realm of the seen.



This panel will focus the conference theme (Seen/Unseen) on supernatural phenomena as a means of engaging in the greater conference-level discussion about the seen and the unseen, either literal or figurative.



Possible topics might include (but are not necessarily limited to) the following: Ghosts, hauntings, spiritualism, supernatural/mythical creatures, prophecies, destiny, folklore, ancestral spirits, curses, adaptations, personal identity, revelations



This panel will include traditional academic papers for presentations of approximately 15 minutes each. Please submit abstracts of about 250 words by 31 August 2024 to the session link at https://samla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19207. Questions may be addressed to Ben P. Robertson, Troy University, at bprobertson@troy.edu.



More information about SAMLA: https://southatlanticmla.org/



Last updated August 8, 2024

CFP Spill Your Guts! A Graduate Student Work In Progress Symposium (9/16/2024; online event 11/2024)

Spill Your Guts! A Graduate Student Work In Progress Symposium

deadline for submissions:
September 16, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Horror Studies Scholarly Interest Group (SCMS)

contact email:
horrorstudiessig@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/08/05/spill-your-guts-a-graduate-student-work-in-progress-symposium

Calling all graduate students working in Horror Studies! This year, the SCMS Horror SIG will be convening a graduate student symposium, and we invite proposals from graduate students outlining their primary research topic.

The goal of the symposium is to offer a collegial forum for students to share work-in-progress and receive friendly feedback and advice from Horror SIG members. We welcome students at any stage of their academic journey, and strongly encourage Masters students and early year PhD students to participate. If you are at an early stage of a project, this is the perfect opportunity to work through ideas that are still in process and unpolished in a non-judgmental environment. There is no specific theme, as long as your project is related to horror in some way.

Potential presentation topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Teaching horror/horror studies in the university
• Researching the (historical-) industrial dimensions of horror films, tv, etc.
• Indie horror, fringe horror, and mainstream horror
• The contemporary landscapes of horror
• Queer and feminist horror
• Race and horror
• Labor practices, star systems, and taste discourses around working in horror
• Generic hybrids at the box office/tv screen
• Podcasting horror
• Streaming horror
• Licensing horror: IP, copyright, etc
• Horror and the archive
• Regulating horror (horror hosts as containment strategy, gatekeeping + power, TV code, etc)
• Horror and shifting exhibition strategies/technologies (3D, the William Castle approach)
• Transmedia approaches to horror (Universal Studios, Vegas attractions, haunted theme parks, fashion, etc.)

The presentations themselves will be shorter than a typical conference paper, with 5-10 minutes per person, depending on how many submissions we are able to include.

The symposium will take place online in November, 2024, date to be determined.

You do not have to be a member of SCMS or the Horror SIG to participate.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words along with a bio of no more than 100 words to horrorstudiessig@gmail.com by 16th September.




Last updated August 8, 2024

CFP The Films of George A. Romero Collection (11/30/2024)

Call For Papers: The Films of George A. Romero

deadline for submissions:
November 30, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Sue Matheson

contact email:
smatheson@ucn.ca

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/07/11/call-for-papers-the-films-of-george-a-romero.

A Critical Companion to George A. Romero



Part of the Critical Companion to Popular Directors series edited by Adam Barkman and Antonio Sanna



Dubbed “The Godfather of Horror” and the “Father of the Modern Movie Zombie,” maverick filmmaker, George A. Romero is known for his horror and independent films. Credited with the invention of zombie culture, The Dead series, beginning in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead and ending in 2009 with Survival of the Dead, has revolutionized the possibilities of horror. Romero’s collaborations with Stephen King—which produced Creepshow (1982) and its comic tribute to 1950s gruesome EC comics, and The Dark Half (1993), a serious psychological study—are also well-known. His versatile career also includes the lesser-known romantic comedy, There’s Always Vanilla (1971); the action drama Knightriders (1981); and revolutionary genre films such as Season of the Witch(1972), The Crazies (1973), and Martin(1977). Marked with satire, his indie horror contains complex ideas, uncomfortable truths about human nature, and social and political critiques. His better-known works have been taught in courses on the history of the horror genre, while many others deserve critical reexamination as this counterculture director’s career did fluctuate between the commercial and his authorial voice.

This anthology seeks previously unpublished essays that explore George A. Romero’s entire body of work. It is open to submissions on films belonging to The Dead seriesfranchise (including George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead [2007] and Survival of the Dead [2009]) and his collaborations with Stephen King, but will particularly welcome interdisciplinary approaches that can illuminate overlooked and underappreciated films like There’s Always Vanilla (1971), Season of the Witch (1972), The Crazies (1973), The Amusement Park (1975), Martin (1977), Knightriders (1981), Monkey Shines (1988), Two Evil Eyes (1990), and Bruiser (2000). Submissions on Romero’s short films Romero’s Elegy (1963), The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1990), and Jacaranda Joe (1994) are also particularly welcomed.



This volume will be interdisciplinary in scope, including approaches from philosophy, literary studies, film studies, gender studies, history, psychology, hauntology, ecology, etc. The chapters will be peer-reviewed, scholarly, and written at a high academic level.

Contributions could include, but are not limited to, the following topics:



• Thematic and structural analysis of one or more films

• Visual style

• Notions of evil

• Photography and cinematography

• The supernatural

• Romero as an auteur

• Romero and franchises

• Soundscapes and music

• The American family

• Film as philosophy/philosophy in film

• Failed parenthood

• comedy, black humor, and irony

• Social and cultural contexts

• American youth

• Influences

• Landscapes as sites of horror

• Literary adaptations

• Exploration of the sub- and unconscious

• Class, sexuality, gender and queer readings



This anthology will be organized into thematic sections around these topics and others that emerge from submissions. It is open to works that focus on other topics as well. Prospective authors are well to contact the editor with any questions, including potential topics not listed above. Please share this announcement with anyone you believe would be interested in contributing to this volume. Please submit a 300-400 word abstract of your proposed chapter contribution, a brief CV / bio, current position, affiliation, and complete contact information to Sue Matheson (smatheson@ucn.ca) by the 30th of November 2024. Full chapters of 6,000-7,000 words are likely due in May/June 2025 after signing a contract with the publisher (in the ongoing Critical Companion to Popular Directors series edited by Adam Barkman and Antonio Sanna, published by Lexington Books at Bloomsbury, which will count 13 volumes by the end of 2024).



