CFP Monsters of Film, Fiction, and Fable (4/30/2016)

One final call for the night:

Monsters of Film, Fiction, and Fable -- Edited Collection
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/61594
full name / name of organization:
Lisa Wenger Bro / Middle Georgia State University
contact email: lisa.bro@mga.edu

Monsters of Film, Fiction, and Fable: The Cultural Links between the Human and Inhuman

This proposed collection will explore the cultural implications of and the societal fears and desires associated with the literal monsters of fiction, television, and movies. Long tied to ideas of the Other, the inhuman have represented societal fears for centuries. While this depiction of inhuman as Other still persists today, postmodern times also saw a radical shift in the portrayals and long-held associations. The postmodern monster is by no means soft and cuddly; nevertheless, its depiction has evolved. Veering from the traditional, “us vs. them” dynamic, many contemporary works illustrate what posthuman theorists refer to as the “them” in “us” correlation. These new monsters, often found in urban fantasy, eradicate the stark separation between human and inhuman as audiences search for the similarities between themselves and their much beloved monster characters. The shifted portrayal also means that these select, postmodern monsters no longer highlight cultural fears, but rather cultural hopes, dreams, desires, and even humanity’s own inhumanity. This does not mean that the pure monsters of horror are eradicated in contemporary renderings. Instead, they too have evolved over the course of the 20th and 21st century, highlighting everything from socioeconomic anxieties to issues related to humanity and human nature.

Given the many and varied implications of the inhuman in media and their long and diverse history, this volume will examine the cultural connotations of the monstrous, focusing specifically on the monsters of modernism and postmodernism.

In particular, we are looking to fill in certain gaps, and welcome articles related to the following monsters:

• Ghosts
• Leviathons/behemoths—anything from Mothra to Dragons
• Science Fiction related monsters such as artificial intelligence and cyborgs

The proposal for this collection is in progress, and will be submitted once selections are made.

Please email the following to Lisa Wenger Bro (lisa.bro@mga.edu) by Thursday, April 30:

• a 300-350 word abstract
• a brief biography
• the estimated length of the full article
• the number of illustrations, if any, you will use (note, it will be up to individual authors to secure rights to images)

Full articles will be due by June 30. All accepted articles will be peer-reviewed.

By web submission at 03/31/2015 - 16:41

CFP Monsters and Monstrosity in 21st-Century Film and Television (5/1/2016)

Monsters and Monstrosity in 21st-Century Film and Television (1 May 2016)
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/65973

full name / name of organization:
Cristina Artenie and Ashley Szanter
contact email:
ashleyszanter1@weber.edu

Monsters and Monstrosity in 21st-Century Film and Television

Editors
Cristina Artenie (Universitas Press) and Ashley Szanter (Weber State University)

Starting from the premise that monsters/monstrosity allow for the (dis)placement of anxieties that contemporary social mores do not otherwise sanction in the public space, editors Artenie and Szanter seek original essays for an edited collection on manifestations of monsters and monstrosity in all facets of popular culture and entertainment with an emphasis on film and television. Within the last years, there has been an explosion of movies and television shows that incorporate monstrous characters such as the vampire, zombie, werewolf, revenant, witches, and ghosts. While monsters continue to remain strong in the human conscious, the recent proliferation of monstrous characters includes new and innovative interpretations that not only attract mainstream audiences but transform traditional folklore and mythologies. This collection aims to analyze the new forms taken by monsters in film and television for their cultural impact on modern entertainment and popular culture.

Chapters in the proposed collection can focus on one or more of the following categories:

• Modern monsters in television and film, particularly new monster media like iZombie, The Originals, The Vampire Diaries, Penny Dreadful, NBC’s Dracula, Teen Wolf, The Walking Dead, Les Revenants, Sleepy Hollow, Doctor Who, Warm Bodies, The Wolfman (2010), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Krampus, Victor Frankenstein, and many others
• Modern monster theory as an important element of pop cultural study and relevance in an era of growing monster imagery and narrative
• Address canon or contemporary monster fictions through a particular scholarly lens
• Address monster studies and intersectionality. Of particular interest to the editors are popular depictions of monstrosity and disability, non-binary gender and sexuality, feminism, and non-traditional/deconstructed families within a broad identity politics frame.
• Discussions of fandom theory as it relates to monster films with worldwide success (i.e. The Twilight Saga).

Preference will be given to abstracts received before May 1, 2016 and should be no longer than 300 words. Please also include a brief biographical statement and a CV.

Final manuscripts (no longer than 15,000 words, including Works Cited) should be submitted in MLA style, by July 15, 2016.

Send inquires and abstracts to: ashleyszanter1@weber.edu

By web submission at 01/25/2016 - 03:26

CFP Disabled Gothic Bodies (Spec Issue of Studies in Gothic Fiction) (5/30/2016)

Happily came across the following by accident last week:

Call for Papers: Studies in Gothic Fiction Special Issue – Disabled Gothic Bodies
http://studiesingothicfiction.weebly.com/call-for-papers.html

Guest Editor: Dr. Alan Gregory

The Gothic is a mode that displays a sustained cultural fascination with the disabled body. As David Punter notes, ‘the history of ... dealings with the disabled body runs throughout the history of the Gothic, a history of invasion and resistance, of the enemy within, of bodies torn and tormented or else rendered miraculously, or sometimes catastrophically, whole’ (2000: 40). Despite the Gothic’s prolonged exploration of corporeal deviations from perceived cultural norms, however, Martha Stoddard Holmes suggests that the scholastic intersections between Disability Studies and Gothic Studies have been largely neglected. Proposals are invited for a special issue of Studies in Gothic Fiction concerned with Gothic representations of the physically disabled body. This issue of the journal will make a valuable contribution in addressing the lack of sustained critical explorations of physical disability as a motif in Gothic fiction, film and television. It will also examine how the Gothic’s uncomfortable conflation of disability and monstrosity creates binary oppositions between spectacles and seclusions of physical difference, and the creation and cure of corporeal disability. In order to diversify from Ruth Bienstock Anolik’s edited collection, Demons of the Body and Mind (2010), the scope of the issue will not extend to Gothic representations of psychological and intellectual disabilities. Topics which may be explored by contributors could include, but are not limited to:

• Amputation
• Birth Defects
• Body Horror Coded as Disability
• Celebrations of Physical Difference
• Conjoined Siblings
• Disabilities as Exceptionalities
• (Dis)Empowerments of the Disabled Body
• Entraordinary Bodies
• (Im)Mobility
• Monstrous Bodies
• Phantom Limbs
• Prostheses
• Ritual Disfigurement
• Scientific/Technological Creations/Cures of Disability
• Spectacular Bodies
• The Wounded Storyteller

Proposals of approximately 500 words, complete with a 50 word bionote, should be submitted to Dr. Alan Gregory at a.gregory5@lancaster.ac.uk by Monday 30th May 2016. Contributors can expect to be selected and notified by Friday 17th June 2016. (Full drafts of the selected articles will be due on Friday 4th November 2016).

