CFP New Perspectives on Creature Features (3/10/2025)

 

New Perspectives on Creature Features

deadline for submissions: 

March 10, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns

contact email: 

monstersfilms@yahoo.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/12/18/new-perspectives-on-creature-features. 

New Perspectives on Creature Features

 

Edited by

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

 

The editor is looking to put together an edited collection on creature features. The recent success of films such as Crawl (Alexander Aja, 2019) and the Monsterverse (Godzilla, King Kong, etc.), and the renewed interest in rebooting the classical monster pantheon (Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man) has shown that there is a growing interest in monsters’ films. Arguably, horror cinema began with creatures such as Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy and the Wolf Man and they have been popular since then. During the 1950s, the classical monsters were replaced by hideous alien creatures and the 1970s were witness of the “animal revenge” horror cycle. Creature features is today as popular as yesterday (maybe even more), yet “monster movies” are still considered as lowbrow efforts. Thus, this edited collection looks for close readings of films led by creatures and monsters in the 21st Century. Classical films will be welcome if analyzed through new, contemporary theories to show how their purpose/meaning has changed over time.

This collection will be global in scope, and creatures features Asia, Africa, and Latin America are very welcome.

 

Contributions could include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

 

-Classical monsters (vampires, werewolves, the Frankenstein monster, etc.)

- Animals in horror cinema

-Aliens

-Cryptids

-Trash cinema

-The creature as metaphor

-Creatures features and humor

-Global creatures’ features

-Kaiju

-Cute monsters

 

 

We are open to works that focus on other topics as well. Prospective authors are well to contact the editor with any questions, including potential topics not listed above. Please submit a 300-500-word abstract of your proposed chapter contribution as a Word Doc (not PDF) with a brief bio (in the same document), current position, affiliation, and complete contact information to editor Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns to monstersfilms@yahoo.com by 10 March 2025. Potential contributors must keep in mind that this book will be edited by Peter Lang for its “New Perspectives” series (edited by Simon Bacon), which asks for short chapters of around 3,500-4,000 words.

Final chapters are likely due in August 2025.

Please share this announcement with anyone you believe would be interested in contributing to this volume.

Note: Acceptance of a proposed abstract does not guarantee the acceptance of the full chapter

 

 

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (PhD in Arts, PhD Candidate in History) works as Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) - Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Argentina)-. He teaches courses on international horror film. He is director of the research group on horror cinema “Grite” and has authored a book about Spanish horror TV series Historias para no Dormir (Universidad de Cádiz, 2020) and has edited books on Frankenstein bicentennial (Universidad de Buenos Aires), one on director James Wan (McFarland, 2021), the Italian giallo film (University of Mississippi Press, 2022), horror comics (Routledge, 2022) and Hammer horror films (Routledge, 2024). Currently editing a book on Baltic horror. He is Director of “Terror: Estudios Críticos” (Universidad de Cádiz, Spain), the first-ever horror studies series in Spain.

 

https://posgrado.filo.uba.ar/pagnoni-fernando

categories

fan studies and fandom

film and television

interdisciplinary

journals and collections of essays

popular culture

Last updated January 2, 2025

CFP Northeastern Monsters (8/1/21; NEPCA virtual 10/21-23/21)

Here's the second special call for NEPCA 2021:


Northeastern Monsters

Session Proposed for the 2021 Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association

Sponsored by the Monsters & the Monstrous Area

Virtual event, Thursday, 21 October, through Saturday, 23 October 2021.

Proposals due by 1 August 2021.



The Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (a.k.a. NEPCA) prides itself on holding conferences that emphasize sharing ideas in a non-competitive and supportive environment. We welcome proposals for presentations of 15-20 minutes in length, from researchers at all levels, including undergraduate and graduate students, junior faculty, and senior scholars, as well as independent scholars. NEPCA conferences offer intimate and nurturing sessions in which new ideas and works-in-progress can be aired, as well as completed projects.

For this session, we’re looking for papers that explore and highlight the Northeast’s contributions to monster lore, including authors, events, individuals, locations, and, of course, monsters.



If you are interested in joining this session, please submit the following information into NEPCA’s online form at http://bit.ly/PopCFP2021.

• Proposal Type (Single Presentation or Panel
• Subject Area (select the “Monsters and the Monstrous” from the list)
• Working Title
• Abstract (250 words)
• Short bio (50-200 words)

Address any inquiries to the area chairs: Michael A. Torregrossa at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com.

Presenters are also required to become members of NEPCA for the year.

