CFP To Be Loved by Death: Afterlives of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles Collection (10/15/2025)

Edited collection - To Be Loved by Death: Afterlives of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles

deadline for submissions:
October 15, 2025

full name / name of organization:
Deanna Koretsky

contact email:
dkoretsk@spelman.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/24/edited-collection-to-be-loved-by-death-afterlives-of-anne-rices-vampire-chronicles

With the recent and highly acclaimed AMC adaptation of Interview with the Vampire and AMC’s broader acquisition of Anne Rice’s literary corpus, The Vampire Chronicles have found renewed cultural relevance. As Season 3 enters production, we invite reexaminations of the legacy and transformation of Rice’s vampiric work across media, genres, and generations.

We are seeking scholarly essays that critically engage the many adaptations, appropriations, and afterlives of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles for an edited volume in Palgrave’s Studies in Monstrosity series. We invite contributions from scholars across disciplines. 

Topics may include, but are certainly not limited to:

• AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (2022- ): approaches to race, queerness, temporality, and trauma; departures from and faithfulness to Rice’s canon; cultural impact as seen in fan engagements, rewatch podcasts, and public writing; place within AMC’s Immortal Universe.

• Of particular interest: in addition to the reimagining of Louis and Claudia as Black and expressly queer characters, we are also keen to see critical work that addresses the reimagining of Armand as Brown, as well as the show’s addition of Dubai as a touchstone setting

• Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire (1994): performance, aesthetics, reception, and the film’s place in gothic cinema.
• Michael Rymer’s Queen of the Damned (2002): casting, music, race, cult status.
• Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s Lestat (2006): Broadway reception, musical form, queer gothic sensibilities, status as commercial and critical failure.
• Adaptations and appropriations in other media: comics/graphic novels, theater, ballet, visual art, body art, etc.
• Comparative interpretations: Rice's vampires (in any iteration) in dialogue with other vampire narratives (e.g., Sinners, Suicide by Sunlight, The Originals, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Only Lovers Left Alive, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, etc.); vampires and authors that inspired Rice (e.g., Blacula, Carmilla, Dracula’s Daughter, Byron, Polidori, Stoker, etc.)
• Tourism and cultural geographies: vampire tours in New Orleans and beyond, the commodification of Rice’s legacy, intersections of fiction, space, and local/global histories.
• Fandom and community: fan fiction, online forums, cosplay cultures, conventions, and the evolving role of fan labor in sustaining Rice’s mythos.
• Vampire Balls and immersive fan events: performance, ritual, identity play, and the gothic carnivalesque.
• Sexuality, gender, race, colonial histories and legacies, queer and trans embodiments, illness and disease, disability, neurodivergence, youth and age/ageing, world religions/religious feeling, and other key thematic preoccupations in Rice’s fiction and/or its adaptations.
• Adaptation as translation, revision, or resistance to Rice’s politics or aesthetics.

Submission Guidelines

• Abstracts of 300 words due: October 15, 2025
• Complete first draft (7,000–9,000 words, MLA style) due: May 30, 2026
• Revised final draft due: October 31, 2026

Submit abstracts to: Deanna Koretsky (dkoretsk@spelman.edu) and Alex Milsom (amilsom@hostos.cuny.edu). Please include a short bio (50–100 words) with your abstract.


Last updated August 1, 2025

CFP Fungal Horror and Popular Culture (6/1/2025)

 

Fungal Horror and Popular Culture

deadline for submissions: 

June 1, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Berit Åström, Umeå University

contact email: 

berit.astrom@umu.se

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/04/10/fungal-horror-and-popular-culture.

As editors of the planned Palgrave Handbook on Fungal Horror in Popular Culture, which has 33 commissioned chapters, Dr Katarina Gregersdotter and Dr Berit Åström, Umeå University, Sweden seek approximately 10 additional original essays. 

We are primarily looking for chapters on fungal horror in non-Anglophone material, but also welcome studies of less mainstream Anglophone texts. 

Fungi are entangled in our lives, as food, as medicine or drugs, but also as parasites and agents of destruction, such as black mould, dry rot and cordyceps, the zombie fungus. This entanglement carries over into popular culture, where fungi are used to carry out different kinds of work, articulating deep seated fears and desires, functioning as a threat to, but perhaps also a saviour of, an embattled humanity on the brink of possible extinction.   

This edited volume will be the first full-length scholarly study of fungal horror in popular culture such as, but not limited to, literature, film, television, comics/graphic novels, computer games, art and memes. We invite contributors to approach the topic broadly, both in terms of material analysed and in the themes explored. 

 The chapters should be c. 7 000 words, including endnotes and bibliography.  

Send your abstract, of no more than 300 words, together with a brief biography to Berit Åström berit.astrom@umu.se and Katarina Gregersdotter katarina.gregersdotter@umu.se by 1 June, 2025. Notification of acceptance will be given no later than June 27, 2025.  

Deadline for submission of completed manuscripts is 15 January, 2026.

Last updated April 10, 2025

SECOND CALL: Essays on Race and Racism in The Vampire Diaries Franchise (10/1/2024)

SECOND CALL: Essays on Race and Racism in The Vampire Diaries Franchise, under contract with McFarland Press

deadline for submissions: October 1, 2024

full name / name of organization: Deanna P. Koretsky, Spelman College

contact email: dkoretsk@spelman.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/04/23/second-call-essays-on-race-and-racism-in-the-vampire-diaries-franchise-under-contract


Essays are invited for an edited volume exploring the role that race and racism play in the narrative worlds of The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies, as well as the real world that consumes them. This volume explores how race intersects with other identity categories (gender, sexuality, disability, class, etc.) in the television and book series; how it structures power and agency in the storyworlds and behind the scenes; how it permeates the fan cultures associated with the franchise; and how ongoing fascination with the franchise reflects the tumultuous years of the Obama and Trump presidencies, the coronavirus pandemic, the racial uprisings of 2020, and beyond.

This second call aims to fill gaps in an already robust line-up of essays. Topics of particular interest include:

• The book series by L.J. Smith (as compared with the television series or on its own)
• The Travelers/Roma representation in the series
• Fan cultures specific to TVDU – e.g., the emergence of franchise-inspired conventions in the small Southern towns where the shows were shot; global TVDU fandoms
• The handling of race in rewatch podcasts dedicated to TVD and related media

Please submit a 300-word abstract and 50-word author biography with current affiliation and email address to dkoretsk@spelman.edu. If you’d like to contribute, please send an abstract and projected timeline and we can discuss from there.

Final essays should be between 6000 and 8000 words and follow the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (notes and bibliography).





Projected schedule (flexible):

Abstract/Bio: rolling

Draft for initial review: October 1, 2024

Final draft: December 1, 2024



Last updated June 5, 2024

New Book: Penny Dreadful and Adaptation: Reanimating and Transforming the Monster

Penny Dreadful and Adaptation: Reanimating and Transforming the Monster

Editors: Julie Grossman and Will Scheibel

Palgrave Macmillan, 2023

Available from SpringerLink in print, as an ebook, and as individual chapters. Full details at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-12180-7. 


