CFP Regenerating Genre: History and Multicultural Perspectives in Horror (NeMLA 26) (9/30/2025)

Regenerating Genre: History and Multicultural Perspectives in Horror (NeMLA 26)

deadline for submissions:
September 30, 2025

full name / name of organization:
Joshua Gooch / NeMLA 2026 panel

contact email:
goochj@dyc.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/06/25/regenerating-genre-history-and-multicultural-perspectives-in-horror-nemla-26



History is horrifying. For horror creators in the twenty-first century, the terrors of the past have become central to the genre’s regeneration. The increasing diversity of who writes and creates horror has been tightly connected to the genre’s ability to depict otherwise occluded historical terrors. Critics have taken on horror’s relation of past and present as different subgenera, from what Sheri-Marie Harrison calls “the new Black Gothic” to Patricia Stuelke’s “anticapitalist feminist horror.”

This panel will examine how the genre has increasingly come to engage directly with history and its horrors. How do creators put to use the genre’s affordances to represent historical experience? How does the choice of a particular medium affect these choices? And, most importantly, how are creators using the affordances of genre and medium to represent history?

Of particular interest are the ways that recent horror has turned to realist or magical realist representational strategies to communicate with audiences about real historical traumas.

In film, this includes Jennifer Kent’s follow-up to The Babadook, The Nightingale, and how other directors have followed her into a realist horror of the past, e.g., Ali Abbasi with Holy Spider and Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala with The Devil’s Bath. Also of interest are the ways that directors have followed the path of magical realist allegory laid out by Guilermo Del Toro in The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth: Issa Lopez with Tigers Are Not Afraid and Kenneth Dagatan with In my mother’s skin to Jayro Bustamente with his two films, La Llorna and Rita and Finnegan Lorcan with Nocebo.

In fiction, this includes writers who mix genre, history, and realism in varying degrees, from Tananarive Due’s depiction of the history of the Dozier School for Boys via the ghost story, Victor Lavalle’s examination of Black settlers in the west in Lone Women, and Emil Ferris’s use of the genre to mediate historical trauma in My Favorite Thing is Monsters, to the more fantastical elaborations of historical traumas found in Stephen Graham Jones’s The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, and Silver Nitrate, Isabel Cañas’s The Hacienda and Vampires of El Norte, and Mariana Enriquez’s Our Share of Night.

Please submit 250 word abstracts to https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21575 by 30 Septmber 2025.




Last updated June 26, 2025

CFP EXTENDED DEADLINE: Fearful Performances: Stardom, Skill, and Style of Acting in the Horror Film (10/1/2025)

EXTENDED DEADLINE: Fearful Performances: Stardom, Skill, and Style of Acting in the Horror Film

deadline for submissions:
October 1, 2025

full name / name of organization:
Steffen Hantke

contact email:
steffenhantke@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/05/04/extended-deadline-fearful-performances-stardom-skill-and-style-of-acting-in-the

CFP: Extended Deadline, October 1, 2025





Edited Collection of Critical Essays

“Fearful Performances: Stardom, Skill, and Style of Acting in the Horror Film”



Appearing in a horror film is likely to make high demands on even the most seasoned members of the acting profession. No matter if a horror film features characters in extreme states of mental or physical distress or characters who embody abject states of monstrosity or alterity, actors are facing obstacles unlike those in other cinematic genres. Just being rendered invisible under extensive make-up and prosthetics is a formidable challenge. Hence, the genre’s lore is rife with tales of actors pushing themselves—or being pushed—to the edge of mental and physical endurance in pursuit of a memorable performance. Performances in horror films can be notable for being cool and understated, or hotly and hysterically pitched. Amateurs are praised for impressive performances, as professionals are lambasted for making bad choices, chewing the scenery, or phoning it in. Actors have immersed themselves in the Method, or planted their feet squarely and simply delivered their lines. Styles vary, as horror subgenres do, as do actors’ bodies and faces and voices, as do actors’ collaborations with cinematographers and lighting technicians, makeup artists and voice coaches. Not surprisingly, then, the success of many horror films stands and falls with the intensity and credibility of an acting performance. Actors ruin horror films, or rescue them.



With the notable exception of the genre’s most enduringly popular stars, as well as the genre’s emblematic Final Girls and Scream Queens, critical analysis of actors and acting performances in horror films have largely been limited and sporadic. Is there an idiosyncratic aesthetic or performative approach to horror film acting that distinguishes it from working in other genres? How does horror film acting position itself within the larger field of professional acting on film? What are the evaluative criteria of assessing an actor’s performance in a horror film? How does an actor’s performance in a horror film engage with prosthetic or digital effects? How does an actor’s unique performance seize and interpret a character in a literary source text? At the intersection of horror film studies, star studies, and performance studies, this collection of critical essays aims to map out horror film acting in individual performances and across entire career arcs, illuminate it in larger trends and recurring tropes, and provide a cogent critical discussion that allows readers to grasp the horror film in this crucial performative dimension.



Possible topics can include, but are not limited to:


- Horror films as gateways into acting careers (first films, first performances)

- The Professionalism of horror film actors and acting

- Techniques, skills, requirements, routines, tricks, and shticks

- The aesthetics of horror film acting

- Going Slumming: “serious” actors and their forays into the horror genre

- Typecasting/casting-against-type

- Stardom and the horror film as star vehicle

- Performance styles (Method Acting, silent film acting, etc.)

