CFP Vampire Studies Area for PCA 2023 (12/20/2023; San Antonio 4/5-8/2023)

Vampire Studies (PCA/ACA National Conference) April 5-8, 2023

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/09/20/vampire-studies-pcaaca-national-conference-april-5-8-2023

deadline for submissions:
December 20, 2022

full name / name of organization:
Popular Culture Association

contact email:
pcavampires@gmail.com



Annual National Popular Culture Association Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS:

PCA CONFERENCE 5-8 APRIL 2023 IN SAN ANTONIO, TX

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.

We specifically welcome papers, panel presentations, or creative pieces about vampire children/young adults from fiction and film such as Claudia in Interview with a Vampire, Eli from Let the Right One In or Shorifrom Fledgling. We also look forward to submissions addressing media and advertising targeted towards children/young adults and vampirism such Mavis from Hotel Transylvania, The Count from Sesame Street, or Vampirina Ballerina.

As well as this broad theme we also encourage papers, presentations, and panels that cover any of the following:

• Children’s Products (i.e. toys like Draculara from Monster High, cereals like Count Chocula, the Ink Drinker, and Bunnicula, and Halloween-related products)
• The Non-Western Vampire (i.e. Black, Asian, Latino/a/x, African, Aboriginal)
• 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. First Kill, The Passage, Interview with the Vampire, Vampire in the Garden, Fire Bite)
• Legacy Cinematic vampires (i.e., Nosferatu, Interview with the Vampire, Near Dark, Twilight, Dracula Adaptations etc.)
• Recent Cinematic Vampires (i.e., Night Teeth, Morbius, Monster Family etc.)
• Monster Universes (i.e. A Discovery of Witches, Lost Girl, Monster High)
• Vampire Cultures and Contexts (i.e. vampire RPGs or other gaming universes, fan studies, graphic novels, Tik Tok & other social media platforms)
• Vampires and the Marginalized (i.e., race, gender, sexualities, national origin)
• Genres (i.e. Gothic Horror, Urban Fantasy, Romance, Steampunk, Early Readers, Children’s Picture Books, Young Adult, Erotica, Comedy)
• Historic and contemporary vampiric locations and geographies (i.e. cemeteries, castles, cities)
• The Horror Vampire, Byronic vs Hedonistic, or Horror vs Romantic
• 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 accept 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 Undergraduate Area. We encourage you to get involved in our vibrant vampire community by joining one of our social media spaces and attending our conference events such as our business meeting. film screening, other roundtables, and sessions.

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.



Last updated September 20, 2022

CFP Recovering the Vampire Conference (6/17/2022; UK/online 11/4-5/2022)

Recovering the Vampire

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/03/16/recovering-the-vampire

deadline for submissions:
June 17, 2022

full name / name of organization:
Edge Hill University

contact email:
madeline.potter@york.ac.uk




Speakers

Professor Catherine Spooner (Lancaster University)

Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes (Manchester Metropolitan University)

and featuring a Q&A and dramatic reading by Dacre Stoker

How can vampires help us heal?

In the 125th anniversary year of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this interdisciplinary project examines the continuing history of the vampire from the 19th century to the present and explores how the vampire can function as a cultural figure of recovery, community, and regeneration.

The cultural history of the vampire has been conventionally one of degeneration, illness, contagion, and variously embodied metaphors of anxiety. This event moves critical discourse from degeneration to regeneration, asking how the vampire functions as a metaphor for recovery (whether physical, emotional, or economic), community (fandoms, gamers, ‘goth culture’), identification and self-expression (racial identities, spirituality and religion, neurodivergence/-diversity, disability, gender and sexuality).

We welcome proposals for 15-20-minute papers, and panels. We also welcome practical or industry approaches to reinterpreting the vampire through collaborative, creative, or playful research, as well as contributions to a creative industries panel by publishers, authors, artists, heritage professionals and film-makers who work on the figure of the vampire. Topics can include but are not limited to:

• Healing, trauma, recovery
• Gothic tourism / regeneration / international relations / economic growth
• Vampires and the creative economy
• Vampires and community: gaming, goth culture, fashion
• Medical humanities and the vampire
• Addiction recovery, nutrition, attitudes to feeding
• Reclaiming the vampire and neurodivergence/-diversity
• Selfhood, belonging, and ‘the outsider’
• Spiritual growth and religious experience
• Race and inclusivity / representation
• Child vampires / vampires for children
• Pedagogy and the vampire
• Laughter, comedy and Catherine Spooner’s ‘Happy Gothic’
• Adaptation

Thanks to the generosity of BAVS, BARS and Edge Hill University, we are delighted to be able to offer several PGR/ECR fee-waived bursary places for this event. If you would like to be considered, please indicate on your abstract and include a short statement (100 words max) about how the conference relates to your research.

