*CFP* "A CRITICAL COMPANION TO JULIE TAYMOR", CRITICAL COMPANIONS TO CONTEMPORARY DIRECTORS LEXINGTON BOOKS SERIES

Considered as a true visionary, Julie Taymor is one of the of the most experimental and intellectually engaged film and theatrical directors working today. Her fusion of folklore, pop-culture, and classic literature has resulted in a series of fascinating and intellectually demanding works, both on stage and screen. From her beginnings with downtown not-for-profit theater through her Broadway successes and failures to her idiosyncratic career in Hollywood, Taymor has proven herself a notable and important artist. 

This collection will explore Taymor’s career, with an emphasis on her work in film, from Fool’s Fire (1992) to more renown productions such as Titus (1999), Frida (2002), The Tempest (2010) and the recent The Glorias (2020). As the first comprehensive scholarly volume on Taymor, covering her entire career in cinema, we are currently inviting the submission of 250-300 word abstracts for essays to be included in A Critical Companion to Julie Taymor set to be published in the Lexington Books series Critical Companions to Contemporary Directors, edited by Adam Barkman and Antonio Sanna.

*CFP* "POLÍTICAS CULTURAS EN AMÉRICA LATINA: DISENSOS, TENSIONES ACTUALES Y DESAFÍOS", NÚMERO ESPECIAL 44, REVISTA COMUNICACIÓN Y MEDIOS

Las políticas culturales se caracterizan por su profundo dinamismo y plasticidad histórica. En ellas se combinan, transforman y acumulan materialidades artísticas, formas patrimoniales, residuos culturales, fuerzas políticas y sedimentos identitarios, entre muchos otros elementos. Por esta razón, comprender las políticas culturales actuales implica reconocer que su origen y desarrollo se debe a una serie de procesos históricos ligados tanto a la configuración de los estados nacionales, al mundo de las artes, el patrimonio y el ecosistema comunicativo, así como al conflicto social y el ejercicio del poder.

En América Latina, desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX, los países comenzaron a definir una “política cultural oficial”, en línea con los postulados de la democratización cultural instaurados en Francia durante la década de 1960. Luego, tras el fin de las dictaduras en los países de la región, comienzan a surgir organismos públicos como Institutos, Direcciones, Consejos, Secretarías y Ministerios de Cultura, reconociendo así a la cultura como objeto de la política pública. 

*CFP* "EURASIAN FOLK AND FAIRY TALES: BRIDGING CONTINENTS", CHAPTER BOOK

Emerging from oral literature, folk and fairy tales are embedded and entangled within the very confines of human consciousness and are continuously rewoven into the fabric of cultural memory. Often categorised as stories for children, these tales not only provide vital information into the psyche and disposition of the human mind, but also enable us to understand social and cultural interactions.

The vast imagery, motifs, and archetypes these tales produce enable them to be constantly re-conceived, reinterpreted, and disseminated. Even though folk and fairy tales emerge from differing cultures with diverse traditions and customs, they seem to share similar formation mechanisms.

As folk and fairy tales can be interpreted in a variety of ways and from a variety of viewpoints, topics for the volume may include, but are not limited to:

*CFP* "ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT", GOTHIC ENCOUNTERS WITH ENCHANTMENT AND THE FAERIE REALM IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

‘Ill met by moonlight’

Gothic encounters with enchantment and the Faerie realm in literature and culture

University of Hertfordshire

8‒10 April 2021

The Open Graves, Open Minds (OGOM) Project was launched in 2010 with the Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture conference. We have subsequently hosted symposia on Bram Stoker and John William Polidori, unearthing depictions of the vampire in literature, art, and other media, before embracing shapeshifting creatures and other supernatural beings and their worlds. The Company of Wolves, our ground-breaking werewolf and feral humans conference, took place in 2015. This was followed by The Urban Weird, a folkloric collaboration with Supernatural Cities in 2017. The OGOM Project now extends to all narratives of the fantastic, the folkloric, the fabulous, and the magical. 

*CFP* "HEARLAND: U2'S LOOKING FOR AMERICAN SOUL", INTERNATIONAL 2020 VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

Heartland: U2’s Looking For American Soul

An International Virtual U2 Conference For Scholars And Fans

October 18th- 24th, 2020

U2 has journeyed – at times uneasily – through an America of pulsating metropolis, rugged heartland and shining sea. It long ago fell under the spell of America, but for just as long has felt it still hasn’t found America.

When U2 talks about America, it often describes it in terms of an idea, a dream or an experiment rather than a physical reality. Bono sings in “American Soul” (ft. Kendrick Lamar) on Songs of Experience:

It’s not a place / This country is to me a sound / Of drum and bass. … It’s not a place / This country is to me a thought / That offers grace / For every welcome that is sought.

*CFP* “FUTURES OF CARTOONS PAST: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF X-MEN, THE ANIMATED SERIES”, EDITED COLLECTION

Collection under Advance Contract with the University Press of Mississippi.