- Iconic performances and performers (individual films, individual performances)

- Embodying and interpreting characters from non-cinematic source texts

- Acting performances on the edge of discomfort, for viewer and/or performer

- Underplayed and muted performances

- Acting in “quiet horror” films

- Self-conscious performances

- Acting in digital environments

- The prosthetic and make-up enhancement of the actor’s body

- Child actors

- Amateur actors

- Digital actors

- Invisible Actors (voice actors, body doubles, stunt workers)

- Embodying genre functions: “monstrosity”

- Embodying genre functions: “victimization”

- Embodying genre functions: “normality”

- The politics of evaluating horror film actors and acting

- Canonizing: the “best/worst” horror film acting performances

- Awards and accolades: acting as cultural/social/professional capital

- Polarizing/scandalizing horror film performances

- Acting in horror film subgenres (silent films, splatter films, found footage horror, torture porn, etc.)

- Representing horror film actors and acting: interviews, appearances at screenings and cons, documentaries, etc.

- The discourse on horror film acting (acting manuals and guidebooks, anecdotal writing about horror film production, autobiographical and professional writing by actors and directors, past critical writing in its canonizing function, etc.)



Given the nature and breadth of the topic, the internal organization of the anthology is not predetermined but will develop in dialogue with submitted and accepted proposals. Broadly, however, the anthology aims at a foreword and afterword, as well as four or five thematically differentiated sections, each featuring three to five essays, each at a length of 5000-7000 words. The anthology aims at covering a wide historical scope, with essays starting as early as the silent film era and including recent horror film production. Thematically, the anthology has a wide international scope, but is expected to gravitate toward U.S. and anglophone productions. The anthology does not exclude contributions that cover canonical films and performers. However, in order to avoid overlap with already existing research, it strongly favors contributions that cover either overlooked films and performers or films and performers of recent years that have not yet received critical recognition. While individual proposals on Final Girls and Scream Queens are evaluated on their individual merits, these topics are in themselves not of any primary interest given the wealth of already existing research.



Please submit a proposal/abstract of 500-1000 words, and a brief biographical blurb that lists specific examples of your published work (or a professional CV). Please email your proposal/abstract, or any questions or suggestions you might have, to Steffen Hantke at steffenhantke@gmail.com before October 1, 2025.



Steffen Hantke has edited Horror, a special topic issue of Paradoxa (2002), Horror: Creating and Marketing Fear (2004), Caligari’s Heirs: The German Cinema of Fear after 1945 (2007), American Horror Film: The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium (2010), and, with Agnieszka Soltysik-Monnet, War Gothic in Literature and Culture (2016). He is also author of Conspiracy and Paranoia in Contemporary American Literature (1994), Monsters in the Machine: Science Fiction Film and the Militarization of America after World War II (2016), and Cloverfield: Creatures and Catastrophes in Post-9/11 Cinema (2023).



Last updated June 13, 2025

CFP Postmodern Horror in the New Millennium (9/30/2025; NeMLA 2026)

Postmodern Horror in the New Millennium

deadline for submissions:
September 30, 2025

full name / name of organization:
NeMLA

contact email:
ciski77@scarletmail.rutgers.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/08/postmodern-horror-in-the-new-millennium

direct submission link: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21593

This panel seeks to investigate the intersection of postmodernism and horror cinema in the 21st century, highlighting shifts in themes, the rise of new filmmakers, innovative production techniques, and the ways in which the genre has absorbed and requalified postmodernist conventions. Comparative studies among American, European, and/or non-Western cinema are encouraged.


Last updated July 8, 2025

Slayage 11 Announcement

The Association for the Study of Buffy+ has recently announced the dates for its upcoming conference, Slayage 11. Look to their official conference website for details at http://www.buffystudies.org/conference.html.

 

CFP To Be Loved by Death: Afterlives of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles Collection (10/15/2025)

Edited collection - To Be Loved by Death: Afterlives of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles

deadline for submissions:
October 15, 2025

full name / name of organization:
Deanna Koretsky

contact email:
dkoretsk@spelman.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/24/edited-collection-to-be-loved-by-death-afterlives-of-anne-rices-vampire-chronicles

With the recent and highly acclaimed AMC adaptation of Interview with the Vampire and AMC’s broader acquisition of Anne Rice’s literary corpus, The Vampire Chronicles have found renewed cultural relevance. As Season 3 enters production, we invite reexaminations of the legacy and transformation of Rice’s vampiric work across media, genres, and generations.

We are seeking scholarly essays that critically engage the many adaptations, appropriations, and afterlives of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles for an edited volume in Palgrave’s Studies in Monstrosity series. We invite contributions from scholars across disciplines. 

Topics may include, but are certainly not limited to:

• AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (2022- ): approaches to race, queerness, temporality, and trauma; departures from and faithfulness to Rice’s canon; cultural impact as seen in fan engagements, rewatch podcasts, and public writing; place within AMC’s Immortal Universe.

• Of particular interest: in addition to the reimagining of Louis and Claudia as Black and expressly queer characters, we are also keen to see critical work that addresses the reimagining of Armand as Brown, as well as the show’s addition of Dubai as a touchstone setting

• Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire (1994): performance, aesthetics, reception, and the film’s place in gothic cinema.
• Michael Rymer’s Queen of the Damned (2002): casting, music, race, cult status.
• Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s Lestat (2006): Broadway reception, musical form, queer gothic sensibilities, status as commercial and critical failure.
• Adaptations and appropriations in other media: comics/graphic novels, theater, ballet, visual art, body art, etc.
• Comparative interpretations: Rice's vampires (in any iteration) in dialogue with other vampire narratives (e.g., Sinners, Suicide by Sunlight, The Originals, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Only Lovers Left Alive, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, etc.); vampires and authors that inspired Rice (e.g., Blacula, Carmilla, Dracula’s Daughter, Byron, Polidori, Stoker, etc.)
• Tourism and cultural geographies: vampire tours in New Orleans and beyond, the commodification of Rice’s legacy, intersections of fiction, space, and local/global histories.
• Fandom and community: fan fiction, online forums, cosplay cultures, conventions, and the evolving role of fan labor in sustaining Rice’s mythos.
• Vampire Balls and immersive fan events: performance, ritual, identity play, and the gothic carnivalesque.
• Sexuality, gender, race, colonial histories and legacies, queer and trans embodiments, illness and disease, disability, neurodivergence, youth and age/ageing, world religions/religious feeling, and other key thematic preoccupations in Rice’s fiction and/or its adaptations.
• Adaptation as translation, revision, or resistance to Rice’s politics or aesthetics.