CFP Modern Myth and Legend (9/2/2015; Louisville, KY 2/18-20/2016)

Cross-posted from NEPCA Fantastic:

Modern Myth and Legend - Louisville Conference (Feb. 18-20, 2016)
full name / name of organization: International Lawrence Durrell Society
contact email: clawsonj@gram.edu
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63312

The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900


http://www.thelouisvilleconference.com


Louisville, KY | 18-20 February 2016

"we do create the world around us since we get it to reflect back our inner symbolism at us. Every man carries a little myth-making machine inside him which operates often without him knowing it. Thus you might say that we live by a very exacting kind of poetic logic--since we get exactly what we ask for, no more and no less."
--The Dark Labyrinth (1947)

Dealing overtly with ideas of myth and legend, Lawrence Durrell's The Dark Labyrinth chronicles the adventures of British tourists exploring a cave system on Crete just after World War II. Despite their awareness of how reality is transformed by their individual experiences, beliefs, and myth-making, they are no less susceptible to the fear of the minotaur which might be chasing them through the dark passageways. A myth becomes the way we understand the world. As a legend, the monster and its labyrinth offer grounds to reflect on personal terrors and emerge triumphant—or be consumed.

In anticipation of our upcoming conference on Crete, the International Lawrence Durrell Society calls for papers addressing the broad theme of Modern Myth and Legend for a society-sponsored session of the 2016 Louisville Conference. We welcome proposals on aspects of Durrell's writing or other topics addressing the theme. Some possible topics include the following:

• W. B. Yeats's esoteric blending of Greek, Irish, and other mythologies
• Refigured legends in the aftermath of T.S. Eliot's "Ulysses, Order, and Myth," including Iris Murdoch's The Green Night or John Gardner's Grendel
• Frazer's The Golden Bough and its impact on modernist literature
• Fantasy repurposing legend, as in Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series
• Mythologizing the 20th century in film, including for example Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth or Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away
• Legendary societies, urban legends, apocrypha, and literary mysteries
• Symbolic use of tall tales, or the literary adapting of Bigfoot, werewolves, vampires, minotaurs, homunculi, gorgons, witches, griffins, manticores, giants, etc.

Please send a 250-word abstract to James Clawson (clawsonj@gram.edu), International Lawrence Durrell Society, by Sept. 2, 2015. Final presentations should be limited to 20 minutes in length.


By web submission at 08/06/2015 - 20:58

Reading List: Godzilla on My Mind

Final post for the night:

Godzilla turned 60 last year, yet this event seems to have been largely unacknowledged by the academic world, despite the appearance of a blockbuster film this past summer. His 50th birthday, however, was commemorated by William Tsutsui's Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters (2004). The book is both a history of the Godzilla franchise and its popularity as well as a personal account of Tsutsui's own fascination and love for the monster. It is an interesting and insightful book.

GODZILLA ON MY MIND: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters
William Tsutsui

St. Martin's Press
Palgrave Macmillan Trade
October 2004
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9781403964748
ISBN10: 1403964742
5.60 x 8.45 inches, 256 pages
Includes 24 black-and-white illustrations throughout
$ 18.00

This year, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance on the screen, the original, uncut version of Godzilla was released in American theaters to the delight of Sci-Fi and B-Movie fans everywhere. Ever since Godzilla (or, Gojira, as he is known in Japan) crawled out of his radioactive birthplace to cut a swath of destruction through Tokyo, he has claimed a place alongside King Kong and others in the movie monster pantheon. He is the third most recognizable Japanese celebrity in the United States, and his fan base continues to grow as children today prove his enduring appeal. Now, Bill Tsutsui, a life-long fan and historian, takes a light-hearted look at the big, green, radioactive lizard, revealing how he was born and how he became a megastar. With humorous anecdotes, Godzilla on My Mind explores his lasting cultural impact on the world. This book is sure to be welcomed by pop culture enthusiasts, fans, and historians alike.

CFP The Supernatural Revamped collection (2/1/15)

Sorry to have forgotten about this:

CFP: The Supernatural Revamped (collection of essays)
Posted on October 28, 2014 by Public Information Officer
CFP: The Supernatural Revamped (collection of essays)
http://www.fantastic-arts.org/2014/cfp-the-supernatural-revamped-collection-of-essays/

The Supernatural Revamped: From Timeworn Legends to 21st Century Chic
Editors: Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan, Nova Southeastern University

Project Overview
Editors Brodman and Doan are seeking original essays for their third of a series of books on legends and images of the supernatural in film, literature and lore from early to modern times and from peoples and cultures around the world. Their first two volumes, The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013) and Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013), finalist for a prestigious Bram Stoker book award, dealt exclusively with the vampire legend. This volume is more inclusive, with emphasis placed on the evolution of a broad spectrum of timeworn images of the supernatural into their more modern—even chic—forms.

Each chapter in the collection will focus on one of the following categories of supernaturals:
1. Revenants (vampires, ghosts, zombies, etc.)
2. Demons and Angels
3. Shape Shifters
4. Earthbound Supernaturals (trolls, dwarves, yetis, chupacabras, etc.)
5. Fairy Folk (elves, fairies, leprechauns, etc.)

