The University of Edinburgh
June 15-16, 2012
Confirmed Plenary Speakers:
Prof. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
George Washington University
Dr. Peter Hutchings
Northumbria University
“Although he was already repellent enough, there arose from the fungous skin-growth with which he was almost covered a very sickening stench which was hard to tolerate... with the use of the [daily] bath the unpleasant odour... ceased to be noticeable”
~ Sir Frederick Treves
The prominent surgeon Frederic Treves’s description of Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, exposes a body which is simultaneously an assault on the senses and one which has traditionally been de-sensualised. Deformity is sanitised and fitted into a structure of normality. The academy tends to obscure the complexity of the sensuous/sensual/sensed body of the deformed subject, and of the questions, anxieties, and denials which surround deformity when it is located within a continuum of sense.
From freak exhibitions and fairs, medical examinations and discoveries to various portrayals in arts and literature, images of deformity (or monstrosity, used separately or interchangeably depending on context) have captivated us for centuries. The result is a significant body of critical and artistic works where these bodies are dissected, politicized, exhibited, objectified or even beatified. Nonetheless, there remains a gap, an unexplored, unspoken or neglected aspect of this complex field of study which needs further consideration. This two-day interdisciplinary conference aims to bring the senses and the sensuous back to the monstrous or deformed body from the early modern period through to the mid-twentieth century, and seeks to explore its implications in diverse academic fields.
We hope to bring together scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines to engage in a constructive dialogue, network, and exchange ideas and experiences, connecting a community of researchers who share a fascination with deformity, monstrosity, and freakery.
Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):
● Spectacle/fetishisation of monstrosity and deformity; monstrous sexuality/eroticisation
● The monster as a catalyst of progression/ historical perspectives
● Monstrous symbolism, prodigality, or beatification
● The racialised body; exoticising difference
● Monstrosity in medical literature; disability narratives
● Monstrous becoming; the ‘sensed’ body
● Deformed aesthetics; monstrosity in the visual arts
● (De) gendering the deformed body; humanisation vs objectification
We welcome proposals for 20-minute presentations from established scholars, postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students from various teratological backgrounds, e.g. in literature, history, media and art studies, philosophy, religious studies, history of science,medical humanities, and critical and cultural theory. Proposals should be no more than 300 words, in .doc format, and should include a brief 50-word biography.
Please submit your abstracts no later than 31 January 2012 to the conference organisers:
Dr. Karin Sellberg (The University of Edinburgh)
Ally Crockford (The University of Edinburgh)
Maja Milatovic (The University of Edinburgh)
Thursday, 8 September 2011
CFP: 1st Global Conference: Storytelling: Global Reflections on Narrative
Sunday 13th May – Tuesday 15th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Human life is conducted through story, which comes naturally to us. Sharing stories is arguably the most important way we have of communicating with others about who we are and what we believe; about what we are doing and have done; about our hopes and fears; about what we value and what we don’t. We learn about and make sense of our lives by telling the stories that we live; and we learn about other lives by listening to the stories told by others. Sometimes, under the influence of the culture in which we are immersed, we live our lives in ways that try to create the stories we want to be able to tell about them.
Members of many professions, including medicine, nursing, teaching, the law, psychotherapy and counseling, spend a great deal of their time listening to and communicating through stories. Story is a powerful tool for teachers, because it is a good way of enabling students and other learners to integrate what they are learning with what they already know, and of placing what is learned in a context that makes it easy to recall. Story plays an important role in academic disciplines like philosophy, theology, anthropology, archaeology, history as well as literature Narrative methods for the collection of data are increasingly used in research in the social sciences and humanities, where the value of getting to know people in a more intimate and less distant way – almost as if we are getting to know them from the inside, begins to be viewed as having some value. Some academics have begun to realise the value of storytelling as a model for academic writing.
Most of us have lots of experience of relating to other lives through narrative forms, including the nursery stories we encounter as children; the books we read and the movies we watch. When we are moved by a play or a film or by a novel, we are moved because we begin imaginatively to live the lives of the characters that inhabit them. If we are lucky we will encounter as we grow up, fictional stories that stay with us like old friends, throughout our lives that we will revisit again and again as a way coming to terms with and responding to experiences in our own lives.
Storytelling: global reflections on narrative, will provide a space in which stories about story can be told, and in which the use of stories in the widest possible range of aspects of human life, can be reported. Abstracts are invited for individual contributions and for symposia of three closely related papers. They may address any aspect of story or narrative, including, for example:
* Story as a pedagogical tool in academic disciplines such as history; anthropology, psychology, theology, cultural theory, medicine, law, philosophy, education, and archaeology.
* Narrative and the gathering of stories of lived experience, as a research approach in any area of academic, professional and public life.
* The place of story and storytelling in the practice of journalism; PR advertising; conflict resolution; architecture; religion; tourism, politics and the law, and in clinical contexts such as medicine, psychotherapy, nursing and counselling.
* Finally abstracts may feature storytelling in any aspect of culture, including music (from opera to heavy metal, folk and sacred music); fine art; theatre; literature; cinema and digital
storytelling.
Alongside traditional conference papers, participants are invited to propose presentations of other kinds including, for example, theatrical performance or song, or workshops aimed at engaging participants in active learning about story and its possibilities.
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. 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: STORY 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
Gavin J Fairbairn
Professor of Ethics and Language
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds
United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
The conference is part of the Persons series of ongoing research and publications projects conferences, run within the Probing the Boundaries domain which aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of intellectual and academic exploration.
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:
Human life is conducted through story, which comes naturally to us. Sharing stories is arguably the most important way we have of communicating with others about who we are and what we believe; about what we are doing and have done; about our hopes and fears; about what we value and what we don’t. We learn about and make sense of our lives by telling the stories that we live; and we learn about other lives by listening to the stories told by others. Sometimes, under the influence of the culture in which we are immersed, we live our lives in ways that try to create the stories we want to be able to tell about them.
Members of many professions, including medicine, nursing, teaching, the law, psychotherapy and counseling, spend a great deal of their time listening to and communicating through stories. Story is a powerful tool for teachers, because it is a good way of enabling students and other learners to integrate what they are learning with what they already know, and of placing what is learned in a context that makes it easy to recall. Story plays an important role in academic disciplines like philosophy, theology, anthropology, archaeology, history as well as literature Narrative methods for the collection of data are increasingly used in research in the social sciences and humanities, where the value of getting to know people in a more intimate and less distant way – almost as if we are getting to know them from the inside, begins to be viewed as having some value. Some academics have begun to realise the value of storytelling as a model for academic writing.
Most of us have lots of experience of relating to other lives through narrative forms, including the nursery stories we encounter as children; the books we read and the movies we watch. When we are moved by a play or a film or by a novel, we are moved because we begin imaginatively to live the lives of the characters that inhabit them. If we are lucky we will encounter as we grow up, fictional stories that stay with us like old friends, throughout our lives that we will revisit again and again as a way coming to terms with and responding to experiences in our own lives.
Storytelling: global reflections on narrative, will provide a space in which stories about story can be told, and in which the use of stories in the widest possible range of aspects of human life, can be reported. Abstracts are invited for individual contributions and for symposia of three closely related papers. They may address any aspect of story or narrative, including, for example:
* Story as a pedagogical tool in academic disciplines such as history; anthropology, psychology, theology, cultural theory, medicine, law, philosophy, education, and archaeology.
* Narrative and the gathering of stories of lived experience, as a research approach in any area of academic, professional and public life.
* The place of story and storytelling in the practice of journalism; PR advertising; conflict resolution; architecture; religion; tourism, politics and the law, and in clinical contexts such as medicine, psychotherapy, nursing and counselling.
* Finally abstracts may feature storytelling in any aspect of culture, including music (from opera to heavy metal, folk and sacred music); fine art; theatre; literature; cinema and digital
storytelling.
Alongside traditional conference papers, participants are invited to propose presentations of other kinds including, for example, theatrical performance or song, or workshops aimed at engaging participants in active learning about story and its possibilities.
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. 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: STORY 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
Gavin J Fairbairn
Professor of Ethics and Language
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds
United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
The conference is part of the Persons series of ongoing research and publications projects conferences, run within the Probing the Boundaries domain which aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of intellectual and academic exploration.
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.
A Journey Through Wonderland: Alice in Multi-Media
An exhibition of books, pictures, videos and more
The Portico Library, Manchester M2 3HY
7th October - 30th November 2011
Preview on Thursday 6th October
Lewis Carroll created, in Alice, one of the most enduring and endearing characters in literature. An escape from boredom plunges this easily distracted child into a surreal and fantastical Wonderland at once exciting and frightening as she meets, along the way, such whimsical, yet sinister, characters as the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter and the Duchess. Carroll had already imagined their appearance and John Tenniel, already an established illustrator, was given clear instructions on their depiction for the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland followed by her return to a dream-land in Through the Looking Glass.
Since its first publication in 1867 Alice has continued to inspire illustration, theatre, films, cartoons, toys and more. Walt Disney, Salvador Dali, Jonathan Miller are just three of the innumerable people who got the Alice bug and were inspired to produce their interpretation of one of the most fascinating and mind-boggling children’s stories ever.
This exhibition, curated by Emma Marigliano and Lynne Allan, for The Portico Library, seeks to capture some of the magic of the tale through a range of books, comics, pop-ups, artworks, film and other media along with a programme of events throughout October and November.
• The exhibition will launch at the preview on 6th October and will be opened by none other than Vanessa St Clair, great-granddaughter of Alice Liddell, the real little girl who was Carroll’s inspiration for his made-up Alice
• Leah Moore and John Reppion will delight graphic novel fans with a talk on their production of The Complete Alice on 12th of October
• From Hat Works Hat Museum, Stockport, Howard Green, will reveal the reason behind the Mad-Hatter’s insanity in his talk, Top Hats and Mercury on 25th October
This event is part of Manchester Science Festival; a programme of over 150 events, shows, debates, installations and more across Greater Manchester from 22 – 30 October 2011.
• Disney fans will be enchanted with Robin Allan’s talk, on 12th November, about Europe’s influence on Walt Disney
• Alan Shelston will talk about the grotesque in the Alice illustrations near the end of the exhibition on 29th November.
• In between there will be film/video showings, children’s activities and more. Look out for the full programme on our website and our Portico Quarterly newsletter.
All events begin at 6.30 and cost £7 per person, including wine and nibbles and may be booked by email, telephone or post.
Alice has been enjoying attention throughout the year in exhibitions and performances in the UK. The Portico will be linking in to some of those that will be taking place in the North West.
• Tate Liverpool launches a major exhibition of Alice with Lewis Carroll manuscripts and drawings as well as paintings and drawings from well-known artists and illustrators - from 4th November to 4th January
• A one-day inter-disciplinary conference - Further Adventures in Wonderland; the Afterlife of Alice - will be held at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester, on 1st December. The conference is organised by Dr Hannah Priest, founder of Hic Dragones, a creative writing and literature organisation based in Manchester.
We are most grateful for permission to use illustrations for publicity and promotion and for loans of books and artworks to the exhibition from the following (placed in no particular order):
Bryan Talbot, Manchester Metropolitan University Library Special Collections, Leah Moore and John Reppion, David Blamires, Walker Books for Anthony Browne’s illustrations, Rodney Matthews for his illustrations, Chris Beetles Gallery, Bryan Haworth, Robin Allan, Viv Doyle and the two curators Lynne Allan and Emma Marigliano
We are also grateful for the support of (in no particular order):
The Lewis Carroll Society, Vanessa St Clair, Manchester Science Festival, Manchester Children’s Book Festival, The Portico Library Trust, Dr Hannah Priest
For further information please contact Emma Marigliano, Librarian, telephone 0161-236 6785
The Portico Library, Manchester M2 3HY
7th October - 30th November 2011
Preview on Thursday 6th October
Lewis Carroll created, in Alice, one of the most enduring and endearing characters in literature. An escape from boredom plunges this easily distracted child into a surreal and fantastical Wonderland at once exciting and frightening as she meets, along the way, such whimsical, yet sinister, characters as the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter and the Duchess. Carroll had already imagined their appearance and John Tenniel, already an established illustrator, was given clear instructions on their depiction for the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland followed by her return to a dream-land in Through the Looking Glass.
Since its first publication in 1867 Alice has continued to inspire illustration, theatre, films, cartoons, toys and more. Walt Disney, Salvador Dali, Jonathan Miller are just three of the innumerable people who got the Alice bug and were inspired to produce their interpretation of one of the most fascinating and mind-boggling children’s stories ever.
