Die Rice University in Houston, Texas lädt zur interdisziplinären Konferent zum Monstösen und Grotesken in Kontexten des Religiösen und Sakralen ein.

Deadline für Abstracts: 17. Mai 2013

Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques
Young Professional and Graduate Conference Department of Religious Studies Rice University
Conference October 25-27

“Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques” aims to create conversations on the impact of monstrosity and examples of the grotesque in discourse related to religion and the sacred.

The tendency to populate religious landscapes with non-human entities, literally demonize opponents, perceive monsters as existing in far-reaching geographical borders (e.g., “the East” in Medieval Europe), and decorate sacred sites with grotesques is a trait shared throughout innumerable traditions. Recently the term “monster studies” was coined to cover the recent works dedicated to monsters by such authors as John Block Friedman, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, and Asa Mittman, who have helped to provide a framework for the study of such phenomena, not only in religious studies but also in literature, art history, and history. Through this framework, monsters and grotesques have been revealed as important markers of marginality, social boundaries, liminality, identity, cultural borders, and the “Other.”

“Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques” seeks to inform conversations about the sacred with monstrous discourse. We desire to do so in an interdisciplinary fashion and to encourage scholars in fields outside of religious studies who deal with such materials to join in our conversation. As such, we seek papers not only from religious studies but other disciplines in the humanities (e.g., philosophy, history, gender studies, art history, literature) and social sciences (e.g., political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology), as well.

The Rice Gnosticism, Mysticism, and Esotericism Work Group, in association with the Religious Studies Department of Rice University, invites abstracts by May 17, 2013. The conference will be held October 25-27 at Rice University. Papers should not exceed 20 minutes in length and should represent an intersection of the sacred (loosely construed) with a theme or object of monstrosity.

Please send a 300-word abstract, along with your name, institution, and year of study (if a graduate student) by May 17, 2013 to: monsterconference@gmail.com
If you have questions or need additional information, please contact Michael Heyes at heyes@rice.edu.

Für einen Sammelband zum Kind im postapokalyptischen Film werden Beiträge gesucht.

Deadline für Abstracts: 01. Mai 2013

CFP The Child in Post-Apocalyptic Cinema
ed.: Debbie Olson

Filmmakers have been fascinated with images of an imagined apocalypse since the first sci-fi films of the early 20th century. Humanity’s search for a Utopian existence has always been accompanied by the fearful counter-imaginings of a monumental dystopian collapse of civilization, a vision that has risen in popularity in cinema during the past two decades. In post-apocalyptic cinema, children have occupied conflicting positions—as harbingers of disaster, such as Children of the Damned (1964)—or as symbols of survival and hope, as in The Children of Men (2006). Recent upcoming films like After Earth (2013) and World War Z (2013) add to the growing trend of post-apocalyptic films with significant child characters. Children are most often symbols of Futurity, as Lee Edelman has argued, but what is the child’s role in a cinema that wallows in the aftermath and widespread devastation of nuclear disaster, alien invasion, ecological collapse, human transformation (zombies or other mutant human forms), technological or cyber disasters, paranormal invasions and/or possessions, divine judgment or widespread pandemics? The child character in many post-apocalyptic films is often overlooked as a significant source of meaning, yet the post-apocalyptic child occupies a unique space within such narratives that oscillates between death and destruction, and faith and hope— symbols of the resilience of life.

This collection seeks well-written essays that explore and interrogate the role of the child character in post-apocalypse cinema, from the classic age to the most recent, and approached from a variety of theoretical perspectives. For the purposes of this collection, post-apocalyptic cinema will be defined as those films that show, or infer, a world-wide catastrophe. International submissions that offer analyses of the child character from international post-apocalyptic films are encouraged. Interested contributors please send a 300-400 word abstract (as an attachment in Word) and full contact information, including affiliation, to debbieo@okstate.edu or dolson@uta.edu.
Abstracts are due by May 1, 2013. Final full drafts will be due December 31, 2013.

photo: Village of the Damned, dir. by Wolf Rilla, GB 1960.

