CFP Second Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2018 (11/27/17; Providence 3/1-4/2018)

2017/06/23

Call for Presentations: The Second Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2018

https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/06/23/call-for-presentations-the-second-annual-ann-radcliffe-academic-conference-at

 

deadline for submissions: November 27, 2017

full name / name of organization: Horror Writers Association

contact email: AnnRadCon@gmail.com

Call for Presentations:

The Second Annual Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference at StokerCon 2018

Conference Dates: March 1 – 4, 2018

Conference Hotel: Biltmore Hotel, Providence, Rhode Island

Conference Website: http://stokercon2018.org/

The Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference co-chairs invite all interested scholars and academics to submit presentation abstracts related to horror studies for consideration to be presented at the Third Annual StokerCon, March 1 - 4, 2018 held at the historic Biltmore Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island (see: http://www.providencebiltmore.com/ ).

The inaugural Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference in 2017 was a tremendous success and saw many presentations covering various aspects of horror studies. It is the goal with the second conference to continue the dialogue of academic analysis of horror. Hence we are looking for completed research or work-in-progress projects that can be presented to with the intent to expand the scholarship on various facets of horror that proliferates in:

• Art
• Cinema
• Comics
• Literature
• Music
• Poetry
• Television
• Video Games
• Etc.

We invite papers that take an interdisciplinary approach to their subject matter and can apply a variety of lenses and frameworks, such as, but not limited to:

• Auteur theory
• Close textual analysis
• Comparative analysis
• Cultural and ethnic
• Fandom and fan studies
• Film studies
• Folklore
• Gender/LGBT studies
• Historic analysis
• Interpretations
• Linguistic
• Literature studies
• Media and communications
• Media Sociology
• Modernity/Postmodernity
• Mythological
• Psychological
• Racial studies
• Semiotics
• Theoretical (Adorno, Barthes, Baudrillard, Dyer, Gerbner, etc.)
• Transmedia

Conference Details

    Please send a 250 – 300 word abstract on your intended topic, a preliminary bibliography and your CV to AnnRadCon@gmail.com by November 27, 2017. Responses will be emailed out during the last week of November/first week of December, 2017.

    Presentation time consideration: 15 minute maximum to allow for a Question and Answer period. Limit of one presentation at the conference.

    There are no honorariums for presenters; this is an academic conference. There is, however, a StokerCon2018 award opportunity; see http://horrorscholarships.com/the-scholarship-from-hell/

    The co-chairs of the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference are exploring the possibilities of editing and publishing a volume of conference presentations (along with selections from the inaugural conference). Presenters will have the opportunity to edit and expand their presentations into proper chapters if they are selected for the volume.

Organizing Co-Chairs

Michele Brittany & Nicholas Diak

Email: AnnRadCon@gmail.com

The Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is part of the Horror Writers Association’s Outreach Program. Membership to the Horror Writers Association is not required to submit or present, however registration to StokerCon 2018 is required to present. StokerCon registration can be obtained by going to www.stokercon2018.org. There is no additional registration or fees for the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference outside StokerCon registration. If interested in applying to the Horror Writer’s Association as an academic member, please see www.horror.org/about/ .

StokerCon is the annual convention hosted by the Horror Writers Association wherein the Bram Stoker Awards for superior achievement in horror writing are awarded.

Last updated June 26, 2017

CFP Ray Bradbury And Horror Fiction, Special Issue of The New Ray Bradbury Review (5/1/2017)

Ray Bradbury And Horror Fiction: The New Ray Bradbury Review special issue
https://www.cfplist.com/CFP.aspx?CID=9560

Event: 03/21/2019
Abstract: 05/01/2017

Location: Indianapolis, IN, USA
Organization: Center for Ray Bradbury Studies


Ray Bradbury and Horror Fiction

The problem of genre is especially complicated when it comes to Ray Bradbury. The author of The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, The Halloween Tree, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, and innumerable poems, comic books, short stories, radio, TV, and movie scripts alchemically combined elements as diverse as rockets and hauntings, uncanny phenomena and freak shows, the Cthulhu mythos and common serial killers. The New Ray Bradbury Review seeks essays for a special issue dedicated to Ray Bradbury’s unique brand of horror fiction.


Bradbury began his writing career with a homemade pulp, Futuria Fantasia, modeled on Farnsworth Wright’s Weird Tales. Many of his early stories were based on Poe, including “The Pendulum” (1939) and “Carnival of Madness” (1950, revised as “Usher II” in The Martian Chronicles). Poe also is at the center of “The Mad Wizards of Mars” (1949, best known as “The Exiles” in The Illustrated Man, 1951), a story that is also populated by many of the horror and dark fantasy writers of the last two hundred years. Lovecraft’s influence is traceable as well: “Luana the Living” (a fanzine piece from 1940) and “The Watchers” (1945), a tale that centers on a Lovecraftian horror of unseen forces bent on destroying anyone who discovers their presence beneath the surface of everyday life. Concurrently, Bradbury explored aspects of the American Gothic (see, for example, his carnie tales in Dark Carnival [1947], The Illustrated Man [1951], and The October Country [1955]). His later career saw a return to gothic fantasy elements, now playfully blended with other genres in such novels as Death is a Lonely Business (1985) and A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990). Some of his early gothic fantasy was revisited in his late career with the novelized story-cycle From the Dust Returned (2001).