Abstract Due Dates
Preference will be given to abstracts received before February 1, 2015. Late submissions will be accepted until April 1, 2015. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words.
Final manuscripts of 3,000-4,000 words should be submitted in Chicago Style.
Contact us and send abstracts to: brodman@nova.edu or doan@nova.edu

CFP Animal Horror/Animal Gothic Film Collection (expired)

Ran across this last month. Sorry to have missed posting it sooner:

Animal Horror/Gothic Horror Film (Book Project)
Event: 01/01/2015
Abstract: 01/30/2014
Categories: American, 20th & 21st Century, British, 20th & 21st Century, Comparative, Gender & Sexuality, Interdisciplinary, Cultural Studies, Film, TV, & Media, Popular Culture
Location: Publication
Organization: Umeå University, Sweden, Linnaeus University, Sweden
http://www.cfplist.com/CFP.aspx?CID=2113

Animal Horror/Animal Gothic Film

We invite proposals for the first book-length collection that explores the confrontation between the human and the animal in horror, gothic and survival film. From Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) via The Edge (1997) to Piranha 3D (2010), animal horror has charted the transformation of the domestic to the monstrous and uncanny, told stories of invasion and counter-invasion, collapsed and erected sexual and racial borders and explored the increasingly fraught relationship between human culture, human society and nature/Nature.

We are interested in contributions that explore animal horror films in the light of the ethics of the war on terror, ecological collapse, and biopolitics with an emphasis on sex, gender, race and post-/neo-/decolonial issues. In particular, we are interested in papers that address the following concerns:

• How can the understanding of animal horror be channelled through the perspectives of gender, feminist and queer studies? What forms of sexuality does the genre explore, encourage or disrupt?

• How does animal horror engage questions of terror and torture, especially in the “state of exception” that has followed in the wake of 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan?

• How does animal horror negotiate questions of race and ethnicity? How is race inscribed into animal horror films through portrayals of bodies, blood and the relation between human and animal worlds?

• How does animal horror explore, encourage or disturb discourses on ecology and environmental pollution? How can animal horror be understood in the light of the Anthropocene?

• Animal horror is often characterized by elements of comedy and humour. How does this complicate and subvert the conservative or progressive discourses that saturate the genre?

• How are animal horror films financed, how has the genre developed over time, and what is its relation to the entertainment industry and to the increasingly ubiquitous Military entertainment complex?

For purposes of limitation, this collection will deal only with actual (and possibly genetically enhanced) animals, but not with monsters, supernatural or mythological creatures. In other words, gigantic anacondas, sharks or crocodiles are fine, but werewolves, unicorns, Godzilla or space aliens fall outside the scope of the collection.

The editors are Johan Höglund, Katarina Gregersdotter and Nicklas Hållén. Johan Höglund (Linnaeus
University) is author of The American Imperial Gothic: Popular Culture, Empire, Violence (forthcoming Ashgate, 2014), and co-editor of Transnational and Postcolonial Vampires: Dark Blood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Nicklas Hållén (Linnaeus University and University of York) and Katarina Gregersdotter (Umeå University) are co-editors of the anthology Femininities and Masculinities in Action: Theory and Practice in a Moving Field (ID Press, 2012). Gregersdotter is also co-editor of Rape in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy and Beyond. Contemporary Scandinavian and Anglophone Crime Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Please send abstracts of no more than 400 words to Johan Höglund (johan.hoglund@lnu.se), Nicklas

Hållén (nicklas.hallen@lnu.se), and Katarina Gregersdotter (katarina.gregersdotter@engelska.umu.se)

before the deadline Jan 30, 2014. Full articles will be due mid to late 2014.



Contact Email: katarina.gregersdotter@engelska.umu.se

Cryptid Heroes from the Kroffts

Here's the last set for tonight, two cryptid heroes from Sid and Marty Krofft:

Monster (Super)Heroes and (Super)Villains

Here's a mixed group of shows featuring monsters as superhero-like heroes and villains. Details on all five shows can be found on their respective Wikipedia pages.

Relative of Kong?

Grape Ape, also from Hanna-Barbera, is a humorous take on the figure of King Kong. Grape is a hero and, instead of a boy, has a canine companion.

King Kong Cartoons

Two series featuring the cryptid King Kong. Both feature the giant gorilla (Gigantopithecus?) as a heroic figure.

The first series, from the 1960s, introduces a recurrent theme when the preternatural is translated into children's culture and follows the now familar motif of a boy and his monster.



The second, a more recent series, also allies Kong with humans and, like the Godzilla cartoon from the 1980s, grants the monstrous hero superpowers.