Für ein Panel zum Thema “Queer Gothic” bei der Jahrestagung College Art Association in Chicago werden Beiträge gesuch.

Deadline für Abstracts: 06. Mai 2013

Queer Gothic: Difference and Sexuality in British Art and Architecture
Historians of British Art Session
CAA Annual Conference 2014
February 12 – 15, 2014
Chicago

Chairs: Ayla Lepine, Yale University; and Matthew Reeve, Queen’s
University. ayla.lepine@yale.edu and reevem@queensu.ca

Over the past four centuries, the Gothic style and its range of significations (including pre-modernity, romanticism, the foreign, and Catholicism) have been frequently employed as a locus or a cipher for sexuality. Within broadly Anglican, neo-classical visual cultures, the style could express non-normative, minoritized experience, manifesting the values and ideals of alternative subjectivities. Recent work in art history, literature and gender studies has shown that from the Early Modern period to the present, Gothic aesthetics and ideas were appropriated and critiqued as an alternative historicist landscape within which diverse constructions and expressions of self could take place. Neo-Gothic aesthetics can be productively explored as a method of visual communication wherein queerness has been imagined, signaled,
displayed, and censored. For historians of British art, the Gothic Revival and queer theory are increasingly marshaled as ways of understanding the wider phenomena of sexuality, historiography, and
resistance. This panel welcomes new research on queer Gothic across architecture, art, and design, which may speak to emerging ways of seeing tradition, innovation, futurity, utopianism, and the tensions
between survival and revival.

Your submission should include an abstract of 250-500 words, a letter explaining your interest and expertise in the subject as well as CAA membership status, and a CV with contact information (including summer contact information, if applicable). Please also inform us if you are submitting proposals to other sessions at the conference. CAA individual membership is required of all participants. No one may
participate in more than one session in any capacity. A paper that has been published previously or presented at another scholarly conference may not be delivered at the CAA Annual conference. Acceptance in this session implies a commitment to attend that session and participate in person.

The submission deadline is May 6 2013. Please send submissions to ayla.lepine@yale.edu and reevem@queensu.ca.

picture: Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire, dir. by Neil Jordan, US 1994.

Inter-Disciplinary.Net lädt zur 2. internationalen Konferenz zum Thema “Body Horror” nach Athen ein.

Deadline für Abstracts: 14. Juni 2013

2nd Global Conference
Body Horror: Contagion, Mutation, Transformation
Friday 1st November 2013 – Sunday 3rd November 2013
Athens, Greece

The body. My body. This thing which is with me all day, every day, from my birth to my death. This flesh which is me. My intimate life-long friend.

In our day-to-day living we have no reason to question or to doubt our bodies. Until the bond of trust is shaken or broken. Something happens. To my body. Something inside: going wrong. A betrayal: a turning against: an unwelcome and unwanted change. From which there is no escape, no running away, nowhere to hide. This is happening to me.

This inter- and transdisciplinary forum aims to explore the many layers and levels of body horror, and the ways in which bodies can become horrifying. Given the diversity and scope of this theme we welcome
~ papers, panels, workshops, reports
~ case studies
~ performance pieces; dramatic readings; poetic renditions; short stories; creative writings
~ works of art; works of music

Key aspects for discussion will include, but not be limited to:
-Biological horror. Organic horror
-Betrayal; the body turns against you
-Something inside; no escape
-Change and transformation: the role of time
-Pain, suffering, agony, the scream, contortion, mutation and mutilation
-Obscene bodies
-Disease. Infection, contagion, invasion, virus, the parasite
-Surgery, cosmetic surgery, body sculpture; huffing, tattooing, piercing; body art
-Pleasure, perversion, fetish
-Deformity; disability, affliction
-Hybridity
-Violence, brutality, torture
-Rape
-Innards, guts, organs
-Dismemberment; instruments of the body’s destruction
-Wounded bodies, dying bodies
-Post body horror

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers and presentations will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted by Friday 14th June 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper, if appropriate, should be submitted by Friday 13th September 2013.