The New Ray Bradbury Review, produced since 2008 by the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University and published by Kent State University Press, seeks articles on topics including (but not limited to):


• Bradbury and the pulps
• Bradbury and the American Gothic (including circus and freak show stories)
• Bradbury and mythology
• Bradbury and the problem of genre (ways literary historians have catalogued or miscatalogued his work)
• Bradbury’s literary reputation (and similar problems faced by writers as diverse as Carson McCullers and Stephen King)
• Bradbury and the Lovecraft Circle, including Robert Bloch, August Derleth, and Frank Belknap Long
• Bradbury and the Southern California circle, including Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, William F. Nolan, George Clayton Johnson
• Bradbury and related short story writers, such as Roald Dahl, Nigel Kneale, Theodore Sturgeon, Fritz Leiber, Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman
• Unproduced works or adaptations, for example Bloch’s Merry-Go-Round for MGM (based on Ray Bradbury's story "Black Ferris”)
• The Halloween Tree (novel, screenplay, and/or animated adaption), Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel, stage play, and/or Disney film), The October Country or the collection Bloch and Bradbury: Whispers from Beyond
• Bradbury and literary agent/comic book editor Julius Schwartz
• Bradbury’s stories for the radio programs such as Dimension X and Suspense, TV series such as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, or horror tales adapted for EC Comics or other outlets
• Bradbury’s own adaptations for the TV series The Ray Bradbury Theater.
• The art of the animated Halloween Tree and later films such as The Nightmare Before Christmas


Proposals of up to 500 words should be submitted by May 1, 2017, to guest editor Jeffrey Kahan (vortiger@hotmail.com). Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by July 1, 2017. Full drafts (5,000 to 7,000 words) will be due by December 1, 2017. The issue is provisionally scheduled for spring 2019.


Contact Email: vortiger@hotmail.com
Website: http://bradbury.iupui.edu/news/call-papers-new-ray-bradbury-review-special-issue
 

CFP Special Gothic Edition of the Journal of New Zealand Literature (2/3/2017)

An intriguing idea:


Special Gothic Edition of the Journal of New Zealand Literature
https://www.cfplist.com/CFP.aspx?CID=9706

Event: 07/17/2017
Abstract: 02/03/2017
Categories:
Location: New Zealand
Organization: Journal of New Zealand Literature



The Journal of New Zealand LIterature i(JNZL) is the only international, peer-reviewed journal devoted to New Zealand literary studies. In 2017, JNZL will publish a special edition devoted to Gothic and it welcomes the submission of papers (4000-5000 words) on any aspect of the Gothic as it relates to New Zealand literature.

Topics can include, but are not limited to:

• Haunting and spectrality
• Domestic Gothic
• Rural Gothic
• Monsters and the monstrous
• The Uncanny
• Memory and Trauma
• Gothic intertextualities
• Genre and the Gothic
• Regionalities and geographies
• Postcolonial Gothic
• Maori Gothic

The deadline for expressions of interest is 3 February 2017. These should include an abstract of the proposed paper (250 words) and a short bio (100 words).

Completed papers are due 17 July 2017.

Please email expressions of interest and completed papers to the guest edition Dr Erin Mercer at: e.mercer@massey.ac.nz

For more information please email Erin Mercer or visit the JNZL website: http://jnzl.ac.nz


Contact Email: e.mercer@massey.ac.nz
Website: https://jnzl.ac.nz/

CFP At the Mercy of Monsters: Essays on the Rise of Supernatural Procedural Dramas Collection (3/18/2017)

An intriguing idea; I wish them luck with the collection:

At the Mercy of Monsters: Essays on the Rise of Supernatural Procedural Dramas
https://www.cfplist.com/CFP.aspx?CID=9921

Event: 03/18/2017
Abstract: 03/18/2017


Editors Szanter and Richards seek original essays for an edited collection on Supernatural Procedural Dramas on television. While the crime procedural still remains one of the most recognizable genres on television, post-millennial incarnations of the genre often include considerations of the supernatural in tandem with crime solving and justice. Long running shows, such as The X-Files, as well as newer iterations of this phenomena, like Lucifer, present crime solving as an action best done by, or in cooperation with, supernatural beings. This collection aims to explore how this new, evolution of the crime drama reflects potential dismay about the nature of the criminal justice system and/or its on screen interpretations.

