CFP Monsters and the Irish Imagination (0/10/2015; NEACIS West Haven, CT 11/20-21/2015)

Monsters and the Irish Imagination
Session Sponsored by the Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend Area of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association
For the New England ACIS Regional Conference
20-21 November 2015
University of New Haven
West Haven, Connecticut
Proposals by 10 September 2015

Following a successful session last year devoted to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and its afterlives, the Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend Area of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association seeks to continue our association with the New England Region of the American Conference for Irish Studies by organizing a session (or set of sessions) devoted to the larger topic of monsters and the Irish imagination.

We seek proposals of 250 words and short biographical statements (50 words or less) from interested individuals. Presentations will be limited to 15-20 minutes speaking time.

Please submit required materials by 10 September 2015 to the session organizer, Michael Torregrossa, at nepcafantastic@gmail.com using the subject heading “Monsters and the Irish Imagination”.


The University of New Haven is located in West Haven, Connecticut and is easily accessible from Boston and New York by car and train. Direct inquiries to Chris Dowd, the conference organizer, at cmdowd@newhaven.edu. All conference presenters will be required to be members of the American Conference for Irish Studies (acisweb.org). Additional information on this year’s meeting (including details on registration and accommodations) is available at www.newhaven.edu/4486/academicprograms/undergraduate/english/894500/.

Further information on Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend Area of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association can be found at nepcafantastic.blogspot.com.

CFP Victorian Outliers (10/15/2015; NVSA New Jersey 4/8-10/2016)

CFP: NVSA 2016
Victorian Outliers
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
April 8-10, 2016
The Northeast Victorian Studies Association invites papers for its annual conference; the topic this year is Victorian Outliers.

We welcome papers on any individual or type of Victorian Outlier, as well as theorizations of the outlier as a category in aesthetic, geological, historical, imperial, literary, mathematical, musical, natural historical, philosophical, psychological, and other domains. 

Full call for papers at https://northeastvictorianstudies.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/cfp-victorian-outliers-final.pdf.

Proposals (no more than 500 words) by Oct. 15, 2015 (email submissions only, in Word format), should be sent to: Jonathan Farina, Chair, NVSA Program Committee: jvfarina@gmail.com

Please note: all submissions to NVSA are evaluated anonymously. Successful proposals will stay within the 500-word limit and make a compelling case for the talk and its relation to the conference topic.

Please do not send complete papers, and do not include your name on the proposal. Please include your name, institutional and email addresses, and proposal title in a cover letter. Papers should take 15 minutes (20 minutes maximum) so as to provide ample time for discussion. 

To join NVSA, or to renew your membership for 2015-2016, please visit our website at

nvsa.org and click on “Membership.”

Jason Rudy, President, NVSA

English Department

2119 Tawes Hall

University of Maryland

College Park, MD 21212

jrrudy@umd.edu

CFP Neo-Victorian? Pop Culture, Lowbrow, and Genre Victoriana (9/30/2015; NeMLA 3/17-20/2016)

Sounds like a great idea:

CFP: NeMLA Panel “Neo-Victorian? Pop Culture, Lowbrow, and Genre Victoriana” (9/30/2015; 3/17-20/2016)
posted by NAVSA on JUL 23, 2015
http://navsa.org/2015/07/23/cfp-nemla-panel-neo-victorian-pop-culture-lowbrow-and-genre-victoriana-9302015-317-202016/

CFP: Neo-Victorian? Pop Culture, Lowbrow, and Genre Victoriana (Panel)
Northeast Modern Language Association
Hartford, Connecticut
March 17-20, 2016
Deadline: September 30, 2015

In the rapidly expanding field of neo-Victorian studies, the million-dollar question remains: what qualifies as neo-Victorian? For guidance, many scholars have relied on Ann Heilmann and Mark Llewellyn’s definition, which specifies that to be called neo-Victorian, a text “must in some respect be self-consciously engaged with the act of (re)interpretation, (re)discovery and revision concerning Victorians.” The implication is that this is a subgenre for respectable texts, of clear intellectual pedigree.

Yet, just as the Victorian era had its penny dreadfuls, musical halls, and melodramas, so contemporary acts of reengaging the Victorian may come in less elevated packages. Alongside sleek heritage films and postmodern literary novels, Victorian tales and times have been adapted or newly imagined in horror movies, pulp romances, Japanese manga, scripted web series, and a variety of other media. Some are successful and satisfying on their own terms, some less so, but all raise significant questions about how a subgenre is to be defined: by project, content, or some aesthetic standard?

While scholars have addressed many such works individually, this panel invites readings that explore the broader question of whether/how the field of neo-Victorian studies might benefit from considering “lowbrow” or pop culture Victoriana. This panel seeks to shed light on how contemporary culture at large imagines, stereotypes, (mis)remembers, and manipulates the Victorian era, while continuing to celebrate it.

Possible paper topics could include but are not limited to:

• Adaptations of canonical texts in atypical genres
• Adaptations of non-canonical Victorian texts
• Victorian characters in new settings
• Victorian values or aesthetics contemporized
• Depictions of Victorian bodies: eroticized, (dis)abled, racialized, and/or monstrous
• Genre film and television that engages the Victorian
• Children’s and young adult literature
• Comics, graphic novels, or anime
• Romance fiction (category or single-title)
• Fantasy, science fiction, or horror
• New media storytelling
• “Bad” works: ambitious failures and “guilty pleasures”

Please submit abstracts via NeMLA’s online CFP: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/15843. The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2015.