CFP Journal of Dracula Studies for 2016

Journal of Dracula Studies Call for Papers
http://kutztownenglish.com/journal-of-dracula-studies-call-for-papers/

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 2009 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, 2016, in order to be considered for the 2016 issue.

Contact: Dr. Curt Herr or Dr. Anne DeLong

Baer's Golem Redux

An interesting and informative book of relevance to our endeavors:

The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction
Elizabeth R. Baer
Published by: Wayne State University Press
http://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/golem-redux

Subjects: Cultural Studies, Folklore, Jewish Studies, Literary Criticism and Theory, Popular Culture

PAPERBACK
Published: April 2012
ISBN: 9780814336267
Pages: 240
Size: 6x9
Illustrations: 12
$27.95

EBOOK
Published: April 2012
ISBN: 9780814336274


First mentioned in the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, the golem is a character in an astonishing number of post-Holocaust Jewish-American novels and has served as inspiration for such varied figures as Mary Shelley’s monster in her novel Frankenstein, a frightening character in the television series The X-Files, and comic book figures such as Superman and the Hulk. In The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction, author Elizabeth R. Baer introduces readers to these varied representations of the golem and traces the history of the golem legend across modern pre- and post-Holocaust culture. In five chapters, The Golem Redux examines the different purposes for which the golem has been used in literature and what makes the golem the ultimate text and intertext for modern Jewish writers.
Baer begins by introducing several early manifestations of the golem legend, including texts from the third and fourth centuries and from the medieval period; Prague’s golem legend, which is attributed to the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew; the history of the Josefov, the Jewish ghetto in Prague, the site of the golem legend; and versions of the legend by Yudl Rosenberg and Chayim Bloch, which informed and influenced modern intertexts. In the chapters that follow, Baer traces the golem first in pre-Holocaust Austrian and German literature and film and later in post-Holocaust American literature and popular culture, arguing that the golem has been deployed very differently in these two contexts. Where prewar German and Austrian contexts used the golem as a signifier of Jewish otherness to underscore growing anti-Semitic cultural feelings, post-Holocaust American texts use the golem to depict the historical tragedy of the Holocaust and to imagine alternatives to it. In this section, Baer explores traditional retellings by Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel, the considerable legacy of the golem in comics, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and, finally, "Golems to the Rescue" in twentieth- and twenty-first-century works of film and literature, including those by Cynthia Ozick, Thane Rosenbaum, and Daniel Handler.
By placing the Holocaust at the center of her discussion, Baer illustrates how the golem works as a self-conscious intertextual character who affirms the value of imagination and story in Jewish tradition. Students and teachers of Jewish literature and cultural history, film studies, and graphic novels will appreciate Baer’s pioneering and thought-provoking volume.


Elizabeth R. Baer is professor of English and genocide studies at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. She is co-editor with Hester Baer of The Blessed Abyss: Inmate #6582 in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women (Wayne State University Press, 2000) and co-editor with Myrna Goldenberg of Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust (Wayne State University Press, 2003). She is also editor of Shadows on My Heart: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Buck of Virginia, a finalist for the Lincoln Prize in 1997.

World War Wendigo!

Marvel Comics recently offered a version of the Wendigo apocalypse in the recent "World War Wendigo" arc of Amazing X-Men (nos. 8-12) by Craig Kyle and Chris Yost. The story pits the X-Men and the classic Alpha Flight against the seemingly unstoppable spread of the curse of the Wendigo across Canada. It also links the Wendigo curse to the Great Beasts, personifications of Canada in the Marvel Universe (details at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo_(comics)).

Parts of the story are a bit gruesome, but it is sure to appeal to fans of Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men and John Bryne's Alpha Flight series of the 1980s.

The arc is collected in Amazing X-Men: World War Wendigo (978-0-7851-8822-3).More details on Marvel's Wendigo can be found on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo_(comics).

CFP Fairy Tales, Folk Lore and Legends Conference (10/2/2015; Budapest 3/14-16/2016)

Fairy Tales, Folk Lore and Legends
Announcement published by Robert Fisher on Thursday, August 27, 2015
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/80114/fairy-tales-folk-lore-and-legends

Type: Conference
Date: March 14, 2016 to March 16, 2016
Location: Hungary
Subject Fields: Anthropology, Cultural History / Studies, Literature, Oral History


Fairy Tales, Folk Lore and Legends
Call for Submissions 2016

Monday 14th March – Wednesday 16th March 2016
Budapest, Hungary


Wicked witches, evil stepmothers, Rumplestiltskin, jinn, gnomes, trolls, wolves and thieves versus fairy godmothers, Peri, departed beloved mothers, firebirds, dwarves, princesses, Simurgh, woodcutters and princes charming. Fairy tales, folk lore and legends are the canvas on which the vast mural of good versus evil plays out and our darkest dreams or nightmares struggle against our better selves and highest hopes. At the same time, the relationship between these tales and modern society is a complex one that invites closer consideration of the changing nature of the stories and how modern sensibilities have both challenged and been challenged by the values and viewpoints that underpin the narratives.

Fairy tales can be interpreted in a variety of ways and from a variety of viewpoints: they can be psychological exposes, blueprints for dealing with the traumas of childhood and early adulthood, guides to navigating life, windows onto social realities long forgotten, remnants of ancient mythology or hints at how to access the Transcendent.