Note: Acceptance of a proposed abstract does not guarantee the acceptance of the full chapter


Last updated July 15, 2024

CFP Celebrating 215 years of Edgar Allan Poe Conference (proposals by 9/13/2024)

Celebrating 215 years of Edgar Allan Poe

deadline for submissions:
September 13, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Noah Gallego (California Polytechnic State University, Pomona)

contact email:
eap215conference@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/01/09/celebrating-215-years-of-edgar-allan-poe

Deadline: September 13, 2024

Conference Date: October 5, 2024

Format: Online (via Zoom)

Abstract: 200 words + short biographical statement + timezone

Submit to: eap215conference@gmail.com



Ring in the Halloween season by celebrating the life and works of the U.S.’s grandfather of Goth, Edgar Allan Poe! Scholars from across all disciplines are invited to convene for a (tentatively) two-day conference on the weekend of his 215th deathday where we will critically examine the Tomahawk’s works, including his poetry, prose, novel, and essays. (Other media such as theatrical, graphic, televised, or cinematic adaptations of his work may also be considered, provided they relate back to the author’s legacy and work. For instance, any of the Universal Studios adaptations or Scott Cooper’s loosely biographical The Pale Blue Eye (2022) or the recent Mike Flanagan production The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) may be explored).



Lenses through which to consider presentations may include but are not limited to:

• Orientalism
• Psychoanalysis
• Feminism
• Marxism
• Gothic
• Corporeality
• Other-than-human
• Gender, sexuality, and/or queerness
• Spatiality and Temporality
• Race
• Narratology
• New Materialism
• Disability
• Trauma
• Monstrosity and Abjection
• Religion, spirituality, the occult, and theology
• Ecocriticism
• Rhetoric and Poetics

Please submit abstracts of 200 words as well as any and all inquiries to eap215conference@gmail.com. Please also provide a short biographical note of up to 100 words in addition to your timezone in order to best arrange presentation times for those outside of PST. This conference will be held online at no charge. The Zoom link will be sent out the week prior.




Last updated June 17, 2024

CFP Critical Essays on Horror Vestron Films (6/15/2024)

Critical Essays on Horror Vestron Films

deadline for submissions: June 15, 2024

full name / name of organization: Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns

contact email: vestronproject@yahoo.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/03/12/critical-essays-on-horror-vestron-films

Critical Essays on Horror Vestron Films

Edited by

Matthew Edwards

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns



We, the editors, are looking to put together an edited collection on the horror films of Vestron Distribution/Vestron Pictures. From the early 80s till the mid -90s, when Vestron went bankrupt, Vestron released a number of cult and influential horror films both through their distribution arm and films that they bankrolled into production. Vestron were responsible for distributing in North America films such as The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan 1984), The Gate (Tibor Takács,1987), Lair of the White Worm (Ken Russell, 1988), Gothic (Ken Russell, 1986), Waxwork (Anthony Hickox 1988), Class of 1999 (Mark Lester, 1990), Revenge of the Living Dead Part 3 (Brian Yuzna, 1993), Warlock (Steve Miner, 1989), Parents (Bob Balaban, 1989), Blood Diner (Jackie Kong, 1987), Street Trash (Michael Muro, 1987), Slaughter High (George Dugdale, Mark Ezra and Peter Mackenzie Litten) and many more! Vestron catalogue includes high rate thrillers such as Blue Steel (Kathryn Bigelow, 1990), Amsterdamned (Dick Maas, 1988), Fear (Rockne S. O'Bannon, 1990) or Hider in the House (Matthew Patrick, 1989).



Vestron’s output has a big cult following in North America and the UK, with many of their old titles being re-released by Lions Gate under the old Vestron banner. We would focus on both aspects of Vestron’s output, as both a producing company and as a distributor of films.



Contributions could include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• -Cult following
• -Aesthetics of horror cinema
• -Black comedies
• -American distribution
• -Thrillers and suspense films
• -Art house sensibilities
• -American anxieties
• -Vestron’s slashers
• -Auteur cinema
• -Depictions of gender
• -Body horror
• -Children horror
• -Vestron TV films
• -Vestron Video

This anthology will be organized into thematic sections around these topics and others that emerge from submissions. We are open to works that focus on other topics as well. Prospective authors are well to contact the editor with any questions, including potential topics not listed above. Please submit a 300-500-word abstract of your proposed chapter contribution as a Word Doc (not PDF) with a brief bio (in the same document), current position, affiliation, and complete contact information to editors Matthew Edwards and Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns to vestronproject@yahoo.com by 15 June 2024. Full chapters of 6,000-7,000 words are likely due in November 2024. A renowned publisher as shown preliminary interest.

Please share this announcement with anyone you believe would be interested in contributing to this volume.

Note: Acceptance of a proposed abstract does not guarantee the acceptance of the full chapter



Matthew Edwards is an independent film scholar and primary school teacher from Cheddar, England. He is author or editor of many books on cult/horror cinema, including Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad, The Atomic Bomb in Japanese Cinema; Klaus Kinski, Beast of Cinema; Twisted Visions: Interviews with Horror Filmmakers; and Murder Movie Makers: Directors Discuss Their Killer Flicks. In 2023 he was nominated for a Rondo Hatton Horror Award for best interview. He has written for many magazines and contributed booklets for 88 Films Hong Kong film releases.



Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (PhD in Arts, PhD Candidate in History) works as Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) - Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Argentina)-. He teaches courses on international horror film. He is director of the research group on horror cinema “Grite” and has authored a book about Spanish horror TV series Historias para no Dormir (Universidad de Cádiz, 2020) and has edited books on Frankenstein bicentennial (Universidad de Buenos Aires), one on director James Wan (McFarland, 2021), the Italian giallo film (University of Mississippi Press, 2022), horror comics (Routledge, 2022) and Hammer horror films (Routledge, 2024). Currently editing a book on Baltic horror. He is Director of “Terror: Estudios Críticos” (Universidad de Cádiz, Spain), the first-ever horror studies series in Spain.

https://publicaciones.uca.es/terror/

http://artes.filo.uba.ar/pagnoni-berns-gabriel




Last updated March 23, 2024

CFP Queer Horror: A Companion (9/30/2024)

Queer Horror: A Companion

deadline for submissions: September 30, 2024

full name / name of organization: Michael Wheatley

contact email: michaeldavidwheatley@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/06/18/queer-horror-a-companion

“To create a broad analogy, monster is to ‘normality’ as homosexual is to heterosexual” (Benshoff, 1997). This quote, well worn within the pages of academic criticism, speaks to how the connection between queer identity and the horror genre is now so established as to become indivisible. From Frankenstein’s Creature to Dracula, the Babadook to Jennifer Check, in fiction and in film these monstrous queers “live in a world that hates them. They’ve adapted, they’ve learned to conceal themselves. They’ve survived” (Machado, 2020). Kirsty Logan, in the Foreword to It Came From the Closet, suggests that “horror [never] gives us LGBTQIA+ people accurate representation. The best we can have is a reflection: an image mirrored, turned backwards; an image in shifting water, wavering and distorted” (2023). However, in The Celluloid Closet and beyond, the closeted monsters of the closeted text have now been routinely outed. Queer horror, too, is no longer the sole domain of monstrous metaphors, but a pluralistic space in which to thematise queer anxieties and to foreground non-hegemonic sexual identities, gender expressions and narrative approaches. Pitched as part of Peter Lang’s Genre Fiction and Film Companion series, Queer Horror: A Companion thus seeks to collate a diverse volume showcasing how the label of ‘queer horror’ transcends the trauma of its shadowed roots into an explicit exploration, vital resuscitation, and ultimate celebration of queerness itself. Following after New Queer Horror’s movement away from “a simplistic binarised negotiation of identification between normative (straight) protagonists and the non-normative (queer) monster” (Elliot-Smith & Browning, 2020), Queer Horror: A Companion looks to foreground explicit queer narratives (Chucky, Monstrilio) and the queer creators imbuing their works with queer sensibilities (Kyle Edward Ball, Carmen Maria Machado, Christopher Landon). Across new forms and mediums, such as video games and podcasts, queer horror moves towards intrinsically queer narratives of homophobic abuse (Femme), alienation (I Saw the TV Glow) and romance (Love Lies Bleeding). And, much as Pride has given way to Pride Progress, so too do works of queer horror emerge that centre underrepresented identities including intersex (Sorrowland), bisexuality (Jennifer’s Body), or explore unwritten narratives such as domestic abuse between partners of the same sex (In the Dream House). Queer Horror: A Companion thus seeks to channel this multiplicity into wide-reaching and inclusive analyses of the many modes and inflections that queer horror adopts today. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: 

• of specific genres and sub-genres, especially those held to be traditionally exclusionary to queer narratives (e.g. Bodies Bodies Bodies and the slasher, or In the Dream House and the memoir).
• Representation of non-hegemonic queer identities, including asexual, intersex, trans, non-binary and non-white narratives (e.g. the works of Jane Schoenbrun, Sayaka Murata, or Rivers Solomon).
• International approaches to queer horror (e.g. Huesera: The Bone Woman, Climax, or Thelma).
• Relationship between queer horror and the mainstream, in relation to cross-medium adaptation (e.g. the alterations to Bill and Frank’s relationship in The Last of Us).
• Tracing the establishment, and development, of academic criticism toward queer horror (e.g. Harry M. Benshoff’s Monsters in the Closet, or Michael William Saunders’ Imps of the Perverse).
• Queer horror in video games (e.g. Signalis, or The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories).
• Queer horror’s intersections with other theoretical disciplines (e.g. Masculinity Studies and Titane or All of Us Strangers, or Critical Disability Studies and Freaks).
• Performing queer horror on stage and screen (e.g. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or Dragula).
• Queer horror as a way of mapping queer history (e.g. The Picture of Dorian Gray and the Labouchere Amendment, James Whale and the Hays Code, or American Horror Story: NYC and the AIDS crisis).
• Relationship between queer horror, exploitation cinema and pornography (e.g. Hellraiser, Knife + Heart, or the works of Billy Martin, writing as Poppy Z. Brite).
• Existence, or reclamation, of tropes and stereotypes (e.g. ‘Bury Your Gays’, or queer villainy).
• Classic works of queer horror (e.g. Carmilla, or Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), or the queering of classic horror fiction (e.g. Murders in the Rue Morgue and New Murders in the Rue Morgue).
• Sapphic horror narratives (e.g. Our Wives Under the Sea, or Wilder Girls).
• Any forms not listed above, such as graphic novels or podcasts, or concerns such as queer aesthetics.

Finished chapters will be approximately 4000 words (exc. bibliography), adopting a primary text to discuss the broader topic of queer horror. Submissions should be accessible to new readers, while still articulating the individual elements that distinguish the chosen work. Please submit abstracts of 300 words, alongside a short biographical note (50–100 words), to Dr Michael Wheatley at michaeldavidwheatley@gmail.com by September 30th, with chapters expected in late 2025. Criticism on sexual identities and gender expressions marginalised in academia are particularly welcome.


