Reviews, articles and musings from a pop culture scholar. Female werewolves, speculative fiction, creative writing, medieval culture... and anywhere else my mind takes me.
Saturday 14 August 2010
Books We Like...
A inter-disciplinary collection of essays exploring monsters, the monstrous, identities and boundaries. This collection grew out of the Fifth Global Monsters and the Monstrous Conference, held at Mansfield College, Oxford in 2007.
I'm sure eagle-eyed readers will spot the chapter on medieval werewolves written by yours truly!
For more information, click here.
Contents:
Hosting the Monster: Introduction
Holly Lynn Baumgartner and Roger Davies
"I Live in the Weak and the Wounded": The Monster of Brad Anderson's Session 9
Duane Kight
The Monster as a Victim of War: The Returning Veteran in The Best Years of Our Lives
Amaya Muruzabal Muruzabal
Human Monstrosity: Rape, Ambiguity and Performance in Rosemary's Baby
Lucy Fife
The Monstrous and Maternal in Toni Morrison's Beloved
Inderjit Grewal
The Witch and the Werewolf: Rebirth and Subjectivity in Medieval Verse
Hannah Priest
It's Never the Bass: Opera's True Transgressors Sing Soprano
Holly Lynn Baumgartner
Joseph Merrick and the Concept of Monstrosity in Nineteenth Century Medical Thought
Katherine Angell
Herculine Barbin: Human Error, Criminality and the Case of the Monstrous Hermaphrodite
Jessica Webb
Literary Monsters: Gender, Genius, and Writing in Denis Diderot's 'On Women' and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Cecilia A. Feilla
Sweet, Bloody Vengeance: Class, Social Stigma and Servitude in the Slasher Genre
Sorcha Ni Fhlainn
It Cam from Four-Colour Fiction: The Effect of Cold War Comic Books on the Fiction of Stephen King
David M. Kingsley
The Monsters that Failed to Scare: The Atypical Reception of the 1930s Horror Films in Belgium
Liesbet Depauw
"a white illusion of a man": Snowman, Survival and Speculation in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake
Roger Davis
Updated Conference Programme
Kanaris Lecture Theatre
Manchester Museum, Oxford Road, Manchester
Thursday 9th-Friday 10th September 2010
Programme
Thursday 9th September
10.00-11.00 Registration
11.00-11.30 Opening Remarks
11.30-1.00 Session 1: Monstrous Sexuality (Chair: Carys Crossen)
Tim Snelson (University of East Anglia): 'Women Can Be Wolves Too': The Cry of the Werewolf (1944), the Female Monster and the Contested Bodies of Wartime Women
Kerstin Frank (University of Heidelberg): Angela Carter's Wolf-Girls: Power Struggles, Transformation and Gender in her Rewritings of 'Little Red Riding Hood'
Eva Bru -Dominguez (University of Birmingham): Reclaiming Desire: the She-Wolf in Merce Rodoreda's Death in Spring
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.00 Museum Workshop: Monstrous Material Culture (led by Sam Alberti and Bryan Sitch)
3.00-3.30 Coffee
3.30-5.00 Session 2: Shapeshifting Sisters (Chair: Hannah Priest)
Linda McGuire (Independent Researcher): Magical Transformations: Owl Women and Sorcery in Latin Literature
Laura Wilson (University of Manchester): Dans Ma Peau: Shape-shifting and Subjectivity
5.00 Close
Friday 10th September
9.30-11.00 Session 3: Of Otherness and Conformity (Chair: Linda McGuire)
Brian Feltham (University of Reading): Imagined Identities - The Woman in the Wolf Suit
Willem de Blecourt (Meertens Institute, Amsterdam): The Case of the Cut-Off Hand. On Female Werewolves and Incest Metaphors
Carys Crossen (University of Manchester): 'The Complex and Antagonistic Forces that Constitute One Soul': Religious Conviction versus Feminist Principles in Clemence Housman's The Werewolf
11.00-11.30 Coffee
11.30-12.30 Keynote Addess: Peter Hutchings (Northumbria University): The She-Wolves of Horror Cinema: Marginality, Transformation and Rage
12.30-1.30 Lunch
1.30-3.00 Session 4: Fantasy and the She-Wolf (Chair: Brian Feltham)
Nickianne Moody (Liverpool John Mores University): Supernatural Hierarchies: The Place of Werewolves in the Paranormal Romance and Contemporary Urban Fantasy
Hannah Priest (University of Manchester): I Was a Teenage She-Wolf: Boobs, Blood and Chocolate
Jacquelyn Bent and Helen Gavin (University of Huddersfield): An Uberwald Werewolf Howled in Patrician Square
3.00-3.30 Coffee
3.30-5.00 Session 5: Creating the She-Wolf (Chair: Nickianne Moody)
Jazmina Cininas (RMIT University): The Girlie Werewolf Hall of Fame: Historical and Contemporary Representations of the Female Lycanthrope
Chantal Bourgault du Coudray (University of Western Australia): 'You Should Write a Werewolf Screenplay': Meeting the Challenge
5.00 Conference Close
To register for this event, please click here
Vampire Conference in London (November 2011)
An interdisciplinary conference organised by Simon Bacon, The London Consortium in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London
Deadline for submissions: 30 April 2011
Conference dates: 2nd-4th November 2011
Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
However their manifold and multifarious manifestation also provides a point of opposition and resistance, one that subverts majority narrative and gives agency to the disenfranchised and oppressed within society. This is seen most clearly in the late twentieth century where, in a plethora of filmic and literary texts, amidst a growing 'sympathy for the devil' the vampire is constructed as a site of personal and social transition. Here alternative narratives (e.g. feminist, ethnic, post-colonial discourses etc) find expression and ways in which to configure their own identity within, or in opposition to, the dominant cultural parameters revealing hybridity as the catalyst for future myth making.
