*CFP* "AMERICAN HORROR STORY" SYMPOSIUM

American Horror Story – A Symposium

University of East Anglia

Friday the 13th of September 2019

Convened by Professor Richard Hand (UEA) & Professor Mark O’Thomas (Greenwich)

We are seeking submissions that engage with the television series American Horror Story created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. Over eight seasons since 2011 American Horror Story (AHS) has continued to push the boundaries of the televisual form in new and exciting ways. Emerging in a context which has seen a boom in popularity for horror series on television, AHS has distinguished itself from its ‘rivals’ such as The Walking Dead, Bates Motel or Penny Dreadful through its diverse strategies and storylines which have seen it explore archetypal narratives of horror culture as well as engaging with genuine history. Utilising a repertory company model for its casting, the show has challenged issues around contemporary politics, heteronormativity, violence on the screen, and disability to name but a few. Papers across a range of disciplines are sought that might include theatre and performance studies, horror studies, queer studies, television studies, cultural studies, musicology, narratology, and gothic studies among others. Papers may choose one particular episode or season to focus on, a selection of seasons, or seek to interrogate the entire corpus of work over its eight consecutive seasons.

Topics might include critical approaches to American Horror Story’s historical antecedents, its relationship to Hollywood, its televisual contemporaries, or explore its treatment of:

• Adaptation and intertextuality 
• Identity politics 
• Queer identities 
• Race 
• Casting and performance practice 
• Fans and the online space
• Celebrity 
• Violence 
• Sex 
• Magic 
• Disability 
• Horror 
• Politics and satire 
• Music and sound 
• Fact versus fiction

Selected papers from the symposium will be selected for a forthcoming edited collection on the series.

Please email abstracts of maximum 300 words and a short biographical note by 17 July to r.hand@uea.ac.uk and mark.othomas@greenwich.ac.uk

Participants will be notified by 26 July 2019