Last updated June 24, 2024

CFP Horror Homeroom Special Issue #9: Body Horror (8/18/2024)

Horror Homeroom Special Issue #9: Body Horror

deadline for submissions: August 18, 2024

full name / name of organization: Horror Homeroom

contact email: dek7@lehigh.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/06/18/horror-homeroom-special-issue-9-body-horror

Though the term was coined in 1986, ‘body horror’ dates back to the beginnings of Gothic literature—Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818); Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)—and extends into contemporary fiction, film, and new media. From seminal works including David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) to contemporary zombie films and portrayals of the digital-corporeal connection, as in the Unfriended franchise and Jane Schoenbrun’s recent I Saw the TV Glow, embodiment remains central to the horror genre. Mirroring the porousness of the body itself, the category evades compartmentalization and definition.

This special issue will contend with horror’s bodies in all their transgressive fluidity. We are open to essays exploring any texts that could broadly be considered ‘body horror,’ including fiction, film, and new media. We also welcome a variety of theoretical approaches and disciplinary methods. Lastly, since body horror is a global phenomenon, we hope to put together an issue that makes international connections.

Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

• medical experimentation
• shape-shifting/transformation
• cannibalism
• identity and embodiment
• disease
• biopolitics and necropolitics
• digital bodies
• posthumanism
• key directors (Cronenberg, Ducournau, Soska sisters, etc.)
• body horror and pornography
• New Extremity films
• pregnancy/reproduction
• environmental impacts on the body
• the role of camp and humor
• torture porn

Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words along with a brief bio to Elizabeth Erwin (ele210@lehigh.edu), Lauren Gilmore (ltg221@lehigh.edu), and Dawn Keetley (dek7@lehigh.edu) by August 18, 2024. We will select essays to include in the special issue within two-three weeks and notify everyone who submitted an abstract. Completed essays, which will be limited to 2,500 words, will be due by October 14, 2024, and should be written for a general audience. We welcome all questions and inquiries!

Horror Homeroom’s special issues consist of relatively short (2,500 word) well-researched articles that are written for general and academic audiences. They are carefully reviewed by the editors.

Proposed timeline:

Abstracts due: August 18, 2024

Acceptances out: September 2, 2024

Essays due: October 14, 2024

Selected Bibliography:

Aldana Reyes, Xavier. 2014. Body Gothic: Corporeal Transgression in Contemporary Literature and Horror Film, University of Wales Press.

- - - . 2024. Contemporary Body Horror, forthcoming from Cambridge Elements.

Anderson, Jill E. 2023. “Her Body and Other Ghosts: Embodied Horror in the Works of Shirley Jackson and Carmen Maria Machado.” Monstrum 6 (2): 31-50.

Arnold, Sarah. 2013. Maternal Horror Film: Melodrama and Motherhood, Springer.

Brophy, Philip. 1986. “Horrality: The Textuality of the Contemporary Horror Film.” Screen 27 (1): 2–13.

Cruz, Ronald Allan Lopez. 2012. “Mutations and Metamorphoses: Body Horror is Biological Horror.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 40: 160–8.

Diffrient, David Scott. 2023. Body Genre: Anatomy of the Horror Film, University Press of Mississippi.

Folio, Jessica and Holly Luhnig, eds. 2014. Body Horror and Shapeshifting: A Multidisciplinary Exploration, Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Harrington, Erin. 2018. Women, Monstrosity, and Horror Film Gynaehorror, Routledge.

Huckvale, David. 2020. Terrors of the Flesh: The Philosophy of Body Horror in Film, McFarland.

Wasson, Sara. 2020. Transplantation Gothic: Tissue Transfers in Literature, Film, and Medicine, Manchester University Press.

Wald, Priscilla. 2008. Contagious: Cultures, Carriers and the Outbreak Narrative, Duke University Press.

Williams, Linda. 1991. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess.” Film Quarterly 44 (4): 2–13.



Last updated June 24, 2024

Additional Chapters Sought for Edited Collection on Horror-Comedy Films (8/1/2024)

Additional Chapters Sought for Edited Collection on Horror-Comedy Films

deadline for submissions: August 1, 2024

full name / name of organization: Thomas Britt, editor

contact email: tbritt@gmu.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/06/22/additional-chapters-sought-for-edited-collection-on-horror-comedy-films

I am accepting proposals for an edited collection with a working title of Case Studies in Horror-Comedy Films. This edited collection is under contract with a university press, with an anticipated publication date in late 2025. The existing group of contributions well illustrates the focus and structure of the collection, which corresponds to comic takes on horrors of the body, mind, and society. The motivation for this call for additional chapters is to expand the attention to national cinemas beyond North America.

As this collection is presented as a group of "case studies," the themes and topics of potential titles for inclusion are broad. However, preference will be given to contributions focusing on one or two films as case studies rather than choosing a theme/topic and illustrating that theme/topic with several films in a single chapter. I am exclusively interested in chapter proposals covering European, South American, Asian, African, or Australian horror-comedy films.

One effect of having a contract in place is that the timeline for this collection is accelerated. Please see the relevant timeline below, and be sure you can adhere to it if your proposal is accepted.

Proposal guidelines

Please send all correspondence to editor Thomas Britt at tbritt@gmu.edu. Those interested in submitting proposals should email a 250-300 word abstract and a short (50-100 word) biography. In your abstract, specify the film (or no more than two films) that will be the subject of the proposed chapter and indicate how this film/these films relate to the collection's emphases on comic horrors of the body, mind, or society. Please provide your name, institutional affiliation (if any), and email in the document that includes your abstract and short biography.

Timeline

I am receiving proposals through August 1, 2024, using the process described above in the proposal guidelines.