What to Send:
300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.
E-mails should be entitled: Body2 Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chair
Nadine Farghaly: Nadine.Farghaly@gmx.net
Rob Fisher: bh2@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/body-horror/call-for-presentations/

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.

picture: Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, dir. by David Cronenberg, US/CA 1986.

Inter-Disciplinary.Net lädt zur internationalen Konferenz zu Gestaltwandlern nach Athen ein.

Deadline für Abstracts: 14. Juni 2013

1st Global Conference
Shapeshifters: Transformations, Hybridity and Identity
Friday 1st November 2013 – Sunday 3rd November 2013
Athens, Greece

This conference seeks to explore the role of the shapeshifter in popular and literary culture. Chantal Bourgault du Coudray notes that ‘an ever- growing body of scholarship utilizes the concept of hybrid or heterogeneous identity. The hybrid identity is theorized and celebrated as a response to the demands of a fragmented, multi- dimensional, postmodern world, one in which shifting boundaries and a multiplicity of subject positions make it impossible to assume a homogeneous or stable subjectivity.’ Theorists such as Katherine Hayles and Donna Haraway discuss the implications of hybridity in the posthuman. Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle deal with the monstrosity of hybridity. Many critics discuss iterations of the werewolf in literature and film. However, relatively few scholars have addressed the figure of the shapeshifter other than the werewolf, despite the rising number of shapeshifters appearing in a variety of genres. This conference seeks to address that lack by examining the role of the shapeshifter in culture, including literature, film, television, graphic novels, fan cultures and video games. We are interested in essays dealing with any time period or genre. We welcome contributions from all disciplines.

We invite perspectives that explore the shapeshifter as symbol of identity, hybridity, boundary, or sexuality.

We likewise invite reflections on whether the nature of our tales of shapeshifters tells us anything about who and what we are and where we might be headed. What does it mean to change shape? What problems/issues could arise from such an ability? What concerns are raised about physicality historically, culturally, politically? What about non- human shifters? Ghosts that change form? Individuals that can change into non corporal forms like smoke? Humans that change into other humans? Note that we do not seek to limit the idea of “shapeshifters” to human- to- animal changes such as werewolves; we are interested in the idea of shifting shapes in a variety of contexts.

We encourage scholarly contributions from inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary perspectives, from practitioners working in all contexts. We will entertain submissions drawn from literature, medicine, politics, social history, film, television, graphic novels and manga, from science to science fiction.

Topics may include but are not limited to:
-Historical medical discourses about shapeshifters
-The monstrosity of shapeshifters
-Freak(s) – of nature; of technology; accidents of birth
-Queering form
-Invading and possessing bodies
-Science fiction: inter- species reproduction: non-human reproduction, hybrids
-Issues of identity: does the shapeshifitng entity share one identity? Are multiple identities cohabitating in one body?
-Issues of body image: to what degree does control of one’s own body tie into the idea of “shapeshifting”? How does the issue of changing shape tie in to plastic surgery? What about eating disorders? To what degree are our identities anchored to our outward appearances; does a change in one affect the other?
-What could be possible reasons for the rising occurrence of shapeshifitng bodies in popular culture during the last ten years?
-Paranormal romance novels feature an abundance of shapeshifitng -Posthumanism: has the issue of “shape” become irrelevant in posthuman studies? How does shifting shape tie in to posthumanism?
-Cyberspace issues: Have we indeed become the cyborg?
-DNA gambles and gene manipulations: the meaning of the shapeshifter in science and culture
-Alternate Worlds/realities
-(Dis)Ability—representations of mental illness, psychotherapeutic techniques, (de)institutionalization in the changing of the body
-Interpersonal Communication: body language
-(Neuro)Science and Technology—ethics (e.g., human experimentations)
-Teen shapeshifters
-Role-playing, gaming and MMORPGs
-Mythologies and folkloric belief
-Magic, transformation and the body
-Theoretical considerations of gender, female and non-normative sexuality
-The female shapeshifter as/and the other
-The male shapeshifter as/and the other
-Post-9/11 shapeshifting and its implications
-Cultural shapeshifting, mimcry, integration and post-colonial identity
-Carnivalesque as a performance
-Performance in relation to the shapeshifter: performing gender, performing identities, performing sexuality, performing cultural belonging/stereotypes
-The way we dress as a shapeshifting act: cross- dressing, transvestism, drag
-McDonald´s is going green: The shapeshifting nature of corporations and institutions