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

• Explorations of why the criminal procedural genre needed (wanted?) to incorporate supernatural elements? The traditional criminal procedural can clearly stand on its own, so why modify it in this way now? How does supernaturalism impact the crime genre’s conventions?
• Analyze how particular shows incorporate or discuss “isms.” We welcome chapters tackling how specific supernatural crime dramas deal with Feminism, Marxism, Queer studies, and Masculinity studies, among others. Of particular interest to the editors are non-binary gender and sexuality, feminism, race, “passing,” and non-traditional/deconstructed families or relationships
• Do a theoretical analysis on any of the following TV shows: Lucifer, iZombie, Sleepy Hollow, Grimm, Fringe, The X-Files, Twin Peaks, Medium, Warehouse 13, Tru Calling, Forever, The Dresden Files, New Amsterdam, The Gates, Pushing Daisies, Forever Knight, and Special Unit 2.
• Modern monster theory as an important element of pop cultural study and relevance in an era of growing interest in popular depictions of law enforcement and the criminal justice system.
• How have shows like Lucifer and Grimm evolved out of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, Torchwood, and Angel? While not specifically coded as criminal procedurals, these older series combine practices of detection and justice with conceptions of the supernatural as a given in their story worlds.
• How do shows like Sherlock, True Lies, Eureka, and Psych play with the line between supernaturalism and criminal justice? Though not inherently supernatural in nature, these shows present a new interpretation of the criminal procedural as dependent on or modified by a particular individual’s “powers” or talents? How do these shows walk this line without truly being supernatural?
• Attempts to address how superhero narratives fit into this will also be considered. How do shows like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, or Daredevil fit into this burgeoning supernatural crime drama genre? While often showcasing vigilante justice over and above law enforcement, how do superhero shows present characters who work around the system with their individual “powers”?
• Why do some series, like Sleepy Hollow or Grimm, retain long term public interest whereas other series, such as Moonlight, Forever, New Amsterdam, get canceled after one season? What is the difference in staying power?
• Examinations of the place/function of romance in supernatural crime dramas. Relationships often crop up between supernatural characters and humans. Are these relationships more/less present in supernatural crime than in traditional crime procedurals?
• How is this burgeoning new supernatural procedural genre perhaps just an extension of the Gothic? Does this simply resurrect Gothic tendencies towards supernaturalism and detection? Discuss patterns of detection or Gothic elements in these shows/series. Does the supernatural procedural drama continue in that same tradition?

Abstract Due Dates
Preference will be given to abstracts received before March 18, 2017. Abstracts should be no longer than 350 words and be accompanied by a current CV.
Contact us and send abstracts to Ashley and Jessica at supernaturalprocedurals@gmail.com or visit our website at http://ashleyszanter.wixsite.com/supernaturalprodrama


Contact Email: supernaturalprocedurals@gmail.com
Website: http://ashleyszanter.wixsite.com/supernaturalprodrama

CFP Found Footage Magazine - Call for Papers Issue #4 (6/1/2017)

Of potential interest:

Found Footage Magazine - Call for Papers Issue #4
https://www.cfplist.com/CFP.aspx?CID=9920

Event: 06/01/2017
Abstract: 06/01/2017

Location: SPAIN
Organization: Found Footage Magazine


Found Footage Magazine is a printed film studies journal. It offers theoretical, analytical and informative content that hinges on the practice of found footage filmmaking including all its eclectic manifestations: recycled cinema, essay film, appropriation cinema, collage film, and compilation film…

Thus, FFM provides an unique forum for the critical thinking, study and dissemination of those practices that part from the re-use of extant images as a methodological strategy addressed to the composition of a new audio-visual discourse.

PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR ISSUE #4: JUNE 1st, 2017

For more information please visit: www.foundfootagemagazine.com



Contact Email: submissions@foundfootagemagazine.com
Website: http://www.foundfootagemagazine.com

CFP Comics and Monsters—Monsters and Comics (expired)

Sorry to have missed posting this sooner:

Comics and Monsters—Monsters and Comics (CSSC May 11-12, Toronto)
https://www.cfplist.com/CFP.aspx?CID=10267

Event: 05/11/2017 - 05/12/2017
Abstract: 01/03/2017

Location: Toronto, Canada
Organization: Canadian Society for the Study of Comics


Comics and Monsters—Monsters and Comics
Canadian Society for the Study of Comics (May 11-12, Toronto)

This proposed panel explores the relationship between the monstrous (whether fantastic, gothic, or science fiction) and comics. With the formation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954, the “monstrous” has stood at the centre of aesthetic, historical, critical, and cultural debates around comics and graphic novels. Such efforts to regulate and ban a bestiary of the most fantastic and gothic monsters highlight the complex relationship between content and form that infuses the visual and textual dynamics of the monstrous in comics. Papers may focus on past or present treatments of the monstrous, including specific creatures and monsters, specific artists, or specific comic series.

Send a 200-word abstract and 50-word bio by 3 January 2017 to Chris Koenig-Woodyard, chris.koenig.woodyard@utoronto.ca. The panel will be proposed for the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics conference, 11-12 May 2017, Toronto (hosted in collaboration with the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (http://www.torontocomics.com/whats-happening/canadian-society-for-the-study-of-comics-2017-conference/).


Contact Email: chris.koenig.woodyard@utoronto.ca

CFP Playful Undead and Video Games: Critical Analyses of Zombies and Gameplay (1/31/17

Sounds like a great idea; sorry for the late post:


The Playful Undead and Video Games: Critical Analyses of Zombies and Gameplay. Routledge Advances in Game Studies
https://www.cfplist.com/CFP.aspx?CID=10376
Event: 10/31/2017
Abstract: 01/31/2017

Location: Uk & Sweden
Organization: Staffordshire University & University of Gothenburg


The Playful Undead and Video Games: Critical Analyses of Zombies and Gameplay. Routledge Advances in Game Studies

deadline for submissions:
October 31, 2017
full name / name of organization:
steve webley / Staffordshire University UK & Peter Zackariasson/ University of Gothenburg
contact email:
s.j.webley@staffs.ac.uk

The Playful Undead and Video Games: Critical Analyses of Zombies and Gameplay. Routledge Advances in Game Studies

The Playful Undead and Video Games

Critical Analyses of Zombies and Gameplay - abstract due date 31/Jan/2017

please see link below for further details

https://www.academia.edu/30084636/Call_for_chapters_-_The_Playful_Undead...