Experiments with recent interdisciplinary methodologies to understand the mechanisms of adaptation more broadly


Conceptualizes adaptation beyond the traditional dyad of literature and screen media


Explores the relationship between text, context, and intertext to understand how meaning is made and remade


Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture (PSADVC)

About this book

This edited collection is the first book-length critical study of the Showtime-Sky Atlantic television series Penny Dreadful (2014-2016), which also includes an analysis of Showtime’s 2020 spin-off City of Angels. Chapters examine the status of the series as a work of twenty-first-century cable television, contemporary Gothic-horror, and intermedial adaptation, spanning sources as diverse as eighteenth and nineteenth-century British fiction and poetry, American dime novels, theatrical performance, Hollywood movies, and fan practices. Featuring iconic monsters such as Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature, the “bride” of Frankenstein, Dracula, the werewolf, Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll, Penny Dreadful is a mash-up of familiar texts and new Gothic figures such as spiritualist Vanessa Ives, played by the magnetic Eva Green. As a recent example of adapting multiple sources in different media, Penny Dreadful has as much to say about the Romantic and Victorian eras as it does about our present-day fascination with screen monsters.

Contents

Front Matter

Pages i-xviii



Introduction

Julie Grossman, Will Scheibel

Pages 1-11



Welcome to the Night: Issues of Reading and Media

The Medium Is the Model

Thomas Leitch

Pages 15-30

The Adaptive Marketing of Penny Dreadful: Listening to The Dreadfuls

Christine Becker

Pages 31-47

Penny Dreadful and Frankensteinian Collection: Museums, Anthologies, and Other Monstrous Media from Shelley to Showtime

Mike Goode

Pages 49-67



Anatomy of a Monster: Horror and the Gothic in Literature and on the Screen

In the House of the Night Creatures: Penny Dreadful’s Dracula

Joan Hawkins

Pages 71-86

Vampirism, Blood, and Memory in Penny Dreadful and Only Lovers Left Alive

Luciana Tamas, Eckart Voigts

Pages 87-104

“The Dead Place”: Cosmopolitan Gothic in Penny Dreadful’s London

Kendall R. Phillips

Pages 105-120

Adapting the Universal Classic Monsters in Penny Dreadful: An Uncanny Resurrection

Will Scheibel

Pages 121-137



The Monster Unbound: Theatrical Performance, Western Dime Novels, and TV Noir

Penny Dreadful and the Stage: Lessons in Horror and Heritage

Shannon Wells-Lassagne

Pages 141-155

Ethan Chandler, Penny Dreadful, and the Dime Novel; or, Dancing with American Werewolves in London

Ann M. Ryan

Pages 157-176

Dreadful Noir, Adaptation, and City of Angels: “Monsters, All, Are We Not?”

Julie Grossman, Phillip Novak

Pages 177-193



Meanings of Monstrosity: Identity, Difference, and Experience

Penny Dreadful’s Palimpsestuous Bride of Frankenstein

Lissette Lopez Szwydky

Pages 197-215

Predators Far and Near: The Sadean Gothic in Penny Dreadful

Lindsay Hallam

Pages 217-232

“All Those Sacred Midnight Things”: Queer Authorship, Veiled Desire, and Divine Transgression in Penny Dreadful

James Bogdanski

Pages 233-252

Borderland Identities in Penny Dreadful: City of Angels

Seda Öz

Pages 253-267



Back Matter

Pages 269-282

About the editors

Julie Grossman is a professor of English and Communication and Film Studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY, USA. Her monographs include Literature, Film, and Their Hideous Progeny (2015), Ida Lupino, Director (with Therese Grisham, 2017), Twin Peaks (with Will Scheibel, 2020), and The Femme Fatale (2020). She is co-editor (with R. Barton Palmer) of the essay collection Adaptation in Visual Culture (2017) and (with Marc C. Conner and R. Barton Palmer) Screening Contemporary Irish Fiction and Drama (2022).

Will Scheibel is an associate professor of English at Syracuse University, USA, where he teaches film and screen studies. He is the author of Gene Tierney: Star of Hollywood’s Home Front (2022) and, with Julie Grossman, co-author of Twin Peaks (2020).

New Book: The Medial Afterlives of H.P. Lovecraft: Comic, Film, Podcast, TV, Games

The Medial Afterlives of H. P. Lovecraft: Comic, Film, Podcast, TV, Games

Editors: Tim Lanzendörfer and Max José Dreysse Passos de Carvalho

Palgrave Macmillan, 2023

Available from SpringerLink in print, as an ebook, and as individual chapters.

More details at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-13765-5.


This book is the first to sustainedly engage with the whole breadth of adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft


Includes not just film and TV, but also comics, podcasts, video games, and board games


Develops an affordance-based theory of adaptation by recourse to the example of Lovecraft

About this book

Medial Afterlives of H.P. Lovecraft brings together essays on the theory and practice of adapting H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction and the Lovecraftian. It draws on recent adaptation theory as well as broader discourses around media affordances to give an overview over the presence of Lovecraft in contemporary media as well as the importance of contemporary media in shaping what we take Lovecraft’s legacy to be. Discussing a wide array of medial forms, from film and TV to comics, podcasts, and video and board games, and bringing together an international group of scholars, the volume analyzes individual instances of adaptation as well as the larger concern of what it is possible to learn about adaptation from the example of H.P. Lovecraft, and how we construct Lovecraft and the Lovecraftian today in adaptation. Medial Afterlives of H.P. Lovecraft is focused on an academic audience, but it will nonetheless hold interest for all readers interested in Lovecraft today.

Contents

Front Matter

Pages i-xxvi



Theory

Lovecraft, the Lovecraftian, and Adaptation: Problems of Philosophy and Practice

Max José Dreysse Passos de Carvalho, Tim Lanzendörfer

Pages 3-25

Disseminating Lovecraft: The Proliferation of Unsanctioned Derivative Works in the Absence of an Operable Copyright Monopoly

Nathaniel R. Wallace

Pages 27-44

When Adaptation Precedes the Texts: The Spread of Lovecraftian Horror in Thailand

Latthapol Khachonkitkosol

Pages 45-60



Comics

Conveying Cosmicism: Visual Interpretations of Lovecraft

Rebecca Janicker

Pages 63-75

The Problematic of Providence: Adaptation as a Process of Individuation

Per Israelson

Pages 77-99

Twice Told Tale: Examining Comics Adaptations of At the Mountains of Madness

Tom Shapira

Pages 101-119



Film and TV

Image, Insoluble: Filming the Cosmic in The Colour Out of Space

Shrabani Basu, Dibyakusum Ray

Pages 123-137

The Threshold of Horror: Indeterminate Space, Place and the Material in Film Adaptations of Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space (1927)

Gerard Gibson

Pages 139-158

Cthulhoo-Dooby-Doo!: The Re-animation of Lovecraft (and Racism) Through Subcultural Capital

Christina M. Knopf

Pages 159-172

Dispatches from Carcosa: Murder, Redemption and Reincarnating the Gothic in HBO’s True Detective

Patrick J. Lang

Pages 173-189

Lovecraft Country: Horror, Race, and the Dark Other

Dan Hassler-Forest

Pages 191-204

The Lovecraftian Festive Hoax: Readers Between Reality and Fiction

Valentino Paccosi

Pages 205-220



Podcasts

“In My Tortured Ears There Sounds Unceasingly a Nightmare”: H. P. Lovecraft and Horror Audio

Richard J. Hand

Pages 223-240

The Lovecraft Investigations as Mythos Metatext

Justin Mullis

Pages 241-259



Video Games

Head Games: Adapting Lovecraft Beyond Survival Horror

Kevin M. Flanagan

Pages 263-277

The Crisis of Third Modernity: Video Game Adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft in The Sinking City

Erada Adel Almutairi, Tim Lanzendörfer

Pages 279-293

Authorship Discourse and Lovecraftian Video Games

Serenay Günal, Colleen Kennedy-Karpat

Pages 295-314



Analog Games

Challenging the Expressive Power of Board Games: Adapting H.P. Lovecraft in Arkham Horror and Mountains of Madness

Torben Quasdorf

Pages 317-337

Playing the Race Card: Lovecraftian Play Spaces and Tentacular Sympoiesis in the Arkham Horror Board Game

Steffen Wöll, Amelie Rieß

Pages 339-357



Back Matter

Pages 359-367

About the editors

Tim Lanzendörfer is research assistant professor of American Studies at Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. He has published widely in contemporary literature and media. His most recent books are the forthcoming Utopian Pasts and Futures in the Contemporary American Novel (2023) and the Routledge Companion to the British and North American Literary Magazine (2021).

