*CFP* LLAMADA A PARTICIPACIÓN, XXI CONGRESO DE LA ASOCIACIÓN INTERNACIONAL DE HISPANISTAS

XXI Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas (AIH)

Neuchâtel, del 11 al 16 de julio de 2022

Université de Neuchâtel

 

La Université de Neuchâtel y la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas invitan a participar en este congreso que se celebra del 11 al 16 de julio de 2022 en Neuchâtel (Suiza).

Se aceptarán comunicaciones referidas a los ejes temáticos que tradicionalmente han sido tratados en los Congresos de la AIH: literaturas hispánicas (géneros, períodos, temas, autores, lectura y recepción, literatura oral, escritura femenina y estudios de género, etc.); lingüística hispánica (diacrónica y sincrónica); enseñanza del español; cultura hispánica (arte, historia, cine, etc.). En el marco de esta amplia convocatoria, se prevén ejes temáticos específicos que serán anunciados próximamente.

El evento se desarrollará en seis jornadas, que integrarán:

*CFP* "POST-CONFLICT CULTURES IN ASIA", MAJOR VOLUME, THE STUDIES IN POST-CONFLICT CULTURES SERIES

Critical, Cultural and Communications Press (London) announces the publication in early 2023 of a major volume focusing on post-conflict cultures in Asia.

The Studies in Post-Conflict Cultures series, which was inaugurated in 2006, has to this date published ten anthologies and three monographs exploring the cultural consequences of conflict across the globe. This is an ongoing series, originating in an Anglo-Italian Leverhulme-funded project, examining the specifically cultural aftermath of periods of national or international conflict, understood as war, civil war, dictatorship, terrorism, revolution, colonialism or persecution. 

No chronological or disciplinary boundaries are applied. Studies may be historical or contemporary, and may fall within any subject field. The ten volumes so far published have brought together international experts from disciplines as diverse as Political Science, History, Law, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Semiotics, Geography, Film Studies, Anthropology and Literature Studies. CCC Press intends to publish a major volume of papers on post-conflict cultures in Asia in the first half of 2023. 

*CFP* "HUMANISM AND THE FICTIONAL REPRESENTARIONS OF MONARCHS IN LITERATURE, ARTS AND MEDIA", BOOK CHAPTER

When Gilgamesh rejected the advances of Ishtar and refused to do what his father did, he renounced the status of the chosen lover and champion of the Goddess and (unwittingly) decided to be human. The death of Enkido made him realize that he is no longer favored by the Gods. His failed attempt to reach immortality can be read as an attempt to regain the former status he renounced. The epic of Gilgamesh, like other epics, anounces the severing of the connection between the divine and the human in the political realm. After Gilgamesh, the biographies of Mesopotamian rulers started to seem more human despite the formulaic presence of the divine. In ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, Monarchs were either gods or descendents of gods. In the Medieval age, he devine right of kings replaced the old myths about the divine lineage of monarchs. Machiavelli's realpolitiks and the advent of Renaissance humanism put the concept of divine right in question. The human rather than the divine started to define the monarchs in the West. In the East, however, while Europe was restricting its monarchs, the Meiji restoration puts the emperor at the center of the political system in Japan. The Victorian and Edwardian ages are the last literary periods to be named after monarchs. They both witnessed the rise of Gothic literature. The figure of Dracula strikes the reader as a monarchic figure. But this monarch is a posthuman figure cursed with immortality and a hunger for human blood. In recent years, the gothic and horror genres have gained remarkable popularity in cinema and popular culture. The figures of the Mummy and the vampire are usually depicted as monarchic figures that seek revenge for past wrongs. Revenge is closely related to the theme of royalty. In classical and Renaissance, modern and contemporary revenge narratives where loyalty to a deceased patriarch gives legitimacy to the actions of their heirs. Indeed, revenge narratives in Shakespeare and beyond are generally based on father-son emotional dynamics. These emotional dynamics are described as monarchic by Martha C Nussbaum in her book Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. In Victorian and contemporary horror fiction, the father-son dynamics are more complex as the royal father is the past self of the revenant. 

