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

contact email: 

jschell5@alaska.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/07/24/cfp-%E2%80%9Cprovocations%E2%80%9D-essays-for-american-gothic-studies

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.

 

Last updated May 31, 2025

CFP Gothic Pedagogies: teaching, learning, and the literatures of terror Conference (4/30/2022; Birmingham, UK 7/14/2022)

Gothic Pedagogies: teaching, learning, and the literatures of terror

Abstracts due: 30th April 2022

14 July 2022

University of Birmingham

source: https://gothicpedagogy.wordpress.com/cfp/


Keynote speakers:
Professor Gina Wisker
Dr Ian Burrows


It has been a decade and a half since the last period of sustained work exploring the ways in which gothic literature is, and might be, taught in the classroom. This symposium seeks to renew this important critical discussion. It invites contributions that explore the richness, value, and complexities of pedagogy that situates the careful scrutiny of gothic literature at its heart.

Critical interest in the gothic remains high and the critical field is notable for the breadth of its scholarship; moreover, gothic literature courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level are enduringly popular choices for students, whether they are survey and introductory courses or bespoke Masters-level programmes, and the genre is a mainstay on UK secondary education curricula. But how might recent innovations in the critical field inform, and be informed by, innovations in the classroom? In order to explore this question more fully, we are motivated by several central concerns:

• How do we teach gothic literature in the classroom?
• What do gothic texts themselves have to say about learning and pedagogy?
• How do we negotiate a genre that thrives on forms of affect – what Fred Botting calls the genre’s ‘negative aesthetics’ – that are, by and large, difficult to recapture in classroom environments, and difficult to evaluate cogently?

The gothic undoubtedly wants us to experience its thrills and chills. But it insists frequently on its own unspeakability and seems to prioritise individual susceptibility to its terrorising affect in ways that would suggest a shared experience of the gothic is an extremely difficult thing to recover. In what ways can something that wants quite deliberately to bypass rational thought be better understood via supposedly detached or objective small group discussions in secondary and higher education? How do we bring to light that which is secret and hidden, that which thrives only when briefly glimpsed?

Relatedly, there are questions to be asked here about responsible ways of teaching this literature, grappling as it does with subject matter that may be hoping to deliberately discomfort, shock, or offend its readers. We are interested, also, in what happens when the gothic does not succeed, and how far the gothic is in this respect indicative of broader issues when teaching genre literature. The classroom and lecture theatre might readily make space for the pleasures of reading lurid gothic texts. But what if the gothic text does not scare us (anymore)? If the gothic seeks above all to be experiential, hoping to stimulate certain sensations in its readers, in what ways do we make room in the classroom for our failure to experience something, for those moments when we did not “get it”?

We invite proposals for 15–20 minute papers and joint/collaborative presentations, 5 minute lightning talks, poster presentations, or any other relevant format that reflects on the questions above or any other issues pertaining to humanities pedagogy and the various literatures of terror and horror.

Please send an abstract of 200–300 words and a brief biography (100–150 words) to gothicpedagogies@gmail.com by 30th April 2022. Please also send any queries our way: we’d be glad to hear them.

We strongly encourage submissions from a range of teachers and students of the gothic, whether working or studying in secondary, further, higher or any other form of education.

CFP Poe Studies Association at MLA 2022 (3/17/21; Washington DC 1/6-9/22)

 More from the Poe Studies Association's website:

Modern Language Association Annual Convention
Washington, D.C., 2022

Poe scholars and Poe aficionados are always talking about Poe and always reading and rereading his works. He is ubiquitous—in print, film, popular culture, and all over the internet. His online presence increased even more in the late winter and early spring of 2020 as the world wrestled with the COVID-19 pandemic. For those of us who teach Poe and those of us who write about him, doing so in 2020 and 2021 seems more timely than ever, but it also feels different.

Why should we read or teach Poe “now”? How is or isn’t Poe relevant in the midst/wake of a global pandemic and serious social conflict? Is his work timely, timeless, both, neither? Submit 250-word proposals and 1-page CVs to emronesplin@gmail.com by Wednesday, March 17.

Depending on the number and quality of submissions, this session will either run as a 3-4 person panel or as a roundtable including several participants.

CFP Romancing the Gothic (3/31/21)

Came acoss this a while ago but forgot to post it. My apologies.

Romancing the Gothic 

Source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2020/12/04/romancing-the-gothic


deadline for submissions: March 31, 2021


full name / name of organization: Romancing the Gothic Project


contact email: hollyhirst84@gmail.com




Romancing the Gothic is online education project which offers free classes on the Gothic, horror, folklore, queer literature, romance and hidden histories. We are an interdiscplinary project with scholars taking part from many different fields and from all over the world. We have a regular audience as well as open sign-ups. To find out more about the project - see the website - https://romancingthegothic.com



We are looking to put together our 2021 schedule for Saturday Classes/Talks, Sunday Talks and Monthly Writing and Creative workshops. We are looking for scholars willing to submit on a variety of topics including: Horror and Gothic film and literature, National Traditions of Supernatural Literature, Demonologies, Intersections of Medicine and Literature, Queer Gothic and Horror. For a full list of requested talks see the website - https://romancingthegothic.wordpress.com/2020/12/05/call-for-talks-class...



This is an opportunity to engage with an international audience and interact with a growing network of scholars from all areas of academic life. It is also a good opportunity for both experienced and inexperienced presenters and speakers as full support is offered prior to the talk being given.