All submitters will be notified of acceptance or otherwise by August 15, 2024.

For those whose proposals are accepted, the deadline for complete initial drafts of 4500-5000 words is November 15, 2024.



Last updated June 24, 2024

CFP Gothic Practice (9/13/2014; Special Issue Gothic Studies)

Gothic Practice

deadline for submissions: September 13, 2024

full name / name of organization: Gothic Studies Journal (Edinburgh UP) and the Internet Ghost Collective

contact email: internetghostcollective@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/06/12/gothic-practice

A special issue of Gothic Studies guest edited by the Internet Ghost Collective (Chera Kee, Erika Kvistad, Line Henriksen, and Megen de Bruin-Molé)



“As a habitus, the Gothic describes a way of writing, a way of reading, a way of thinking about stories, a way of imagining," writes Timothy G. Jones. "Perhaps the Gothic is something that is done rather than something that simply is" (2009, p. 127). In this special issue, we propose to consider the Gothic as not only a subject of research, but as something that we as researchers might do – the Gothic as a research method, a creative practice, a habitus. What might it mean for academics, artists, and other thinkers and makers to work in Gothic ways, or to experience their own work as Gothic, with its associations of unsettling power dynamics, intellectual uncertainty, and the potentially dangerous search for knowledge? Drawing on Jones's idea of the Gothic as “something between the ceremonial and the ludic” which “ought to be understood, not as a set form, nor as a static accumulation of texts and tropes, but as a historicised practice which is durable yet transposable” (2009, p. 127), we ask contributors to explore the Gothic mode/genre and critical and creative practice. Just as Gothic fictions often explore the dynamics between those with immense power and the most vulnerable, we are interested in work that explores similar power structures in academia and the wider world – how might Gothic practice help us examine, challenge, or even counteract these dynamics?



This special issue welcomes work that discusses or proposes Gothic creative research methods and Gothic creative practices, and also work that exemplifies such practices, for instance by using unconventional or boundary-breaking methods to study more conventional Gothic topics in literature, film, and popular culture. We are open to a range of non-traditional methods and formats, including, but not limited to, practice-based research, creative practice, and creative-critical research. We are especially open to proposals where making and praxis are central to the research methodology and process. We understand that non-traditional academic work can be alienating and difficult, as well as dynamic and exciting, and it is often either neglected or exploited within academic administrative structures. For these reasons, we also believe that creative-critical research has Gothic implications for and uses in anti-colonial ‘undisciplining’ efforts within the academy – particularly for those who sit at its centres of power – and we welcome proposals that consider how Gothic practice might be productively disruptive.



Possible topics for the special issue include:

• Practice-based and practice-led Gothic research
• The Gothic as a practice / ‘undisciplining’ the Gothic
• Creative practice as Gothic or monstrous
• Making and Gothic aesthetics
• The Gothic and activism / care work practices
• Goth fashions, subcultures, and community practices
• Creative Gothic pedagogies
• Making in a Gothic world (making with and in crisis)
• The Gothic / monstrous researcher and academic practice
• The Gothic as reading practice / way to approach others’ work

Timeline and Format

13th September 2024: Deadline for abstracts / Expressions of Interest.

Abstracts should be around 200-500 words and accompanied by a 50-100 word bio. Contributors are also welcome to include mini-portfolios or mockups of creative work if this will help you give us a sense of what you’re planning.

1st November 2024: Responses to abstracts/EOIs sent.


15th May 2025: First drafts of submissions due.


July 2026: Publication.



There will also be two (entirely optional, online) workshops open to people interested in submitting something to the special issue, acting as opportunities to meet the guest editors and make and talk together:



Friday, 21st June 2024, 1:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time / 5:00 pm GMT / 7:00 pm CET (register now: https://wayne-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqce2opzkuGdzb0MN7aFNejCxiNTk7nh08)This workshop is a chance to meet the editors and explore the idea of ‘Gothic Practice’ together, in advance of the Expression of Interest deadline for our special issue of Gothic Studies. In this 90-minute online workshop we will explore what it means to imagine in Gothic ways, through discussion and making. No preparation or prior experience with making is required, and you can attend for as much or as little as you are able.


Tuesday, 3rd September 2024, 10:00 am Central European Time / 8:00 am GMT. To register for this workshop, please contact the guest editors at the email address listed below.

Conventional academic articles in Gothic Studies typically run between 5000-7000 words including footnotes. For this issue, we also encourage critical/creative submissions in mixed or non-conventional formats, including (but not limited to) visual media and photography, creative (non)fiction, video essays, and audio productions, and with the enthusiastic support of the Gothic Studies editorial team, we look forward to discussing how these might be incorporated into the special issue.



We welcome scholars, artists, makers, and experimenters of all backgrounds and experience levels. We also welcome questions and informal discussions about what might be possible! Please contact the guest editors of this issue at internetghostcollective@gmail.com.



Inspirational readings+ examples

The work of Carol Quarini: https://carolquarini.com.