CFP Neo-Victorianism & Discourses of Education (Spec Issue of Neo-Victorian Studies) (papers by 10/15/2015)

Been meaning to post this for a while. Of potential interest:

CFP: Neo-Victorian Studies. “Neo-Victorianism & Discourses of Education” (10/15/2015)
posted by DUSTIN MEYER on APR 12, 2015
http://navsa.org/2015/04/12/cfp-neo-victorian-studies-neo-victorianism-discourses-of-education-10152015/

CFP
Neo-Victorian Studies
Deadline: October 15, 2015

“Neo-Victorianism & Discourses of Education”

Guest Editors:

Frances Kelly
Judith Seaboyer

The nineteenth century saw the beginnings of mass education in Britain and elsewhere, while the more recent millennial turn has seen a range of reforms and ‘revolutions’ within educational systems world-wide, not least the insistent commercialisation of universities and a concomitant move to redefining educators and students as ‘service providers’ and ‘customers’ respectively. A large number of neo-Victorian novels are set in or engage with educational contexts, including universities, libraries, anatomy schools, private tutoring/governessing, ragged schools, and art colleges, mirroring the settings and concerns with Bildung in canonical works by Victorian writers such as Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, and others. Just as significantly, however, are contemporary self-conscious engagements with inherited nineteenth-century ideas regarding the purposes and ethos of education, such as character building, civic identity formation, the connection between personal and societal development, issues of widening access, the inculcation of moral values and national ideologies, and the perception that education systems serve as ‘engines’ of the economy. Then as now, however, prevalent concerns and anxieties about the achievements and failings of education hardly constituted a monolithic uncontested discourse; rather they divided public opinion and provoked continuous political and societal debate, much as these same concerns continue to do today. This special issue will explore how neo-Victorian works contribute to this on-going debate by foregrounding the ‘origins’ of modern-day educational systems and approaches. What particular aspects of nineteenth-century education are highlighted and why? What are the main points of contention? How do today’s politicians appropriate (past) educational discourses for party-specific agendas? To what extent are nineteenth-century educational models proposed as alternatives to present-day problems in education? What nineteenth-century educational aims and ideals are depicted as still unfulfilled and unrealised? Possible topics may include, but need not be limited to the following:

• the discourse of universal access and the move to ‘mass’ higher education
• education as a means for national progress and economic development
• Gradgrindean echoes of educational utilitarianism and measurable outcomes (performance statistics, league tables, proportional admission targets for economically disadvantaged groups, etc.)
• representations and biofictions of educators and students past and present
• curriculum changes and modifications, including tailoring courses to ‘consumer’ demand, the high proportion of nineteenth-century content (e.g. slavery, the British Empire, the US Civil War), links to conservative political agendas, targeted funding, and the recent valorisation of Science and Technology over the disparaged Arts and Humanities
• higher education, universities, and the growing centrality of research and publication to institutional identities since the nineteenth century
• Bildung and the Bildungsroman tradition (the idea of character formation, education in civic responsibilities, education as nation-building, etc.)
• desired outcomes (the ideal of rational autonomy, personal development, societal prosperity and progress, production of a skilled workforce, national and international competitiveness, graduate attributes, etc.)
• the emergence of disciplines at the nineteenth-century fin-de-siècle vs. more recent moves towards interdisciplinary teaching and research
• the ethos of future pasts: nineteenth-century models, unrealised ambitions, and anticipated trajectories in education systems
• discourses of liberal humanism and neo-liberalism, the impact on education of laissez-faire economics, and the revitalisation of (Smiles’) ‘self-help’ discourse
• education and creativity, including Ruskinean notions of curiosity, mystery and wonder, discursive constructions of creativity, and the harnessing of creativity for capitalism
• education, industry, and the shift to a knowledge-based society in the information age

Please address enquiries and expressions of interest to the guest editors:
Frances Kelly at f.kelly@auckland.ac.nz and Judith Seaboyer at j.seaboyer@uq.edu.au.
Completed articles and/or creative pieces will be due by October 15, 2015
and should be sent via email to both guest editors, with a copy to neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk.
Please consult the NVS website ( http://www.neovictorianstudies.com )
(‘Submission Guidelines’) for further guidance.

CFP Society for the Study of Southern Literature Conference (11/15/2015; Boston 3/10-12/2016)

A final post for the night:

Society for the Study of Southern Literature
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/78069/society-study-southern-literature

Announcement published by John Matthews on Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Type: Conference
Date: March 10, 2016 to March 12, 2016
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Subject Fields: African American History / Studies, American History / Studies, Geography, Literature

Society for the Study of Southern Literature

Conference

Boston, March 10‐12, 2016

The South in the North

SSSL’s meeting in Boston will be the first the organization has held in a location north of the Mason‐Dixon line. Ironically, in many ways this has never mattered less, as Southern literary studies’ formative focus on regional difference and distinctiveness has been retrained to take in a broader view of the South’s reciprocal material and imaginary relations with the US North, other regions, the nation, and transnational permutations of North/South dynamics. As scholars of a regional literature, we have been invigorated by innovative scholarship on the way the imagining of region figures in the imagining of nation, on the construction and consequences of Southern exceptionalism, on the continued expansion of analytical concepts of Southernness (and Northernness) in hemispheric, transatlantic, and global contexts. Now well‐established, the shift from east‐west to north‐south axes in cultural as well as economic, political, and other fields, invites continued exploration of its local, regional, national, hemispheric, and global manifestations.

Some broad issues the conference hopes to explore under the rubric of “The South in the North” include:

            * regional fantasies and national imaginary

            * continental, Caribbean, hemispheric, transatlantic and global Norths and Souths

            * southern and post-southern imaginaries

Please see the full description of the conference topic and detailed cfp on our website:

http://southernlit.org/conference/

We welcome proposals for individual papers and full panels. Pre‐arranged panels are also welcomed. We invite calls for papers for panels, and will post them on the SSSL Facebook and webpage. Feel free to contact us as early as you’d like about preliminary ideas and suggestions. Please direct all correspondence to John Matthews, President, The Society for the Study of Southern Literature and host of the conference at ssslboston2016@gmail.com.

Deadline for proposals is November 15, 2015.