*CFP* "FANTASY ACROSS MEDIA", GIFCON 2022

The Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic is pleased to announce a call for papers for Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations (GIFCon) 2022 with the theme of 'Fantasy Across Media'.

Much of fantasy studies has focused on the genre’s presence in literature, with histories and theoretical frameworks often either implicitly or explicitly centring the written word. In some cases, academic, critic, and fan responses to the genre outside of literature even go so far as to erase or question the possibility of the genre’s existence in other media, perhaps most famously embodied in J.R.R. Tolkien’s insistence in ‘On Fairy-stories' that some media, such as drama, are fundamentally incompatible with fantasy. These types of responses fail to account for the medium-specific benefits and challenges that different media pose for depictions of the impossible, serving to establish hierarchies between media, exclude non-literary media from analyses of the genre, and potentially limit a full understanding of the genre’s history.

Fantasy and the fantastic have had long, rich histories outside of literature, playing a central role in the development of theatre, film, and comic books, and celebrating a more recent boom on the small screen. Furthermore, from the innumerable reimaginings of the Arthurian tradition, to The Wizard of Oz, to manga and anime, to contemporary multimedia franchises and cinematic universes, fantasy texts have been integral to the history of transmedia storytelling, allowing their rich storyworlds to expand across multiple media. 

*CFP* "DRACONES IN MUNDO: DRAGONS IN LITERATURE, FILM, AND POP CULTURE", A SERIES OF EDITED VOLUMES

As the popularity of mythical creatures in films and literature grows, there is one creature that remains prominent: the dragon. Dragons have become most visible recently in the cinematic versions of The Hobbit and in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones Series). However, there are other films, such as Dragonslayer (1981), Reign of Fire (2002), Dragonheart (1996), and the How to Train Your Dragon series (2010-2019), and numerous adult and children’s literature series that feature dragons.

This call for papers will result in several themed volumes under each of these main headings:

 

Full volume(s):

• Wings, Wonders, and Warriors: Dragons in Children’s Literature and Graphic Novels

*CFP* "EPIC AND ICONIC: ESSAYS ON THE WORK, INFLUENCE, AND LEGACY OF ALEX ROSS", BOOK CHAPTER

Nelson Alexander Ross, better known as Alex, has exerted nearly thirty years of profound influence upon sequential art storytelling. Ross emerged into the comics world in the early 1990s with his work on Terminator: Burning Earth, Marvels, and Kingdom Come, immediately establishing his photorealistic style of painting, influenced by Norman Rockwell, Salvador Dali, and Andrew Loomis, among others.

In the years since, Ross has drawn and painted nearly every recognizable character in the Marvel and DC universes, expanded the storytelling capacity of the graphic novel form, and taken home numerous Eisner and Harvey awards. His prolific output can be found across media platforms, from traditional comics to art galleries, from film and television to magazines, toys, and video games.

Given Ross’s substantial and acclaimed level of production, it is no exaggeration to consider him among the most important commercial artists of his generation – and yet, his work has garnered little academic interest. In this collection, we hope to curate the first definitive set of scholarly perspectives on Ross’s creative approach, his interventions into sequential art narrative and aesthetics, and his lasting influences upon popular culture and the creative community.

*CFP* "'THE EXORCIST: STUDIES ON POSSESSION, INFLUENCE, AND SOCIETY", SPECIAL EDITION, REVENTANT JOURNAL

The Exorcist, both as a book and film, has had a lasting influence beyond the world of horror. It is essentially a foundational, multivalent work: on the one hand, it helps understand and approach the theological concept and spiritual dimension of demonic possession as found in the Catholic faith, and on the other hand, it investigates domestic/public, spaces, dynamics, and spheres. Indeed, The Exorcist examines social discourse and narratives from a transformative and turbulent period of American history, sheds light on the difficulties that aging populations face in societies that do not offer adequate social safety nets, and exposes the miserable circumstances that people with mental health conditions and medically uninsured individuals and families often endure. Moreover, The Exorcist also speaks directly to the colonization and neo-colonization of archaeological sites and religions.