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers and presentations will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted by Friday 14th June 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper, if appropriate, should be submitted by Friday 13th September 2013.

What to Send
300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords. E- mails should be entitled: SHAPE1 Abstract Submission
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:
Margo Collins: margoc@inter-disciplinary.net
Rob Fisher: shape1@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/diversity-recognition/shapeshifters-transformationshybridity-and-identity/call-for-presentations/

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

picture: Simone Simon in Cat People, dir. by Jacques Tourneur, US 1942.

Inter-Disciplinary.Net lädt zur 10. internationalen Konferenz zum Thema “Making Sense of: Dying and Death” nach Athen ein.

Deadline für Abstracts: 14. Juni 2013

10th Global Conference
Making Sense of: Dying and Death
Thursday 7th November 2013 – Saturday 9th November 2013
Athens, Greece

This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference explores dying and death and the ways culture impacts care for the dying, the overall experience of dying, and how the dead are remembered. Over the past four decades, scholarship in thanatology has increased dramatically. This particular conference seeks a broad array of perspectives that explore, analyze, and/or interpret the myriad interrelations and interactions that exist between death and culture. Culture not only presents and portrays ideas about “a good death” and norms that seek to achieve it, culture also operates as both a vehicle and medium through which meaning about death is communicated and understood. Sadly, too, culture sometimes facilitates death through violence.

Given the location of this year’s conference, a central theme in our proceedings (augmenting those listed below) will involve tracing the on-going and profound shift in contemporary attitudes toward death. In ancient Greece, for example, citizens learned about death and dying through intimate, hands-on experiences. Indeed, the same was true for most people throughout the world until the mid-20th century. Today, many people around the world maintain an increasingly passive role in caring for the dying, and supporting those who grieve a loss. Given that death, serving the dying, and caring for the bereaved has always been such an essential and unavoidable feature of life in traditional societies, a key emphasis in this year’s conference will involve an exploration of the connections between contemporary technologies, social media hubs, and modern health care delivery systems and the ways they impact current end-of-life issues and decisions, including the experience of bereavement and grief. This conference welcomes submissions that specifically assess how these factors are altering our contemporary attitudes toward death, and how patients, staff, and survivors intersect amidst newly emerging care settings and sites of memorialization.

We also welcome submissions that produce conversations engaging historical, ethnographic, normative, literary, anthropological, philosophical, artistic, political or other terms that elaborate a relationship between death and culture.

Submissions in the form of papers, presentations and pre-formed panels are invited on any of the following additional core conference themes listed below:

1: Health Care Systems: Patients, Staff, and Institutions
-Modern Health Care Delivery Systems and Care for the Dying
-Palliative Care
-Hospice
-Elder Care/Ageing in Place Models
-Trauma and Emergency Care
-Nursing Homes/Skilled Facilities/Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly (RCFEs)/Assisted Living
-Clinical Competencies in Pain Management and Symptom Control
-Measurements, Incentives, Regulatory Statutes, and Recommendations
-Continuity of Care Across Treatment Settings
-Interdisciplinary Care