The zombie has had a glorious evolutionary journey. From its humble beginnings in early cinema, where it was portrayed as a somnambulistic Haitian drone, it has evolved into a diseased cadaverous cannibal that has managed to infect all forms of contemporary media and take centre stage in popular culture. The turbulent decade of the 1960s saw the Haitian zombie reinvented and radically politicized by the independent filmmaker George A. Romero. Over the following decade the zombie became a key component in politicizing the horror genre itself. Once considered as puerile teenage entertainment, horror was to become a serious tool for social commentary. With the growth of consumerism and later Cold War narratives the zombie became an ideological entity in its own right, animating the horror genre as a mythic form of social critique, and creating the ideologically charged post-apocalyptic survival space onto which audiences projected their desires, fantasies, and fears.

Since the early 2000s and the beginnings of the war on terror the zombie has continued to evolve and grow in popularity. Its presence can today be observed across the mediascape, from literature and graphic novels, to film and television series, to art and music, to video games. In fact, it is hard to avoid a video game that somehow includes a zombie. They dominate all gaming markets from app store based mobile and casual games, through indie titles and fan-made mods, to AAA productions. The zombie has become a video game enemy par excellence, appearing in such dedicated franchises as Resident Evil or in hugely popular downloadable content and add-ons to games such as ‘Nazi Zombies mode’ for Call of Duty. Moreover, even games that are not overtly of the zombie apocalypse canon contain both antagonists and protagonists that can effectively be labelled Undead. Titles as diverse as World of Warcraft or the Fallout franchise utilize the zombie and its undead tropes to create deep and meaningful characters and interactive experiences for players to indulge their fantasies.

Building on the cultural fascination with zombies this book will offer different ways to understand the roles of zombies in video games: Johan Huizinga (1938) posited that ‘… All play means something…!’ So we ask what can a focus on play and interactivity bring to the growing corpus of work developed on zombies in film and other media? Why the fascination? What practices have evolved? How and why are zombie based games designed and developed? What are the consequences? What does it mean to participate in an interactive zombie apocalypse? What does it mean to play with, or as, the undead?

This call for chapters will consider contributions from a wide set of academic disciplines, for example: economics, cultural theory, sociological studies, social psychology, psychology, politics, business, design, arts, history, philosophy, literature, and film. Today the study of zombies as a topic within many of these disciplines has become popular, resulting in articles, chapters and books. This book will build on the existing interest that is dispersed into different outputs, exploring this phenomenon in a multidisciplinary Routledge Advances in Game Studies publication.

Format

Please submit one page abstract (500-600 words), plus references. In this abstract it is important that you 1) highlight your focus on zombies and video games, 2) draw out your theoretical framework you plan to apply, and 3) state possible contribution made in the chapter. In addition to the abstract we ask you to submit a short bio, including key publications and academic discipline/school. Expected length of final chapter, 5000-6000 words.

Time plan 2017

January 31 – Deadline abstract

April 30 – Deadline chapter, first draft

May – Workshop (planned for Staffordshire or Gothenburg)

August 30 – Deadline chapter, second draft

October 31 – Deadline, final chapter

Editors

Stephen J. Webley, Staffordshire University, S.J.Webley@staffs.ac.uk

Peter Zackariasson, University of Gothenburg, peter.zackariasson@gu.se

please see link below

https://www.academia.edu/30084636/Call_for_chapters_-_The_Playful_Undead...




Contact Email: s.j.webley@staffs.ac.uk
Website: https://www.academia.edu/30132758/Routledge_Advances_in_Game_Studies_Critical_Analyses_of_Zombies_and_Gameplay

CFP Literature and the Sea Collection (3/1/17)

Note interest in "sea monsters":

CFP: Literature and the Sea (Edited Collection)
https://www.cfplist.com/CFP.aspx?CID=10534
Event: 03/01/2017
Abstract: 03/01/2017

Location: Troy, AL
Organization: Troy University


Call for Papers

Literature and the Sea: Maritime Literary Currents

Abstracts are invited for a proposed collection of essays on literature and the sea, broadly defined. Proposed papers may focus on the literature of any country and any literary period, but please keep in mind that the language for the volume will be English. Cambridge Scholars Publishing has already expressed interest in publishing this collection.

Topics might include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Literature of or about the sea
• Metaphorical seas
• Mexico and the sea
• Mythology and the sea
• Sublimity and the sea
• Transatlantic/transpacific confluences
• Oceania and island culture
• Caribbean authors and the sea
• International trade
• Environmental literature and the sea
• Politics
• Aquatic life and literature
• Seascapes in literature
• Recreation and the sea
• Tourism
• Ships and shipping
• Navigation
• Maps
• War and other conflict
• Visual art
• Travel writing
• Sea monsters
• Shipwrecks and survival
• Piracy
• Storms
• Atlantis
• Utopias/dystopias
• Fantasy and the sea

The editors will choose contributions based on submitted abstracts, which we will then send to the publisher as part of a book proposal. Full-length essays of 5000 to 7000 words will be due a few months thereafter, at which point we will begin the editing phase of the project.