The Exorcist has much to offer as the foci for extensive and sustained research in the humanistic disciplines. This Special Edition of Revenant aims to start a new conversation on The Exorcist according to three dimensions: 1) to go back to the roots of the concept of possession, 2) to assess the cultural impact of the book and film, and 3) to present new scholarly developments about the book and film. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

*CFP* "SOCIOSEMIOTIC CRITIQUE. A LOTMANIAN PERSPECTIVE", ISSUE 5 (2022), SOCIAL SEMIOTIC JOURNAL

In 2022 – the centenary of the birth of Juri Lotman – we invite you to focus on the potentiality of his semiotic theory (including ideas of as personality, translation, creolization, autocommunication, self-description, semiosphere) to critique power structures and ideological processes in semiosic phenomena.

We invite contributors to prepare an analytical essay focusing on a specific case study of a semiotic artefact or type of artefact, demonstrating how Lotmanian theory can fuel a critique of the limitations on, and variations in, the ways in which the semiotic resources/practices in question may perpetuate biases, imbalance or legitimize and maintain kinds of power interests.

At this stage, we solicit not papers but a proposal of between 1000 and 1500 words length, with bibliographic references included. On this basis, we will select 8 proposals, to be developed in an essay of 7/8000 words (bibliography included).

Proposals should be sent to: (annamaria.lorusso@unibo.it) and (franciscu.sedda@gmail.com).

Deadline CfP: 30 October 2021

*CFP* "THEOLOGY AND VAMPIRES", THEOLOGY AND POP CULTURE SERIES COLLECTED VOLUME

From the ‘vampire craze’ of the eighteenth century, and up to contemporary takes on the genre, vampire narratives have been inextricably bound up with theological questions. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula and its many adaptations, the vampire is repelled by the crucifix and the consecrated Host. Two puncture wounds on the victim’s neck in Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ make the doctor send for a clergyman. In Anne Rice’s Memnoch the Devil, Lestat believes that he has witnessed the Crucifixion and tasted Christ’s blood. ‘God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we; for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves’, he tells Louis in Interview with the Vampire, styling himself as a God, and mimicking divine omnipotence. But he has no answers to give Louis, no revelation, and no known salvation or solace, because he is just like him in their shared vampiric nature. What do these examples tell us about where the vampire sits in relation to the divine? And what kind of theological vision do vampire stories uncover?

Given the richness of theological substratum in vampire fiction, we invite submissions for a collected volume entitled Theology and Vampires, for the Theology and Pop Culture Series published by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic. The aim of this volume is to explore the theology of vampires, with a particular focus on the pop culture aspect of vampire narratives. We are seeking essays exploring the theological implications of the vampire across a wide range of media, from popular Victorian tales through to films, video games, and animated series.

*CFP* "BORDERS AND DETECTIVE FICTION", THEME ISSUE, CLUES: A JOURNAL OF DETECTION

For this theme issue of Clues, proposals are sought from a wide variety of critical, national, and cultural perspectives addressing how and why borders are represented in detective fiction, film, television, or other media (e.g., computer games, graphic novels, radio drama, podcasts). As David Newman and Anssi Paasi argue, “The construction of boundaries at all scales and dimensions takes place through narrativity.” Thus, it makes sense to turn to the detective story, a genre whose plots conceptualize issues of morality, legality, security, and transgression to understand the ways in which borders are conceptualized and mediated. Crossing borders can signify openness, mobility, cultural exchange, and cooperation. But the border can also be a site of surveillance, discipline, risk, exclusion, and violence, a place where geographic, cultural, economic, and bodily integrity are rendered vulnerable. It can, in short, be the scene of (the) crime. How do imaginative narratives across the diverse range of historical and contemporary crime fiction constitute investigations of defined, dynamic, and/or developing border spaces?

