Martin Harris Centre, University of Manchester
11-13 January 2012
Registration is now open for GMS 2012: Gender and Punishment. Click here to register or here to visit the conference website.
Programme
Wednesday 11 January
12:45-1:45pm: Registration (Foyer)
1:45pm: Welcome and Opening Remarks by Dr. Anke Bernau (University of Manchester) (John Thaw Studio Theatre)
2-3:30pm: Keynote Lecture (John Thaw Studio Theatre)
Chair: Professor Gale Owen-Crocker (University of Manchester)
Professor Dawn Hadley (University of Sheffield): Masculinity and Mass Graves in Anglo-Saxon England
3:30-4pm: Coffee (Foyer)
4-5:30pm: Parallel Sessions
Panel 1a: Torture and Spectacle (John Thaw Studio Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) David Matthews (University of Manchester): “Take example, and thereof beware”: The Medieval Execution Ritual
(ii) Megan Welton (University of Notre Dame): Diversis angustiata cruciatibus: Adelheid of Italy and Tenth-Century Capture, Torture, and Gender
(iii) Iain MacInnes (UHI Centre for History): “A somewhat too cruel vengeance was taken for the blood of the slain”: punishment of rebels and traitors in medieval Scotland, c.1100-c.1400
Panel 1b: Holy Women and Punishment (G16)
Chair: TBC
(i) Jessica Cheetham (University of Bristol): Mechthild of Magdeburg and Vicarious Punishment
(ii) Clare Monagle (Monash University): Authority and Punishment in the Letters of Hildegard of Bingen and Catherine of Siena
(iii) Kate E. Bush (The Catholic University of America): Cani Giudei: Anti-Semitism in the Sermons of Saint Catherine of Bologna
5:30pm: Close
6pm: Wine reception at International Anthony Burgess Foundation (Engine House, Cambridge Street)
*****
Thursday 12 January
9:30-11am: Parallel Sessions
Panel 2a: Space and Punishment (John Thaw Studio Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) Sergi Sancho Fibla (Universitat Pompeu Fabra): Marguerite d’Oingt’s Pagina Meditationum. The female hell for the “brothers of flies”
(ii) Polly Stevens Fields (University of Nevada, Reno): Reconsideration of Hrothwissa’s Convent Dramas: Source and Site of Female Punishment in Paphnutius
(iii) Kristin Distel (Ashland University): Holy Fear as Incentive for Enclosure
Panel 2b: Presence and Absence in Punishment (G16)
Chair: TBC
(i) Drew Maxwell (University of Edinburgh): “Traytur untrew and trowthles”: Women's roles as punishers and teachers in the concept of trowth within Ywain and Gawain and Sir Launfal
(ii) Hannah Priest (University of Manchester): “De l’altre part la dame a prise”: Hiding Punitive Violence Against Women in Insular Romance
(iii) Carl G. Martin (Norwich University): “Par destresce e par poür”: Bisclavret’s Constrained Bodies
11-11:30am: Coffee (Foyer)
11:30-1pm: Parallel Sessions
Panel 3a: Law and Punishment (John Thaw Studio Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) Daniela Fruscione (University of Frankfurt): Adultery, gender and punishment in the 7th century: Legal and social frames
(ii) Charlene M. Eska (Virginia Tech): Castration in Early Irish Law
(iii) Gillian R. Overing (Wake Forest University): Within Striking Distance: Gender, Insult and Injury in Some Anglo-Saxon Laws
Panel 3b: Virgins and Punishment (G16)
Chair: TBC
(i) Christine Williamson (University of York): The Moment of Death in the Passiones of the Virgin Martyrs: Exploring Gendered Forms of Execution in Medieval Hagiography
(ii) Sarah Schäfer (University of Paderborn): “Letting Satan in…” On teeth, tongues, throats and symbolic defloration in Female Saints’ Legends
(iii) Stavroula Constantinou (University of Cyprus): Holy Violence: Crime and Punishment in the Miracles of Saint Thecla
1-2pm: Lunch (Foyer)
2-3:30pm: Parallel Sessions
Panel 4a: Punitive Scripts of Selfhood (John Thaw Studio Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) Emily Rhodes (University of Bristol): Punishment & Imitatio Christi: Medieval Holy Women Creating Purgatory
(ii) Sarah Macmillan (University of Birmingham): Punishment, Pain and the Invisible Injuries of Christina Mirabilis
(iii) Michelle M. Sauer (University of North Dakota): Devotional Violence and Sacred Sacrifice: Asceticism, Flagellation, and Penetration in A Talkyng of the Loue of Gode
Panel 4b: Gendered Punishment (G16)
Chair: TBC
(i) Rachel Jones (Cardiff University): Punishing the Unruly Female Saint: The Anomalous Case of Mary Magdalene
(ii) Inna Matyushina (University of Exeter): Punishments in Chastity Tests
(iii) Anastasija Ropa and Edgar Rops (University of Wales, Bangor): Gender specific punishment in the ‘Queste del Saint Graal’ and contemporary legal practice
3:30-4pm: Coffee (Foyer)
4-5:30pm: Keynote Lecture (John Thaw Studio Theatre)
Chair: Dr. Anke Bernau (University of Manchester)
Professor Karen Pratt (King’s College, London): Does the punishment fit the crime, or only the person? The intersection of gender, class and punishment in Old French
Literature
5:30pm: Close
7pm: Conference Dinner at Felicini (Oxford Road)
*****
Friday 13 January
9:30-11am: Parallel Sessions
Panel 5a: Uncanny Bodies and Punishment (John Thaw Studio Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) Stephen Gordon (University of Manchester): Post-Mortem Punishment and the Fear of the Errant Corpse in Writings of William of Newburgh
(ii) Patricia Skinner (University of Swansea): The Gendered Nose and its Lack – some thoughts on medieval rhinectomy
(iii) Katja Fält (University of Jyväskylä, Finland): Men, Women and Devils - Representations of Gender and the Diabolic in the Late-Medieval Wall Paintings of the Diocese of Turku (Finland)
Panel 5b: Discipline and Punish (G16)
Chair: TBC
(i) Kathy Frances (University of Manchester): Penance and Punishment: The Male Body and Masculine Bonds in John Audelay the Blind’s Counsel of Conscience
(ii) Frank Battaglia (College of Staten Island/CUNY): Boys Should Be Heroes: Beowulf’s disciplinary discourse
(iii) Rachel Friedensen (Western Michigan University): Si invita passa est: Consent and Gender in Anglo-Saxon and Frankish Penitentials
11-11:30am Coffee (Foyer)
11:30-12:30pm: Panel 6: Timely Punishment (John Thaw Studio Theatre)
Chair: TBC
(i) Beverly R. Sherringham (Farmingdale State College, New York): The Graceful Fall: Medieval Misogyny as a Redemptive Precursor to an Egalitarian Society
(ii) Daisy Black (University of Manchester): Troublesome Flotsam: Verbal Resurrections of a Drowned Past
12:30-1:30pm: Lunch (Foyer)
1:30-2:30pm: GMS Business Meeting (G16)
3-4:15pm: Optional Workshops
(i) John Rylands Library Manuscript Collections (John Rylands Library, Deansgate)
or
(ii) The Heronbridge Skeletons (led by Dr. Bryan Sitch) (Manchester Museum, Oxford Road)
4:15pm Conference Close
*****
Registration is now open. Click here to register. For more information, visit the conference website or the University of Manchester website, or email the conference convenors.
Tuesday 15 November 2011
Monday 14 November 2011
Review of the Bram Stoker International Film Festival (Sunday & Monday)
Whitby 29-31 October 2011
This is part two of a two-part review. You can see my review of Friday and Saturday here.
Sunday (for RS and me) started with Axed (Ryan Lee Driscoll), a dark and witty British horror feature. Kurt Wendell loses his job – a victim of the global financial crisis – and the tension begins to show in his relationship with his family. He surprises them with a daytrip to the countryside… though ‘surprise’ is probably a bit of an understatement. Kurt is losing his mind, and the title of the film should give a good hint of what is to come. Axed is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, and the lead actor (stand-up comedian Jonathan Hansler) played his role with a fantastic mixture of sinister menace and maniacal exuberance. There were, unfortunately, a couple of continuity errors, which might be a result of the shoot taking less than three weeks! But otherwise, RS and I agreed that this was definitely one of the best films of the festival. The cast and crew took a Q and A after the screening, and the director announced that he has just signed a distribution contract. I’d recommend you watch out for this one.
Next up was Shadows (John Penney), which stars Cary Elwes and William Hurt (surely the most prestigious cast of the festival). Set in Thailand, this feature told the story of Jeff Mathews, who survives a car accident that kills his wife and child. Troubled by visions of the dead, Jeff realizes that his soul has remained in the ‘Shadowlands’ and he must go on a scary journey to the underworld to ‘reunite’ with himself. Filmed on location (including some scenes on the River Kwai), Shadows clearly had a far bigger budget than the other films shown at the festival, and the direction and shooting were excellent (not to mention the acting by Elwes and Hurt). Though the story wasn’t the most original, this film felt very much like a mainstream release. The Q and A with writer/director Penney revealed that there has been a problem securing distribution, and so release had been put on hold. This is a shame, as Shadows definitely holds its own against recent studio releases.
Two features wrapped up Sunday for us. Bruce Ornstein’s Vamperifica was a comedy horror (complete with musical number, ‘Ha Bloody Ha’) in which two of the world's last surviving vampires have sworn to bring back their dead king (Raven), but discover that he has been reincarnated as a bitchy and camp wannabe actor called Carmen. Vamperifica was good fun, though a little predictable and didn’t really go anywhere. I’d watch it again though, as it was engaging and (in places) rather witty. And finally, we watched Baby Shower (Pablo Illanes), a rather brutal and bleak Chilean horror. Angela is pregnant with twins, and her friends (Claudia, Manuela, Olivia and Ivana) arrive at her secluded home to throw her a baby shower. Angela has a troubled past, and the truth about her relationship with husband Felipe is revealed slowly as the film progresses. She has become involved with a sort of spiritual leader, and does not welcome the intrusion of her ‘friends’. Things take a turn for the violent, and a series of gruesome attacks occur (including a brutal rape, a man hoisted onto a meat hook and something involving a silver cocaine straw that still makes me a little queasy). Overall, the film was very enjoyable, though full of very bloody and graphic violence. RS and I were a little divided on our final verdict though. He felt the film was rather confusing, with too much left unexplained, whereas I thought it was one of those films that make the audience work a little harder than usual. We also couldn’t decide whether the ‘spiritual leader’ was a Wicker Man-type Pagan or a devil worshipper. Apparently it’s a very fine line…
As a side note, when we got back to our guesthouse, we just couldn’t resist the lure of the B-movies, and watched Omega Cop - crazy post-apocalyptic fun starring Adam West. About as different as you can get from Baby Shower!
Monday was the final day of the festival, and due a long drive home, we couldn’t stay for all the films. What we did see caused some strong feelings though…
The first screening was a selection of shorts by Elisabeth and Brenda Fies. Hard to Do was a comedy horror drawing heavily from Dexter. A man kidnaps his ex-girlfriend and therapist in order to terrorize them. There were some funny lines, but I was too distracted by numerous continuity gaffs (like disappearing tape and a missing drill bit). Scrutinize was based on an urban legend about a woman getting onto a train and seeing two men holding up an apparently unconscious girl; Faux showed a glamorous woman driving down Rodeo Drive, before returning to a slum apartment and removing all the artificial aids to her glamour (false nails, breasts, butt enhancements, eyelashes and wig). Finally, Scream Queen was a slasher-type horror, but with a ‘victim’ who pulls back at the last minute and begins criticizing the film in a brattish way – revealing that we are actually watching a film being shot. The entire selection was poor and fairly lacklustre, as well as being poorly made in places, and RS and I were left wondering why a whole session had been devoted to the work of these filmmakers (but more on that below).
Next was a screening of Joseph Maddrey’s Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film. As many readers will already be familiar with this documentary (or with Maddrey’s book on which it is based), I won’t say too much about it. Suffice to say, this is a fabulous survey of the genre, with insightful comments from influential filmmakers (John Carpenter and George A. Romero, particularly, won our hearts).
So, finally, our last selection of six shorts. Playthings: Hunt (Wade K. Savage) was a promotional short for a forthcoming feature film, in which two young women are hunted through the woods and must do some horrible things to survive. I really enjoyed this short – almost all the violence took place off-camera, and no explanations were offered, which worked really well. This was all about atmosphere, tension, and the audience’s own imagination, and was a great example of how to make a genuinely scary film on a small budget. Next, Juan Con Miedo [Fearful John] (Daniel Romero) was a Pan’s Labyrinth-inspired Spanish horror, in which two children - Maria and Juan - shelter from a storm and read an unsettling fairy tale in an apparently abandoned house. Stylish and creepy, this film’s debt to Guillermo del Toro was impossible to deny. Next, The Furred Man (Paul Williams) was a brilliant British (and very British) comedy horror about the interrogation of Max Naughton (a campsite owned who is, for the duration of the short, wearing a werewolf costume) for a series of brutal murders on his property. The hapless Max tells his story to two sceptical police officers, and the truth is finally revealed. This short was absolutely wonderful – funny, but with a good dash of horror, and all beautifully underplayed by Daniel Carter-Hope as Max. And after this gem, we had Sacrifice (sadly, I didn’t catch the name of the director and haven’t been able to find this film online). This was a stylish modern Gothic about a priest who hunts vampires. It didn’t do anything new plotwise, but was visually stunning.