The Fairy Tales interdisciplinary research and publishing stream investigates how fairy tales/folk tales/legends represent both good and evil, how these are personified or interact, what these reveal about the lives of those who have told them over the years, what they mean for us who read or listen to them today. Possible subjects for presentations include but are not limited to:



Exploring the Tales Themselves

• Functions of tales over time and across cultures
• Socio-political context of tales and their capacity to serve as allegories for real life issues
• Justice and morality in the tales
• Fairy tale utopias and dystopias and the blurred lines between fiction, fact, reality, science fiction and mythology
• How fairy tales shape ideas about happiness
• Considerations of why tales are an enduring aspect of culture
• Factors that make some tales more popular than others (and why popularity can shift over time)
• (Re)interpretations and re-imaginings of the same tales differ over time or across cultures
• Relationship between fairy tale characters and real life humans: do human ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys’ behave so differently from fictional goodies and baddies, where there times when characters that seem fantastic to modern folks were actually considered to be more realistic by historical readers/listeners, what factors shape the changes that cause people to perceive characters as more or less real
• Relationship between fantastic and magical elements of tales and lived reality
• Tales and monsters: monstrous animals, monstrous humans, children’s interaction with monsters
• Intended lessons and values of stories and counter-interpretations, particularly in relation to gender, sex, materialistic values, notions of virtue and authority
• Processes around the domestication of fairy tales
• Tales as a source of/mechanism for oppression of individuals or groups
• New/modern tales
• Critical approaches to tales
• Tales and their authors
• Fairy tale artwork and imagery
• Fairy tale geographies: spaces and places of both the worlds within fairy tales as well as the spaces and places where the narratives are told or written

Encountering Fairy Tales/Legends/Folk Tales

• Studies of readers/audiences across time and cultures
• Listening versus reading: impact of oral traditions on the narratives, impact of illustrations in reception of the tales, etc.
• Relationship between traditional and modern forms of interactive storytelling involving fairy tales
• How adaptation to other mediums, such as film, television, visual art, music, theatre, graphic novels, dance and video games, affect the content of the tales themselves, appreciation of the narrative or our interpretations of narrative meaning

Uses of Fairy Tales/Legends/Folk Tales

• In advertising (re-imagining tales in advertising imagery, marketing the princess lifestyle, etc.)
• Tales and pedagogy: using tales as teaching and learning tools
• In tourism through destination marketing of spaces associated with fairy tales, Disneyfication of tales, etc.
• In the formation of national/cultural/ethnic identity
• In the publishing business
• Communities, biography and fairy tales: How social communal identity is forged around telling and re-telling tales

Tales, Health and Happiness

• Tales and magical thinking in the human development
• Tales and psychological/clinical practices involving tales
• Tales and unhealthy behaviour/beliefs
• Effect of tales on shaping notions of (un)happiness, (in)appropriate ways to pursue it and how to respond to respond to others’ (un)happiness
• Tales and aging (“growing old” as a theme in tales, how tales shape perceptions of old age, etc.)

Live Performances of Tales

• Theatrical, dance and other types of staged presentations
• Pantomime
• Vocal performances
• Art installations
• Readings

Curated film screenings

Further details can be found on the project web site:

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/fairy-tales-folk-lore-and-legends/call-for-participation/

Call for Cross-Over Presentations

The Fairy Tales, Folk Lore and Legends project will be meeting at the same time as a project on Health and another project on Happiness. We welcome submissions which cross the divide between both project areas. If you would like to be considered for a cross project session, please mark your submission “Crossover Submission”.

What to Send

300 word abstracts, proposals and other forms of contribution should be submitted by Friday 2nd October 2015.
All submissions be minimally double reviewed, under anonymous (blind) conditions, by a global panel drawn from members of the Project Team and the Advisory Board. In practice our procedures usually entail that by the time a proposal is accepted, it will have been triple and quadruple reviewed.

You will be notified of the panel’s decision by Friday 16th October 2015.
If your submission is accepted for the conference, a full draft of your contribution should be submitted by Friday 5th February 2016.

Abstracts may be in Word, RTF or Notepad formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Fairy Tales Abstract Submission



Where to Send

Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs:

Organising Chairs:
Stephen Morris: smmorris58@yahoo.com
Rob Fisher: fairytales@inter-disciplinary.net

This event is an inclusive interdisciplinary research and publishing project. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

It is anticipated that a number of publishing options will arise from the work of the project generally and from the meeting of Fairy Tales, Folk Lore and Legends stream in particular. Minimally there will be a digital eBook resulting from the conference meeting. Other options, some of which might include digital publications, paperbacks and a journal will be explored during the meeting itself.

Ethos

Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract for presentation. Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Contact Info:
 Dr. Rob Fisher

Priory House

149B Wroslyn Road

Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR

United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1993 882087

Fax: +44 (0)870 4601132

Contact Email:
fairytales@inter-disciplinary.net
URL:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/fairy-tales-folk-lore-and-legends/call-for-participation/

CFP Preternatural Environments: Dreamscapes, Alternate Realities, Landscapes of Dread (proposals by 3/1/2016)

Preternatural Environments: Dreamscapes, Alternate Realities, Landscapes of Dread
Announcement published by Richard Raiswell on Thursday, August 27, 2015
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/80115/preternatural-environments-dreamscapes-alternate-realities

Type: Call for Publications
Date: March 1, 2016
Location: Prince Edward Island, Canada
Subject Fields: Anthropology, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Cultural History / Studies, Environmental History / Studies, Geography

Preternatural Environments: Dreamscapes, Alternate Realities, Landscapes of Dread

CFP for special issue of Preternature (issue 6.1)

Deadline for submissions: March 1, 2016

This special issue of Preternature seeks papers that examine elements and/or depictions of the preternatural in all sorts of environments. Scholars are increasingly drawing attention to the importance of spaces and their contexts, the stories we tell about them, and our interactions with them. This volume focuses on preternatural aspects of natural and unnatural environments such as dreamscapes, alternate worlds, and eerie landscapes.