Henriksen, et al., “Writing bodies and bodies of text: Thinking vulnerability through monsters,”: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gwao.12782


The zine Becoming Undisciplined: https://becomingundisciplined.com/


Special issue on practice-based research in the journal Theatre Topics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013): https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/28323


Timothy G. Jones, “The Canniness of the Gothic: Genre as Practice,”:https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.7227/GS.11.1.12


Natalie Lovelace, How to Make Art at the End of the World: A Manifesto for Research Creation: https://www.dukeupress.edu/how-to-make-art-at-the-end-of-the-world


Tsing, et al., eds, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene:https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/arts-of-living-on-a-damaged-planet



Last updated June 24, 2024

CFP Snake Sisters in Literature and Film (6/25/2024; SAMLA)

Snake Sisters in Literature and Film

deadline for submissions: June 25, 2024

full name / name of organization: 96th SAMLA (South Atlantic Modern Language Association) Conference

contact email: qianyima@link.cuhk.edu.hk

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/06/07/snake-sisters-in-literature-and-film

Although a monster with a head of swarming snakes, Medusa has been firmly embraced as a snake sister by more women. In her 1975 essay “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Hélène Cixous pioneeringly urges women to re-visit their mythological snake sister - Medusa - who has long been (mis)construed as ugly and sinful. Cixous writes, "You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing” (885). In current feminist terms, Medusa is often read sympathetically: “The ugliness she first experienced as an unjust punishment” is transformed into her greatest strength she “learned to use as a weapon” (Zimmerman 3). Through feminist reinterpretations, Medusa, once condemned by Athena as a snake monster, has transformed into a symbol of empowerment—a snake sister—for any woman who aspires to wield a gaze as fierce and fearless as hers.

Beyond the revolutionary Greek-origin Medusa, other snake sisters have also persisted from worldwide mythology into contemporary speculative fiction. For instance, the Chinese snake women figure “embodies both the dangerous and glamorous aspects of female sexuality and fertility” (Wang 186). White Snake emerged as a defiant female rebel in earlier premodern Chinese fantasy. Across tales from the Tang and Song Dynasties, she has been depicted as a ferocious spirit, indulging in sexual pleasures and serial killings. Though White Snake was later transformed into an angelic wife in stories since Ming times, the image of the snake rebel has been revitalized in contemporary feminist retellings, such as Hong Kong author Li Bihua’s Green Snake (1986) and Chinese American Cindy Pon’s Serpentine and Sacrifice (2015, 2016).

This session seeks to construct an imaginary genealogy of snake sisters derived from worldwide literature and film. We welcome any studies concerning the images of snake women, from iconic figures like Medusa and White Snake to more characters. Hopefully, these snake sisters have embodied subversive female subjectivities in parallel worlds of imagination.

Submission Guidelines:
Please submit your abstract of 200-300 words, along with a short biography of 100-150 words, to this link:https://samla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19150 by 06/25/2024.


Last updated June 11, 2024

CFP A Nightmare on Elm Street @ 40 Conference (9/6/2024; Nottingham, Eng 11/8-9/2024)

A Nightmare on Elm Street @ 40

deadline for submissions: September 6, 2024

full name / name of organization: University of Nottingham/Fear2000

contact email: elmstreet40@nottingham.ac.uk

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/06/06/a-nightmare-on-elm-street-40

One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…

A Nightmare on Elm Street @ 40
Hosted by The University of Nottingham in association with Fear2000
8-9 November 2024

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Dr Bruna Foletto Lucas (Kingston University)

Dr Steve Jones (Northumbria University)



Special Guests



Mark Swift and Damian Shannon (screenwriters of Freddy vs Jason)



Dustin McNeill (author of Slash of the Titans: The Road to Freddy vs Jason)

80s Video Shop, Alfreton, will be there with A Nightmare on Elm Street-themed exhibit



Screenings at The Arc Cinema, Beeston
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) in 4K - Friday 8 November
Freddy vs Jason (2003) - Saturday 9 November



All included for registered attendees!



The tale of a child murderer returned from beyond the grave to torment the children of his killers, A Nightmare on Elm Street mutated into a phenomenon thanks to its gruesome villain: the titan of popular culture that is Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund).

Wes Craven’s original film spawned six sequels, a television series, novels, comic books, a franchise crossover with Friday the 13th and a twenty-first century remake. Due to the film’s runaway success, New Line Cinema gained the nickname “The House that Freddy Built,” Craven was transported from the grimier margins of the horror genre to the crowd-pleasing mainstream, and its stars – Englund and Heather Langenkamp, the “Final Girl” – became genre icons. The series found renewed success with its seventh instalment (itself turning 30 this year), Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994), which anticipated the postmodern rebirth of the horror genre with Craven’s next groundbreaking project, Scream (1996).

Hosted by the University of Nottingham to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the 1984 original, this conference offers us the chance to explore, debate and celebrate the legacy of the Nightmare series in popular culture. Ultimately, the conference will aim to show why Freddy still matters even after fourteen years of absence from our screens.

Proposals for papers are welcomed on any aspect of the franchise, including:

• A Nightmare on Elm Street and New Line Cinema: The House that Freddy Built
• The Final Girl: gender and representation across the franchise
• Freddy as ‘Return of the Repressed’: historical trauma
• Freddy and Reaganism: Nightmares in suburbia
• A Nightmare on Elm Street and queer politics
• ‘[In] a Black theater… the relationship to Freddy is closer than it is to the victims’- Jordan Peele: A Nightmare on Elm Street and BIPOC audiences
• The ethics of Freddy Krueger: from child murderer to pop culture icon
• A Nightmare on Elm Street as franchise: sequels, crossovers, TV series, remake, video games, novels and comic books
• ‘Every kid knows who Freddy is. He’s like Santa Claus’: Audiences, fandom, and legacy

Please submit abstracts of 250 words (max.) and a 100 word bio for 20-minute papers to elmstreet40@nottingham.ac.uk by Friday 6 September 2024.



Last updated June 11, 2024

SECOND CALL: Essays on Race and Racism in The Vampire Diaries Franchise (10/1/2024)

SECOND CALL: Essays on Race and Racism in The Vampire Diaries Franchise, under contract with McFarland Press

deadline for submissions: October 1, 2024

full name / name of organization: Deanna P. Koretsky, Spelman College

contact email: dkoretsk@spelman.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/04/23/second-call-essays-on-race-and-racism-in-the-vampire-diaries-franchise-under-contract


Essays are invited for an edited volume exploring the role that race and racism play in the narrative worlds of The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies, as well as the real world that consumes them. This volume explores how race intersects with other identity categories (gender, sexuality, disability, class, etc.) in the television and book series; how it structures power and agency in the storyworlds and behind the scenes; how it permeates the fan cultures associated with the franchise; and how ongoing fascination with the franchise reflects the tumultuous years of the Obama and Trump presidencies, the coronavirus pandemic, the racial uprisings of 2020, and beyond.