Suggested topics:

• Detective fiction and migrancy/refugees 

*CFP* "FAIRY TALE AND FANTASY FICTION", SPECIAL ISSUE, FANTASY ART AND STUDIES JOURNAL

In 1947, Tolkien published “On Fairy Stories”, an essay on fairy tales which grew out of his 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture and has since become the basis for the theorisation of the modern Fantasy genre. This essay popularised the terms secondary world, subcreation and subcreator in specialist criticism. Yet Tolkien’s text, often presented as being more a reflection on the author’s own literary conception and his Fantasy work, is indeed supposed to be about fairy tales and to offer a definition and presentation of their main characteristics, such as the notion of eucatastrophe, a concept coined by Tolkien to refer to the happy ending of fairy tales and which can be put into perspective with the naïve ethics of these tales, as examined by André Jolles in his book Simple Forms (1930).

While it might therefore seem remarkable that Tolkien’s essay has become the basis for the theorisation of Fantasy, this is hardly surprising to Fantasy scholars, as Fantasy regularly borrows from the marvellous staff and structure of the fairy tale. It should not be forgotten that Tolkien himself considered The Lord of the Rings to be a fairy tale for adults and that his work is not free of elements and motifs from fairy tales. Moreover, the rewriting of fairy tales is recurrent within Fantasy to the point of having become an obligatory part of the genre for authors, willingly encouraged by publishers. One can mention in this respect the series of anthologies edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow, Snow White, Red Blood, the first volume of which is dedicated to Angela Carter, herself known for her rewrites of fairy tales. The Fairy Tale Series, also directed by Terri Windling, includes White as Snow by Tanith Lee (a rewriting of Snow White) and Briar Rose by Jane Yolen, based on Sleeping Beauty.

*CFP* "MEMORY, GUILT AND SHAME", 3RD INTERNATIONAL INTERISCIPLINARY ONLINE CONFERENCE

Memory, guilt and shame

3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference

Conference online (via Zoom)

 

The 20th century – an epoch of genocides – will be forever associated with feelings of guilt and shame. And it is not only the case of perpetrators. People are still ashamed of their ancestors and of the members of their nations, societies or families. Those who suffered from crimes and cruelties often experience survivor guilt, a mysterious phenomenon that psychotherapists try to tame. The status of bystanders is nowadays more and more often called into question, as it became clear that remaining “neutral” in the face of violence and atrocities was simply impossible. At the same time, many of both the victims and executioners make efforts to forget about the past events and repress the uncomfortable emotions. Others forget the facts involuntarily. Yet others cultivate false memories of what never occurred. Politicians impose their own narratives of history, with the hope of re-shaping the common convictions and achieving their short-sighted goals. Therefore, researchers dealing with memory studies of various kinds aim at explaining the complex relations of facts and phantasms, real and imagined guilt, justified and irrational shame.

*CFP* CALL FOR PROPOSALS, CRITICAL COMPANIONS TO POPULAR DIRECTORS SERIES

The series covers many directors who have not been studied previously in academic publications and whose works nonetheless are highly renowned nowadays. The intent of the series is to offer interesting and illuminating interpretations of the various directors’ films that will be accessible to both scholars of the academic community and critically-minded fans of the directors’ works. Each volume combines discussions of a director’s oeuvre from a broad range of disciplines and methodologies, thus offering the reader a variegated and compelling picture of the directors’ works. In this sense, the volumes will be of interest (and will be instructive) for students and scholars engaged in subjects as different as film studies, literature, philosophy, popular culture studies, religion and others. We welcome proposals for both monographs and edited collections that offer interdisciplinary analyses, focusing on the complete oeuvre of one contemporary director per volume.

