Fairy Tale Collection of Essays CFP (6/1/12)

Fairy Tale Collection of Essays
Publication Date: 2012-06-01
Date Submitted: 2012-04-06
Announcement ID: 193796


The new millennium has born witness to a multitude of reinventions. Various mythological creatures have been reinvented, vampires, werewolves, and zombies to name but a few. Fairy tales also have been recreated in an ever increasing number in recent years. Graphic novels like Grimm Fairy Tales, movies such as Red Riding Hood, the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman, and Beastly, as well as TV shows like Once Upon a Time and Grimm have emerged into popular culture. But why are these creations manifesting themselves now? What makes people crave fairy tales and their “happy” endings in such an increased number today? This will be the first book that will focus on this particular manifestation and its significance in popular culture.

The original literary fairy tales were written versions of old folk tales. The original folk tales were often used as a way to explain things in nature and as cautionary tales for younger people, not always children. The first literary fairy tales followed this tradition but were mainly for adults and later tailored for children. While the folk tales changed with time, literary fairy tales, as written works, maintained their course. However, the new adaptations have moved back to a mature audience. Why the shift back to an adult audience?

Considering that fairy tales, whether written or oral, are a part of nearly every culture in the world, the vast majority of people have been exposed to them in one form or another. And while these tales have been the subject of many articles, books, and collections, the number of adaptations hitting the market today, though, is surprising and very worth exploring.

Due to the popularity and familiarity of the tales, not only the layman, but also people inside many academic fields, who are concerned with such works, will find this book more than interesting. Given that this book will consist of a collection of handpicked essays concerning various aspects of these diverse adaptations of the literary fairy tales, an assortment of readers should find this book and its topic of great interest. While our interests are broad and inclusive, we are particularly interested in papers that discuss fairy tales in contemporary popular culture (TV shows, movies, graphic novels, advertising, toys, video games, popular literature, etc), revisions and adaptations of fairy tales, and pedagogical uses of and approaches to fairy tales. Still, we are interested in as wide an array of papers as possible, so please do not hesitate to send a submission on any fairy tale related subject may it be on cultural significance, on gender, aspects of masculinity and femininity, theory, etc.

Interested writers should submit a two-page synopsis of their proposed chapter that clearly indicates:
• The research question
• The methodology or theoretical lens
• The findings
• A bibliography of at least 5 sources
Please send your abstracts to: Fairytale.Collection@gmx.de

Deadline: 1st June 2012
For questions please contact us at
Fairytale.Collection@gmx.de

We hope to hear from you soon.
Christine and Nadine

Science Fiction and Fantasy Area MAPACA (6/15/12; Pittsburgh 11/1-3/12)

CFP 2012 MAPACA Conference SF/Fantasy
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Call for Papers Date: 2012-11-01
Date Submitted: 2012-03-08
Announcement ID: 193015


Call for Papers MAPACA 2012
FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION AREA
PITTSBURGH, PA
The Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association (MAPACA) invites academics, graduate and undergraduate students, independent scholars, and artists to submit papers for the annual conference, to be held in Pittsburgh, PA., November 1-3, 2012. Those interested in presenting at the conference are invited to submit a proposal or panel by June 15, 2012. Abstracts should be no more than 300 words long. Include a brief bio with your proposal. Single papers, as well as 3- or 4-person panels and roundtables, are encouraged. For further information, updates on areas and area chairs, please visit MAPACA's web site at www.mapaca.net.

Science Fiction and Fantasy
Science Fiction and Fantasy welcomes papers/presentations in any critical, theoretical, or (inter)disciplinary approach to any topic related to SF/F: art; literature; radio; film; television; video, role-playing, and multi-player online games. Though not an exhaustive list, potential presenters may wish to consider the following:

„X Vampire Romance
„X Gender and Sexuality
„X Race and Otherness
„X Class and Hierarchies
„X Utopia/Dystopia
„X Language and Rhetoric
„X Genre: Space Opera, Cyberpunk, Dark Fantasy, etc.
„X Fans and Fandom/Community Building
„X Textual Analysis
„X Sociological or Psychological Readings
„X Archival Research/History
„X Technology: Textual and Literal
„X Online Identity Construction
„X Mythology and Quest Narratives
„X Creatures and Aliens
„X Science and Magic
„X Reading Other Worlds
„« SPECIAL PANEL: GAME OF THRONES/SONG OF ICE & FIRE
„« SPECIAL PANEL: THE HUNGER GAMES
„« SPECIAL PANEL: THE FAIRY TALE PHENOMENON

Please e-mail a copy of your abstract and bio to the area chairs:
Marilyn Stern sternm@wit.edu
Leigha McReynolds lhm@gwmail.gwu.edu