Unfortunately, the next film really put a downer on the day for us. We’d seen the cast/crew promoting Attack of the Martian Mutant From Mars during the weekend, and from what we could see it was going to be a spoof B-movie. While this was, in a way, true, the film (which was hardly a ‘short’ at half an hour long) was a joke project by Neal Harvey of Rubber Gorilla Mask Making Studio. Shot in shaky black-and-white, and supposedly mimicking the bad acting and implausible plots of earlier monster movies, this film felt like a (bad) student film project. The humour was heavy-handed (mostly revolving around the vague use of the word ‘science’ and the fact that the main character smoked a pipe), and the filming amateurish. It massively missed the point of the B-movies that allegedly inspired it – however silly those films were, they always took themselves seriously. What really riled RS and me was the fact that this film featured the son of the festival director and, clearly, many of his friends. I was also shocked to see Elisabeth Fies (who I have mentioned above) appear, which explained why she and her sister were offered a full session of their own films earlier in the day. This was a piece of self-indulgent nonsense, which had no place at a serious horror film festival. As far as we could see, this was the festival directors letting their friends mess about on the big screen, which was a bit disrespectful to the serious filmmakers who had shown their films and, in some cases, travelled a long way to attend the festival.
Nevertheless, we had one final ‘real’ film on offer before we had to leave. Jonathan Martin’s An Evening With My Comatose Mother was a 33-minute Hallowe’en horror, giving a twist on the ‘terrorized babysitter’ movie. Dorothy is called in to look after the catatonic mother of Alice Poe… and bad things happen. The film was well-made, with some pretty creepy set pieces. In the Q and A afterwards, director Martin said that the film was made on a $10,000 budget, and this certainly showed in the production values. However, the premise and execution seemed a little dated – though maybe I’ve just seen too many babysitter horror films. Martin said he is planning a feature film, as the short has been well-received. It might not be the most original film ever, but I would definitely watch a feature-length Evening With My Comatose Mother, maybe on a dark and creepy Saturday night.
Final thoughts on the festival? I’m not sure it quite lived up to last year’s success. The focus on indie horror was good – though I did enjoy the classic movies in last year’s programme. But the organizers seemed to have different priorities this year. By taking over Hallowe’en weekend – meaning that the main events of the Whitby Goth Weekend were moved to the following week – the festival promoters were obviously trying to cash in on the number of Goths who flock to Whitby at Hallowe’en. For this reason, a number of non-film-related events threatened to overshadow the screenings, designed as they were to pull in cash-laden Goths instead of indie horror geeks. As noted, Monday’s programme was too self-indulgent for our tastes, and seemed to imply a lack of respect for the hardworking filmmakers who were showing their films.
This is a real shame, as the festival has the potential to be a great horror film festival. I mean… come on… horror films at Hallowe’en in Whitby, you shouldn’t be able to go wrong. And if we ignore the questionable choices on the final day, this year’s schedule was really good. I would love to see the festival return to showing a range of good quality indie horror, coupled with a few classics for balance. RS and I will definitely look forward to seeing what’s on offer in 2012.
Next year’s festival will take place on 25-28 October. For more details, visit the festival website.
You can see the awards given out by the festival here, but here are mine and RS’s ‘awards’:
Best Feature: Vampires (Vincent Lannoo)
Second Best Feature: Axed (Ryan Lee Driscoll)
Best Short: The Furred Man (Paul Williams)
You can see my review of Friday and Saturday at the festival here.
This is part two of a two-part review. You can see my review of Friday and Saturday here.
Sunday (for RS and me) started with Axed (Ryan Lee Driscoll), a dark and witty British horror feature. Kurt Wendell loses his job – a victim of the global financial crisis – and the tension begins to show in his relationship with his family. He surprises them with a daytrip to the countryside… though ‘surprise’ is probably a bit of an understatement. Kurt is losing his mind, and the title of the film should give a good hint of what is to come. Axed is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, and the lead actor (stand-up comedian Jonathan Hansler) played his role with a fantastic mixture of sinister menace and maniacal exuberance. There were, unfortunately, a couple of continuity errors, which might be a result of the shoot taking less than three weeks! But otherwise, RS and I agreed that this was definitely one of the best films of the festival. The cast and crew took a Q and A after the screening, and the director announced that he has just signed a distribution contract. I’d recommend you watch out for this one.
Next up was Shadows (John Penney), which stars Cary Elwes and William Hurt (surely the most prestigious cast of the festival). Set in Thailand, this feature told the story of Jeff Mathews, who survives a car accident that kills his wife and child. Troubled by visions of the dead, Jeff realizes that his soul has remained in the ‘Shadowlands’ and he must go on a scary journey to the underworld to ‘reunite’ with himself. Filmed on location (including some scenes on the River Kwai), Shadows clearly had a far bigger budget than the other films shown at the festival, and the direction and shooting were excellent (not to mention the acting by Elwes and Hurt). Though the story wasn’t the most original, this film felt very much like a mainstream release. The Q and A with writer/director Penney revealed that there has been a problem securing distribution, and so release had been put on hold. This is a shame, as Shadows definitely holds its own against recent studio releases.
Two features wrapped up Sunday for us. Bruce Ornstein’s Vamperifica was a comedy horror (complete with musical number, ‘Ha Bloody Ha’) in which two of the world's last surviving vampires have sworn to bring back their dead king (Raven), but discover that he has been reincarnated as a bitchy and camp wannabe actor called Carmen. Vamperifica was good fun, though a little predictable and didn’t really go anywhere. I’d watch it again though, as it was engaging and (in places) rather witty. And finally, we watched Baby Shower (Pablo Illanes), a rather brutal and bleak Chilean horror. Angela is pregnant with twins, and her friends (Claudia, Manuela, Olivia and Ivana) arrive at her secluded home to throw her a baby shower. Angela has a troubled past, and the truth about her relationship with husband Felipe is revealed slowly as the film progresses. She has become involved with a sort of spiritual leader, and does not welcome the intrusion of her ‘friends’. Things take a turn for the violent, and a series of gruesome attacks occur (including a brutal rape, a man hoisted onto a meat hook and something involving a silver cocaine straw that still makes me a little queasy). Overall, the film was very enjoyable, though full of very bloody and graphic violence. RS and I were a little divided on our final verdict though. He felt the film was rather confusing, with too much left unexplained, whereas I thought it was one of those films that make the audience work a little harder than usual. We also couldn’t decide whether the ‘spiritual leader’ was a Wicker Man-type Pagan or a devil worshipper. Apparently it’s a very fine line…
As a side note, when we got back to our guesthouse, we just couldn’t resist the lure of the B-movies, and watched Omega Cop - crazy post-apocalyptic fun starring Adam West. About as different as you can get from Baby Shower!
Monday was the final day of the festival, and due a long drive home, we couldn’t stay for all the films. What we did see caused some strong feelings though…
The first screening was a selection of shorts by Elisabeth and Brenda Fies. Hard to Do was a comedy horror drawing heavily from Dexter. A man kidnaps his ex-girlfriend and therapist in order to terrorize them. There were some funny lines, but I was too distracted by numerous continuity gaffs (like disappearing tape and a missing drill bit). Scrutinize was based on an urban legend about a woman getting onto a train and seeing two men holding up an apparently unconscious girl; Faux showed a glamorous woman driving down Rodeo Drive, before returning to a slum apartment and removing all the artificial aids to her glamour (false nails, breasts, butt enhancements, eyelashes and wig). Finally, Scream Queen was a slasher-type horror, but with a ‘victim’ who pulls back at the last minute and begins criticizing the film in a brattish way – revealing that we are actually watching a film being shot. The entire selection was poor and fairly lacklustre, as well as being poorly made in places, and RS and I were left wondering why a whole session had been devoted to the work of these filmmakers (but more on that below).
Next was a screening of Joseph Maddrey’s Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film. As many readers will already be familiar with this documentary (or with Maddrey’s book on which it is based), I won’t say too much about it. Suffice to say, this is a fabulous survey of the genre, with insightful comments from influential filmmakers (John Carpenter and George A. Romero, particularly, won our hearts).
So, finally, our last selection of six shorts. Playthings: Hunt (Wade K. Savage) was a promotional short for a forthcoming feature film, in which two young women are hunted through the woods and must do some horrible things to survive. I really enjoyed this short – almost all the violence took place off-camera, and no explanations were offered, which worked really well. This was all about atmosphere, tension, and the audience’s own imagination, and was a great example of how to make a genuinely scary film on a small budget. Next, Juan Con Miedo [Fearful John] (Daniel Romero) was a Pan’s Labyrinth-inspired Spanish horror, in which two children - Maria and Juan - shelter from a storm and read an unsettling fairy tale in an apparently abandoned house. Stylish and creepy, this film’s debt to Guillermo del Toro was impossible to deny. Next, The Furred Man (Paul Williams) was a brilliant British (and very British) comedy horror about the interrogation of Max Naughton (a campsite owned who is, for the duration of the short, wearing a werewolf costume) for a series of brutal murders on his property. The hapless Max tells his story to two sceptical police officers, and the truth is finally revealed. This short was absolutely wonderful – funny, but with a good dash of horror, and all beautifully underplayed by Daniel Carter-Hope as Max. And after this gem, we had Sacrifice (sadly, I didn’t catch the name of the director and haven’t been able to find this film online). This was a stylish modern Gothic about a priest who hunts vampires. It didn’t do anything new plotwise, but was visually stunning.
Unfortunately, the next film really put a downer on the day for us. We’d seen the cast/crew promoting Attack of the Martian Mutant From Mars during the weekend, and from what we could see it was going to be a spoof B-movie. While this was, in a way, true, the film (which was hardly a ‘short’ at half an hour long) was a joke project by Neal Harvey of Rubber Gorilla Mask Making Studio. Shot in shaky black-and-white, and supposedly mimicking the bad acting and implausible plots of earlier monster movies, this film felt like a (bad) student film project. The humour was heavy-handed (mostly revolving around the vague use of the word ‘science’ and the fact that the main character smoked a pipe), and the filming amateurish. It massively missed the point of the B-movies that allegedly inspired it – however silly those films were, they always took themselves seriously. What really riled RS and me was the fact that this film featured the son of the festival director and, clearly, many of his friends. I was also shocked to see Elisabeth Fies (who I have mentioned above) appear, which explained why she and her sister were offered a full session of their own films earlier in the day. This was a piece of self-indulgent nonsense, which had no place at a serious horror film festival. As far as we could see, this was the festival directors letting their friends mess about on the big screen, which was a bit disrespectful to the serious filmmakers who had shown their films and, in some cases, travelled a long way to attend the festival.
Nevertheless, we had one final ‘real’ film on offer before we had to leave. Jonathan Martin’s An Evening With My Comatose Mother was a 33-minute Hallowe’en horror, giving a twist on the ‘terrorized babysitter’ movie. Dorothy is called in to look after the catatonic mother of Alice Poe… and bad things happen. The film was well-made, with some pretty creepy set pieces. In the Q and A afterwards, director Martin said that the film was made on a $10,000 budget, and this certainly showed in the production values. However, the premise and execution seemed a little dated – though maybe I’ve just seen too many babysitter horror films. Martin said he is planning a feature film, as the short has been well-received. It might not be the most original film ever, but I would definitely watch a feature-length Evening With My Comatose Mother, maybe on a dark and creepy Saturday night.
Final thoughts on the festival? I’m not sure it quite lived up to last year’s success. The focus on indie horror was good – though I did enjoy the classic movies in last year’s programme. But the organizers seemed to have different priorities this year. By taking over Hallowe’en weekend – meaning that the main events of the Whitby Goth Weekend were moved to the following week – the festival promoters were obviously trying to cash in on the number of Goths who flock to Whitby at Hallowe’en. For this reason, a number of non-film-related events threatened to overshadow the screenings, designed as they were to pull in cash-laden Goths instead of indie horror geeks. As noted, Monday’s programme was too self-indulgent for our tastes, and seemed to imply a lack of respect for the hardworking filmmakers who were showing their films.
This is a real shame, as the festival has the potential to be a great horror film festival. I mean… come on… horror films at Hallowe’en in Whitby, you shouldn’t be able to go wrong. And if we ignore the questionable choices on the final day, this year’s schedule was really good. I would love to see the festival return to showing a range of good quality indie horror, coupled with a few classics for balance. RS and I will definitely look forward to seeing what’s on offer in 2012.
Next year’s festival will take place on 25-28 October. For more details, visit the festival website.
You can see the awards given out by the festival here, but here are mine and RS’s ‘awards’:
Best Feature: Vampires (Vincent Lannoo)
Second Best Feature: Axed (Ryan Lee Driscoll)
Best Short: The Furred Man (Paul Williams)
You can see my review of Friday and Saturday at the festival here.
Review of the Bram Stoker International Film Festival (Friday & Saturday)
Whitby 29-31 October 2011
This is part one of a two-part review. You can see my review of Sunday and Monday here.