This exhibition, curated by Emma Marigliano and Lynne Allan, for The Portico Library, seeks to capture some of the magic of the tale through a range of books, comics, pop-ups, artworks, film and other media along with a programme of events throughout October and November.
• The exhibition will launch at the preview on 6th October and will be opened by none other than Vanessa St Clair, great-granddaughter of Alice Liddell, the real little girl who was Carroll’s inspiration for his made-up Alice
• Leah Moore and John Reppion will delight graphic novel fans with a talk on their production of The Complete Alice on 12th of October
• From Hat Works Hat Museum, Stockport, Howard Green, will reveal the reason behind the Mad-Hatter’s insanity in his talk, Top Hats and Mercury on 25th October
This event is part of Manchester Science Festival; a programme of over 150 events, shows, debates, installations and more across Greater Manchester from 22 – 30 October 2011.
• Disney fans will be enchanted with Robin Allan’s talk, on 12th November, about Europe’s influence on Walt Disney
• Alan Shelston will talk about the grotesque in the Alice illustrations near the end of the exhibition on 29th November.
• In between there will be film/video showings, children’s activities and more. Look out for the full programme on our website and our Portico Quarterly newsletter.
All events begin at 6.30 and cost £7 per person, including wine and nibbles and may be booked by email, telephone or post.
Alice has been enjoying attention throughout the year in exhibitions and performances in the UK. The Portico will be linking in to some of those that will be taking place in the North West.
• Tate Liverpool launches a major exhibition of Alice with Lewis Carroll manuscripts and drawings as well as paintings and drawings from well-known artists and illustrators - from 4th November to 4th January
• A one-day inter-disciplinary conference - Further Adventures in Wonderland; the Afterlife of Alice - will be held at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester, on 1st December. The conference is organised by Dr Hannah Priest, founder of Hic Dragones, a creative writing and literature organisation based in Manchester.
We are most grateful for permission to use illustrations for publicity and promotion and for loans of books and artworks to the exhibition from the following (placed in no particular order):
Bryan Talbot, Manchester Metropolitan University Library Special Collections, Leah Moore and John Reppion, David Blamires, Walker Books for Anthony Browne’s illustrations, Rodney Matthews for his illustrations, Chris Beetles Gallery, Bryan Haworth, Robin Allan, Viv Doyle and the two curators Lynne Allan and Emma Marigliano
We are also grateful for the support of (in no particular order):
The Lewis Carroll Society, Vanessa St Clair, Manchester Science Festival, Manchester Children’s Book Festival, The Portico Library Trust, Dr Hannah Priest
For further information please contact Emma Marigliano, Librarian, telephone 0161-236 6785
Sunday, 4 September 2011
CFP: 6th Global Conference: Ethics, Evil and the State
Sunday 6th May – Tuesday 8th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Ethics, evil and the state is an interdisciplinary project that seeks to interrogate issues surrounding the relationship between the state, the concept of evil and alternative ways of thinking about the state, including challenging the very idea of its existence. The idea of the state is continuously open to question and challenge: what alternatives might be put into practice? What is the relationship of the idea of the state and that of government? Perhaps the idea of linking the concept of evil with the state is problematic, yet the capacity for power to corrupt and the promotion of sovereign self-interest over that of a community is frequently encountered in many forms of government. Does it make sense to speak of the state as a force for evil? Are there better ways of conceiving of social organisation beyond statist conceptions of politics, considering the possibility of its abolition, or a move to regionalisation and localisation? Perspectives are sought from those engaged in any field relevant to the study of political science communication, journalism, critical media, policy, history, legal studies, philosophy, theology, cultural theory, media studies, sociology, peace studies, government, law/legal studies, justice, psychology and other areas. Contributions are also encouraged that look to alternative and experimental ideas concerning the state, in the form of short abstracts for presentations or proposals for action-workshop sessions.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues relating, but not restricted to the following themes:
- Is the state a necessary construction?
- Is the state necessarily evil? Is the state a power for good?
- The legitimisation of authority.
- The state and elitism.
- The state and policing.
- Is federalism the answer to the dissolution of the nation-state?
- Anarchism as a viable solution.
- Legitimate and illegitimate protest.
- Rioting, looting and banking
- The state and oppression
- Alternative forms of government.
- The ‘Arab Spring’
- Real communities.
- The state and violence.
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: Ethical Living 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
Niall Scott
International School for Communities Rights and Inclusions,
Philosophy Section
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, United Kingdom
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:
Ethics, evil and the state is an interdisciplinary project that seeks to interrogate issues surrounding the relationship between the state, the concept of evil and alternative ways of thinking about the state, including challenging the very idea of its existence. The idea of the state is continuously open to question and challenge: what alternatives might be put into practice? What is the relationship of the idea of the state and that of government? Perhaps the idea of linking the concept of evil with the state is problematic, yet the capacity for power to corrupt and the promotion of sovereign self-interest over that of a community is frequently encountered in many forms of government. Does it make sense to speak of the state as a force for evil? Are there better ways of conceiving of social organisation beyond statist conceptions of politics, considering the possibility of its abolition, or a move to regionalisation and localisation? Perspectives are sought from those engaged in any field relevant to the study of political science communication, journalism, critical media, policy, history, legal studies, philosophy, theology, cultural theory, media studies, sociology, peace studies, government, law/legal studies, justice, psychology and other areas. Contributions are also encouraged that look to alternative and experimental ideas concerning the state, in the form of short abstracts for presentations or proposals for action-workshop sessions.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues relating, but not restricted to the following themes:
- Is the state a necessary construction?
- Is the state necessarily evil? Is the state a power for good?
- The legitimisation of authority.
- The state and elitism.
- The state and policing.
- Is federalism the answer to the dissolution of the nation-state?
- Anarchism as a viable solution.
- Legitimate and illegitimate protest.
- Rioting, looting and banking
- The state and oppression
- Alternative forms of government.
- The ‘Arab Spring’
- Real communities.
- The state and violence.
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: Ethical Living 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
Niall Scott
International School for Communities Rights and Inclusions,
Philosophy Section
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, United Kingdom
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: 4th Global Conference: Heavy Fundamentalisms: Music, Metal and Politics
Wednesday 9th May – Friday 11th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
The success of the heavy metal music movement is due in no small measure to its ability and openness to experiment, diversify and innovate. Throughout the 42 year history of heavy metal, these changes and innovations have led to a plethora of subgenres and spinoff musical styles, and also seen heavy metal interact culturally and artistically with other musical forms. Yet at the same time heavy metal remains doggedly ‘true’ to form. There is no doubt that heavy metal now exists across generations, languages and cultures. Now that some of its progenitors and orginators are no longer with us, what will the future hold for heavy metal?
As the identities that have been formed over heavy metal’s generations continue to make way for young blood, this the 4th conference in the series Heavy Fundametalisms: Music Metal and
Politics abstracts on themes related, but not restricted to:
- The Future of Heavy Metal
- The Driving forces behind the movement: secrets of success
- Too old to rock? Ageism and heavy metal
- Live fast, die young!
- Life after death
- Somewhere in time: heavy metal and history
- Heavy metal genealogies, heavy metal maps
- Tribute bands and re-living the past
- Globalisation of heavy metal
- How local scenes sustain global metal across generations
- Nu-metal vs old school
- Heavy metal and the cultural voice
- Genres and crossing over
- Musical diversification metal and punk, jazz, blues, rock, rap, opera
- Groupies at the age of 60 and beyond
- How do time and place function in heavy metal’s signification
- Is metal still too US/Euro centric?
- Age, income and consumption of the heavy metal product
- Heavy metal generations and festivals
Papers will 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.
Abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Metal Abstract Submission
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). 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
Niall Scott
The International School for Communities Rights and Inclusion
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, Lancashire, United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
The conference is part of the Ethos Hub series of ongoing research and publications projects conferences, run within the Critical Issues domain which aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of intellectual and academic exploration.
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, or for the launch edition of a new interdisciplinary journal examining intersections of music and politics and published by the Inter-Disciplinary Press.
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:
The success of the heavy metal music movement is due in no small measure to its ability and openness to experiment, diversify and innovate. Throughout the 42 year history of heavy metal, these changes and innovations have led to a plethora of subgenres and spinoff musical styles, and also seen heavy metal interact culturally and artistically with other musical forms. Yet at the same time heavy metal remains doggedly ‘true’ to form. There is no doubt that heavy metal now exists across generations, languages and cultures. Now that some of its progenitors and orginators are no longer with us, what will the future hold for heavy metal?
As the identities that have been formed over heavy metal’s generations continue to make way for young blood, this the 4th conference in the series Heavy Fundametalisms: Music Metal and
Politics abstracts on themes related, but not restricted to:
- The Future of Heavy Metal
- The Driving forces behind the movement: secrets of success
- Too old to rock? Ageism and heavy metal
- Live fast, die young!
- Life after death
- Somewhere in time: heavy metal and history
- Heavy metal genealogies, heavy metal maps
- Tribute bands and re-living the past
- Globalisation of heavy metal
- How local scenes sustain global metal across generations
- Nu-metal vs old school
- Heavy metal and the cultural voice
- Genres and crossing over
- Musical diversification metal and punk, jazz, blues, rock, rap, opera
- Groupies at the age of 60 and beyond
- How do time and place function in heavy metal’s signification
- Is metal still too US/Euro centric?
- Age, income and consumption of the heavy metal product
- Heavy metal generations and festivals
Papers will 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.
Abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Metal Abstract Submission
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). 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
Niall Scott
The International School for Communities Rights and Inclusion
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, Lancashire, United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
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, or for the launch edition of a new interdisciplinary journal examining intersections of music and politics and published by the Inter-Disciplinary Press.
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.
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders - Subscription Drive
A little message from the steampunk-tastic Doctor Fantastique's Show of Wonders:
Faithful readers! I'm quite proud to announce that Doctor Fantastique's
Show of Wonders is officially offering SUBSCRIPTIONS!
Click on the link and fill out the form for us to get your information. Once you do that, we'll be in contact with payment details.
Tell your friends! Tell your neighbors! Tell your dog to subscribe!
Oh, and we're also offering some impetus to tell your friends. For every 10 people you convince to subscribe, you'll get a $25 gift card to a retailer of your choice.
If you convince 100 people to subscribe, then you'll get a personal phone call from Chief Editor Matthew Delman and a copy of the 2012 Great Plains Steampunk calendar, signed by James Conrad Agin and his team. All proceeds of the calendar go to charity, so this is for a good cause!
Get 1,000 subscribers to sign up and you'll select a prize of your choice. Your
prize has to be $500 or less though; that's the only rule.
The best part about this? Is that you can win these prizes MULTIPLE times.
The Rules
1.Only paying subscriptions are counted. An email newsletter sign-up, while good, is not counted toward your referral number.
2.All referrals must be submitted by December 31, 2011.
3.The person you refer MUST LIST YOU AS THE REFEREE in the "Who Referred You?" box on the sign-up form.
Happy referring!
Sunday, 21 August 2011
CFP: Monsters: Subject, Object, Abject
April 12th-13th 2012
The Manchester Museum, Oxford Road
Manchester, United Kingdom
This two-day interdisciplinary, cross-period conference will explore humanity’s perennial fascination with the monstrous. From children’s toys to religious architecture, from medical and legal definitions to Gothic romance – cultural products resonate with fear, obsession and desire for the monster.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Proposals are sought for 20-minute papers. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- Monsters in literature, art, music and film
- Architectural monsters
- Subjectivity and the monster
- Objectification and the monster
- Historical definition of the monstrous
- Medical and legal monsters
- Theorizations of the monstrous
- Mythology, folklore and legends
- Hybrids and hybridity
- Cyborgs and the posthuman
Please send 300-word abstracts to the conference convenors by Sunday 1st January 2012. For more information, please see our website.
Following the conference, there will be a two-day public Monsters Convention in Manchester. We would be interested in hearing from anyone interested in offering a talk or seminar at this convention. Please email Dr. Hannah Priest.
The Manchester Museum, Oxford Road
Manchester, United Kingdom
This two-day interdisciplinary, cross-period conference will explore humanity’s perennial fascination with the monstrous. From children’s toys to religious architecture, from medical and legal definitions to Gothic romance – cultural products resonate with fear, obsession and desire for the monster.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Proposals are sought for 20-minute papers. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- Monsters in literature, art, music and film
- Architectural monsters
- Subjectivity and the monster
- Objectification and the monster
- Historical definition of the monstrous
- Medical and legal monsters
- Theorizations of the monstrous
- Mythology, folklore and legends
- Hybrids and hybridity
- Cyborgs and the posthuman
Please send 300-word abstracts to the conference convenors by Sunday 1st January 2012. For more information, please see our website.
