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Posted on October 8, 2020

Dark Economies: Anxious Futures, Fearful Pasts – Conference CFP

CFP Conference

Dark Economies: Anxious Futures, Fearful Pasts

Falmouth University, UK. 7-9 July 2021

After the success of the Folk Horror in the Twenty First Century conference hosted by Falmouth University, we are holding another related conference in 2021.

We are aiming to have a face to face conference at the beautiful Falmouth Campus in Cornwall. With sub-tropical gardens and the beach nearby, there will be a ‘Welcome to Dark Falmouth’ cemetery walk above the lovely Swanpool lake, an art exhibition, a gig and street food in place of the more usual staid conference dinner. If we’re going to beat Covid we want to do it in style!*

Posted on September 14, 2020

Horror Homeroom Special Issue #3 – Lovecraft Country CFP

Call for Papers

Horror Homeroom, Special Issue #3: LOVECRAFT COUNTRY (Winter 2021)

****EXTENDED DEADLINE – Abstracts due Sunday November 8, 2020 ****

Lovecraft Country is a radical new intervention in the horror world. Based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Matt Ruff, the 10-episode HBO series is produced and written by Misha Green, who serves as the series showrunner. Jordan Peele and J. J. Abrams are also involved as producers, and the series showcases a diverse array of directors (including Cheryl Dunye).

The series premiered on August 16, 2020 and will end on October 18–and it’s already generating a lot of discussion around its use of horror tropes to tell the story of racism in the US. As Misha Green has said of living in the US as a Black woman, “It’s literally, you’re in a horror movie [with] monsters at every turn” (Stidhum). At least one commentator (in The Atlantic) has argued that Lovecraft Country is not well-served by “its white characters’ near-comic monstrousness” (Giorgis)–and there are already syllabi! Erica Buddington and the Langston League are putting together a syllabus for each episode. (Here’s the syllabus for episode 1.)

Posted on September 12, 2020

Gothic Nature Journal — TV/Film Reviews

Call for Papers

Gothic Nature is seeking TV/ film reviews for its next issue. The show or film reviewed must have a clear thematic link to ecohorror/ecoGothic and have first appeared in 2020-21 (see some possibilities below). Reviews should aim for about 1,000 words in length (Harvard style and British spelling and punctuation conventions appreciated). Send inquiries and submissions to Sara L. Crosby at crosby.sara@gmail.com. For further information about the journal, please visit: https://gothicnaturejournal.com/.

Deadline for submissions: February 1, 2021

Posted on September 4, 2020

Horror Homeroom, Special Issue: CANDYMAN, CFP

Call for Papers

UPDATE: due to the just-announced indefinite postponement of Candyman‘s release (sometime in 2021), we are also delaying our special issue on the Candyman films. Our third special issue will instead be on Lovecraft Country–and you can check out the call for papers here.

The first Candyman, directed by Bernard Rose, was released in 1993, starring Tony Todd, Virginia Madsen, and Kasi Lemmons. It translated Clive Barker’s1985 short story, “The Forbidden” from a white working-class housing development in England to an African-American housing development in Chicago, Cabrini Green. Candyman tells a powerful story of race and the lingering aftermath of slavery in the US, mixing the supernatural with historical and social realism. Numerous critics have discussed the film, including Adam Ochonicky, Lucy Fife Donaldson, Robin Means Coleman, Diane Long Hoeveler, Mikel Koven, Laura Wyrick, Kirsten Monan Thompson, Aviva Briefel and Sianne Ngaî, and Fred Botting. As the horror genre is, in the twenty-first century, becoming increasingly political, much more remains to be said about Candyman and its two sequels–Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (Bill Condon, 1995) and Candyman: Day of the Dead (Turi Meyer, 1999)–all of which center racism in America.

Despite the powerful presence of Tony Todd as Candyman in all three films, they have been notably white productions. October 16, 2020, however, will see the release of a “spiritual sequel” to Candyman, and it is a predominantly African-American production–directed by Nia DaCosta, co-written by DaCosta, Jordan Peele, and Win Rosenfeld, produced by Peele, and with a largely Black cast (including Tony Todd). In this new Candyman, viewers will finally experience a Black re-writing of a Candyman mythos that has been, until now, almost exclusively white.

Posted on June 24, 2020

Misery: Call for Papers for Special Issue #2

Call for Papers

As the only film adaptation of the Stephen King oeuvre to be anointed with Oscar gold, Rob Reiner’s Misery is quintessential psychological horror with a heaping helping of shock and awe. Fueled by a villain whose name is virtually synonymous with toxic fan culture and made memorable by one indelible sledgehammer hobbling, the film is an acknowledged classic, and yet it is not typically the first film referenced in discussions of King’s cinematic adaptations. Misery has generated memes, collectibles, and fan art that has kept it in the pop culture zeitgeist but critical scholarship has not been quite as prolific. In honor of the film’s impending 30^th anniversary, our second special issue of Horror Homeroom seeks to rectify that oversight.