In October, my partner (RS) and I headed to Whitby for the Bram Stoker International Film Festival. The festival is an annual event, showcasing horror features, shorts and documentaries from around the globe. I attended last year’s festival, which featured a number of classic Hammer horror films alongside independent shorts and features. This year’s programme promised a greater focus on indie films, as well as a Vampire Ball, a couple of live performances and horror-themed stalls and merchandise. So… here’s what we thought…
We arrived in Whitby on Thursday and the festival started on Friday. RS hadn’t been to Whitby before, but I’ve been many times – I was a Gothy teenager, so it’s only to be expected. I mention this only to explain why we spent Friday morning wandering around the town, and didn’t arrive at the film festival itself until the 2.30pm screening. This was a duo of shorts, followed by a feature (all of which were allegedly premiering at the festival). First up was Zombiefication, a seven-minute short (available to watch on the YouTube). The film is a fairly fun little take on a safety instruction video, offering a guide to how to deal with a zombie outbreak in a movie theatre. Following this was the French short Cabine of the Dead (Vincent Templement). Again, this was a zombie outbreak film, with a man called Patrick trapped in a phone booth, trying desperately to call for help. The production values and acting were excellent, and the basic idea (though not completely original) was compelling.
However, this leads to my first criticism of the festival as a whole. In the course of writing this review, I happened to look up a few of the films online. I was a bit disappointed to find that the screening of Cabine of the Dead was far from being a premiere, as the short was shown at a number of other festivals prior to the Bram Stoker Festival. I suspect ‘premiere’ on the programme meant ‘UK premiere’, but it would have been better if this had been made clearer.
This session was finished off with the 2008 Chilean-American feature film Descendants – AKA Solos – directed by Jorge Olguin (again, not strictly a 'premiere'). This post-apocalyptic zombie infection movie told the story of Camille, a young girl born with an undefined genetic immunity to the ‘infection’ that is destroying humanity. Highlights included the good (and somewhat unsettling) portrayal of Camille and the development of the ‘beware of other survivors’ trope. However, the film was somewhat let down by a very odd ending involving a giant squid (which was almost entirely incomprehensible). Up to the final scene, though, RS and I thoroughly enjoyed Descendants.
The next screening was the undoubted highpoint of the festival for us. The Belgian ‘documentary’ Vampires (Vincent Lannoo) followed a family of vampires living in modern-day Belgium. George Saint-Germain, his wife Bertha and their ‘children’ Grace and Samson share their daily (or, rather, nightly) lives with a rather nervous film crew. The film was beautifully shot and acted, and very funny in places. Yet it was also creepy, sinister and, at times, really rather dark. This was without doubt our favourite film of the festival, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Next was a selection of short films, each retelling a story by Edgar Allen Poe. We had a black-and-white Spanish version of El Corazon Delator [The Telltale Heart], which had the feel of a much older horror film (which is not necessarily a bad thing). This was followed by The Raven, featuring a Professor Yaffle-like raven that was surprisingly sinister, then a ‘Ray Harryhausen Presents…’ retelling of The Pit and the Pendulum. Finally, we had a very dark animated version of Annabel Lee. We did disagree about which of these shorts were the best. RS preferred The Raven, in part because he has a real soft spot for this poem (and he did like the animatronic raven). But I loved Annabel Lee for its puppet Edgar Allen Poe (with nails in his eyes!) and the very creepy baby-doll angels. We were in complete agreement about The Pit and the Pendulum, though, which was a silly little short, missing most of Poe’s original story and with the feel of a kid’s cartoon rather than a horror short.
We decided to call it a night after the Poe shorts, and go for dinner. I do just want to add a word about the guesthouse we were staying in. Prospect House was clean, friendly and welcoming. But one of the highlights for us was the collection of DVDs available for guests to watch – particularly the superb selection of B-movie horror. As if we hadn’t got enough films to watch, we decided to end the night with Psycho Cop. Not exactly of the same quality as the films shown at the festival, but very, very funny.
On Saturday, we were also a bit rubbish at getting to the start of the screenings. Instead of heading straight to the festival, we spent the morning at Whitby Abbey – possibly one of my favourite places in the UK.
We got to the Pavilion at 3pm for Cassadaga (Anthony DiBlasi). This was a rather disjointed feature, telling the story of a deaf woman (Lily) who moves to Cassadaga (the ‘psychic capital of America’) following the death of her younger sister. Lily takes part in a séance, which leads to her being attacked by the ghost of a murdered woman. She decides to investigate the murder, which was apparently at the hands of a deranged psychopath attempting to build a woman-marionette. The problem with Cassadaga was that it appeared to be several different films sewn together. Lily’s story had the tone and plotting of a TV movie about coming to terms with grief; the séance storyline (complete with spiritual black woman in tribal-esque clothes) was more psychological thriller; the marionette killer felt more like Saw-inspired torture porn. Everything about these storylines was different – from the lighting and direction to the levels of violence and sexual reference. Lily’s story was by far the weakest, with way too much backstory (some of which didn’t go anywhere) and over-sentimentalization. Anyone who follows me or RS on Twitter might be aware of our recent Saw binge, so it should come as no surprised that we thought the strongest part of the film was the deranged puppet man. It’s a shame that these elements didn’t come together to create a coherent narrative.
No more films for Saturday, as we decided to go to the Vampire Ball (compered by the wonderful Rosie Lugosi).
You can read my review of Sunday and Monday here.
This is part one of a two-part review. You can see my review of Sunday and Monday here.
In October, my partner (RS) and I headed to Whitby for the Bram Stoker International Film Festival. The festival is an annual event, showcasing horror features, shorts and documentaries from around the globe. I attended last year’s festival, which featured a number of classic Hammer horror films alongside independent shorts and features. This year’s programme promised a greater focus on indie films, as well as a Vampire Ball, a couple of live performances and horror-themed stalls and merchandise. So… here’s what we thought…
We arrived in Whitby on Thursday and the festival started on Friday. RS hadn’t been to Whitby before, but I’ve been many times – I was a Gothy teenager, so it’s only to be expected. I mention this only to explain why we spent Friday morning wandering around the town, and didn’t arrive at the film festival itself until the 2.30pm screening. This was a duo of shorts, followed by a feature (all of which were allegedly premiering at the festival). First up was Zombiefication, a seven-minute short (available to watch on the YouTube). The film is a fairly fun little take on a safety instruction video, offering a guide to how to deal with a zombie outbreak in a movie theatre. Following this was the French short Cabine of the Dead (Vincent Templement). Again, this was a zombie outbreak film, with a man called Patrick trapped in a phone booth, trying desperately to call for help. The production values and acting were excellent, and the basic idea (though not completely original) was compelling.
However, this leads to my first criticism of the festival as a whole. In the course of writing this review, I happened to look up a few of the films online. I was a bit disappointed to find that the screening of Cabine of the Dead was far from being a premiere, as the short was shown at a number of other festivals prior to the Bram Stoker Festival. I suspect ‘premiere’ on the programme meant ‘UK premiere’, but it would have been better if this had been made clearer.
This session was finished off with the 2008 Chilean-American feature film Descendants – AKA Solos – directed by Jorge Olguin (again, not strictly a 'premiere'). This post-apocalyptic zombie infection movie told the story of Camille, a young girl born with an undefined genetic immunity to the ‘infection’ that is destroying humanity. Highlights included the good (and somewhat unsettling) portrayal of Camille and the development of the ‘beware of other survivors’ trope. However, the film was somewhat let down by a very odd ending involving a giant squid (which was almost entirely incomprehensible). Up to the final scene, though, RS and I thoroughly enjoyed Descendants.
The next screening was the undoubted highpoint of the festival for us. The Belgian ‘documentary’ Vampires (Vincent Lannoo) followed a family of vampires living in modern-day Belgium. George Saint-Germain, his wife Bertha and their ‘children’ Grace and Samson share their daily (or, rather, nightly) lives with a rather nervous film crew. The film was beautifully shot and acted, and very funny in places. Yet it was also creepy, sinister and, at times, really rather dark. This was without doubt our favourite film of the festival, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Next was a selection of short films, each retelling a story by Edgar Allen Poe. We had a black-and-white Spanish version of El Corazon Delator [The Telltale Heart], which had the feel of a much older horror film (which is not necessarily a bad thing). This was followed by The Raven, featuring a Professor Yaffle-like raven that was surprisingly sinister, then a ‘Ray Harryhausen Presents…’ retelling of The Pit and the Pendulum. Finally, we had a very dark animated version of Annabel Lee. We did disagree about which of these shorts were the best. RS preferred The Raven, in part because he has a real soft spot for this poem (and he did like the animatronic raven). But I loved Annabel Lee for its puppet Edgar Allen Poe (with nails in his eyes!) and the very creepy baby-doll angels. We were in complete agreement about The Pit and the Pendulum, though, which was a silly little short, missing most of Poe’s original story and with the feel of a kid’s cartoon rather than a horror short.
We decided to call it a night after the Poe shorts, and go for dinner. I do just want to add a word about the guesthouse we were staying in. Prospect House was clean, friendly and welcoming. But one of the highlights for us was the collection of DVDs available for guests to watch – particularly the superb selection of B-movie horror. As if we hadn’t got enough films to watch, we decided to end the night with Psycho Cop. Not exactly of the same quality as the films shown at the festival, but very, very funny.
On Saturday, we were also a bit rubbish at getting to the start of the screenings. Instead of heading straight to the festival, we spent the morning at Whitby Abbey – possibly one of my favourite places in the UK.
We got to the Pavilion at 3pm for Cassadaga (Anthony DiBlasi). This was a rather disjointed feature, telling the story of a deaf woman (Lily) who moves to Cassadaga (the ‘psychic capital of America’) following the death of her younger sister. Lily takes part in a séance, which leads to her being attacked by the ghost of a murdered woman. She decides to investigate the murder, which was apparently at the hands of a deranged psychopath attempting to build a woman-marionette. The problem with Cassadaga was that it appeared to be several different films sewn together. Lily’s story had the tone and plotting of a TV movie about coming to terms with grief; the séance storyline (complete with spiritual black woman in tribal-esque clothes) was more psychological thriller; the marionette killer felt more like Saw-inspired torture porn. Everything about these storylines was different – from the lighting and direction to the levels of violence and sexual reference. Lily’s story was by far the weakest, with way too much backstory (some of which didn’t go anywhere) and over-sentimentalization. Anyone who follows me or RS on Twitter might be aware of our recent Saw binge, so it should come as no surprised that we thought the strongest part of the film was the deranged puppet man. It’s a shame that these elements didn’t come together to create a coherent narrative.
No more films for Saturday, as we decided to go to the Vampire Ball (compered by the wonderful Rosie Lugosi).
You can read my review of Sunday and Monday here.
Saturday 12 November 2011
CFP: Current Research in Speculative Fictions 2012
Call for Papers
Monday 18th June 2012
University of Liverpool
Keynote Lectures from: Professor David Seed (University of Liverpool), Professor Fred Botting (Kingston University London)
Now in its second year, the CRSF is a one day postgraduate conference designed to promote the research of speculative fictions, including science fiction, fantasy and horror, showcasing some of the latest developments in these dynamic and evolving fields. Last year’s conference attracted an international selection of delegates and provided a platform for postgraduate students to present their current research, encouraging discussion with scholars in related subjects and the construction of crucial networks with fellow researchers, this year we are looking to continue these successes. The University of Liverpool is a leading centre for the study of speculative fiction, being home to the Science Fiction Foundation Collection, and is thus an ideal venue for fostering the next generation of scholars of the fantastic.
We are seeking abstracts relating to speculative fiction, including, but not limited to, papers on the following topics:
•Alternate History •Apocalypse •Body Horror •Eco-criticism •Gaming •(Geo) Politics •Genre •Gender and Sexuality •Graphic Novels •The Grotesque •The Heroic Tradition •Liminal Fantasy •Magic •Meta-Franchises •Morality •Monstrosity •Music and SF •Non-Anglophone SF •Otherness •The Pastoral •Politics •Post-Colonialism and Empire •Proto-SF •Quests •Realism •Slipstream •Spiritualism •Steampunk •The Supernatural •Technology •TV and Film •Psychology and Consciousness •Urban Fantasy •Utopia/Dystopia •(Virtual) Spaces and Environments •Weird Fiction •World Building •Young Adult Fiction.
Please submit an abstract of 300 words for a 20 minute paper and a 100 word biography to the conference convenors by 23rd March 2012.
For further information, email the conference team or visit the website.
Monday 18th June 2012
University of Liverpool
Keynote Lectures from: Professor David Seed (University of Liverpool), Professor Fred Botting (Kingston University London)
Now in its second year, the CRSF is a one day postgraduate conference designed to promote the research of speculative fictions, including science fiction, fantasy and horror, showcasing some of the latest developments in these dynamic and evolving fields. Last year’s conference attracted an international selection of delegates and provided a platform for postgraduate students to present their current research, encouraging discussion with scholars in related subjects and the construction of crucial networks with fellow researchers, this year we are looking to continue these successes. The University of Liverpool is a leading centre for the study of speculative fiction, being home to the Science Fiction Foundation Collection, and is thus an ideal venue for fostering the next generation of scholars of the fantastic.