Following the conference, there will be a two-day public Monsters Convention in Manchester. We would be interested in hearing from anyone interested in offering a talk or seminar at this convention. Please email Dr. Hannah Priest.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Review: Jack Williamson, Darker Than You Think (1948; Gollancz, 2003)
Last year, in one of the discussion sessions at our conference on female werewolves, the keynote speaker (Prof. Peter Hutchings) mentioned a piece of 'classic' werewolf fiction that has been sadly overlooked in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries - Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think. Hutchings' description of the book's content and genre sparked a lot of interest. He mentioned that the book had been out of print for several years, but had recently been reissued. I remember predicting that sales of the new edition would probably go up immediately following the conference - and, though I don't know about any of the other delegates, I certainly went out and immediately bought a copy.Embarrassingly, despite buying the book last September, I have only just found time to read it. Mea culpa. But I've now read it, and here is my review!
Williamson's novel, first published in 1948, tells the story of Will Barbee, a former student of Dr. Lamarck Mondrick (an anthropologist/palaeontologist/archaeologist, with a background in psychiatry - bear with me on this one!) who is currently working as a journalist. The novel begins with Barbee arriving at an airport to cover the return of Mondrick and his team, who have been researching 'something' in Asia for the past two years. As he waits for the plane to land, he meets a mysterious young woman named April Bell, who is also apparently a journalist.
Immediately intrigued, attracted and frightened by April, Barbee begins to get a feeling of foreboding. As he surveys the families of Mondrick and his team, this feeling grows. Sure enough, when Dr. Mondrick arrives, the professor begins to make a startling announcement about a shocking discovery... and then promptly dies. This begins a series of frightening events, as Barbee becomes more closely involved with April Bell and slowly learns the truth of Mondrick's discoveries. As the title of the book suggests, the truth is "darker than you think".
The first chapter of the novel is entitled "The Girl in White Fur". The first description of April Bell reads as follows:
"She looked as trimly cool and beautiful as a streamlined electric icebox.
She had a million dollars' worth of flame-red hair. White, soft, sweetly
serious, her face confirmed his first dazzled impression - that she was
something very wonderful and rare. She met his eyes, and her rather large
mouth drew into a quick pleasant quirk." (p. 1)
It shouldn't be too difficult for you to guess what sort of creature April Bell is. If I add that dogs growl at her, she has an aversion to the silver jewellery worn by Rowena Mondrick and that she carries a bag with a kitten in it (the second chapter of the book is called "The Kitten Killing"), I don't think there is much room for doubt.
Sure enough, it is soon apparent that April is intent on leading Barbee into the world of "lycanthropy" (or, as is probably more accurate, shapeshifting). Much of the presentation of lycanthropy in Williamson's book will be familiar to fans of werewolf fiction. In 'were' form, Barbee and April speak of being "free", enjoying human blood and hunting, are nocturnal and murderous. Barbee's first transformation is somewhat painful, but it becomes easier and more desirable. As noted, the sexual allure of the female werewolf is made apparent throughout the book.
However, though Williamson's presentation of lycanthropy is (in some ways) a standard one, there are some interesting to note about Darker Than You Think. Firstly, and most obviously, the book is a very early example of this 'standard' representation. We might all know a lot of the tropes Williamson employs, but this is a result of the vast swathes of fiction that has come since (some of which has been influenced by Williamson's book directly, but not all).
Secondly, the novel's genre is quite difficult to define. The opening chapters have a noirish quality, with the hardbitten reporter meeting the femme fatale and getting drawn into a dangerous mystery - it should come as no surprise that Will Barbee drinks way too much whisky! Elsewhere, the book feels more like what is now known as urban fantasy, with episodes that read like science fiction, science fantasy and psychological thriller. For instance, the explanation of the mechanism of lycanthropy draws heavily on theoretical physics - though this may seem somewhat dated for those with a background in science - as well as on more traditional ideas of the animal 'spirit'.
I will confess, some parts of Williamson's novel left me less than enthused. The reason for this was that I felt that too much had been explained too soon. April offers Barbee a fairly lengthy explanation of her own circumstances early in the novel, as well as the 'scientific' explanation of lycanthropy. She tells him about the murders and why they must happen, and (apparently) what the strange box Mondrick has brought from Asia contains. Barbee's attempts to come to terms with this, and his vacillations between his 'human' nature and his murderous lycanthropy take up a large part of the novel.
However, what I wasn't prepared for was how much Williamson holds back until the final chapters of the novel. The final 'reveal' is most definite worth waiting for. Though the novel appears to be about the mystery of who the "Child of Night" actually is - and I must confess, I did work that out - what is really worth waiting for is the final 'tying together' of all the strange threads of the novel - Mondrick's research, his strange wife, the references to palaeontology, archaeology, psychiatry and physics, and the strange box that has returned from the expedition.
And I'll say no more on what that explanation is, as I think the book is well worth reading for that alone. The characters may be a little dated and cliched, and the plot a little far-fetched in places, but the final 'solution' and the novel's ending are certainly unlike most things you will find in a werewolf book. At the risk of sounding a little trite, lycanthropy in Williamson's novel really is "darker than you think".
On the back of the 2003 Gollancz paperback edition, Douglas E. Winter describes Darker Than You Think:
"It is arguably the best, and certainly the best remembered, American novel about lycanthropy."
I'm not sure I necessarily agree with this assessment, but I would certainly suggest that Williamson's novel is a must-read for any fans of werewolf fiction, and April Bell certainly belongs on a list of fascinating female werewolves.
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
CFP: 1st Global Conference: Celebrity: Exploring Critical Issues
15th March - 17th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
The dream to be famous is as old as humanity itself. Celebrities are born every day and they often disappear after their Warholian fifteen minutes. Celebrity culture has long ceased to be of interest only to tabloids and merchandisers and the people that consume them. Its analysis permeates all disciplines of study, making celebrity a multifaceted concept. Though more obvious in the late 20th century, academics have continually called for a broader programme of celebrity studies; anthropologists have been identifying connections between celebrity status and religion (shamanism; idolatry; reliquaries); psychologists have been discussing the consequences of ‘celebrity worship’ and warning about the fate of those who rose to questionable fame within a fortnight. With the seemingly insatiable desire for the lifestyle, style-tips and emulation of celebrity sociologists have been describing new ways of representing, producing and, most importantly, consuming celebrity; all manner of consumer products, not least the medical world, has been engaging celebrities to promote a cornucopia of products as well as health-awareness programmes or as spokes-persons for the UN, UNICEF, ambassadors, charities and beyond.; more recently, economists have pointed to the entertainment sector to find areas which have not been drastically touched by recession.
This call for papers addresses a serious, interdisciplinary and multicultural analysis of the phenomenon of celebrity. Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to the following themes:
Definitions of celebrity-hood, stardom, charisma, uniqueness/singularity across cultures
The history of celebrity: the idols in the past and now
From zero to hero
The modern celebrity culture
Ideological conditions of celebrity culture
Celebrities as commodities
Representation of celebrities; ‘celebrification’ processes; the making of the ’star’
Celebrity and identity formation; empowerment or objectification; self-fashioning (public vs private self)
Celebrity culture and the audience (i.e. fandom; celebrity worship; stalking; role models; franchising)
Good and bad PR
Celebrities as cultural fabrications
Celebrity and power; political function of celebrity status
Politics and celebrities; celebrities in politics
Mass media and the formation of celebrity culture
Celebrity in the media: news, shows, tabloids
Celebrity and the law, accountability, morality, crime, transgressions
Celebrity status and gender
Celebrity as educators; their positive impact; celebrities and humanitarian actions; awareness-raising
Notorious celebrity/fame: The anti-heroes
Celebrities and their personnel
Child celebrities: Too young for fame?
Celebrity status as a burden; The weight of stardom
Forgotten celebrities: What happens when fame disappears?
Celebrities and ageing
Unwanted fame
Intercultural perspective on celebrity: i.e. Bollywood vs Hollywood
(Post)colonialism and celebrity
(Auto)biographies of/by stars and idols: self-representation, truth/fiction
Celebrity confessional literature; Self-help books by celebrities
Papers will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 27th January 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
E-mails should be entitled: Celebrity Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Katarzyna Bronk
Adam Mickiewicz University,
Poznan,
Poland
Dr Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road,
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
The conference is part of the Critical Issues series of research projects. The aim of the conference is 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 are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the 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:
The dream to be famous is as old as humanity itself. Celebrities are born every day and they often disappear after their Warholian fifteen minutes. Celebrity culture has long ceased to be of interest only to tabloids and merchandisers and the people that consume them. Its analysis permeates all disciplines of study, making celebrity a multifaceted concept. Though more obvious in the late 20th century, academics have continually called for a broader programme of celebrity studies; anthropologists have been identifying connections between celebrity status and religion (shamanism; idolatry; reliquaries); psychologists have been discussing the consequences of ‘celebrity worship’ and warning about the fate of those who rose to questionable fame within a fortnight. With the seemingly insatiable desire for the lifestyle, style-tips and emulation of celebrity sociologists have been describing new ways of representing, producing and, most importantly, consuming celebrity; all manner of consumer products, not least the medical world, has been engaging celebrities to promote a cornucopia of products as well as health-awareness programmes or as spokes-persons for the UN, UNICEF, ambassadors, charities and beyond.; more recently, economists have pointed to the entertainment sector to find areas which have not been drastically touched by recession.
This call for papers addresses a serious, interdisciplinary and multicultural analysis of the phenomenon of celebrity. Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to the following themes:
Definitions of celebrity-hood, stardom, charisma, uniqueness/singularity across cultures
The history of celebrity: the idols in the past and now
From zero to hero
The modern celebrity culture
Ideological conditions of celebrity culture
Celebrities as commodities
Representation of celebrities; ‘celebrification’ processes; the making of the ’star’
Celebrity and identity formation; empowerment or objectification; self-fashioning (public vs private self)
Celebrity culture and the audience (i.e. fandom; celebrity worship; stalking; role models; franchising)
Good and bad PR
Celebrities as cultural fabrications
Celebrity and power; political function of celebrity status
Politics and celebrities; celebrities in politics
Mass media and the formation of celebrity culture
Celebrity in the media: news, shows, tabloids
Celebrity and the law, accountability, morality, crime, transgressions
Celebrity status and gender
Celebrity as educators; their positive impact; celebrities and humanitarian actions; awareness-raising
Notorious celebrity/fame: The anti-heroes
Celebrities and their personnel
Child celebrities: Too young for fame?
Celebrity status as a burden; The weight of stardom
Forgotten celebrities: What happens when fame disappears?
Celebrities and ageing
Unwanted fame
Intercultural perspective on celebrity: i.e. Bollywood vs Hollywood
(Post)colonialism and celebrity
(Auto)biographies of/by stars and idols: self-representation, truth/fiction
Celebrity confessional literature; Self-help books by celebrities
Papers will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 27th January 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
E-mails should be entitled: Celebrity Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Katarzyna Bronk
Adam Mickiewicz University,
Poznan,
Poland
Dr Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road,
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
The conference is part of the Critical Issues series of research projects. The aim of the conference is 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 are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the 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: 13th Global Conference: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness
15th March - 17th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Hitler. Spitzer. Torquemada. Weiner. Genghis Khan. Lucrecia Borgia. Ronald Reagan. Ivan the Terrible. Bill Clinton. What do all these people have in common? They are all considered “evil” by a few, some, many, or all others who know anything about them. Why? What makes them evil? Or even just plain old “wicked?” What makes them not-evil or not-wicked? How does the label “evil” or “wicked” change our estimation of them? How has the use of those labels for these folk — and others — changed over time? How will the use of these labels continue to evolve?
Further, is evil an all-or-nothing term? Is some one either evil or not evil? Is it a term reserved for use in relation to ’special cases’? Serial killers? Paedophiles? Mothers who kill their children? Children who kill other children? Is it only people who can be evil? Can animals be evil? Can countries or nations be evil?
Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited on issues on or broadly related to any of the following themes:
1. Wrestling with ‘Evil’
- does the language of ‘evil’ make sense in the 21st Century?
- what is ‘evil’? What is the concept of ‘evil’?
- when we use the term ‘evil’ what do we seek to convey?
- understanding the language of evil
- ‘evil’ and other possibilities: morally objectionable; morally wrong; bad; immoral; iniquitous; reprobate; sinful; wrong; depraved; diabolical; heinous; malevolent; wicked
2. The Nature of Evil
- the contexts of evil; the ‘meaning’ of evil as context dependent
- the roots of evil
- what counts as evil? Evil, Evils. Is there such a thing?