Max José Dreysse Passos do Carvalho is a graduate student of American Studies at Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. His research and forthcoming publications concentrates on game studies and philosophy.

CFP Demystifying Mystic Falls: Race and Racism in The Vampire Diaries Franchise Collection (7/31/2023)

One more for the night:

Demystifying Mystic Falls: Race and Racism in The Vampire Diaries Franchise

deadline for submissions:
July 31, 2023

full name / name of organization:
Deanna P. Koretsky, Spelman College

contact email:
dkoretsk@spelman.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/05/08/demystifying-mystic-falls-race-and-racism-in-the-vampire-diaries-franchise

Demystifying Mystic Falls: Race and Racism in The Vampire Diaries Franchise

From the time it premiered on The CW in 2009, The Vampire Diaries was duly castigated in the media for uncritically tiptoeing around Civil War “lost cause” mythology and overtly tokenizing its Black characters. As the public later learned, minoritized actors were also treated poorly behind the scenes. Still, the series became a cultural juggernaut, boasting two successful spin-offs (The Originals and Legacies), reviving the book series on which the show was based, and inspiring a cottage industry of franchise-related institutions and conventions that, as of 2023, is just beginning to take off.

Although vampire narratives have long been read as vehicles of social disruption, The Vampire Diaries and its spin-offs consistently privilege white, heteropatriarchal social orders. With the cancellation of Legacies last June presumably marking the end of The Vampire Diaries’ extended universe, the time is right to assess the franchise as a whole and reflect on what it tells us about the culture that continues to eagerly embrace it.

To that end, essays are invited for an edited volume exploring the role that race and racism play in the narrative worlds of The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies, as well as the real world that consumes them. This volume will explore how race intersects with other identity categories (gender, sexuality, disability, class, etc.) on television and in the book series; how it structures power and agency in the storyworlds and behind the scenes; how it permeates the fan cultures associated with the franchise; and how ongoing fascination with the series reflects the tumultuous years of the Obama and Trump presidencies, the coronavirus pandemic, the racial uprisings of 2020, and beyond.

Possible topics may include (but are certainly not limited to):

• The relationship between the undead, social death, and racial politics
• Black witches, Native American spirits, Confederate and Viking vampires, and other overtly racialized monsters and heroes
• The series’ rewritings of local and global racial histories
• The role of race in the series’ fan cultures, especially in the rise of franchise-inspired businesses and conventions in the small Southern towns where the shows were shot
• How The Vampire Diaries reflects/challenges depictions of race in other popular vampire narratives, such as its immediate contemporaries Twilight and True Blood, and its clearest predecessor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• How media and fan critiques shaped the franchise’s treatment of minoritized characters and actors within a single series or across all three

For consideration, please submit a 300-word abstract, reference list of 3-5 peer-reviewed sources, and 50-word author biography with current affiliation and email address to dkoretsk@spelman.edu

Final essays should be between 5000 and 7000 words and follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. Please use 12 pt. Times New Roman font (including endnotes), double space throughout, with 1-inch margins all around.



Projected schedule (subject to change):

Abstract/Bio/References July 31, 2023

Acceptance Notice August 31, 2023

First Draft December 30, 2023

First Edit May 31, 2024

Final Version July 31, 2024




Last updated May 9, 2023

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 Adapting the X-Men: Essays on the Transmedia Children of the Atom (7/1/2023)

Adapting the X-Men: Essays on the Transmedia Children of the Atom

deadline for submissions:
July 1, 2023

full name / name of organization:
John Darowski

contact email:
adaptingsuperheroes@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/04/03/adapting-the-x-men-essays-on-the-transmedia-children-of-the-atom

CFP for Adapting the X-Men: Essays on the Transmedia Children of the Atom

Deadline for submission: July 1, 2023



Full name/name of organization:

John Darowski



Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc.



Contact email: adaptingsuperheroes@gmail.com

Call for Papers: Adapting the X-Men: Essays on the Transmedia Children of the Atom

The editor of Adapting the X-Men is seeking abstracts for essays that could be included in the upcoming collection. Essays should examine the practices of adaptation among the various Marvel comic books featuring mutants and media, including by not limited to: film, television, animation, novels, video games, podcasts, etc. Essays should focus on stories featuring issues of adaptation and influence theory, evolving cultural context, or formalists aspects of telling existing stories in new mediums. Analysis must apply critical theory, such as cultural, technical, narratological, economic, or others, to explore the form, function, and/or intersectionality of the X-Men, adaptation, and culture.



The proposed volume is intended to be scholarly but accessible in tone and approach. Essays should focus on adaptations of X-Men as a team or individual characters (i.e. Wolverine, Jean Grey, Charles Xavier, etc.), enemies (i.e. Magneto, etc.), or characters closely associated with Marvel’s mutants (i.e. Deadpool). Topics should be limited in scope, focusing on characters or story and examining the transmedia migration from one medium to another (e.g. comic books to animated series) or comparing and contrasting works within a single medium (e.g. The Dark Phoenix Saga in X-Men: The Last Stand [2006] and X-Men: Dark Phoenix [2019]). Comic book adaptations of X-Men texts created for other media as well as unproduced scripts may also be considered.



Specific dynamics/topics the editor is hoping to address include:

• Issues of representation and the mutant metaphor (related to gender, race, sexuality, disability, etc.)
• Continuity and aesthetics of X-Men animated series
• Performative voice in podcasts and audiobooks
• Convergence and divergence of comic book, film, and animation fandom communities (including fan fiction and cosplay)
• History, ludology, and/or narratology of X-Men video games
• Business of failed pilots and unmade franchise scripts
• Serialization and intertextuality in the X-Men film universe
• Transition of image to text in X-Men novels
• Translation and localization in X-Men anime and manga
• The art of action figures as adaptation

Those interested are asked to send an abstract (200-500 words) as well as a short bio to the editor, John Darowski, at: adaptingsuperheroes@gmail.com. The deadline for proposals is July 1, 2023. All proposals will be adjudicated by June 15, 2023, with first drafts of accepted chapters due in Fall 2023. Completed essays should be 15-20 double-spaced pages in MLA format.


Last updated April 4, 2023

CFP Here Be Monsters: General Call for Papers for the Monsters & the Monstrous Area (8/15/2022; online conference 10/20-22/2022)

Here Be Monsters: General Call for Papers for the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association

2022 Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association

Virtual Event to be held Thursday, 20 October, to Saturday, 22 October 2022

Proposals are due 15 August 2022


We live in an age full of monsters. We make them, yet they escape our control and have profound impacts on us, often reshaping us in their images. Our beliefs, experiences, and politics contribute much to our ideas of monsters. Depending on one’s perspective, we can find them in our homes, in our families, in our schools, in our communities, in our governments, and in the world at large. Often such monsters appear unexpectedly, but, at other times, they strike repeatedly against us and those we cherish. We also create and fear the monstrous in unknown spaces. The darkness of night, the depths of the oceans, other unexplored reaches of the planet, and the vastness of outer space are all common locations for monsters to dwell. Lastly, through media, both old and new, we encounter monsters in a multiplicity of cultural texts. Often we engage with them in printed works (such as comics, fiction, and poetry) or through performances (as in music or on stage), but, increasingly, we find the monster brought to life on the various screens we interact with each day: on computers, films, phones, tablets, and televisions.


The Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (also known as NEPCA) invites proposals for 15-20-minute presentations that highlight our experiences with, reactions to, and/or reflections on the various monsters and monstrous entities (animal, human, hybrid, or preternatural) in popular culture.


This year, we are especially interested in submissions on the following topics:

• “From ‘Them’ to Now: Changing Metaphors of the Monstrous Insect” (organized by Eddie Guimont, Bristol Community College) (co-sponsored with NEPCA’s Animals and Culture Special Topics) (see the full call at https://tinyurl.com/FromThemToNow)
• H. G. Well’s War of the Worlds at 125 and its impact on popular culture (some ideas: aliens and alien invasions in popular culture or Mars and Martians in popular culture)
• Monsters in comics milestones (Archie Comics’ Sabrina the Teenaged Witch at 60, Jack Kirby’s The Demon/Etrigan at 50, Marvel Comics’ Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night at 50)
• Monsters of the Past Becoming the Monsters of the Present (especially Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, medieval monsters today, and The Munsters and Rob Zombie’s The Munsters)
• Northeast Monsters & the Monstrous (for example: H. P. Lovecraft and his legacy in popular culture, local lore of monsters and the monstrous in the Northeast, the New England Gothic tradition in popular culture, the New England vampire panic in popular culture, the New England witch trials in popular culture, and Stephen King and his family and their impact on horror in popular culture)
• Monsters & the Monstrous as Infestation
• Monsters & the Monstrous as Invaders/Invasion
• Monsters on screen milestones (Haxan at 100; Freaks, Island of Lost Souls, The Mummy, Murders in the Rue Morgue, and White Zombie at 90; Cat People at 80; The Curse of Frankenstein, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, and The Incredible Shrinking Man at 65; Doctor Faustus at 55; Poltergeist, Swamp Thing, and The Thing at 40; Hellraiser and The Monster Squad at 35; Candyman at 30; and The Devil’s Advocate at 25; Hotel Transylvania at 10)
• Vampire milestones (Le Fanu’s Carmilla at 150 and Stoker’s Dracula at 125) and their impact on popular cultures
• Vampires on screen milestones (Nosferatu at 100, Vamprye at 90, Blacula at 50, The Lost Boys at 35, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Forever Knight at 30, Buffy the Vampire Slayer television show at 25; and Blood Ties and Moonlight at 15 )
• “The worst monsters are the ones we create”: Monstrosity in the Witcherverse (organized by Kris Larsen, Central Connecticut State University) (see the full call at https://tinyurl.com/MonstrosityinWitcherverse)

Send any questions on these or other topics to Michael A. Torregrossa, the Monsters & the Monstrous Area Chair, at Popular.Preternaturaliana@gmail.com. However, please submit your proposal directly into NEPCA’s conference system at https://bit.ly/CFPNEPCA22. You will need to have prepared the following: Yout Email, The type of proposal (single paper or full panel), Your Name, Your Proposed Subject Area (select “Monsters and the Monstrous” please), An Abstract (no more than 250 words), Academic Affiliation (if applicable), Scholarly Role, and Short Bio (up to 200 words), and Timing preferences for the session. The system will send you a receipt of your submission and alert the area chair of its readiness for review.

If accepted, presenters must join NEPCA for the year and pay the conference fee. This year the costs are $54.67 USD for Conference Registration & Membership Dues. Payment is expected in advance of 1 October 2022. Do connect with the area chair (at Popular.Preternaturaliana@gmail.com) or NEPCA directly via Lance Eaton, the Executive Secretary, (at northeastpopculture@gmail.com), if you are experiencing financial challenges that might impact your ability to present.


NEPCA prides itself on holding conferences that emphasize sharing ideas in a non-competitive and supportive environment. NEPCA conferences offer intimate and nurturing sessions in which new ideas and works-in-progress can be aired, as well as completed projects.

We welcome proposals from scholars of all levels, including full-time faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, junior faculty, part-time faculty, and senior scholars. We are also open to undergraduate presentations, provided a faculty member is also included as a point of reference (please include the faculty member’s name, institution, and email in the bio section when submitting).


For further details on NEPCA, please visit its site at https://nepca.blog/. The dedicated page for the conference is https://nepca.blog/conference/.

The Monsters & the Monstrous Area maintains its own site for news and resources. Please check us out at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.


This call for papers can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/HereBeMonstersNEPCA22.

CFP Monstrosity in the Witcherverse (8/15/2022; NEPCA Monsters Area - online conference 10/20-22/2022)

“The worst monsters are the ones we create”: Monstrosity in the Witcherverse

Session Organized by Kris Larsen, Central Connecticut State University

Sponsored by the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association

2022 Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association

Virtual Event to be held Thursday, 20 October, to Saturday, 22 October 2022

Proposals are due 15 August 2022


Andrzej Sapkowski’s internationally popular Witcher series of novels and short stories uses a medievalist setting to highlight the multiple monstrosities of modern life, including violence against the environment, racism and genocide, and abuses of technology. As the tagline of the hit Netflix spinoff warns, “The worst monsters are the ones we create.” We seek papers that investigate the creative twists on the definitions of monster and monstrous in any aspects of the Witcherverse, including the source material, Netflix adaptations (both live-action and animated), Polish live-action adaptation, and computer games, as well as ‘monstrous fan’ behavior (including race-centric attacks on the Netflix showrunner for casting choices). Papers that are solely focused on the Witcherverse as well as those that analyze Sapkowski’s sub-creation in comparison to other Secondary Worlds are welcomed.



Address inquires on this call to Kris Larsen (larsen@ccsu.edu) with the subject line NEPCA Witcher. However, please submit your proposal directly into NEPCA’s conference system at https://bit.ly/CFPNEPCA22. You will need to have prepared the following: Yout Email, The type of proposal (single paper or full panel), Your Name, Your Proposed Subject Area (select “Monsters and the Monstrous” please), An Abstract (no more than 250 words), Academic Affiliation (if applicable), Scholarly Role, and Short Bio (up to 200 words), and Timing preferences for the session. The system will send you a receipt of your submission and alert the area chair of its readiness for review.

If accepted, presenters must join NEPCA for the year and pay the conference fee. This year the costs are $54.67 USD for Conference Registration & Membership Dues. Payment is expected in advance of 1 October 2022. Do connect with the area chair (at Popular.Preternaturaliana@gmail.com) or NEPCA directly via Lance Eaton, the Executive Secretary, (at northeastpopculture@gmail.com), if you are experiencing financial challenges that might impact your ability to present.


NEPCA prides itself on holding conferences that emphasize sharing ideas in a non-competitive and supportive environment. NEPCA conferences offer intimate and nurturing sessions in which new ideas and works-in-progress can be aired, as well as completed projects.