We are seeking abstracts relating to speculative fiction, including, but not limited to, papers on the following topics:
•Alternate History •Apocalypse •Body Horror •Eco-criticism •Gaming •(Geo) Politics •Genre •Gender and Sexuality •Graphic Novels •The Grotesque •The Heroic Tradition •Liminal Fantasy •Magic •Meta-Franchises •Morality •Monstrosity •Music and SF •Non-Anglophone SF •Otherness •The Pastoral •Politics •Post-Colonialism and Empire •Proto-SF •Quests •Realism •Slipstream •Spiritualism •Steampunk •The Supernatural •Technology •TV and Film •Psychology and Consciousness •Urban Fantasy •Utopia/Dystopia •(Virtual) Spaces and Environments •Weird Fiction •World Building •Young Adult Fiction.
Please submit an abstract of 300 words for a 20 minute paper and a 100 word biography to the conference convenors by 23rd March 2012.
For further information, email the conference team or visit the website.
Sunday 23 October 2011
Welcome to the Medieval Carnival!
It's my pleasure to host this month’s edition of Carnivalesque, showcasing the best in recent blogging on ancient and medieval history.
However, I’m actually going to start with some stories from prehistory. Something really rather 'ancient', is this piece on Quigley’s Cabinet about artefacts discovered in South Africa that point to the existence of a 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop. The History Blog discusses human-inflicted wounds on a 13,800-year-old mastodon skeleton, which prove that 'American hunting is 800 years older than we thought'. And something quite close to my ginger heart, The Ancient Standard tells us that the gene responsible for red hair and freckles may have been found in Neanderthals living 100,000 years ago in Europe.
Stonehenge Thoughts offers a story about a new full geological map of the UK the British Geological Survey, and how this might be of use to those interested in the 'bluestone quarry' at Rhosyfelin and the mystery of the Stonehenge bluestones.
Moving into the early Middle Ages, at Medieval History Geek, Curt Emanuel reviews Nicholas Everett’s Literacy in Lombard Italy, c. 568-774 and Michelle Ziegler discusses childhood illness and mortality in early medieval Ireland, in 'The Mortality of Children, Ireland 683-685' at Heavenfield. 'Even the Bishop of Girona doesn’t always win' writes Jonathan Jarrett at A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe. And what's this? The Staffordshire Hoard blog looks for suggestions and explanations of their 'mystery object'.
A story that has captured the attention of history bloggers this month was the 945th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. Again, this appears on numerous blogs and websites, including the Ordnance Survey blog, Mr Brame’s Blog, Kaye Jones and E.C. Ambrose. The Historical Novel Society asks nine authors to post on the anniversary on their own sites, and collects the posts on the HNS blog.
And another piece of medieval news this month is the research done into the discovery of the UK's first fully intact Viking burial site in Scotland, discussed on Medieval News. I'm glad I can mention this story, as the co-director of the project, Dr. Hannah Cobb, is an archaeology teaching fellow at the University of Manchester (my own institution).
Perhaps one of the most popular 'medieval' stories of the past month has been the reconstruction of the 'Black Death genome', using DNA samples taken from a fourteenth-century plague pit in East Smithfield, London. I won't list all the blogs that pick up the story, as there are many, but among them are Contagions, nature.com and MIT's technology review. For Francophone readers, the story also appears on Docbuzz.
Elsewhere, King's College London's Henry III Fine Rolls project offers a week in the life of Henry III: Sunday 16 October to Saturday 25 October 1261. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art blogs about rose hips and their significance in medieval seasonal celebrations at The Medieval Garden Enclosed. And at In the Middle, Karl Steel writes about the Canarian's Ship of Fools.
The British Museum's fabulous Treasures of Heaven Exhibition came to a close on October 9th. Over on the museum’s blog, metalworker Jamie Hall discusses medieval metalwork. The 8th October was the anniversary of the execution (or lynching?) of Cola di Rienzi (killed in Rome in 1354). ExecutedToday marks the date with Rienzi's story.
On Esmeralda’s Cumbrian History & Folklore, Diane McIlmoyle introduces us to the Cappel: Cumbria’s 'spooky black dog'. Haligweorc offers a piece by Derek Olsen on liturgical naming: 'Naming Spiritual Communities in the Sarum Rite'. And there's an introduction to medieval superstitions about revenants at Pure Medievalry.
Finally, although it's not a blog (and a little older than strictly appropriate for this Carnival), I thought this Flickr collection was worth a mention. Juliana Lees has been collecting images of pre-1200 Eastern textiles found in Western churches and cathedrals, with a particular interest in Silk Road influences.
Hope you enjoyed this tour of ancient and medieval blogging. If I've missed anything, leave a comment and let me know. Next month's Carnivalesque will be an early modern edition, hosted by Anchora.
However, I’m actually going to start with some stories from prehistory. Something really rather 'ancient', is this piece on Quigley’s Cabinet about artefacts discovered in South Africa that point to the existence of a 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop. The History Blog discusses human-inflicted wounds on a 13,800-year-old mastodon skeleton, which prove that 'American hunting is 800 years older than we thought'. And something quite close to my ginger heart, The Ancient Standard tells us that the gene responsible for red hair and freckles may have been found in Neanderthals living 100,000 years ago in Europe.Stonehenge Thoughts offers a story about a new full geological map of the UK the British Geological Survey, and how this might be of use to those interested in the 'bluestone quarry' at Rhosyfelin and the mystery of the Stonehenge bluestones.
Moving into the early Middle Ages, at Medieval History Geek, Curt Emanuel reviews Nicholas Everett’s Literacy in Lombard Italy, c. 568-774 and Michelle Ziegler discusses childhood illness and mortality in early medieval Ireland, in 'The Mortality of Children, Ireland 683-685' at Heavenfield. 'Even the Bishop of Girona doesn’t always win' writes Jonathan Jarrett at A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe. And what's this? The Staffordshire Hoard blog looks for suggestions and explanations of their 'mystery object'.
A story that has captured the attention of history bloggers this month was the 945th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. Again, this appears on numerous blogs and websites, including the Ordnance Survey blog, Mr Brame’s Blog, Kaye Jones and E.C. Ambrose. The Historical Novel Society asks nine authors to post on the anniversary on their own sites, and collects the posts on the HNS blog.
And another piece of medieval news this month is the research done into the discovery of the UK's first fully intact Viking burial site in Scotland, discussed on Medieval News. I'm glad I can mention this story, as the co-director of the project, Dr. Hannah Cobb, is an archaeology teaching fellow at the University of Manchester (my own institution).
Perhaps one of the most popular 'medieval' stories of the past month has been the reconstruction of the 'Black Death genome', using DNA samples taken from a fourteenth-century plague pit in East Smithfield, London. I won't list all the blogs that pick up the story, as there are many, but among them are Contagions, nature.com and MIT's technology review. For Francophone readers, the story also appears on Docbuzz.Elsewhere, King's College London's Henry III Fine Rolls project offers a week in the life of Henry III: Sunday 16 October to Saturday 25 October 1261. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art blogs about rose hips and their significance in medieval seasonal celebrations at The Medieval Garden Enclosed. And at In the Middle, Karl Steel writes about the Canarian's Ship of Fools.
The British Museum's fabulous Treasures of Heaven Exhibition came to a close on October 9th. Over on the museum’s blog, metalworker Jamie Hall discusses medieval metalwork. The 8th October was the anniversary of the execution (or lynching?) of Cola di Rienzi (killed in Rome in 1354). ExecutedToday marks the date with Rienzi's story.
On Esmeralda’s Cumbrian History & Folklore, Diane McIlmoyle introduces us to the Cappel: Cumbria’s 'spooky black dog'. Haligweorc offers a piece by Derek Olsen on liturgical naming: 'Naming Spiritual Communities in the Sarum Rite'. And there's an introduction to medieval superstitions about revenants at Pure Medievalry.
Finally, although it's not a blog (and a little older than strictly appropriate for this Carnival), I thought this Flickr collection was worth a mention. Juliana Lees has been collecting images of pre-1200 Eastern textiles found in Western churches and cathedrals, with a particular interest in Silk Road influences.
Hope you enjoyed this tour of ancient and medieval blogging. If I've missed anything, leave a comment and let me know. Next month's Carnivalesque will be an early modern edition, hosted by Anchora.
Friday 21 October 2011
VOTE NOW! Who's Your Favourite Female Werewolf?
Since this blog was originally intended to focus on female werewolves in popular culture, I thought it would be good to devote a whole post to our favourite she-wolves.
A little poll is in order, I think. Who is your favourite female werewolf of all time? Have a read through the nominations, and cast your vote (or nominate your own) in the comments.
1. Kelsey 'Boobs' Bornstein (in 'Boobs' by Suzy McKee Charnas)
Nominated by K.A Laity, academic, novelist and short story writer, author of Unikirja and Pelzmantel
"It's really hard to choose: I love the Ginger Snaps films and shaking my booty to Shakira's 'She Wolf' but I have to say I have a real fondness for Suzy McKee Charnas' 'Boobs' which I was lucky enough to experience the author herself reading once. 'Boobs' Bornstein is a developing teen whose developments get unwanted notice from a local bully. The trauma of her first period, despite the well-meaning kindness of her stepmother, seems poised to make adolescence a living hell - until another transformation occurs. I think what I like best about Charnas' story is the self-assurance Bornstein gains when she understands how powerful she really is - and not just because she becomes a wolf."
2. Sergeant Angua (in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series)
Nominated by Kirsty Buchanan, English student and Pratchett fan
"
Delphine Angua von Uberwald, daughter of the Baron and Baroness of Uberwald and sister of Wolfgang, Elsa and Andrei, is a Captain of the Ankh Morpork City Watch. She frequently outwits both criminals and fellow watch members, and often uses her werewolf nature to solve crimes and apprehend perpetrators. Despite being entirely independent and single minded in her work she is at times conflicted about her position within the city as a whole and in particular in her relationship with the naïve Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson (who happens to be the true heir to the throne). She frequently puts herself in danger to help others both in wolf and female human form. However she is all too aware that in human form, people only see the wolf in her and while in wolf form 'people' only see the human in her. Angua exhibits loyalty to the Watch above all, stating after she's been kidnapped and Carrot fails to make chase immediately that 'personal is not the same as important'. Pratchett plays with this example of inequality in relationships and exploits the sense of loyalty felt by her wolf side to make his point. Angua states plainly in Jingo that there’s a name for wolves who live with humans, and that name is 'dog'. Angua is a many layered female werewolf who frequently forces us to examine the extent of prejudice in society, our perceptions of others and the relative value of loyalty in relationships."
3. 'Wolfgirl' (in The Company of Wolves)
Nominated by Steve Rouse, writer, learning and development trainer and stalwart of Manchester's longstanding creative writing workshop, the Monday Night Group
"A werewolf that's always stayed in my mind is the 'Wolfgirl' from Neil
Jordan’s 1984 film, The Company of Wolves. I think what appeals is the tenderness with which she’s treated in the film. She emerges as a she-wolf from the underworld, is shot by a villager, then treated kindly by a priest who tends her wound; and returns to the underworld thereafter. She is a very non-aggressive werewolf, who becomes both victim and beneficiary during her brief visit to the human (male?) world. It’s a very short passage in the film (4 minutes or so) but neatly seems to summarise our nervous and contradictory relationship to the 'wild' (the Wolf Girl reminds me of so-called 'wild children' such as Kaspar Hauser) - fascinated, repelled, afraid in equal measure. And, of course, there's the whole Freudian/feminist underpinning of Company of Wolves, with its (hardly) sub-text of sexual awakening, the 'otherness' of the female, etc. The Wolf Girl was played by Danielle Dax, an experimental musician and producer."
4. Nina (in Being Human)
Nominated by Rob Shedwick, musician and songwriter with Th3 M1ss1ing and Digital Front
"My girlfriend is a big fan of Being Human (the television series, not the general state of being a human), and after explaining the premise to me of a vampire, werewolf, and ghost living together I was intrigued - soon to be marginally obsessed, insisting that we watch the first three series virtually back-to-back. My allegiance quite quickly fell on the side of George and his girlfriend Nina, mainly because of their relationship as werewolves. I can't lie, George's gnome wallpaper was also a factor. Nina initially has a fairly tough exterior, probably as a result of an abusive childhood. She hints at this when she reveals scars on her stomach, in an attempt to show George she also has secrets and to get him to open up about his own problems. Eventually she does discover what he's been hiding, unfortunately during his transformation, and he accidentally scratches her - sharing his werewolf curse. What I particularly like about Nina as a werewolf is the complication of her becoming pregnant, and the concerns and fears that brings about for her - much like any mother during her first pregnancy, she is afraid of the unknown. But, unlike most first-time parents, she has additional concerns like whether the baby will survive her transformation process each month, and whether or not the child will be a werewolf. As the foetus is developing at twice the normal rate (by the end of Series 3), I'd say there's a fairly good chance that it will be. I'm looking forward to the upcoming fourth series and the further development of Nina’s character."
5. Kitty Norville (in Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville books)
Nominated by Carys Crossen, PhD candidate and werewolf scholar
"First of all, who could resist a werewolf named Kitty? (The name
came first, apparently). But it takes a lot more than a gimmick to produce a truly memorable female werewolf, and Kitty delivers. Vaughn's fast-thinking, fast-talking heroine is a radio DJ with a nice line in sarcasm and a penchant for trouble. Vaughn’s series charts Kitty's development from the lowest-ranking member of a dysfunctional pack to becoming the alpha of her group of werewolves, a celebrity and expert in paranormal phenomena, providing plenty of angst, adventure and one-liners along the way. Kitty herself is a refreshing change of pace – she doesn't waste time agonising over whether lycanthropy has turned her into a monster, instead choosing to spend her time fighting the good fight and playing good music to her multitude of fans."
