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.
Saturday, July 19, 2025
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.
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.
Friday, June 6, 2025
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)
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
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
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.
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
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
Stay up to date with PopCRN on our social pages & website
- www.popcrn.org
- X (ex-Twitter) - https://twitter.com/PopcultureUne
- Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100071540522655
- Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/popcrn.bsky.social
- LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14503409/
Last updated May 29, 2025
Tuesday, June 3, 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:
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
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.
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
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
CFP Mothers, Mothering, and Motherhood in the King Universe (8/31/2025)
Mothers, Mothering, and Motherhood in the King Universe
deadline for submissions:
August 31, 2025
full name / name of organization:
Dr Conner McAleese
contact email:
Dr Conner McAleese invites proposals on representations of motherhood in any of Stephen King’s fiction.
Over the past fifty years, King’s works have been adapted, discussed, academically investigated, and, of course, read to an extent that few authors have ever been before. However, one aspect of King’s writing has yet to be given scholastic attention – the mothers of Stephen King’s fiction.
From Margaret White’s religious fanaticism in Carrie (1974) and Piper Laurie’s terrifying portrayal of the same character in Brian de Palma’s 1976 adaptation of King’s debut novel, King has obsessively and consistently employed mothers, and the tropes of motherhood, within his novels and short stories. Rachel Creed’s obsessive fear of death, and its realisation in her young son, Gage, is indicative of how generational trauma plays a significant role in Pet Sematary (1983) and in King’s wider representations of motherhood. Donna Trenton’s tragic defence of son, Tad, in Cujo (1981) demonstrates how a mother’s guilt of past betrayals can become horrific karmic punishments, at least to a mother’s mind. Wendy Torrance, and her bond with her son, Danny Torrance, in King’s The Shining (1977) and Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the same name in 1980, have become synonymous with how King balances gender, motherhood, and the role of wife as a source of horror.
However, King’s writings on mothers and motherhood is not limited to the 20th century. New takes on mothers and mothering abound in his 21st century works. Holly Gibney’s prominence in King’s recent writings, shows King’s understanding of how the role of ‘mother’ has changed in the past twenty years. Mrs Sigsby and Maureen Alvorson of King’s The Institute (2019), too, demonstrate new and competing paradigms in which King’s mothers transcend the binary of being either wholly good or wholly evil (a common criticism of King’s writing), as more dynamic and competing representations of motherhood are shown in his works (patriotism, and mental illness in the case of Sigsby and Alvorson respectively).
This collection seeks to break new ground in our understanding of King’s prolific contributions to literature. In focussing on mothers, motherhood, and the desire to ‘mother’, this collection aims to demonstrate the compelling and deliberate use of gendered ‘nurturing’ tropes within King’s works and how their reinforcement and subversion informs his horror. Suggested topics include, but are in no way limited to:
- Motherhood and Trauma
- Creating horror from the need to ‘mother’ (e.g. Annie Wilkes in Misery)
- Familial relationships/dynamics in King’s fiction (with mothers being included)
- Generational Trauma and its effects on the mothers in King’s works (e.g. Rachel Creed’s fear of death in Pet Sematary)
- Depictions of mothers in King’s adapted works
- Religion and its influence on Mothering Strategies (e.g. Margaret White in Carrie and Mother Abigail in The Stand)
- Pregnancy in King’s Fiction
- The rejection of motherhood in King’s fiction (e.g. Holly Gibney)
- Mental Illness in the mothers of Stephen King
- Navigating gender through motherhood (e.g. Wendy Torrance in The Shining)
- The recuperative function of motherhood
- Resilience and Motherhood (e.g. Annemarie in Salem’s Lot)
- Queer Coding mothers in King’s fiction
- Motherhood, fear and loss (e.g. Donna Trenton in Cujo)
- Defending children in King’s fiction (e.g. the Loser’s Club in IT)
- Villainy and the ‘doubly deviant’ female
- Motherhood and control (e.g. Sonia Kaspbrak from IT)
- Incest, Sexuality and Motherhood (e.g. Deborah Hartsfield in Mr Mercedes)
- Any writing on the mothers in Stephen King’s Fiction
Chapters should be between 2,500 and 4,500 words long (including endnotes and bibliography) and this proposal will be initially submitted to the Genre Fiction and Film Companions at Peter Lang (Oxford).
Please send a proposal of 250 words, together with a brief biography to Conner McAleese via cmcaleese@dundee.ac.uk by the 31st of August, 2025. All decisions will be communicated no later than the 20th of September, 2025.
Full chapters will be due in mid-2026.
If you have any questions, no matter how informal, please do not hesitate to communicate those as early as possible.
About the Editor
Dr Conner McAleese is an early career researcher, currently working at the University of Dundee. He has published works on American Folk Horror, 21st Century American Horror Literature, and 21st Century Horror films. His Ph. D thesis deals with issues of American identity, trauma, and anxiety in horror literature written after 9/11 and the creation of the Homeland Security and PATRIOT Acts.