Contact Info:
John Matthews, Society for the Study of Southern Literature, President

Boston University, Department of English



Contact Email:
ssslboston2016@gmail.com
URL:
http://southernlit.org

CFP C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Conference (9/1/2015; Penn State 3/17-20/2016)

This is the fourth or fifth conference I've come across for the same weekend:

CFP: C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Conference, March 17-20, 2016, Penn State University; proposals due 9/1/15
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/77162/cfp-c19-society-nineteenth-century-americanists-conference-march

Announcement published by Hester Blum on Friday, July 31, 2015
Type: Call for Papers
Date: September 1, 2015
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Subject Fields: American History / Studies, Cultural History / Studies

Dear Colleagues,

A reminder: "Unsettling," the fourth biennial conference of C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, will take place March 17-20, 2016, at Penn State University.

Submissions are due September 1, 2015.

For information on the conference and submission guidelines, including a CFP and list of seminars, please visit our conference web site at http://c19conference.org/.

The list of seminar topics can be found here: http://www.c19conference.org/seminars/.

To submit a paper, panel proposal or seminar proposal, please visit the submissions site at http://2016C19.exordo.com.

If you have any questions about the conference, please write to Program Chair Rodrigo Lazo at rlazo@uci.edu.

On behalf of the C19 Executive Committee and Program Committee,

Hester Blum
C19 Vice President and 2016 Conference Coordinator
Penn State University
hester.blum@psu.edu


URL:
http://c19conference.org/

CFP Game of Thrones versus History (proposals by 10/15/2015)

Game of Thrones versus History
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/78681/game-thrones-versus-history

Announcement published by Brian Pavlac on Friday, August 14, 2015
Type: Call for Publications
Date: August 15, 2015 to October 15, 2015
Location: United States
Subject Fields: Cultural History / Studies, Film and Film History, Literature, Medieval and Byzantine History / Studies

This is a call for original essays for The Game of Thrones versus History, an academic-trade title to be published by Wiley-Blackwell in April 2017 to coincide with the start of the seventh season of HBO's highly successful series.

The book will comprise a collection of essays by historians who explain the factual roots of George R. R. Martin's book series, A Song of Ice and Fire and the HBO television series, Game of Thrones.  Similar in vein to the volumes of Wiley's Pop Culture and Philosophy series, GoT v. H would reach out to fans and students who wish to enhance their experience of the fictional story, while deeping their knowledge of  history through parallels drawn by contributing history scholars.  Writing style would be entertaining as well as informative and thoughtful.  Scholarly apparatus would be kept to a minimum, but short bibliographies for further reading would follow each section.  In addition the book will comprise a List of Contributors, under which a short bio of each Contributor will appear.

For more information on possible themes and topic, go to http://gameofthronesversushistory.com/.

Interested scholars should submit a 300-word abstract by October 15, 2015. Finished papers of 4,000-5,000 words will be due April 30, 2016.  Contributors of accepted essays will recieve an honorarium as well as a copy of the book upon publication, and a chance to have some fun!

Kindly submit proposals by e-mail to Brian A. Pavlac, editor@gameofthronesversushistory.com



Contact Info:
Brian A. Pavlac

Contact Email:
editor@gameofthronesversushistory.com
URL:
http://gameofthronesversushistory.com/

New Journal & CFP: The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies

New Journal: The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/76074/new-journal-bulletin-international-association-robin-hood-studies

Discussion published by Alex Kaufman on Wednesday, July 22, 2015

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS) is pleased to announce the creation of a new, peer-reviewed, open-access journal, The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies. The journal will be published bi-annually beginning in Spring 2016 and will be available on the IARHS’ website, Robin Hood Scholars: IARHS on the Web: http://robinhoodscholars.blogspot.com/.

Scholars are invited to send original research on any aspect of the Robin Hood tradition. The editors welcome essays in the following areas: formal literary explication, manuscript and early printed book investigations, historical inquiries, new media examinations, and theory / cultural studies approaches.

We are looking for concise essays, 4,000-8,000-words long. Submissions should be formatted following the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Submissions and queries should be directed to both Valerie B. Johnson (valerie.johnson@lmc.gatech.edu) and also Alexander L. Kaufman (akaufman@aum.edu).

CFP Philip K. Dick's Short Fiction (9/30/2015; NeMLA 3/17-20/2016)

Philip K. Dick's Short Fiction (Panel) - Hartford, Connecticut, March 17-20, 2016

full name / name of organization:
Brad Congdon / NeMLA 2016
contact email:
brad.congdon@dal.ca

In an unpublished forward to The Preserving Machine, Philip K. Dick lamented that “As a writer builds up a novel-length piece it slowly begins to imprison him, to take away his freedom.” Dick, who has published five volumes of short fiction, argued that short-story writing allows for freedom, crisis, and action, in contrast to the stultifying process of novel writing. “It is in SF stories,” he claimed, “that SF action occurs.”


Dick occupies a unique position in culture: films based on his works (e.g. Bladerunner, Total Recall) have grossed over a billion dollars worldwide, while scholars have made him one of the most widely analyzed writers of the 20th century. Dick criticism is itself something of a cottage industry, with many of the most influential critics of postmodernism (e.g. Baudrillard, Jameson, McHale) focusing on his work. Taken together, there are hundreds of monographs, articles, book chapters, and dissertations dedicated to Dick. However, despite this surfeit of scholarship, Dick’s short stories have been largely overlooked. This oversight is all the more significant, given that many of the ideas of his novels are first tested in his stories (e.g. “Shell Game,” “The Defenders,” “Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday”) and many have been adapted into films (e.g. “The Minority Report,” “Adjustment Team,” “The Golden Man”).


This session aims to bring new critical perspectives to a neglected facet of Dick’s work. Of particular interest are papers that avoid or challenge the standard lines of Dick criticism (e.g. Marxist, Postmodernist) and instead take novel approaches to the author’s short stories, for example: periodical studies, material culture, history of the book; feminist, queer, and masculinity studies; ecocriticism; psychoanalysis; short story theory; etc. We welcome abstracts for papers of between 15 and 20 minutes’ length on any topic related to Dick’s short fiction.