For consideration, please send a 500-word abstract and one-page CV to bprobertson@troy.edu by 1 March 2017. All submissions will receive responses, so if you do not hear from us within a few days of submission, please check with us to make sure we received your material.



Editors ------------------
Ben P. Robertson
Katona D. Weddle
Ekaterina V. Kobeleva
Shannon Thompson



Contact Email: bprobertson@troy.edu

CFP Found Footage Horror Films Collection (3/1/17)

Essays on Found Footage Horror Films
Event: 09/20/2017
Abstract: 03/01/2017
https://www.cfplist.com/CFP.aspx?CID=10732

From the earliest example of mockumentary horror filmmaking with Cannibal Holocaust, found footage has become a trope du jour in the horror film genre. FF films are found in a variety of mediums: feature length films, shorts, and web series. According to the site FoundFootageCritic.com, the sub genre's narrative structure can be identified into four categories:

First person perspective (a.k.a. point of view) style – filmed/recorded from the perspective of the main character who is experiencing the event while holding the camera

Mockumentary (a.k.a. pseudo-documentary style) – filmed/recorded in the form of interviews and investigative reporting of the event

News Footage style – Footage from a professional news crew investigating the event

Surveillance Footage style – Footage from a stationary camera automatically filming/recording the event

In considering a film “found footage”, the source of the footage must be established to the audience. Other aspects of the subgenre include small cast sizes, limited locations and unknown casting.

Since The Blair Witch Project which used low-budget filming techniques and mass marketing ploys to raise hype of its release, the sub genre had an enormous output of product, the majority created by amateur filmmakers looking to recreate the Blair Witch success. Independent filmmakers and distributors have released effective FF films that use horror and Found Footage tropes in smart ways ([REC], TrollHunter, Creep). The recent sequel of The Blair Witch Project has been noted by critics for its use of improving on a sub genre which was said to be exhaustive, building on the conversation about found footage film as a growing art form. It is noteworthy that the rise of dependence on technology in America has lead to a new self-awareness in the sub genre with films such as Diary of the Dead and Unfriended.

Despite the influx of Found Footage films into the horror circuit and across mediums such as film, youTube, and exclusively on streaming sites, very little has been written about this specific type of horror filmmaking. This proposed edited book focuses on and explicitly includes a variety of perspectives of context of Found Footage Horror Films from The Blair Witch Project to the Present day. The essays in this collection will seek to survey the past 17 years and the way the subgenre has transformed perspectives on horror films and 21st century culture.

This call for chapters will consider contributions from a wide set of academic disciplines with a focus on film studies, for example: cultural theory, sociological studies, social psychology, psychology, politics, arts, history, philosophy, literature, and film.

McFarland Publishing is interested in publishing the collection.

Format

Please submit one page abstract (500-600 words).

In this abstract it is important that you 1) highlight your focus on found footage and horror films, noting its impact on various fields of research, culture, and technique 2) draw out your theoretical framework you plan to apply, and 3) state possible contribution made in the chapter.

In addition to the abstract we ask you to submit a short bio. Expected length of final chapter, 5000-6000 words.

Time plan 2017

March 1 – Deadline abstract

March 30-Notification of Accepted/Rejected Abstract

June 1st – Deadline chapter, first draft

August 15– Deadline chapter, second draft

September 20 – Deadline, final chapter


Contact Email: jackson0cooper@gmail.com

CFP Spaces and Places of Horror (4/15/2017)

The Spaces and Places of Horror
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/159185/spaces-and-places-horror

Announcement published by Francesco Pascuzzi on Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Type: Call for Publications
Date: January 1, 2017 to April 15, 2017
Subject Fields: Cultural History / Studies, Film and Film History, Humanities, Area Studies, Graduate Studies

Hi,

I am seeking essays in English to include in a volume tentatively entitled "The Spaces and Places of Horror," to be published by Vernon Press. I will serve as the editor of the volume.

This volume aims to explore the complex, layered horizon of landscapes in horror film culture to unpack the use that the horror genre makes of settings, locations, spaces, and places, be they physical, imagined, or altogether imaginary. Different theoretical frameworks are welcome, and relevant comparative studies among American, European, and/or non-Western cinema are strongly  encouraged.

Please send 500-word abstracts to Francesco Pascuzzi (fpascuzz@ramapo.edu) by April 15, 2017. Notification of acceptance should be expected by late April.

Best,

Francesco Pascuzzi
Ramapo College
Contact Info:


Francesco Pascuzzi
Contact Email:
fpascuzz@ramapo.edu

Frankenstein and the Fantastic Blog

The Fantastic (Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction) Area is pleased to announce the launch of its new outreach effort, Frankenstein and the Fantastic. The new blog can be accessed at http://frankensteinandthefantastic.blogspot.com/.

I will eventually be migrating the Frankenstein related links from this site to the new one. 

