H(a)unted
deadline for submissions:
September 8, 2024
full name / name of organization:
Georgetown University English Graduate Student Association (EGSA)
contact email:
egsa@georgetown.edu
source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/08/07/haunted
H(a)unted
October 25, 2024
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“O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted.”
- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“If he looked into her face, he would see those haunted, loving eyes.”
- Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
“A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism.”
- Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto
Living in the present, we are often haunted by remnants of the past—especially unresolved issues from our history—and by apprehensions about the future, such as the looming fear of robots taking control over humanity. For this conference, we explore the interplay of the terms “haunted” and “hunted” and propose a new term, “h(a)unted,” to mark the generative interchanges between them.
Throughout history, the socially, politically, and economically dominant agents have often “hunted” weaker opponents to assert their power. Conversely, literature and other forms of media have provided outlets where the oppressed, “hunted” subjects can, in turn, haunt their perpetrators, thereby reversing power dynamics. Our proposed term “h(a)unted,” however, also invites us to call into question the assumed causal relationship between “haunted” and “hunted,” highlighting that these phenomena can occur simultaneously or even in potentially reversible order, with haunting preceding being hunted in certain contexts.
The English Graduate Student Association of Georgetown University seeks proposals from various disciplines and theoretical approaches addressing, but not limited to, the following questions: Who has been h(a)unted? How have experiences of h(a)unting been envisioned and represented? How have the meanings of the words “haunted” and “hunted” and their interrelations been registered in different forms of media? What is the nature of being h(a)unted? Which cultural forms and genres have most richly captured the experiences of being h(a)unted?
This conference welcomes an interdisciplinary dialogue inviting scholars in a range of fields including literary, studies, film and media studies, history, philosophy, sociology, political science, postcolonial studies, trauma studies, environmental studies, critical race studies, diaspora studies, narrative studies, and other related fields of study within the combined thematic, theoretical, and critical orientation provided by “h(a)unted.”
Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
● Memories and Traces
● Ghosts and Monsters
● Silencing and Silenced
● Borders and Boundaries
● Incompleteness in Context and Form
● Alternative Forms of Storytelling
● Balance and Imbalance
● Mythology
● Appearance and Disappearance
● Spirituality
● Aesthetic Forms
● Homecoming
Please submit (1) a 300-word abstract, including the title of your proposed paper, and (2) a 100-word bio as an attached document in an email with the subject line “Conference_[Full Name]” to egsa@georgetown.edu by September 8, 2024.
Proposals may also be considered for inclusion in Predicate, EGSA’s interdisciplinary journal in the humanities, which will be published in Spring 2025.
Last updated August 8, 2024