- the boundaries of evil; the forms of evil; types of evil; instances of evil. Universal evil?
- the practices of evil
- taking evil seriously; enjoying evil; satisfying evil
3. Explanatory Frameworks
- what are we looking for? The possibility of explanations
- what is an explanation?
- what does or should an explanation seek to achieve?
- is evil capable of explanation?
- explanation as evil
4. Understanding Evil
- from the perspectives of the disciplines indicative examples: anthropology, art, art history, criminology, cultural studies, history, legal studies, literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology
- from the perspectives of professions indicative examples: accountants, architects, diplomats, doctors, engineers, lawyers, pharmacists, planners, teachers, vets; people working in economics, forensics, medicine, nursing, politics, prison services, psychiatry
- from the perspectives of vocations indicative examples: people working in altruistic vocations,
professional vocations, voluntary vocations, religious vocations, humanitarian campaigning and activities
- from the perspectives of ngos indicative examples: United Nations, international ngo’s, business oriented ngo’s, governmental ngo’s, quango’s, civil society ngo’s; people working with interest groups, lobbying activities; charity organisations; relief organisations; occupational organisations; not-for-profit networks
5. Representations of Evil
- art, art history, visual culture
- cinema, tv, theatre, radio
- music; metal
- media
- technological and multi-media representations
- video games and on-line communities
- subcultural formations and identities
- fashion and evil
- gothic subjectivities and Othering
6. Confronting Evil
- how is it possible to confront evil?
- can evil be resolved? Should evil be resolved?
- the work of Truth and Reconciliation commissions; the International Criminal Court; the role of law and local criminal justice procedures
- the work of international organisations
- the role of charities
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 1st October 2010. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 4th February 2011.
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Stephen Morris
Hub Leader (Evil)
Independent Scholar
New York, USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
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:
Hitler. Spitzer. Torquemada. Weiner. Genghis Khan. Lucrecia Borgia. Ronald Reagan. Ivan the Terrible. Bill Clinton. What do all these people have in common? They are all considered “evil” by a few, some, many, or all others who know anything about them. Why? What makes them evil? Or even just plain old “wicked?” What makes them not-evil or not-wicked? How does the label “evil” or “wicked” change our estimation of them? How has the use of those labels for these folk — and others — changed over time? How will the use of these labels continue to evolve?
Further, is evil an all-or-nothing term? Is some one either evil or not evil? Is it a term reserved for use in relation to ’special cases’? Serial killers? Paedophiles? Mothers who kill their children? Children who kill other children? Is it only people who can be evil? Can animals be evil? Can countries or nations be evil?
Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited on issues on or broadly related to any of the following themes:
1. Wrestling with ‘Evil’
- does the language of ‘evil’ make sense in the 21st Century?
- what is ‘evil’? What is the concept of ‘evil’?
- when we use the term ‘evil’ what do we seek to convey?
- understanding the language of evil
- ‘evil’ and other possibilities: morally objectionable; morally wrong; bad; immoral; iniquitous; reprobate; sinful; wrong; depraved; diabolical; heinous; malevolent; wicked
2. The Nature of Evil
- the contexts of evil; the ‘meaning’ of evil as context dependent
- the roots of evil
- what counts as evil? Evil, Evils. Is there such a thing?
- the boundaries of evil; the forms of evil; types of evil; instances of evil. Universal evil?
- the practices of evil
- taking evil seriously; enjoying evil; satisfying evil
3. Explanatory Frameworks
- what are we looking for? The possibility of explanations
- what is an explanation?
- what does or should an explanation seek to achieve?
- is evil capable of explanation?
- explanation as evil
4. Understanding Evil
- from the perspectives of the disciplines indicative examples: anthropology, art, art history, criminology, cultural studies, history, legal studies, literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology
- from the perspectives of professions indicative examples: accountants, architects, diplomats, doctors, engineers, lawyers, pharmacists, planners, teachers, vets; people working in economics, forensics, medicine, nursing, politics, prison services, psychiatry
- from the perspectives of vocations indicative examples: people working in altruistic vocations,
professional vocations, voluntary vocations, religious vocations, humanitarian campaigning and activities
- from the perspectives of ngos indicative examples: United Nations, international ngo’s, business oriented ngo’s, governmental ngo’s, quango’s, civil society ngo’s; people working with interest groups, lobbying activities; charity organisations; relief organisations; occupational organisations; not-for-profit networks
5. Representations of Evil
- art, art history, visual culture
- cinema, tv, theatre, radio
- music; metal
- media
- technological and multi-media representations
- video games and on-line communities
- subcultural formations and identities
- fashion and evil
- gothic subjectivities and Othering
6. Confronting Evil
- how is it possible to confront evil?
- can evil be resolved? Should evil be resolved?
- the work of Truth and Reconciliation commissions; the International Criminal Court; the role of law and local criminal justice procedures
- the work of international organisations
- the role of charities
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 1st October 2010. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 4th February 2011.
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Stephen Morris
Hub Leader (Evil)
Independent Scholar
New York, USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
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: 3rd Global Conference: Urban Fantasies: Magic and the Supernatural
15th March - 17th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Jimmy Paz. Harry Dresden. Matthew Swift. Felix Castor. Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton.
These are among the more recent characters that fill the shelves of “Urban Fantasy” in local or online bookshops. The novels that constitute the genre are set in cities or gritty inner-cities and contain one or more fantastic elements. Alien races, mythological characters, paranormal beings, and the manipulation of magical forces all appear in these novels. Self-esteem issues and tragic pasts often color or shape the principal characters. Although most often “contemporary,” the tales are sometimes set in the past or future as well. The books and stories demonstrate how magic or the supernatural interact with everyday quotidian life, either changing it forever (as in the *Shadow Saga*) or remaining a hidden force that protects the unknowing residents of the city (as in *The Chamber of Ten*).
This “Urban Fantasy” thread is part of a larger project concerned with Magic and the Supernatural in all its myriad forms. The fascination and appeal of magic and supernatural entities pervades societies and cultures. The continuing appeal of these characters is a testimony to how they shape our daydreams and our nightmares, as well as how we yearn for something that is “more” or “beyond” what we can see-touch-taste-feel. Children still avoid stepping on cracks, lovers pluck petals from a daisy, cards are dealt and tea leaves read.
A belief in magic as a means of influencing the world seems to have been common in all cultures. Some of these beliefs crossed over into nascent religions, influencing rites and religious celebrations. Over time, religiously-based supernatural events (”miracles”) acquired their own flavour, separating themselves from standard magic. Some modern religions such as the Neopaganisms embrace connections to magic, while others retain only echoes of their distant origins.
Papers from any discipline are welcome on any aspect of the Urban Fantasy genre as well as those concerned with Magic and the Supernatural in more general terms or other subheadings. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to, these:
* Gender and sexual stereotypes/roles in UF stories
* Updating and rewriting of traditional mythologies in UF
* Role of / interaction of magic/philosophy/religion in UF
* Magical practice as religion in UF
* Changes in UF as reflections of /opposition to contemporary culture
* Cultural and racial stereotypes in UF
* Comparison of UF and other fantasy sub-genres
* Importance of geographic location (ex. London, Salzburg, Venice) in UF
* Importance of historical accuracy and fidelity in UF
* Explanations for how “magic” functions/operates in varying UF stories
* Magic as “paranormal,” anything alleged to exist that is not explainable by any present laws of science
* the distinctions between “magic” and “religion” and “science”
* Magical thinking and the equation of coincidence with causality
* Folk magic and “traditional” systems of magic
* “Magick” and “Wicca” as religious systems in modern society
* Witchcraft in the European context
* “Witchcraft” and animism in African or Asian contexts
* Magic as illusion, stagecraft, sleight-of-hand
* Magic in modern literature (ex. Harry Potter, Harry Dresden, the saga of Middle Earth, the Chronicles of Narnia, etc.) and in traditional literatures (folk or fairy tales, legends, mythologies, etc.)
* Magic in art and the depiction of magical creatures, practices or practitioners
* the associations of magic with the “monstrous” or “evil;” does one imply the presence of the other?
* the portrayal of magic, magical creatures, and magical practices or practitioners on television and in film
* the roles or uses of magic in video games, on-line communities, role-playing games, subcultural formations and identities
* the similarities and differences of magical creatures across societies and time periods
* the interplay of “magic” and “religion” as well as “science”
* the “sciences” of demonology and angelology
* the role of divination or prophecy in societies or religions
* the use of “natural” vs. “supernatural” explanations for world events
* Magic and the supernatural as coping mechanisms for individuals and societies
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 27th January 2012. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Stephen Morris
Hub Leader (Evil)
Independent Scholar
New York, USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
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:
Jimmy Paz. Harry Dresden. Matthew Swift. Felix Castor. Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton.
These are among the more recent characters that fill the shelves of “Urban Fantasy” in local or online bookshops. The novels that constitute the genre are set in cities or gritty inner-cities and contain one or more fantastic elements. Alien races, mythological characters, paranormal beings, and the manipulation of magical forces all appear in these novels. Self-esteem issues and tragic pasts often color or shape the principal characters. Although most often “contemporary,” the tales are sometimes set in the past or future as well. The books and stories demonstrate how magic or the supernatural interact with everyday quotidian life, either changing it forever (as in the *Shadow Saga*) or remaining a hidden force that protects the unknowing residents of the city (as in *The Chamber of Ten*).
This “Urban Fantasy” thread is part of a larger project concerned with Magic and the Supernatural in all its myriad forms. The fascination and appeal of magic and supernatural entities pervades societies and cultures. The continuing appeal of these characters is a testimony to how they shape our daydreams and our nightmares, as well as how we yearn for something that is “more” or “beyond” what we can see-touch-taste-feel. Children still avoid stepping on cracks, lovers pluck petals from a daisy, cards are dealt and tea leaves read.
A belief in magic as a means of influencing the world seems to have been common in all cultures. Some of these beliefs crossed over into nascent religions, influencing rites and religious celebrations. Over time, religiously-based supernatural events (”miracles”) acquired their own flavour, separating themselves from standard magic. Some modern religions such as the Neopaganisms embrace connections to magic, while others retain only echoes of their distant origins.
Papers from any discipline are welcome on any aspect of the Urban Fantasy genre as well as those concerned with Magic and the Supernatural in more general terms or other subheadings. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to, these:
* Gender and sexual stereotypes/roles in UF stories
* Updating and rewriting of traditional mythologies in UF
* Role of / interaction of magic/philosophy/religion in UF
* Magical practice as religion in UF
* Changes in UF as reflections of /opposition to contemporary culture
* Cultural and racial stereotypes in UF
* Comparison of UF and other fantasy sub-genres
* Importance of geographic location (ex. London, Salzburg, Venice) in UF
* Importance of historical accuracy and fidelity in UF
* Explanations for how “magic” functions/operates in varying UF stories
* Magic as “paranormal,” anything alleged to exist that is not explainable by any present laws of science
* the distinctions between “magic” and “religion” and “science”
* Magical thinking and the equation of coincidence with causality
* Folk magic and “traditional” systems of magic
* “Magick” and “Wicca” as religious systems in modern society
* Witchcraft in the European context
* “Witchcraft” and animism in African or Asian contexts
* Magic as illusion, stagecraft, sleight-of-hand
* Magic in modern literature (ex. Harry Potter, Harry Dresden, the saga of Middle Earth, the Chronicles of Narnia, etc.) and in traditional literatures (folk or fairy tales, legends, mythologies, etc.)
* Magic in art and the depiction of magical creatures, practices or practitioners
* the associations of magic with the “monstrous” or “evil;” does one imply the presence of the other?
* the portrayal of magic, magical creatures, and magical practices or practitioners on television and in film
* the roles or uses of magic in video games, on-line communities, role-playing games, subcultural formations and identities
* the similarities and differences of magical creatures across societies and time periods
* the interplay of “magic” and “religion” as well as “science”
* the “sciences” of demonology and angelology
* the role of divination or prophecy in societies or religions
* the use of “natural” vs. “supernatural” explanations for world events
* Magic and the supernatural as coping mechanisms for individuals and societies
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 27th January 2012. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Stephen Morris
Hub Leader (Evil)
Independent Scholar
New York, USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
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: 1st Global Conference: Sin, Vices and Virtues
18th March - 20th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
In 2008, Archbishop Girotti triggered a heated public discussion when he identified new types of sins that wreak the modern world. The traditional list of the Church Fathers was unofficially updated to include social sins prevalent in what he called the era of “unstoppable globalisation”. and not necessarily embracing Christians only. Thus, apart from the familiar, but Christianity specific: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, Sloth, which individuals were to test their conscience for, the Church now cautions the whole of humanity inter alia about: Genetic modification and human experimentations; Polluting the environment; Social injustice; Causing poverty; Paedophilia, contraception, abortion; Taking drugs; and Financial gluttony. Not only are the ‘new sins’ not necessarily Christian in nature but they seem inter- and transcultural, disregarding religious persuasion. It seems no longer the matter of individual transgression that has spiritual repercussions, but rather the sin whose subject is the entire, global society.
