The NEPCA website has a new address and design as of today.
Access the site at https://www.northeastpca.org/.
Hopefully we can start accepting proposals for the 2025 conference soon.
The event will be fully online this fall.
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Friday, April 4, 2025
CFP Gothic Literature: Creative Activity, Research, and Pedagogy (9/1/2025; Special Issue of Interdisciplinary Humanities)
Gothic Literature: Creative Activity, Research, and Pedagogy
deadline for submissions:
September 1, 2025
full name / name of organization:
Interdisciplinary Humanities
contact email:
Call for Papers
Interdisciplinary Humanities
Special Double Issue
Gothic Literature: Creative Activity, Research, and Pedagogy
Interdisciplinary Humanities announces a special double issue dedicated to exploring Gothic literature's rich and diverse world. This special issue will feature creative works, scholarly research, and pedagogy with a particular focus on the New England Gothic context, although submissions on alternate Gothic traditions are encouraged for specific areas of focus outlined below. We invite papers that investigate the New England Gothic genre's literary, cultural, and historical dimensions as well as creative works that engage with, draw inspiration from, and/or reinterpret Gothic traditions for contemporary audiences.
Research Topics
We welcome submissions that engage with topics such as the following:
- Critical analysis of Gothic texts, particularly focused on those rooted in the New England Gothic tradition.
- The evolution of New England Gothic literature’s themes and motifs, including the supernatural, horror, isolation, and decay. Of particular interest are the ways in which these phenomena integrate with conversations about Indigenous peoples, the Puritans, religious and cultural superstitions and stereotypes, clashes of diverse cultures in these contexts, etc.
- The intersection of Gothic literature with other literary genres such as horror, fantasy, science fiction, and media such as film, video games, and digital texts. This topic is open to submissions rooted across a more holistic Gothic literature and art field.
- Comparative studies of New England Gothic with other regional Gothic traditions, such as Southern Gothic or Transatlantic Gothic.
- Exploration of how New England Gothic literature reflects and shapes cultural anxieties related to gender, race, class, or historical trauma.
- Environmental and eco-Gothic themes, particularly in relation to the landscapes of New England.
- The role of art, architecture, geography, and space in Gothic narratives. This topic is open to submissions investigating a broad field of Gothic traditions.
- The relationship between Gothic literature and cultural theory and analysis, including religious or philosophical traditions.
Creative Works
We also invite creative submissions inspired by Gothic traditions. These may include but are not limited to:
- Short stories, flash fiction, or novel excerpts that are drawn specifically from New England Gothic themes and/or contexts.
- Poetry that evokes the New England Gothic tradition's atmosphere, tone, or imagery.
- Experimental or hybrid forms that push the boundaries of New England Gothic literature.
- Creative non-fiction or memoirs that reflect on personal encounters with New England Gothic themes, narratives, or landscapes.
Pedagogy
- Innovative teaching methods for the Gothic.
- Curriculum design and assessment strategies.
- Interdisciplinary approaches to teaching Gothic texts.
- Digital humanities and Gothic literature /culture education.
Editors
Volume 1: Gothic Literature: Creative Activity and Research
- Jay Burkette (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University)
- Wendy Galgan (Saint Joseph’s College of Maine)
- Megan Gannon (Ripon College)
- Darian Wharton (University of New Mexico)
Volume 2: Gothic Literature / Culture and Pedagogy
- Debra Bourdeau (Missouri University of Science and Technology)
- Clint Jones (Capital University)
- Mary Powell (Desert Vista High School and Grand Canyon University)
- Elissa Pugh (Concord University)
Important Dates
- Submission Deadline: October 1, 2025
- Notification of Acceptance: November 1, 2025
Review Process
All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review process. Manuscripts will be evaluated based on originality, relevance, methodological rigor, and contribution to the field.
Contact Information
- Ed Cueva, Interdisciplinary Humanities Lead Editor: cuevae@uhd.edu
Last updated March 31, 2025
CFP “A Day”: 2nd Annual Goth Music and Subculture Conference (5/22/2025; online 8/16/2025)
Sharing on behalf of the organizer.
“A Day”: 2nd Annual Goth Music and Subculture Conference
Deadline: May 22, 2025
Conference Date: August 16, 2025
Format: Online (via Zoom, Pacific)
Abstract: 150 words + 100 word biographical statement + Time Zone
Submit to: Noah Gallego, California State Polytechnic University @ noahrgallego@gmail.com
Contact: Noah Gallego @noahrgallego@gmail.com
The Goth Music and Subculture Conference is coming back from the grave for another round of critical discussion! Due to the success of the inaugural conference last August, this sophomore installment will continue to critically engage the music and other artifacts from the goth music genre and subculture.
