HWA Academics

Editors: I.Q. Hunter and Matthew Melia
Contact email: iqhunter@dmu.ac.uk

Proposals are invited for contributions to a proposed edited collection of new essays on Jurassic Park (1993), its sequels, franchise, and spin offs.

Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) took over $50 million dollars in its opening weekend and went on to gross over $1 billion worldwide at the box office.  One of the definitive Hollywood blockbusters, Jurassic Park met with almost universal critical and popular acclaim, broke new ground with its CGI recreation of dinosaurs, and started one of the most profitable of all movie franchises.

To mark the film’s 30th anniversary, this collection aims to interrogate the Jurassic Park phenomenon from a diverse range of critical, historical, and theoretical angles.  Proposals are especially sought for 6 – 7000 word chapters on gender, race, and colonialism; international distribution, marketing, reception and audiences; merchandising, toys, video games and other spin offs; CGI, SFX, film form and production design (cinematography, editing, sound, music etc.).

Please send proposals of 250 words with a short biography and note on institutional affiliation to Ian Hunter: iqhunter@dmu.ac.uk and Matt Melia: m.melia@kingston.ac.uk by 31 July 2020.

 

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: 12th June, 2020
Organisers: Dr Elizabeth Parker, Dr Michelle Poland, and Dr Rachele Dini
Confirmed keynotes: Professor Dawn Keetley and Dr Anne Lister
Academic Keynote: Professor Dawn Keetley (Lehigh University, Pennsylvania)



Note: We are acutely aware that this CFP coincides with extremely uncertain times re COVID-19. Of course, it is currently unknown when gatherings of people will be able to resume as normal. We have every intention of holding this event in October, but first and foremost must prioritise the safety of our attendees. If necessary, we will either postpone the conference or host it virtually. We also wish to be sensitive to the fact that the themes of the conference have the potential to be somewhat uncomfortably relevant to the current ecosocial crisis; however, we feel that it is important—now more than ever—to provide a space in which we can, together, critically reflect on these ‘Gothic times’, particularly when the line between real and fictional Gothic Nature is becoming ever more blurred.

Our images of monstrous Nature don’t just reflect our fear of Nature; they actively teach it
– J. W. Williamson

In Autumn 2020, we will publish the second issue of the peer-reviewed and open-access journal Gothic Nature: New Directions in Ecohorror and the EcoGothic, which is devoted to exploring the darker side of our relationships with the nonhuman world. This journal provides a space for new and established scholars alike working at the intersections of ecocriticism, Gothic and horror studies, and the wider environmental humanities more broadly. It aims to provide deeper understandings of
the importance of our monstrous, sublime, spectral, and uncanny constructions of Nature in our varied and contradictory narratives – and to productively question how Gothic and horror might factor in our conceptions and experiences of contemporary ‘real life’ ecological crisis. To celebrate the release of the second issue of Gothic Nature, we are holding a one-day symposium, generously hosted by the English and Creative Writing Department at The University of Roehampton, to bring together academics, artists, activists, and enthusiasts working in various ways with the subject of Gothic Nature. We are particularly keen to hear from those seeking to build on discussions raised in Issue One, as well as those eager to provide insights on themes as yet largely unexplored – such as the decolonisation of the ecoGothic, the Gothicity/horror of environmental science, media, and medicine, and the increasing imbrications between ecohorror/ecoGothic and environmental activism.

We invite proposals for 20-minute scholarly papers and 5-10-minute creative readings. We also warmly welcome proposals from scholars, artists, and activists for alternative modes and formats (critical or creative dialogues, conversations, performances, screenings, presentations, etc.) Topics might include, but are by no means limited to:

• EcoGothic and ecohorror: theories, distinctions, directions
• Decolonising the ecoGothic
• Green Gothic Activism
• Anthropocene Gothic
• The ‘horror’ and ‘Gothicisation’ of contemporary climate crisis
• Bleeding genres: ecoGothic/ecohorror/folk horror/the new weird, etc.
• Gothic and food politics: vegetarianism, veganism, carnivorism, cannibalism
• The intersections of Gothic Nature: class/race/gender/sexuality, etc.
• Gothic and waste, pollution, and/or sustainability
• Haunted landscapes
• The dark blue Gothic: Gothic coasts, seas, oceans, icescapes, etc.
• The dark green Gothic: Gothic woods, forests, heaths, gardens, etc.
• Gothic ecology/Gothic geology
• Nature monsters: wolves, trolls, wendigos, witches, Pan, slender men (!), etc.
• Animal horror
• Plant horror


Please send abstracts of 350 words, as well as a brief biography of 150 words to us at gothicnaturejournal@gmail.com by 12th June, 2020 (or feel free to contact us informally should you wish to talk through ideas or have any queries). Proposals for panels are also welcome: in these instances, please send a 200-word summary of the rationale for the panel, in addition to individual abstracts.

We are keen to provide a rich, stimulating, and inclusive hub to all Gothic Naturalists and in doing so to celebrate all ecohorror- and ecoGothic-related activity. We will be using the symposium as a platform to launch Elizabeth Parker’s The Forest and the EcoGothic: The Deep Dark Woods in the Popular Imagination (Palgrave Gothic, 2020) and if you too would like to use the symposium as an opportunity to launch a book or collection, or announce any other related event, we would love to hear from you.


About the Journal

Gothic Nature: New Directions in Ecohorror and the EcoGothic is an interdisciplinary and peerreviewed open-access academic journal seeking to explore the latest evolutions of thought in the areas of ecohorror and the ecoGothic. It welcomes articles, reviews, interviews, and original creative pieces interrogating the darker sides of our relationship with the nonhuman from new and more revered scholars working at the intersection of ecocriticism, Gothic and horror studies, and the wider environmental humanities. All GN issues and blogs can be found here: https://gothicnaturejournal.com/

Founding editor: Dr Elizabeth Parker
Co-editors: Dr Elizabeth Parker and Dr Michelle Poland
Book review editor: Professor Jennifer Schell
TV and film review editor: Assoc. Prof. Sara L. Crosby
Editorial Board: Professor Stacy Alaimo, Professor Eric G. Anderson, Dr Scott Brewster, Dr Kevin Corstorphine, Dr Rachele Dini, Professor Simon C. Estok, Dr Tom J. Hillard, Professor William, Hughes, Professor Dawn Keetley, Dr Ian Kinane, Dr John Miller, Professor Matthew Wynn Sivils, Professor Andrew Smith, Dr Samantha Walton.

Deadline: April 6, 2020
Contact email: wm1104@txstate.edu

The “King of Horror” has confided that inspiration for his 22nd novel It struck, rather unexpectedly (if appropriately), while he crossed a bridge. As his worn boots “trip-trapped” against the wooden planks, reminding him of “The Three Billy-Goats Gruff,” Stephen King toyed with thoughts of trolls and bridges, monsters and crossings; cities, adulthood, and what lurks beneath them both. He found himself unable to shake these connections, mulling them over for three years before committing to the project. Reflecting on the book’s persistent haunting of his thoughts during that time, King reasons: “A good idea is like a yo-yo. It may go to the end of its string, but it doesn't die there; it only sleeps. Eventually it rolls back up into your palm.”

When King’s idea respooled and It debuted in 1986, featuring a monster whose preferred form was a murderous clown rather than a troll, it forever changed the legacy of the literary clown. Then, in 1990, the It TV miniseries visually and heartily cemented this alteration forevermore into the pop-cultural consciousness before retreating into the periphery to enjoy a cult status among horror fans. 27 years later, It returned for a sensational two-part film reboot (2017, 2019). Not only is this reappearance curiously in keeping with Pennywise’s hibernation cycle in the novel, but it also trends alongside a fascinating resurgence of the “evil” clown figure in popular culture. From John Watts’s Clown (2014) to two seasons of American Horror Story (Freak Show from 2014-2015 and Cult in 2017); from Joker (2019) to the clown-laden political imagery surrounding the current U.S. president, Pennywise’s–and It's–reemergence seems peculiarly timely. One must wonder if, like King’s yo-yo illustration, the “evil” clown only ever appears to sleep before returning, continually—perhaps uncomfortably—close at hand.

This collection will examine these pronounced cultural fluctuations by situating Stephen King’s It within the theoretical frameworks that animate it and ensure its literary (and pop-cultural) persistence. One of the key interests of this volume is an exploration of the ways the novel, so like its antagonist, replicates (or disavows) the icons of various canons and categories in order to accomplish specific psychological and cultural work. Although accepted contributions are welcome to discuss its various adaptations, each essay is expected to engage meaningfully with the novel in order to maintain the unity of the overall collection. Potential topics might include, but are not limited to:

Adaptation analysis that considers the novel (1986), the It American miniseries (1990), the Woh Indian television series (1998), and/or the American reboot films (2017,2019)
Transmedia studies
Queer theory
Labor history
Spatiality studies
History of capitalism
Critical race theory
Ecocriticism
Genre studies
Studies of gender and/or sexuality
Waste studies
Disability studies/crip theory
Medical humanities
Circus and sideshow studies and/or clowning
Theorizations of the Gothic or, more broadly, of horror
Military studies
Indigenous studies
Fat studies
Studies of death and dying
Music studies
Transportation studies

Please submit a 500-word abstract, as well as a brief, 150-word author bio, as Word attachments by April 6, 2020. Decisions will be made by April 15, 2020. For accepted proposals, final essays of 5,000-8,000 words will be due on August 15, 2020. As this will be a peer-reviewed collection, several rounds of revision and editing may be needed until the final manuscript is ready for publication.

Please send materials, or direct any questions, to Whitney May, wm1104@txstate.edu.

Deadline: March 31, 2020
Contact: villainycollection@gmail.com

The emphasis on “the performativity of texts” (Skinner x) has now become common in literary studies. “The notion of literature as performative” (Culler 96) is now entrenched. It pervades many of the recent studies of the theory of literature. This is why the concept of performance is no longer confined to literary forms that are traditionally written to be performed on the stage, the pulpit or the podium, like drama, songs and sermons. Every form of literature can be considered as performative. Moreover, the works of Judith Butler, Quentin Skinner, Richard Schechner, Jonathan Culler, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty, and others have shown that performativity characterizes all the aspects of literature. The writing, marketing, reading and analysis of literature are performative. It is quite common to describe them as acts, esp. the act of reading. This performativity extends the concept of literature irrevocably beyond the boundaries of the written text. It also proves that we need to cope with the looseness of the term literature that can no longer be confined to classical genres. Many traditional and new (non)-discursive practices started to fall into the category of literature, from which they have long been excluded.  Probably the most intriguingly appealing characters in traditional and contemporary literature, the representations of evil characters – be they villains in drama, antagonists in fiction and cinema, bosses in video games or corrupt public figures in satirical writings – has always been connected with the notion of performance. Evil characters, real or/and fictional, are – for the most part – defined by their deeds. This is why the notion of performance can be quite helpful in understanding them. To further contribute to the articulation of this interconnection between performativity and the literary representation of evil characters, we are seeking full articles for a collection of academic essays on the performativity of literary villains in literary texts that are conceived in the English language for Palgrave Macmillan. This volume tries to use the emerging interdisciplinary theories of performance to study the literary villain.  It attempts to cover a wide range of classical as well as nonclassical and even experimentalist genres. The aim of this collection is to investigate the literary representation of the villain in different literary texts. It tries to emphasize the role of the villains and their performative energy in shaping the texts under scrutiny. The reviewers recommended that we extend the scope of the collection and, therefore, we are seeking full articles on the following topics:

- Beowulf (we need more articles about this classic and its different adaptations)

- Medieval literature (Chaucer, Arthurian Legends, Metaphysical Drama)

- Evil in Everyman

- The figure of Mordred in and Beyond the Arthurian legends

- Celtic and Gaelic (folk)lore and its adaptations

- Witchcraft in Medieval literature

- The Murder of Thomas Beckett in Medieval Literature and Beyond

- Witchcraft and evil

- Fallen angels

- The seven deadly sins

- Evil spirits

- Dark rituals

- Giants

- Monsters

- Evil and body ornaments (Tattoos, branding, piercing, makeup, etc) 

- Robinhood Legends

- Evil (and) Hierarchies 

- Muslim and Jewish characters as Medieval and Renaissance Villains (not in Shakespeare we got that covered)

- Renaissance writers other than William Shakespeare (we do not accept any articles on Shakespeare we have enough. We only welcome articles on other early modern writers)

- The tool villain in Renaissance drama and beyond

- The plays of John Webster

- The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil

-The History of King Richard the Third by Saint/Sir Thomas More

- The Early Modern representations of King John of England (Other than Shakespeare)

- Dr. Faustus and its different versions and adaptations

- Irish drama and fiction

- Native American lore

- Early American texts (may include early English versions/translations of Native American folklore)

- The Salem Witchhunt and trials in Early American literature (and in contemporary media)

- Milton's Paradise Lost

- Milton's Satan long after Stanley Fish's surprised by sin

- 18th century British Literature

- Evil in the historical fiction of Sir Walter Scott

- Romanticism

- Jane Austin

- The figure of Dracula (in and beyond Bram Stoker)

- Dickens' representation of evil

- Detective fiction

- African American Literature

- African literature in English

- Australian literature

- Canadian Literature

- Evil Indigenous Literature in North America and Australia even if it is not in English (the article, however, should be in English)

- Implications of the fact that indigenous villains in Western literature are not individualized like European villains

- Disney films and cartoon

- Comic books

- Representation of Evil and villainy in musical performances

- Music and evil

- Cartoon

- Caricature

- (silent) Films

- TV series

- Al Capone and El Chapo in films and literature

- Espionage in media (while we have articles on this topic, we would be very interested in an article about the TV series Mata Hari Series (esp. 2016) or Movies and/or James Bond Movies)

- Hitler in British and American Literature, film and media

- Evil intellectuals

- Stories of Holocaust survivors in literature and media

- Stalin in British and American Literature and (literary) media

- Free Masonry and secret societies in literature and media (some focus on the representations of the rites of initiation would be appreciated)

- Evil cults and cultists in literature and media

- Conspiracies and conspiracy theories

-Love as/and evil

- The representation of evil in pornography and eroticism

- Evil Fetishism and fetishized evil in literature and (literary) media

- The vilified and eroticized woman/person in charge

- Seduction as/and evil

- (Eroticized) evil step-parents

- The figure of the homewrecker in literature and film

- The (de/sexualized) figure of the evil teacher/mentor

- Evil philosophies/justifying evil in literature and (literary) media

- video games (with focus on their literary aspect)

- articles about telltale games and BioWare games are very welcome

- contemporary Gothic literature and media

- racialized evil

- Evil and age(ing)

- Evil in Netflix historical documentaries 

- evil in (auto)biographic literature

- Children literature

- Evil and the Law

- Evil and the state

- Shady organizations in literature and media

- Marvel cinematic universe

- The Lord of the Rings and its different adaptations

- The Joker movie of 2019

- The Witcher (book, game and movie)

 - The ethical controversies surrounding Joker (2019)or another film or video game (we have another article about the notion of the evil text but it is about a novel. Seeing a certain text as evil is worth investigation. Other articles written in this vein would be more than welcome)

- Game of Thrones

- Representation of Medieval evil in contemporary literature and media

- Contemporary Historical Fiction

- Vigilantism and/as evil

- Vigilantes in literature and media

- Philippa Kelly's fiction and its adaptations

- The Song of Ice and Fire and its adaptations

- Star wars and its different adaptations

- fan studies

- Celebrity and evil (also "evil"/mean celebrities) 