Paper abstracts of 300 words are to be uploaded only at the following web address:
https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/cfp


Link to panel:
http://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/15820


Deadline: September 30, 2015


cfp categories:
american
popular_culture
twentieth_century_and_beyond

_______________________________________________
SFRA-L mailing list

CFP Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference (9/10/2015; Riverside, CA 2/12-13/2016)

WSECS 2016 conference Call for Proposals (Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies)
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/76863/wsecs-2016-conference-call-proposals-western-society-eighteenth

Announcement published by Linda Tomko on Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Type: Call for Papers
Date: September 10, 2015
Location: California, United States
Subject Fields: World History / Studies, Social Sciences

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The annual meeting of the

Western Society for

Eighteenth-Century Studies (WSECS)

February 12-13, 2016 • University of California, Riverside

Keynote address by Dr. Paula Radisich, Whittier College



We invite submissions from all disciplines for the 2016 WSECS conference focused on the theme of “Encounter(s).” We invite proposals for papers that address encounters ranging from the political to the intimate and from commerce and migration to literary and artistic productions in the long 18th century (late 17th to early 19th centuries).

Papers should be 15-20 minutes long. The program committee will cluster 3-4 individual papers to a 75-minute panel, including 15 minutes for Q&A following the last paper. Submission of proposals for pre-formed panels should follow this format. We especially welcome submissions by graduate students and independent scholars. All paper topics will be considered.

DEADLINE: September 10, 2015. Please provide a narrative proposal of 250-300 words. Include contact information, name, institutional affiliation, title of your paper, email address, and any audio/visual needs. Proposals for pre-formed panels should include the same info for each presenter, and a cover page with the panel title, topic, and statement of how the papers speak to that topic. Designate one person as the liaison with the program committee.                                                                              

Send submissions to both Dr. Aurora Wolfgang (aurora@csusb.edu) and Dr. Linda Tomko (lindawsecs@yahoo.com).

The conference program committee members are Aurora Wolfgang, CSU San Bernardino, French; Linda Tomko, UC Riverside, Dance; Ted Ruml, CSU San Bernardino, English; George Haggerty, UC Riverside, English; and Jonathan Eacott, UC Riverside, History.

We will notify presenters of their papers’ acceptance by the end of October 2015. Conference registration and WSECS membership fees are due by December 1, 2015 for those on the conference program.

The keynote address will begin Friday, February 12 at 1:00 PM. Panels will follow with drinks reception 7-8 PM. Saturday, February 13, panels begin at 9 AM; lunch will be hosted by WSECS. Final panels will conclude by 6 PM. Full details about the conference, accommodations and area attractions will be published on the WSECS website: www.wsecs.org.



Contact Info:
Conference co-coordinators are Dr. Aurora Wolfgang (aurora@csusb.edu) and Dr. Linda J. Tomko (lindawsecs@yahoo.com)

Contact Email:
lindawsecs@yahoo.com

CFP Legacy of Harryhausen (essay collection) (proposals by 9/11/2015)

Conventional Special Effects & Unconventional Thinking - The Legacy of Harryhausen
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/77787/conventional-special-effects-unconventional-thinking-legacy

Announcement published by Karen Zarker on Thursday, August 6, 2015
Type: Call for Papers
Date: August 6, 2015 to October 23, 2015
Subject Fields: Film and Film History, Digital Humanities

Deadline for essay pitches: Friday, September 11th

First drafts: Friday October 23rd

Final essay: Friday, November 13th

Submit your pitches to: PopMatters’ editor Dawn Eyestone dawn@popmatters.com; cc: zarker@popmatters.com

Email subject line:  Harryhausen SFX Legacy


Although filmmaker and special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen officially retired from feature filmmaking in the ‘80s, his legacy continues on the set of B-movie films and Hollywood blockbusters alike. Even filmgoers who’ve never heard of Harryhausen are likely familiar with his film techniques and might recognize one or two of his creations. Without Harryhausen’s creatures in Clash of the Titans, film geeks everywhere would be without the battle cry “Release the Kraken!” Without Harryhausen’s development of stop-motion filming, how would George Lucas have made Luke Skywalker run across a frozen wasteland on the back of a fictitious Tauntaun? Without Harryhausen’s monstrous inspiration, would Spielberg’s Jaws have been as terrifying?

Ray Harryhausen’s contributions to the film industry, especially to conventional special effects development and storytelling in the genre of science fiction and fantasy, are incalculable.

This series of essays seeks to examine and analyze this pioneer (dare we say titan?) of special effects (SFX) in-depth.

Essays for this series could touch on Harryhausen’s career, legacy, and inspiration; or specific films, SFX techniques, and genres. Authors are encouraged to be creative and, like Harryhausen himself, explore unique and interesting perspectives on the subject matter. Possible topics include:

• SFX as an intrinsic part of good storytelling
• Specific techniques as developed or used by Harryhausen and his contemporaries (e.g., Dynamation, Stop Motion, Rotoscoping)
• Harryhausen’s early career and inspiration, e.g., Willis O’Brien’s King Kong
• Critiques and analyses of feature films and other projects important to SFX development (e.g., Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Mysterious Island, Clash of the Titans (1983), George Pal’s Puppetoons, WWII Army propaganda films)
• Influences on later entertainment and contemporary pop culture, including connections to films/filmmakers (e.g., Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Star Wars, The Terminator)
• Comparisons between films and their remakes as related to special effects and storytelling (e.g., Clash of the Titans 1981 v. 2010, King Kong 1933 v. 2005) though such essays should be scholarly and thoughtful, focused on filmmaking, genre, technique, and/or storytelling rather than fan arguments about “which was better”.

Of special interest to the editors are essays that touch on Harryhausen’s development of special effects in science fiction of the ‘50’s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, which contributed to the genre’s current place in mainstream entertainment; and essays that provide in-depth analyses of the connection between the use of conventional special effects and strong storytelling.