Professor Marilyn Stern
Department of Humanities & Social Sciences
Wentworth Institute of Technology
550 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Email: sternm@wit.edu

Dead Inside: The Walking Dead and the Problem of Meaning in the New Millennium (8/13/12)

Dead Inside: The Walking Dead and the Problem of Meaning in the New Millennium
Call for Papers Date: 2012-08-13
Date Submitted: 2012-03-30
Announcement ID: 193618

Dead Inside: The Walking Dead and the Problem of Meaning in the New Millennium

In the early twenty-first century, zombies are everywhere—in film (Land of the Dead, 28 Days Later, Dead Snow, Rammbock, The Horde), fiction (Stephen King’s Cell, Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, Max Brooks’ World War Z, John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Handling the Undead), social movements (zombie walks and the Zombie Research Society ), classrooms (Zombie Studies) and even politics (Daniel Drezner’s Theories of International Politics and Zombies). Undoubtedly one of the most sustained and complex representations of the modern zombie, though, is AMC’s television series, The Walking Dead, based on Robert Kirkman’s series of comics.

I am seeking essays for a scholarly collection that will explore the complexities of The Walking Dead in relation to the multiple forms of zombie revival, and that will address the ways in which the zombie articulates the crucial theoretical and political debates of the new century.

I am particularly interested in essays about how zombies, and narratives about zombies, engage problems of meaning. In the first episode of season one of The Walking Dead, after protagonist Rick Grimes wakes up in a hospital to a post-apocalyptic world, he encounters a door on which the words “Do Not Open. Dead Inside” are painted. Zombies claw at the opening. The moment encapsulates how zombies often function to signal inner deadness or absence—the loss of self, of consciousness, of history, of political efficacy, of meaning itself. How does the series, in its many contexts (literary, cinematic, historical, political, address compelling contemporary problems of meaning, of how we find and attribute significance in our lives? Essays should, then, take up The Walking Dead as a crystallization of one of the many contemporary problems of meaning. Some generative questions/contexts include:

--Why have zombies seen such a resurgence in the twenty-first century, after their apparent demise in the 1990s? How does The Walking Dead represent an evolution in the history of zombie fiction and film?

--How do zombies feature in imaginings of the end of the world? How do post-apocalyptic narratives with zombies (The Walking Dead, World War Z, Romero’s Dead cycle) differ from those without (The Road, Survivors, The Book of Eli)?

--How do fictional, cinematic, and televisual zombies illuminate philosophical debates over the conceivability of the zombie and what the possible existence (or lack thereof) of zombies says about human consciousness and identity?

--How do zombie narratives encode politics and offer forms of social critique (notably of global capitalism), as well as embodying forms of utopian political thinking?

--How do zombies serve as figures of contagion—as a virus that infects both the body and the mind (memes, flash mobs, etc.)? What meanings inhere in zombies’ contagiousness?

--How do zombies engage with recent theorists of the posthuman?

Please send your essay of no more than 30 pages to Dawn Keetley, Associate Professor of English, at Lehigh University, 35 Sayre Drive, Bethlehem PA 18015. Email: dek7@lehigh.edu. The deadline is Monday August 13, 2012. All disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives are welcome. I will be happy to address any questions via email at any time. McFarland (which has been publishing the best books on zombies) is interested in publishing this collection.




Dawn Keetley, Department of English, Drown Hall, Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA 18015.
Email: dek7@lehigh.edu

Fan CULTure: An Examination of Participatory Fandom in the 21st Century CFP (5/15/12)

CFP for Fan CULTure: An Examination of Participatory Fandom in the 21st Century
Call for Papers Date: 2012-05-15 (in 22 days)
Date Submitted: 2012-02-23
Announcement ID: 192607

With the advent of new media technologies and social networking sites making communication faster and easier than ever, there exists a dearth of opportunity to see how fan cultures have evolved as a result. For example, fans can now have a direct impact on how some of their favorite TV shows are made and have influenced the storylines taking place. This type of “participatory” fandom has reached new heights in the 21st century as fans and creators become better connected. With this in mind, Dr. Kristin M. Barton and Dr. Jonathan M. Lampley are seeking proposals for an edited volume under consideration at McFarland titled Fan CULTure: An Examination of Participatory Fandom in the 21st Century. The question this volume will seek to address is: How are fans interacting with or participating in cultures associated with popular culture objects? Proposals should look at specific properties (media or non-media) and how fan culture intersects with them using new or modern techniques. Each essay will ideally focus on a different media vehicle or object. We expect to have essays that focus on some (if not all) of the following topics: Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, Lord of the Rings, Joss Whedon’s creations, Game of Thrones, the Harry Potter franchise, and LEGOs, among others.