Michael Torregrossa
Area Chair

Reading List: Vampires and Zombies: Transcultural Migrations and Transnational Interpretations

Monsters Studies now at UP of Mississippi:

Vampires and Zombies: Transcultural Migrations and Transnational Interpretations http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1845

Edited by Dorothea Fischer-Hornung and Monika Mueller

240 pages (approx.), 6 x 9 inches, introduction, 9 b&w illustrations, bibliography, index

9781496804747 Printed casebinding $65.00S


Essays that hunt down what happens when the undead go global

Contributions by Katarzyna Ancuta, Daniella Borgia, Timothy R. Fox, Richard J. Hand, Ewan Kirkland, Sabine Metzger, Timothy M. Robinson, Carmen Serrano, Rasmus R. Simonsen, and Johannes Weber

The undead are very much alive in contemporary entertainment and lore. Indeed, vampires and zombies have garnered attention in print media, cinema, and on television. The vampire, with roots in medieval European folklore, and the zombie, with origins in Afro-Caribbean mythology, have both undergone significant transformations in global culture, proliferating as deviant representatives of the zeitgeist.

As this volume demonstrates, distribution of vampires and zombies across time and space has revealed these undead figures to carry multiple meanings. Of all monsters, vampires and zombies seem to be the most trendy--the most regularly incarnate of the undead and the monsters most frequently represented in the media and pop culture. Moreover, both figures have experienced radical reinterpretations. If in the past vampires were evil, blood-sucking exploiters and zombies were brainless victims, they now have metamorphosed into kinder and gentler blood-sucking vampires and crueler, more relentless, flesh-eating zombies. Although the portrayals of both vampires and zombies can be traced back to specific regions and predate mass media, the introduction of mass distribution through film and game technologies has significantly modified their depiction over time and in new environments. Among other topics, contributors discuss zombies in Thai films, vampire novels of Mexico, and undead avatars in horror videogames. This volume--with scholars from different national and cultural backgrounds--explores the transformations that the vampire and zombie figures undergo when they travel globally and through various media and cultures.

Contents (from WorldCat)

pt. 1 MIGRATORY TRANSFORMATIONS --
The Smiling Dead; Or, On The Empirical Impossibility Of Thai Zombies / Katarzyna Ancuta --
"She Loves The Blood Of The Young" The Bloodthirsty Female as Cultural Mediator in Lafcadio Hearn's "The Story of Chugoro" / Sabine Metzger --
Octavia Butler's Vampiric Vision Fledgling as a Transnational Neo-Slave Narrative / Timothy M. Robinson --

pt. 2 NON/NORMATIVE SEXUALITIES --
Appetite For Disruption The Cinematic Zombie and Queer Theory / Rasmus R. Simonsen --
Vampiros Mexicanos Nonnormative Sexualities in Contemporary Vampire Novels of Mexico / Danielle Borgia --
Hybridity Sucks European Vampirism Encounters Haitian Voodoo in The White Witch of Rosehall / Monika Mueller --

pt. 3 CULTURAL ANXIETIES --
Revamping Dracula On The Mexican Silver Screen Fernando Mendez's El vampiro / Carmen Serrano --
The Reanimation Of Yellow-Peril Anxieties In Max Brooks's World War Z / Timothy R. Fox --

pt. 4 CIRCULATING TECHNOLOGIES --
"Doctor! I'm Losing Blood!" "Nonsense! Your Blood Is Right Here" The Vampirism of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Film Vampyr / Johannes Weber --
Disruptive Corpses Tales of the Living Dead in Horror Comics of the 1950s and Beyond / Richard J. Hand --
Undead Avatars The Zombie in Horror Video Games / Ewan Kirkland.



Dorothea Fischer-Hornung, Heidelberg, Germany, is senior lecturer (retired) in the English Department and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Heidelberg University. She is the editor of Aesthetic Practices and Politics in Media, Music, and Art: Performing Migration and founding coeditor of the interdisciplinary journal Atlantic Studies Global Currents. Monika Mueller, Bochum, Germany, is senior lecturer of American literature and culture at the University of Bochum, Germany. She is the author of George Eliot U.S.: Transatlantic Literary and Cultural Perspectives.

240 pages (approx.), 6 x 9 inches, introduction, 9 b&w illustrations, bibliography, index

Reading List: Monstrous Progeny

Another Frankenstein book released this summer:

Monstrous Progeny: A History of the Frankenstein Narratives
https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/monstrous-progeny/9780813564234

By Lester D. Friedman, Allison B. Kavey

256 pages, 37 photographs, 6 x 9

Paper,August 1, 2016$27.95
978-0-8135-6423-4

Cloth,August 1, 2016$90.00
978-0-8135-6424-1

PDF,August 1, 2016$27.95
978-0-8135-6425-8

EPUB,August 1, 2016$27.95
978-0-8135-7370-0

About This Book

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein is its own type of monster mythos that will not die, a corpus whose parts keep getting harvested to animate new artistic creations. What makes this tale so adaptable and so resilient that, nearly 200 years later, it remains vitally relevant in a culture radically different from the one that spawned its birth?

 

Monstrous Progeny takes readers on a fascinating exploration of the Frankenstein family tree, tracing the literary and intellectual roots of Shelley’s novel from the sixteenth century and analyzing the evolution of the book’s figures and themes into modern productions that range from children’s cartoons to pornography. Along the way, media scholar Lester D. Friedman and historian Allison B. Kavey examine the adaptation and evolution of Victor Frankenstein and his monster across different genres and in different eras. In doing so, they demonstrate how Shelley’s tale and its characters continue to provide crucial reference points for current debates about bioethics, artificial intelligence, cyborg lifeforms, and the limits of scientific progress. 