This volume will collect new scholarship on X-Men: The Animated Series (1992-1997), providing scholars and fans with an overdue assessment of the series from perspectives in comics studies, fan studies, and media studies. While the 90s have often been viewed as a “regressive” era for comics by creators and scholars alike (e.g. Trina Robbins), this collection carefully examines the complicated cultural politics of X-Men: The Animated Series across disciplines such as animation studies, childhood studies, comics studies, culture studies, fashion studies, gender and sexuality studies, media studies, and visual art.

This collection will not only serve as a foundation for future scholarship on the animated series, but also on the transmedial landscapes of X-Men narratives specifically and “Saturday cartoons” more broadly. In addition to scholarly essays, we invite the contribution of original comics, zines, or transcripts of relevant interviews and podcasts. Contributors may choose to consider (but are certainly not limited to) the following topics and issues in relation to X-Men: The Animated Series:

*CFP* “INTEGRATING TRADITIONS”, HOMER 2020 CONFERENCE

HoMER 2020 

Integrating Traditions

25-27 de Mayo de 2020

Maynooth University, Dublin

The HoMER Network invites submissions for 20-minute papers, as well as designated roundtables, panels, and workshops to be presented at the 2020 conference, which will take place at Maynooth University on 25-27 May 2020.

At HoMER 2019 in Nassau, the conference explored ways of developing a more theoretical and methodological grounding for New Cinema History research. Since emerging as a vibrant field of research in the early 2000s, New Cinema History has sought to distinguish itself from Film History by 'shift[ing] its focus away from the content of films', in order to examine cinema as a 'site of social and cultural exchange' (Maltby 2011: 3). However, in recent years there have been calls to reconsider the significance of the film itself within New Cinema History research.

*CFP* “GLOBAL HORROR: LOCAL PERSPECTIVES”, PROGRESSIVE CONNEXIONS 2020 CONFERENCE

Progressive Connexions 

Global Horror: Local Perspectives

4-5 de abril de 2020

Lisboa, Portugal

Horror pervades human experience. It affects us both as individuals and as members of social communities, it is recurrent in pop culture and arguably present in all fields of human knowledge and realms of storytelling, from Cronus eating his own children, to Freddy Krueger’s sadistic murders in A Nightmare on Elm Street to media coverage of war. As a fundamentally paradoxical concept, horror simultaneously repels and fascinates us: we naturally dread it, yet we are drawn to it. We are taught to avoid that which is horrifying, but the appeal of horror, whether in the form of fiction or sensational news, is irresistible. Indeed, we simultaneously narrate, describe, imagine, consume, dread and crave horror in all of its dimensions, and with the most varied goals.

Horror taps into primal emotions of fear and disgust that are universal to the human condition, and finds expression across cultures and historical periods. Yet the texts that shape the ways in which horror is broadly understood historically reflect predominantly Anglo-European and American cultural, social, historical and geographical contexts.

*CFP* “ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO MASCULINITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE”, CHAPTER BOOK

Masculinity—that hard to define notion of “being a man” or “acting like a man”—is largely understood through cultural expectations and images of masculine performance. Masculinity can seem nebulous, but literary and popular cultural representations of the idea help to solidify it both as a concept and as an identity. Westerns, noir, thrillers, war narratives, working class narratives, and even apocalyptic films and novels have shaped our definitions not only of what it means to be a man, or to be masculine, but indeed what it means to be American.

Perhaps at no time in American history has it been more critical to examine masculinity in literature and culture. Recently, the U.S. has seen a rise in misogynistic and race-based violence perpetrated by men expressing a sense of grievance, from “incels” to alt-right activists. The existential “threat” to masculinity, in an era in which women and other gender minorities remain severely under-represented in U.S. Congress (at 24% and 25% in the House and Senate respectively) and in which civil rights and bodily autonomy for women and gender minorities erode daily, can be difficult to comprehend. However, the study of masculinity in American literature and culture offers key insights and context for the existential threat posed by accountability movements such as #MeToo and increasing political representation of women and minorities. 

*CFP* “WITCHES”, SPECIAL ISSUE, JOURNAL OF DRACULA STUDIES

The Journal of Dracula Studies is accepting submissions for a 2020 Special Issue focusing on witches and witchcraft. Papers may examine the figure of the witch and/or the practice of witchcraft in literature, film, folklore, and popular culture. 