Are we then to talk about a completely new hamartiology, new schematization, or are we just are revising, or adapting the Seven Deadly Sins to fit the secularized world of the 21st century? What are the real changes between medieval, originally Christian hamartiology and today’s religious/moral doctrines preached across the modern world? And what about non-Christian cultures with different categories of religious/spiritual transgressions. May one actually still talk about ’sin’ at all or is it an obsolete word in a multicultural world? Is the concept of religious transgression being secularised as well? Are all Western sins and virtues other cultures’ vices too?
This interdisciplinary conference seeks a new, provocative, intercultural perspective on some enduring truths concerning virtues and vices, sins and transgressions. Do we need a new list of moral commandments in the globalised, multicultural 21st century? Should they be religious or secular in nature? What are the foundations behind morality of the ‘modern (wo)man’. And, finally, is it possible, reaching back to the origins of humanity, to find common denominators between religious/spiritual definitions of vices and virtues of all belief systems?
Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to the following themes:
* The genealogy of the idea of sin or religious transgression in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Sinful/Transgressive actions and evil thoughts in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Lexicon of sinfulness/transgression and virtuousness in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Social functions of sins and virtues
* Modern sins and vices: Individual and social; religious and secular; intercultural
* Social sins: ‘Institutional’ and ’structural’; their social ramifications
* Communal versus individual sins/transgressions: Do societies sin?
* The concept of sin or spiritual transgression/deviation and philosophy
* Sins and vices on the political arena (secular morality or no morality)
* Psychology of sin (’sinful’ or ‘abnormal’?; the concept of sin after Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud)
* Representation of sins and sinners, vices, transgressions and virtues in art, literature, movies in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Genderization of sins, vices and virtues in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Ideology of sin/religious transgression and technological progress: G/god or the Machine; 'sins' of productive necessity
* Sins/Vices and/in the Media (ie advertising)
* Medieval crusades and modern (holy) wars
* Sinless, non-transgressive life in 21st century: Possibility or wishful thinking?
* Fear of the confessional or ‘McDonald-isation’ of spiritual life; is confession needed at all?
* Penitential practices across the ages and cultures
* Punishment for sin/transgression and rewarding virtue across the ages and cultures: individual and collective
* Visions of Hell and Paradise across cultures
* Virtues in the modern times; virtues in a modern man
Papers will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 27th january 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
E-mails should be entitled: Sins and Virtues Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Katarzyna Bronk
Independent Scholar,
Poznan,
Poland
Dr Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road,
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
The conference is part of the At the Interface series of research projects. The aim of the conference is 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 are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the 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:
In 2008, Archbishop Girotti triggered a heated public discussion when he identified new types of sins that wreak the modern world. The traditional list of the Church Fathers was unofficially updated to include social sins prevalent in what he called the era of “unstoppable globalisation”. and not necessarily embracing Christians only. Thus, apart from the familiar, but Christianity specific: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, Sloth, which individuals were to test their conscience for, the Church now cautions the whole of humanity inter alia about: Genetic modification and human experimentations; Polluting the environment; Social injustice; Causing poverty; Paedophilia, contraception, abortion; Taking drugs; and Financial gluttony. Not only are the ‘new sins’ not necessarily Christian in nature but they seem inter- and transcultural, disregarding religious persuasion. It seems no longer the matter of individual transgression that has spiritual repercussions, but rather the sin whose subject is the entire, global society.
Are we then to talk about a completely new hamartiology, new schematization, or are we just are revising, or adapting the Seven Deadly Sins to fit the secularized world of the 21st century? What are the real changes between medieval, originally Christian hamartiology and today’s religious/moral doctrines preached across the modern world? And what about non-Christian cultures with different categories of religious/spiritual transgressions. May one actually still talk about ’sin’ at all or is it an obsolete word in a multicultural world? Is the concept of religious transgression being secularised as well? Are all Western sins and virtues other cultures’ vices too?
This interdisciplinary conference seeks a new, provocative, intercultural perspective on some enduring truths concerning virtues and vices, sins and transgressions. Do we need a new list of moral commandments in the globalised, multicultural 21st century? Should they be religious or secular in nature? What are the foundations behind morality of the ‘modern (wo)man’. And, finally, is it possible, reaching back to the origins of humanity, to find common denominators between religious/spiritual definitions of vices and virtues of all belief systems?
Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to the following themes:
* The genealogy of the idea of sin or religious transgression in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Sinful/Transgressive actions and evil thoughts in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Lexicon of sinfulness/transgression and virtuousness in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Social functions of sins and virtues
* Modern sins and vices: Individual and social; religious and secular; intercultural
* Social sins: ‘Institutional’ and ’structural’; their social ramifications
* Communal versus individual sins/transgressions: Do societies sin?
* The concept of sin or spiritual transgression/deviation and philosophy
* Sins and vices on the political arena (secular morality or no morality)
* Psychology of sin (’sinful’ or ‘abnormal’?; the concept of sin after Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud)
* Representation of sins and sinners, vices, transgressions and virtues in art, literature, movies in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Genderization of sins, vices and virtues in Christian and non-Christian cultures
* Ideology of sin/religious transgression and technological progress: G/god or the Machine; 'sins' of productive necessity
* Sins/Vices and/in the Media (ie advertising)
* Medieval crusades and modern (holy) wars
* Sinless, non-transgressive life in 21st century: Possibility or wishful thinking?
* Fear of the confessional or ‘McDonald-isation’ of spiritual life; is confession needed at all?
* Penitential practices across the ages and cultures
* Punishment for sin/transgression and rewarding virtue across the ages and cultures: individual and collective
* Visions of Hell and Paradise across cultures
* Virtues in the modern times; virtues in a modern man
Papers will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 27th january 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
E-mails should be entitled: Sins and Virtues Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Katarzyna Bronk
Independent Scholar,
Poznan,
Poland
Dr Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road,
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
The conference is part of the At the Interface series of research projects. The aim of the conference is 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 are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the 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: Trauma: Theory and Practice
21st March - 24th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding individual and collective trauma, both in terms of practice, theory and lived reality. Trauma studies have emerged from its foundation in psychoanalysis to be a dominant methodology for understanding contemporary events and our reactions to them. Critics have argued that we live in a “culture of trauma”. Repeated images of suffering and death form our collective and/or cultural unconscious. The second global conference seeks papers on a variety of issues related to trauma including the function of memory and trauma, collective and cultural trauma, time and trauma, testimony and trauma, and strategies of dealing with/coming to terms with personal/political trauma.
In addition to academic analysis, we welcome the submission of case studies or other approaches from those involved with its practice, such as people in the medical profession and therapists, victims of events which have resulted in traumas on either an individual or mass scale, journalists or authors (including playwrights and poets) whose work deals with both fictional and factual trauma, and theatre professionals.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
1. Public and Political Trauma
~ War and trauma, both past and present
~ Public disasters and trauma including environmental catastrophes
~ Disease, public health and trauma
~ Political trauma, silencing dissent/voicing dissent
2. Personal and Individual Trauma
~ Bereavement
~ Murder and Assault
~ Domestic Violence
~ Child Abuse
~ Survivor guilt
~ Disability
~ Witnessing Trauma
3. Diagnosing and Treating Trauma
~ Psychotherapy, cognitive psychology and other psychological approaches to treating victims of trauma
~ Psychiatry
~ Other medical approaches
~ non-medical approaches, for example, narrative approaches, music, art
4. Theorising Trauma
~ Trauma and post colonialism
~ Memory and trauma
~ National identity and trauma
~ Trauma studies and psychoanalysis
~ Individual versus Collective trauma
~ Cultural trauma
~ Gender and trauma
~ The body and trauma
~ External and internal trauma
5. Representing Trauma
~ Affect, trauma and art
~ Dramatizing trauma on screen and on stage
~ Vision and Trauma
~ Media images: reality and fiction
~ literature and poetry
~ Eyewitness testimony
~ video games, violence and trauma
~ technology and trauma
~ reporting on trauma
~ the aesthetics and experience of trauma
~ fear, horror and trauma
~ Otherness and trauma
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 1st October 2010. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 27th January 2012.
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Colette Balmain
Hub Leader (Horror), Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Independent Scholar
United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
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 and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding individual and collective trauma, both in terms of practice, theory and lived reality. Trauma studies have emerged from its foundation in psychoanalysis to be a dominant methodology for understanding contemporary events and our reactions to them. Critics have argued that we live in a “culture of trauma”. Repeated images of suffering and death form our collective and/or cultural unconscious. The second global conference seeks papers on a variety of issues related to trauma including the function of memory and trauma, collective and cultural trauma, time and trauma, testimony and trauma, and strategies of dealing with/coming to terms with personal/political trauma.
In addition to academic analysis, we welcome the submission of case studies or other approaches from those involved with its practice, such as people in the medical profession and therapists, victims of events which have resulted in traumas on either an individual or mass scale, journalists or authors (including playwrights and poets) whose work deals with both fictional and factual trauma, and theatre professionals.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
1. Public and Political Trauma
~ War and trauma, both past and present
~ Public disasters and trauma including environmental catastrophes
~ Disease, public health and trauma
~ Political trauma, silencing dissent/voicing dissent
2. Personal and Individual Trauma
~ Bereavement
~ Murder and Assault
~ Domestic Violence
~ Child Abuse
~ Survivor guilt
~ Disability
~ Witnessing Trauma
3. Diagnosing and Treating Trauma
~ Psychotherapy, cognitive psychology and other psychological approaches to treating victims of trauma
~ Psychiatry
~ Other medical approaches
~ non-medical approaches, for example, narrative approaches, music, art
4. Theorising Trauma
~ Trauma and post colonialism
~ Memory and trauma
~ National identity and trauma
~ Trauma studies and psychoanalysis
~ Individual versus Collective trauma
~ Cultural trauma
~ Gender and trauma
~ The body and trauma
~ External and internal trauma
5. Representing Trauma
~ Affect, trauma and art
~ Dramatizing trauma on screen and on stage
~ Vision and Trauma
~ Media images: reality and fiction
~ literature and poetry
~ Eyewitness testimony
~ video games, violence and trauma
~ technology and trauma
~ reporting on trauma
~ the aesthetics and experience of trauma
~ fear, horror and trauma
~ Otherness and trauma
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 1st October 2010. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 27th January 2012.
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Colette Balmain
Hub Leader (Horror), Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Independent Scholar
United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
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: Spirituality in the 21st Century: At the Interface of Theory, Praxis and Pedagogy
21st March - 24th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
The contemporary study of spirituality encompasses a wide range of interests. These have come not only from the more traditional areas of religious scholarship—theology, philosophy of religion, history of religion, comparative religion, mysticism—but also more recently from management, medicine, and many other fields.
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding spirituality in regard to theory, praxis and pedagogy. Our first Conference, held in March 2011, was highly successful, with more than 50 presenters from greater than 25 countries around the world participating.
We seek to expand the range of ideas, fields, and locales of Spiritual work for the 2nd Global Conference. Perspectives are sought from those engaged in the fields of Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation, Business, Counseling, Ecology, Education, Healing, History, Management, Mass/Organizational/Speech Communication, Medicine, Nursing, Performance Studies, Philosophy, Psychiatry, Psychology, Reconciliation/Refugee/Resettlement Projects, Social Work, and Theatre. These disciplines are indicative only, as papers are welcomed from any area, profession and/or vocation in which Spirituality plays a part.