Last updated May 28, 2025
Monday, June 2, 2025
CFP Architectures of the Apocalypse (6/6/2025; Boston 2/26-28/2026)
Architectures of the Apocalypse
deadline for submissions:
June 6, 2025
full name / name of organization:
Irit Kleiman, Boston University
The word apocalypse contains a paradox. In common usage, it means, “a disaster resulting in drastic, irreversible damage to human society or the environment, esp. on a global scale; a cataclysm” (OED); but the word’s roots come from the ancient Greek for “unveiling."
Apocalypse contains both end and beginning, annihilation and exaltation. The apocalyptic promises death and destruction, yes, but also, knowledge and transformation. The apocalypse is above all a threshold. Thus, as an object of inquiry, apocalypse calls for the examination of perspective and perception, as much as of semiotics and the historical.
Many readers’ associations with the word apocalypse will be to the New Testament Book of Revelation. Others might think first of more recent (post-1945) literary and cinematic imaginings of the dystopian. For others still, plagues, the fall of empires, and climate emergencies will come to the fore. The character of these apocalyptic cataclysms and revelations varies not only according to the specificities of history, religion and culture; epoch or technology; genre or medium; but also in the nature of the destruction and revelations promised.
It is clear that we are living through yet another historical moment in which the concept of apocalypse has become both pressing and omnipresent. How can we take the word apocalypse itself as an invitation to transcend the obvious, and access new knowledge and new ways of knowing? Do human beings need some kind of absolute limit, an absolute that makes contingent structures possible? Nearly every religion’s imagining of time's shape contains some form of projected ending. Meanwhile, contemporary astrophysics delivers its own version of the ends and beginnings of the cosmos, on equally grand scale. One question that animates this proposal is whether or how the polyvalent and multifaceted notion of apocalypse operates as a formal, necessary thought structure; that is, as a framework necessary to the human ability to think about time, knowledge, or historicity.
This multi-day conference/workshop will bring together scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines in order to examine the notion of “apocalypse,” with a view to the publication of their papers in a dedicated forthcoming issue of the journal Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques. Thematic strands might include:
- Ecology, climate, and the Anthropocene in historical perspective
- Mysticism and eschatology in world religions, including Messianic movements
- Scale and temporalities, both nano- and cosmic-, in dialogue with the natural sciences
- Human bodies as sites of historical inscription, both in archaeological and speculative contexts
- Representations of apocalypse in the visual arts and in music
- Narrative perspectives: fictions, genres, prophetic voices, survivor tales
- Medicine, technology, and other sometimes-secular renderings of human sin
- Hopes and disappointments, planned-for endings that did not arrive
- Historical frames: cataclysm and cultural extinction as both fact and recurring trope
Please submit proposals of 350-500 words by May 31, 2025 (preferred), using this Google form: https://forms.gle/8LrkePDVcmCUJFro6;
responses by June 15, 2025.
Workshop to be held in-person in Boston, USA, 26-28 February 2026, pending budgetary and other considerations. “Plan B” is a hybrid option.
Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques is a peer-reviewed, bilingual English/French journal. Authors may write in either language. Texts suitable for peer-review will be due during the Spring of 2026, in view of publication in early 2027.
Last updated May 28, 2025
CFP Return to the South: The Complexities of Southern Culture in Ryan Coogler's film Sinners (7/1/2025; Special Issue Journal of American Culture)
Return to the South: The Complexities of Southern Culture in Ryan Coogler's film Sinners
deadline for submissions:
July 15, 2025
full name / name of organization:
Journal of American Culture
Return to the South: The Complexities of Southern Culture in Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners.
On April 18, Warner Brothers released Ryan Coogler’s long anticipated film Sinners. Since its release, the film has achieved both critical acclaim and popular resonance, marking a significant entry in contemporary Southern cinema. Critics and audiences praise Sinners for its nuanced treatment of inter/intra-racial dynamics, spirituality, and regional identity. In addition, the film has prompted sustained cultural discourse, and now, academic interest in the South. Its layered narrative and atmospheric rendering of the South position Sinners as a vital text for examining the complexities of Southern culture and history.
The Southern United States has long been mythologized, contested, and critically dissected; its socio-cultural historical complexities have been largely ignored. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners presents the complexities of the South and Southern culture(s) as it situates the story within the Mississippi Delta in 1932. Coogler utilizes the genre of horror and the conventions of the vampire to explore these complexities through a contemporary lens. The film situates itself at the crossroads of religion, race, history, and redemption, challenging romanticized and reductive portrayals of the American South.
The Journal of American culture is seeking contributions for a special edition titled, Return to the South: The Complexities of Southern Culture in Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners. We invite scholars, critics, and practitioners to submit papers that explore the multilayered dimensions of Sinners, with particular attention to how Coogler crafts, critiques, and complicates Southern cultural narratives. Interdisciplinary approaches, especially, are welcome, drawing from fields such as film and visual culture studies, Southern studies, African American studies, gender studies, theology, history, and cultural geography.