This second call aims to fill gaps in an already robust line-up of essays. Topics of particular interest include:

• The book series by L.J. Smith (as compared with the television series or on its own)
• The Travelers/Roma representation in the series
• Fan cultures specific to TVDU – e.g., the emergence of franchise-inspired conventions in the small Southern towns where the shows were shot; global TVDU fandoms
• The handling of race in rewatch podcasts dedicated to TVD and related media

Please submit a 300-word abstract and 50-word author biography with current affiliation and email address to dkoretsk@spelman.edu. If you’d like to contribute, please send an abstract and projected timeline and we can discuss from there.

Final essays should be between 6000 and 8000 words and follow the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (notes and bibliography).





Projected schedule (flexible):

Abstract/Bio: rolling

Draft for initial review: October 1, 2024

Final draft: December 1, 2024



Last updated June 5, 2024

UPDATE CFP Preternatural in Popular Culture (7/1/2024; NEPCA Online and Dudley, MA 10/3-5/2024)

Call for Papers: Preternatural in Popular Culture

Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association 

2024 Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture Association 

Nichols College (Dudley, MA) and Zoom, 3-5 October 2024

UPDATE Proposals due by 1 July 2024

The Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) invites submissions under the general theme of the Preternatural in Popular Culture.

For this year, submissions should focus on creatures and/or creations that exist above, beyond, and/or outside the natural world and the ways these entities are represented in popular culture (anime, comics, fiction, film, manga, streaming video, television, etc.) from across time and space.

The Monsters & the Monstrous Area is among NEPCA’s largest areas, and we often have blocks of sessions running across the full event. To best accommodate everyone, single presentation submissions are preferred over panel submissions. 

Please direct any questions or concerns to Michael A. Torregrossa, Monsters & the Monstrous Area Chair, at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com, and check out our blog Popular Preternaturaliana: Studying the Monstrous in Popular Culture for ideas and past sessions. The blog can be accessed at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/. 

Conference Information 

The 2024 Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) will host its annual conference this fall as a hybrid conference from Thursday, 3 October, through Saturday, 5 October. Presenters will be required to become members of NEPCA for the year. 

Virtual sessions will take place on Thursday evening and Friday morning via Zoom, and in-person sessions will take place on Friday evening and Saturday morning at Nichols College, in Dudley, Massachusetts. 

For more information about the conference and to submit a proposal, please visit our NEPCA’s dedicated Conference site at https://nepca.blog/2024-conference-page/. Be prepared to answer the following questions about your proposal:

Proposal Type (Single Presentation or Panel)

Modality (in person or virtual)

Subject Area

Working Title

Academic Affiliation (if any)

Abstract (250 words)

Short bio (50-200 words)

Accommodations

Preferences for when to present

The submissions site will be open until 11:59 PM (EDT) on 1 July 2024.

CFP “Children of the Night” International Dracula Congress 2024 (8/31/2024; virtual 10/25-26/2024 & Romania 10/31-11/2/2024)

“Children of the Night” International Dracula Congress 2024

Call For Papers

October 25-26 online sessions

October 31-November 2: Brașov sessions



It is our great pleasure to invite you to 2024 double edition of "Children of the Night International Dracula Congress”. This year, participants are invited to join the ONLINE part of the Congress on October 25th and 26th, 2024 (Friday and Saturday) via Zoom.

A few days later, we will gather IN PERSON for further Halloween sessions in Brașov, Romania from October 31st to November 2nd, 2024. We have decided to hold two parts of the Congress separate from one another, so that Brașov participants were able to fully engage in academic discussions, get to know each other and discover the wonders of Transylvania outside the conference venue.

October 31st (Thursday) and November 1st (Friday) will be devoted to academic speeches and discussions, with a walking tour of Brașov and various evening activities. On November 2nd (Saturday), we will set on a one-day trip to Bran Castle, a nearby Dracula related pop-cultural tourist attraction.

Additionally, from October 30th to November 2nd, International Dracula Film Festival is taking place in Brașov and the Congress participants will be able to join chosen festival events.

We invite everyone who is interested in speaking at the 2024 conference to submit an abstract of 150 - max. 250 words plus a meaningful title indicating the planned content of your presentation to dracongress@gmail.com. The official language of the conference is English. The abstracts must be submitted by email and fit the conference main topics (please, have a look at the slider with 8 workshops on our website). Deadline for abstract’s submissions: August 31, 2024. Please, state if you intend to participate online or in person.

Also, remember to dust your Vampire/Dracula/Gothic costume for our annual Costume Contest (in person and online entries welcome!).

Conference fee

50 euro (physical participation in Brasov)

10 euro (online participation).

Listeners join free of charge.



The 2024 COTN International Dracula Congress is organised by:

Transilvania University of Brașov, Romania (Florin Nechita),

Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Lublin, Poland (Magdalena Grabias),

State University of Rio de Janeiro in Brasil (Yuri Garcia).

In collaboration with The Dracula Fan Club, Mexico (Enrique A. Palafox).



More details will be announced soon.

https://dracongress.jimdofree.com/

Call for Book Proposals - Transmedia Villains and Creatures (11/1/2024)

Book series VILLAINS AND CREATURES

deadline for submissions:
November 1, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Lexington Books

contact email:
isonisanna@hotmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/04/08/book-series-villains-and-creatures

TRANSMEDIA VILLAINS AND CREATURES



This new series by Lexington Books aims to cover the fascinating subject of villains and threatening creatures through an interdisciplinary perspective represented by fields as different as literary, film, religious, gender and art studies as much as philosophy and sociological and ecocritical approaches. Each volume will focus on a single figure (or group of figures) and examine it in its multiple incarnations, from their origins in myth, folklore and history as well as in a literary text, to their various adaptations in different media, including comics, graphic novels, cinema, TV, exhibitions, the visual arts, merchandise, fandom and tourist attractions.