The editors are not looking for essays focused on computer generated effects; however, they will consider essays that discuss CGI as directly related to the use of conventional SFX and/or storytelling.

Essays accepted for this series should target Harryhausen and SF film fans or cultural generalists and will be published on the PopMatters website. Essays should be written in PopMatters style; erudite, engaging and entertaining, but not laden with academic language. Essays length is approximately 1,500 – 2,500 words in MLA format.

Contact Info:
Dawn Eyestone, Editor

Contact Email:
eyestone@popmatters.com
URL:
http://www.popmatters.com/post/196112-call-for-papers-ray-harryhausen/

CFP collection onOld age and aging in British theatre and drama (proposals by 10/1/2015)

An interesting idea:

Old age and aging in British theatre and drama - An edited collection
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/77681/old-age-and-aging-british-theatre-and-drama-edited-collection

Announcement published by Kasia Bronk on Friday, August 7, 2015
Type:
Call for Publications
Date:
October 1, 2015
Subject Fields:
Theatre & Performance History / Studies, British History / Studies

     In contrast to the ongoing childhood studies, humanistic gerontology is still largely an unexplored research area, despite more and more attention being paid to old age by historians, sociologists and literary scholars. The latter have taken up the subject of aging and the elderly, trying to create something like an all-encompassing literary ”meta-narrative old age" (Johnson and Thane, eds., Old age from antiquity to post-modernity, 17). Johnson and Thane suggest that this may be a fallacy and that one should rather focus on more contained historical and socio-cultural research areas when studying the processes and meaning of aging. This way, for instance, one can avoid interpretative mistakes attributed to Georges Minois. Thus, to answer Johnson and Thane’s call for strengthening ”our understanding of smaller questions” and consequently to ”produce a better history of old age and ageing” (18) the present volume will aim to investigate the notion of old age, or the "nebulous existence of unpredictable duration” (Von Dorotka Bagnel and Spencer Soper, eds., Perceptions of aging in literature, xix) via a diachronic inquiry into the phenomenon and its representations in visual and interactive artistic mediums – British theatre and drama. The proposed collection of essays on embodied conceptualisations of age and aging is to broaden and go beyond existing studies on old age, aging and Shakespeare whose understanding and presentation of ages of mankind and senescence in, for instance, King Lear, Hamlet and As you like it, have been extensively analysed. Interested authors are invited to explore ALL periods and pieces of British drama in their presentation of old age as a concept, theme as well as performance. Thus, thanks to its diachronic and comparative nature, the volume will hopefully broaden literary and cultural research on the final stages of life and yield new insights to the gaps in this area of humanistic gerontology. We invite abstracts on the following topics (but other notions related to age, the elderly and aging in drama across centuries are likewise encouraged):

• biological, chronological, functional, cultural definitions of old age, senescence and aging in drama but also beyond
• performativity of old age (markers of old age; the old body on stage; etc)
• comic and tragic elderly and their plight
• old age/aging and playwrights/playwriting (dealinh with aging by means of art; do older playwrights write about old age or focus on youth?)
• genderised aging on stage
• actors and actresses and aging
• younger versus older generations in drama (conflicts, struggles, reconciliations, etc)
• positive and negative stereotypes of the elderly
• stock characters (senex, crone, widow, benevolent father, dotard, etc) and their ‘mutations’ across centuries
• the influence of philosophical, religious and medical advice on old age and aging on drama (conduct texts, treatises, medical tracts, etc)
• class/race/gender and dramatised old age
• new perspectives on Shakespeare's conceptualisations of aging, ages of mankind, senescence, etc
• comparative research on dramatising old age and aging (English/British vs French, German, Italian, American, etc)
• the future of humanistic gerontology (and dramatic arts)

Interested authors are kindly asked to send 500-word abstracts by 1st of October 2015 to dr Katarzyna Bronk (kbronk@wa.amu.edu.pl and bbronkk@gmail.com). If accepted by the editors, selected abstracts will be collated into a thematic collection and proposed to an international publisher. Upon acceptance by the publisher, the authors will be asked to write full versions of their papers.



Contact Info:
dr Katarzyma Bronk Faculty of English Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland http://wa.amu.edu.pl/wa/bronk_katarzyna kbronk@wa.amu.edu.pl and bbronkk@gmail.com

Contact Email:
kbronk@wa.amu.edu.pl

CFP Adolescence in Film and Television Area (10/1/2015; PCA/ACA Seattle 3/21-25/2016)

Still cleaning my inbox:

Adolescence in Film and Television (March 21-25, 2016; Proposals due October 1, 2015)
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/77876/adolescence-film-and-television-march-21-25-2016-proposals-due

Announcement published by Kylo-Patrick Hart on Monday, August 10, 2015
Type: Call for Papers
Date: October 1, 2015
Location: Washington, United States
Subject Fields: Film and Film History, Popular Culture Studies

The Adolescence in Film and Television Area invites paper proposals for presentation at the annual Popular Culture/American Culture Association Conference, to be held March 21-25, 2016 in Seattle, Washington.

Submissions that explore noteworthy coverage patterns, representations, and themes pertaining to the portrayal of adolescence/adolescents in film and television, during any historical era, are desired from scholars, educators, and students at all levels.

PLEASE NOTE: Given adequate participant interest and high-quality submissions, the Adolescence in Film and Television Area chair is hoping to publish selected papers (with author’s permission) presented in this area in March 2016 in a special essay collection. Submission instructions will be provided in the weeks following the October 1, 2015 submission deadline.

Possible topics of relevance include, but are certainly not limited to, advertising images and appeals, coming-of-age narratives, drug use, HIV/AIDS, juvenile delinquency, nerd culture, non-heterosexuality, otherness, premarital sex, product placement, queerness (broadly defined), violence and social aggression, and (losing one’s) virginity.

Interested individuals are asked to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words (including presentation title) by October 1, 2015.

Submit your abstract online at http://ncp.pcaaca.org (and be certain to select the “Adolescence in Film and Television” subject area from the drop-down menu when doing so).

