*CFP* "THE GOTHIC AGE OF TELEVISION", EDITED COLLECTION

The last three decades have witnessed a proliferation of Gothic television programs. Some provide a platform for the Gothic’s most fantastic mode of expression, with vampires, werewolves, and zombies invading our screens. Closer to home but decidedly unheimlich, domestic spaces are haunted by uncanny secrets in programs from Twin Peaks to Top of The Lake. Still other programs, like Game of Thrones and Black Mirror, capture the Gothic’s obsession with barbaric pasts and threatening futures. Subtle elements of Gothic emerge in a wide range of non-Gothic programming, such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, revealing the true extent of the genre’s influence.

Perhaps, just as Black Mirror’s techno-mediated future reflects – and reflects upon – the present moment, this Gothic resurgence responds to the transformations and uncertainties of our time.  In other words, we might read the Gothic, as it repeatedly has been, as a genre that re-emerges at times of cultural anxiety. The screens, and the streaming services that play this Gothic programming might, then, themselves be read as “Gothic devices,” even more transformative than the technologies that that have inspired and shaped the Gothic narratives of past centuries.

*CFP* "(DON'T) LOOK BACK: OUR NOSTALGIA FOR HORROR AND SLASHER FILMS", CHAPTER BOOK

On first consideration it may not seem like “nostalgia” and horror and slasher films have any clear connections. Usually nostalgia is applied to events and experiences that have a pleasant connotation, even if these pleasant feelings are a result of a rose-tinted view of the past. While nostalgia can refer to personal feelings as well as larger communal or cultural memory and pleasure, there is also an implied action to it- that someone is seeking to reclaim, or revisit a specific time period or place for an explicit reason. Applying this understanding to remakes, revisions, reimaginings helps us understand what the purpose of these reworked creations are, the work they’re doing, and how they build on and expand on an already understood and accepted set of narratives, tropes, characters, and beliefs.

Since the national and global trauma of 9/11 we have seen dozens of remakes, reboots, revisions, and reimaginings of horror and slasher films from the 1970s and 80s. Each work seeks to capture some element of the original- the simple understanding of good and evil, the audience reaction to scares, an aesthetic homage, the commercial popularity. If we shift our perspective to view these films through the lens of nostalgia, we can see that many of these narratives are grounded in trauma, the performance of it, the aftermath, how people survive and later work through it. Whether it is a movie, mini-series, television show, or video game, these remakes can be organized according to several subtopics that perform different work within the media and reflect different fears, anxieties, and desires of a specific historical and cultural moment, although the argument could be made that some texts belong in a variety of categories, and there is noticeable overlap.

*CFP* "(DON'T) LOOK BACK: OUR NOSTALGIA FOR HORROR AND SLASHER FILMS", EDITED COLLECTION

On first consideration it may not seem like “nostalgia” and horror and slasher films have any clear connections. Usually nostalgia is applied to events and experiences that have a pleasant connotation, even if these pleasant feelings are a result of a rose-tinted view of the past. While nostalgia can refer to personal feelings as well as larger communal or cultural memory and pleasure, there is also an implied action to it- that someone is seeking to reclaim, or revisit a specific time period or place for an explicit reason. Applying this understanding to remakes, revisions, reimaginings helps us understand what the purpose of these reworked creations are, the work they’re doing, and how they build on and expand on an already understood and accepted set of narratives, tropes, characters, and beliefs.

Since the national and global trauma of 9/11 we have seen dozens of remakes, reboots, revisions, and reimaginings of horror and slasher films from the 1970s and 80s. Each work seeks to capture some element of the original- the simple understanding of good and evil, the audience reaction to scares, an aesthetic homage, the commercial popularity. If we shift our perspective to view these films through the lens of nostalgia, we can see that many of these narratives are grounded in trauma, the performance of it, the aftermath, how people survive and later work through it. Whether it is a movie, mini-series, television show, or video game, these remakes can be organized according to several subtopics that perform different work within the media and reflect different fears, anxieties, and desires of a specific historical and cultural moment, although the argument could be made that some texts belong in a variety of categories, and there is noticeable overlap.