Please send 300-word abstracts or panel proposals to Dr Madeline Potter (madeline.potter@york.ac.uk) and Dr Laura Eastlake (Laura.Eastlake@edgehill.ac.uk)

This conference will be fully accessible, with a primarily online component. Please check our website https://recoveringthevampire.wordpress.com and follow us on Twitter @VampireRecovery for updates on conference format and further info.

Deadline: 17 June 2022

Conference dates: 4-5 November 2022




Last updated March 18, 2022

CFP Victorian Necropolitics (Spec Issue of Victoriographies: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Writing, 1790-1914 ) (4/15/2022)

CFP: Special Issue of Victoriographies: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Writing, 1790-1914 “Victorian Necropolitics” (Deadline: 4/15/2022)

posted by NAVSA on FEB 24, 2022

source: https://navsa.org/2022/02/24/cfp-special-issue-of-victoriographies-a-journal-of-nineteenth-century-writing-1790-1914-victorian-necropolitics-deadline-4-15-2022/

CFP: Special Issue of Victoriographies: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Writing, 1790-1914 “Victorian Necropolitics” (Deadline: 4/15/2022)

Proposal Deadline: April 15, 2022

In his essay (2003) and later book Necropolitics, (2019) Achille Mbembe used the term ‘necropolitics’ to account for the cruel relationship between life and death in colonial contexts, as well as the subsequent production of 'death worlds' within postcolonial, geopolitical spaces. Mbembe argues that biopower, in its desire to distinguish between who is disposable and who must be protected, produces a corollary power termed 'necropower.' This sovereign power maximizes the destruction of people and creates 'deathscapes' or 'death worlds,' 'unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life which confer upon them the status of the living dead' (2003). According to Mbembe, colonies, plantations, and slavery are the chief nineteenth-century examples of necropolitics, and current systems of terrorism are its descendents. Mbembe’s concepts can be insightfully deployed to investigate how slavery is instituted and resisted, how British colonization contributes to a state of exception that makes these uses of death possible, and how rebellions, discourses, and histories contain, rebel against, or propagate uses of death. While Mbembe centers his project on slave plantations in the West Indies and the colonial horrors of his native West Africa, his thanatotic, corpse politics are certainly relevant to nineteenth-century Western culture, specifically in the examination of the necropolitical construction of the British Empire onto the inhabitants and landscape of England, for instance, as an example of a re-enacting or reversal of the horrors of the imperial system.

Following Mbembe, we have seen a broader expansion of necropolitical theory to diverse fields, such as ecology, architecture, and queer studies. Jasbir Puar (2014) elaborates a queer necropolitics which calls attention to the ‘differences between queer subjects who are being folded (back) into life and the racialized queernesses that emerge through the naming of populations, often those marked for death.’ With this capaciousness, necropolitics involves multiple modalities of power deployment over the production and management of dead bodies.

This special issue “Victorian Necropolitics” seeks to complicate and expand the postcolonial and posthuman interrogations launched by Mbembe, Rosi Braidotti (2013) and others.

Proposals might address but are not limited to the following topics:

• The aesthetics of violence and fear

• Urban life, surveillance, and regulating mechanisms

• Necro tendencies in architecture, interior, and object design

• Necropower, industrialization, and capitalism

• Queer Necropolitics, Ecologies, and/or Thanatologies

• Necro/dark economies

• Necro ecologies

• The Undead and/or Posthuman

• Imperialism, slavery, and the war machine

• Death and law

• Necropolitics of state racism

• Social death in literature

The suggested topics may be interpreted widely and are intended to encompass a broad range of fields in Victorian studies. Please send a 300-500 word abstract briefly outlining your proposed 7000-8000 word essay with the subject heading “Victorian Necropolitics” and a brief biography to Jolene Zigarovich: jzigarov@gmail.com by 15 April 2022. Notifications of the outcome of submissions will be by early May 2022. If accepted, essays will be due 1 October 2022. The special issue will then be sent to Victoriographies for review and approval. Further details about the journal and a style guide for submissions are available at https://www.euppublishing.com/page/vic/submissions.