6. Brigitte Fitzgerald (in Ginger Snaps: Unleashed)
Nominated by Andrew Quinton, writer and creator of Werewolf News
"The Ginger Snaps films are fantastic, but they're also poorly named, and I'm not talking about the tiresome pun. Granted, each film features a protagonist named Ginger whose behaviour (poor Sam, poor Fort Bailey) could be attributed to a mental 'snap', but I don't feel the films were really about her. Despite her metamorphoses she doesn't change much throughout the series – she's not even alive in Ginger Snaps 2 – and when she does act to drive the story forward, the catalyst tends to be bestial instinct rather than the growth of her character. No, despite what their titles imply, I think the Ginger Snaps films are really about Ginger's younger sister Brigitte. Pale, meek, unsmiling, forever trapped in the shadow (or haunted by the shade) of her older sister, she's constantly forced to be the strong one, to think for them both, to make all the sacrifices and bear all the consequences. In the first film, Ginger Snaps, Brigitte watches helplessly as her sister and best friend turns into a monster. While Ginger reacts to her changes first with denial and then with petulant hostility, Brigitte doesn't have the luxury of such emotional indulgences. She's forced to act as her monster -sister's caretaker – first researching the affliction, then helping develop the cure, and eventually cleaning up the carnage left by an increasingly monstrous Ginger. When her efforts fail, Brigitte's final appeal to her sister is made not with reason but with blood, and ultimately even that sacrifice is in vain. Brigitte's connection to the life she knows is irrevocably broken, and she doesn't even have the comfort of her sister's companionship to soften the blow. Yet when we meet Brigitte at the start of the second film, it's clear that while she might mourn the life she left behind, she's determined to move forward, resolute and unflinching in the faces of her ghosts. Brigitte is easily my favourite female werewolf, not because of who or what she is but what she does. Ignore her incipient lycanthropy and she’s still the character who changes the most throughout the Ginger Snaps series, endures the worst hardships, and still manages to embody some of the very finest human qualities."
7. White Fell (in Clemence Housman's The Were-Wolf)
Nominated by Carys Crossen
"Heard of Clemence Housman? No? Unsurprising – Housman has been overshadowed for decades by her more well-known brothers, poet Alfred Edward (A. E. Housman) and suffrage campaigner Laurence. This also means, sadly, that her werewolf White Fell, who is one of the central characters of her novella The Were-Wolf, has also largely fallen into undeserved obscurity. It's undeserved because White Fell is beautiful, dangerous, and deadly, and is a refreshing contrast to the rather goody-goody hero who serves as her main opponent. More than this, White Fell is arguably one of the earliest instances in which a female author has written about a female werewolf and used the figure of the werewolf to express 'the complex and antagonistic forces that constitute one soul'. Although not famous enough to be termed ground-breaking, the character of White Fell marks a significant development in the portrayal of female werewolves in literature – the moment when women authors began to utilise the figure of the female werewolf to express feminine concerns and anxieties."
8. Leah Clearwater (in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series)
Nominated by Hannah Kate, writer, blogger and editor for Hic Dragones
"Okay, this is a somewhat controversial choice. And I would like to make it clear that I am definitively NOT a Twilight fan. I really did not enjoy the books. However, I am absolutely fascinated by the character of Leah Clearwater - the only (and unexpected) female werewolf in Meyer's books. Leah gets no choice about whether or not she gets to be a werewolf. But lycanthropy is not a curse for her - it's a sacred duty. The problem is, until Leah, this sacred duty has been reserved for strictly men only. As soon as she transforms, her outsider status is secured. The other male werewolves are horrified by the prospect of this young woman sharing their 'pack mind'. What makes the presentation of Leah so compelling is the utter cruelty of her situation. She is forced to share her entire psyche with a group of young, testosterone-fuelled men, including her ex-boyfriend who has now 'imprinted' on her cousin. Her physical development is halted (Meyer has said in interviews that she imagined the werewolf state halted Leah's menstrual cycle) and she does not know whether or not she will be able to bear children. At the end of Breaking Dawn, when every single other character is paired off for a 'happy ending', Leah is left completely on her own. How does our teenage werewolf handle this cruel life she is forced into? With bitterness, anger and angst. No lying down and losing a few months like Bella... Leah complains, grumbles and torments her male 'pack'. This is what I love about her. Who says the best female werewolves have to be brave, noble, self-sacrificing and loyal? It's an angsty and aggressive, pained and petulant anti-heroine for me every time."
Voting is now closed. View the results here!
A little poll is in order, I think. Who is your favourite female werewolf of all time? Have a read through the nominations, and cast your vote (or nominate your own) in the comments.
1. Kelsey 'Boobs' Bornstein (in 'Boobs' by Suzy McKee Charnas)
Nominated by K.A Laity, academic, novelist and short story writer, author of Unikirja and Pelzmantel
"It's really hard to choose: I love the Ginger Snaps films and shaking my booty to Shakira's 'She Wolf' but I have to say I have a real fondness for Suzy McKee Charnas' 'Boobs' which I was lucky enough to experience the author herself reading once. 'Boobs' Bornstein is a developing teen whose developments get unwanted notice from a local bully. The trauma of her first period, despite the well-meaning kindness of her stepmother, seems poised to make adolescence a living hell - until another transformation occurs. I think what I like best about Charnas' story is the self-assurance Bornstein gains when she understands how powerful she really is - and not just because she becomes a wolf."
2. Sergeant Angua (in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series)
Nominated by Kirsty Buchanan, English student and Pratchett fan
"
Delphine Angua von Uberwald, daughter of the Baron and Baroness of Uberwald and sister of Wolfgang, Elsa and Andrei, is a Captain of the Ankh Morpork City Watch. She frequently outwits both criminals and fellow watch members, and often uses her werewolf nature to solve crimes and apprehend perpetrators. Despite being entirely independent and single minded in her work she is at times conflicted about her position within the city as a whole and in particular in her relationship with the naïve Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson (who happens to be the true heir to the throne). She frequently puts herself in danger to help others both in wolf and female human form. However she is all too aware that in human form, people only see the wolf in her and while in wolf form 'people' only see the human in her. Angua exhibits loyalty to the Watch above all, stating after she's been kidnapped and Carrot fails to make chase immediately that 'personal is not the same as important'. Pratchett plays with this example of inequality in relationships and exploits the sense of loyalty felt by her wolf side to make his point. Angua states plainly in Jingo that there’s a name for wolves who live with humans, and that name is 'dog'. Angua is a many layered female werewolf who frequently forces us to examine the extent of prejudice in society, our perceptions of others and the relative value of loyalty in relationships."3. 'Wolfgirl' (in The Company of Wolves)
Nominated by Steve Rouse, writer, learning and development trainer and stalwart of Manchester's longstanding creative writing workshop, the Monday Night Group
"A werewolf that's always stayed in my mind is the 'Wolfgirl' from Neil
Jordan’s 1984 film, The Company of Wolves. I think what appeals is the tenderness with which she’s treated in the film. She emerges as a she-wolf from the underworld, is shot by a villager, then treated kindly by a priest who tends her wound; and returns to the underworld thereafter. She is a very non-aggressive werewolf, who becomes both victim and beneficiary during her brief visit to the human (male?) world. It’s a very short passage in the film (4 minutes or so) but neatly seems to summarise our nervous and contradictory relationship to the 'wild' (the Wolf Girl reminds me of so-called 'wild children' such as Kaspar Hauser) - fascinated, repelled, afraid in equal measure. And, of course, there's the whole Freudian/feminist underpinning of Company of Wolves, with its (hardly) sub-text of sexual awakening, the 'otherness' of the female, etc. The Wolf Girl was played by Danielle Dax, an experimental musician and producer."4. Nina (in Being Human)
Nominated by Rob Shedwick, musician and songwriter with Th3 M1ss1ing and Digital Front
"My girlfriend is a big fan of Being Human (the television series, not the general state of being a human), and after explaining the premise to me of a vampire, werewolf, and ghost living together I was intrigued - soon to be marginally obsessed, insisting that we watch the first three series virtually back-to-back. My allegiance quite quickly fell on the side of George and his girlfriend Nina, mainly because of their relationship as werewolves. I can't lie, George's gnome wallpaper was also a factor. Nina initially has a fairly tough exterior, probably as a result of an abusive childhood. She hints at this when she reveals scars on her stomach, in an attempt to show George she also has secrets and to get him to open up about his own problems. Eventually she does discover what he's been hiding, unfortunately during his transformation, and he accidentally scratches her - sharing his werewolf curse. What I particularly like about Nina as a werewolf is the complication of her becoming pregnant, and the concerns and fears that brings about for her - much like any mother during her first pregnancy, she is afraid of the unknown. But, unlike most first-time parents, she has additional concerns like whether the baby will survive her transformation process each month, and whether or not the child will be a werewolf. As the foetus is developing at twice the normal rate (by the end of Series 3), I'd say there's a fairly good chance that it will be. I'm looking forward to the upcoming fourth series and the further development of Nina’s character."5. Kitty Norville (in Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville books)
Nominated by Carys Crossen, PhD candidate and werewolf scholar
"First of all, who could resist a werewolf named Kitty? (The name
came first, apparently). But it takes a lot more than a gimmick to produce a truly memorable female werewolf, and Kitty delivers. Vaughn's fast-thinking, fast-talking heroine is a radio DJ with a nice line in sarcasm and a penchant for trouble. Vaughn’s series charts Kitty's development from the lowest-ranking member of a dysfunctional pack to becoming the alpha of her group of werewolves, a celebrity and expert in paranormal phenomena, providing plenty of angst, adventure and one-liners along the way. Kitty herself is a refreshing change of pace – she doesn't waste time agonising over whether lycanthropy has turned her into a monster, instead choosing to spend her time fighting the good fight and playing good music to her multitude of fans."6. Brigitte Fitzgerald (in Ginger Snaps: Unleashed)
Nominated by Andrew Quinton, writer and creator of Werewolf News
"The Ginger Snaps films are fantastic, but they're also poorly named, and I'm not talking about the tiresome pun. Granted, each film features a protagonist named Ginger whose behaviour (poor Sam, poor Fort Bailey) could be attributed to a mental 'snap', but I don't feel the films were really about her. Despite her metamorphoses she doesn't change much throughout the series – she's not even alive in Ginger Snaps 2 – and when she does act to drive the story forward, the catalyst tends to be bestial instinct rather than the growth of her character. No, despite what their titles imply, I think the Ginger Snaps films are really about Ginger's younger sister Brigitte. Pale, meek, unsmiling, forever trapped in the shadow (or haunted by the shade) of her older sister, she's constantly forced to be the strong one, to think for them both, to make all the sacrifices and bear all the consequences. In the first film, Ginger Snaps, Brigitte watches helplessly as her sister and best friend turns into a monster. While Ginger reacts to her changes first with denial and then with petulant hostility, Brigitte doesn't have the luxury of such emotional indulgences. She's forced to act as her monster -sister's caretaker – first researching the affliction, then helping develop the cure, and eventually cleaning up the carnage left by an increasingly monstrous Ginger. When her efforts fail, Brigitte's final appeal to her sister is made not with reason but with blood, and ultimately even that sacrifice is in vain. Brigitte's connection to the life she knows is irrevocably broken, and she doesn't even have the comfort of her sister's companionship to soften the blow. Yet when we meet Brigitte at the start of the second film, it's clear that while she might mourn the life she left behind, she's determined to move forward, resolute and unflinching in the faces of her ghosts. Brigitte is easily my favourite female werewolf, not because of who or what she is but what she does. Ignore her incipient lycanthropy and she’s still the character who changes the most throughout the Ginger Snaps series, endures the worst hardships, and still manages to embody some of the very finest human qualities."
7. White Fell (in Clemence Housman's The Were-Wolf)
Nominated by Carys Crossen
"Heard of Clemence Housman? No? Unsurprising – Housman has been overshadowed for decades by her more well-known brothers, poet Alfred Edward (A. E. Housman) and suffrage campaigner Laurence. This also means, sadly, that her werewolf White Fell, who is one of the central characters of her novella The Were-Wolf, has also largely fallen into undeserved obscurity. It's undeserved because White Fell is beautiful, dangerous, and deadly, and is a refreshing contrast to the rather goody-goody hero who serves as her main opponent. More than this, White Fell is arguably one of the earliest instances in which a female author has written about a female werewolf and used the figure of the werewolf to express 'the complex and antagonistic forces that constitute one soul'. Although not famous enough to be termed ground-breaking, the character of White Fell marks a significant development in the portrayal of female werewolves in literature – the moment when women authors began to utilise the figure of the female werewolf to express feminine concerns and anxieties."