We welcome proposals from scholars of all levels, including full-time faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, junior faculty, part-time faculty, and senior scholars. We are also open to undergraduate presentations, provided a faculty member is also included as a point of reference (please include the faculty member’s name, institution, and email in the bio section when submitting).


For further details on NEPCA, please visit its site at https://nepca.blog/. The dedicated page for the conference is https://nepca.blog/conference/.

The Monsters & the Monstrous Area maintains its own site for news and resources. Please check us out at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.


This call for papers can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/MonstrosityinWitcherverse.

CFP Hammering the Stakes Once Again: Close Readings on Hammer Horror Films (5/15/2022)

Hammering the Stakes Once Again: Close Readings on Hammer Horror Films

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/02/05/hammering-the-stakes-once-again-close-readings-on-hammer-horror-films

deadline for submissions:
May 15, 2022

full name / name of organization:
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns

contact email:
hammerhorrorproject@yahoo.com

Hammering the Stakes Once Again: Close Readings on Hammer Horror Films

Editors:

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns

Matthew Edwards



Essays are sought for an academic book that aims to examine the popular cycle of horror films produced by the British Hammer Film Productions Ltd., best known as Hammer. While the studio began exploring horror with The Mystery of the Mary Celeste (1935), starring Bela Lugosi, Hammer’s goal never was to become the House of Horrors but rather to produce and distribute any genre in vogue. In the 1950s, and after almost disappearing as a production unit, Hammer ventured into science fiction territory with two Terence Fisher’s films: Four Sided Triangle (1953) and Spaceways (1953). Later, the Quatermass franchise blended science fiction tropes with horror narratives through a series of films dealing with social and cultural anxieties regarding forms of alien Otherness. Yet the real success would later come with their Gothic horror films, with Terence Fisher elegantly directing The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958). The myth has begun.

This myth, in turn, has fetishized Hammer, to the point that the rich and complex history of the studio has overridden the most important aspect: the films. Indeed, the films made by Hammer are almost secondary, just background in the tapestry that Hammer’s history is. As such, there is an alarming lack of scholarship on the films. David Pirie’s A New Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema, dated 1973 (with Hammer still producing horror), and Peter Hutchings’ excellent Hammer and Beyond: The British Horror Film, dated 1993, are examples of only a handful of books addressing the films. Later scholarship tends to focus on the history, the names behind the camera, and the downfall of the House of Horrors. Further, only films like The Curse of Frankenstein or Dracula received some scholarly attention scattered in journals, while other interesting efforts are practically invisible.

Like we did with other neglected areas of horror with the giallo cycle (University of Mississippi Press, forthcoming 2022) and horror comics (Routledge, forthcoming, 2022), we ask for chapters analyzing, via close readings, the films from any era and from different theoretical perspectives including:


-Postcolonialist readings of The Abominable Snowman (Val Guest, 1957), The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), The Reptile (1966)

-The family under siege in The Snorkel (Guy Green, 1958), The Vampire Lovers (1970), Demons of the Mind (1972)

-Adaptation studies in Frankenstein, Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), The Phantom of the Opera (1962)

-British masculinities in The Mummy (1959), The Mummy's Shroud (1967)

-Fairy tales’ studies in Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (1960), The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

-Animality in Shadow of the Cat (1961)

-Trauma in The Full Treatment (1960), Nightmare (1964), Hysteria (1965), Fear in the Night (1972)

-Horror and adventure in Captain Clegg (1962), Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)

-Noir and horror in Maniac (1963), Paranoiac (1963)

-The female monstrous in The Gorgon (1964), The Reptile (1966), The Vampire Lovers (1970), Countess Dracula (1971), Hands of the Ripper (1971)

-Ageing in Die, Die, my Darling! (1965), The Nanny (1965), The Anniversary (1968)

-The proletariat in Revolt of the Zombies (1965)

-Queerness in Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)

-Moral panics in The Devil Rides Out (1968), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), To the Devil, A Daughter (1976)

-The posthuman in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

-The spectral turn in The Woman in Black (2012)

-Postmodernity in The Lodge (2019)

-Serialized horror in TV Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (1984)

-Urbanity in The Resident (2011)



The list is far from exhaustive and all disciplinary approaches are welcome. It must be noted, however, we sought for chapters focusing on the films rather than in tracing the history of the studio and its misfortunes.

Please submit 300-500 word abstracts with working title and short bio in the same doc to hammerhorrorproject@yahoo.com by May 15, 2022. Abstracts must be delivered as a Word attachment. A renowned academic publisher has showed interest in the project.

This will be one of the first books centred exclusively on close readings on an under-studied area and, as such, this collection will have an appeal to scholars and students in horror film studies, visual rhetoric, philosophy, sociology, media studies, pop culture, and Hammer fandom.

Please, share this CFP with all you believe might be interested. Thanks.



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) and horror comics (Routledge, 2022). Currently editing a book on Wes Craven for Lexington.

http://artes.filo.uba.ar/pagnoni-berns-gabriel




Last updated February 6, 2022

CFP Haunted Hibernia: Conjuring the Contemporary Irish Gothic (5/1/2022; Ireland 10/28-29/2022)

Haunted Hibernia: Conjuring the Contemporary Irish Gothic

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/02/20/haunted-hibernia-conjuring-the-contemporary-irish-gothic

deadline for submissions:
May 1, 2022

full name / name of organization:
Carlow College

contact email:
hauntedhibernia@gmail.com

Date of conference: 28th-29th October 2022.

In the period following the collapse of the Celtic Tiger in 2008, Irish society and culture began to take on a distinctly Gothic hue. In popular discourse, the landscapes of recessionary Ireland were figured as uncanny, gothicized spaces, haunted by ‘ghost estates’ and ‘zombie banks’, and preyed upon by vampiric ‘vulture funds’. At the same time, deeply disturbing aspects of Ireland’s history were further exposed in a plethora of government commissions documenting the shocking scale and extent of the abuses committed by the church and state, including: the 2009 Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (the ‘Ryan Report’), the 2013 Magdalen Commission Report (the ‘Quirke Report’), and (the more problematic) 2021 Report of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation. These profoundly disturbing revelations regarding the country’s past have resonated, in a deeply troubling manner, with more recent societal crises, such as the ongoing issue of homelessness and child poverty, the inhumane treatment of individuals in direct provision, the fight for reproductive autonomy, and the rise of domestic violence in the wake of the ongoing Covid pandemic. Given the psychologically discomfiting and socially unsettling effect of these overlapping contexts and anxieties, it is unsurprising that the Gothic has proved an especially apposite prism for the artistic representation of Ireland’s post-Celtic-Tiger dispensation.

This conference seeks to explore the myriad ways that the Gothic has been deployed to interrogate the social, economic, and political transformations that have occurred in Ireland since the end of the Celtic Tiger, and to exhume the associated historical trauma engendered by these changes. It will also examine how the contemporary scene has generated and precipitated new variations and hybridizations of Gothic literature and media. We welcome papers that engage with the Gothic in a wide variety of forms and media, including fiction, poetry, drama, film, tv, visual art, music, digital media and storytelling, and the broader field of popular culture.



The conference will also host plenary speaker, Dr. Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Senior Lecturer and founding member of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University.



Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• The Gothic and gender/sexuality: The Gothic as a lens through which we engage with the politicised female body and ownership/possession of the female body in 21st century Ireland.
• The use of the Gothic as a mode of progressive social and political protest.
• The Gothic as a vehicle to signify and disclose economic/financial crisis in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.
• Gothic tropes and motifs (the monstrous, the spectral, the uncanny, the haunted house) in contemporary Irish artistic culture.
• Contemporary artistic engagement with an older Irish Gothic tradition
• The aesthetic evolution/re-invention of the Gothic in contemporary Irish art and literature
• Eco Gothic and Eco horror in and Irish context
• The Gothic in Contemporary Irish Children’s Literature
• The Covid pandemic and the Gothic.
• Narratives of Gothic imprisonment/entrapment in contemporary Ireland, both literal and structural.
• The Gothic as a response to Ireland’s ongoing mental health crisis.
• Representations of home and homelessness in contemporary Irish Gothic.
• Constructions of domesticity and the domestic space in contemporary Irish Gothic.
• Specters of imperialism in contemporary Ireland.

Proposals (300 words) and a brief biography should be sent to hauntedhibernia@gmail.com by 1st May 2022.



Last updated February 21, 2022

CFP Southern Gothic Area at PCAS/ACAS 2022 (6/1/2022; New Orleans 10/13-15/2022)

CFP: Southern Gothic Area at PCAS/ACAS 2022

Source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/03/03/cfp-southern-gothic-area-at-pcasacas-2022

deadline for submissions:
June 1, 2022

full name / name of organization:
Popular Culture/ American Culture Association in the South

contact email:
SouthernGothicPCAS@gmail.com

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: THE SOUTHERN GOTHIC AT PCAS/ ACAS 2022

Submission deadline: June 1, 2022; Notification of acceptance by July 1, 2022



Despite the difficulty in defining what exactly the Southern Gothic is, it nevertheless is one of the most prominent ways the South is represented in media and culture. From Flannery O’Connor to The Originals, Truman Capote to True Detective, and William Faulkner to The Walking Dead, whether categorized as a form, a style, or a genre, the Southern Gothic is bound up with regional cultural anxieties regarding shifting discourses of race, class, gender, sexuality, and geographic identity itself. From its most stereotypical depictions to more nuanced, complex interpretations, the Southern Gothic shapes the wider perception of regional identities in ways that invite our contemporary scholarly engagement.

To this end, the Southern Gothic area of the Popular Culture / American Culture Association in the South (PCAS/ ACAS) invites proposals for individual presentations, roundtable discussions, or full panels of 3-4 papers at the 2022 PCAS/ ACAS Annual Conference, to be held October 13 - 15, 2022 in New Orleans, LA.

Topics might include (but are in no way limited to):

• the Southern Gothic in film, TV, and literature
• adaptation(s) of Southern Gothic literature
• the Southern Gothic in new media (games, podcasts, graphic novels, etc.)
• the emergence of “Southern noir” as a subgenre
• race, class, gender, and/ or sexuality in the Southern Gothic
• Southern true crime as a cultural phenomenon
• documentary and the Southern Gothic
• Global elements of/ approaches to the Southern Gothic
• Southern Gothic tourism
• monsters in the Southern Gothic: vampires, zombies, ghosts, etc.
• mental health narratives in the Southern Gothic
• specificity—or generality—in Southern Gothic geographies
• the Southern Gothic in popular music
• pedagogical approaches to/ uses of the Southern Gothic
• the spectre of history in the Southern Gothic
• sites of intersection between the Southern Gothic and other genres/ modes

PCAS/ ACAS is dedicated to working toward equity, diversity, and inclusion both within our organization and in academia at large. As such, we encourage submissions by underrepresented and marginalized scholars based upon race, gender, sexuality, and employment status (e.g., graduate students and non-tenure track or unaffiliated/independent scholars).



To propose a presentation (of 20 minutes or less) or a roundtable discussion for the Southern Gothic Area, please send the following to Area Chair Stephanie Graves at SouthernGothicPCAS@gmail.com by June 1:
Name of presenter(s), institutional affiliation (if any), & email address for each presenter
Type of submission (individual paper, roundtable, or full panel)
Presentation abstract (250 words or fewer)
Indication if you need access to A/V (not all rooms have A/V available)

Submission deadline is June 1, 2022; notifications of acceptance will be sent by July 1, 2022.



NOTE: In order to be considered for the Southern Gothic Area, please follow the instructions above rather than submitting through the PCAS/ ACAS website.

Everyone is invited to submit one academic paper and can, in addition, participate in a round-table discussion or creative session. Only those proposals intended for the Southern Gothic area should be submitted as outlined above; the PCAS/ ACAS website has an online submission form for the General Call.




Last updated March 8, 2022

CFP Edited Collection: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (due 10/31/2021)

Sorry to have missed posting this sooner. 

Edited Collection: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

deadline for submissions: October 31, 2021

full name / name of organization: Cori Mathis

contact email: cemathis@lipscomb.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/07/22/edited-collection-chilling-adventures-of-sabrina


In the world of teen drama (or YA drama, as some prefer), there are a number of ways to represent adolescence and its attendant horrors, and we’ve seen a great deal of fantasy-based approaches; beginning with Buffy, some establish that high school is actual hell. But few series come close to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s devotion to that idea. The Netflix series (2018-20), based on the Archie Comics spin-off and featuring a much darker version of Sabrina Spellman, may be difficult for audiences to reconcile with ABC’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the previous adaptation. While one is a teen sitcom in which Sabrina’s powers get her into wacky situations, and she is supported by a talking Salem the cat, the other might feel closer to The Craft. However different this version of Greendale is from what we may be used to, it certainly offers much to explore.



We invite proposals for a forthcoming collection of essays on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and welcome those that engage with industry perspectives, textual approaches, audience studies, and issues of critical reception.

We anticipate a broad audience for this collection, which includes scholars as well as students of the humanities at both graduate and undergraduate levels. As such, submissions from contributors at various levels and from diverse fields are encouraged. Suggested themes include but are not limited to:

• Genre (teen/YA drama, horror, etc.)
• Gender (masculinities, femininities, etc. as represented in the series)
• Girlhood studies
• Race and ethnicity (both in the series and from a production perspective)
• Queer readings and approaches
• Dis/ability
• Religion (Christianity, Wicca, etc., both in reality and in the world of CAoS)
• Historical, cultural, televisual, and other contextual frameworks
• Intertextuality
• Industry/production
• Adaptation
• Love and romance
• Family constructions
• Autonomy and consent
• Class and economics
• Freedom and power

Submission Details:

Proposals should be between 300 and 500 words (along with 3-5 key sources) and should clearly describe the author’s thesis and proposed outline of the essay. Completed essays (6000-7500 words, including references) are also welcome. In a separate document, authors should provide a short CV with contact information and relevant publications and presentations. (Please send these as attachments.)



Please note: submitted proposals/essays should not have been previously published nor currently be under consideration for publication elsewhere. An academic press is already interested in this collection.



Submission Deadlines:

Abstract Due: October 31, 2021

Notification of Acceptance: November 15, 2021

Full Essay Due: January 31, 2021



Questions and submissions to Dr. Cori Mathis, cemathis@lipscomb.edu


Last updated August 2, 2021 

 

CFP Vampire Studies (2022 PCA/ACA National Conference)

Note: PCA has recently shifted the conference to online AND extended the submission deadlines.

Vampire Studies (2022 PCA/ACA National Conference)

Source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/08/30/vampire-studies-2022-pcaaca-national-conference

deadline for submissions: November 15, 2021

full name / name of organization: Popular Culture Association

contact email: pcavampires@gmail.com

The Vampire Studies Area of the PCA welcomes papers, presentations, panels, and roundtable discussions that cover all aspects of the vampire as it appears throughout global culture. This year's conference will be held April 13-16 in Seattle, WA.