Decisions pertaining to the status of submitted abstracts will be communicated within approximately two weeks of receipt. For questions prior to submitting an abstract, please contact area chair Kylo-Patrick R. Hart
 (k.hart@tcu.edu).

Contact Info:
Kylo-Patrick R. Hart, Ph.D.

Department of Film, Television and Digital Media

Texas Christian University

Contact Email:
k.hart@tcu.edu

Labeling Calls for Papers

I realized recently that the Calls for Papers and Conferences of Interest labels for posts were getting a bit muddled. As of today, I have added new labels to denote calls devoted to Conference Sessions. For ease of reference, I also added labels for Essay Collections and  Journal Issues. All can still be found under the Calls for Papers label.

Michael Torregrossa
Blog Editor/Area Chair

CFP Vehicle Culture Area (10/1/2015; PCA/ACA Seattle 3/22-26/2016)

Popular Culture Association - Vehicle Culture Area

Discussion published by Elton McGoun on Monday, August 17, 2015  0 Replies
Your network editor has reposted this from H-Announce. The byline reflects the original authorship.
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/79115/popular-culture-association-vehicle-culture-area

Type: Call for Papers
Date: March 22, 2016 to March 25, 2016
Location: Washington, United States
Subject Fields: Cultural History / Studies, Popular Culture Studies, Environmental History / Studies

CALL FOR PAPERS - Popular Culture Association Vehicle Culture Area


Humanity has always been on the move, and humans have always been attached to their means of transportation.  There is virtually no part of life that has not been shaped by the contemporary vehicles, public or private, by which people have gotten around.  Where we live and work and how and with whom we spend our leisure time would not be the same without our vehicles.  Our landscape has been reshaped and our built environment configured to accommodate them.   Poetry, literature, music, film, television, photography, and other arts have featured them.  Sometimes they have been celebrated and sometimes reviled, but we have never been indifferent to their importance.  Our vehicles have made—or are believed to have made—powerful statements about race, gender, ethnicity, wealth, politics, social class, and personality.  Vehicle culture—about planes, trains, automobiles, and whatever else has moved us—concerns how all of this has been, and is, happening.

The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association invites abstracts for papers and panel proposals that explore the diverse intersections between vehicles, vehicular transportation, and culture. PCA/ACA is committed to serious academic scholarship while also encouraging the exploration of new subjects or new approaches to more familiar ones.  The national conference is an exciting gathering of a diverse group of scholars that is always a fascinating source of interesting ideas.

Please submit abstracts of 250 words or less via the PCA Submission Site by October 1, 2015

Contact Info:
Elton (Skip) McGoun

School of Management Bucknell University



Contact Email: mcgoun@bucknell.edu
URL: http://ncp.pcaaca.org

CFP Edited collection on college movies (proposals by 11/1/2015)

Also of potential interest:

Edited collection on college movies
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/79113/edited-collection-college-movies
Discussion published by Randy Laist on Monday, August 17, 2015
Your network editor has reposted this from H-Announce. The byline reflects the original authorship.

Type: Call for Papers
Date: November 1, 2015
Subject Fields: American History / Studies, Film and Film History, Popular Culture Studies

Movies about college have been a staple of American cinema since the silent era.  Films like Harold Lloyd's The Freshman and Buster Keaton's College engaged popular ideas about the culture of campus life as it evolved throughout the 1920s, while also setting precedents for future cinematic representations of the college experience.  Benchmark films of the genre such as The Paper Chase, Animal House, and The Social Network provide insight into the ways that college has been variously imagined as a middle class rite of passage, a landscape of hedonistic fantasy, a microcosm of societal hypocrisy, a repressive system of deindividuation, and a carnivalesque holiday from "real life," to name just a few of the most conspicuous themes.  At the same time, even the most jejune examples of the college movie genre reveal ideological assumptions and communicate influential messages about the role of knowledge, learning, and intellectualism in society.

We are currently accepting chapter proposals for an edited volume devoted to the representation of college and campus life in movies.  While we hope to include a wide range of perspectives in the book, we are particularly interested in scholarship that examines the relationship between the cinematic representations of campus life and the lived experience of real college students.  To what extent do these cinematic representations inform the expectations, perceptions, and attitudes of students, faculty, and the general public?  Overviews of prevailing trends as well as close analyses of individual films are both welcome, as are examinations of the manner in which college films have addressed issues such as race, class, gender, technology, sexuality, disability, and cultural difference.​

Please submit 300-word chapter proposals to Randy Laist at rlaist@goodwin.edu and Kip Kline at klinech@lewisu.edu by November 1, 2015.

Contact Info:
Randy Laist at rlaist@goodwin.edu and Kip Kline at klinech@lewisu.edu

Contact Email: rlaist@goodwin.edu

CFP Wrestling with Identity: Nation, Race, and Culture in Professional Wrestling (proposals by 12/31/2015)

Of potential interest:

Wrestling with Identity: Nation, Race, and Culture in Professional Wrestling
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/79109/wrestling-identity-nation-race-and-culture-professional-wrestling

Discussion published by Aaron Horton on Monday, August 17, 2015
Your network editor has reposted this from H-Announce. The byline reflects the original authorship.

Type: Call for Publications
Date: December 31, 2015
Subject Fields: Nationalism History / Studies, Race Studies, Cultural History / Studies
Call for Chapters: Edited Volume on Professional Wrestling (Tentative Title: Wrestling with Identity: Nation, Race, and Culture in Professional Wrestling)

We are seeking contributors to our project, an edited volume of essays examining various aspects of professional wrestling and its relationship to other themes (nationalism, gender, race, etc.). The scope is broad and open, and authors are welcome to write about any individual, period, or location. For our purposes, professional wrestling is broadly defined as grappling contests for pay, regardless of whether the outcomes are predetermined – hence, this could include “shoot” contests from the late-nineteenth century to the current televised “sports-entertainment” product, or even mixed martial arts, popularized in the last two decades by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and other promotions. Both of the editors are trained as historians, but we welcome submissions from practitioners of all humanities and social science disciplines.