We welcome both edited collections and monographs, but the requirements of the volumes will be their interdisciplinarity and their focus on the issues of adaptation and transmediality. Also, a (global) cultural studies’ approach will be particularly favored (disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and ethnicity will be more than welcome for the examination of villains and creatures). Proposals may include (but are certainly not limited to) the following figures:

Dracula
The werewolf
The mummy
The Golem
Doppëlgangers
Hybrids
Animal-human hybrids (experiments, but also minotaurs, centaurs, as well as lesser-known hybrids)
Clones
Experiments

10. Mad scientists

11. Serial killers

12. Aliens

13. Ghosts

14. Spirits

15. Gods, demi-gods and mythological creatures (from any mythology)

16. Machines

17. Cyborgs

18. Androids

19. Dragons

20. Underwater creatures

21. Shapeshifters

22. Mutants and mutations

23. Freaks

24. Tyrants, dictators and warlords (including historical figures)

25. Crimelords, cult leaders, masterminds

26. Orcs, ogres and trolls

27. Folklore figures

28. Statues, dolls, puppets and animated objects

29. Satan, demons and Biblical figures

30. Cryptids

31. Supervillains

32. Slashers

33. Boogeymen

34. Diseases and plagues

35. Carnivorous Plants

36. Hostile Fungi

37. Magical creatures



We will gladly welcome any queries by prospective authors/editors for the preparation of a proposal. Please contact Dr. Antonio Sanna (isonisanna@hotmail.com).


Last updated April 10, 2024

CFP Journal of Dracula Studies 2024 (5/1/2024)

Journal of Dracula Studies

deadline for submissions:
May 1, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Journal of Dracula Studies

contact email:
journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/04/13/journal-of-dracula-studies

past issues are accessible at: https://research.library.kutztown.edu/dracula-studies/

We invite manuscripts of scholarly articles (4000-6000 words) on any of the following: Bram Stoker, the novel Dracula, the historical Dracula, the vampire in folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics.

Submissions should be sent electronically (as an e-mail attachment in .docx). Please indicate the title of your submission in the subject line of your e-mail.

Please follow MLA style.

Contributors are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions and ensuring observance of copyright.

Manuscripts will be peer-reviewed independently by at least two scholars in the field.

Copyright for published articles remains with the author.

Send electronic submissions to journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu


Last updated April 16, 2024

CFP Monstrous Mother in Literature (Spec Issue Esferas Literarias) (7/15/2024)

Monograph: The monstrous mother in Literature

deadline for submissions:
July 15, 2024

full name / name of organization:
Esferas Literarias

contact email:
almudena.nido@ui1.es

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/04/15/monograph-the-monstrous-mother-in-literature

CALL FOR PAPERS: Esferas Literarias nº 7 (2024)

Monograph: The monstrous mother in Literature

The role of the mother is sacred to many cultures since prehistoric times, as it is regarded as the main generative and nurturing power for the origin of life as well as the main agent for childcare. This maternal role is therefore not only defined by biology and birthing, but also by social constructs that focus on the expected role of woman as carer, protector, and nurturer of any child. However, as the first experience the subject has of a distinctive other, the maternal body constitutes the most foreign, unknowable space in human experience. In fact, the womb is considered in itself a threshold that marks a relation of energy and space in the biological processes between two bodies that imply that one is created and/or dependant from the other. Even if endowed by society of these positive features, the maternal body contains the possibility of death, horror, rejection, and disgust. This ambiguity and potential transgression of normative and clear-cut borders recall the figure of the monster in both the symbolic and the physical manifestations. It may also entail how the mother's presence and behaviours are perceived as monstrous by others due to social and ethical conventions of what constitutes to be human and/or to be a mother.

We ask contributors to explore the representations in literature of monstrous mothers and monstrous forms of mothering that do not comply with normative embodiment or social conventions about the idea of mother. Articles may respond to some of the following thematic lines, but these are not restrictive:

• Representations of deviant and abnormal motherhood: This could include representations of mother figures who deviate or subvert in any way the normative physical embodiment or the dominant cultural ideals that expect them to be feminine, compassionate, caring, selfless, self-sacrificing, etc. We are interested in contributions that analyse representations of the monstrous mother as a symbol of generative power/untamed nature, as non-human, animal hybrid, inorganic, uncaring, violent, etc.
• Reproductive horrors and the monstrous body: this includes representations of any biological process that pertains to the maternal body and associates it with the abject. We are interested in contributions which explore narratives that feature menstruation, pregnancy, birth, miscarriage, abortion, death, etc., and relate it to the monstrous body and the experience of mothering.
• The relationship between monstrous mothers and space: We are interested in contributions which explore the possible relationship between the monstrous mother and the spaces where the child-mother dyad takes place or is expected to take place. This could include human habitations like the haunted mansion, or natural spaces like the cave.

Contributions can focus on the figure of the monstrous mother in any literary form, genre or subgenre, produced in any language or cultural context.

The proposed topics can be approached from diverse theoretical perspectives (Cohen’s monster theses; monster theory; psychoanalysis; affect theory; disability studies; race, cultural, postcolonial and decolonial studies; queer studies; women’s and gender studies; ecocriticism, among others).

The articles can be written in English or Spanish.

Articles must follow the guidelines of the journal and must be submitted through the journal’s website: https://journals.uco.es/index.php/Esferas/about/submissions


Last updated April 16, 2024