8. Leah Clearwater (in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series)
Nominated by Hannah Kate, writer, blogger and editor for Hic Dragones
"Okay, this is a somewhat controversial choice. And I would like to make it clear that I am definitively NOT a Twilight fan. I really did not enjoy the books. However, I am absolutely fascinated by the character of Leah Clearwater - the only (and unexpected) female werewolf in Meyer's books. Leah gets no choice about whether or not she gets to be a werewolf. But lycanthropy is not a curse for her - it's a sacred duty. The problem is, until Leah, this sacred duty has been reserved for strictly men only. As soon as she transforms, her outsider status is secured. The other male werewolves are horrified by the prospect of this young woman sharing their 'pack mind'. What makes the presentation of Leah so compelling is the utter cruelty of her situation. She is forced to share her entire psyche with a group of young, testosterone-fuelled men, including her ex-boyfriend who has now 'imprinted' on her cousin. Her physical development is halted (Meyer has said in interviews that she imagined the werewolf state halted Leah's menstrual cycle) and she does not know whether or not she will be able to bear children. At the end of Breaking Dawn, when every single other character is paired off for a 'happy ending', Leah is left completely on her own. How does our teenage werewolf handle this cruel life she is forced into? With bitterness, anger and angst. No lying down and losing a few months like Bella... Leah complains, grumbles and torments her male 'pack'. This is what I love about her. Who says the best female werewolves have to be brave, noble, self-sacrificing and loyal? It's an angsty and aggressive, pained and petulant anti-heroine for me every time."Voting is now closed. View the results here!
CFP: MANCASS Postgraduate Conference: Domestic Life and Lifestyle
Manchester Anglo-Saxon Society Post Graduate Student Conference
John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, UK
March 5-6, 2012
Domestic Life and Lifestyle
What did the simple folk do? We are looking for papers on the average daily life of Anglo-Saxon people. Topics may include, but are certainly not limited to textiles, making of pottery, domestic architecture, farming, animal husbandry, wood carving, cooking, glass making, and metal working. If your topic is secular and related to the Anglo-Saxon world, it will be considered. Send abstracts to Christina Petty by 1 Jan 2012.
John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, UK
March 5-6, 2012
Domestic Life and Lifestyle
What did the simple folk do? We are looking for papers on the average daily life of Anglo-Saxon people. Topics may include, but are certainly not limited to textiles, making of pottery, domestic architecture, farming, animal husbandry, wood carving, cooking, glass making, and metal working. If your topic is secular and related to the Anglo-Saxon world, it will be considered. Send abstracts to Christina Petty by 1 Jan 2012.
Friday 14 October 2011
Further Adventures in Wonderland: The Afterlife of Alice
Registration is now open for the Hic Dragones Further Adventures in Wonderland: The Afterlife of Alice conference. See here for more details.
This one-day inter-disciplinary conference in Manchester, UK, explores the influence, interpretation and representation of Alice in Wonderland in contemporary popular culture. Dress and style, music and film - Alice is out of the rabbit hole and into our collective psyche. This conference seeks to address the perennial popularity of Lewis Carroll's creation, and to explore her most recent incarnations.
Venue: The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester
Date: Thursday 1st December 2011
Programme:
9.30-10.00 Registration
10.00-11.00 Plenary Paper
Dr. Will Brooker (Kingston University): The Further Adventures of Alice
11.00-11.30 Coffee
11.30-1.00 Panel 1: Adaptation and Literature
Laura-Jane Maher (Monash University): Taking Liberties: Adaptation and Transmedia Narrative in Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars
Hannah Priest (University of Manchester): Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Whimsy: Genre Definition and Jeff Noon’s The Automated Alice
Deidre Flynn (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick): Adventures in the Postmodern Wonderland
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-4.00 Panel 2: Performing Alice
Michael Goddard (University of Salford): Alice in Radioland: Radio Alice and the Movement of 77 Through the Looking Glass
Justine Houyaux and Neil Elliott Beisson (UMONS, Belgium): Waltz in Wonderland – Tom Waits and Alice
Guilia Sandelewski (Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham): Behind Bars and yet in Wonderland – Alice Refracts Hamlet, Reflects Italy’s Fractured Identity
Alexander Sergeant (King’s College London): Twas Brillig! Nonsense, Play and Inconsequentiality in Paramount’s Alice in Wonderland (1933)
4.00-4.30 Coffee
4.30-6.00 Panel 3: Alice at Play
David Allen (Midland Actors Theatre): Alice In Wonderland – The Disneyland Dark Ride
Franziska Kohlt (University of Sheffield): Into the X-Box and what Alice Found There: American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns
Jennifer Hardy Williams (Calvin College): Alice Meets Lolita: Quinrose’s Alice in the Country of Hearts
To register, visit the website or email the conference convenors.
This one-day inter-disciplinary conference in Manchester, UK, explores the influence, interpretation and representation of Alice in Wonderland in contemporary popular culture. Dress and style, music and film - Alice is out of the rabbit hole and into our collective psyche. This conference seeks to address the perennial popularity of Lewis Carroll's creation, and to explore her most recent incarnations.
Venue: The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester
Date: Thursday 1st December 2011
Programme:
9.30-10.00 Registration
10.00-11.00 Plenary Paper
Dr. Will Brooker (Kingston University): The Further Adventures of Alice
11.00-11.30 Coffee
11.30-1.00 Panel 1: Adaptation and Literature
Laura-Jane Maher (Monash University): Taking Liberties: Adaptation and Transmedia Narrative in Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars
Hannah Priest (University of Manchester): Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Whimsy: Genre Definition and Jeff Noon’s The Automated Alice
Deidre Flynn (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick): Adventures in the Postmodern Wonderland
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-4.00 Panel 2: Performing Alice
Michael Goddard (University of Salford): Alice in Radioland: Radio Alice and the Movement of 77 Through the Looking Glass
Justine Houyaux and Neil Elliott Beisson (UMONS, Belgium): Waltz in Wonderland – Tom Waits and Alice
Guilia Sandelewski (Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham): Behind Bars and yet in Wonderland – Alice Refracts Hamlet, Reflects Italy’s Fractured Identity
Alexander Sergeant (King’s College London): Twas Brillig! Nonsense, Play and Inconsequentiality in Paramount’s Alice in Wonderland (1933)
4.00-4.30 Coffee
4.30-6.00 Panel 3: Alice at Play
David Allen (Midland Actors Theatre): Alice In Wonderland – The Disneyland Dark Ride
Franziska Kohlt (University of Sheffield): Into the X-Box and what Alice Found There: American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns
Jennifer Hardy Williams (Calvin College): Alice Meets Lolita: Quinrose’s Alice in the Country of Hearts
To register, visit the website or email the conference convenors.
CFP: 4th Global Conference: Videogame Culture and the Future of Interactive Entertainment
Wednesday 11th July 2012 – Friday 13th July 2012
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Papers:
This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to examine, explore and critically engage with the issues and implications created by the mass use of computers and videogames for human entertainment and focus on the impact of innovative videogame titles and interfaces for human communication and ludic culture. In particular the conference will encourage equally theoretical and practical debates which surround the cultural contexts within which videogames flourish.
Papers, presentations, workshops and reports are invited on any of the following themes:
1. Videogames and Gaming
- Theories and Concepts of Gaming.
- Identifying Key Features and Issues.
- Videogames as Text. Videogames as Interactive Image.
- Multidisciplinary Approaches to Videogame Analysis.
- Film, Literary, Art Studies and Cultural Studies Approaches to the Analysis of Videogames.
2. Videogame Cultures
- Emerging Practices in Online and Offline Gaming.
- Games as Cultural Artifacts.
- Pervasive Gaming, Convergence and the Integration of Videogames.
- Videogames as Art.
3. Games and Society
- Ethical Issues in Videogames, Videogame Controversy – Rating, Violence, Sex, Morality and their relation to Maturity.
- Videogames and Politics.
- Propaganda Games.
- Censorship.
4. Games with Meaning?
- Social Impact Simulations.
- Educational Use of Videogames.
- Serious Games.
- Documentary Videogames.
- Political Issues.
- The Relationship between Game and Gamer.
5. Reception, Temporality and Videogames
- Player Generations.
- Old Originals vs. Retro games.
- Indie Games and Low-Tech Aesthetics.
- Innovations in Independent Game Movements.
6. Immersion and Embodiment
- New Forms of Interaction, Immersion and Collaboration in Videogames.
- Sound, Music, Touch, and Game Space.
- The Role of Innovative Interfaces.
7. Works in Progress
- Games in Development.
- Approaches to Game Design.
- Discussion Workshops on Games under Production.
- Best Practice and Know-How Exchange.
A presentation with a quick demo of the game and workshop proposals are strongly encouraged. We might offer 2 hour slot for 1-3 intensive workshops on design methodologies and media comparative sessions. Delegates presenting in the frame of workshops are eligible for publishing in special track of Videogames 4 ebook on methodologies.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012.
If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 11th May 2012. Abstracts 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: VG4 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. 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.
Joint Organising Chairs
Daniel Riha
Charles University
Prague,
Czech Republic
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
United Kingdom
The conference is part of the ‘Critical Issues’ series of research projects run by Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Papers:
This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to examine, explore and critically engage with the issues and implications created by the mass use of computers and videogames for human entertainment and focus on the impact of innovative videogame titles and interfaces for human communication and ludic culture. In particular the conference will encourage equally theoretical and practical debates which surround the cultural contexts within which videogames flourish.
Papers, presentations, workshops and reports are invited on any of the following themes:
1. Videogames and Gaming
- Theories and Concepts of Gaming.
- Identifying Key Features and Issues.
- Videogames as Text. Videogames as Interactive Image.
- Multidisciplinary Approaches to Videogame Analysis.
- Film, Literary, Art Studies and Cultural Studies Approaches to the Analysis of Videogames.
2. Videogame Cultures
- Emerging Practices in Online and Offline Gaming.
- Games as Cultural Artifacts.
- Pervasive Gaming, Convergence and the Integration of Videogames.
- Videogames as Art.
3. Games and Society
- Ethical Issues in Videogames, Videogame Controversy – Rating, Violence, Sex, Morality and their relation to Maturity.
- Videogames and Politics.
- Propaganda Games.
- Censorship.
4. Games with Meaning?
- Social Impact Simulations.
- Educational Use of Videogames.
- Serious Games.
- Documentary Videogames.
- Political Issues.
- The Relationship between Game and Gamer.
5. Reception, Temporality and Videogames
- Player Generations.
- Old Originals vs. Retro games.
- Indie Games and Low-Tech Aesthetics.
- Innovations in Independent Game Movements.
6. Immersion and Embodiment
- New Forms of Interaction, Immersion and Collaboration in Videogames.
- Sound, Music, Touch, and Game Space.
- The Role of Innovative Interfaces.
7. Works in Progress
- Games in Development.
- Approaches to Game Design.
- Discussion Workshops on Games under Production.
- Best Practice and Know-How Exchange.
A presentation with a quick demo of the game and workshop proposals are strongly encouraged. We might offer 2 hour slot for 1-3 intensive workshops on design methodologies and media comparative sessions. Delegates presenting in the frame of workshops are eligible for publishing in special track of Videogames 4 ebook on methodologies.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012.
If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 11th May 2012. Abstracts 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: VG4 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. 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.
Joint Organising Chairs
Daniel Riha
Charles University
Prague,
Czech Republic
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
United Kingdom
The conference is part of the ‘Critical Issues’ series of research projects run by Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
Wednesday 12 October 2011
CFP: 3rd Global Conference: Revenge
Sunday 15th July 2012 – Tuesday 17th July 2012
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Papers:
Revenge, so we are told, is a dish best served cold: a ‘sweet’ wreaking of vengeance on those who have – either in reality or in our minds – slighted, wronged or in some way ‘injured’ us and who are now ‘enjoying’ their just deserts by an avenging angel (or angels) on the great day of reckoning.
This inter- and multi-disciplinary research and publications project seeks to explore the multi-layered ideas, actions, and cultural traditions of vengeance or revenge. The project aims to explore the nature of revenge, its relationship with issues of justice, and its manifestation in the actions of individuals, cultures, communities and nations. The project will also consider the history of revenge, its ‘legitimacy’, the ‘scale’ of vengeful actions and whether revenge has (or should have) ‘limits’. Representations of revenge in film, literature, television, theatre and radio will be analysed; cultural ‘traditions’ of retaliation and revenge will be considered. And the role of mercy, forgiveness and pardon will be assessed.
Papers will be consider the following indicative themes:
~ philosophies of revenge
~ vengeance in history, literature, and popular culture
~ revenge cross-culturally
~ is there any proper and improper time for revenge? Can an act of revenge be carried across generations?
~ revenge, vengeance, retaliation: to avenge
~ justice and revenge; redressing the balance, just deserts
~ betrayal, humiliation, shame, resentment and revenge
~ revenge and the individual; revenge and the group; revenge and the nation
~ revenge in music and the arts
~ revenge in television, film, radio and theatre
~ relationship between revenge and mercy, forgiveness, pardon
~ revenge case-studies: individual, cultural, and historical
Papers on any other topic related to the theme will also be considered.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 11th May 2011. Abstracts 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 key words
E-mails should be entitled: REV3 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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.
Joint Organising Chairs:
Charles W. Nuckolls
Department of Anthropology,
Brigham Young University,
USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
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.
All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers maybe invited for development for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s)
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Papers:
Revenge, so we are told, is a dish best served cold: a ‘sweet’ wreaking of vengeance on those who have – either in reality or in our minds – slighted, wronged or in some way ‘injured’ us and who are now ‘enjoying’ their just deserts by an avenging angel (or angels) on the great day of reckoning.
