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