Proposals may include (but are certainly not limited to) the following directors:

• Woody Allen; 
• Luc Besson; 
• Katryn Bigelow; 

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, SPRING 2022 GENERAL ISSUE, JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES OF TURKEY

An international biannual print and on-line publication of the American Studies Association of Turkey, the Journal of American Studies of Turkey operates with a double-blind peer review system and publishes work (in English) on American literature, history, art, music, film, popular culture, institutions, politics, economics, geography and related subjects.

The Editorial Board welcomes articles which cross conventional borders between academic disciplines, as well as comparative studies of the United States.

The Journal of American Studies of Turkey is indexed in the MLA International Bibliography, TÜBİTAK/ULAKBİM TR Dizin, and the Classificazione ANVUR delle riviste scientifiche (Italy). It also appears in the Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory and the MLA Directory of Periodicals. It can be accessed online, in print, and through the EBSCO and Dergi Park databases.  

Please see our submission guidelines for how to submit your manuscripts.

*CFP* "TROPICAL LANDSCAPES: NATURE-CULTURE ENTANGLEMENTS", SPECIAL ISSUE, ETROPIC: ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF STUDIES IN THE TROPICS

Landscape integrates both natural and cultural aspects of a particular area. Landscapes incorporate environmental elements including landforms, waterscapes, climate and weather, flora and fauna. They also necessarily involve human perception and inscriptions which reflect histories of extraction and excavation, of planting and settlement, of design and pollution. Natural elements and the cultural shaping by humans – past, present and future – means landscapes reflect living entanglements of people and place.

A landscape’s physicality is entwined with layers of human meaning and value – and tropical landscapes have a particular human value. The tropics is commonly defined in geographical terms as the region of Earth on either side of the Equator extending to the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Yet the tropics is far more than geographical and needs to be understood through the imaginary of tropicality. Tropicality refers to how the tropics are construed as the exoticised environmental Other of the Western world as this is informed by art and culture, and imperial and scientific practices. In this imaginary – in which the tropics are depicted through nature images as either fecund paradise or fetid hell – the temperate is portrayed as civilised and the tropical as requiring cultivation.

*CFP* CALL FOR CONTRIBUTION, NEXT ISSUES, BULLETIN OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR ROBIN HOOD STUDIES

The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal, invites submissions on any aspect of the Robin Hood tradition. 

The editors especially welcome essays in the following areas: formal literary explication, manuscript and early printed book investigations, historical inquiries, new media examinations, and theory and cultural studies approaches. Proposals for guest-edited special issues are also welcome. 

Forthcoming special issues focus on Otto Bathurst’s 2018 Robin Hood film and Robin Hood games. We are looking for concise essays, 4,000-8,000-words long, in current CMS style with footnotes and end bibliographies. The journal is hosted by Ball State University’s Open Journals platform and is actively indexed in the MLA International Bibliography.

Submissions and queries should be directed to both Valerie B. Johnson (vjohnso6@montevallo.edu) and also Alexander L. Kaufman (akaufman@aum.edu).

*CFP* "FROM THE SCENIC ESSAY TO THE ESSAY-EXHIBITION. EXPANDING THE ESSAY FORM IN THE ARTS AFTER LITERATURE AND FILM", S:PAM CONFERENCE

From the Scenic Essay to the Essay-Exhibition. Expanding the Essay Form in the Arts after Literature and Film

S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts & Media)

Ghent University (Belgium)

27th-29th of April 2022

 

 

More than 400 years after the publication of Michel De Montaigne’s Essais, the enduring afterlife of the essay form attests how this 'heretical form’ (Adorno) not only continues to challenge the literary conventions but also transgresses the borders of the literary field to venture into other artistic disciplines. The genre of the essay film is the most prominent example of this dissemination but the expansion has set out into other areas as well. Engaging with this emerging prominence, From the Scenic to the Essay-Exhibition welcomes scholars and art practitioners to present their academic and artistic engagements with the essay form.