Possible topics to explore with regard to these properties include (but are not limited to):
- Fan fiction
- Incorporating fans in DVD production/distribution/release
- Use of social media
- Fan involvement in helping create/steer storylines
- Fan films/Fan trailers/“Sweding”
- Theme parks/rides
- “Shipping” (fan fictionalization of characters in existing television/film series)
- Fan participation within a property (fans as zombies in The Walking Dead)
- Costuming (Star Wars’ 501st Legion)
- Fan activism (Lady Gaga’s “Little Monsters” rallying for gay rights)

Again, the focus of the essays should be how these have been adopted into fan culture within a 21st century context.

The editors invite articles (approximately 6,000 words) that respond to the focus of the volume. Article abstracts (300-400 words) and a brief CV should be submitted by May 15, 2012 to Dr. Jonathan Lampley at jlampley@daltonstate.edu. Submissions with detailed outlines or in draft form will be given stronger consideration. Completed essays must be submitted by November 15, 2012. Brief queries are welcome should there be questions about appropriate submission topics. Selected authors will be notified by the end of May 2012, and please note that invitation to submit a full essay does not guarantee inclusion in the volume.


Jonathan Lampley
Dalton State College
650 College Dr.
Dalton, GA 30720
Email: jlampley@daltonstate.edu

2012 Eerie Horror Film Festival and Screenplay Competition (9/1/12)

2012 Eerie Horror Film Festival Call for Entries
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Call for Papers Date: 2012-09-01
Date Submitted: 2012-02-21
Announcement ID: 192508

The 2012 Eerie Horror Film Festival and Screenplay Competition has officially opened its call for entries and is currently seeking submissions from all over the world!

If you have a horror, science fiction or suspense themed film or screenplay, we want to see ‘em!

Submission categories for our 2012 season include Horror Feature, Horror Short, Science Fiction Feature, Science Fiction Short, Suspense Feature, Suspense Short, Student (10 - 17 yrs of age) Horror Feature; Student (10 - 17 yrs of age) Horror Short; Short Length Screenplay; Feature Length Screenplay; Student (10 - 17 yrs of age) Feature Length Screenplay and Student (10 - 17 yrs of age) Short Length Screenplay.

Overlooked, underrated, and misunderstood, the horror and science fiction genres have been virtually ignored and shunned by the mainstream since the earliest days of cinema.

Through the decades, these films and stories have entertained and thrilled audiences around the world and continue to grow in popularity to this very day, slowly but surely gaining the appreciation and respect that they deserve.

There is an incredible amount of talent in this field that goes unnoticed and
unappreciated and The Eerie Horror Film Festival hopes to reverse that trend.

Since 2004 the Eerie Horror Film Festival has screened over 400 films and has featured appearances by Norman Reedus (Boondock Saints/Walking Dead), Jason Mewes (Clerks), Brian O'Halloran (Clerks), Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog), Dee Wallace Stone (Cujo), Sid Haig (Devil’s Rejects), Sean Patrick Flanery (Boondock Saints), Tony Todd (Candyman), Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th), Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead), Tom Savini (From Dusk Till Dawn), PJ Soles (Halloween), David Della Rocco (Boondock Saints), Gunnar Hansen (Texas Chainsaw Massacre '74), Ed Neal (Texas Chainsaw Massacre ‘74), Fred Williamson (Balck Caesar), Lew Temple (Devil’s Rejects), Lloyd Kaufman (Troma), Eugene Clark (Land of the Dead), Joe Pilato (Day of the Dead), Lynn Lowry (The Crazies), Reggie Bannister (Phantasm), A. Micheal Baldwin (Phantasm), Tom Atkins (Halloween III), Charles Cyphers (Halloween), Nancy Loomis (Halloween), Kenny Miller (I Was A Teenage Werewolf), Alex Vincent (Child's Play), Tony Moran (Halloween), Ken Sagoes (Nightmare on Elm St: Dream Warriors), Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (The Omen '06), Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Gary Klar (Day of the Dead), Bill Vail (Texas Chainsaw Massacre ’74), Teri McMinn (Texas Chainsaw Massacre ’74), Allen Danziger (Texas Chainsaw Massacre ’74), Brooke McCarter (The Lost Boys), Brian Andrews (Halloween), Rodrigo Gudino (Rue Morgue magazine), Bill Thornbury (Phantasm), Mark Borchardt (American Movie), John Dugan (Texas Chainsaw Massacre ’74), John Hancock (Let's Scare Jessica to Death), Dorothy Tristan (screenwriter), Mark Steensland (The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick), Jimmy O & April Burril (Chainsaw Sally), J.D. Feigelson (screenwriter), G Tom Mac (The Lost Boys), Sean David Morton (Joe Killionaire), Len Kabasinski (Swamp Zombies), Greg Lamberson (Slime City), Debbie Rochon (Hellblock 13), Michael Stanley (Attack of the Beast Creatures), Leonard Lies (Dawn of the Dead), Jim Krut (Dawn of the Dead), and many, many more!