Last year we commemorated the 45th anniversary of the release of the definitive goth single, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by the ur-goth band, Bauhaus, as well as the 68th death-day of the Count himself. This year, in 2025, we will commemorate two anniversaries: the 40th anniversary of the release of seminal Dutch darkwave Clan of Xymox’s self-titled debut album (1985) as well as the release of the Northern English goth industrial group The Sisters of Mercy’s debut album, First and Last and Always (1985).
1985 was a pivotal year in the goth subculture as both of these bands opened new doors to goth music production, with Xymox and the Sisters becoming pioneers in the darkwave and industrial subgenres, respectively. While the primary topics of inquiry for this conference are COX and TSOM, interested parties are welcome to explore other bands and discographies; they are especially encouraged to explore non-canonical as well as contemporary acts.
Below is a list that is illustrative but certainly not exhaustive of topics that prospective candidates are encouraged to explore:
Criticism:
- Gender, sexuality, queerness
- Disability
- Monstrosity and Abjection
- Class
- Race
- Postcolonialism, Decoloniality, (Neo-)Orientalism
- Religion, spirituality, the occult, theology
- Ecocriticism
- Nonhuman/Transhuman/Posthuman (Animals, cyborgs, A.I.)
- Feminism
- Trauma and psychoanalysis
- Rhetoric
- Memory, hauntology, and the archive
Intersections:
- Goth and literary influences
- Goth and popular culture (film, television, comics, video games, etc.)
- Goth and/as performance (theatre, drag)
- Goth and Internet culture
- Goth and fashion
- Goth and festival culture (concerts, goth nites, graves, dance)
- Goth and musicology
- Goth outside of the West
Please send abstracts of 150 words to Noah Gallego @ noahrgallego@gmail.com, along with a short biographical statement (100 words) and time zone in order to best approximate presentation times for speakers. B.N. If certain obligations require you to be slated at a specific time that day, please also include those suggested times in your submission so you may be placed appropriately.
There are no pre-formed panels, but if you would like to submit a proposal for a special topics session, please do! A minimum of 2 papers would be required. Otherwise, you will be placed in a panel at the discretion of the organizer on the basis of theme and cohesion.
Candidates may expect a notification of acceptance, acceptance with revision, or rejection up to a week following the deadline. Presenters should aim to create papers/presentations of approximately 10-15 minutes in length.
The conference will be held on the 69th death-day of The Count on August 16, 2025. The symposium will be free and held online over Zoom. The estimated time slot is 9:00 am - 5:00 pm Pacific.
*NOTE ABOUT PUBLISHING PAPERS: There are currently no plans to publish the accepted papers. However, depending on the success of the symposium, I am certainly open to the possibility of (co-)editing a collection or special issue based on the papers presented. If you would like to collaborate on this project, please let me know!
**NOTE ABOUT AUDIO: Because Zoom can sometimes compromise the efficacy of audio, we recommend to refrain from including live play from your presentations. We understand this may sound counterintuitive for a conference primarily about music but because we are working in a virtual environment where things are certain to go awry, we want to preemptively minimize any technical difficulties that may arise. You are welcome to include links to playlists of the tracks or artist(s) you will be discussing, however! We apologize for the inconvenience, but we appreciate your understanding.
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CFP Journal of Dracula Studies 2025 (5/16/2025)
Journal of Dracula Studies
deadline for submissions:
May 16, 2025
full name / name of organization:
Journal of Dracula Studies
The Journal of Dracula studies is open for submissions for its upcoming 2025 issue. We invite manuscripts of scholarly articles (4000-6000 words) on any of the following: Bram Stoker, the novel Dracula, the historical Dracula, the vampire in literature including folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics. For our 2025 issue we are especially interested in work looking at F.W. Murnau's 1922 film Nosferatu and its remakes/adaptations, as well as its influence on the legacy of Stoker's work and vampire literature more broadly. Submissions should be sent electronically (as an e-mail attachment in .docx). Please indicate the title of your submission in the subject line of your e-mail.
Please follow MLA style. Examples of papers published in the Journal are available at https://research.library.kutztown.edu/dracula-studies/.
Contributors are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions and ensuring observance of copyright.
Manuscripts will be peer-reviewed independently by at least two scholars in the field.