Papers, reports, works-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
* Conceptualizations of Spirituality
* Social and/or Cultural Aspects of Spirituality
* History(ies) of Spirituality
* Interpreting elements and examples of Spirituality
* The Liminal elements and facets of Spirituality
* Research and/or Pedagogical Approaches to Spiritual Work
* Social and cultural aspects of Spirituality
* Spirituality and Children
* Spirituality in Education, Curriculum Development and/or Pedagogy
* Spirituality Compassion and Reconciliation
* Spirituality and Cultural Identity
* Spirituality and Healing
* Spirituality and Addiction, Health Care, Medicine, and/or Nursing
* Spirituality in Counseling, Healing, Hospice Care, Psychology,
Psychiatry, Social Work, Therapy and/or Wellbeing
* Spiritual and Ecological Maintenance of Health and Life of Human
Beings
* Spirituality as Therapy
* Development of Personality as a Process of Spirit Creation
* Cultural Expressions of Spirituality via Art, Dance, Film, The
Internet, Literature, Music, Radio, Television and/or Theatre
* Spirituality and Communication
* Spirituality and the Environment
* Spirituality in Business and/or Management
* Spirituality and Gaia
* Teaching Spirituality
* Theology and Spirituality – use and/or abuse
* Teleology and Spirituality
* Comparisons and/or Contrasts between Spiritual Theory, Praxis and
Pedagogy
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed
panel proposals. Papers will be considered on any related theme.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2010.
All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 27th January 2012. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a 8-10 page full draft paper should be submitted to both Organising Chairs by Monday 27th January 2011.
Organising Chairs
John L. Hochheimer
College of Mass Communication and Media Arts
1100 Lincoln Drive, Mail Code 6609
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL. 62901 USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader,
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire, OX29 8HR
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 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.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
The contemporary study of spirituality encompasses a wide range of interests. These have come not only from the more traditional areas of religious scholarship—theology, philosophy of religion, history of religion, comparative religion, mysticism—but also more recently from management, medicine, and many other fields.
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding spirituality in regard to theory, praxis and pedagogy. Our first Conference, held in March 2011, was highly successful, with more than 50 presenters from greater than 25 countries around the world participating.
We seek to expand the range of ideas, fields, and locales of Spiritual work for the 2nd Global Conference. Perspectives are sought from those engaged in the fields of Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation, Business, Counseling, Ecology, Education, Healing, History, Management, Mass/Organizational/Speech Communication, Medicine, Nursing, Performance Studies, Philosophy, Psychiatry, Psychology, Reconciliation/Refugee/Resettlement Projects, Social Work, and Theatre. These disciplines are indicative only, as papers are welcomed from any area, profession and/or vocation in which Spirituality plays a part.
Papers, reports, works-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
* Conceptualizations of Spirituality
* Social and/or Cultural Aspects of Spirituality
* History(ies) of Spirituality
* Interpreting elements and examples of Spirituality
* The Liminal elements and facets of Spirituality
* Research and/or Pedagogical Approaches to Spiritual Work
* Social and cultural aspects of Spirituality
* Spirituality and Children
* Spirituality in Education, Curriculum Development and/or Pedagogy
* Spirituality Compassion and Reconciliation
* Spirituality and Cultural Identity
* Spirituality and Healing
* Spirituality and Addiction, Health Care, Medicine, and/or Nursing
* Spirituality in Counseling, Healing, Hospice Care, Psychology,
Psychiatry, Social Work, Therapy and/or Wellbeing
* Spiritual and Ecological Maintenance of Health and Life of Human
Beings
* Spirituality as Therapy
* Development of Personality as a Process of Spirit Creation
* Cultural Expressions of Spirituality via Art, Dance, Film, The
Internet, Literature, Music, Radio, Television and/or Theatre
* Spirituality and Communication
* Spirituality and the Environment
* Spirituality in Business and/or Management
* Spirituality and Gaia
* Teaching Spirituality
* Theology and Spirituality – use and/or abuse
* Teleology and Spirituality
* Comparisons and/or Contrasts between Spiritual Theory, Praxis and
Pedagogy
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed
panel proposals. Papers will be considered on any related theme.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2010.
All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 27th January 2012. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a 8-10 page full draft paper should be submitted to both Organising Chairs by Monday 27th January 2011.
Organising Chairs
John L. Hochheimer
College of Mass Communication and Media Arts
1100 Lincoln Drive, Mail Code 6609
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL. 62901 USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader,
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire, OX29 8HR
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 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, 15 July 2011
Review: K.A. Laity, 'Vironsusi'
I'm suddenly aware that it's been a while since I recommended a good werewolf story. And given my interest in werewolves, that seems a little odd. So to put that right, today I recommend the short story 'Vironsusi' by K.A. Laity.
'Vironsusi' is found in Laity's 2009 collection, Unikirja: Dream Book (published by Aino Press). The stories in this collection draw on Finnish myth and legend, retelling old stories in a fresh and original way.
I won't go into too much detail about 'Vironsusi', as it is a short piece and to discuss the specifics would spoil it for first time readers. Rather, what I will say is that, as an English writer, researcher and reader of werewolves, it is all to easy to focus one's attention on the Western European (and North American) werewolf tradition. If you're not careful, it's easy to imagine the history of the werewolf as beginning in Latin literature, and moving steadily through medieval romance, early modern witchhunts and Victorian poetry, before arriving comfortably in Hollywood.
Amongst the many things that are lost, if one adheres to this neat little lycanthropic timeline, are the 'other' werewolf traditions - though perhaps 'werewolf' is not quite the right word here - the other rich traditions (from Scandinavia and the Baltic, for example) of human/wolf shapeshifters. And it is in some of these often over-looked legends that Laity's work is based.
'Vironsusi' is a charming example of the way in which Laity retells the old tales of Finland in Unikirja. It is, on the surface, a rather simple story of a... well, let's say 'werewolf' for the sake of brevity. Yet the story bubbles under the surface with unspoken desire, longing and sadness. There is something very sympathetic about the central character, though they are far removed from the 'sympathetic werewolf' of cinema and urban fantasy.
As I said, I'll not go into too many details and risk giving away too much. But I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed this story, and the particular take on shapeshifting it offered. It is a well-written and evocative story, based firmly in the fascinating folktales of Finland. I highly recommend 'Vironsusi' - and the other stories in the collection, of course!
'Vironsusi' is found in Laity's 2009 collection, Unikirja: Dream Book (published by Aino Press). The stories in this collection draw on Finnish myth and legend, retelling old stories in a fresh and original way.
I won't go into too much detail about 'Vironsusi', as it is a short piece and to discuss the specifics would spoil it for first time readers. Rather, what I will say is that, as an English writer, researcher and reader of werewolves, it is all to easy to focus one's attention on the Western European (and North American) werewolf tradition. If you're not careful, it's easy to imagine the history of the werewolf as beginning in Latin literature, and moving steadily through medieval romance, early modern witchhunts and Victorian poetry, before arriving comfortably in Hollywood.
Amongst the many things that are lost, if one adheres to this neat little lycanthropic timeline, are the 'other' werewolf traditions - though perhaps 'werewolf' is not quite the right word here - the other rich traditions (from Scandinavia and the Baltic, for example) of human/wolf shapeshifters. And it is in some of these often over-looked legends that Laity's work is based.
'Vironsusi' is a charming example of the way in which Laity retells the old tales of Finland in Unikirja. It is, on the surface, a rather simple story of a... well, let's say 'werewolf' for the sake of brevity. Yet the story bubbles under the surface with unspoken desire, longing and sadness. There is something very sympathetic about the central character, though they are far removed from the 'sympathetic werewolf' of cinema and urban fantasy.
As I said, I'll not go into too many details and risk giving away too much. But I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed this story, and the particular take on shapeshifting it offered. It is a well-written and evocative story, based firmly in the fascinating folktales of Finland. I highly recommend 'Vironsusi' - and the other stories in the collection, of course!
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
CFP: Shield Maidens and Sacred Mothers: Medieval Women in Truth and Legend
Cardiff University
October 7, 2011
Call for Papers
This forthcoming interdisciplinary international conference seeks to examine images and representations of medieval women. Our aim is to promote new scholarship and innovative approaches to the study of this figure within the wider context of literary and historical studies. Our purpose is to foster an interdisciplinary discussion of the ways in which the medieval female is depicted within myth, folklore, legend and historiography.
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Roberta Lynn Staples, Sacred Heart University, Connecticut, USA.
Author of The Company of Camelot. Arthurian characters in Romance and Fantasy (with Charlotte Spivack)
Abstracts of not more than 250 words are invited for individual 20-minute papers on the theme of the conference (interpreted in literary or historical terms, or both). Abstracts should be emailed to the conference convenors.
Deadline for receipt of abstracts: August 31, 2011
The Conference will take place at Cardiff University’s main campus
General Enquiries:
Conference Organisers
Nicole Thomas
Sarah Williams
Please visit our Facebook page: Shield Maidens and Sacred Mothers.
October 7, 2011
Call for Papers
This forthcoming interdisciplinary international conference seeks to examine images and representations of medieval women. Our aim is to promote new scholarship and innovative approaches to the study of this figure within the wider context of literary and historical studies. Our purpose is to foster an interdisciplinary discussion of the ways in which the medieval female is depicted within myth, folklore, legend and historiography.
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Roberta Lynn Staples, Sacred Heart University, Connecticut, USA.
Author of The Company of Camelot. Arthurian characters in Romance and Fantasy (with Charlotte Spivack)
Abstracts of not more than 250 words are invited for individual 20-minute papers on the theme of the conference (interpreted in literary or historical terms, or both). Abstracts should be emailed to the conference convenors.
Deadline for receipt of abstracts: August 31, 2011
The Conference will take place at Cardiff University’s main campus
General Enquiries:
Conference Organisers
Nicole Thomas
Sarah Williams
Please visit our Facebook page: Shield Maidens and Sacred Mothers.
CFP: 10th Medieval English Studies Symposium
19-20 November 2011
Poznań, Poland
The 10th Medieval English Studies Symposium, organised by the School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, will be held in Poznan from 19-20 November, 2011. MESS10 will have as its aim bringing together specialists in the areas of medieval English literature and linguistics. Two plenary lectures, at least two parallel sessions and over twenty section meetings are planned.
The main aim of the literary section is that class and wealth and their literary representations appear in the form of endorsements as well as admonitions. Princes and Paupers feature in secular literature of advice as well as in religious works on sins and transgressions, both types offering insight into the nature of medieval social life. Early medieval penitentials outline not only ideas on penance (exile which meant social exclusion being one of the most frequently prescribed punishments), but first and foremost demonstrate how crimes were punished differently according to the social class of the perpetrators. Mess10 welcomes all papers dealing with the above mentioned aspects of medieval literature but we will also try to accommodate other papers, if need arises.
500-word abstracts should be submitted by the end of August 2011, preferably by email, in the .rtf or .doc format. As the number of paper slots is limited, all proposals will be reviewed by the organising committee and the authors will be notified about acceptance by mid-September 2011. Participants without papers are also welcome.
Venue
The conference will be held at Collegium Iuridicum Novum building, officially inaugurated in December 2010 to house the AMU Faculty of Law and Administration (Polish: Wydział Prawa i Administracji).
All the rooms offer audio and video equipment, including data projectors.
Registration
New registration forms will soon be available on the conference website.
All enquiries concerning the Symposium should be addressed to the organisers, preferably by e-mail.
For more information, see the main website here.
Poznań, Poland
The 10th Medieval English Studies Symposium, organised by the School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, will be held in Poznan from 19-20 November, 2011. MESS10 will have as its aim bringing together specialists in the areas of medieval English literature and linguistics. Two plenary lectures, at least two parallel sessions and over twenty section meetings are planned.
Literature Section at MESS10
Princes and Paupers: Class, Money and (social and physical) Otherness in medieval and medievalist literature in English
The main aim of the literary section is that class and wealth and their literary representations appear in the form of endorsements as well as admonitions. Princes and Paupers feature in secular literature of advice as well as in religious works on sins and transgressions, both types offering insight into the nature of medieval social life. Early medieval penitentials outline not only ideas on penance (exile which meant social exclusion being one of the most frequently prescribed punishments), but first and foremost demonstrate how crimes were punished differently according to the social class of the perpetrators. Mess10 welcomes all papers dealing with the above mentioned aspects of medieval literature but we will also try to accommodate other papers, if need arises.
500-word abstracts should be submitted by the end of August 2011, preferably by email, in the .rtf or .doc format. As the number of paper slots is limited, all proposals will be reviewed by the organising committee and the authors will be notified about acceptance by mid-September 2011. Participants without papers are also welcome.
Venue
The conference will be held at Collegium Iuridicum Novum building, officially inaugurated in December 2010 to house the AMU Faculty of Law and Administration (Polish: Wydział Prawa i Administracji).
All the rooms offer audio and video equipment, including data projectors.
Registration
New registration forms will soon be available on the conference website.
All enquiries concerning the Symposium should be addressed to the organisers, preferably by e-mail.