Submission Guidelines

• Abstracts of 300 words due: October 15, 2025
• Complete first draft (7,000–9,000 words, MLA style) due: May 30, 2026
• Revised final draft due: October 31, 2026

Submit abstracts to: Deanna Koretsky (dkoretsk@spelman.edu) and Alex Milsom (amilsom@hostos.cuny.edu). Please include a short bio (50–100 words) with your abstract.


Last updated August 1, 2025

CFP Gothic Maternities (Special Issue of BAS Journal, 10/1/2025)

Call for articles: GOTHIC MATERNITIES

deadline for submissions:
October 1, 2025

full name / name of organization:
West University of Timisoara/ B.A.S. Journal

contact email:
loredana.bercuci@e-uvt.ro

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/26/call-for-articles-gothic-maternities

A great number of Gothic fiction productions explicitly address themes such as gender roles and reproduction from diverse perspectives, which at times hold opposing viewpoints on certain aspects of these topics. The ability to gestate is often considered one of the key indicators of sexual difference. However, the subject of gestation and child-upbringing is not usually addressed in Gothic fiction, aside from iconic examples such as Rosemary’s Baby (1968). As Russ (2007: 25) has stated, these processes are often not described in many texts. Frequently, the women in these stories are either young and childless or middle-aged, with their children already grown and secure (ibid.). The reason for this may be the desire to avoid misogynistic attacks on fiction that dealt with these themes, a theory proposed by critics such as Shulamith Firestone (1970) and Jennifer Allen (1984), who concluded that pregnant women and mothers were, in a sense, biologically trapped.

However, as Adrienne Rich (1976) pointed out, in contrast to more traditional motherhood, which can be experienced as a patriarchal institution within this type of fiction, motherhood defined and centered on women can be understood as an empowering experience for women, which later paved the way for matricentric feminism (O’Reilly, 2016). In short, while motherhood as an institution is often a site of male-defined oppression, women’s own maternal experiences can become a source of power (O'Reilly, 2021). It is, therefore, essential to look into the representation of themes such as gestation, childbirth, breastfeeding, and the physical, psychological, and emotional changes that the gestating mother undergoes after childbirth, as well as the various forms of motherhood and gestating bodies (consider, for instance, the masterfully depicted confrontation between Sigourney Weaver and the creature in Alien: The Eighth Passenger, 1979).

The relationship between mothers and their progenies might be fraught with myriad uncertainties, fears, and sometimes outright hatred. These controversial aspects of childbearing, childbirth, and childrearing are addressed by countless unnatural creations, violent births, and terrified women—depicted as doubly vulnerable and trapped in situations of extreme danger (Harrington, 2018: 87). This preoccupation with maternal fear and monstrosity aligns with the Gothic tradition’s continued engagement in the Othering of the mother (Carpenter 2016: 7), providing a compelling lens for exploring the uncanny and the abject (Arnold 2013; Creed 1993; Oliver 2012). As Kristeva suggests in Powers of Horror, this process of othering reflects a deeper cultural anxiety; she (1982: 73) describes the ‘archaic mother’ as a force of ‘generative power’ that patrilineal structures try hard to suppress. As a consequence, monstrous mothers—whether phallic, castrating, all-consuming, and absent—populate the Gothic imagination, from fiction to movies and video games. Yet, despite their ubiquity, this oppressive maternal figure has often gone unnoticed or deliberately ignored by scholars. Her existence resists traditional interpretations, challenging the widely accepted idea of maternal instinct (Williams, 2025: 1).

Moreover, contemporary Gothic art, by allowing projection into other universes and times, imagining various interpersonal relationships, and questioning the boundaries of biology and gender, inevitably engages with various visions of motherhood – some utopian, while others, dystopian – thus opening the door to the exploration of new possibilities. It is in this fertile terrain that, in addition to the previously mentioned themes, other pressing issues also find space for exploration, such as reproductive biotechnology, ectogenesis, cloning, xenobiology, grafts with living beings or artificial entities, microchimerism, and a long list of others that current fiction seems eager to depict (Marinovich, 1994: 189–205; Anolik, 2003: 25–43).

Therefore, we invite writers, researchers, scholars, and all those who wish to contribute to this special issue of British and American Studies (https://bas.journals.uvt.ro/) dedicated to new visions of the Gothic.





REFERENCES

Allen, Jeffner. 1984. “Motherhood: The Annihilation of Women” in Joyce Trebilcot (ed). Mothering: Essays in Feminist Theory. Lanham: Roman and Allanheld, pp. 315–30.

Anolik, Ruth Bienstock. 2003. “The Missing Mother: The Meanings of Maternal Absence in the Gothic Mode” in Modern Language Studies, 33 (1/2), pp. 25–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/3195306

Arnold, Sarah. 2013. Maternal Horror Film: Melodrama and Motherhood. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Carpenter, Ginette. 2016. “Mothers and Others” in Avril Horner, Sue Zlosnik, Andrew Smith and William Hughes (eds.). Women and the Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 44-59.

Creed, Barbara. 1993. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge.

Firestone, Shulamith. 1970. The Dialectics of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. New York: Morrow.

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

Kristeva, Julia. 1982. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by L.S. Roudiez, New York: Columbia University Press.

Marinovich, Sarolta. 1994. “The discourse of the other: Female gothic in contemporary women's writing” in Neohelicon 21, pp. 189–205. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02093047

O’Reilly, Andrea. 2016. Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, and Practice. Coe Hill: Demeter Press.