An abstract of 250-500 words is due July 15, 2025. If the abstract is accepted, the complete paper (3,500–7,500 words) is due October 15, 2025. Include your full name, institutional affiliation, title, and email address (not included in the 250-500 text limit) at the beginning of your abstract. Submissions and queries should be sent to Kwakiutl L. Dreher kdreher2@nebraska.edu and Katrina Moore katrina.moore@slu.edu
Topics of interest include but not limited to:
- Coogler’s directorial vision in reimagining the South
- The return to the south as a space of (re)ro(u)oting
- Identity of Cast and Director with the South
- Folklore and folk traditions in Southern Black culture
- The politics of sin, salvation, and moral ambiguity in Southern storytelling
- (Black) fe/male entrepreneurship
- Nature (birds, land, cotton, etc.)
- Lessons taught/lessons learned
- The performance of Black love and Black Joy
- Representations of kinship
- Generational trauma
- Black Southern identity and cultural resistance
- The role of religion, churches, and spiritual spaces
- Memory, land, and contested Southern geographies
- Intersections of gender, sexuality, and faith in Southern contexts
- Cinematic aesthetics of the Southern Gothic and its subversion
- Historical reckoning and the burden of legacy
- The role of sound, music, and silence in evoking Southern atmospheres
- Immigrant culture and influence/exchange on Black Southern tradition
- Dance and Spirituality
- Secular and Sacred traditions
- African/Ancestral cultural traditions in religion, dance, music, etc in Southern society
- Voodoo, Christianity and other practices
- Cultural analysis of other works by Coogler
Last updated May 28, 2025
CFP Gothic in Bengal: Literature and Culture (6/10/2025)
Call for Papers for an Edited Volume - Gothic in Bengal: Literature and Culture
deadline for submissions:
June 10, 2025
full name / name of organization:
DoctorsBhattacharya
Call for Papers for an Edited Volume
Gothic in Bengal: Literature and Culture
The Gothic has long been recognised as a potent mode of cultural expression, historically rooted in the anxieties, fears, and moral uncertainties of Western Europe. From its 18th-century origins in British literature, the Gothic evolved to encompass a wide range of tropes—decay, the supernatural, the haunted past, and the psychological uncanny—becoming a tool for interrogating power, identity, and transgression. While much scholarship has focused on the European and American Gothic, there is a growing need to investigate its global resonances, particularly its entanglements with postcolonial histories and vernacular traditions.
This call invites scholarly contributions for a volume/issue exploring the Gothic in Bengal, with a focus on literature, visual culture, folklore, performance, and material history. Bengal—both as a region and as a cultural-linguistic space—offers a fertile ground for rethinking the Gothic through its own unique colonial, political, and social experiences. From the spectral presences in the stories of Rabindranath Tagore and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay to the eerie films of Satyajit Ray and the ghostly tales of bhuter golpo, Bengal's cultural production abounds with Gothic elements that merit deeper theoretical engagement.
The proposed collection seeks to ask:
- How has the Gothic been appropriated, transformed, or hybridized in Bengali literary and cultural forms?
- What are the socio-political and historical conditions—colonialism, nationalism, Partition, urbanisation, environmental decay—that inform Gothic aesthetics in Bengal?
- In what ways do local belief systems, folklore, and vernacular traditions inflect the Gothic with regionally specific meanings?
- Can we speak of a "Bengali Gothic" or "vernacular Gothic" that challenges or reorients Anglophone theoretical paradigms?
We welcome submissions on themes and topics including, but not limited to, the following:
- The supernatural and the uncanny in Bengali short stories and novels
- Colonial hauntings and postcolonial trauma
- Gothic spaces: ruins, forests, old mansions, and urban decay
- Ghosts, spirits, and possession in Bengali folklore and religious practices
- Gender, sexuality, and repression in Bengali Gothic narratives
- The Gothic in Bengali cinema and television (e.g., Satyajit Ray, Rituparno Ghosh, contemporary horror)
- Partition, memory, and spectrality
- Translation and transnational flows of the Gothic
- Eco-Gothic and environmental anxieties in Bengal
- Children’s literature and the Gothic imagination
We welcome original essays, case studies, archival explorations, and theoretical interventions that engage critically with these and related questions. Contributions may draw from both Anglophone and vernacular sources, and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged.
Submission Guidelines:
- Abstract: 250-300 words along with 4-5 keywords outlining the proposed paper
- Bionote: 100 words (name, affiliation, contact details, and brief research interests)
- Deadline for Abstracts: 10th June, 2025.
- Notification of Acceptance: 12th June, 2025.
- Full Paper Submission: 5th July, 2025.
The full paper must not exceed 2,500-4,000 words.
Please send abstracts and bios to bookchapters89@gmail.com.
For further enquiries, please feel free to reach out at (+91) 7980150229.
Last updated May 28, 2025
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