2: The Caregiver-Patient Relationship
-Caregiver’s (Physician’s?) Obligations and Virtues
-Medical Paternalism and Respect for the Patient, Autonomy
-Truth-Telling
-Informed Consent
-Medicine in the West for a Multicultural Society
-Contested Therapies Within the Physician-Patient Relationship
-Conflicts of Interest; Problems of Conscience
-Caregiver Stress/Caregiver Burnout/Compassion Fatigue
-Being With Someone Who Is Dying
-Assessment Challenges/Barriers

3: End-of-Life Issues and Decisions
-Defining Death
-Organ Transplantation and Organ Donation
-The Interplay of Ethical Meta-Principles at the End of Life
-Nonmaleficence
-Beneficence
-Autonomy
-Death Anxiety
-Choosing Death
-Advance Directives/Advance Planning/Physician Order for Life-Sustaining Treatments (POLST)/Do Not Resuscitate
-Considering End-of-Life Issues and Decisions and Legislation

4: Relationships Between Death and Culture:
-internet/social media
-music
-literature
-film
-broadcast media
-religious broadcasting
-journalism
-athletics
-comic books
-novels / poetry / short story
-television
-radio
-print media
-technology
-popular art / architecture
-sacred vs. profane space
-advertising
-consumerism

Papers, presentations and performances will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 14th June 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 13th September 2013.

What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords
E-mails should be entitled: DD10 Abstract Submission
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs
Nate Hinerman: nphinerman@usfca.edu
Rob Fisher: dd10@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Making Sense Of: series of research projects, which in turn belong to the Probing the Boundaries programmes of Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/making-sense-of/dying-and-death/call-for-papers/

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.

Inter-Disciplinary.Net lädt zur 4. internationalen Konferenz zum Thema “Making Sense of: Suffering” nach Athen ein.

Deadline für Abstracts: 14. Juni 2013

4th Global Conference: Making Sense of:Suffering
Sunday 10th November 2013 – Tuesday 12th November 2013
Athens, Greece

This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to explore if, or to what extent, meaning can be found in suffering. During the course of living our lives, we are invariably forced to stop and question why we suffer – be it through illness, pain, loss, grief or the multitude of distressing circumstances which we encounter. Problems arise in a variety of contexts and due to a bewildering variety of conditions. And because our lives are constant streams of experience, the nature of suffering and consequently the “meaning” of such suffering continually varies and changes.

The conference aims to raise and assess a variety of questions related to the nature of suffering, the origins of suffering, the meaning of suffering, explanations for suffering and responding to suffering. Papers, presentations and pre-formed panels are invited on any of the following themes identified below.

Given the location of this year’s conference, an additional key theme in our proceedings will involve the notion of “voluntary” or “purposeful” suffering. Since the dawn of ancient Greece, the notion that a hero’s journey must involve suffering, and ultimately, the experience of mortality, has been a fundamental motif. Along life’s journey, the hero must confront and endure powerlessness, meaninglessness, affliction, and alienation (whether it be physical, psychological and/or social) during his/her experiences of suffering. Sometimes this journey is “world-destroying.” Other times, suffering that may appear sadistic or masochistic to outside observers, may indeed be experienced as efficacious, essential to certain fundamental insights, and/or instructive for key rites of passage. As a result, this conference, in addition to welcoming papers aligned to themes listed below, solicits submissions that explore common explanations of the “problem” of suffering, the substance of “heroic” suffering, and the limitations, dangers, and potentially heroic strengths of certain interpretations of suffering.

Submissions in the form of papers, presentations, performances and pre-formed panels are invited on any of the following additional core conference themes listed below:

I. What is Suffering?
•Defining ‘suffering’. What is ‘suffering’? How do we approach ‘suffering’?
•Is suffering unique or exclusive to human beings?
•Non-human suffering
•Categories of suffering. Suffering as – a problem; a condition; an expression; an experience; a position of powerlessness; a consequence of meaninglessness; a result of affliction.