In the course of the past century the vampire has undergone many transformations which now see them as a separate evolutionary species, both genetically and cybernetically, signifying all that late capitalist society admires and desires thus completing its change from an adhorational figure to an aspirational one; the vampire is no longer the myth of a murky superstitious past but that of a bright new future and one that will last forever.
This interdisciplinary conference will look at the various ways the vampire has been used in the past and present to construct narratives of possible futures, both positive and negative, that facilitate both individual and colelctive, either in the face of hegemonic discourse or in the continuance of its ideological meta-narratives.
Keynote speakers include:
Stacey Abbott
Milly Williamson
Catherine Spooner
We invite papers from a wide range of disciplines and approaches such as: anthropology, art history, cultural studies, film studies, history, literary studies, philosophy, psychology, theology, etc.
Possible themes include, but are not limited to:
- Myths, fairy tales and urban legends
- Cross cultural colonisation, vampiric appropriation and reappropriation
- Cinema, Manga/Anime and gaming
- Fandom, lifestyle, 'real' vampires and identity configuration
- Minority discourse and the transcultural vampire
- Genetics, cybernetics and the post human
- Blood memory, vampiric memory and the immortal archive
- Dracula vs. Nosferatu; Urban vs. Rural
- Globalisation, corporations and 'Dark' societies
- Immortality, transcendence and cyberspace
- Old World/New World and vampiric migration
- From stakes to crosses to sunlight
- Blood Relations and the vampiric family
- Abjection, psychoanalysis and transitional objects
Papers will also be considered on any related themes. Abstracts of 300 words should be submitted to Simon Bacon no later than April 30th 2011.
Friday 13 August 2010
Books We Like...
A powerful new collection of poetry by Rosie Garland (known to many as Rosie Lugosi the Vampire Queen). Garland moves between childhood, gender, sexuality, religious iconography, relationships, with characteristic flair and exuberance. The poems in this collection reveal a love of, and dexterity with, language that amuses and moves.
"I braid my hair in snakes with fingers sugar sticky.
Hang necklaces of breasts beneath my chin.
Turn women to butter, men to stone.
When I dance, the sky drops water, the earth moans."
(from 'Lilith')
"I take your hand, wait
for the magic: some old god's
shoulder turning over in the dirt;
a raven come to omen the stones;
a black dog flicker at the corner
of eyeshot."
(from 'The Promise of Ghosts')
A highly recommended collection. Rosie will also be taking part in the She-Wolf discussion panel on Wednesday 8th September 2010 - more details on this to follow.
See Flapjack Press for more details.
Registration Extended
I'll be posting an updated conference programme on here shortly - it's going to be a great event, and we'd love to see you all there.
Thursday 1 July 2010
Register Online for She-Wolf
Registration is open until August 6th.
Sunday 20 June 2010
The Girlie Werewolf Project
Saturday 19 June 2010
Oxfam Manchester Sci Fi/Horror/Fantasy Event
Manchester Oxfam is holding a FREE science fiction/fantasy/horror event at the
Oxfam Emporium, 8-10 Oldham Street, on Thursday, July 8, from 6-8pm. We have debut Manchester horror novelist Tom Fletcher, Dr. Who writers Paul Magrs and Steve Lyons and and feminist sci-fi writer Gwyneth Jones all reading, there will be a sci-fi quiz, music, drinks and refreshments, and an informal Q&A. Cos play is encouraged with a prize for the best costume. For more information email Emma Cooney or call 0161 273 2019.