Copyright for published articles remains with the author.
Send electronic submissions to journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu
CFP Cinema and Posthuman Bodies (5/15/2025)
Cinema and Posthuman Bodies
deadline for submissions:
May 15, 2025
full name / name of organization:
Asijit Datta
Cinema and Posthuman Bodies
Edited by Asijit Datta
Let us begin with a few radical questions: If posthumanism indicates the ‘end of the human’ and an overhauling of humanistic modes of knowledge, does it also refer to the vanishing of the body?; or how do we define something as nebulous as a body, which is an embodied and extracted product of its surroundings?; or is it possible to arrive at a non-epistemic body or a body outside humanism’s claims and codes? Posthumanism interprets bodies as symbiotic, interrelational, transversal, contextually grounded, porous, and entangled assemblages of geo-biological, mythological-shapeshifting forces and various inorganic components. As a discourse, it practices the overcoming of traditional bodies and their cultural differences and instead imagines bodies that are non-anthropocentric, non-dualist, multiversal, cyborg, animalistic, deformed, extraterrestrial, sedimental, fossilized, archaeological, surgical, hybrid, digital, transitive, or all kinds of ‘post-humanist’ bodies that attack the heteronormative, straitjacketed, Vitruvian corporal frame of reference. Bodies, therefore, are not static objects open to anthropological or biological interrogation but represent dynamic, multi-layered forces that transcend all binaristic scaffoldings and form networks of interaction with non-human others in the ecosystem. In the course of history, the human body has moved through the routes of dualism (mind/body), differentiation (animal/human), anatomization (rise of medicine and remapping of entrails), prohibition (church/religion), perfection (Renaissance), industrialization (Industrial and French revolutions), transformation (World War and Avant-garde, Psychoanalysis), exploration (performance arts), regimentation (surveillance and biowarfare), and mutation (AI, biotechnology, and pandemics). Debates around the transmutation of bodies also raise concerns about the reproduction of cyberized figures, creation of artificial consciousness, transgenesis, uploading of memories onto a microchip (transubstantiation), or even cryopreservation. Where must we then urgently locate retaliatory, ‘obscene’ bodies in the age of the Anthropocene?
Science fiction, and especially horror films (found footage, creature features, psychological, slasher, zombie), seem to reinstate that the body given to us is prosthetic in nature. Despite being a heterogeneous amalgam and grounded in material-informational surroundings, the body has always reconstructed itself through substitutes and supplements. Film itself, as a medium, works as a widening device, extending the properties of the body inflicted with limitations. The need for physical replacements, additions, and erasures fundamentally emerges as a consequence of the aftereffects of death or the inevitability of death – the first generates fear, the other, shock. Somatic alterations imply a deep-seated proclivity in the human heart toward the unnatural, the bizarre, the traumatic. We are fascinated by the possibilities of our own primitive/futuristic bodies. Another intriguing thing to observe is that the metamorphosed person also seeks refuge in the monstrous identity of the other that they have now become. They are often posited as an object’s return to haunt the moral and ethical foundations of society or the body’s ways of dealing with its own anxieties. Gyrating and paroxysmic bodies move films beyond diegesis to some extra-sensory, spectatorial awakening. Eventually, bodies in such films endure metaphoric and polymorphic aftereffects of hyperconsumption. Genetic engineering, the atom bomb, the Holocaust, the AIDS crisis, the Cold War, and the ever-evolving colonial tendencies exposed the body to a constant feeling of nervousness and vertigo. Bodies, then, as hosts, are continuously tied to a kind of disquieting reaction to the socio-political, historical, and climatic encroacher and violator residing inside. Even early horrors like Nosferatu (1922) or Frankenstein (1931) address the problems of identity and deformity. Right from the appropriation of material bodies by amorphous aliens in Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Romero’s entrails-eating and pessimistic Night of the Living Dead (1968), to Cronenberg’s cosmetic implants and media meltdown in Videodrome (1983) and Tsukamoto’s cyberpunk metal fetishist Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), and down to Friedkin’s archaeological-antichristian Exorcist (1973), Scott’s extraterrestrial onslaught in Alien (1979), Boyle’s virus-crazy 28 Days Later (2002), Garland’s synthetic intelligence in Ex Machina (2014), and the recent ecological and extinction horrors like Train to Busan (2016), Cargo (2017), Annihilation (2018), and Gaia (2021) tend to convert concepts and metaphors into flesh, and flesh into something transgressive and ungraspable. A more alarming phenomenon is the sudden arrival of bodily variations or body horror in cinema, linked with depression, gender constructs, capitalist maltreatment, the environment, mechanophilia, sexual awakening, self-upgradation, self-censorship, pregnancy, infections, and sometimes even the sheer terror of being decaying mortal things. The otherized versions that a body is exposed to also enable it for an empathetic recognition of the torment of human and nonhuman others. Therefore, bodies as affective bearers of precarious coding are exhibited as sites of struggle and lessening subjectivity. However, in their heterogeneous arrangement, these ‘vulgar’ bodies are also modes of resistance.