Papers should investigate the connections between preternatural environments and literary, historical, anthropological, and artistic forms of understanding. Topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Defining the “preternatural environment” / preternatural aspects of an environment.
• Superstition and spaces.
• Demonic domains.
• Artistic representations of preternatural environments across the ages.
• Aspects of the uncanny in various physical settings.
• The pathetic fallacy and narrative theory.
• “Unnatural” landscapes and environments.
• Bridging natural and preternatural spaces.
• Preternatural ecology and ecocriticism.
• Connections between material environments, literary narratives, and the preternatural.
• Eerie landscapes as characters or significant presences in literature, history, and culture.
• How preternatural environments inform human behaviour, or how behaviour informs preternatural environments.

Preternature welcomes a variety of approaches, including narrative theory, ecocriticism, and behavioral studies from any cultural, literary, artistic, or historical tradition and from any time period. We particularly encourage submissions dealing with non-Western contexts.

Contributions should be 8,000 - 12,000 words, including all documentation and critical apparatus. For more information, see http://www.psupress.org/journals/jnls_submis_Preternature.html

or submit directly at https://www.editorialmanager.com/preternature/default.aspx.

(First-time users: click on “Register” in the menu at upper left.)

Preternature is published twice annually by the Pennsylvania State Press and is available through JSTOR and Project Muse. This periodical is also indexed in the ATLA Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®), www: http://www.atla.com.

Contact Info:
Richard Raiswell

Editor, Preternature

Contact Email:
rraiswell@upei.ca
URL: http://www.editorialmanager.com/preternature/default.aspx

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

An intriguing idea for a collection:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contact Email:
CostumedHorror@gmail.com

CFP Race, Gender, and Sexuality in The Walking Dead (1/11/2016)

CFP, Collection of Essays on Race, Gender, and Sexuality in The Walking Dead, abstracts due Jan. 11, 2016
Discussion published by Dawn Keetley on Saturday, August 29, 2015
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/80322/cfp-collection-essays-race-gender-and-sexuality-walking-dead

RACE, GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN THE WALKING DEAD FRANCHISE

The Walking Dead franchise has become a popular culture juggernaut that shows no signs of slowing down. Yet, despite its soaring popularity, there has been a longstanding critique that the franchise, in both its comic book and television incarnations, advocates an explicitly patriarchal and predominantly white world order. Zombie narratives have shown themselves to be uniquely qualified to deconstruct the many illusions (and injustices) of our social order, so why have so many felt that The Walking Dead has only hardened the conventional boundaries of race, gender, and sexuality? Nonetheless, in all its forms, The Walking Dead is an evolving narrative—and many would argue that, specifically in its representations of what women and men of all races may become, the franchise is working toward more utopian possibilities.

All four of the collections of essays on The Walking Dead—James Lowder’s Triumph of the Walking Dead (2011), Wayne Yeun’s The Walking Dead and Philosophy (2012), Dawn Keetley’s “We’re All Infected”: Essays on AMC’s The Walking Dead and the Fate of the Human (2014), and Travis Langley’s The Walking Dead Psychology (2015)—cover a wide swathe of topics, and take up gender, sexuality, and race only fleetingly. We think it’s time for a collection addressed squarely at these issues, so crucial to the franchise’s vision of a post-apocalyptic world.

To that end, we are currently accepting chapter proposals for an edited volume exploring the interlinked representations of gender, sexuality, and race in all The Walking Dead franchises. This edited volume will explore the many ways in which all three crucial identity categories are constructed/deconstructed on television and in the comic book series. Because our intention is to present a highly diverse collection, we are interested in chapters exploring all facets of race, gender, and sexuality related to the television shows and comic books, as well as in tie-ins and connected materials (e.g. the AMC webisodes, Walking Dead Specials, etc.).


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

• The relationship between undeadness and race/gender politics in The Walking Dead
• The role a dystopian, post-apocalyptic environment plays in shaping gender and race construction in The Walking Dead
• How race, gender, and sexuality intersect in The Walking Dead
• Queer visibility and gender in in The Walking Dead
• How The Walking Dead reflects/challenges the traditional depiction of gender and race in its predecessor zombie narratives
• How either the comics or the TV series has evolved in its representations of women, men, and people of color
• How fan conversation on the internet (on blogs, for instance) has critiqued and potentially shaped the ways race, gender, and sexuality are depicted in the franchise.

Please submit a 500 word abstract and short biography to Dawn Keetley (dek7@lehigh.edu) and Elizabeth Erwin (eerwin@lccc.edu) by January 11, 2016. We anticipate a tentative due date of August 1, 2016, for full essays. We will be more than happy to respond to any and all queries in the meantime.

CFP Modern Myth and Legend (9/2/2015; Louisville, KY 2/18-20/2016)

Cross-posted from NEPCA Fantastic:

Modern Myth and Legend - Louisville Conference (Feb. 18-20, 2016)
full name / name of organization: International Lawrence Durrell Society
contact email: clawsonj@gram.edu
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63312

The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900


http://www.thelouisvilleconference.com


Louisville, KY | 18-20 February 2016

"we do create the world around us since we get it to reflect back our inner symbolism at us. Every man carries a little myth-making machine inside him which operates often without him knowing it. Thus you might say that we live by a very exacting kind of poetic logic--since we get exactly what we ask for, no more and no less."
--The Dark Labyrinth (1947)

Dealing overtly with ideas of myth and legend, Lawrence Durrell's The Dark Labyrinth chronicles the adventures of British tourists exploring a cave system on Crete just after World War II. Despite their awareness of how reality is transformed by their individual experiences, beliefs, and myth-making, they are no less susceptible to the fear of the minotaur which might be chasing them through the dark passageways. A myth becomes the way we understand the world. As a legend, the monster and its labyrinth offer grounds to reflect on personal terrors and emerge triumphant—or be consumed.

In anticipation of our upcoming conference on Crete, the International Lawrence Durrell Society calls for papers addressing the broad theme of Modern Myth and Legend for a society-sponsored session of the 2016 Louisville Conference. We welcome proposals on aspects of Durrell's writing or other topics addressing the theme. Some possible topics include the following:

• W. B. Yeats's esoteric blending of Greek, Irish, and other mythologies
• Refigured legends in the aftermath of T.S. Eliot's "Ulysses, Order, and Myth," including Iris Murdoch's The Green Night or John Gardner's Grendel
• Frazer's The Golden Bough and its impact on modernist literature
• Fantasy repurposing legend, as in Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series
• Mythologizing the 20th century in film, including for example Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth or Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away
• Legendary societies, urban legends, apocrypha, and literary mysteries
• Symbolic use of tall tales, or the literary adapting of Bigfoot, werewolves, vampires, minotaurs, homunculi, gorgons, witches, griffins, manticores, giants, etc.

