HWA Academics

Guest Editor: Dr Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Email: S.Ni-Fhlainn@mmu.ac.uk

This special issue will re-evaluate the horror genre in the 1980s and the legacy of this decade in contemporary horror studies. While many disparage the decade as a period of soulless commercialism, avid consumerism and the decade that fashion forgot, the 1980s introduced new modes of communication, new commercial appreciation for horror texts, and is now, in contemporary times, suffused with a sense of nostalgia. The seeds of discontent in our contentious and fractured present were sown in the 1980s, making it an important if divisive decade. It is the decade of Threads, The Terminator, and Ghostbusters (all 1984); ‘stranger danger campaigns’, milk carton kids, and child abductions (Adam Walsh etc); media spectacle, 24 hour news cycles, and numerous ‘shocking’ TV specials; increased and explicit special FX in film and the popularity of ‘plastic reality’; the rise of censorship, the PG13 certificate, the Parental Advisory sticker, ‘video nasties’ and the 1984 Video Recordings Act. It is the last decade of the analogue era before the global advent of the internet.

This special issue is open to submissions on any geographical region or emphasis which evaluates or (re)considers the impact of horror in the 1980s. Topics of interest include but are not limited to texts and contexts around neoliberalism, culture wars; conflict crises, famine,
political protest and distrust of government, Alien(ation) and homeland invasion; deadly pathogens, and fearing/fetishising the rise of new technologies; calls for censorship and concerns on increased violence; and a glut of horror-tinged children's fantasy films and TV
shows (Knightmare, for example), and horror games. Contemporary culture looks back on this era paradoxically as a period of intense upheaval and neo-conservative backlash, while simultaneously fetishizing it through retro-horror nostalgia. Most striking of all, Hollywood is
currently cycling through remakes/reboots featuring the decade's most iconic monsters and monster hunters, including A Nightmare on Elm Street; Halloween, Poltergeist, Friday the 13th, Ghostbusters, IT, Hellraiser etc. As a logical, if nightmarish, persistence of this nostalgia, the
ascension of Donald Trump to the American Presidency in 2016 consolidates many aspects of 1980s American ideals turned nightmare, which may continue its purchase in US culture. On the whole, this special edition of Horror Studies looks back and examines the darkness of the decade
as a distinct disjuncture in recent cultural history.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

o The 1980s and Postmodern horror
o The ‘serial killer’ decade in popular culture (TV culture, cases, Ramirez, Bundy, Nilsen
etc.)
o Horror and politics (i.e. neoliberalism/deregulation etc)
o Remaking (and revisiting) 1980s films and aesthetics today
o 1980s film and TV industry practices (sequels, mini-series, film to TV adaptations etc)
o Explicit versus implicit horror/terror
o Horror Literature of the 1980s
o Body Horror/ Splatterpunk and reshaping the flesh
o Film and TV adaptations of 1980s texts
o Horror and 80s music and subcultures
o Nostalgia for 1980s horror programming
o Analogue vs digital horror (including VHS culture)
o Horror games (i.e board games/computer games etc)
o Film franchises/reboots/remakes
o 80s Fantasy Horror

Schedule:
Submissions due Monday, 17 January 2022
Decisions and/or Requests for Revisions by Monday, 07 March 2022
Revisions due Monday, 02 May 2022
Manuscript into Press by late June 2022
Published autumn 2022.

Collection Editors: Lizzy Walker, associate professor & metadata/digital initiatives librarian at Wichita State University Libraries, Women in Horror Movement Librarian & Cecilia Abate, independent researcher & editor-in-chief of the Horror Scholar Journal
Deadline for Abstracts: April 30, 2021
Publisher: We are aiming to pitch the concept to McFarland Publishing.

We are inviting chapter submissions for a new edited collection focusing on representations of dysfunctional families on the tv show American Horror Story. Finished chapters should aim to be between 7,000-10,000 words.