Examples of possible thematic topics include:

-Race in wrestling (example: "Nazis, Japs, and Pearl Harbor Attacks: German and Japanese Stereotypes in American Professional Wrestling")

-Gender in wrestling

-Pro wrestling and national or regional identity/culture

-Fan culture

-Mixed Martial Arts and (or even "as") pro wrestling

-Economic aspects of the business

-Profiles of particular individuals (example: "Rikidozan: Korean Icon of Japanese Nationality")

-Treatments of wrestling in other media (example: “Race and Villainy in The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity”)

Possible periods and locations for study include:

-The origins of pro wrestling in camp and carnival contests (1850s-1900)

-The early television era (1950s)

-The territorial era (1950s-1980s)

-Specific territories (examples: Mid-Atlantic in the Carolinas, WCCW in Dallas, AWA in Minnesota, Mid-South in Oklahoma, WWWF in the Northeast, etc.)

-Vince K. McMahon's drive toward monopoly (1980s)

-The "Attitude" Era (late 1990s) (example: “’Something strange has been happening…I don’t think there are good guys anymore, people seem to be sick of good guys’: National Identity, Authority, and the Hero in Professional Wrestling, 1996-1998”)

-Wrestling in Mexico, Japan, Europe, or elsewhere

Proposals should be no more than 1-2 pages, and should include a brief bio of the author. Interested individuals should email their proposals to Aaron Horton (Assistant Professor of History, Alabama State University) at ahorton@alasu.edu, or Zach Bates (M.A., history, Georgia State University, history PhD candidate, University of Calgary) at zachary.bates@ucalgary.ca. We hope to receive all chapter proposals by December 31, 2015 in order to move forward with the project in a timely manner.

Contact Email: ahorton@alasu.edu

CFP Sea Literature, History & Culture Area (10/1/015; PCA Seattle 3/22-25/2015)

Of potential interest:

Call for Proposals, Session, and Panels on SEA LITERATURE, HISTORY & CULTURE

Announcement published by Stephen Curley on Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Type: Call for Papers
Date: March 22, 2016 to March 25, 2016
Location: Washington, United States

For the joint national conference (22-25 March 2016 in Seattle, WA) of the Popular Culture & American Culture Associations (PCA/ACA), we invite proposals of individual papers or special panels.

Presentations related to fresh-water or sea-water may include topics like

 Literature, comics, art, music, television & movies
 History, politics, war & peace
 Culture, anthropology & ecology
 Folklore, mythology, legends & hoaxes
 Ships, boats, etc.
 Aquatic life
 Recreation, travel, tourism & festivals

DEADLINE: 1 Oct. 2015 to submit your 100-250 word proposal or abstract online to http://ncp.pcaaca.org

Contact Info:
Stephen Curley, Area Chair
Sea Literature, History & Culture
Dept. of General Academics
Texas A&M University at Galveston
Galveston, TX 77553-1675
(409) 740-4501
Contact Email:
curleys@tamug.edu
URL:
http://pcaaca.org

CFP Essay on Steven Spielberg's Hook (proposal s by 9/6/2015)

CFP: Steven Spielberg's Hook
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/79022/cfp-steven-spielbergs-hook

Announcement published by debbie olson on Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Type: Call for Papers
Date: September 6, 2015

Collection title: Children in the Films of Steven Spielberg

Editors: Adrian Schober and Debbie Olson

Children are an almost essential feature of the landscape in the films of Steven Spielberg: from the alien-abducted Barry in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Elliott and his unearthly alter-ego in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), to the war-damaged Jim in Empire of the Sun (1987), the lost mecha child David in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), and the eponymous boy hero of The Adventures of Tintin (2011). There are many other instances across Spielberg’s oeuvre. And contrary to his reputation as a purveyor of innocuous ‘popcorn’ entertainment, Spielberg’s vision of children/childhood is not all sweetness and light. Indeed, more discerning critics have noted the darker underpinnings of this vision, often fraught with tensions, conflicts and anxieties. While childhood is Spielberg’s principal source of inspiration, his ‘subject matter,’ this has never been the focus of a collection. We therefore seek an original article addressing both the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ aspects of childhood, or the interplay between childhood/adulthood in Spielberg's Hook. Our collection currently contains an impressive range of articles, but we feel an article on Hook would be an important addition to our collection.

We seek full essays or near complete essays that can be ready for submission to the publisher by end of September 2015. Deadline for submission is September 6th, 2015. Send essay as a word doc to Adrian Schober, beatles9@optusnet.com.au or Debbie Olson, dolson@uta.edu

This collection to be published by Lexington Books in the "Children and Youth in Popular Culture" series.

Contact Info:
Adrian Schober, Monash University; Debbie Olson, University of Texas at Arlington

Contact Email:
beatles9@optusnet.com.au

CFP Fantastic Animals, Animals in the Fantastic (Spec Issue of Fastitocalon) (proposals by 10/31/2015)

Fantastic Animals, Animals in the Fantastic
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/78764/fantastic-animals-animals-fantastic

Announcement published by Thomas Honegger on Friday, August 14, 2015
Type: Call for Publications
Date: October 31, 2015
Location: Germany
Subject Fields: Anthropology, Cultural History / Studies, Literature

Fantastic Animals, Animals in the Fantastic

Animals have played an important role in literature long before the ‘animal turn’. The functions of the animal protagonists are most often a reflection of the animal-human relationship found in our everyday world. J.R.R. Tolkien once said that the desire “to hold communion with other living things” [which explicitly includes animals] (OFS) makes humans transgress the boundaries of the primary world. The realm of the fantastic, insofar as it partakes in the ‘real’, contains likewise animals that often belong to the ‘primary world’ and to the realm of Faëry – as in Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter where we have unicorns crossing at dawn from Faëry into our world – and foxes from our world into Faëry, where they are considered ‘otherworldly’ animals.