Journal of Dracula Studies 2019 Submissions (papers by 5/1/2019)

Journal of Dracula Studies
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/01/23/journal-of-dracula-studies

deadline for submissions:
May 1, 2019

full name / name of organization:
Anne DeLong/Transylvanian Society of Dracula

contact email:
journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu



We invite manuscripts of scholarly articles (4000-6000 words) on any of the following: Bram Stoker, the novel Dracula, the historical Dracula, the vampire in folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics.

Submissions should be sent electronically (as an e-mail attachment in .doc or .rtf). Please indicate the title of your submission in the subject line of your e-mail. Send electronic submissions to journalofdraculastudies@kutztown.edu.

Please follow the updated MLA style. Contributors are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions and ensuring observance of copyright. Manuscripts will be peer-reviewed independently by at least two scholars in the field. Copyright for published articles remains with the author.

Submissions must be received no later than May 1 in order to be considered for that year’s issue.


Last updated January 23, 2019

Vampires and New England

I recently finished Blood Lines: Vampire Stories from New England (Nashville: Cumberland House, 1997), edited by Lawrence Schimel and Martin H. Greenberg as part of The American Vampire Series.

It is an interesting collection with works from a very disparate selection of writers. A number of the stories play with New England's own traditions of vampire folklore (or create new ones), but too many of the narratives seemed to use the setting only as a place to tell a vampire story rather than expand on what has come before or relish in the location. All are worth a read, but readers should be forewarned that they might not find what they are expecting here. These are, perhaps, best referred to as "Vampire Stories Set in New England," rather than to be thought of "Vampire Stories of New England".


Contents (from The Locus Index to Science Fiction: 1984-1998):

Blood Lines: Vampire Stories from New England ed. Lawrence Schimel & Martin H. Greenberg (Cumberland House 1-888952-50-4, Sep ’97 [Oct ’97], $12.95, 225pp, tp) Vampire anthology of ten stories, one original. Authors include Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Manly Wade Wellman, H.P. Lovecraft, and Esther Friesner. Introduction by Schimel.

• ix · Introduction · Lawrence Schimel · in
• · New Hampshire
• 1 · Investigating Jericho [Saint-Germain] · Chelsea Quinn Yarbro · na F&SF Apr ’92
• · Massachussetts
• 51 · The Brotherhood of Blood · Hugh B. Cave · nv Weird Tales May ’32
• · Connecticut
• 73 · Chastel [Lee Cobbett; Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant] · Manly Wade Wellman · nv The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII, ed. Gerald W. Page, DAW, 1979
• · Maine
• 99 · Doom of the House of Duryea · Earl Peirce, Jr. · ss Weird Tales Oct ’36
• · Vermont
• 115 · Moonlight in Vermont · Esther Friesner · nv Sisters in Fantasy 2, ed. Susan Shwartz & Martin H. Greenberg, Roc, 1996
• · Connecticut
• 139 · Secret Societies · Lawrence Schimel · ss *
• · Massachussetts
• 151 · Luella Miller · Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman · ss Everybody’s Magazine Dec ’02
• · New Hampshire
• 165 · When the Red Storm Comes · Sarah Smith · ss Shudder Again, ed. Michele Slung, Roc, 1993
• · Connecticut
• 179 · The Beautiful, the Damned · Kristine Kathryn Rusch · ss F&SF Feb ’95
• · Rhode Island
• 197 · The Shunned House · H. P. Lovecraft · nv Weird Tales Oct ’37

 

CfP Growing Up with the Undead (expired)

Meant to post this earlier in the year:

CfP: Growing Up with the Undead: Vampires in the 20th- and 21st-Century Literature, Films and Television for Young Children

http://www.fantastic-arts.org/2016/cfp-growing-up-with-the-undead-vampires-in-the-20th-and-21st-century-literature-films-and-television-for-young-children/

Posted on April 20, 2016

 

Type:

Call for Papers

Date:

May 31, 2016

Subject Fields:

Childhood and Education, Popular Culture Studies, Literature, Film and Film History, Cultural History / Studies

 