For more information, see the main website here.
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Review: Tales From the Asylum: A Steampunk Compilation (The Last Line, 2010)
Tales From the Asylum is a collection of steampunk short stories, published by small press The Last Line in 2010. I came across the book at the 2010 Bram Stoker Film Festival, where the publishers had a stall. I was intrigued by the overall concept of the book (and more on that below), but also by what the publishers (and one of the authors) told me about the book's conception. The writers involved in the project are all steampunks themselves, and wanted to write a book that reflected what they termed the 'grassroots' of steampunk. Unlike many recent anthologies, which they felt were produced by writers 'trying out a new genre', this collection is intended as a journey into the world of the 'true' steampunk.
Although this is a short story collection, it is not simply an anthology of genre fiction. The stories are linked together by a framing narrative. The 'Asylum' of the title is a crumbling, and somewhat mysterious, mental facility, and the frame story follows Arkwright - a warden of sorts - as he visits the cells of the last ten inmates. Each individual story narrates the circumstances and histories of these 'cases', who, as the blurb on the back states, "can never be released". In between stories, the narration returns to Arkwright, and gives some unsettling hints about the real purpose of the asylum. Arkwright himself appears in one of the stories, deepening the connection between the warden, his charges, and the institution to which they all belong.
The stories included cover a range of sinister material - from vampires and vampire hunters to the malevolent force of nature that is the ocean. The collection begins with Rich Blackett's 'Stargazer', which narrates the story of an airship rigger through a series of transcribed interviews. Andrea Burnett's 'Voices from the Past' offers (somewhat fraudulent) mediums, and Karl Burnett's 'The Toothless Jaw' is a classic Victorian tale of a haunted locket and its effects on all those who come into contact with it. Locations are varied - from the fishing village of L.M. Cooke's 'The Call of the Deep' to the moon (in Herr Doktor's 'Sea of Tranquillity'), and characters range from a would-be vampire hunter (in Matt Adams' 'Blood Hunt') to a rather unsettlingly jovial fellow in Ian Crichton's 'Ghost Ship'.
One of the real strengths of the collection lies not in what the narratives say, but rather in what they don't say. My personal favourite out of the eleven narratives is Arkwright's 'The Hollow Man'. Unlike the other stories, this piece is not framed as the 'history' of a particular inmate. Nor does it begin with any introduction or situation. "Scream!" it begins, and then "I hung in a void, no knowledge of where I was." The lack of any real explanation creates a wonderfully unsettling piece of macabre horror, heightened by the references in the framing narrative to a place where "nothing human had ever passed" and a cell with a bricked-up door.
Similarly, the true purpose and history of the asylum is left, in part, to the reader's imagination. Though there are threads of a story - in the frame story and in some of the pieces themselves - and various references to sinister government forces and committees (including a familiar gentleman whose brother lives in Baker Street), this is handled with some subtlety and opacity.
While I did enjoy all the stories in this collection, I do have a couple of criticisms. The first is that there are quite few issues with editing (spelling and punctuation particularly). However, since I know that the publishers are aware of these, it seems somewhat churlish to dwell on them.
The second issue I have is more to do with my own tastes. While the book is written by steampunks - and having met some of them, I can certainly vouch for this - I'd question just how 'steampunk' some of the stories actually are. Personally, I prefer steampunk fiction that imagines a future world, based on Victorian technology (or some version of this), but not definitively set in this period. While the stories in this collection employ many of the tropes of steampunk - airships, brass rockets and automata all feature - they are quite clearly grounded in the nineteenth-century. Indeed, in the first story, the date of "1898" is given explicitly. Only one of the stories (Rich Blackett's 'Ring of Silence') hints at the more 'fantastical' technology associated with steampunk fiction, with the bodily modifications of Nell Fenton suggesting a sort of future version of Victorian technology.
As such, it might be better to class this collection as 'Victoriana' rather than steampunk per se. Indeed, several of the stories owe a debt to the nineteenth-century writers that are credited as the forerunners of the steampunk genre (H.G. Wells and Jules Verne) or to writers of 'classic' speculative fiction (M.R. James and Edgar Allen Poe) rather than to more recent literary creations. This is not to say that the stories aren't effective, but that they might be better described as tales of the Victorian uncanny.
Nevertheless, there is a real exhuberance and enthusiasm to the collection, which makes it a compelling read. Each writer has put their own stamp on their story, while the framing device gives a pace and movement to the overall narrative. It is fitting that the reader is asked to "follow in Arkwright's footsteps", as this is an apt description of the experience of reading the book. We move from one tale to the next as though following the path the warden takes through the asylum. The end result is something more than a series of stories simply linked by theme.
Overall, I recommend Tales From the Asylum: a book to have at hand for those days where you just fancy a bit of Victorian creepiness.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Can Zombies Be Gothic?
Two things have inspired tonight's post. Firstly, I have just returned from an international conference on the Gothic in Warsaw. Secondly, I read Rachel Caine's Kiss of Death - the eighth Morganville Vampires book - today. I'm a huge fan of the Morganville books, and my paper at the Warsaw conference was on YA vampire fiction, so I was very interested to see the change in direction the eighth book took. I'll give a brief summary (spoiler warning) first, and the reasoning behind this post should become a bit clearer.
Caine's young adult vampire series is set in the Texas town of Morganville. The series follows the adventures of Claire Danvers, who is a 16/17-year-old student at Texas Prairie University. After being bullied in her college dorm, Claire takes up residence at the Glass House with a group of slightly older teens. It is here that she learns the truth about Morganville - it is run by vampires, who 'protect' (own) the humans and demand 'taxes' (blood) from them. The series continues with Claire negotiating the town's rules, forming alliances with the 'old' vampires, working for the somewhat crazy vampire Myrnin and getting into a relationship with human teen Shane. As I argued in my paper at the Warsaw conference, the series draws on a number of tropes of the Gothic - particularly the invocation of an imagined past, with its concomitant morality and societal regulation.
Kiss of Death, however, offers something different. When new-vampire and aspiring musician Michael Glass (one of Claire's housemates) is offered the chance to record a demo CD in Dallas, the protagonists are given passes to leave Morganville. They have not travelled far before they arrive in the town of Durram. Here, they enter a diner replete with threatening "redneck" locals (who take an immediate dislike to the group of friends), stay at an abandoned motel (run by a shotgun-toting old lady) and are arrested by the town's sheriff on trumped up charges. They eventually escape, and arrive at Blacke - an even more deserted backwater town under siege from a group of 'vampires' that are suffering from a vampire 'disease' that had previously been eradicated in Morganville. (Claire and Myrnin's work to find a cure for this disease is the subject of the earlier books in the series.)
Even before the 'sick' vampires are described, horror-canny readers will notice that the tropes being utilized here are not those of vampire fiction, but those of the horror (specifically zombie) film. Sure enough, when the first of the Blacke vampires makes an appearance, it is clear that this is not the same sort of creature as has featured in the previous Morganville books: the most important difference, perhaps, is that he smells of death. Another Blacke vampire is described thus: "a shuffling, twisted old man with crazy eyes and drifting white hair". As these undead creatures approach, the heroes take a course of action that should be obvious to anyone familiar with zombie films - they run into a room, slam the door against the creatures and barricade themselves in. Near the end of the book, there is an acknowledgement that the teens have, indeed, been fighting a "vampire zombie army".
The departure that this book takes has prompted me to question: what exactly is the difference between a vampire and a zombie? And if we can say that vampire fiction belongs to the Gothic, can we say the same about zombie narratives? If zombies aren't Gothic, why are they not? What is that sets them apart from the Gothic sensibility?
In folkloric terms, the differentiation between the two types of undead is blurred, but in contemporary cinema, literature and art, there is a world of difference. Somewhere along the way, our revenants diverged. Though there is a huge amount of interesting material on folk beliefs in vampires and zombies, I'm not going to talk about that today. My interest is in popular culture, so I'm purely focusing on recent film, TV and literary representations in this post.
To start with, I'll offer a quick definition of the Gothic - though this is by no means absolutely definitive and I'm aware that I'm hurrying over some key points here. I agree with Catherine Spooner, who suggests (in Contemporary Gothic) that one of the clearest definitions of Gothic is to be found in Chris Baldick's introduction to The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales: Gothic texts should encompass "a fearful sense of inheritance in time with a claustrophobic sense of enclosure in space". Spooner elaborates on Baldick's definition by adding, "the dead rise from the grave or lay their cold hands upon the shoulders of the living".
Vampires and zombies are both forms of revenants - they are the walking dead (or undead) - and frequently "lay their cold hands upon the shoulders of the living". Moreover, they share a predilection for anthropophagic eating habits, feasting on the blood and brains of their victims. Being the walking dead, the two creatures occupy a liminal space between life and death, transgressing the boundaries and breaking taboos. This cannibalism and transgression seems to point directly to the Gothic, a genre (or perhaps, more accurately, mode) that often explores and revels in such liminality. It is not, therefore, here that the difference between the two creatures can be found.
It's worth also considering the question of the 'uncanny', a concept which is deeply connected to the Gothic. In the introduction to his The Uncanny, Nicholas Royle describes the concept thus: "it is a peculiar commingling of the familiar and unfamiliar", adding that it can take the form of "something strange and unfamiliar unexpectedly arising in a familiar context". The walking dead are a good example of this. The faces of these entities are familiar (indeed, they are often the 'family' of the human protagonists in zombie and vampire fiction), but the fact that dead do not stay buried, do not behave as they did when living, is 'unfamiliar'.
Theoretically, then, there is nothing to preclude zombies from the Gothic. They are liminal, taboo-breaking, uncanny creatures. And yet, contemporary representations of zombies are seldom read as 'Gothic'. I'd like, then, to suggest a few reasons why this might be.
1. Gothic Aesthetic
However we might theorize the Gothic, it must be noted that the mode is characterized by a certain aesthetic. When I did a quick Twitter poll this evening, people were quick to suggest that zombies cannot be considered Gothic because they are not "beautiful" enough. A brief survey of recent pop culture representations should be enough to reveal the difference between presentations of the vampire (pale, sparkly and Byronic) and presentations of the zombie (grey, flaky and shambolic). The fact that a zombie decays, while a vampire does not is perhaps of paramount importance here: grotesque and repugnant bodies stand in sharp opposition to the Gothic aesthetic.
This clip from the BBC's Being Human (Series 3, Episode 3) illustrates this perfectly. Here, the regular characters (one vampire, two werewolves and a ghost) encounter a zombie. Note the difference between the vampire Mitchell (physically very much the 'Byronic' type) and the zombie Sasha:
While the Gothic does not preclude the grotesque per se, there is something about the repulsiveness of the zombie body that stands at odds with the dominant romantic understanding of the genre. Furthermore, as the clip from Being Human attests, the decaying and putrifying body of the zombie lends itself to humour as often as horror, which again distances it from the overall aesthetic of the Gothic.
2. Rationality and Madness
The origins of the Gothic are closely intertwined with the Enlightenment, and with ideas of rationality and reason. Often in 'classic' or 'High' Gothic texts, we see the rational and enlightened world pitted against the forces of an irrational and benighted past (usually medieval and Catholic). By the time we reach the end of the 19th-century, we see this conflict reach possibly its most fully-developed form; in Bram Stoker's Dracula, the modern heroes battle against the ancient count with the aid of education, medical knowledge, typewriters and train timetables.
It goes without saying, I think, that zombies are not rational creatures; however, they are not strictly irrational either - at least not by the standards used in the Gothic. They do not adhere to 'older' ways of thinking; they do not think at all. The unrelenting mindlessness of the zombie sets it apart from both the traditional villain and the traditional hero of Gothic fiction.
Vampires, of course, do 'lose their minds'. Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a case in point, as is Rachel Caine's Myrnin. They are also prone to a certain type of melancholy, characterized by excessive guilt and self-reflection. Without wanting to open too many cans of worms, Stephenie Meyer's Edward Cullen might be considered as an example of this melancholic vampire.
And now the caveat: some texts do present beautiful or melancholy zombies. Some do allow for an exploration of the irrationality and passion of the zombie. And, conversely, one need only look to F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu for an example of a vampire who does not fit the model suggested above. This brings me to my third, and perhaps most important, distinction between the vampire and the zombie.
3. Place and Time
If we look again at Baldick's theorization of the Gothic, we see that it is characterized by "inheritance in time" and "enclosure in space", and it is in this that the zombie most clearly defies the generic conventions, and the vampire most clearly confirms them. Even a grotesque, irrational creature like Murnau's Count Orlok has a fundamental presence in 'time' and 'place'. His very name implies "inheritance in time", and the staging of the film in the Count's castle evokes the Gothic "enclosure in space". It is the combination of these that creates the claustrophobic terror of Murnau's film.