Finally, the boundaries of consciousness are overwhelmed by the inherent plasticity of the body. The torture and distortion of bodies in horror or speculative cinema reconfigures its borders and stretches it beyond the grotesque and the bestial. These neomaterialist bodies, with their disintegrated constitution, challenge the divinely ordained authorized agents of humanism and the paradigm of autonomous transhumanism. Posthumanism tries to push the body from disidentification to reidentification. Bodies, under the posthumanist lens, are artifacts, artistic fabrications, postnatural, and mediated. They are not some authentic unity-to-be-preserved, but rather chimerical, microbial, and non-unitary. Horror films are strange places of post-death human afterness that also provide openings for the microbes living inside us to migrate to other, happier spaces.
This edited volume is in search of articles that discuss the potentialities and pluralities embedded within diverse posthuman bodies in horror and speculative cinema. The book invites original contributions on topics related to:
Posthumanism and Folk Horror
Posthumanism and Zombies
Posthumanism and Body Horror
Posthumanism and Slashers
Posthumanism and Ecohorror
Posthumanism and Monstrosity
Posthumanism and Body Invasions
Posthumanism and Aliens
Posthumanism and Disasters
Posthumanism and Parallel Universe
Posthumanism and Extinction
Posthumanism and Alternate Intelligence
Posthumanism and Cyberpunk
Posthumanism and Dystopia
Posthumanism and Mutation
Posthumanism and Found Footage
Specific Guidelines for Submission:
If interested, kindly send abstracts of 350 words, a 100-word bionote, and 5 keywords to kimoextraterrestrial@gmail.com by May 15th 2025.
Publisher: Bloomsbury (yet to receive the contract)
Full-length articles (6000 - 8000 words) by 30 September 2025.
For any queries, please contact Dr Asijit Datta (asijitdatta@gmail.com).
Last updated April 1, 2025
Conference Notice: Horror Studies Now (5/29-30/2025, Northumbria University, UK)
Sadly another CFP that I missed earlier in the year.
Horror Studies Now (29-30 May 2025, Northumbria University, UK)
deadline for submissions:
March 14, 2025
full name / name of organization:
Horror Studies Research Group, Northumbria University
Horror Studies Now: A Two-Day Conference (29-30 May 2025, Northumbria University, UK)
Researchers working in the broad field of “Horror Studies”, are invited to submit abstracts about their research for an in-person conference, hosted by the Horror Studies Research Group at Northumbria University (https://research.northumbria.ac.uk/horrorstudies), on 29-30 May 2025.
Speakers will each deliver a 15-minute talk about their research, followed by extended discussion and questions from the conference delegation. We welcome submissions from scholars at any career stage, but are particularly open to hearing from early career researchers and new voices in the field. The event is intended to provide a welcoming space in which to develop ideas, network, and forge collaborations with fellow Horror Studies researchers.
The event seeks to explore areas and approaches that have not yet been adequately accounted for or represented in the field, encompassing (but not limited to):
- The diversity of perspectives, identities, and voices that comprise Horror Studies and horror production
- Independent horror production, alternative histories, and horror produced outside of Europe and North America
- The field’s methodological richness, including archival approaches, audience research, practice-based research, and new theoretical perspectives
- The breadth of cultural perspectives that inform Horror Studies and horror media
- Papers that address horror in all its media forms including games, film, comics, music, social media, television, literature, art, and so forth
We seek to foreground scholarly excellence within the field by embracing a wide range of approaches, confronting representational biases within the canon, highlighting strategies to counter these biases, and contributing to a more diverse and inclusive academic landscape. We encourage and welcome expressions of interest from members of the global majority and people from underrepresented or marginalised groups.