The 9th Annual Eerie Horror Film Festival, which takes place at the prestigious Warner Theatre, October 11 - 14, 2012 in Erie, Pa., will feature even more special guests, bigger prizes and lots of mayhem !

To enter, just go to our main website and click on the Call for Entries icon:
eeriehorrorfilmfestival.com

OR

Click here to enter your film on-line using Without A Box:
withoutabox.com/login/3958

Check our website often for updates and announcements!

For more information about the Fest and the competition:
info@eeriehorrorfest.com



Eerie Horror Film Festival
PO Box 98
Edinboro, Pa. 16412
814-873-2483
Email: info@eeriehorrorfest.com
Visit the website at http://www.eeriehorrorfilmfestival.com

Zombielore in Film and Literature Collection CFP (8/1/12)

This call for papers is an online submission for any recent conference papers that attempt to decode the fascination of zombielore through analytical and academic research. We are editing together an anthology, the first of its kind, that covers the widespread status of zombies in film but also follows the lack of lore in literature. We will be focusing largely on the latter in order to spur an interest in discovering why this is so. Submissions are open beginning immediately with a deadline of August 1, 2012. Please send original, unpublished works to the contact email. Thank you and good luck.

Negean Mohi
Florida Atlantic University
CU Bldg. 97, Room Ste. 306
777 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL 33431-0991
Phone: (561) 297-2922

Email: nmohi1@fau.edu

Polish Association for American Studies Annual Conference CFP (Proposals 7/31/12)

Polish Association for American Studies Annual Conference,17-19 Oct. 2012, Puławy n/Lublin, Poland

The Conference addresses the problems and issues concerning Americascapes, or sceneries that have emerged at the cusp of culture and environment as a result of the process of their interaction in the course of American history. We hope to provide a forum for scholars in various disciplines ranging from literary history, history, sociology to political science and economics. You are invited to discuss, in English or Polish, questions and issues connected with (but not limited to) the following problems:

•American public space as a social, political and cultural phenomenon
•Reading city-scapes and their meaning
•History of urban parks (Olmstead’s Central Park)
•Historical, Political and Environmental issues concerning National Parks
•Amusement parks & Disneyland
•America as a Garden
•The development of American suburbia
•American countryside and provincial America
•Landscapes of Southern trauma and memory
•The significance of wilderness in American culture
•Political and social tensions inherent in the dynamic landscapes of the American frontier
•Historical, Political, Social and Environmental issues concerning Indian Reservations
•Hybrydity and borderland landscapes
•The significance of marine-, sea- and ocean-scapes in American literature and cultu
e •America as a techno-scape
•The relationship between internal and external scapes in American tradition
•American dreamscapes and mindscapes
•Bodyscapes
•Mediascapes
•Nineteeth-century American hybrid art: panoramas
•The significance of models and miniatures in American literature
•Celluloid skyline: cinematic representations of American city-scapes
•Representations of urban environment in comic books
•Virtual landscapes and their various uses in American culture
•Computer games and their scenery/landscapes
•Scenery archeology in contemporary American mass culture
•Foreign scenery as constructed and construed in American fiction and poetry
•Monuments in public space and the politicization of landscape
•Landscapes and mindscapes of minority experience
•mythicization of American space (the myth of Aztlan in the Southwest and California)

The deadline for submitting paper proposals is 31 July 2012. Panel proposals are welcome The paper abstracts of 200-300 words, and in the case of panels 600-900 words, should be sent to the address: americascapes@gmail.com. 

Kamil Rusilowicz
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
Department of American Literature and Culture
Al. Raclawickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
Phone: +48 81 445 3942


Email: americascapes@gmail.com
Visit the website at http://paas2012.pl/

Journal of Popular Culture Updates

Contents to date from this year's issues. Full access to the journal is available at the Wiley Online Library.