II. The Roots of Suffering
•The origins of suffering
•Suffering as universal; as international; as national; as local; as particular
•Suffering and history
•The contexts and conditions of suffering
•Producing suffering

III. The Meaning of Suffering
•Suffering and meaning
•Suffering and language
•What is at stake when dealing with suffering?
•The ‘limits’ of suffering
•The dangers of suffering

IV. Explaining Suffering
•Suffering and explanation
•Theories of suffering: the work of the disciplines
•Theories of suffering: the work of the professions
•Theories of suffering: the work of the vocations
•Silence and suffering

V. Suffering and Practice
•Suffering, apathy and indifference
•Alleviating suffering
•Practices causing, prolonging, truncating, overcoming, relieving or resolving suffering
•Suffering, hope and despair

VI. Suffering and Religion
•Suffering from the perspective of religious traditions
•Suffering and sacred texts
•Portraits of suffering and sufferers
•Suffering and ‘redemption’
•Suffering and atheism

VII. Representing Suffering
•Suffering and representation
•Suffering in literature
•Suffering in the media
•Suffering in tv, film, theatre and radio
•Suffering in cybercultures

VIII. Confronting Suffering
•Meaning, suffering and action
•Overcoming suffering
•Should suffering be overcome?
•Case studies
•Practice(s), resolution(s), settlement

Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 14th June 2013 If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 13th September 2013

What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords
E-mails should be entitled: Suffering4 Abstract Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Nate Hinerman: nphinerman@usfca.edu
Rob Fisher: suffer4@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Making Sense Of: series of research projects, which in turn belong to the Probing the Boundaries programmes of Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/making-sense-of/suffering/call-for-papers/

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.

Für einen Sammelband werden Beiträge zum Thema “The Gothic Compass: New Directions in Scholarship and Inquiry” gesucht.

Deadline für Abstracts: 23. April 2013

The Gothic Compass: New Directions in Scholarship and Inquiry
ed. by Dr Lorna Piatti-Farnell and Professor Donna Lee Brien

The editors warmly seek abstracts for essays exploring ‘new directions’ in Gothic scholarship. Selected essays will appear in a collection to be published by an international academic publisher.

As the collection will be interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary in nature, submissions are encouraged from scholars working in different areas of Gothic enquiry. Ideal contributions will look at how the Gothic is moving beyond its traditional literary roots, and branching into other fields of enquiry, such as digital media, film and television studies, history and folklore studies, journalism, music, fashion, and food studies. Abstracts and final essays should be written in an accessible and engaging style, suitable for both academic and popular audiences.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to: the Gothic and digital realities; uncanny food experiences; representations of death and the public media; Gothic creatures and their popular legacies; new approaches to contemporary Gothic literature; re-evaluations of the Gothic mode through regional narratives; and, new Gothic paradigms, research methodologies and pedagogies.

Submission Guidelines:
1.Send abstract of paper (100-500 words) in Word or compatible format.
2.Include keywords and a brief (150 word max.) biographical note for each author.
3.Submit by email to both lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz and d.brien@cqu.edu.au.
4.Submission deadline is 23 April 2013.
5.For accepted abstracts, first drafts of essays will be due 30 August 2013.

Für einen Sammelband zu Märchen in der zeitgenössischen Popkultur werden Beiträge gesucht.

Deadline für Abstracts: 19. Juni 2013

Contemporary Uses of Fairy Tales in Popular Culture
ed. by Melissa Lenos

I invite submissions for an edited collection of essays on contemporary uses of fairy tales in popular culture. The collection will focus on recent reinterpretations and reboots of classical fairy tales, ways the contemporary texts address the original tales and narratological implications of the repetitions and adjustments of these stories. In essays that explore the functions and consequences of fairy tale reboots, remakes and updates, authors will consider the ways fairy tale generic conventions have been revised over time, representations of race, gender, class and sexual identity, the roles of archetypes, mythic tropes and patterns and the emergence of self-referential and meta-tales within these texts.