The zombie does not have this sense of inheritance. While vampires are creatures imbued to their very core with the past, zombies belong wholly in the present. Usually devoid of memory (note that in the Being Human clip, the otherwise fairly coherent Sasha has no memory of her own death), and with few (if any) links to their human lives, zombies exist in a temporal vacuum. That is not to say that the zombie is not a product of its time - this has been demonstrated by a number of scholars working on horror fiction - but rather that the individual zombie should be read as a creature devoid of past or future.
Additionally, though the embattled opponents of the zombie often find themselves 'enclosed' in space, the zombie itself has no connection to a particular locality. Unlike other revenants, zombies do not haunt a specific place. They may attack a house, a mall, a pub or a diner, but these attacks are based on the proximity of human victims, rather than a pre-existing individualized connection to the location itself. In the majority of pop culture representations, zombies roam - this itinerant nature is a distinct contrast to the vampire's Gothic enclosure in a particular building or town.
As noted above, the Gothic is closely connected to the notion of the uncanny. In turn, the uncanny is aligned with the Freudian concept of the unheimlich (literally, the 'unhomely'). The unheimlich suggests foreignness, strangeness and the alien, but also relies on a comprehension of its inverse: the heimlich (the homely or familiar). Zombies explode these categorizations in their denial of the 'home'. In zombie narratives, spaces are consistently repurposed and distinctions between the 'home' and 'not home' are collapsed as territories are continually refigured.
The two ideas go hand-in-hand. It is in the zombie's denial of the past that the rejection of the concept of 'home' is seen most clearly. How can a creature that exists solely in the present be said to 'haunt' anything? And, as the Gothic frequently situates inheritance and past in a particular locality, the rejection of an individual place implies a concomitant rejection of time. If the Gothic requires a particular utilization of time and place, how can we describe something as 'Gothic' if it is based in a rejection of both concepts?
There are, of course, exceptions that prove every rule. There are also far more facets and implications to both the 'Gothic' and 'zombies' than I have had time to consider tonight. So rather than offer any definite conclusion to this post, I'd like to throw it open to discussion... do you agree? Have I missed something? Can you offer any examples of 'Gothic zombies'?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
References:
Baldick, Chris (ed.), The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
Caine, Rachel, Kiss of Death (London: Allison & Busby, 2010)
Royle, Nicholas, The Uncanny (Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, 2003)
Spooner, Catherine, Contemporary Gothic (London: Reaktion Books, 2006)
Caine's young adult vampire series is set in the Texas town of Morganville. The series follows the adventures of Claire Danvers, who is a 16/17-year-old student at Texas Prairie University. After being bullied in her college dorm, Claire takes up residence at the Glass House with a group of slightly older teens. It is here that she learns the truth about Morganville - it is run by vampires, who 'protect' (own) the humans and demand 'taxes' (blood) from them. The series continues with Claire negotiating the town's rules, forming alliances with the 'old' vampires, working for the somewhat crazy vampire Myrnin and getting into a relationship with human teen Shane. As I argued in my paper at the Warsaw conference, the series draws on a number of tropes of the Gothic - particularly the invocation of an imagined past, with its concomitant morality and societal regulation.
Kiss of Death, however, offers something different. When new-vampire and aspiring musician Michael Glass (one of Claire's housemates) is offered the chance to record a demo CD in Dallas, the protagonists are given passes to leave Morganville. They have not travelled far before they arrive in the town of Durram. Here, they enter a diner replete with threatening "redneck" locals (who take an immediate dislike to the group of friends), stay at an abandoned motel (run by a shotgun-toting old lady) and are arrested by the town's sheriff on trumped up charges. They eventually escape, and arrive at Blacke - an even more deserted backwater town under siege from a group of 'vampires' that are suffering from a vampire 'disease' that had previously been eradicated in Morganville. (Claire and Myrnin's work to find a cure for this disease is the subject of the earlier books in the series.)
Even before the 'sick' vampires are described, horror-canny readers will notice that the tropes being utilized here are not those of vampire fiction, but those of the horror (specifically zombie) film. Sure enough, when the first of the Blacke vampires makes an appearance, it is clear that this is not the same sort of creature as has featured in the previous Morganville books: the most important difference, perhaps, is that he smells of death. Another Blacke vampire is described thus: "a shuffling, twisted old man with crazy eyes and drifting white hair". As these undead creatures approach, the heroes take a course of action that should be obvious to anyone familiar with zombie films - they run into a room, slam the door against the creatures and barricade themselves in. Near the end of the book, there is an acknowledgement that the teens have, indeed, been fighting a "vampire zombie army".
The departure that this book takes has prompted me to question: what exactly is the difference between a vampire and a zombie? And if we can say that vampire fiction belongs to the Gothic, can we say the same about zombie narratives? If zombies aren't Gothic, why are they not? What is that sets them apart from the Gothic sensibility?
In folkloric terms, the differentiation between the two types of undead is blurred, but in contemporary cinema, literature and art, there is a world of difference. Somewhere along the way, our revenants diverged. Though there is a huge amount of interesting material on folk beliefs in vampires and zombies, I'm not going to talk about that today. My interest is in popular culture, so I'm purely focusing on recent film, TV and literary representations in this post.
To start with, I'll offer a quick definition of the Gothic - though this is by no means absolutely definitive and I'm aware that I'm hurrying over some key points here. I agree with Catherine Spooner, who suggests (in Contemporary Gothic) that one of the clearest definitions of Gothic is to be found in Chris Baldick's introduction to The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales: Gothic texts should encompass "a fearful sense of inheritance in time with a claustrophobic sense of enclosure in space". Spooner elaborates on Baldick's definition by adding, "the dead rise from the grave or lay their cold hands upon the shoulders of the living".
Vampires and zombies are both forms of revenants - they are the walking dead (or undead) - and frequently "lay their cold hands upon the shoulders of the living". Moreover, they share a predilection for anthropophagic eating habits, feasting on the blood and brains of their victims. Being the walking dead, the two creatures occupy a liminal space between life and death, transgressing the boundaries and breaking taboos. This cannibalism and transgression seems to point directly to the Gothic, a genre (or perhaps, more accurately, mode) that often explores and revels in such liminality. It is not, therefore, here that the difference between the two creatures can be found.
It's worth also considering the question of the 'uncanny', a concept which is deeply connected to the Gothic. In the introduction to his The Uncanny, Nicholas Royle describes the concept thus: "it is a peculiar commingling of the familiar and unfamiliar", adding that it can take the form of "something strange and unfamiliar unexpectedly arising in a familiar context". The walking dead are a good example of this. The faces of these entities are familiar (indeed, they are often the 'family' of the human protagonists in zombie and vampire fiction), but the fact that dead do not stay buried, do not behave as they did when living, is 'unfamiliar'.
Theoretically, then, there is nothing to preclude zombies from the Gothic. They are liminal, taboo-breaking, uncanny creatures. And yet, contemporary representations of zombies are seldom read as 'Gothic'. I'd like, then, to suggest a few reasons why this might be.
1. Gothic Aesthetic
However we might theorize the Gothic, it must be noted that the mode is characterized by a certain aesthetic. When I did a quick Twitter poll this evening, people were quick to suggest that zombies cannot be considered Gothic because they are not "beautiful" enough. A brief survey of recent pop culture representations should be enough to reveal the difference between presentations of the vampire (pale, sparkly and Byronic) and presentations of the zombie (grey, flaky and shambolic). The fact that a zombie decays, while a vampire does not is perhaps of paramount importance here: grotesque and repugnant bodies stand in sharp opposition to the Gothic aesthetic.
This clip from the BBC's Being Human (Series 3, Episode 3) illustrates this perfectly. Here, the regular characters (one vampire, two werewolves and a ghost) encounter a zombie. Note the difference between the vampire Mitchell (physically very much the 'Byronic' type) and the zombie Sasha:
While the Gothic does not preclude the grotesque per se, there is something about the repulsiveness of the zombie body that stands at odds with the dominant romantic understanding of the genre. Furthermore, as the clip from Being Human attests, the decaying and putrifying body of the zombie lends itself to humour as often as horror, which again distances it from the overall aesthetic of the Gothic.
2. Rationality and Madness
The origins of the Gothic are closely intertwined with the Enlightenment, and with ideas of rationality and reason. Often in 'classic' or 'High' Gothic texts, we see the rational and enlightened world pitted against the forces of an irrational and benighted past (usually medieval and Catholic). By the time we reach the end of the 19th-century, we see this conflict reach possibly its most fully-developed form; in Bram Stoker's Dracula, the modern heroes battle against the ancient count with the aid of education, medical knowledge, typewriters and train timetables.
It goes without saying, I think, that zombies are not rational creatures; however, they are not strictly irrational either - at least not by the standards used in the Gothic. They do not adhere to 'older' ways of thinking; they do not think at all. The unrelenting mindlessness of the zombie sets it apart from both the traditional villain and the traditional hero of Gothic fiction.
Vampires, of course, do 'lose their minds'. Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a case in point, as is Rachel Caine's Myrnin. They are also prone to a certain type of melancholy, characterized by excessive guilt and self-reflection. Without wanting to open too many cans of worms, Stephenie Meyer's Edward Cullen might be considered as an example of this melancholic vampire.
And now the caveat: some texts do present beautiful or melancholy zombies. Some do allow for an exploration of the irrationality and passion of the zombie. And, conversely, one need only look to F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu for an example of a vampire who does not fit the model suggested above. This brings me to my third, and perhaps most important, distinction between the vampire and the zombie.
3. Place and Time
If we look again at Baldick's theorization of the Gothic, we see that it is characterized by "inheritance in time" and "enclosure in space", and it is in this that the zombie most clearly defies the generic conventions, and the vampire most clearly confirms them. Even a grotesque, irrational creature like Murnau's Count Orlok has a fundamental presence in 'time' and 'place'. His very name implies "inheritance in time", and the staging of the film in the Count's castle evokes the Gothic "enclosure in space". It is the combination of these that creates the claustrophobic terror of Murnau's film.
The zombie does not have this sense of inheritance. While vampires are creatures imbued to their very core with the past, zombies belong wholly in the present. Usually devoid of memory (note that in the Being Human clip, the otherwise fairly coherent Sasha has no memory of her own death), and with few (if any) links to their human lives, zombies exist in a temporal vacuum. That is not to say that the zombie is not a product of its time - this has been demonstrated by a number of scholars working on horror fiction - but rather that the individual zombie should be read as a creature devoid of past or future.
Additionally, though the embattled opponents of the zombie often find themselves 'enclosed' in space, the zombie itself has no connection to a particular locality. Unlike other revenants, zombies do not haunt a specific place. They may attack a house, a mall, a pub or a diner, but these attacks are based on the proximity of human victims, rather than a pre-existing individualized connection to the location itself. In the majority of pop culture representations, zombies roam - this itinerant nature is a distinct contrast to the vampire's Gothic enclosure in a particular building or town.
As noted above, the Gothic is closely connected to the notion of the uncanny. In turn, the uncanny is aligned with the Freudian concept of the unheimlich (literally, the 'unhomely'). The unheimlich suggests foreignness, strangeness and the alien, but also relies on a comprehension of its inverse: the heimlich (the homely or familiar). Zombies explode these categorizations in their denial of the 'home'. In zombie narratives, spaces are consistently repurposed and distinctions between the 'home' and 'not home' are collapsed as territories are continually refigured.
The two ideas go hand-in-hand. It is in the zombie's denial of the past that the rejection of the concept of 'home' is seen most clearly. How can a creature that exists solely in the present be said to 'haunt' anything? And, as the Gothic frequently situates inheritance and past in a particular locality, the rejection of an individual place implies a concomitant rejection of time. If the Gothic requires a particular utilization of time and place, how can we describe something as 'Gothic' if it is based in a rejection of both concepts?
There are, of course, exceptions that prove every rule. There are also far more facets and implications to both the 'Gothic' and 'zombies' than I have had time to consider tonight. So rather than offer any definite conclusion to this post, I'd like to throw it open to discussion... do you agree? Have I missed something? Can you offer any examples of 'Gothic zombies'?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
References:
Baldick, Chris (ed.), The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
Caine, Rachel, Kiss of Death (London: Allison & Busby, 2010)
Royle, Nicholas, The Uncanny (Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, 2003)
Spooner, Catherine, Contemporary Gothic (London: Reaktion Books, 2006)
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