Please send a 250-word abstract to James Clawson (clawsonj@gram.edu), International Lawrence Durrell Society, by Sept. 2, 2015. Final presentations should be limited to 20 minutes in length.


By web submission at 08/06/2015 - 20:58

CFP Hell Studies: Presenting and Representing Hell (9/15/2015; Kalamazoo 5/12-15/2016)

Hell Studies: Presenting and Representing Hell (ICMS Kalamazoo 2016)
full name / name of organization:
Societas Daemonetica
contact email:
burleyr@bc.edu

The Societas Daemonetica is accepting proposals for fifteen- to twenty-minute papers for the Hell Studies session Presenting and Representing Hell, to be held at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, May 12-15, 2016.

Representations of Hell appear throughout the Middle Ages, in textual descriptions, manuscript illuminations, portal sculpture, wall paintings - indeed, in nearly every representational medium across Europe from the 5th century to the 15th. How is Hell represented? How are its occupants characterized? From the cold and serpent-filled Hell of the Blickling Homilies to the fiery and torturous one that adorns the façade of Autun, the presentation and representation of Hell has been done in many ways and, it would appear, to many ends. This session seeks to bring scholars from various disciplines together to discuss the ways in which “the other place” is offered up to medieval audiences for consumption, and the insights which can be derived from its study. Despite the vast literature on Hell and its related topics – populated by the likes of J. B. Russell, Henry Ansgar Kelly, Jacques Le Goff, Eileen Gardiner, and so many more – there remains a great deal more to study and address. New scholarship, like Philip Almond's well-received new biography of the Devil published just last year, is constantly being published, adding to our understanding of this dynamic field. With this session, we hope to provide an interdisciplinary forum for new ideas and new perspectives on the looming historical spectre of Hell and what it meant for the people at the time.

We welcome papers from literary, art historical, historical, theological, and interdisciplinary perspectives -- all treatments of the topic are welcome. Please send proposals of no longer than 250 words along with a completed Participant Information Form (http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html) to Richard Ford Burley (burleyr@bc.edu) by September 15, 2015. Preliminary inquiries and other questions are also welcome.


By web submission at 08/11/2015 - 22:52

CFP Chronicles and Grimoires: The Occult as Political Commentary (9/15/2015; Kalamazoo 5/12-15/2016)

[Update] Chronicles and Grimoires: The Occult as Political Commentary
full name / name of organization: ICMS Kalamazoo 2016
contact email: dominique.hoche@westliberty.edu
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63393

Whether seen in signs and portents, or read in grimoires or magic books, the occult in the premodern world is both marveled at and feared. A significant amount of the description of occult and sorcerous activity, however, also functions as political commentary, whether as direct criticism of secular current events or as a voice or conceptual space for the spiritual “other” in medieval society.

Some examples of these voices can be heard in the manuscript BN Ffr. 1553 that is the chronicle of Eustache le Moine (known as the Black Friar, ca. 1170-1217) who was a Benedictine who studied necromancy and the black arts and ultimately became a pirate; the popularity and repeated multi-language printings of the Clavicule of Solomon in Italy in the 1300’s; the introductory and defensive letters in the German humanist scholar Agrippa’s books on occult philosophy (c. 1533); the tempered criticism of Johan Weyer’s De Praestigiis Daemonum (1563) or its opposite, Martin Del Rio’s inflammatory Disquisitionum magicae (1608). Political commentary regarding the occult often tests the limits of scribal activity, and can lead to persecution and/or charges of treason or heresy. We welcome papers that explore this dangerous connection between the reception of the occult and political commentary or criticism.

Proposals (for presentations of no longer than 20 minutes) should be no longer than 400 words and must clearly indicate the significance, line of argument, principal texts and relation to existing scholarship (if possible). Email the proposal in the body of the message, a 50-word bio note, and a completed Participant Information form (http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF) to Dominique Hoche at dominique.hoche@westliberty.edu . Due September 15, 2015.
For general information about the 2016 Medieval Congress, visit: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/index.html.


By web submission at 08/11/2015 - 22:07
CFP Website maintained by
The University of Pennsylvania Department of English

CFP Edited anthology of Conjure, Hoodoo and Voodoo in African-American Literature (no posted deadline)

Edited anthology of Conjure, Hoodoo and Voodoo in African-American Literature
full name / name of organization: James Mellis/ William Paterson University
contact email: mellisj@wpunj.edu

Articles are sought for a collection of essays on representations of Conjure, Hoodoo and Voodoo in African-American literature. This collection seeks to explore how African-American writers have used, referenced, engaged and disengaged with Conjure, Hoodoo and Voodoo in their writing through various cultural and historical movements.

The primary thread of this study will be an argument that from their initial arrival on American shores, African-American writers have used voodoo and conjuring as a literary trope that has served as a touchstone for religious, political and national identity. By examining slave narratives, novels, poetry and drama, this study will interrogate how African-American authors repeatedly returned to Conjure, Hoodoo and Voodoo as a way to examine their own shifting political and cultural positions in America. I am seeking original essays for a major academic publisher who has accepted the proposed anthology. Some authors that can treated are: Frederick Douglass, Phyllis Wheatley, Henry Bibb, William Wells Brown, Nat Turner, William Grimes, Olaudah Equiano, Charles Chesnutt, George Washington Cable, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Rudolph Fisher, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright, Arna Bomtemps, Countee Cullen,Ishmael Reed, Amiri Baraka, Robert Hayden, Toni Morrison, Rainelle Burton, Colson Whitehead, Charles Johnson, August Wilson, Ntzoke Shange, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Gloria Naylor, Darius James, Gayl Jones and Carl Hancock Rux, and others.

Please send proposals of 250-350 words to mellis@wpunj.edu. Please note that an invitation to submit a full essay does not guarantee inclusion in the published volume.