Fastitocalon invites contributions that investigate the role of animals (real or imaginary) in texts of the fantastic. Possible topics to be covered are the function of animals, the discussion of the anthropological point of view as well as more specifically literary and cultural studies approaches. Thus contributions could discuss the question whether animals function as exemplary representatives of a fantastic world or whether they remain rooted in the primary world and are merely adapted to their new literary environment. The anthropological approach would explore animal characteristics and features that go beyond the limits of the human nature and look at the motivation for transgressing the human-animal divide (e.g. in form of transformations and metamorphoses). This interplay between human culture in general and the use of animals in specific (con-)texts, such as myths and fables would be one possible approach within a cultural-literary framework.

Contributions may focus on individual works, discuss specific developments and transformations, or explore theoretical aspects connected with the topic. Even though the language of the publication is English, we encourage the inclusion and discussion of works in other languages.

Abstracts ca. (300 words) accompanied by a brief biographical note (100-150 words) should be sent in to the editors electronically by 31 October 2015 to:

Tm.honegger@uni-jena.de

Essays accepted for inclusion in the volume must range between 6000 and 8000 words and will be due on March 31, 2016. Fastitocalon: Studies in Fantasticism Ancient to Modern is a peer-reviewed journal. Abstracts and/or full papers submitted will be reviewed by the editors and members of the advisory board.

The volume-editors: Oliver Bidlo, Thomas Honegger & Frank Weinreich

Contact Info:
The volume-editors: Oliver Bidlo, Thomas Honegger & Frank Weinreich

Contact Email:
Tm.honegger@uni-jena.de
URL:
http://fastitocalon.kolbitar.de

CFP Rethinking Marilyn Monroe (8/31/2015; Western Association of Women Historians 5/12-14/2016)

Of potential interest:

CFP Rethinking Marilyn Monroe
https://networks.h-net.org/node/14467/discussions/78893/cfp-rethinking-marilyn-monroe
Discussion published by Carrie Pitzulo on Sunday, August 16, 2015

Call for Panelists: Western Association of Women Historians

Denver, CO, May 12-14, 2016

Panel: “Rethinking Marilyn Monroe”

This panel will reexamine Marilyn Monroe as a major historical and pop cultural figure. Papers should explore Monroe from new perspectives, challenging common assumptions and making us question what we think we know about this emblem of mid-century womanhood and sexuality. Topics might include resituating Monroe’s films in historical context; reconsidering her status as a postwar icon; exploring her challenges to the Hollywood system; reassessing the meaning of her image in American culture over the decades; others.

Please submit a 200-250 word proposal and an updated c.v. to cpitzulo@westga.edu by August 31, 2015.

-Carrie Pitzulo, Ph.D.

University System of Georgia

CFP Impact of War on Science Fiction or Fantasy Literature (9/25/2015; NeMLA 3/17-20/2016)

Also posted initially on SFRA-L:

CFP

Panel: The Impact of War on Science Fiction or Fantasy Literature

Northeast Modern Language Association

March 17-20, 2016

Hartford, CT

Paper Proposal/ Abstract deadline: September 25, 2015

Various wars have had a profound impact on many utopian, dystopian and apocalyptic science fiction and fantasy writers. For example, the repercussions of the Civil War were one of the factors of late nineteenth century society in America reflected in the "non-combative" revolution of Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward: 2000-1887.  In addition, war or the aftermath of war figures strongly in various novels and stories of Philip Dick, Marge Piercy, and Ursula Le Guin, among others. It seems that world events, many tumultuous, are reflected in some of their dystopian tales. Discussing the effect of war and the possibility of annihilation on literature, including early writers such as Lord [George Gordon] Byron who wrote the poem "Darkness" reflecting the end of the world after total annihilating warfare implies the need to perhaps use writing as a catharsis. The focus of this panel is to indicate the effect of war on literature at various periods in history.

Please e-mail your 200-250 word paper proposal/ abstract, subject line: War-SciFi Panel before 9/25/15.  Please send your proposal as an attached MS Word, doc or docx. In the body of your message, please include your proposal title, your name, affiliation, address, phone number and e-mail address and send to: Annette Magid <a_magid@yahoo.com>.

Proposers need not be members of NeMLA to submit, but panelists must be members in order to present.

CFP Anticipations: H. G. Wells, Science Fiction and Radical Visions Conference (4/15/2016; UK 7/8-10/2016)

A cool idea for a conference. Heads-up courtesy the SFRA-L:

Anticipations: H. G. Wells, Science Fiction and Radical Visions
8-10 July 2016
H. G. Wells Conference Centre, Woking, UK
Organised by the H. G. Wells Society

H. G. Wells was a novelist, social commentator and utopianist, and is regarded as one of the fathers of science fiction. His early scientific romances featured time travel, mad scientists, alien invasion, space travel, invisibility, utopia, future war and histories of the future: his mappings of the shape of things to come was an overture to over a century of science fiction.

We wish to mark the 150th and 70th anniversaries of Wells’s birth and death respectively by exploring his science fiction, his precursors and successors and his lasting influence upon the genre in print, on film, on television, on radio, online and elsewhere. This is especially appropriate because the event will be held at the H. G. Wells Conference centre in Woking, the town where Wells wrote The War of the Worlds. Many of his ideas on politics, science, sociology and the direction in which he feared humanity was going were contained in his early science fiction and ran through his later influential work.

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

specific individual or groups of novels/stories;
the connections between Wells’s fiction and nonfiction, including his political, utopian and scientific writings;
utopia/dystopia;
histories of the future;
precursors to Wells’s sf;
sf writers influenced by Wells;
sequels by other hands;
adaptations into other media.

Please send a brief biography and an abstract of 400 words for a twenty minute paper by 15 April 2016 to anticipations2016@gmail.com.


Further details will be available from anticipations2016.wordpress.com.