O’Reilly, Andrea. 2021. Maternal Theory: The Essential Readings. Coe Hill: Demeter Press.

Oliver, Kelly. 2012. Knock Me Up, Knock Me Down: Images of Pregnancy in Hollywood Films. New York: Columbia University Press.

Rich, Adrienne. 1976. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. New York: W.W. Norton.

Russ, Joanna. 2007. The Country You Have Never Seen: Essays and Reviews. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

Williams, Sara. 2025. The Maternal Gaze in the Gothic. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.



Contributions on this topic should be submitted to the editors of the special issue (loredana.bercuci@e-uvt.ro, dana.percec@e-uvt.ro, cristina.baniceru@e-uvt.ro) and to bas.journal@gmail.com by 1 October 2025. They should observe the general instructions provided on the BAS site (https://bas.journals.uvt.ro/Instructions to authors)


Last updated July 28, 2025

Dates Announced for NecronomiCon Providence 2026

The Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council has recently announced the dates for the 2026 NecronomiCon Providence event. 

Further details and updates at https://necronomicon-providence.com/.

CFP Magics, Marvels, Metamorphoses, and Monsters: Horrors of the Medieval Past, Present, and Future (Virtual) (9/15/2025; ICMS Kalamazoo/Online 5/14-16/2026)

Magics, Marvels, Metamorphoses, and Monsters: Horrors of the Medieval Past, Present, and Future (Virtual)

Co-sponsored by Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, International Society for the Study of Medievalism


Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College, and June-Ann Greeley, Sacred Heart University



Medieval art, culture, and literature contain many elements we view as fantastical today. Images and stories are filled with displays of magic, appearances of marvels, occurrences of metamorphoses, and threats of monsters. All of these are now considered features of the horror genre, but did readers in the Middle Ages perceive them as such? Has our view of the preternatural changed so radically from the medieval era to now? In what ways have these aspects been transformed over time and in new places? We seek to answer these and similar questions in this session designed to unite medieval(ism)ists with colleagues across Monster Studies.


Possible topics:

Demons, dragons, Faerie, gargoyles, giants, the Green Knight, Grendelkin, magic, Melusine, Merlin (his origins/abilities), Morgan le Fay, the Questing Beast, revenants, sea monsters, transformations, vampires, werewolves, wild folk, witches, wonders of the East.


Please post paper submissions into the Confex site using the direct link https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7279.

Do send any questions to the organizers at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com. Submissions are due no later than 15 September 2025.


Please be aware that those accepted to the panel must register for the conference in order to present. Past registration costs can be viewed at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration. The International Congress on Medieval Studies does offer limited funding as travel awards and subsidized registration costs; details are available at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.


For more information about the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, do check out our website Popular Preternaturaliana: Studying the Monstrous in Popular Culture: https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.


For more information about the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, do check out our website Mass Mediævalisms: The Middle Ages of Popular Culture: https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/.


For more information about the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, do check out our website at https://medievalisms.org/ and consider signing up for our listserv (details at https://medievalisms.org/issm-listserv/).

CFP Monsters & the Monstrous (7/30/2025; NEPCA online 10/9-11/2025)

Northeast Popular Culture Association has an online conference from 9-11 October 2025.

Registration fee is $25 US (with some funding available).

Deadline for proposals is 7/31/2025.


Submit to the Monsters & the Monstrous Area at https://cfp.sched.com/speaker/sTP9T9X3cW.

CFP Gothic II Panel (6/30/2025; PAMLA San Francisco 11/20-23/2025)

PAMLA 2025 Panel (standing session): Gothic II

deadline for submissions: 

June 30, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Melanie A. Marotta, College of William & Mary / Pacific & Ancient Modern Language Association (PAMLA 2025 Conference)

contact email: 

melaniemarotta@yahoo.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/03/24/pamla-2025-panel-standing-session-gothic-ii

Gothic writers embrace the genre for its inclusive and representational nature. The genre is, in effect, a palimpsest as it prominently features both the past and memory. The creators in the genre continue to create plots that center on women, queer, transgender, and racialized characters and create stories that address societal inequalities. The environment (the Ecogothic) also continues to be a prominent character in the genre.

This in-person panel welcomes submissions about all aspects of the gothic as seen in a variety of media forms (literature, film, television, gaming, etc.). Feel free to submit an abstract about the gothic and the conference theme (the non-binding conference theme is “Palimpsests”) or about the gothic without reference to the conference theme.

Please contact me if you have any questions. Deadline June 30 or until the Gothic II panel is filled.

The PAMLA 2025 conference is in person in San Francisco, CA, on November 20-23, 2025.

Please see the PAMLA site for more information about the conference and the theme: https://www.pamla.org/conference/2025-conference-theme/

Please submit your abstract via the PAMLA submission portal: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/CFP

*AI Statement: Authors should refrain my using generative AI in the writing of both abstracts and presentations.*

Last updated June 2, 2025

CFP Haunted Cities: Spaces, Spectres, and Urban Hauntologies (7/1/2025)

 

Haunted Cities: Spaces, Spectres, and Urban Hauntologies

deadline for submissions: 

July 1, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Editors - Marko Lukic and Irena Jurkovic/University of Zadar

contact email: 

hauntedcityspaces@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/05/26/haunted-cities-spaces-spectres-and-urban-hauntologies

Call for Papers

Haunted Cities: Spaces, Spectres, and Urban Hauntologies

Edited Collection

Cities are palimpsests of the living and the dead, spaces where, as Derrida’s concept of hauntology reminds us, the past continues to loom over the present, unsettling linear time. At the same time, these urban spaces illustrate what Henri Lefebvre calls the production of space as an always-unfinished process of conflict and memory. These spectral tensions find some of their most creative and thoroughly -explored expressions in the realm of fiction. In works such as Henry James’s The Jolly Corner (1908) and China Miéville’s The City & the City (2009) imagined haunted urban spaces reveal what David Harvey describes as spaces of uneven development, where suppressed histories seep back as phantoms. By contrast, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000)transforms a suburban home into an unnavigable space—an infinite labyrinth that echoes Jameson’s postmodern urban disorientation.