Vol. 45.1, February 2012

Editorial
“The Horror of it All” by Gary Hoppenstand

Brigman Award Winner
“Urban Retro-Futuristic Masculinities in China Mieville's Perdido Street Station” by Aishwarya Ganapathiraju

“The New American Hero: Dexter, Serial Killer for the Masses” by Ashley M. Donnelly

“Erma Bombeck: The Phoenix Suburban Underbelly” by David William Foster

“Domesticating Wild Sheep: Sociolinguistic Functions and Style in Translations of Haruki Murkami’s Fiction” by Kay S. Hamada

“The Crime of Punishment: The Tortured Logic of Mickey Spillane’s Kiss Me, Deadly” by Thomas Heise

“Politically Incorrect, Visually Incorrect: Bitchy Butch’s Unapologetic Discrepancies in Lesbian Identity and Comic Art” by Yetta Howard

“‘Stealing the Air’: The Poet-Citizens of Youth Spoken-Word” by Rebecca Ingalls

“Black Women and Men in Hip Hop Music: Misogyny, Violence and the Negotiation of (White-Owned) Space” by Amanda Moras and Guillermo Rebollo-Gil

“Hackers as Tricksters of the Digital Age” by Svetlana Nikitina

“The Politics of Taking: La Llorona in the Cultural Mainstream” by Domino Perez

“The Semiotics of Performance and Success in Madonna” by José I. Prieto-Arranz

“‘Coven of the Articulate’: Orality and Community in Anne Rice’s Vampire Fiction” by Sara Wasson

“Becky Bloomwood at the V&A: Culture, Materialism, and the Chick Lit Novel” by Cheryl A. Wilson

Book Reviews

Mayer-Schönberger, Viktor. Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Reviewed by Nicholas Proferes.

Renga, Ed.Dana. Mafia Movies: A Reader. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.
Reviewed by Reza Barmaki.

Parrill, William B. The Films of Johnny Depp. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009.
Reviewed by Robert G. Weiner.

Bissell, Tom. Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. New York: Vintage Books, 2010.
Reviewed by Kimberly L. Kulovitz.

Morrison, Grant. Supergods. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2011. Reviewed by Anthony Burns.

Vol. 45.2, April 2012

Editorial: “Look, up in the sky…”
by Gary Hoppenstand

Articles:

“Pumping Up Masculinity: The Initial Intervention and Lasting Legacy of Hans and Franz” by Mason Allred.

“The Mediation of Cultural Memory: Digital Preservation in the Cases of Classical Indian Dance and the Cherokee Stomp Dance” by Ellen Cushman and Shreelina Ghosh.

“Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman Redux: Masculinity and Misogyny in Blade” by
Jonathan Gayles.

“Transatlantic Terror! French Horror Theatre and American Pre-Code Comics” by Richard J. Hand and Michael Wilson.

“‘Broadway’ as the Superior ‘Other’: Situating South Korean Theatre in the Era of Globalization” by Hyunjung Lee.

“I’m the New Me: Compelled Confession in Diet Discourse” by Elena Levy-Navarro.

“John Ford on the Cold War: Stetsons and Cast Shadows in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)” by Sue Matheson.

“‘The power of escaping’: Charlotte S. Hilbourne’s Gothic Romance Fiction” by Judith A. Ranta.

“Quentin Tarantino and the Director as DJ” by Michael Rennett.

“Superheroes on the Couch: Exploring our Limits” by Lawrence Rubin.

Book Reviews:

Collins, Kathleen. Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009. Reviewed by Jennifer Dutch.

Sinnreich, Aram. Mashed Up: Music, Technology, and the Rise of Configurable Culture. Amherst:University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. Reviewed by Jeremy V. Adolphson.

Gershon, Ilana. The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting Over New Media. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010. Reviewed by Lisa Carlton.

Price, Roberta. Across the Great Divide: A Photo Chronicle of the Counterculture. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010. Reviewed by Emily Dufton.

Jordan, Jessica Hope. The Sex Goddess in American Film 1930-1965: Jean Harlow, Mae West, Lana Turner, and Jayne Mansfield. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2009. Reviewed by Jerry Rodnitzky.

Stoute, Steve. The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture that Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy. New York: Gotham, 2011. Reviewed by Richard Schur

Richman Kenneally, Rhona and Johanne Sloan. Expo 67: Not Just a Souvenir. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. Reviewed by S.D. Jowett.

Earle, David M. Re-Covering Modernism: Pulps, Paperbacks, and the Prejudice of Form. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2009. Reviewed by Corinna K. Lee.

Sherlock Returns

The hit BBC series Sherlock, a modern-day updating of the Sherlock Holmes story, returns to PBS next month and, also, to DVD. Details at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/sherlock/.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter the Movie

Due out this summer, the film adaptation of the best-selling mash-up novel:

Dark Shadows the Movie

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp put their spin on the cult television series Dark Shadows in an irreverent feature film adaptation due out this May: