CFP Gothic Studies Area (6/30/2023; MAPACA Philadelphia 11/9-11/2023)

MAPACA: Gothic Studies

deadline for submissions:
June 30, 2023

full name / name of organization:
Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association: Gothic Studies Area

contact email:
wsmcmasters@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/05/10/mapaca-gothic-studies



Gothic Studies CFP for MAPACA 2023: The Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association is accepting proposals until June 30 for their 2023 conference, Nov 9 - 11, in Philadelphia, PA. General guidelines can be found at mapaca.net and below. Please consider submitting to the Gothic Studies area: https://mapaca.net/areas/gothic-studies



The Gothic Studies area invites proposals which engage with the genre and culture of the Gothic as it is represented in film, television, literature, art, and society. We are especially interested in ways that the Gothic aesthetic defines itself against other predominate modes, or genres, of storytelling or culture. We also invite proposals concerned with subgenres of the Gothic across media, like the American Gothic, southern Gothic, feminine Gothic, the “weird tale,” and the ecoGothic as represented film, television, literature, music, fashion, art, and culture.

For more information and for the general CFP, visit mapaca.net



Last updated May 11, 2023

CFP Dark Academia: Definitions, Theories, and Prospects (4/1/2022)

Dark Academia: Definitions, Theories, and Prospects

DUE DATE: 04-01-2022

Source: https://profession.mla.org/opportunity/dark-academia-definitions-theories-and-prospects/

We seek essays and papers for an edited collection that engages the concept of dark academia. At the center of the dark academic sensibility lies a paradox: though dark academia enjoys the cosmetic trappings of the pursuit of higher knowledge, it is at its core a celebration of the university as a place of occultation and performativity. The dark academic’s taste for mystery, history, and a distinctly Anglophone, Romantico-modernist canon—coupled with an equally distinct early-twentieth-century sartorial and lifestyle model—runs inevitably into exclusivity, elitism, and reactionary nostalgia. Indeed, the case can be made that these very elements are in fact constitutive of dark academia, as such.

Across social media, dark academia is frequently invoked as a community-building common interest for self-proclaimed oddballs or introverts who love learning—a characterization that would seem to put it in direct tension with its actual content. What can we make of this tension? Is dark academia inherently, irredeemably reactionary? In its original, social media incarnation—running as it often does to showing off outfits of the day, retro accessories, beautiful architecture, and carefully curated playlists—does it become, simply, a consumerist phenomenon? Or can we use it to think radically? If radical, does it become something other than dark academia? Whither light, gray, and chromatic modes?

What might dark academia—and its current popularity—tell us about the contemporary moment of noisy, perhaps diversionary, cultural warfare over the university and education more generally: “wokeness,” the “fearless pursuit of truth,” the sophistic invocation of “reason” in defense of the unreasonable, and the insistence on keeping schools open in the face of a pandemic? Can it direct us back to considerations of class, resistance, hegemony, epistemology, and art as a critical practice?

We are particularly interested in definitions, conceptualizations, delimitations, and troublings of the idea of dark academia as both an aesthetico-political project and a narrative genre. We are interested, too, in cultural and media critique and in writing on all forms of art and literature, including both art and literature associated with dark academic aesthetic taste and art and literature that narrativizes or thematizes the dark academic. Send a 250–350-word proposal and a short biographical statement to both editors, Cody Jones (codyjones@nyu.edu) and Nell Pach (npach@uchicago.edu) by 1 April 2022. Accepted proposals will be notified by 1 May, and drafts will be due by 1 September. Feel free to reach out with questions or proposal ideas. For more information, visit https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5850bf4e6b8f5b777d5f380c/t/61e46d520cf0055f7366d32b/1642360146980/Dark+Academia+Cfp.pdf.

CFP Horror and Fashion (proposals by 10/31/2015)

An intriguing idea for a collection:

CFP: Horror and fashion
Announcement published by Gudrun Whitehead on Monday, August 31, 2015

Type: Call for Papers
Date: August 28, 2015 to October 31, 2015
Subject Fields: Cultural History / Studies, Film and Film History, Literature, Popular Culture Studies, Women's & Gender History / Studies

This is a call for proposals for chapters to comprise a potential new publication, which has had strong interest from Bloomsbury. Editors of this volume are Dr. Julia Petrov, Alberta College of Art and Design, Canada and me, Dr. Gudrun D. Whitehead, University of Iceland.

Overview
Recently, academic attention has turned to exploring the links between popular culture and dress. Thematic approaches to sub-cultural dress have included Gothic: Dark Glamour (Steele and Park 2008), Punk: Chaos to Couture (Bolton et al 2013). The role of media in fashion dissemination and reception has been discussed in Fashion in Film (Munich 2011) and Fashion in Popular Culture (Hancock et al 2013). Furthermore, scholars have recently noted fashion’s obsession with subversion (Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty; Bolton et al 2011), as well as the dark side of fashion production and consumption (Fashion Victims; Matthews David 2015).

At the same time, horror has gained a wider audience than ever before, moving from sub-culture into mainstream culture. No longer content with lurking in the shadows, vampires, zombies, ghouls, murderers, and mythical creatures can now be found on the big screen and in bestselling books, mesmerizing audiences in old roles and new. Previously securely identified through mannerisms and dress, monsters and villains are now fully integrated into society, attending high-school, going to work and dressing according to the latest fashion, rather than the clothes they perished in. This is evident from teen horror going mainstream such as the Twilight book and film series, but also from multiple current TV shows, such as Z nation, iZombie, the Walking Dead, and more. Cult TV program The X-files is returning to the small screen and Bruce Campbell will sport his Evil Dead chainsaw once again, this time as a major television program, rather than in a film. These are only a few examples from many, demonstrating the recent surge in the horror genre, both as mainstream and independent productions. The proposed volume seeks to explore these recent trends in horror through one of their basic components, costume design.

To date, apart from a few articles and book chapters (e.g.: Tseelon 1998, Nakahara 2009), there has been no thorough investigation of fashion and horror. This edited volume, therefore, proposes to explore the links between the horror genre and dress in all its forms, from costume to fashionable clothing. Disciplinary approaches may include fashion studies, media studies, film, literature, folklore, costume design, sociology, popular culture studies, gender studies, material culture studies and others. The editors seek contributions from scholars at a wide variety of institutions from around the globe on topics such as:

1. Fashion in horror:
Dress is an important element for developing narrative and characterization in both literary and film horror. Within this theme, chapters could explore:

• Costumes as expression of plot 
• Costumes and character archetypes
• Costumes and villains: instant recognition of horror film-series villains from costume designs
• Costumes identifying sub-genres 
• Costume style and production companies (such as Hammer Horror)
• How can costumes act as an emotional stimulus for audiences? 
• Gender and horror: costume differences between male and female characters in horror
• Collecting horror film costume
• Horror cosplay
• From burial-dress to prom-dress: History of horror through costume design.

2. Horror in fashion:
As fashion exists in a world of popular culture references, this theme seeks to explore the mutually-referential relationship between high-street/high-fashion designs and horror. Chapters might address:

• Designer clothing that references horror films or literature
• The influence of horror films on fashion
• How is horror communicated in fashion? 
• How fashion has expanded horror? Has it given the horror movie genre a new set of references or a new audience?

What the proposal should include:
300-400 word chapter summary of no more than 8,000 words (including notes and references), including a chapter title and keywords, information on central argument/research question, a summary of main points, theoretical approach, and relevant sources.
Contact information, institutional affiliation, and biographies for authors and co-authors (please note corresponding author for collaborative chapters).

Deadlines:
Please submit proposals to Dr. Petrov and Dr. Whitehead at CostumedHorror@gmail.com, no later than on Halloween, 31 October 2015.

Authors will be informed about acceptance or rejection of their proposals no later than 30 November 2015. The entire book proposal will then be sent to Bloomsbury for a thorough review by international scholars. Contributing authors will receive a contract once the proposal has been successfully peer reviewed and accepted at the publisher’s board meeting. Authors will then be sent article guidelines, and full chapters should be submitted for review and subsequent revision. The entire book manuscript will then be submitted to Bloomsbury where it will go through the publisher’s own manuscript peer review. It is anticipated that the volume will be published in late 2016, or early 2017.
Contact Info:
For further information please feel free to contact me, Gudrun D. Whitehead or Julia Petrov.  The contact email is: CostumedHorror@gmail.com

Contact Email:
CostumedHorror@gmail.com