1. First, a conference CFP: Utopia & Dystopia: Conference on the Fantastic in Media Entertainment, University of Southern Denmark, 28-29 May 2020. Deadline: 10 December 2019.
This conference invites new research in the fantastic. Why is the fantastic more popular than ever? What theories – or bundle of theories – capture the specific nature of the fantastic? What purposes do fantastic genres serve in terms of evolution, adaptation, sensory pleasures, and cognitive as well as social uses? How do we create fantastic stories across media platforms and in different aesthetic forms? How is worldbuilding used to create transmedia stories of the fantastic? How do new technologies and media aesthetics affect the fantastic in terms of production, distribution, and fan uses?
2. Call for Submissions: Gothic Mash-Ups (Edited Collection). Deadline: 30 August 2019.
Intended for publication with Lexington Books, Gothic Mash-Ups will theorize and trace the way that producers of gothic fiction – from the 18th century to today – appropriate, combine, and reimagine elements from earlier texts and genres. Particularly welcome are essays about individual texts (or groups of texts) that bring together characters and storylines from two or more prior gothic narratives or cross gothic storylines with other kinds of stories. From Walpole’s early generic hodgepodge and Universal Pictures’ monster film crossovers to such contemporary “Frankenfictions” (De Bruin-Molé) as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Penny Dreadful, this collection will examine the fundamental hybridity of the gothic as a genre.
3. Call for Chapters – Screening Loss: An Exploration of Grief in Contemporary Horror Cinema. Deadline: 30 September 2019.
This collection addresses horror films’ treatment of loss, specifically grief and how grief shapes, magnifies, and escalates the horrific. Selected films should be from the last twenty years. This contemporary approach will lend the collection a sense of urgency. Moreover, in addition to conventional horror films, we highly support explorations of less frequently examined films that contain a high degree of complexity in content and aesthetics. A24 films are the perfect example of this. Additionally, examinations of genre-defying films such as Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer and David Lowery’s A Ghost Story are especially encouraged.
4. Essays on SyFy Channel Original Films. Deadline: 31 October 2019.
This collection’s goal is to devote critical attention to an understudied avenue of popular culture: Sci-Fi/SyFy Channel’s original films. Since 2002, Sci-Fi/SyFy Channel’s production company, Sci-Fi Pictures, has created over 200 original films, spawning such franchises as the Sharknado and Lavalantua series alongside cult/fan favorites like Ghost Shark, Ice Spiders, and Mongolian Death Worm. Sharknado’s release in 2013 saw unprecedented popularity for one of SyFy’s creature feature films, correlating to a meteoric rise in popularity of not just the recently-minted Sharknado franchise, but SyFy’s feature films as a whole.
5. Call for articles: Revenant journal, special issue ‘Performing Fairies’. Deadline: 31 October 2019.
Revenant: Critical and Creative Studies of the Supernatural (www.revenantjournal.com) is now accepting abstracts for critical articles, creative writing pieces, and book, film, music, or event reviews for a themed issue on ‘Performing Fairy’, examining contemporary and historical intersections of phenomenological fairy practice.
Contributing to this discussion, we invite abstracts for work that examine the role of fairy and its evolution as a cultural marker and interrogator of societal issues across film, TV, literature, video games, art, music or public performance.