By web submission at 08/20/2015 - 15:03

CFP The Supernatural (Conference) (10/2/2015; Budapest 3/11-13/2016)

The Supernatural [11 March 2016 - 13 March 2016]
full name / name of organization: Inter-Disciplinary.Net
contact email: supernatural@inter-disciplinary.net
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63555

The Supernatural
Call for Participation 2016

Friday 11th March – Sunday 13th March 2016
Budapest, Hungary

From vengeful gods and goddesses and witches to poltergeists and hauntings, to demonic possession and the accompany exorcism rituals, the human imagination has been captivated for millennia by the power of forces that operate outside the laws of nature and the relationship between humans and the spirit world. Over time, the supernatural has served as a basis for titillating audiences and generating fear. The supernatural has served as a useful means of explaining complicated natural processes in terms humans understand. As history’s famous witch-hunts have demonstrated, the supernatural is also a potent weapon for exerting control over individuals whose behaviour or appearance fail to confirm to the ‘norms’ of the community. Conversely, the supernatural can also provide a means of expressing minority beliefs in a way that challenges the power of mainstream organized religions. The supernatural offers a source of personal comfort in the face of grief by providing assurance that a departed loved one is watching over us. However, as the long line of supernatural hoaxes reveal, however, this longing to believe in the afterlife can enable schemes designed to manipulate and swindle vulnerable people.

But just what purpose does the supernatural serve in 21st century societies? Is it a throwback to the irrational, superstitious and archaic beliefs of a so-called primitive era, or is it a reminder that there is more to existence than the ‘truths’ revealed by the sciences? The Supernatural interdisciplinary research and publishing event aims to interrogate and investigate the supernatural from a variety of perspectives in order to understand the uses and meanings of the supernatural across time and cultures. Subjects for presentation include, but are not limited to, the following:

The Supernatural in Theory and Practice

• Shifting perspectives of what is supernatural over time and across cultures
• Non-Western perspectives on the supernatural
• What attitudes toward the supernatural suggest about human perceptions of the boundaries between worlds
• Ancestor worship and the cultures in which this tradition is practiced
• Witchcraft, voodoo and the cultures where these traditions are practiced
• Satanism and cultural perceptions of this belief system
• Reasons behind the enduring fascination with supernatural evil, including philosophical, theological and anthropological perspectives on this question
• Relationship between the supernatural and magic
• Religious traditions and the supernatural (supernatural aspects of faith and belief, attitudes of faith traditions toward the supernatural, how clergy respond to individuals who report supernatural experiences, etc.)

The Supernatural and Real Life

• Socially accepted forms of supernatural belief and the factors that make some beliefs more acceptable than others
• Harms and benefits of believing in the supernatural
• Relationship between the supernatural and cruelty
• Apocalyptic supernatural evil events or characters and the significance of millenarianism
• Characteristics of supernatural entities and the significance of their difference from/similarity to human traits
• Relationship between the supernatural and social power/ideologies (e.g. witchcraft as pretext for dealing with non-conforming women, using the supernatural to engage with physical enemies, etc.)
• Legal/legislative approaches to restricting or enabling supernatural belief (limits of religious freedom principles, state-sanctioned punishment of witches, etc.)
• Medical/clinical perspectives on belief in the supernatural: the neuroscience behind (dis)belief, clinical responses to individuals who report supernatural experiences
• Science and the supernatural: using science to (dis)prove supernatural occurrences
• Technologies that facilitate/measure/prove engagement with the paranormal/occult
• Future of the supernatural in a world increasingly driven by science and reason

Supernatural Encounters

• Analyses of reports of supernatural encounters: common conventions of reports, style and mode of recounting experience, impact of titillation versus simple reporting of events in the reports of these encounters
• How the function and/or interpretation of a report of supernatural evil changes over time or across cultures
• Impact of oral traditions, artistic renderings and generic conventions on the telling and reception of accounts involving supernatural encounters
• How the reception of reports of the supernatural is influenced by the experience of listening versus reading or viewing
• Emotional and intellectual pleasures associated with the supernatural: pleasures of fear and titillation, etc.
• Comedic interpretations of supernatural evil: haunted houses in amusement parks, horror movie spoofs, etc
• Supernatural in film, television (including reality series like Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters), theatre, music, art and literature—and how they differ from more ‘traditional’ accounts
• Supernatural spaces: spaces associated with evil and the economic benefits/tourism implications of such connections
• Hoaxes, frauds and swindles

Supernatural and live performance

Curated film screenings
Performances (dramatic staging, dance, music)
Readings
Art installations

Call for Cross-Over Presentations
The Supernatural project will be meeting at the same time as a project on Trauma and another project on Loss. We welcome submissions which cross the divide between both project areas. If you would like to be considered for a cross project session, please mark your submission “Crossover Submission”.

Further details and information can be found at the project web site:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ethos/the-supernatural...

What to Send
300 word abstracts, proposals and other forms of contribution should be submitted by Friday 2nd October 2015.
All submissions be minimally double reviewed, under anonymous (blind) conditions, by a global panel drawn from members of the Project Team and the Advisory Board. In practice our procedures usually entail that by the time a proposal is accepted, it will have been triple and quadruple reviewed.

You will be notified of the panel’s decision by Friday 16th October 2015.
If your submission is accepted for the conference, a full draft of your contribution should be submitted by Friday 5th February 2016.

Abstracts may be in Word, RTF or Notepad formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: The Supernatural Abstract Submission

Where to Send
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs:

Organising Chairs:
Stephen Morris: smmorris58@yahoo.com
Rob Fisher: supernatural@inter-disciplinary.net

This event is an inclusive interdisciplinary research and publishing project. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

There will be an eBook resulting from the conference meeting. It is also anticipated that a number of other publishing options will arise from the work of the project generally and from the meeting of The Supernatural stream in particular. Other options, some of which might include digital publications, paperbacks and a journal will be explored during the meeting itself.

Ethos
Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract for presentation. Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.