Since Bram Stoker’s seminal vampire novel, Dracula, published in 1897, the figure of the vampire has been a persistent presence in Western popular culture. Though largely the remit of adult audiences since the 1970s, the vampire has become increasingly present in narratives (books/films/television) for younger children. In fact, in the 21^st century, one might even venture to say it is a staple of the genre. During this time the meaning of the vampire itself has drastically changed from a symbol of otherness and potential danger to one that accepts difference and offers agency to all young readers. This shift within young children’s narratives is largely a reflection of the changing positioning of the undead within adult and young adult narratives that have seen an increasing romanticization of the vampire, which constructs it as both inspirational and aspirational within, or indeed outside of, an increasingly consumerist and globalized world. This volume will examine the continuing presence of vampires within children’s literary and visual narratives in relation to contemporaneous representations in popular narratives and the social environment that creates them.

Abstracts/proposals are invited for chapters that look at narratives featuring vampire characters, as either main protagonist or incidental role, in books, film, television, comics, toys, games, etc. aimed at children of 12 years old or younger (not YA). Chapters can be either an overview of a particular medium or focus on a few titles that example certain themes or topics.

Possible subjects include but are not limited to:

• Child vampires, male/female vampires, animal vampires, non-human vampires
• Scary vampires, stranger danger, warnings against non-normative behaviour
• Queer vampires, individual identity positions, role models
• Historical precedents from folk/fairy tales or classic children’s literature
• Franchises that cover many media that feature vampires, Monster High, Mona the Vampire, Disney (characters such as Maleficent/Ursula etc)
• Vampires in games, Lego, activity books, pop-up books etc
• Vampires in children’s advertising/products such as Count Chocula, Oreo adverts, Kinder adverts etc.
• Children’s vampires in relation to their YA and adult contemporaries
• Any of the above in relation to gender, sexualities, minorities, ethnicity, class etc.
• Non-bloodsucking vampires: veggie vamps and those that drink washing liquid, or energy etc.
• Vampires that are not vampires, i.e. Scooby Doo, Araminta Spook etc.

Abstract of no more than 350 words with “Growing up with the Vampire” in the subject line,  should arrive by 31^st May, 2016.
Final manuscripts of 5,000-8,000 will be expected by 28^th August, 2016, manuscripts to be formatted MLA-style with a separate works cited page section, for publication by Universitas Press in Montreal (www.universitaspress.com) by the end of 2016/start 2017.
Abstracts and enquiries should be sent to Simon Bacon at: baconetti@googlemail.com

URL:

http://www.universitaspress.com

 

CFP Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities (Spec Issue) (3/1/16)

This sounds promising:

Call for Papers for Medical Humanities
Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities
http://scifimedhums.glasgow.ac.uk/journal-issue/

The BMJ Group journal Medical Humanities will be publishing a special issue: ‘Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities’.

Themes

We invite papers of broad interest to an international readership of medical humanities scholars and practising clinicians on the topic ‘Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities’.

Science fiction is a fertile ground for the imagining of biomedical advances. Technologies such as cloning, prosthetics, and rejuvenation are frequently encountered in science-fiction stories. Science fiction also offers alternative ideals of health and wellbeing, and imagines new forms of disease and suffering. The special issue seeks papers that explore issues of health, illness, and medicine in science-fiction narratives within a variety of media (written word, graphic novel, theatre, dance, film and television, etc.).

We are also particularly interested in articles that explore the biomedical ‘technoscientific imaginary’: the culturally-embedded imagining of futures enabled by technoscientific innovation. We especially welcome papers that explore science-fiction tropes, motifs, and narratives within medical and health-related discourses, practices, and institutions. The question – how does the biomedical technoscientific imaginary permeate the everyday and expert worlds of modern medicine and healthcare? – may be a useful prompt for potential authors.

Subject areas might include but are not limited to:

• clinicians as science-fiction writers
• representations of medicine, health, disability, and illness in science-fiction literature, cinema, and other media
• the use and misuse of science fiction in public engagement with biomedical science and technology
• utopian narratives of miraculous biomedical progress (and their counter-narratives)
• socio-political critique in medical science fiction (via cognitive estrangement, critical utopias, etc.)
• science fiction as stimulus to biomedical research and technology (e.g. science-fiction prototyping)
• science-fiction tropes, motifs and narratives in medical publicity, research announcements, promotional material, etc.
• the visual and material aesthetic of science fiction in medicine and healthcare settings

Publication

Up to 10 articles will be published in Medical Humanities in 2016.