Please follow the link provided above for further details. Send a title and abstract (100-300 words) to sam@romancingthegothic.com


Last updated January 17, 2021 

 

Survey and CFP on MLA's Approaches to Teaching Stoker’s Dracula (11/1/2019)

The MLA is seeking responses to a survey on Teaching Bram Stoker's Dracula. Full details follow as well as the related call for papers.

Contribute to an MLA Approaches Volume on Stoker’s Dracula
Posted 6 September 2019 by Michelle Lanchart
https://news.mla.hcommons.org/2019/09/06/contribute-to-an-mla-approaches-volume-on-stokers-dracula/

The volume Approaches to Teaching Stoker’s Dracula, edited by William Thomas McBride, is now in development in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature. Instructors who have taught this work are encouraged to contribute to the volume by completing a survey about their experiences. Information about proposing an essay is available at the end of the survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PQYKN6Z).



12. If you would like to propose an original essay for this volume, please submit an abstract of approximately 250–300 words in which you describe your approach or topic and explain its potential usefulness for students and instructors. The proposed essays should be pedagogically focused.

Note that if you plan to quote from student writing in your essay, you must obtain written permission from the student. Proposed essays should not be previously published.

Abstracts and brief CVs (4-page maximum) should be sent by e-mail to the volume editor, William Thomas McBride, at wmcbrid@ilstu.edu by 1 November 2019. You may also send queries, comments, and supplemental materials such as course descriptions, syllabi, assignments, and bibliographies as attachments (accepted formats are .doc, .docx, .rtf, and .pdf).

CFP PCA/ACA Vampire in Literature, Culture, and Film Area (10/1/2017)

The Vampire in Literature, Culture, and Film

https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/07/28/the-vampire-in-literature-culture-and-film

deadline for submissions: October 1, 2017

full name / name of organization: Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA)

contact email: lnevarez@siena.edu

The Vampire in Literature, Culture, and Film Area is seeking papers for the national joint Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) meeting to be held March 28-31 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

We welcome papers on vampires in literature, culture, and film for presentation at the conference.

Topics that are of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

• Vampires and music
• The international vampire
• Twilight and its legacy (2018 marks the 10-year anniversary of the film Twilight and the publication of Breaking Dawn)
• Werewolves and vampires
• The work of Nina Auerbach
• The return of Anne Rice’s vampire Lestat
• Social justice and vampires
• The literary vampire
• The vampire on television (ex: The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, The Strain, The Passage)
• Pedagogy
• Vampire subculture and lifestyle

Please submit abstracts of 250 words by October 1, 2017 to the PCA/ACA database: https://conference.pcaaca.org/

We welcome the submission of complete panels of 3-4 presenters.

Responses/decisions regarding your proposals will be provided within two weeks of your submission to ensure timely replies.

For further information, please visit: http://pcaaca.org/the-vampire-in-literature-culture-film/ or contact the area co-chairs: Mary Findley (findley@vtc.edu) or Lisa Nevarez (lnevarez@siena.edu).

Last updated July 28, 2017

CFP Poe Studies Association Panels at the ALA (1/15/15; ALA Boston 5/21-24/15)

Poe Studies Association Panels at the ALA

CFP: “Rethinking Poe’s Sublime: Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 175 years later”; A Poe Studies Association panel at the 26th Annual American Literature Conference in Boston, MA (May 2015)

Poe abandoned his proposed Tales of the Folio Club sometime after 1835, but still wanted to issue a collected edition of his prose fiction. Dropping the literary club motif, he combined the original tales with additional items from the Southern Literary Messenger. This new collection of 25 stories became Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840). What choices informed Poe’s decisions about what to include? To what extent does the term “grotesque”—especially as it relates to Poe’s notions of the sublime—function as a defining characteristic of the two volumes’ contents? Papers are invited on specific tales as well as on Poe’s discussions of the sublime and/or the grotesque in his reviews, miscellaneous writings, and poetic treatises. Other related topics are welcome as well.

To submit a proposal, send a title and an abstract of no more than 350 words to: William Engel (wengel@sewanee.edu); in the subject line, put “PSA panel 2015.” The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2015 (panelists will be notified shortly thereafter).


CFP: “Teaching Poe and Popular Culture,” a Poe Studies Association panel at the 26th Annual American Literature Conference in Boston, MA (May 21-24, 2015)

Few American writers have enjoyed the posthumous popularity of Poe, whose works inspire adaptations in various genres such as film and graphic novel while lunchboxes and bobblehead figures commemorate the man himself. Such popularity is a boon for teachers of Poe, who can use movies, comic books, and online videos to help students make sense of a nineteenth-century writer whose stories and poems might seem, at first glance, peculiar and puzzling. Contemporary creative reinterpretations of Poe’s writings also provide insight into how we remove Poe from his antebellum milieu and refashion him to suit our tastes. Studying Poe’s nineteenth-century career, students can discern how popular trends shaped his work, for the example of Poe reveals many ways that writers respond to and shape mass culture. The Poe Studies Association solicits proposals for this pedagogical panel. Possible topics include Poe and contemporary Gothicism; The Raven and Poe biography; Poe’s influence on filmmakers such as Corman and Burton; Poe as rock-and-roll icon; popular images of Poe’s body; nineteenth-century sensation fiction and Poe; Poe and death in antebellum popular culture; Stephen Foster, Poe, and the popular lyric in the nineteenth-century. Other related topics are, of course, welcome.

To submit a proposal, send a title and an abstract of no more than 350 words to Travis Montgomery at tdmontgomery2@fhsu.edu. The subject line should read “PSA panel 2015.” The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2015.