 

Blending an extensive historical overview with a detailed analysis of key texts, the authors reveal how the Frankenstein legacy arose from a series of fluid intellectual contexts and continues to pulsate through an extraordinary body of media products. Both thought-provoking and entertaining, Monstrous Progeny offers a lively look at an undying and significant cultural phenomenon.

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Singing the Body Electric

1         In a Country of Eternal Light: Frankenstein’s Intellectual History

2         The Instruments of Life: Frankenstein’s Medical History

3         A More Horrid Contrast: From the Page to the Stage

4         It’s Still Alive: The Universal and Hammer Movie Cycles

5         The House of Frankenstein: Mary Shelley’s Step Children

6         Fifty Ways to Leave Your Monster

           Notes

           Select Bibliography

           Index

 

 

Reading List: Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein

I was pretty excited to discover this book over the summer. It looks like an invaluable resource. 

The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein
http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/english-literature-1700-1830/cambridge-companion-frankenstein?format=PB

Part of Cambridge Companions to Literature
Editor: Andrew Smith

Date Published: August 2016
format: Paperback (Also available in hardcover and as an ebook)
isbn: 9781107450608
length: 288 pages
dimensions: 227 x 151 x 15
contains: 10 b/w illus.

The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein consists of sixteen original essays on Mary Shelley's novel by leading scholars, providing an invaluable introduction to Frankenstein and its various critical contexts. Theoretically informed but accessibly written, this volume relates Frankenstein to various social, literary, scientific and historical contexts, and outlines how critical theories such as ecocriticism, posthumanism, and queer theory generate new and important discussion in illuminating ways. The volume also explores the cultural afterlife of the novel including its adaptations in various media such as drama, film, television, graphic novels, and literature aimed at children and young adults. Written by an international team of leading experts, the essays provide new insights into the novel and the various critical approaches which can be applied to it. The volume is an essential guide to students and academics who are interested in Frankenstein and who wish to know more about its complex literary history.

• Provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the novel using a number of different approaches by leading scholars
• Explores themes and theories such as gender and identity, the environment, politics and science of the time
• Looks at Frankenstein in popular culture today including adaptations on stage, television, the graphic novel and in children's literature

Table of Contents

Introduction Andrew Smith

Part I. Historical and Literary Contexts:
1. Frankenstein: its composition and publication Charles E. Robinson
2. Contextualising sources Lisa Vargo
3. Romantic contexts Jerrold E. Hogle
4. The context of the novel Catherine Lanone
5. Scientific contexts Andrew Smith
6. Frankenstein's politics Adriana Craciun

Part II. Theories and Forms:
7. The female Gothic Angela Wright
8. What is queer about Frankenstein? George E. Haggerty
9. Race and Frankenstein Patrick Brantlinger
10. Frankenstein and ecocriticism Timothy Morton
11. The posthuman Andy Mousley

Part III. Adaptations:
12. Dramatic adaptations of Frankenstein Diane Long Hoeveler
13. Frankenstein and film Mark Jancovich
14. Literature David Punter
15. Frankenstein in comics and graphic novels Christopher Murray
16. Growing up Frankenstein: adaptations for young readers Karen Coats and Farran Norris Sands


EditorAndrew Smith, University of Sheffield
Andrew Smith is Reader in Nineteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Sheffield. His 18 books include the forthcoming Gothic Death 1740–1914: A Literary History, The Ghost Story 1840–1920: A Cultural History (2010), Gothic Literature (2007, revised edition 2013), Victorian Demons (2004) and Gothic Radicalism (2000). He edits, with Benjamin Fisher, the award-winning series Gothic Literary Studies and Gothic Authors: Critical Revisions. He also edits, with William Hughes, The Edinburgh Companions to the Gothic series. He is a past President of the International Gothic Association.

Reading List: Magic in Medieval Manuscripts

Sophie Page’s Magic in Medieval Manuscripts is part of a series celebrating the art of illuminated manuscripts held by the British Library, and it offers an interesting look at magical belief and practices in the Middle Ages. The opening chapter focuses on magicians in medieval literature, but the remainder of the book is grounded in reality, exploring how real magicians were believed to employ their craft. 

Details from the publisher as follows:



Magic in Medieval Manuscripts
http://www.utppublishing.com/Magic-in-Medieval-Manuscripts.html

By Sophie Page
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division © 2004
World Rights
65 Pages

Paper
ISBN 9780802037978
Published Sep 2004
$27.95

Magic existed in diverse forms in the Middle Ages, from simple charms to complex and subversive demonic magic. Its negative characteristics were defined by theologians who sought to isolate undesirable rituals and beliefs, but there were also many who believed that the condemned texts and practices were valuable and compatible with orthodox piety.

Magic in Medieval Manuscripts explores the place of magic in the medieval world and the contradictory responses it evoked, through an exploration of images and texts in British Library manuscripts. These range from representations of the magician, wise-woman and witch, to charms against lightning, wax images for inciting love, and diagrams to find treasure. Most elaborate of all the magical practices are rituals for communicating with and commanding spirits. Whether expressions of piety, ambition, or daring, these rituals reveal a medieval fascination with the points of contact between this world and the celestial and infernal realms.

Sophie Page is a lecturer in the Department of History at University College London.