This year the Vampire Community celebrates the centenary of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.  We welcome papers, panel presentations, or creative pieces about this classic genre defining film.  As well as this broad theme we also welcome papers, presentations, and panels that cover any of the following:

•       The Non-Western Vampire (i.e. Black, Asian, Latino/a/x, African)
•       The Horror Vampire Byronic vs Hedonistic, or Horror vs Romantic
•       Vampires at the end of the world and beyond
•       The vampire on legacy television shows (i.e. Dark Shadows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Moonlight, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals)
•       The vampire on recent television shows (i.e. What We Do In the Shadows, From Dusk Till Dawn, Castlevania)
•       Legacy Cinematic vampires (i.e., Nosferatu, Interview with the Vampire, Near Dark, Twilight etc.)
•       Recent Cinematic Vampires (i.e., Bit, Crucible of the Vampire: Therapy for the Vampire etc.)
•       Vampire Cultures and Contexts (i.e., vampire RPGs or other gaming universes, fan studies, graphic novels)
•       Vampires and the Marginalized (i.e., race, gender, sexualities, national origin)
•       Genres such as Gothic Horror, Urban Fantasy, Romance, Steampunk, Young Adult, Erotica, Comedy
•       Historic and contemporary vampiric locations and geographies (i.e. cemeteries, castles, cities)
•       Vampire Studies (i.e., the vampire in the classroom, vampire scholarship)

And anything and everything in between!

To have your proposal/abstract considered, please submit your proposal/abstract of approximately 250 words at the Popular Culture Association Website. We also welcome complete panel proposals of 3-4 people.

We do not currently accept papers from fledgling/undergraduate scholars, but you can submit your proposal to the special Undergraduate Area.

If you have questions, contact us at pcavampires@gmail.com.  Also, follow us on Twitter @pca_vampires or join our Facebook groups PCA Vampire Studies and Vampire Scholars.

2022 Conference Dates and Deadlines

01Aug-21           2022 Conference Information Available on website

01-Sept-21         Submissions Open

01-Oct-21           Early Bird Registration Begins

15-Nov-21          Deadline for Paper Proposals and Grant Applications

 

Last updated September 1, 2021

CFP Stranger Worlds: H. G. Wells, Transgression and the Gothic (8/15/21, virtual UK 11/13/21)

2021 Conference Call for Papers

Call for Papers

Stranger Worlds: H. G. Wells, Transgression and the Gothic 

Saturday, 13 November 2021  

Source: http://hgwellssociety.com/statementofobjects/2021-conference-call-for-papers/

There you touch the inmost mystery of these dreamers, these men of vision and the imagination. We see our world fair and common … By our daylight standard he walked out of security into darkness, danger and death. But did he see like that?

H.G. Wells, The Door in the Wall

This year marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Wells’s death. In a career that spanned fifty years and over a hundred books, Wells invited his readers to step across the threshold of human consciousness and to venture into realms beyond space, time and morality. His scientific romances expose the fragility of the human body and the thinness of humanity’s separation from the animal (The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau). A reviewer of The Time Machine felt that Wells’s imagination was ‘as gruesome as that of Poe’ and his short stories often dramatize gothic transgressions between the living and the dead. Later works such as The Croquet Player and The Camford Visitation see consciousness slipping its moorings and inhabiting or possessing other bodies.     

Once considered an annexe or niche in literary studies, the Gothic is now firmly established as a key mode of understanding research in, and the enormous global popularity of, genres such as horror, science fiction and fantasy. We invite applications for papers that consider the importance of the Gothic in the work of H. G. Wells. Papers need not be exclusively confined to Wells, but may also consider Wells’s gothic afterlife, reception and influence.  

Presentations will take the form of 20-minute papers, given via Zoom.   

Topics may include, but are not limited to:  

• Wells and Gothic genres and his relationship to his Gothic predecessors including Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mary Shelley 
• Wells’s use of horror and terror in for instance, The War of the Worlds
• Gothic bodies; the Gothic across species  
• Gothic geographies  
• Returns from the dead; buried secrets; Gothic histories  
• Ghosts, monsters, apparitions and vampires  
• Transgressive behaviour and crime in Wells’s work
• Wellsian afterlives in science fiction, the graphic novel, cinema, TV, and computer games  

Please send a 250-word abstract to Dr Emelyne Godfrey juststruckone@hotmail.com by 15 August 2021.

Members: Free

Non-members: £10 Applicants will be notified by 31 August 2021. We encourage attendees to become members of the H.G. Wells Society and look forward to seeing you there.   

CFP Dracones in Mundo: Dragons in Literature, Film, and Pop Culture: A Series of Edited Volumes (7/25/2021)

My thanks to Kristine Larsen for the heads up on this:

Dracones in Mundo: Dragons in Literature, Film, and Pop Culture: A Series of Edited Volumes UPDATE/EXTENDED DEADLINE

Source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/01/03/dracones-in-mundo-dragons-in-literature-film-and-pop-culture-a-series-of-edited

deadline for submissions: July 25, 2021

full name / name of organization: St. Thomas University

contact email: rachel.carazo@snhu.edu



Dracones in Mundo: Dragons in Literature, Film, and Pop Culture: A Series of Edited Volumes UPDATE/EXTENDED DEADLINE

deadline for submissions:
July 25, 2021

full name / name of organization:
St. Thomas University

contact email:
rachel.carazo@snhu.edu

I received a great response to the last call for papers regarding the volumes on dragons. As a result, I have been better able to refine and divide results.

Below are the new details for the updated call for papers:
As the popularity of mythical creatures in films and literature grows, there is one creature that remains prominent: the dragon. Dragons have become most visible recently in the cinematic versions of The Hobbit and in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones Series). However, there are other films, such as Dragonslayer (1981), Reign of Fire (2002), Dragonheart (1996), and the How to Train Your Dragon series (2010-2019), and numerous adult and children’s literature series that feature dragons.

This call for papers will result in several themed volumes under each of these main headings:

---

FULL VOLUME(S)

1) Wings, Wonders, and Warriors: Dragons in Children’s Literature and Graphic Novels



--

SEMI-FULL VOLUMES (Needing 5-8 essays)

The following two volumes need a few more essays to be considered full:

2) Dragons in Mythology

*Working Title: Flights of the Imagination: Dragons in Mythology and Folklore

3) Dragons in Film and Television

*Working title: Heroes and Villains on 'Silver' Wings: Representations of Dragons in Film and Television

---

OPEN VOLUMES (Needing between 8-10 essays)

4) Dragons in Fiction* [due to the plethora of romance fiction with dragons/shapeshifters, I would be interested also in a separate study or at least a section of the volume about these romantic works]
5) Dragon Games and Online Culture [video games/card games etc]
6) Dragons, Posthumanism, and Animality [since the idea of the posthuman seeks to question the dominating humanistic and anthropocentric perspective upon the nonhuman world, these essays are meant to use this framework to highlight innovations or non-anthropocentric observations on dragons in literature, film, and pop culture]. Topics may include shapeshifters, corporality, affectivity, and the relationship(s) between humans and dragons.
7) The Landscapes of Dragons [these essays seek to investigate ways in which dragons are specifically tied to landscapes, images of the idyll, or images of devastation]
8) Dragons and Ecocriticism [these essays seek ways in which works with dragons remark on the environment in political and critical ways, or how dragon-related narrative can enhance valuable reflections in dialogue with current debates on ecology]
9) Dragon Riders: [even though there is a volume on general fiction, there is a specific genre built around dragon riders as well, so I encourage essays on these topics to show specific intersections between works and relationships within specific works on aspects of riding dragons]
10) Dragons in Fairy Tales/Dragons and Fairy Tale Tropes: [this volume seeks to find aspects of fairy tales or entire tales that relate to dragons/dragon lore in innovative ways/ the editor already has an essay (based on a fairy tale) related to Wings of Fire in process, but all other topics are currently open]
11) Dragons and Pop Culture: Music, Coats of Arms, Dragon Symbols, and Miscellany [this volume seeks to cover media and topics that do not easily fit into the other categories]
12) Dragons in Internet Memes: essays on memes from single films or other themes.