These literary haunted spaces establish a narrative and conceptual framework that cinema both inherits and expands. Film, as a visual medium, transforms abstract urban anxieties into embodied and sensory experiences, intensifying the spatial logic of literary hauntings.  From the stigmatized Cabrini-Green in Candyman (1992/2021) to the cursed Tokyo apartment blocks of Ring (1998) or Dark Water (2002), cinematic cities stage Foucault’s heterotopias, hosting parallel realities that rupture everyday geographies. Digital and alternative media intensify these hauntings with narrative forms that blur the boundaries between fiction, film, and real-world space. Silent Hill, a horror video-game franchise, reimagines rust-stained streets as psychic cartographies of guilt; urban-exploration channels like The Proper People and Exploring with Josh broadcast real-time descents into abandoned malls and hospitals, creating participatory hauntologies; Instagram “ruin porn” and TikTok ghost-hunting micro-videos circulate affective geotags that turn everyday viewers into curators of the uncanny.

Drawing on Anthony Vidler’s architectural uncanny, Mark Fisher’s weird and the eerie, and Judith Butler’s notion of grievability, this collection asks how such literary, cinematic and digital spectres animate contemporary cities, mediate collective trauma, and reconfigure the politics of place—inviting scholars to map these restless urban phantoms. We seek proposals from interested scholars from across the disciplines that critically engage with haunted and/or haunting urban spaces from the modernist period to the present-day metropolises, including imagined urban spaces of the future. Submissions may explore cities across diverse global and transnational contexts, engaging with a variety of media—from literature and film to video games and other digital platforms.

Essays may explore but are not limited to the following topics:

• Urban Hauntologies: theorizing spectral temporalities, ruins, and palimpsestic geographies
• Media & Mediation: film, television, podcasts, video games, VR/AR, and YouTube series that (re)construct urban hauntings
• Literary Ghostscapes: gothic, weird, speculative, or realist narratives that map haunted streets and buildings
• Spectral Infrastructures: abandoned transit lines, sewers, data centres, smart-city dead zones, and digital afterlives
• Memory & Trauma: post-conflict or post-disaster ghosts, memorial architecture, dark tourism circuits
• Sound & Haunting: sonic ecologies, urban field recordings, auditory hauntings
• Embodied Haunting: flânerie, psychogeography, paranormal investigations, affective mapping of fear
• Decolonial & Queer Hauntings: counter-memories, suppressed histories, marginalized presences in the city
• Climate & Eco-Hauntings: rising waters, toxic ruins, and environmental spectres in urban futures
• Methodologies of the Uncanny: digital humanities (GIS, XR), ethnography, archival excavation, art practice as research

 We invite all interested scholars to send their proposal (400-500 words) and short bio (max. 200 words, including author’s academic affiliation) to hauntedcityspaces@gmail.com . Full-length essays should be 6000-8000 words (including references, notes, and citations) and follow the Harvard style guide. University of Wales Press has expressed interest in the volume as part of their Horror Studies series.

Deadline for abstracts: July 1st 2025

Notification of acceptance: July 15th 2025

Deadline for essay submission: October 15th 2025

Last updated May 31, 2025

CFP “Provocations” Essays for American Gothic Studies (10/15/2025)

CFP: “Provocations” Essays for American Gothic Studies

deadline for submissions: 

October 15, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

American Gothic Studies/Society for the Study of the American Gothic

contact email: 

jschell5@alaska.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/07/24/cfp-%E2%80%9Cprovocations%E2%80%9D-essays-for-american-gothic-studies

UPDATED: SEEKING ESSAYS ON SPECIFIC TOPICS, SEE DESCRIPTION AND LIST BELOW

CFP: “Provocations” for American Gothic Studies

American Gothic Studies is seeking short essays for its “Provocations” section. These pieces (2,000 words) are meant to question conventional wisdom, tackle compelling issues, or advance new theses about the American Gothic as an academic field or pedagogical subject. Please note that they are not traditional essays.

At this time, we are interested in essays that revisit, interrogate, and update older concepts and terms. Some examples might include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Wilderness (sublime and otherwise)
• Bodies (mutable, multispecies, and otherwise)
• Contagion and Infection
• Symbiosis
• Space and Inter-Spaces (domestic, online, and otherwise)
• Nostalgia
• Posthuman
• Scientist (mad and otherwise)

Our questions for authors include (but are not limited to) the following: What relevance do these terms have for the field of American Gothic studies in the present moment? What shifts in meaning have occurred over time? What makes these terms problematic or troublesome? What makes these terms productive or fruitful? What updates can we make to our thinking insofar as these terms are concerned?

To propose a Provocations piece, please contact section co-editors Jennifer Schell (jschell5@alaska.edu) and Cristina Santos (csantos@brocku.ca). Please explain what makes your proposal provocative insofar as the field of Gothic studies is concerned.  

Our submission deadline is October 15, 2025. Please review the formatting guidelines before entering your manuscript for consideration. 

American Gothic Studies is the first scholarly journal dedicated to the American Gothic and publishes rigorously vetted scholarship on the topic, broadly construed. This encompasses considerations of literature, film, television, comics, and new media, as well as cultural artifacts and practices.

American Gothic Studies is the official journal of the Society for the Study of the American Gothic (SSAG), which promotes and advances the study of the American Gothic through research, teaching, and publication. It is the goal of the Society to strengthen relations among persons and institutions both in the United States and internationally who are undertaking such studies, and to broaden knowledge among the general public about the American Gothic in its many forms.

 

Last updated May 31, 2025

CFP Exploring and Celebrating The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Popular Culture (8/31/2025; PopCRN 11/27-28/2025)

 

Exploring and Celebrating The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Popular Culture

deadline for submissions: 

August 31, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

PopCRN - The Popular Culture Research Network

contact email: 

popcrn@une.edu.au

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/05/19/exploring-and-celebrating-the-rocky-horror-picture-show-in-popular-culture

PopCRN is delighted to announce a conference dedicated to the cult phenomenon, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This free, online event will be held on Thursday 27th and Friday 28th of November 2025.

Since its release in 1975, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has transcended its status as a film to become a cultural institution. What began as a box office failure evolved into the longest-running theatrical release in cinema history, with midnight screenings continuing worldwide for over five decades. The film's blend of horror, science fiction, comedy, and musical elements created a unique space for audiences to explore themes of sexuality, gender fluidity, and self-expression long before these conversations entered mainstream discourse. The Rocky Horror Picture Show's participatory nature has fostered communities of devoted fans who transform screenings into immersive theatrical experiences through costumes, props, callbacks, and shadow casts. This level of audience engagement represents a distinctive form of cultural production that challenges traditional boundaries between creators and consumers.

This call for papers seeks contributions on the impact and legacy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in popular culture, from its theatrical origins to its ongoing influence in the 21st century.

Presenters will have an opportunity to publish their work in an edited volume to be released in 2026.

We welcome papers on any topic relating to Rocky Horror, but here are some suggestions to inspire you:

• "Give yourself over to absolute pleasure" – Rocky Horror and the politics of pleasure
• "I see you shiver with antici...pation" – audience participation and ritual
• "Don't dream it, be it" – Rocky Horror as queer liberation text
• "I'm just a sweet transvestite" – evolving language and representations of gender
• "Creatures of the night" – Rocky Horror's horror and science fiction elements
• "Let's do the Time Warp again" – nostalgia and temporal displacement
• "Dammit, Janet!" – character archetypes and their cultural significance
• "In another dimension" – Rocky Horror's international adaptations and reception
• "A mental mind-fuck can be nice" – psychological readings of Rocky Horror
• "I've seen blue skies through the tears" – Rocky Horror as emotional catharsis
• "Whatever happened to Saturday night?" – Rocky Horror and changing entertainment landscapes
• "I thought you were the candy man" – consumption and excess in Rocky Horror
• "Hot patootie, bless my soul" – music and performance in Rocky Horror
• "That's a rather tender subject" – Rocky Horror and sexual awakening
• "It's not easy having a good time" – Rocky Horror as countercultural statement
• "You're as hot as an ice cream" – food symbolism and consumption
• "Rose tints my world" – color theory and visual aesthetics
• "I'm a muscle fan" – body politics and physical ideals
• "Your lifestyle's too extreme" – Rocky Horror and moral panic
• "Science fiction double feature" – intertextuality and genre-blending
• "The darkness must go" – light and shadow as narrative devices
• "The sword of Damocles" – classical references and literary influences
• "From old science fiction" – Rocky Horror's place in sci-fi history
• "I've done a lot, God knows I've tried" – religious imagery and subversion

 

Please submit by your proposed abstract by 31st August 2025

• Submit here - https://tinyurl.com/2hyksxn8
• Register here - tinyurl.com/mrxeys35
• Queries to popcrn@une.edu.au

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Last updated May 29, 2025

CFP Horror Videogames - A Companion (8/31/2025)

 

Call for Papers: Horror Videogames - A Companion

deadline for submissions: 

August 31, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, Surrey, UK

contact email: 

ewan.kirkland@uca.ac.uk

Call for Papers: Horror Videogames: A Companion

Editors: Dr Connor Jackson and Dr Ewan Kirkland

 

This publication – which is planned for submission to Peter Lang’s Genre Fiction and Film Companions series – aims to provide readers with an accessible yet scholarly overview of the historical, cultural, technological and aesthetic dimensions of the horror videogame, organised around an extensive series of short case studies. Accordingly, we are seeking abstracts for a series of shorter chapters presenting critical analyses of key titles in the genre’s history.

Videogames should be chosen for their popular cultural impacts, uniqueness and innovative contributions to the horror genre and videogame medium. The collection will cover a variety of time periods, platforms, development contexts, countries of origin and sub-genres. It will also feature various manifestations of horrific content; from monsters, zombies, ghosts, and eldritch abominations to psychological horror, jump scares, and fourth wall-breaking cult games. Each chapter will justify its selected case study as a noteworthy horror videogame, while also embedding its chosen text within academic discussions of genre, storytelling, design and/or affect.

The collection will be divided into several sections, which are detailed below alongside suggested entries. We welcome submission on the suggested videogames, as well as submissions on videogames that are not on our list of suggested entries. Please note that we do not require submissions on Left 4 Dead (2008) or Five Night’s at Freddy’s (2014), as these titles will be covered by the editors.

 

Sections and Suggested Entries

Early Horror Videogames: 3D Monster Maze (1981), Haunted House (1982), Carmageddon (1997), Clock Tower (1995), Alone in the Dark (1992), Doom (1993)

Canonical Horror Videogames: Resident Evil (1996), Silent Hill (1999), Fatal Frame (2001), Dead Space (2008), Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (2002)

Horror Videogame Sequels: Silent Hill 2 (2002), Alan Wake 2 (2023), Little Nightmares II (2021), Amnesia: Rebirth (2020), Resident Evil 4 (2005)

Adaptation in Horror Videogames: Alien: Isolation (2014), Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017), The Walking Dead (2012), Dead Rising (2006)

Multiplayer Horror Videogames: The Outlast Trials (2024), Dead by Daylight (2016), Phasmophobia (2020)

Indie Horror Videogames: Mouthwashing (2024), Carrion (2020), Signalis (2022), Mundaun (2021), Murder House (2020)

 

Please send chapter abstracts of around 200 words (excluding references) alongside bios of up to 100 words to Connor Jackson (jacksoc1@hope.ac.uk) and Ewan Kirkland (ewan.kirkland@uca.ac.uk) by Sunday 31st August 2025 with the subject heading: “Horror Videogames Abstract”.