Wednesday 16 June 2010
She-Wolf Conference September 2010
The figure of the werewolf has haunted art, literature and culture for millenia. While not as common as their male counterparts, female werewolves appear in a variety of texts, of different genres and different cultures. From transcripts of witchcraft trials to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the female werewolf, and her shapeshifting sisters, continues to challenge, excite and entertain.
This conference will explore the manifestations and cultural meanings of female werewolves and other female shapeshifters, and the perennial fascination of these creatures.
Conference Programme
Thursday 9th September
10.00-11.00 Registration
11.00-11.30 Opening Remarks
11.30-1.00 Session 1: Monstrous Sexuality (Chair: Carys Crossen)
Tim Snelson (University of East Anglia): 'Women Can Be Wolves Too': The Cry of the Werewolf (1944), the Female Monster and the Contested Bodies of Wartime Women
Kerstin Frank (University of Heidelberg): Angela Carter's Wolf-Girls: Power Struggles, Transformation and Gender in her Rewritings of 'Little Red Riding Hood'
Eva Bru-Dominguez (University of Birmingham): Reclaiming Desire: the She-Wolf in Merce Rodoreda's Death in Spring
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.00 Museum Workshop: Monstrous Material Culture (led by Sam Alberti and Bryan Sitch)
3.00-3.30 Coffee
3.30-5.00 Session 2: Shapeshifting Sisters (Chair: Hannah Priest)
Linda McGuire (Independent Researcher): Magical Transformations: Owl Women and Sorcery in Latin Literature
Geoff Holder (Independent Researcher): Were-Cats, Were-Deer and Were-Whales: Female Shapeshifting in Scottish Witchcraft Narratives
Laura Wilson (University of Manchester): Dans Ma Peau: Shape-shifting and Subjectivity
5.00 Close
Friday 10th September
9.30-11.00 Session 3: Of Otherness and Conformity (Chair: Linda McGuire)
Brian Feltham (University of Reading): Imagined Identities - The Woman in the Wolf Suit
Shannon Scott (University of St. Thomas): Lycanthropic Representations of Native Americans in Henry Beaugrand's 'The Werewolves'
Carys Crossen (University of Manchester): 'The Complex and Antagonistic Forces that Constitute One Soul': Religious Conviction versus Feminist Principles in Clemence Housman's The Werewolf
11.00-11.30 Coffee
11.30-12.30 Keynote Address: Peter Hutchings (Northumbria University): The She-Wolves of Horror Cinema: Marginality, Transformation and Rage
12.30-1.30 Lunch
1.30-3.00 Session 4: Fantasy and the She-Wolf (Chair: Brian Feltham)
Nickianne Moody (Liverpool John Moores University): Supernatural Hierarchies: The Place of Werewolves in the Paranormal Romance and Contemporary Urban Fantasy
Hannah Priest (University of Manchester): I Was a Teenage She-Wolf: Boobs, Blood and Chocolate
Jacquelyn Bent and Helen Gavin (University of Huddersfield): An Uberwald Werewolf Howled in Patrician Square
3.00-3.30 Coffee
3.30-5.00 Session 5: Creating the She-Wolf (Chair: Nickianne Moody)
Jazmina Cininas (RMIT University): The Girlie Werewolf Hall of Fame: Historial and Contemporary Representations of the Female Lycanthrope
Chantal Bourgault du Coudray (University of Western Australia): 'You Should Write a Werewolf Screenplay': Meeting the Challenge
Allison Moon (Independent Researcher): Courting the Lunatic Fringe: Shapeshifting at the Vanguard of Queer Activism and Post-Gender Feminism
5.00 Close
For details of how to register for this conference, please go to our registration page
Coming soon: Details of our fabulous fringe events, including a 'Writing the Female Monster' discussion panel and a film screening.
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Welcome!
This site has been designed to pass on information about the She-Wolf conference and events that will be happening on 8th-11th September 2010, in Manchester (UK). I'll be posting details of the conference, discussion panel and film screening soon, as well as all the information you'll need to register for any of these events.
But that's not all this site is for... during the work for the conference we have built up quite a network of supporters, partners and other people of interest - so we'll also be using this blog to give details on other female werewolf related stuff that you might find interesting.
If you've got any links or events that might be of interest, get in touch and let us know about it.