Last Call for Papers!
Deadline: Thursday 14th April 2017
Beasts of the Forest:
Denizens of the Dark Woods
1st of July 2017
Proposals are invited for an interdisciplinary symposium at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, which will explore representations of forests and their more sinister inhabitants within the context of popular culture. The one-day conference on the 1st of July 2017 will feature keynotes from Professor Peter Hutchings of Northumbria University and Dr Sam George of the University of Hertfordshire.
Taking place in the drawing room of Horace Walpole’s Gothic mansion in Strawberry Hill, this symposium will discuss forests as context and subject of horror in popular culture. As such we will feature discussions of arboreal horrors and forest creatures. Crossing national and social boundaries, the world’s forests and jungles offer sinister, primeval experiences of horror. Whether they be our shelter and safe-haven or the domain of malevolent spirits and sprites, forests have the capacity to horrify and threaten those that venture into them without permission. Human interference has continually threated forests across the world, yet this threat is reversed in myth and folklore. We seem all too willing to grant our forests malevolence, yet it is increasing our responsibility to take care of and preserve these ancient realms.
Submissions from perspectives on gender studies, horror auteurs and national horror cinemas, fandom and audiences will be particularly encouraged. The symposium organisers will compile selected papers with a view to publishing an edited collection, following interest from an academic publisher.
Topics for presentations might address, but are not limited to:
·Ecocriticism: deforestation and extinction as textual themes
·Forest fears and found footage films: The Blair Witch and beyond
·Fairylands: malevolent spirits, sprites and fairyfolk in popular culture
·New England Gothic and forbidden woods: H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King and the legacy of the Puritans
·Hunting Bigfoot, evolution of the ‘squatchers’
·Representations of the forest as monstrous entity
·Forests and the full moon: wolves, lycanthropy and madness,
·Forests as horror context and lair in creature features
·Forests and jungles in popular music
·Witches and warlocks of the forest
·Tolkien’s forests in film, games and animation
·Forests in Disney
·Forest creatures in PSB: BBC natural history as emblem of cultural value
·Social Class and hillbilly horror
Submit an Abstract
Submit a maximum 500-word abstract by Thursday 14th April 2017 to:
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Disclaimer
This email may contain privileged, proprietary, or otherwise private information and is intended solely for the individual to whom it is addressed.
If you are not the intended recipient, we are sorry that you have received this email in error. Please note that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying is strictly prohibited. Please contact the sender, do not open any attachments, and delete
the email immediately.
Any views and opinions are those of the individual sender and not necessarily those of St Mary's University Twickenham.
Please rely on your own anti-malware software. No responsibility is taken by the sender for any damage rising out of any infection.
We reserve the right to monitor e-mail messages passing through our network as permitted under UK law.
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