*CFP* "MANY DOORS TO FANTASTICA: THE NEVERENDING STORY & THE EDUCATION OF THE IMAGINATION", EDITED VOLUME

When thinking of family films from the 1980s, the plethora of weird yet engaging movies seems endless. Chief among them was Wolfgang Petersen’s 1984 film adaption of The Neverending Story. The film drew from Michael Ende’s 1979 Die unendliche Geschichte: Von A bis Z, known better by the English title which was shared with the film. Ende’s book ultimately spawned three films, two animated series, a hit song which has been covered by musicians in a variety of genres, and a host of short stories written as tributes to the imaginative work. Ende’s work managed to secure a spot in the collective memory of Americans. References to the film and the book populate television shows. This collection of essays seeks to engage in interdisciplinary readings and viewings which will help shed light on the lasting power of Ende’s fictional world.

The multifaceted framework of Ende’s story helps to shape the interdisciplinary approach of this collection. The lines between reality and fiction, between characters, and between purposes are all blurred in such a way that there is much to mine from the stores rich layers. This volume hopes to do the same by investigating the text from a variety of viewpoints, as well as offering pedagogical approaches for the classroom. It also seeks to highlight the various media representations of Ende’s story, including the films and cartoon adaptations. In the end, the book will enrich the reading and viewing experiences for those for whom Bastian and Atreyu are a part of their imaginative fabric, as well as serving as a gateway for those just coming to Fantastica for the first time. Contributors are invited to submit paper proposals that approach the imagination from a variety of lenses.

*CFP* "THE IDEA OF THE SHAKESPEARE ACTOR", EDITED COLLECTION

What comes to mind when we think about the Shakespearean actor, or Shakespearean acting? What do actors past, present, and future consider ‘Shakespearean acting’ to be? Is the idea of the Shakespearean actor helpful, or does it limit and restrict the notion of what Shakespearean performance can be?

Histories of Shakespearean acting have often provided catalogues of names weighted in favour of white cisgender actors including David Garrick, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, and Mark Rylance, in favour of cerebral or declamatory performance styles, and in favour of performing in an English accent. This collection will read against the grain of theatre history to confront the idea of the Shakespearean actor.

As performance trends have changed over the last thirty or forty years, and as landmark works in Shakespeare and early modern performance studies have shown, the limits and definition of ‘the Shakespearean’ have expanded.[1] New approaches address the limits of a teleological, British-centric approach to the histories of Shakespearean acting and acting practices: there have been interesting challenges to the limits of 'Shakespearean acting' from earlier periods, from figures such as Ira Aldridge, Paul Robeson, Asta Nielsen, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, Fanny Furnival, Sarah Siddons, and even Edward Kynaston.

*CFP* "LGBTQIA+ FANTASTIKA GRAPHICS", A DIGITAL SYMPOSIUM

“Fantastika” – a term appropriated from a range of Slavonic languages by John Clute – embraces the genres of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror, but can also include Alternate History, Gothic, Steampunk, Young Adult Dystopic Fiction, or any other radically imaginative narrative space. Our goal is to bring together academics, independent researchers, creators, and audiences who share an interest in this diverse range of fields with the aim of opening up new dialogues, productive controversies, and critical collaborations.

Following the 2020-pandemic hiatus, we are pleased to re-launch our annual conferences this year as a digital symposium. LGBTQIA+ Fantastika Graphics focuses on graphics and illustrations in its widest possible remit (comic books, manga, animes, cartoons, picture books, video games, and other such productions.) [This is an updated remit from ‘graphic novels’; please disregard previous CFPs.] We are interested in works that contain representations of the LGBTQIA+ community, relationships, and full spectrum of identities. We welcome abstracts for 15-minute papers or panels of 2-4 people on LGBTQIA+ Fantastika as they occur in the graphic form. Some suggested topics are: