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/