Abstract titles should follow the same format, with the game title and a subheading indicating the area/focus of horror to be addressed. For example, “Left 4 Dead (2008) – The Horror of Abandonment” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s (2014) - Service Industry Horror”. Full chapters should be 2,500-3,000 words (excluding references).

If you are interested in covering more than one videogame, feel free to add a list of up to 3 other titles alongside your submission. Should your submission entry be in high demand, the editors may contact you to discuss your secondary options.

Also, if you have any questions, please send them to the above-mentioned email addresses. 

 

Provisional Timeframe

CFP Deadline: Sunday 31st August 2025 

CFP Feedback by end of September 2025 

Completed Chapters by end of January 2026

Feedback with potential edits by end of April 2026 

Chapters returned by end of June 2026

Submission of final draft to editors by end of August 2026

Last updated May 29, 2025

CFP A Gathering of Horrors, Terrors, and Monstrosities (6/30/2025; PAMLA San Francisco 11/20-23/2025)

 

A Gathering of Horrors, Terrors, and Monstrosities

deadline for submissions: 

June 30, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association

contact email: 

roland_finger@cuesta.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/05/29/a-gathering-of-horrors-terrors-and-monstrosities

PAMLA: A Gathering of Horrors, Terrors, and Monstrosities Panel, 11/20/25-11/23/25, San Francisco

Dark times call for dark and demonic stories. Films, graphic novels, and fiction provide compelling ways to examine the horrors, terrors, and monstrosities in our world. Deep and dark works and our fixation on them provide apocalyptic, devastating, and shocking revelations about individuals, society, and nature. While works of horror tear audiences away from realistic norms and social acceptability, they confront us with extreme embodiment, emotion, and intellectual crisis. Chilling whispers and screams beg to be heard even if we are conditioned not to hear them. Norms of decency, sensitivity, and reason are in decline but simultaneously acquire added value. Monstrosity is not just a grisly spectacle but is a message demanding our attention. This panel investigates the meaning and importance of horror, terror, and monstrosity through the study of film, graphic fiction, and literature. What do these works demand from us?

Submit proposals: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19728

Conference dashboard: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/User/DashBoard

PAMLA is the western regional affiliate of the Modern Language Association and is dedicated to the creation, advancement, and diffusion of knowledge of ancient and modern languages, literatures, media, cultures, and the arts. This year, the PAMLA is holding its annual 122nd Annual Conference in San Francisco from Nov. 20-23, 2025.

Last updated May 30, 2025

CFP Experimental Horror (7/15/2025)

 

Call for Essays: Experimental Horror Edited Volume

deadline for submissions: 

July 15, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Erica Tortolani, Ph.D.

contact email: 

etort.phd@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/05/24/call-for-essays-experimental-horror-edited-volume

Please direct any general inquiries to Erica Tortolani at etort.phd@gmail.com.  

In Cutting Edge: Art Horror and the Horrific Avant-Garde, Joan Hawkins observes that avant-garde and experimental cinema oftentimes trade “the same images, tropes, and themes that characterize low culture” (3); low culture, in this instance, pertaining to genres like horror. Indeed, many experiments in film in video, like the horror genre, have banked on “uncomfortably visceral reaction(s)” (5), exploiting the physical limits of the body on screen. Moreover, in works like Possibly in Michigan (Condit, 1983), The Scary Movie (Ahwesh, 1993), and The Fourth Watch (Geiser, 2000), artists often utilize visual, aural, and narrative horrific elements (sometimes even referencing earlier horror films altogether) to further interrogate representational strategies in mainstream media and explore themes including bodily agency and autonomy, trauma, and memory. Conversely, the horror genre, in the hands of visionary, transgressive filmmakers, becomes experimental by design, pushing narrative, representational, and spectatorial boundaries in the process. Veronica Dolginko asserts that horror more broadly “can be seen as experimental by nature. Trying to find and craft excellent, full-force scares is a form of experimentation, and the trial and error that follows is really the only way to produce results” (n.p.). Recently, films like The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears (Cattet and Forzani, 2013), The Wolf House (León and Cociña, 2018), Friend of the World (Butler, 2020), Skinamarink (Ball, 2022), and Enys Men (Jenkin, 2022) have deliberately broken from aesthetic and narrative convention, expanding the boundaries of the genre in the process.  The experimental mode and horror genre, while widely studied as two separate entities, therefore have a significant, symbiotic relationship.

The proposed volume welcomes essays that consider any of the following topics:

1) Experimental films, videos, and/or interactive/multimedia installations that incorporate visual, aural, and/or narrative elements that relate to the horror genre;

2) Experimental films, videos, and/or interactive/multimedia installations that elicit adverse affective responses or uncomfortable visceral reactions, in the same manner as films belonging to the horror genre;

3) Feature-length (either released theatrically or via streaming video on demand) horror films that challenge linear narrative, points of identification, and/or generic tropes

Contributors are encouraged to consider the function and value of merging experimental film, video, and other visual media with the horror genre. How can we best operationalize experimental or avant-garde horror? For what purpose do filmmakers utilize horrific elements in their experimental works? How and with what impact do they manipulate horror-specific generic conventions? Why construct non-conventional horror films? What future lies ahead for experimental horror filmmaking?

Likewise, contributors may submit essays focusing on topics spanning temporal and geographic boundaries, with specific preference given to those writing about understudied and overlooked media texts. Essays on those films and other media crafted by BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and international artists (outside the US/Hollywood) are also strongly preferred.