- Evil, clothing, and fashion in media (we have one article about evil and clothing in literature. One on media would be a great addition to this collection)

- Populism and evil

- Science and evil

- Artificial intelligence and evil in literature and media (we already have an article about Mass Effect but its focus is not on the geth or the reapers or ED or SAM such focus would be welcome)

- The evil imagination of villains

- Evil in/and the natural world in media and literature

- Medicine and evil in literature and (literary) media

- Drugs and drug addiction as/and evil

- Vilifying the media in the age of populism

- The axis of evil in political media and creative discourses during and after the Bush era

- Irani regime in British and US literature and media

- Posthuman evil

- Contemporary witchcraft in literature and media

- The notion of evil in performance theory (esp. in Judith Butler)

Unfortunately, other areas have already been covered and the reviewers recommended no further additions to them. Because the contract requires that we submit the full manuscript before the end of the year, we cannot consider abstracts. We are seeking full articles. Please send your full article (that has never been published before and is not under consideration elsewhere) and a short bio to villainycollection@gmail.com no later than March 31, 2020. For any query please do not hesitate to contact the editor Dr. Nizar Zouidi e-mail: nizarzouidinizar@outlook.com. We look forward to your contributions.

The articles should be between 4000 and 8000 words. You can use MLA or Chicago style but please try to provide as much information as possible. (Please note that there are no publication or processing fees or anything of the kind. The quality of your article is what determines whether it will be published in this collection or not. Please do not inquire about fees)

Deadline for submissions: March 1, 2020
Contact: Zahi Zalloua, zallouz@whitman.edu

The Netflix series Black Mirror offers a critical dramatization of the phantasmatic promises of transhumanism. Set in the near future, Black Mirror not only paints a pessimistic vision of our neoliberal lives as cyborgs—biological subjects wired into a technology integral to the construction and projection of self—but also foregrounds the persistence and problem of desire, exceeding the interpretive paradigm of transhumanism along with its investment in the willful subject of humanism. New technologies do not deliver us from our weaknesses; they do not limit our vulnerabilities, but intensify them. Indeed, new technologies induce anxiety, unsettling the desiring habits of subjects. What Black Mirror arguably solicits is a posthumanism supplemented by a psychoanalytic framework—where desire is understood as a desire for the other/Other (for the personal human other and for the anonymous figure of authority), where the object (and subject) of desire is constitutively doubled. Read as an allegory for our posthuman condition, Black Mirror stages desiring cyborgs not as immunized subjectivities (the dream of transhumanism), nor as post-subjectivities (the dream of some posthumanisms) but as subjectivities whose ontological otherness—their inherent inhuman excess—is put on full display.

Black Mirror powerfully exposes what we might describe as the blind spots of transhumanism. This volume seeks to explore those blind spots and their implications for posthuman subjectivity. The editors invite proposals for a new edited collection of essays. We specifically look for essays that engage how fantasy helps situate the limitations of desire within the technological enhancements of Black Mirror’s terrain. Although psychoanalysis provides a particularly apt discourse for understanding Black Mirror and its implications, the goal of the collection is to offer an interdisciplinary dialogue that addresses the various posthumanist implications of Black Mirror. Media studies, cultural theory, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and literary theory—all these approaches serve both to enlighten and to complicate the dilemmas within, and the fantasies of, humanism and posthumanism and the instability of our evolving cyborg subjectivity.

 
Initially, the editors ask that potential contributors send a detailed abstract along with a full CV by March 1, 2020. For accepted proposals, completed essays (approximately 7000 words) will be due on August 1, 2020. Please email material to the editors, Dr. Zahi Zalloua, zallouz@whitman.edu, and Dr. Jacob Blevins, jblevins@shsu.edu. Decisions on proposals will be made by March 15th.