By web submission at 08/21/2015 - 13:48

CFP Monsters, Demons and the Jewish Fantastic (Spec Issue of Jewish Film & New Media) (10/1/2015)

[UPDATE] CFP: Monsters, Demons and the Jewish Fantastic (Special Issue of Jewish Film & New Media) [Deadline: 1 October, 2015)
full name / name of organization: Mikel J. Koven, University of Worcester
contact email: m.koven@worc.ac.uk
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63422

CFP: Monsters, Demons and the Jewish Fantastic (Special Issue of Jewish Film & New Media) [Deadline: 1 October, 2015)
Oy! Have We Got a Monster for You!
Monsters, demons and the Jewish Fantastic
Special Issue of Jewish Film & New Media
Guest editor, Mikel J. Koven (University of Worcester)
Autumn 2016

The Journal of Jewish Film & New Media invites submissions for a special issue on Jewish horror and fantasy in film, TV and new media productions.

Jewish Film & New Media provides an outlet for research into all aspects of Jewish film, television, and new media and is unique in its interdisciplinary nature, exploring the rich and diverse cultural heritage across the globe. The journal is distinctive in bringing together a range of cinemas, televisions, films, programs, and other digital material in one volume and in its positioning of the discussions within a range of contexts—the cultural, historical, textual, and many others.

This special issue, planned for Autumn 2016, may include essays discussing any form of (broadly interpreted) Jewish horror or fantasy in film, television series (or episodes), or other digital material. Topics may include, but are not limited to,

• Representations of Jews in horror and fantasy films, TV series and new media productions
• Horror & fantasy films, TV series and new media productions made by Jewish producers – i.e. Steven Spielberg, John Landis, Roman Polanski, Larry Cohen, etc.
• Jewish spectatorship and audiences
• Jewish folklore monsters in film, TV series and new media productions – specifically golems and dybbuks
• Jewish parodies of horror and fantasy films, TV series and new media productions
• Israeli horror and fantasy films, TV series and new media productions (an article on Kalvet/Rabies would be particularly appreciated)

Submissions should be 8,000-10,0000 words in length following Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition. Submissions should be made (electronically) to Dr. Mikel Koven (m.koven@worc.ac.uk) by 1 October, 2015. Informal enquiries and correspondence regarding this special issue should also be sent to m.koven@worc.ac.uk

 08/13/2015 - 11:36

Madame Frankenstein Collected

Image Comics recently released a collected edition of the Madame Frankenstein series, an intriguing blend of the Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein stories, Shaw's Pygmalion, masculine rivalry, and (for some reason) the Cotttingley fairies all set in 1932 Boston. The story, told in black and white as befitting the era, is worth a read, though the art seems a bit too cartoonish for the tone. Covers are reprinted with the story, but they have been reproduced in black and white as opposed to the original color (see them at the Grand Comics Database: http://www.comics.org/series/80562/covers/). Details from the publisher follow below.

MADAME FRANKENSTEIN TP
https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/madame-frankenstein-tp
Story By: Jamie S. Rich
Art By: Megan Levens
Cover By: Joelle Jones
Cover By: Nick Filardi
Published: March 18, 2015
Diamond ID: DEC140674

In 1932, Vincent Krall sets out to create his perfect woman by reanimating the corpse of the love of his life. He’ll soon discover, however, that man was never meant to peer beyond the veil between life and death, and a woman is not as easily controlled as he believes. The collected MADAME FRANKENSTEIN contains all the covers by Helheim artist JOËLLE JONES and an exclusive gallery section showcasing MEGAN LEVENS’ development process. Collects MADAME FRANKENSTEIN #1-7.

 Print: $16.99

CFP The Weird and the Southern Imaginary (proposals by 11/2/2015)

CFP: The Weird and the Southern Imaginary
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/77005/cfp-weird-and-southern-imaginary

Announcement published by James Rozier on Thursday, August 6, 2015
Type: Call for Papers
Date: November 2, 2015
Location: United States
Subject Fields: American History / Studies, Communication, Composition & Rhetoric, Cultural History / Studies, Ethnic History / Studies

Call for Papers:

The Weird & the Southern Imaginary

General Eds.: Travis Rozier & Bob Hodges



Keynote: The Weird & the Southern Imaginary will introduce the aesthetics and generic conventions of the Weird to cultural studies of the U.S. South and the region’s local, hemispheric, and (inter)national connections. Contributions from literary critics, film and popular culture scholars, philosophers, and critical theorists will consider forms of the Weird in a range of texts (literature, art, film & television, comics, music) from, about, or resonant with conceptions of different South(s).



Description: S. T. Joshi periodizes Haute Weird Fiction from 1880-1940, and China Miéville describes how the paradigm of Haute Weird Fiction, especially in its foremost practitioner H. P. Lovecraft, invokes horror, alterity, and/or awe on a cosmic scale, which seeps into the mundane experiences of cognitively ill-equipped scientific or academic protagonists. The Weird aesthetic, especially pre-World War II, is often inextricable from revanchist horrors of democracy, political revolution, miscegenation, and female or other non-normative sexualities, although Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s recent Weird compendium stresses the “darkly democratic” aspect of a C20 and C21 Weird tradition that spans nations, genders, genres, and levels of literary status.



Representations of the U.S. South as an irrational or reactionary space draw on what Deborah Barker and Kathryn McKee describe as the southern imaginary, a fluid reservoir of topoi referencing an enduring material history of land appropriation, coercive labor practices, carceral landscapes, racial and commercial mixing, extralegal violence, and insular patriarchies. The Weird & the Southern Imaginary will explore Weird South(s), whether that means national aberrance or cosmic otherness.  For example, the first television season of True Detective melds the conservative politics and religious fervor often equated with the South to vaster hints of conspiratorial and cosmic horror in a postindustrial Louisiana swampscape.



The dark fantasy of the Weird diverges sharply from the usual monstrosities of horror and speculative fictions as well as many modes of southern representation: the gothic, the grotesque, the uncanny, the ghostly or hauntological, or the folkloric, modes with longstanding southern associations and almost as longstanding critical fatigue for Southernisits. The Weird can also bridge Southern Studies and its old associations with recent work in object-oriented ontology, ecotheory, other new materialisms, and nihilist philosophy as well as apocalyptic popular cultural fixations without ceding inquires about the production of southern alterity.



Submission Guidelines: All proposed essays should address the concepts of the Weird and the South, however understood. Essays should be written in English, but can be written about texts read or viewed in other languages. We will also accept work on texts in translation. We are looking for critical essays (5,000-8,000 words). If you are interested in contributing an essay to the collection please send us a 300-500 word abstract by November 2, 2015.