Please submit essay abstracts (not exceeding 300 words in length) as well as a brief bio (not exceeding 150 words in length) to etort.phd@gmail.com no later than Tuesday, July 15 at 5:00 PM EST.

*** 

Some suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

Blood of the Beasts (Franju, 1949)

Dementia (VeSota, 1955)

Ursula (Williams, 1962)

Invocation of My Demon Brother (Anger, 1969); or, any works by Kenneth Anger

The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (Brakhage, 1971)

The Third Part of the Night (Zulawski, 1971)  

Ganja & Hess (Gunn, 1973)

Tape #1 1974 (Circa) (Maughan, 1974); or, any works by Cynthia Maughan

The Virgin Sacrifice (Lawrence [as J.X. Williams], 1974)

House (Obayashi, 1977)

Eraserhead (Lynch, 1977)

Altered States (Russell, 1980)

Secret Horror (Smith, 1980)

Beneath the Skin (Condit, 1981)

Grand Mal (Ourlser, 1981)

Cherie, mir ist schlecht (Kiss, 1983)

Possibly in Michigan (Condit, 1983)

Ghost (Takashi, 1984); or, any works by Takashi Ito

Where Evil Dwells (Turner and Wojnarowicz, 1985)

Begotten (Merhige, 1989)

Secrets of the Shadow World (Kuchar, 1988-99); or, any works by George Kuchar

Santa Sangre (Jodorowsky, 1989)

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Shin’ya, 1989)

The Scary Movie (Ahwesh, 1993)

His Master’s Voice (Gibbons, 1994); or, any works by Joe Gibbons

Don’t – Der Österreichfilm (Arnold, 1996)

Tuning the Sleeping Machine (Sherman, 1996)

Within Heaven and Hell (Cantor, 1996)

Nocturne (Ahwesh, 1998)

The Amateurist (July, 1998)

Ice from the Sun (Stanze, 1999)

The Fourth Watch (Geiser, 2000)

Hollywood Inferno (Episode 1) (Parnes, 2001-03)

Evokation of My Demon Sister (Cantor, 2002)

Hans und Grete (de Beer, 2002); or, any works by Sue de Beer

Bataille (Provost, 2003)

Ani(fe)mal(e) (Scheurwater, 2005); or, any works by Hester Scheurwater

Monster Movie (Takeshi, 2005); or, any works by Takeshi Murata

Amer (Cattet and Forzani, 2009); or, any works by Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani

Antichrist (von Trier, 2009)

Long Live the New Flesh (Provost, 2009)

Ghost Algebra (Geiser, 2010)

Disease of Manifestation (Tzu-An, 2011) 

Berberian Sound Studio (Strickland, 2012)

A Dream of Paper Flowers (Jarman, 2015)

My House Walk-Through (PiroPito, 2016)

Hauntology Film Archives (Colectivo Los Ingrávidos, 2018-22)

The Wolf House (León and Cociña, 2018); or, any works by Cristobal León and Joaquin Cociña

Atlantics (Diop, 2019)

Friend of the World (Butler, 2020)

Enys Men (Jenkin, 2022)

Skinamarink (Ball, 2022)

Stone Turtle (Woo, 2022)

The Great Curdling (Thomas, 2022); or, any works by Jennet Thomas

Last updated May 28, 2025

CFP American Nightmares II (Return to Salem): The Biennial Symposium of the Society for the Study of the American Gothic (10/1/2025; Salem, MA 3/19-21/2026)

American Nightmares II (Return to Salem): The Biennial Symposium of the Society for the Study of the American Gothic

deadline for submissions: 

October 1, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Society for the Study of the American Gothic

contact email: 

jschell5@alaska.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/05/23/american-nightmares-ii-return-to-salem-the-biennial-symposium-of-the-society-for-the

 Call For Proposals 

AMERICAN NIGHTMARES II: RETURN TO SALEMTHE BIENNIAL SYMPOSIUM OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF THE AMERICAN GOTHIC 

March 19th – 21st, 2026

Salem, Massachusetts 

Keynote Speaker: Victor Lavalle

Keynote Speaker: Siân Silyn Roberts 

Conference co-director: Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Central Michigan University

Conference co-director: Jennifer Schell, University of Alaska Fairbanks

With the kind support of the American Literature Association  Please join the Society for the Study of the American Gothic for our second biennial symposium! For this intimate event, we will be returning to the site of our first symposium, the iconic and charming Hawthorne Hotel in the heart of Salem, Massachusetts  (a hotel ranked as among the most haunted hotels in America). Who doesn’t like a sequel! Proposals are welcome for individual papers, 3- or 4-person paper sessions, and 5-person roundtable sessions on any aspect of the American Gothic, including literature, film, television, gaming, music, podcasts, and new media. Proposals on topics related to the conference theme (returns, sequels, and remakes) are particularly welcome. So are proposals on keynote speaker Victor LaValle. 

• Proposals for individual papers should be 200 words and include an abbreviated CV indicating academic affiliation and relevant publications, presentations, teaching, and/or research related to the topic of the presentation.

• Proposals for 3- or 4-person paper sessions should include abstracts and abbreviated CVs for each participant.

• Proposals for 5-person roundtables should explain the focus of the roundtable, identify the contribution of each participant, and provide abbreviated CVs for all involved.

• Proposals and questions may be directed to the conference co-directors, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (Jeffrey.Weinstock@cmich.edu) and Jennifer Schell (jschell5@alaska.edu). Please note that due to space constraints, this will be a relatively small event and audio-visual support will be limited

• THE DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS is October 1st, 2025.

Additional information about the Symposium and registration will be available on the SSAG website at http://www.americangothicsociety.com.  Interested parties are invited to join the SSAG facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/societyforthestudyoftheamericangothic 

 

Last updated May 28, 2025