Essays may also address fan culture influence on contemporary tales, opportunities for interactivity and the roles of stars in fairy tale reboots.

Text focus could include television series, feature-length films, comic books and graphic novels, games and animation.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:
• Fables (Bill Willingham/Vertigo, 2002-present)
• The Red Shoes (Kim Yong-gyun, 2005)
• Lost Girls (Alan Moore/Top Shelf, 2006)
• Hansel and Gretel (Yim Pil-Sung, 2007)
• Sydney White (Joe Nussbaum, 2007)
• Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat, 2009)
• The Sleeping Beauty (Catherine Breillat, 2010)
• Red Riding Hood (Catherine Hardwicke, 2011)
• Hanna (Joe Wright, 2011)
• Beastly (Daniel Barnz, 2011)
• Once Upon a Time (ABC, 2011-present)
• Grimm (NBC, 2011-present)
• Snow White and the Huntsman (Rupert Sanders, 2012)
• Mirror, Mirror (Tarsem Singh, 2012)
• Hansel and Gretel (Anthony Ferrante, 2013)
• Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (Tommy Wirkola, 2013)
• Jack the Giant Slayer (Bryan Singer, 2013)

Submit a two-page proposals by the deadline of June 19, 2013 to Dr. Melissa Lenos at melissalenos@gmail.com; questions may be addressed to the same. Please also include a cv and short bio. If your proposal is selected, the final essay (5000-8000 words) will be due on December 1, 2013.

picture: promotional poster (cropped): Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, dir. by Tommy Wirkola, US/DE 2013.

Die Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München lädt zur internationalen Summer School zum Thema “Representations of Horror in Contemporary Media and Culture” ein.

Deadline für Bewerbungen: 21. April 2013

International Summer School for Postgraduate Students and Postdoctoral Researchers
“Representations of Horror in Contemporary Media and Culture”
August 4-10, 2013 in Munich

It was one of the central concerns of the age of Enlightenment to expel all sorts of spectres, monsters, and vampires from our conception of reality. But the present boom of horror figures in various media conveys the impression that despite the long-lasting historical changes
resulting from that rationalistic era, these seemingly irrational phenomena have not disappeared. Quite the contrary: in current times of dramatic political crises, profound cultural changes, and ground-breaking scientific revolutions, terrifying beings and uncanny forces continue to haunt us in ever-changing forms.
Evidently, ghostly issues, hauntings, and horrors are of interdisciplinary concern, highly inspiring objects for both rational thought and aesthetic imagination. But the central
role they play in contemporary media and culture raises numerous questions and evokes different interpretations. Could it be interpreted as a symptomatic expression of the current situation of growing economic and political instability, and thus be compared to other troubled times like the Weimar Republic or the Cold War? Is it a way to re-open a society’s guilt-ridden historical past and attempt to deal with its traumas? Or should one regard it as an
indispensable preparation for future extreme conditions – provoked perhaps by natural disasters, genetic engineering, or new military technologies – that can best be achieved by
imagining every horror scenario possible?
Recent research in the field mainly focuses on the fact that figures of horror are summoned and exorcised in the shape of narratives, be it in the texts of literature, in the plots
of films, or even in performances live on stage. The study of these phenomena therefore seeks to examine how horror manifests itself in different textual and visual media and to scrutinise the structural potentials and limits of these manifold representations. In doing so, the present reappearance of figures of horror can be closely linked to contemporary medial and cultural evolutions that open the door to new embodiments of fear and dread.
The summer school will benefit from these new perspectives by concentrating on three thematic sections revolving around the currently most prominent and popular representations
of horror: the spectral, the monstrous, and the vampiric.

For full CfP and more information about program and application, please go to our website:
http://www.en.prolit.uni-muenchen.de/summer_school_2013/index.html