CFP Preternature (no deadline)

CfP: Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural

http://www.fantastic-arts.org/2016/cfp-preternature-critical-and-historical-studies-on-the-preternatural/

Posted on June 7, 2016

The journal “Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural” is currently seeking original submissions. Preternature is indexed by both JSTOR and Project MUSE.

Preternature provides an interdisciplinary, inclusive forum for the study of topics that stand in the liminal space between the known world and the inexplicable. The journal embraces a broad and dynamic definition of the preternatural that encompasses the weird and uncanny—magic, witchcraft, spiritualism, occultism, esotericism, demonology, monstrophy, and more, recognizing that the areas of magic, religion, and science are fluid and that their intersections should continue to be explored, contextualized, and challenged.

A rigorously peer-reviewed journal, Preternature welcomes submissions of original research in English from any academic discipline and theoretical approach relating to the role and significance of the preternatural. The journal publishes scholarly articles, notes, and reviews covering all time periods and cultures. Additionally, Preternature is pleased to consider original editions or translations of relevant texts from contemporary or ancient languages that have not yet appeared in scholarly edition or been made available in English.

Contributions should be roughly 8,000–12,000 words (with the possibility of longer submissions in exceptional cases), including all documentation and critical apparatus. If accepted for publication, manuscripts will be required to adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition (style 1, employing footnotes).

To submit a manuscript to the editorial office, please visit http://www.editorialmanager.com/preternature/
and create an author profile. The online system will guide you through the steps to upload your article for submission to the editorial office.

Inquiries may be directed to the Editor, Debbie Felton, at:
felton@classics.umass.edu

CFP Conference on Mermaids, Maritime Folklore, and Modernity (3/31/17; Copenhagen 10/24-27/2017)

Sounds like a great idea for a conference:

CfP: Conference on Mermaids, Maritime Folklore, and Modernity

http://www.fantastic-arts.org/2016/cfp-conference-on-mermaids-maritime-folklore-and-modernity/

Posted on June 10, 2016

Conference on Mermaids, Maritime Folklore, and Modernity
24-27 October 2017, Copenhagen, Denmark

This interdisciplinary conference addresses the prominence of the mermaid and related creatures from folklore, myth, legend, and the imagination in 19th, 20th, and 21st-Century culture.

The past decades have seen an explosion of mermaid imagery in western and, increasingly, global popular culture. This is particularly evident in cinema, television, literature, and various web-based forms but is also widely diffused in music, design, performance, cosplay, and other activities. Simultaneously, mermen, selkies, sirens, and newer figures such as caecelia and merlions have been subject to representation and discussion in a range of contexts. From Hans Christian Andersen’s story ‘The Little Mermaid’ (Den lille Havfrue) to Jennifer Donnely’s WaterFire Saga, from Curtis Harrington’s Night Tide to Stephen Chow’s The Mermaid (美人鱼), from Edvard Eriksen’s iconic ‘The Little Mermaid’ statue to Banksy’s Dismaland distortion, from the mermaid show at Weeki Wachi Springs to the digital mermaids at Macau’s City of Dreams, mermaids have served as figures of romance, horror, comedy, mystery, lust, and adventure across countless media and cultural practices.

Cultural globalisation has furthermore drawn a wide range of non-western creatures and deities into the sphere of mermaid associations. Representations of aquatic spirits from around the world – Thailand’s Suvannamaccha, West Africa’s Mami Wata, Indonesia’s Nyai Loro Kidul, Russia’s rusalka, Brazil’s Iara, and many more – are increasingly influencing and being influenced by western mermaid culture. This is a continuation of a process that has occurred in the West itself, as figures from Mesopotamia and Classical antiquity influenced Medieval and Early Modern Western European perceptions and interpretations of real and imagined encounters with aquatic beings.

How to make a presentation.

Papers and panels are invited on all aspects of mermaids and related entities in 19th, 20th, and 21st-Century culture. Presentations will address such issues as:

• Representations in popular culture
• Representations in fine art contexts
• Aficionado cultures and/or cosplay
• Contemporary folk belief
• Cultural Theory and interpretation
• Sexualities and identification
• Roles as objects of horror, comedy, sex, etc.
• International comparisons
• Official symbols and symbolism

The deadline for abstracts is 31 March 2017, but to ensure that you have the opportunity to take part in the conference and have the time to seek funding from your institution, we recommend that you submit your abstract early.

Artists working in various media are also invited to approach the organizers about presenting their work at the conference.

Keynote speaker.

The conference keynote speech will be given by Philip Hayward, whose new book Making a Splash! Mermaids (and Mermen) in 20th and 21st Century Audiovisual Media (JLP/University of Indiana Press) will be launched at the conference.

About the conference.

On 24-25 October, delegates will explore Copenhagen, visiting mermaid-related sites and engaging in the local culture. Besides seeing Edvard Eriksen’s 1913 statue of ‘The Little Mermaid’, which has become a national symbol of Denmark, the conference group will visit numerous other works of merfolk art and engage with Copenhagen’s vibrant culture. On the evening of 18 October, delegates will visit the enchanting Tivoli Gardens amusement park. Conference presentations will take place on 26-27 October at VerdensKulturCentret.

Publication.

We will be putting together an edited book or journal special issue as a result of this conference. More information will be available in early summer 2017.

Please visit http://www.islanddynamics.org/mermaidconference.html.