This inter- and multi-disciplinary research and publications project seeks to explore the multi-layered ideas, actions, and cultural traditions of vengeance or revenge. The project aims to explore the nature of revenge, its relationship with issues of justice, and its manifestation in the actions of individuals, cultures, communities and nations. The project will also consider the history of revenge, its ‘legitimacy’, the ‘scale’ of vengeful actions and whether revenge has (or should have) ‘limits’. Representations of revenge in film, literature, television, theatre and radio will be analysed; cultural ‘traditions’ of retaliation and revenge will be considered. And the role of mercy, forgiveness and pardon will be assessed.
Papers will be consider the following indicative themes:
~ philosophies of revenge
~ vengeance in history, literature, and popular culture
~ revenge cross-culturally
~ is there any proper and improper time for revenge? Can an act of revenge be carried across generations?
~ revenge, vengeance, retaliation: to avenge
~ justice and revenge; redressing the balance, just deserts
~ betrayal, humiliation, shame, resentment and revenge
~ revenge and the individual; revenge and the group; revenge and the nation
~ revenge in music and the arts
~ revenge in television, film, radio and theatre
~ relationship between revenge and mercy, forgiveness, pardon
~ revenge case-studies: individual, cultural, and historical
Papers on any other topic related to the theme will also be considered.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 11th May 2011. Abstracts 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 key words
E-mails should be entitled: REV3 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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.
Joint Organising Chairs:
Charles W. Nuckolls
Department of Anthropology,
Brigham Young University,
USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
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.
All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers maybe invited for development for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s)
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
Friday 7 October 2011
CFP: Thinking Though Time and History in Feminism Colloquium
Birkbeck, University of London, 23 March 2012
Keynote Speakers:
Rebecca Coleman (Sociology, Lancaster University) & Lynne Segal (Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck)
There has been an emergent call within the field of gender and feminist studies to consider themes that might be broadly situated under the umbrella term of “temporality”. Nostalgic and apocalyptic narratives of feminism abound in both popular culture and academic writing, with feminism’s death or out-datedness being the dominant narrative. Countering these narratives is crucially about unravelling the logic that makes them viable as well as interrupting their production. Explorations of alternative narratives have productively emerged from work in the field of collective and personal memory, new technologies as they impact feminist organizing, and creative activism and archival practices. There is a continued political need to explore alternative mechanisms of telling feminist time, alternative relationships to be forged with the recent and historical past and alternative means for considering how feminism might forge a future for itself both in and out of the academy.
This colloquium aims to provide the opportunity for an interdisciplinary, creative and exploratory approach to time and history in feminism. We welcome contributions from academics, artist and activists working in the area. Contributions could include but are not limited to, paper presentations, digital media, photography, film, poetry and performance.
Contributions could consider, but are by no means limited to, some of the following questions:
- How does the personal, social and collective memory of the feminist past create, sustain, or challenge feminism in the present?
- How might we forge relationships between temporal periods that resist generational affects of duty or shame?
- How might remembering and forgetting occur not only within the spaces of activism and the institution, but also between them?
- How can we think critically about how, for example, citing, course building, and curating are practices of remembering and forgetting?
- How might feminist activists, artists and theorists respond to the narratives of ‘the death of feminism’ or the ‘post-feminist’ era?
- How does time, and the various ways we think of it, both enable and constrain politics?
- Is the time of activism the same as the time of the institution?
- What are the theoretical and methodological challenges of working within feminist archives?
- How can we account for the multiple and diverse voices that comprise ‘feminism’ and the relationships between these voices? How can the use of creative methodologies enable the exploration of these issues?
Please submit a 200 word abstract by 25 November 2011 to Carly Guest and Sam McBean. If you have any questions, please contact us.
Keynote Speakers:
Rebecca Coleman (Sociology, Lancaster University) & Lynne Segal (Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck)
There has been an emergent call within the field of gender and feminist studies to consider themes that might be broadly situated under the umbrella term of “temporality”. Nostalgic and apocalyptic narratives of feminism abound in both popular culture and academic writing, with feminism’s death or out-datedness being the dominant narrative. Countering these narratives is crucially about unravelling the logic that makes them viable as well as interrupting their production. Explorations of alternative narratives have productively emerged from work in the field of collective and personal memory, new technologies as they impact feminist organizing, and creative activism and archival practices. There is a continued political need to explore alternative mechanisms of telling feminist time, alternative relationships to be forged with the recent and historical past and alternative means for considering how feminism might forge a future for itself both in and out of the academy.
This colloquium aims to provide the opportunity for an interdisciplinary, creative and exploratory approach to time and history in feminism. We welcome contributions from academics, artist and activists working in the area. Contributions could include but are not limited to, paper presentations, digital media, photography, film, poetry and performance.
Contributions could consider, but are by no means limited to, some of the following questions:
- How does the personal, social and collective memory of the feminist past create, sustain, or challenge feminism in the present?
- How might we forge relationships between temporal periods that resist generational affects of duty or shame?
- How might remembering and forgetting occur not only within the spaces of activism and the institution, but also between them?
- How can we think critically about how, for example, citing, course building, and curating are practices of remembering and forgetting?
- How might feminist activists, artists and theorists respond to the narratives of ‘the death of feminism’ or the ‘post-feminist’ era?
- How does time, and the various ways we think of it, both enable and constrain politics?
- Is the time of activism the same as the time of the institution?
- What are the theoretical and methodological challenges of working within feminist archives?
- How can we account for the multiple and diverse voices that comprise ‘feminism’ and the relationships between these voices? How can the use of creative methodologies enable the exploration of these issues?
Please submit a 200 word abstract by 25 November 2011 to Carly Guest and Sam McBean. If you have any questions, please contact us.
Thursday 29 September 2011
CFP: Fifty Years of A Clockwork Orange
28 June - 1 July 2012
Manchester, United Kingdom
WITTY : FUNNY : SATIRIC : MUSICAL : EXCITING : BIZARRE : POLITICAL : THRILLING : FRIGHTENING : METAPHORICAL : COMIC : SARDONIC : BEETHOVEN
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962), the International Anthony Burgess Foundation is organising a multi-disciplinary conference to examine its profound and enduring impact on literature, film, music, theatre and society.
The conference will assess the history and reception of A Clockwork Orange in all its manifestations. Papers of 20-30 minutes in length are invited on any aspect of A Clockwork Orange and its legacy. Possible topics might include the linguistic and/or musical aspects of Burgess’s novel; invented languages; the film versions directed by Andy Warhol and Stanley Kubrick; the stage adaptations by John Godber, Anthony Burgess and Ron Daniels; translations into other languages and media; the history of book design; the political and Cold War contexts of the book and films; and the continuing influence of Burgess’s text on popular music, fashion, or other aspects of youth culture and counter-culture.
The conference will be supported by, a new Burgess/Kubrick exhibition at the John Rylands Library (in collaboration with the Stanley Kubrick Archive), a film season at the Cornerhouse cinema, new commissions of contemporary classical music, and more.
If you would like to submit a paper, please send an abstract of 200-300 words to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation.
Manchester, United Kingdom
WITTY : FUNNY : SATIRIC : MUSICAL : EXCITING : BIZARRE : POLITICAL : THRILLING : FRIGHTENING : METAPHORICAL : COMIC : SARDONIC : BEETHOVEN
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962), the International Anthony Burgess Foundation is organising a multi-disciplinary conference to examine its profound and enduring impact on literature, film, music, theatre and society.
The conference will assess the history and reception of A Clockwork Orange in all its manifestations. Papers of 20-30 minutes in length are invited on any aspect of A Clockwork Orange and its legacy. Possible topics might include the linguistic and/or musical aspects of Burgess’s novel; invented languages; the film versions directed by Andy Warhol and Stanley Kubrick; the stage adaptations by John Godber, Anthony Burgess and Ron Daniels; translations into other languages and media; the history of book design; the political and Cold War contexts of the book and films; and the continuing influence of Burgess’s text on popular music, fashion, or other aspects of youth culture and counter-culture.
The conference will be supported by, a new Burgess/Kubrick exhibition at the John Rylands Library (in collaboration with the Stanley Kubrick Archive), a film season at the Cornerhouse cinema, new commissions of contemporary classical music, and more.
If you would like to submit a paper, please send an abstract of 200-300 words to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation.
Tuesday 20 September 2011
CFP: Identity and Image
18th Annual Postgraduate Medieval Studies Conference
24th‐25th February, 2012
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Bristol, UK
The University of Bristol hosts the longest‐running international medieval postgraduate conference in the UK. This annual event offers medievalists the opportunity to present their research and discuss ideas in an interdisciplinary setting. The conference is now in its 18th year, and proposals are invited for papers from postgraduates and early career scholars on the theme of Identity and Image.
The aim of this year’s conference is to explore how identity was formed, expressed and understood in the Middle Ages. We are interested in the way individuals and groups constructed images of themselves and others, and how identity was affected by religious, racial, political and other social factors on an international, national or local scale. The theme ‘Identity and Image’ invites consideration of how, and if, we can interpret medieval notions of identity from the textual, visual, musical and material sources that have survived to the present day. We welcome a wide range of discussion from issues of religious and artistic patronage, devotional practice, language choice and material culture to considerations of how the self or the other is presented in literary and visual culture.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Religious identities
- National identity
- Linguistic choice or identity
- Autobiography and biography
- Representation of outsiders
- Artistic and religious patronage
- Architecture
- Material culture
- Images of the self and others
Papers must be no more than 20 minutes long
Abstracts of 250‐300 words should be sent by email (by preference) to:
Hannah Walters or to Hannah Walters, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Bristol, Graduate School of Arts and Humanities, 7 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB, UK
Deadline for receipt of abstracts: 10th December, 2012
Registration deadline: 21st January, 2012
For further information please visit our website.
Bursaries may be available for travel.
24th‐25th February, 2012
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Bristol, UK
The University of Bristol hosts the longest‐running international medieval postgraduate conference in the UK. This annual event offers medievalists the opportunity to present their research and discuss ideas in an interdisciplinary setting. The conference is now in its 18th year, and proposals are invited for papers from postgraduates and early career scholars on the theme of Identity and Image.
The aim of this year’s conference is to explore how identity was formed, expressed and understood in the Middle Ages. We are interested in the way individuals and groups constructed images of themselves and others, and how identity was affected by religious, racial, political and other social factors on an international, national or local scale. The theme ‘Identity and Image’ invites consideration of how, and if, we can interpret medieval notions of identity from the textual, visual, musical and material sources that have survived to the present day. We welcome a wide range of discussion from issues of religious and artistic patronage, devotional practice, language choice and material culture to considerations of how the self or the other is presented in literary and visual culture.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Religious identities
- National identity
- Linguistic choice or identity
- Autobiography and biography
- Representation of outsiders
- Artistic and religious patronage
- Architecture
- Material culture
- Images of the self and others
Papers must be no more than 20 minutes long
Abstracts of 250‐300 words should be sent by email (by preference) to:
Hannah Walters or to Hannah Walters, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Bristol, Graduate School of Arts and Humanities, 7 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB, UK
Deadline for receipt of abstracts: 10th December, 2012
Registration deadline: 21st January, 2012
For further information please visit our website.
Bursaries may be available for travel.
Monday 12 September 2011
Review: Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders, Issue 1 (July 2011)
Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders is a new steampunk magazine, available in digital and print formats. Aimed at steampunk enthusiasts of all types, the magazine includes articles, reviews, new fiction and advertisements.
Issue One (now available here) contains reviews of Nickel Children, a film by Kevin Eslinger, and Alison DeLuca's The Night Watchman Express. I was particularly pleased to see Ren Cummins' review of Nickel Children, as I saw this short film at last year's Bram Stoker Film Festival and was pleased to see that Eslinger's work is continuing to get the attention it deserves. Cummins' review includes a brief interview with Eslinger, in which they discuss the genesis of the film and the reasons why the filmmaker chose to work within the steampunk/Weird West genre.
The articles included in this first issue of the magazine cover a number of steampunk-related topics. Adam Heine offers advice to writers on creating believable slang, and Sophie Playle offers a guide to airships. As steampunk is often criticized for its obsession with empire, colonial life and Victorian England, it is refreshing to also see articles on writing multi-cultural steampunk worlds (by Alison DeLuca) and recent offerings from an Italian publisher (by Lorenzo Davia). Davia's article was particularly interesting for its insights into Italian history, which explored the ways in which steampunk might have specific resonances with the Italian cultural psyche.
On the whole, the article content of the magazine is more geared towards the steampunk writer, rather than 'lifestyle steampunks', though I'm sure there is a crossover between the two. The inclusion of short fiction in the second half of the magazine suggests that this is more of a magazine for readers and writers than self-styled steampunks. It will be interesting to see how this balance pans out in future issues.
As noted, the magazine contains four pieces of new fiction. Two of these - Steamsteel (by Walter Shumate) and Calliope Strange's Aeryn Daring and the Scientific Detective - are the first installments of serialized novels. I felt that this was a nice touch, as serial fiction was such a staple of the Victorian literary diet, and the inclusion of these stories was a nod to the culture that inspires so many steampunks and steampunk writers. The other pieces included in Issue One are the first chapter of Alison DeLuca's The Night Watchman Express and a standalone short story, 'The Hand of Fate' (by Prof. Cayne Armand). Of the writing offered, I would say that I prefered Armand's short story; however, this is personal taste and other readers might feel differently.