Possible Topics:  (Feel free to combine topics or propose a topic not represented in the list)

• Weird South(s) in U.S. literature
• International Weird Fiction & southern imaginary, subtly connected or not
• Race & the southern imaginary in Weird Fiction
• Political or cultural reaction & Weird South(s)
• Weird carceral practices & the southern imaginary (Franz Kafka “In the Penal Colony”)
• Environmental transformation or degradation & Weird South(s)
• The nonhuman or posthuman in southern literature (Matthew Taylor)
• Dark ecology (Timothy Morton) & southern landscapes, swampscapes, etc.
• Nihilism, extinction, or the recalcitrance of the world (Eugene Thacker) & the South(s)
• C19 South & proto-Weird Fiction
• Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, & H. P. Lovecraft
• The Weird associations of the South & the Antarctic (Poe, Herman Melville, Lovecraft)
• R. H. Barlow in Florida, his Weird Fiction, or his correspondence with Lovecraft
• Robert E. Howard in Texas, his Weird Fiction, or his correspondence with Lovecraft
• Weird Appalachia (Lovecraft, Manly Wade Hopkins’s Silver John stories, Fred Chappell)
• Henry S. Whitehead’s Weird West Indian tales
• Eudora Welty & Weird Fiction (Mitch Frye)
• Weird Fiction, modernist literary strategies, & the South (William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston “Uncle Monday”, Flannery O’Connor)
• The Weird in Latin American Boom fiction (Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Augusto Monterroso), its forbearers (Jorge Luis Borges), & its successors (Junot Díaz, Jamaica Kincaid)
• Contemporary or New (South) Weird (Poppy Z. Brite, Stephen Graham Jones, Caitlín Kiernan, Joe Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Jeff VanderMeer The Southern Reach Trilogy)
• Weird southern comics (Alan Moore et al. Saga of the Swamp Thing, Garth Ennis et al. Preacher)

Contact Info:

Travis Rozier, Ph.D.
Department of English & Linguistics
Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
jamesrzr138@gmail.com


Bob Hodges, Ph.C.
Kollar Endowed Fellow
Dept. of English, U of Washington
bhodge4@gmail.com


Contact Email:
jamesrzr138@gmail.com

CFP Monster at the Table session (8/30/2015; IMC Leeds 7/4-7/2016)

Great idea for a session!

International Medieval Congress
Leeds, England, 4–7 July 2016
CFP: Monster at the Table

Session Sponsor: MEARCSTAPA (Monsters: the Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology Through Scholarly Theory and Practical Application).
Session Organizers: Larissa Tracy (Longwood University)
Session Presider: Larissa Tracy (Longwood University)


In line with the IMC Leeds theme “Food, Feast, and Famine” for 2016, MEARCSTAPA is looking for papers for a session titled “Monster at the Table.”

Monsters walk among us, and often, in medieval literature, they share our food and sit at our tables. Literary monsters take a variety of forms, and as such they interact with human actors in a multitude of ways. Sometimes they arrive to instruct the revelers at a feast, as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, other times they human actors arrive to be instructed by the monster at the head table, as in Arthur and Gorlagon. Feasts are also sites for monstrous encounters when merrymakers are slaughtered, as in Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale. Monstrous feats are performed at feasts, as in Fled Bricrend. Monsters may dine in human form, upon fellow human beings, as in Richard Coer de Lyon or the story of Ugolino of Pisa in both Chaucer and Dante. Monstrosity often challenges the norms surrounding consumption just as it challenges social norms in terms of what is eaten or how it is eaten. Consuming food is a way of internalizing and assimilating the world, but “monsters” often defy assimilation, and excesses in consumption are often regarded as monstrous. In short, monsters are often at the table, whether we recognize them or not.

MEARCSTAPA is accepting abstracts on any aspect of monstrous feasts/feasting or monsters at the table in any medieval tradition. Abstracts of 200 words and a short bio should be sent to Dr. Larissa Tracy: kattracy@comcast.net no later than August 30, 2015.





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mearcstapa@lists.csuchico.edu
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CFP Horror (September 2015; ACLA Harvard 3/17-20/2016

My thanks to Jack Dudley for forwarding this to me:

American Comparative Literature Association's 2016 Annual Meeting will take place at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts March 17-20, 2016
Horror
Organizer: Jack Dudley, Mount Saint Mary's University
Co-Organizer: Chris McVey, Boston University
http://www.acla.org/seminar/horror
Proposals due September 2015 (see http://www.acla.org/annual-meeting for details)

What would it mean to think and read with horror? What would a turn to horror look like, and what might its implications be for critical practice? Building on recent work by Eugene Thacker, Dylan Trigg, Graham Harman, Ben Woodard, and Thomas Ligotti, among others, this seminar seeks to situate horror as a site for new critical inquiry. Like other genre categories (Western, Romance, Mystery), horror fiction and film have been traditionally denigrated as “popular,” “low,” and “underground,” despite changing conceptions of canonicity and challenges to the “high/low” divide. As Harman suggests when he challenges Edmund Wilson’s reductive reading of H.P. Lovecraft, mere content should not lead to critical dismissal. If, for instance, crime and detective fiction have recently been turned to as new sites for understanding global literature, what can horror now open to comparative literary studies and theory?

Given the broad and new nature of this topic, our seminar seeks a range of papers, from large-scale interventions that situate horror broadly, to new close readings of works of horror, to re-readings of canonical texts as horror. How should horror be understood? Or, is it something that simply cannot be understood, but is, as Thacker suggests, a way of exploring the unthinkable, and so of bringing alternative philosophies, like the negative and nihilism, into the centers of critical discourse? Is there a hermeneutics of horror, in the sense of both a specific set of approaches keyed to horror and in the sense of a larger reading practice thought from within horror itself? Can traditional literary categories and even periods be rethought as horror? For instance, can European modernism, an idiom and aesthetic usually left out of genealogies of horror fiction, itself be read as a kind of literature of horror? Is horror compatible with realism? Is it a space where religion and theology have persisted in a secular age? How can horror help rethink recent areas of critical inquiry, including the global, cosmopolitanism, object-oriented ontologies, and the Anthropocene?