All articles will be blind peer-reviewed according to the journal’s editorial policies. Final publication decisions will rest with the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Deborah Bowman.

Important Dates

Please submit your article no later than 1 March 2016

Submission Instructions

Articles for Medical Humanities should be a maximum of 5,000 words, and submitted via the journal’s website. Please choose the special issue ‘Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities’ during the submission process.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of your submission, including possible topics, or the possibility of presenting your work under the auspices of the Wellcome Trust funded project ‘Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities’, please contact the Guest Editor in the first instance:  Dr Gavin Miller (gavin.miller@glasgow.ac.uk)

CFP Fan Phenomena: The Twilight Saga (6/15/15)

CFP: Fan Phenomena: The Twilight Saga
http://fanstudies.org/2015/05/19/cfp-fan-phenomena-the-twilight-saga/

The UK publisher Intellect is now seeking chapters for Fan Phenomena: The Twilight Saga, the next edition in its Fan Phenomena book series.

Fan Phenomena: The Twilight Saga will be an edited collection of essays about the forces that contributed to the global popularity and commercial success of the books, films and graphic novels of The Twilight Saga. Chapters will explore Twilight’s unique appeal to fans as well as its impact on people, literature, film, music, television and social issues. Suggested topics include but are not limited to the following areas:

Creative Legacy:
– The Twilight series reignited the popularity of vampire and werewolf lore worldwide, prompting numerous books, television shows and movies. Explore Twilight’s creative and commercial impact on these industries.
– Explore the role of music in both Twilight’s appeal and success, considering the groups and songs that inspired the author or were commissioned for the movies. What lasting impact did Twilight have on its musicians and the world of music?
– Was there something unique about Twilight or its fandom that enabled the massive success of its fan fiction (i.e. Fifty Shades of Grey) plus the follow-on Storytellers project? What is Twilight’s artistic legacy?

Social Impact:
– Why did Twilight’s appeal cross generations, unexpectedly embracing “Twilight Moms” as well as teens? What was the impact of this disparate fandom on Twilight’s commercial success and social acceptance? Was Twilight’s demographic diversity unique among fandoms?
– Several conservative family values, such as the soul, redemption, abstinence, marriage, family and preserving life, laced the Twilight series. How did the books’ messages influence the development of young readers’ moral principles and the popularity of the story?
– Explore Stephenie Meyer’s presentation of the strong female and its contribution to Twilight’s uniqueness, popularity, success and social impact.

Media and Marketing Explosion:
– Explore the factors that sparked Twilight’s explosive fame and pervasive media presence around the world.
– Explore Twilight fans’ stratification of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. What was its impact on the fandom, the franchise’s success and commercial merchandising?
– Was the Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson off-screen romance a genuinely serendipitous coincidence or a carefully crafted pairing? What was its impact on the fandom, including the fans’ romantic dedication to the story during the movies’ releases and post-production dissolution of fan conventions?

The Fan Phenomena series explores the greatest popular culture stories of our time. The collection already includes 16 iconic titles, including Star Wars, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, Batman, Lord of the Rings, Dr. Who, James Bond, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Supernatural. The Twilight Saga is a perfect addition to this collection. Since the release of the first Twilight novel in 2005, The Twilight Saga has generated billions of dollars in book and franchise sales1. Ten years later, the fandom’s loyal devotion to the story led to the launch of the Twilight Storytellers project, a contest in which spin-off films based on Twilight fan fiction will ultimately be judged by Twilight fans. The Twilight Saga’s enduring popularity is truly a unique and global phenomenon that demands attention, examination and celebration within the Fan Phenomena series.

This targeted anthology is intended to be an enlightening and fun addition to Twilight fans’ collections, as well as a resource for universities. As such, papers should be written for a broad audience of academics and fans. Final chapters will be 3000 – 3500 words. Questions, abstracts (maximum 400 words) and author biographies should be directed to Laurena Aker at LSAker@att.net by June 15, 2015. Final paper submissions will be due Oct. 1, 2015. Scheduled publication date is 4th quarter 2016.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/FanPhenomenaTwilight
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/fanphenomenathetwilightsaga/home

Cute Zombies 2015

It has started already. Like the other holidays, Halloween comes sooner and sooner each year, and Hallmark is one of the first to market its monstrous wares, including a kid zombie ornament for your Halloween tree (I guess). It is fairly ghastly, and I'm sure it will be a sell-out.