Possible topics include the following:

• witches, wizards, warlocks, cunning folk 
• magic and magical practices 
• hexing and spell casting 
• witches throughout history 
• witch hunts and witch trials 
• witchcraft and feminism 
• witchcraft and New Age spirituality 
• witchcraft and political activism 
• witchcraft and spiritualism: seances, spirit communication 
• culturally diverse witchcraft practices: Voodoo, conjure, pow wow, etc. 
• depictions of witches and witchcraft in film, television, and popular culture

*CFP* "THE HISTORY OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN LITERATURES ON FILM", CHAPTER BOOK

Cinematic adaptations of sub-Saharan African literatures draw from a wide range of genres from West African folktales to Zulu legends, from Hausa popular literature to graphic novels, war narratives or Afro Bubblegum art. The History of Sub-Saharan African Literatures on Film examines how adaptations of African literatures-in their multilingual and multicultural contexts-mirror trends and transitions in the regions's literary and, particularly, cinematic histories. Contributors are invited to propose book chapters that span the many linguistic regions across sub-Saharan Africa and depart from the notion that sub-Saharan African cinematic adaptations are deeply influenced by historical moments and political and economic transitions.

Contributors may wish to highlight certain aspects that are unique to African adaptation, questions with regard to readership and viewership and pose questions, such as: For whom is the book written, the film made? How have authorial approaches, storytelling techniques and media changed over time? Also, African filmmakers' collective support for the making of adaptations opens up the discussion of the symbiotic relationship of African literature and film, probing questions like how do storytellers as writers and as filmmakers deploy their respective narrative techniques, approach narrative units and structures, and how do narrative styles merge or differ with regard to the choice of medium? What do their narrative choices bring to adaptation and tell us about adaptation? 

*CFP* "REPRESENTING THE SCOTTISH PAST IN FILM, TEXT, AND MEDIA", SCOTTISH STUDIES 2019 FALL COLLOQUIUM

Scottish Studies 2019 Fall Colloquium

‘Representing the Scottish Past in Film, Text, and Media’

Centre for Scottish Studies

University of Guelph

“The power of historical fiction for bad and for good can be immense in shaping consciousness of the past.” – Antony Beevor

Depictions of medieval and early modern Europe have captured the imaginations of the young and old since the nineteenth century. Continued revisiting and reshaping of historical narratives in film, television, and literature highlight the ways in which the pre-modern past continues to resonate with twenty-first century audiences. Interest in texts such as Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth (2015), HBO’s Game of Thrones, Showtime’s The Tudors, Starz’s Outlander, The History Channel’s Vikings, BBC’s Wolf Hall, and Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen draws attention to the ways in which we persistently engage with these past narratives while bringing them into dialogue with contemporary popular culture. In doing so, these texts ask us to consider the relationship between race and national identity, as well as issues of sexuality, gender, and equality. As the growing conservatism of national governments dominates global discourse, the perceived brutality, oppression, and general uncertainty of life in a ‘less civilized’ age provides a way for contemporary societies to grapple with the issues at hand.

*CFP* "BITES HERE AND THERE: LITERAL AND METAPHORICAL CANNIBALISM ACROSS DISCIPLINES", EDITED COLLECTION

The organiser of the Bites Conference (University of Warwick, 17 November 2018) invites contributions for an edited essay collection, provisionally titled “Bites Here and There”: Literal and Metaphorical Cannibalism across Disciplines. I am interested in submissions that explore instances of literal or metaphorical cannibalism across fields, and we invite abstracts on topics and disciplines including, but not limited to:

• Survival and/or war cannibalism 
• Cannibalism as a ritual and/or a practice in archaeology, anthropology and history 
• Corpse medicine and the Eucharist as cannibalism in early modern discourse  
• Depiction of cannibalism in art, photography, film, other media, and in popular culture 
• Literal or metaphorical cannibalism in fiction such as travel writing, horror, graphic novels, etc. 
• Cannibalism in myths, (fairy) tales, legends, and folklore 
• Cannibalism and monstrosity, and monster theory 
• Literary and cultural cannibalism in literature, (post-)colonial studies, and philosophy 
• Metaphorical cannibalism to describe otherness, abuse of power, improper relationships, etc. 
• Cannibalism as a taboo and/or trope in socialisation, psychoanalysis, and criminology 
• Corporate and market cannibalism and economy 
• Zoological cannibalism and ecology

*CFP* "MÉXICO ESPECTRAL. FANTASMAS Y MUERTOS QUE HABLAN EN LA CULTURA MEXICANA CONTEMPORÁNEA", IMEX REVISTA

"México espectral. Fantasmas y muertos que hablan en la cultura mexicana contemporánea". La persistencia de la muerte y sus figuraciones en las culturas visuales y narrativas mexicanas es un reconocido lugar común en la cultura mexicana. El Mictlán, Xibalbá y otros inframundos, la Catarina, la Santa Muerte, fantasmas, muertos danzantes o narradores post-mortem, son figuras reconocibles en su folclore, religión, artes plásticas, literatura y cine. 

La revista iMex. México Interdisciplinario / Interdisciplinary Mexico invita contribuciones inéditas que interroguen las transformaciones y devenires de estos lugares comunes en los géneros artísticos, literarios y audiovisuales contemporáneos. Invitamos artículos que examinen desde un fondo teórico sólido y/o desde una perspectiva interdisciplinaria discursos y representaciones de lo fantasmal y la muerte.