*CFP* "REMAKES, REBOOTS, AND ADAPTATIONS", ONGOING BOOK SERIES

Twenty-first century media have seen a rise not only in remakes and “re-imaginings” (television series like Hawaii 5-0 or Battlestar Galactica, video games like Tomb Raider, or films like Ghostbusters) but also transmedia adaptations (comic book series becoming television becoming video games, board games and Hallowe’en costumes, a la The Walking Dead), works based in nostalgic callback (Ready Player One, Wreck-it Ralph), fan-written versions of media (Fifty Shades of Grey is fan fiction of Twilight) and genre-bending remixes (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). However, while a wider body of work exists on transmedia storytelling and adaptation, remakes are still a rich and largely unexplored subject even as interest in the remake phenomenon continues to grow.

Broad-ranging and multidisciplinary, this series invites analysis of remakes, reboots, and adaptations in contemporary media from videogames to television to the internet. How are we re-using and remixing our stories? What does that tell us about ourselves, our cultures, and our times? Multidisciplinary approaches are welcome from scholars working in areas such as gender studies, race, sexuality, disability, cultural studies, fan studies, sociology, or aesthetic and technical research. Titles in the series set out to say something about who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going, as read in our popular culture and the stories we tell ourselves over and over again.

*CFP* "BLUMHOUSE: THE NEW HOUSE OF HORROR", CHAPTER BOOK

In a span of ten years Blumhouse has amassed a film library of over 50 films that includes notable horror franchises as Paranormal Activity (2009-2015), The Purge (2013-) and Insidious (2010-), critically lauded films as Split (2017) and Get Out (2017), and box-office sensations as Happy Death Day (2017) and Truth or Dare (2018). The company was also behind a highly-hyped new installment of Halloween (1978-) and an untitled Dee Rees’ horror film focusing on the lives of black lesbians in rural America that is in development.

Despite emerging as an increasingly central player in the production of cinematic horror, Blumhouse Productions has slipped academic scrutiny. To date, there exists a small scattering of studies that partially focus on a company that has grown in prominence and commands significant attention from the business and trade press. To fill this gap, proposed collection will offer the first in-depth academic analysis of Blumhouse Productions’ horror films.

*CFP* "BACKWARD GLANCES 2019: REBOOT", THE SCREEN CULTURES GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE

Backward Glances 2019: REBOOT

The Screen Cultures Graduate Student Conference

Department of Radio/Television/Film, Northwestern University

September 27 & 28, 2019

Keynote Speakers: Professors Susan Murray and Reem Hilu

Fuller House, Twin Peaks, Spiderman, Roseanne, The Twilight Zone, Tomb Raider. Our popular film and television landscape is inundated with those media properties now popularly known as reboots. Whether the proliferation of reboots constitutes a true revival, giving new life to old texts, or an aesthetic emergency signaling the end of originality, it prompts us to ask what the notion of the reboot has to offer in considering the relationship between present and past. Backward Glances, Northwestern’s biennial graduate student media and historiography conference, invites submissions addressing the theme of “reboot” in all its many valences.

*CFP* BACKWARD GLANCES 2019: REBOOT, THE SCREEN CULTURES GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE

Backward Glances 2019: REBOOT

The Screen Cultures Graduate Student Conference

Department of Radio/Television/Film, Northwestern University

September 27 & 28, 2019

Fuller House, Twin Peaks, Spiderman, Roseanne, The Twilight Zone, Tomb Raider. Our popular film and television landscape is inundated with those media properties now popularly known as reboots. Whether the proliferation of reboots constitutes a true revival, giving new life to old texts, or an aesthetic emergency signaling the end of originality, it prompts us to ask what the notion of the reboot has to offer in considering the relationship between present and past. Backward Glances, Northwestern’s biennial graduate student media and historiography conference, invites submissions addressing the theme of “reboot” in all its many valences.