Happy Halloween! Zombie Ornament
Keepsake Ornament
3rd in the series
$14.95
Available July 11, 2015

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Take a peek into the creepy graveyard scene within this gourd ornament to see what lurks at night. Treat yourself or a friend to the third ornament in the Happy Halloween series! Learn more about Keepsake Ornaments.

Christmas tree ornament.

Each ornament in this series features a spooky Halloween scene.

On ornament:
RIP
2015

Tree-shaped series symbol around number 3.

Dated 2015.

Artist crafted.

Pre-packaged for easy gift giving, preservation and storage.

2.3" W x 3" H x 1.6" D

Reading Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Just finished reading Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2010) this week. Author Seth Grahame-Smith offers an interesting premise about vampires in America and Lincoln's decades-long quest to eradicate them. The narrative jumps around a bit, but the book is an easy read. The ending (set in the 1960s) offers promise for a sequel (now available). The publisher's website includes a trailer for the original book and a mock documentary supporting its claims. 

For vampire fans, while we really get into Lincoln's head, we don't get much detail into the history of the undead (besides the suggestion of an emigration from Europe following the activities of Countess Bathory) and nothing about their natures (i.e. are the demonic?) besides that some are good (abolitionist/prohuman vampires) and some are bad (those allied with the South/Confederate States). There is also little information about how they die; they don't appear to decay, and there is at least one reference of hunters having to bury the body. 

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

Sorry to have forgotten about this:

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

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

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

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

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

CFP Rise of Undead Culture (5/15/14; PAMLA 10/31-11/2/14)

Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association
112th Annual Conference - Riverside Convention Center, California
Friday, October 31 - Sunday, November 2, 2014

Beyond Life: The Rise of Undead Culture

Presiding Officer:
Roland Finger, Cuesta College
The undead have forcefully risen in popular literature and media and targeted the pillars of society—identity, family, religion, and government. Normal life simultaneously loses and acquires value vis-à-vis threats from the undead. This session investigates the significance of the undead within culture, literature, and philosophy.

Status:
Open (accepting submissions)
Associated Sessions
Beyond Life: The Rise of Undead Culture.
Topic Type:
Special Session

- See more at: http://www.pamla.org/2014/topics/beyond-life-rise-undead-culture#sthash.Mk2gGCQw.dpuf

CFP Children's Animation and After-Life Narratives (5/15/14; PAMLA 10/31-11/2/14)

112th Annual Conference - Riverside Convention Center, California
Friday, October 31 - Sunday, November 2, 2014

Reanimating the Child: Children's Animation and After-Life Narratives

Presiding Officer:
David Boyd, Metropolitan State University of Denver

The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen a tremendous influx of children's animation from both the United States and Japan that dwell on death. This brand of animation examines, firstly, how children contemplate and process death, and secondly, reveals how the image of the child can be associated or conflated with the figure of the undead other. While Japanese illustrators and animators have produced many more examples of this type of children's media (specifically through the genre they call yokai shonen or "adventurous ghost stories"), American alternatives may also include The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (2003-2008), ParaNorman (2012), and Frankenweenie (2012). In these stories, a child either dies and becomes a supernatural hero, or experiences loss and acquires supernatural powers that allow him/her to interact with the undead. The popularity of this mode seems to address not just a child's perception of loss, death and grieving, but also more expansive post-human anxieties concerning finitude, agency, and otherness.

Status:
Open (accepting submissions)
Associated Sessions
Reanimating the Child: Children's Animation and After-Life Narratives
Topic Type:
Special Session

- See more at: http://www.pamla.org/2014/topics/reanimating-child-childrens-animation-and-after-life-narratives#sthash.vhU68ITI.dpuf

CFP Undead as Sustainable (Academic) Resource (6/1/14, SAMLA 11/7-9/14)

The Undead as Sustainable (Academic) Resource, SAMLA 11/7-9/14
full name / name of organization:
Lynne M. Simpson, College English Association
contact email:
lsimpson@presby.edu

“ZOMBIES are a value stock. They are wordless and oozing and brain dead, but they’re an ever-expanding market with no glass ceiling,” writes Chuck Closterman for The New York Times. Thanks in part to the commodification of the zombie, the undead prove rich fodder for the academic as well. Papers that explore the zombie as cultural, ecological, political, or, of course, commoditized figure are welcome. Please send abstracts of around 500 words to Lynne Simpson at lsimpson@presby.edu by June 1, 2014.

SAMLA 86th Annual Conference: Sustainability and the Humanities
November 7-9, 2014
Marriott Atlanta Buckhead Hotel
Atlanta, Georgia

For more information on the conference, please see the following:
https://samla.memberclicks.net/conference


By web submission at 03/18/2014 - 02:43

CFP Rebirth - Spec. Issue of Bristol Journal of English Studies (proposals by 4/25/14)

Bristol Journal of English Studies, Issue 5, Rebirth
full name / name of organization:
Bristol Journal of English Studies
contact email:
bristoljournalofenglishstudies@gmail.com
Bristol Journal Of English Studies call for submissions
Issue 5, Autumn 2014

Whether understood literally or symbolically, narratives of rebirth are a staple of myriad cultures and societies. Some rebirths can be dramatic, instantaneous, and we can see these kinds of transfigurations in, for example, Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Or, rebirth could perhaps be an ongoing, glacially-slow process, such as the perpetually provisional rebirths of Darwinian evolutionary theory: over time, for example, a microbe can become Picasso, but does the length of time preclude the possibility of this being seen as the rebirth of the microbe? Each day, even, could be seen as re-awakening and rebirth, after the shut-down of foetal-sleep; does memory preserve and make continuous our identity, as it did for John Locke, or has something fundamental changed overnight?
Religious and mythic texts, perhaps viewing rebirth in more spiritual terms, emphasise the proximity of rebirth to the divine and through which a spiritual transfiguration (and, less frequently, a physical transformation) may take place; in the Christian Bible, Christ undergoes both a moment of transfiguration and a resurrection; in Egyptian mythology, the creation myth perpetuates a kind of rebirth, in which the gods transform themselves into the material universe. In a more modern, secular culture, talk of rebirth often hinges on more tangible ideas of refreshment or renewal; in pop culture, for instance, an artistic rebirth allows a performer to distance themselves from a past (a scandal, an identity, a rather lack-lustre album) while simultaneously indicating their creative reinvigoration – whether for personal or commercial reasons. Revivals (of critical theories, of artistic or cinematic movements, of musical or fashion trends...) allow a group of individuals to participate collectively in a conscious resurrection of a particular phenomenon. To what extent is this a rebirth? What is the purpose (socially, culturally or psychologically) of rebirth? What remains of spiritual and theological notions of reincarnation and regeneration in modern narratives of rebirth? Are rebirths necessarily always positive? Is it even possible to be properly reborn?

The Bristol Journal of English Studies invites proposals for articles that aim to explore any number of these questions, in connection with any era or genre of literature, film, art, music or culture more broadly. Areas for consideration might be (though not limited to):

- Transformation; metamorphosis; transition; reincarnation; transfiguration.
- Religious figurations of rebirth; Messianic rebirths; resurrection; notions of being ‘born again’, Christian or otherwise.
- Identity and rebirth; the extent to which identity is or is not continuous; the adoption of new identities, conscious or otherwise; what stays the same, what changes?
- Psychoanalytical conceptions of rebirth; Jungian narratives of rebirth, Symbols of Transformation.
- The subversion or negation of death; death as a transient phenomenon.
- Becoming undead as a form or perversion of rebirth; the exploration of these themes in the literature of the gothic.
- Textual rebirth; whether or not re-writing, adaptation and even re-reading constitute the ‘rebirth’ of a text.
- Consumerism and rebranding; the illusion that something is either ‘fresh’ or ‘new’ through corporate marketing strategies; the alienation of audience through rebranding.

The editors seek 250 word proposals on the topic of rebirth, for 5,000-7,000 word articles or essays of up to 5,000 words. For guidance on this please see the attached Submissions Guidelines. Proposals should be sent, with 5-10 keywords, to bristoljournalofenglishstudies@gmail.com before 25th April 2014. Decisions will be made and communicated to authors by May 2nd, and completed articles will be due on June 2nd for publication in autumn 2014.

Please note that all articles and abstracts for consideration must follow the MHRA style guide.

website: http://englishjournal.blogs.ilrt.org/


By web submission at 03/12/2014 - 17:23