This edited collection aims to examine the myriad variety of abusive family dynamics on the show and the complex implications of showing abusive families on TV, as well as the legacy of various family tropes in horror (such as evil children, bad mothers, etc.) This collection aims to cover (but not limited to) topics such as:

- Perceptions of motherhood and the "bad" mother
- Possession/"evil children" tropes
- Class, politics, marriage, and socioeconomic consequences
- Representations of queer couples & queer families
- Mental illness & stereotypes of mental health
- Representations of parenting & child-adult dynamics
- Violence & sexual abuse in families

We hope to encourage diverse perspectives and also welcome early career researchers and new voices to offer their thoughts on AHS.
Please send abstracts of approximately 300 words to horrorscholar@gmail.com.

ReFocus: The Films of Wes Craven

It can be argued that the late Wes Craven reinvented the modern American horror film on three different occasions and across three different decades with his trendsetting The Last House on the Left (1972), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Scream (1996). The director, who once told Robin Wood that he wanted “to make films that engaged directly and progressively with social issues” has a body of work that is rich in recurring concerns and provocative imagery as well as mediative of both technological and socio-political change. From his earliest, most controversial work in the 1970s, which includes the recently rediscovered hardcore text The Fireworks Woman (1975), through to the postmodern experimentation of New Nightmare (1994) and his more accessible mainstream outings, such as Red Eye (2005), Craven’s oeuvre is also stylistically and thematically adventurous, changeable and even unpredictable. For this edited collection, the first of its kind on the director’s work, I am particularly interested in gaining chapter proposals on some of Craven’s lesser-studied texts, with a wider discussion of how these projects link to his more famous and groundbreaking efforts such as The Last House on the Left (1972), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Scream (1996). Nonetheless, I am also eager to obtain new approaches to these canonical motion pictures so that this publication can stand as a unique and provocative collection.

Suggestions for chapter submissions might include:

● Analysis of individual films (including made-for-television projects)
● Gender representation
● Representation of organised religion
● Dream logic
● Class and family conflict
● Body-horror
● Abjection
● Postmodernism
● Sexuality
● Colonialism and postcolonialism
● Craven’s wider influence on horror cinema
● Craven as an auteur within horror cinema
● Your suggested topic

Please send your 250-350 word proposal and a 100-word bio or complete CV to Calum Waddell at cwaddell@lincoln.ac.ukby Friday 30th October (perfect timing for your Halloween!). Final chapters will be expected to be of a minimum of 5,000 words and a maximum of 10,000, in English, and referenced in Chicago endnote style with American spelling and formatting. Final chapters will be expected towards the end of the year. Our volume will be published by the University of Edinburgh Press in the ReFocus series on American film directors. Series editors are Robert Singer, Gary D. Rhodes and Frances Smith.

Calum Waddell, PhD
Lincoln School of Film and Media
University of Lincoln
cwaddell@lincoln.ac.uk

Black Gothic (15 March 2021; MLA convention 6-9 January 2022)

How have Black authors worldwide engaged, deployed, and reworked the Gothic to disclose the histories and complexities of Black life?

The Gothic Studies Forum of the Modern Language Association invites proposals for a paper session at the 2022 MLA Convention in Washington, DC.

300-word abstracts and 100-word bios by March 15 to teresa.a.goddu@vanderbilt.edu. Panelists must be MLA members by April 7th, 2021.

Academia.Edu has launched a new publishing venture called Academia Letters. Their promotional email describes it as an:

"...experimental online journal called Academia Letters. We're looking for ultra-short research papers (800-1600 words), such as brief reports, case studies, or “orphaned” findings and ideas dropped from previously-published work. Letters are rapidly vetted by scholars researching similar topics. Accepted submissions are assigned a DOI and disseminated to thousands of interested scholars, practitioners, and members of the general public."

More info can be found here:

https://www.academia.edu/letters/submissions/new

However, you have to be a member (even at the free level) at Academia.edu to see it.