If I have one criticism of this first issue of Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders, it would be that it is not quite varied enough in its content. This is not a reflection of the scope of the magazine, but rather its infancy as a print publication. For instance, the question of airships is a constant companion throughout this issue: not only do we have Playle's article, but three of the four pieces of fiction feature airships of some sort or another. While airships are fairly ubiquitous in steampunk fiction, they are becoming something of a cliche, and I would like to see the magazine address this in future issues. I hope, though, that as the magazine expands its 'reporter' base, and attracts submissions from the wider steampunk world, we will see less reliance on the genre standards and more innovation of ideas.
Overall, I recommend Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders for anyone interested in steampunk fiction and film. It's an enjoyable, informative read and well put-together. I'm looking forward to seeing future issues.
For information about subscriptions to Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders, please click here.
Thursday 8 September 2011
CFP: Kings and Queens: Politics, Power, Patronage and Personalities in Medieval and Early Modern Monarchy
To be held at Corsham Court in conjunction with Bath Spa University on April 19th & 20th, 2012
The institution of Monarchy was absolutely central to the political developments and events of the medieval and Early Modern world. This conference aims to celebrate monarchy in all of its various aspects, from examining the institution itself to assessing the impact of particular monarchs in their own realms and beyond. Historic Corsham Court, located just outside of Bath, is a beautiful and appropriate setting for this conference, with its origins as a summer palace for the Kings of Wessex.
We welcome papers and/or panels on any theme which connects to monarchs or monarchy in any way including (but not limited to):
Kingship/queenship/rulership
The relationship between monarchs and consorts
The relationship between monarchs and their subjects
The involvement of monarchs in politics, religion and war
The patronage and representation of monarchs
The monarch and their court
We encourage a multi-disciplinary approach including papers which draw on gender studies, art, military, political and/or cultural history. Graduate students and early career researchers are particularly invited to submit a proposal. We hope to produce a published volume of the papers generated by the conference.
Please submit a proposal of approximately 250 words for a paper OR a panel of three papers to the organizers by October 31, 2011.
The institution of Monarchy was absolutely central to the political developments and events of the medieval and Early Modern world. This conference aims to celebrate monarchy in all of its various aspects, from examining the institution itself to assessing the impact of particular monarchs in their own realms and beyond. Historic Corsham Court, located just outside of Bath, is a beautiful and appropriate setting for this conference, with its origins as a summer palace for the Kings of Wessex.
We welcome papers and/or panels on any theme which connects to monarchs or monarchy in any way including (but not limited to):
Kingship/queenship/rulership
The relationship between monarchs and consorts
The relationship between monarchs and their subjects
The involvement of monarchs in politics, religion and war
The patronage and representation of monarchs
The monarch and their court
We encourage a multi-disciplinary approach including papers which draw on gender studies, art, military, political and/or cultural history. Graduate students and early career researchers are particularly invited to submit a proposal. We hope to produce a published volume of the papers generated by the conference.
Please submit a proposal of approximately 250 words for a paper OR a panel of three papers to the organizers by October 31, 2011.
CFP: 4th Global Conference: Evil, Women and the Feminine
Sunday 6th May – Tuesday 8th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
This inter-disciplinary conference seeks to examine issues surrounding the conjunction between evil and the feminine. In many cultures women have been long suspected as the source of sundry human miseries, however basic to society they may be. At the same time as ideals of purity and dedication to family have been exalted and feminine beauty lauded, women have been viewed as embodying sinister forces of evil. Mistrusted as seductive and beguiling, women are also often thought of as vengeful, manipulative and even malevolent. In grappling with our understanding of what it is to be ‘evil’, the project aims to shine a spotlight on this dark area of the human condition and explore the possible sources of the fear and resentment of women.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues related to the following themes:
~ Evil Women and Feminine Evil
~ Representing and Misrepresenting the Female
~ Motherhood; Monstrous Motherhood
~ Monstrous Births and Infanticide
~ Matriarchy / Matricide
~ Devious Sexuality and Feminine Perversions
~ Women and the Abject
~ Menstruation, Castration
~ Fears and Myths: Feminine Blood
~ Anthropological Perspectives
~ Historical Perspectives
~ The Evil Woman in Literature
~ Psychoanalytic perspectives: “Vagina Dentata” etc
~ Sexualizing the Female or Evil Objectification
~ Jezebel, Delilah, Lilith, Harpies and the Femme Fatale
~ The Bitch
~ Women and Power
~ Beauty as threatening or evil
~ Portrayals of Evil Women
~ Fantasy
~ Mythology
~ Vampires, Witches and Sirens
~ Case Studies
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011 If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
300 word abstracts 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: EWF4 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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:
Natalia Kaloh Vid
University of Maribor, Slovenia
Stephen Morris
Hub Leader, Independent Scholar, New York USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader,Inter-Disciplinary.Net,Freeland,
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
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. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
This inter-disciplinary conference seeks to examine issues surrounding the conjunction between evil and the feminine. In many cultures women have been long suspected as the source of sundry human miseries, however basic to society they may be. At the same time as ideals of purity and dedication to family have been exalted and feminine beauty lauded, women have been viewed as embodying sinister forces of evil. Mistrusted as seductive and beguiling, women are also often thought of as vengeful, manipulative and even malevolent. In grappling with our understanding of what it is to be ‘evil’, the project aims to shine a spotlight on this dark area of the human condition and explore the possible sources of the fear and resentment of women.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues related to the following themes:
~ Evil Women and Feminine Evil
~ Representing and Misrepresenting the Female
~ Motherhood; Monstrous Motherhood
~ Monstrous Births and Infanticide
~ Matriarchy / Matricide
~ Devious Sexuality and Feminine Perversions
~ Women and the Abject
~ Menstruation, Castration
~ Fears and Myths: Feminine Blood
~ Anthropological Perspectives
~ Historical Perspectives
~ The Evil Woman in Literature
~ Psychoanalytic perspectives: “Vagina Dentata” etc
~ Sexualizing the Female or Evil Objectification
~ Jezebel, Delilah, Lilith, Harpies and the Femme Fatale
~ The Bitch
~ Women and Power
~ Beauty as threatening or evil
~ Portrayals of Evil Women
~ Fantasy
~ Mythology
~ Vampires, Witches and Sirens
~ Case Studies
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011 If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
300 word abstracts 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: EWF4 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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:
Natalia Kaloh Vid
University of Maribor, Slovenia
Stephen Morris
Hub Leader, Independent Scholar, New York USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader,Inter-Disciplinary.Net,Freeland,
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
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. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
CFP: 10th Global Conference: Violence
Sunday 13th May – Tuesday 15th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
This conference is one of a continuing series that aims to bring together people from a wide range of disciplines to focus on Violence. Our intention is to contribute to the body of thought which seeks to understand the nature and causes of this endemic feature of society. Such a complex phenomenon has many faces, a multitude of contexts (real or imagined), and many possible explanations in relation to causation and to the role Violence has played and still plays in societies all over the world and at every stage of development. Perpetrators may be states, political or religious factions within states, military groups, state or private institutions, communities, gangs, families or individuals. The range of possible victims is equally diverse and possible explanations range across historical, cultural, political, ethical, literary, functional, psychological, criminological, sociological, biological and economic sources. We therefore invite contributions from any and all of these disciplinary areas.
Our inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach seeks to do justice to the richness of this theme at a conference where fruitful dialogue between and across disciplines is highly valued.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
300 word abstracts 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: Violence 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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.
Joint Organising Chairs:
Diana Medlicott
Independent Scholar
London, United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
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.
The first Diversity within Unity was held in Prague in 1999 and focused on the theme of Human Community and Civil Society. The second conference was held in Oxford in 2000 and focused on the theme of Culture, Conflict, and Belonging. Subsequent conferences have met in Prague and Budapest and looked at the general theme of the Cultures of Violence.
Multiple eBooks and volumes of themed papers have been published or are in press from the previous conference meetings of this project. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume.
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
This conference is one of a continuing series that aims to bring together people from a wide range of disciplines to focus on Violence. Our intention is to contribute to the body of thought which seeks to understand the nature and causes of this endemic feature of society. Such a complex phenomenon has many faces, a multitude of contexts (real or imagined), and many possible explanations in relation to causation and to the role Violence has played and still plays in societies all over the world and at every stage of development. Perpetrators may be states, political or religious factions within states, military groups, state or private institutions, communities, gangs, families or individuals. The range of possible victims is equally diverse and possible explanations range across historical, cultural, political, ethical, literary, functional, psychological, criminological, sociological, biological and economic sources. We therefore invite contributions from any and all of these disciplinary areas.
Our inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach seeks to do justice to the richness of this theme at a conference where fruitful dialogue between and across disciplines is highly valued.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
300 word abstracts 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: Violence 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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.
Joint Organising Chairs:
Diana Medlicott
Independent Scholar
London, United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
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.
The first Diversity within Unity was held in Prague in 1999 and focused on the theme of Human Community and Civil Society. The second conference was held in Oxford in 2000 and focused on the theme of Culture, Conflict, and Belonging. Subsequent conferences have met in Prague and Budapest and looked at the general theme of the Cultures of Violence.
Multiple eBooks and volumes of themed papers have been published or are in press from the previous conference meetings of this project. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume.
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Femininities & Masculinities
Thursday 3rd May – Saturday 5th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field of academic study on the issues of gender in its social and cultural contexts. Since its emergence from feminism, gender studies have become one of the most deliberated disciplines. The following project aims at an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and perspectives on the issues of femininity and masculinity in the 21st century. It invites ground-breaking research on a plethora of topics connected with gender, to propose an interdisciplinary view of the frontiers and to stake out new territories in the study of femininity and masculinity.
Papers, presentations, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
1. Representations of Femininity and Masculinity
~ Femininity and masculinity in history and the history of gender
~ The representation of gender in culture, art, film, literature
~ The representation of gender in popular culture and media
~ Gender in the relation to politics, law and social studies
2. Gender Borders and Transgressions
~ Performativity of gender
~Female masculinities / male femininities
~ Androgyny
~ Transgender issues
~ The body and its transgressions
3. New Directions in Femininity and Masculinity Studies
~ New perspectives in masculinity and boyhood studies
~ Men in feminism
~ Third wave feminism, womanism
~ Postfeminism, post-feminism and postfemininity
~ Lesbian feminism
~ Eco-feminism
~ Cyberfeminism
~ Individual feminism
~ Feminist disability studies
4. Global and Regional Perspectives on Gender
~ Gender and race
~ Gender and nationality
~ Gender and (post)colonialism
~ Case studies of gender issues in local/regional/national perspectives
~ Global masculinity/ femininity
5. Gender in Relationships
~ Motherhood/fatherhood
~ Gender and family
~ Matriarchy/ patriarchy
~ Sororophobia and matrophobia
~ Misogyny and misandry
~ Female genealogy
~ Gender and maturity
6. Gender in Experience
~ gender in visual and performance arts
~ gender in advertisement
~ gender mainstreaming
~ gender in psychotherapy
~ gender equality education
~ gender in religion
~ gender and NGOs
Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
300 word abstracts 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 key words
E-mails should be entitled: FM 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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:
Barbara Braid
English Department,
University of Szczecin,
Szczecin, Poland
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader,
Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
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. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field of academic study on the issues of gender in its social and cultural contexts. Since its emergence from feminism, gender studies have become one of the most deliberated disciplines. The following project aims at an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and perspectives on the issues of femininity and masculinity in the 21st century. It invites ground-breaking research on a plethora of topics connected with gender, to propose an interdisciplinary view of the frontiers and to stake out new territories in the study of femininity and masculinity.
Papers, presentations, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
1. Representations of Femininity and Masculinity
~ Femininity and masculinity in history and the history of gender
~ The representation of gender in culture, art, film, literature
~ The representation of gender in popular culture and media
~ Gender in the relation to politics, law and social studies
2. Gender Borders and Transgressions
~ Performativity of gender
~Female masculinities / male femininities
~ Androgyny
~ Transgender issues
~ The body and its transgressions
3. New Directions in Femininity and Masculinity Studies
~ New perspectives in masculinity and boyhood studies
~ Men in feminism
~ Third wave feminism, womanism
~ Postfeminism, post-feminism and postfemininity
~ Lesbian feminism
~ Eco-feminism
~ Cyberfeminism
~ Individual feminism
~ Feminist disability studies
4. Global and Regional Perspectives on Gender
~ Gender and race
~ Gender and nationality
~ Gender and (post)colonialism
~ Case studies of gender issues in local/regional/national perspectives
~ Global masculinity/ femininity
5. Gender in Relationships
~ Motherhood/fatherhood
~ Gender and family
~ Matriarchy/ patriarchy
~ Sororophobia and matrophobia
~ Misogyny and misandry
~ Female genealogy
~ Gender and maturity
6. Gender in Experience
~ gender in visual and performance arts
~ gender in advertisement
~ gender mainstreaming
~ gender in psychotherapy
~ gender equality education
~ gender in religion
~ gender and NGOs
Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
300 word abstracts 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 key words
E-mails should be entitled: FM 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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:
Barbara Braid
English Department,
University of Szczecin,
Szczecin, Poland
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader,
Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
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. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
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.
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