Special guests include:
- Dr Cüneyt Çakırlar (Nottingham Trent University; editor of Transnational Horror: Folklore, Genre and Cultural Politics [Liverpool University Press, 2025])
- Dr Maxine Gee (Bournemouth University; screenwriter of short film Standing Woman [2020] and web series Tales of Bacon [2018])
- Professor Maisha L Wester (University of Sheffield/Indiana University, Bloomington; author of African American Gothic in the Era of Black Lives Matter [Cambridge University Press, 2025])
The deadline for abstracts (of 250 words) is 23:59 (GMT) Friday 14 March 2025. Abstracts should be accompanied by a biographical statement (of 50-100 words) and submitted at the following link: https://forms.office.com/e/FgdAxxxWxy.
A small fee will be required to attend to cover catering expenses; however, we are striving to keep this cost as low as possible. All speakers, unless they choose to decline, will have their work considered for the new Peter Hutchings Award for Outstanding Contribution to Horror Studies. The award includes a certificate for the winner and a publication (subject to revision) in Studies in the Fantastic.
Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their proposal within 14 days of the deadline.
Any questions should be directed to horrorstudies@northumbria.ac.uk
The Horror Studies Research Group at Northumbria:
Northumbria University is internationally renowned as the home of horror scholarship. This research specialism was founded by our late Professor Peter Hutchings, and the Horror Studies Research Group formalises Northumbria’s concentration of experts in this area. Our core team are widely recognised as leaders in this area, publishing field-defining monographs, presenting keynote lectures at major conferences, delivering talks at numerous European film festivals, holding positions on the editorial boards of the field’s primary book series and winning major research grants. Our global reputation for research excellence in Horror Studies is further proliferated by our many genre-based PhDs and alumni.
CFP Dracula: A Companion (3/31/2025)
Just came across this. Apologies for the late posting.
CFP: Dracula: A Companion
deadline for submissions:
March 31, 2025
full name / name of organization:
Matthew Crofts (University of Hull), Maddy Potter (University of Edinburgh)
contact email:
CFP: Dracula: A Companion
Matthew Crofts & Maddy Potter
Dracula: A Companion is intended to both be an essential guide to interpreting Bram Stoker’s Dracula and a collection of new perspectives supporting a reshaping of the way the text is taught and engaged with by students.
Fundamental to the approach of this companion is placing the text at the epicentre of its own cultural afterlife and pop culture status. Beginning with the novel’s inception and influences, Dracula is positioned as a ‘spark’ that ignited the character's enduring popularity and presence across the globe. From here, the familiar topics the novel is understood through will see novel perspectives, accounting not only for new and exciting research, but exploring how Dracula’s immortality stems from how it can be subjected to new approaches, showcasing the versatility of the book, and its continued capacity to lend itself to readings that speak of topical cultural concerns.
The final sections prioritise the way the text has been reshaped to suit contemporary audiences, distanced from the ‘original’ novel through adaptation and literary pastiche. Every ‘version’ of Dracula has the potential to be someone’s first encounter with the character, and may be what they think of when hearing the name. By giving this aspect a clear focus it establishes to students and readers alike that ‘Dracula’ is not contained within the novel, but has become a myth recognised across the globe.
We kindly request abstracts of no more than 250 words for either full essay style chapters of 4,500 words or shorter case studies focusing on individual texts of approx 2000 words. We are also open to further ideas, suggestions, and questions. The deadline for abstracts is Monday March 31st 2025. Full contributions are expected to be due at the end of Summer 2025.
Please email abstracts or any other enquiries to madeline.potter@ed.ac.uk & m.crofts@hull.ac.uk
Potential topics (but by no means limited to):
Theatrical Influences on the novel’s form Historical influences
Transylvania as a mosaic (Hungarian and Irish Parallelism)
Stoker: a biographical reading
Global Dracula Stoker’s own travels
Dracula in translation
New perspectives on sexuality: LGBTQA+ readings/drag
New scientific & medical readingsNew perspectives on race
Romany enslavement
Dracula as Sensation fiction/Victorian popular fiction
Publishing practices
Reception of Dracula
Reading Dracula as a werewolf text
Neo-Victorian readings
Wider cultural understanding of Dracula [Intended as shorter chapters, akin to case studies of texts]
Dracula adaptations, appropriations and pastiches
Neglected adaptations (eg. The Claes Bang/Gatiss version, The 1977 Louis Jourdan version)
Neglected adaptations from non-anglo/American countries
Non-Western Draculas
Dracula for children: eg. Hotel Transylvania eg. Count Duckula
Dracula games (computer and table-top)
Dracula in New Media & Fandom
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