The scope of the present call is still broad. All topics regarding the themes and impact of dragons in film, literature, games, and online culture will be considered. Possible topics include (non-comprehensive list):

• Dragons as non-human animals
• Dragons and the environment
• Dragon symbolism
• The intersections of childhood, gender, race, and ethnicity with dragons
• Changes in the representations of dragons over time
• Visual aspects and attributes of dragons
• Representations of good and evil in connection with dragons

Deadline for proposals: July 25, 2021

Deadline for first drafts: September 25, 2021* [this deadline may be extended for volumes outside of the first depending on how many abstracts are received and which volumes are completed first]

How to submit your proposal
I will have a co-editor for three volumes: *Posthumanism, *Landscapes, and *Ecocriticism with Stefano Rozzoni (PhD Candidate, University of Bergamo), so proposals regarding those topics should be emailed to both rachel.carazo@snhu.edu and stefano.rozzoni@unibg.it
Please send all other abstracts, a short biographical note, and the name of the volume that the paper is for to Rachel L. Carazo at rachel.carazo@snhu.edu



rachel.carazo@snhu.edu

Rachel Carazo



Last updated April 7, 2021
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CFP Studies in the Fantastic General Call and Focus on HBO's Lovecraft Country (6/1/2021)

Studies in the Fantastic

Source: https://utampapress.org/studies-in-the-fantastic/sitf-current-cfp

Current CFP

HBO’s recent series Lovecraft Country takes up the monsters of H. P. Lovecraft’s universe, but flips the script to make the heroes an African-American cast battling various demons in the Jim Crow era. Arguably, the show aimed at a re-appropriation or détournement of the pulp legend’s troubling racism, but critics seem divided on the show’s success. In Dr. Kinitra Brooks’s writings on the series for The Root, she situated it as “a part of the contemporary arts movement that media professor John Jennings coined as ‘Racecraftian,’ inspired by Karen and Barbara Fields in their 2014 book, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life.” Therein, racecraft is defined as a practice: racism produces the illusion of race, and Jennings adopted the term (thinking specifically of its homology with Lovecraft’s name) to signify horror narratives that engage with critical race studies for the purpose of dismantling constructions of race. As an adaptation of Lovecraft’s universe, the HBO series would seem to be speaking back to the pulp legend.

Studies in the Fantastic, a journal founded by Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, seeks submissions for a special issue on any aspect of the show, but we are especially interested in essays that delve into this debate, the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Lovecraft Country, and the Racecraftian turn. Acknowledging that the series is new and that many conferences this year are cancelled due to the pandemic, we are accepting shorter essays (3500-6000 words) driven by scene analyses for this collection that seeks to gather together scholars’ “First Thoughts on Lovecraft Country.” Submissions for this special issue should be received by June 1, 2021. Send to the editor at fantastic@ut.edu

Studies in the Fantastic is a journal publishing refereed essays, informed by scholarly criticism and theory on both fantastic texts and their social function. Although grounded in literary studies, we are especially interested in articles examining genres and media that have been underrepresented in humanistic scholarship. Subjects may include, but are not limited to, weird fiction, science/speculative fiction, fantasy, videogames, science writing, futurism, and technocracy. Electronic access to Studies in the Fantastic is available via Project Muse. Follow us on twitter: @study_fantastic

Studies in the Fantastic requests submissions for our biannually published peer-reviewed academic journal. As always, essays examining the fantastic from a variety of scholarly perspectives are welcome.

Studies in the Fantastic has recently launched a reviews section. We publish reviews of scholarly works pertaining to the field but may also be open to scholarly reviews on works of fiction, film, or (video)games. (See issues 8, 9 for examples.) Pitches may be sent to the reviews editor at fantastic_reviews@ut.edu.

 

CFP Twin Peaks Season 3 Conference (12/1/2020; virtual event)

 See https://www.supernaturalstudies.com/calls-for-papers for more details. PDF version at https://www.academia.edu/40619859/CFP_2021_Online_Conference_on_Twin_Peaks_The_Return_Deadline_1_Dec_2020_.

 

Call for Papers: Twin Peaks Season 3 Conference

“It is in Our House Now”

Organized in partnership with Lynchland (https://www.facebook.com/Lynchland), Cork University (Ireland), Université Bordeaux Montaigne (France) & Université de Liège (Belgium), the Supernatural Studies Association, and the film magazine La Septième Obsession (France).

This international online conference will focus on the third season of Mark Frost and David Lynch’s acclaimed television series Twin Peaks, an eighteen-part event that premiered on Showtime in May 2017. While the original two seasons of Twin Peaks (1990-91) and Lynch’s feature-length film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) have been the subject of numerous academic and critical studies, season 3 returned to television over 25 years later. The season has yet to benefit from an international conference that is interdisciplinary in scope. We are excited about the conference’s accessible online format and its potential to engage with international colleagues in diverse fields of research.

Suggested topics of exploration include, but are not limited to:

• the role of time in season 3

• expanded space and geography in season 3

• aesthetics of season 3

• the use of special effects in season 3

• the relationship between season 3 and earlier seasons of Twin Peaks (1990-91), as well as the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

• the relationship between the 3rd season and Mark Frost’s The Secret History of Twin Peaks (2016) and Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier (2017)

• Homer’s Odyssey

• electromagnetism

• the American West and/or Western films

• the 2008 economic crisis

• parallel universes

• doppelgangers and avatars

• the atomic bomb

• the supernatural

• mythology & spirituality

• representations of gender and race in season 3

We welcome papers from the fields of television and film studies, art history, literature, sociology, psychology, gender studies, religious studies and fields in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Panels in both English and French will be organized during the conference weekend, June 19-20, 2021.

While it is expected that papers will reference earlier seasons of Twin Peaks and/or David Lynch’s filmography, please keep in mind that the focus of this conference is the third season of Twin Peaks. Therefore, papers dedicated exclusively to the first two seasons of the series or the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me will not be accepted.

Abstracts (in English or French) of 300-500 words, accompanied by a C.V. will be accepted until December 1, 2020 at: TwinPeaksConference@gmail.com

Notification of the conference program will be sent by January 15, 2021.

Conferences will be limited to 20-minute presentations.

Conference organizers: Franck Boulègue (Associated Scholar – University of Liège & author of Twin Peaks: Unwrapping the Plastic), Marisa C. Hayes (Sorbonne Nouvelle – Université Paris 3, film & co-editor, Fan Phenomena: Twin Peaks), and Roland Kermarec (founder & curator of Lynchland (https://www.facebook.com/Lynchland), with additional assistance from Matt Zoller Seitz.