Deadline for submissions: August 1, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Film and History
Contact email: smatheson@ucn.ca

CALL FOR PAPERS

Westerns: Where The Deer and The Antelope Play

An area of multiple panels for the 2017 Film & History Conference

Representing “Home”: The Real and Imagined Spaces of Belonging
The Hilton—Milwaukee City Center, Milwaukee, WI (USA)
November 1-5, 2017

EXTENDED DEADLINE for abstracts: August 1, 2017

In the Western, be it ever so humble—a teepee, a log cabin, a covered wagon, or a sod house—there is no place like home. Representations of “home,” quickly built, lovingly maintained, and often fiercely defended, reflect cultural ideals and refract complex ideologies—relaying stories of nations, ethnicities, genders and classes, technologies and economies in film as well as in television.

How can “home” be a memory or a destination for those travelling West? What about contested homes, as Native Americans defend tribal lands from white men who seek new homes of their own? In what ways is the absence of a home as important as its presence in the Western? How do we continue to think about gender roles in an ideological “home” where women often tend the home fires while cowboys feel more at home riding the range –and outlaws, of course, can never go home again?

This area, comprising multiple panels, welcomes papers on the subject of “home” in all aspects of Western film—from production and distribution to exhibition and reception. Possible topics include, but are certainly not limited to, the following:

* Heading for Home: The Covered Wagon, Westward The Women, Cheyenne Autumn, Meek’s Cutoff

* The Home Place: Shane, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, Unforgiven

* Home Sweet Home: Drums along the Mohawk, The Magnificent Seven, City Slickers

* Angels of the Western Hearth: Cat Ballou, Deadwood, Jane Got A Gun

* Returning and/or Leaving Home: The Searchers, Forsaken, Unforgiven, The Ballad of Little Jo

* Protecting Home and Hearth: The Sons of Katie Elder, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Hannie Calder, Home On The Range

* Home Studios for the Western: Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, Republic Pictures

* Homes for Westerns: Towns, Backlots and Locations: Melody Ranch, Old Tucson, Bronson Canyon, Monument Valley, Death Valley

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.filmandhistory.org).

Please e-mail your 200-word proposal to both of the area chairs:

Sue Matheson
University College of the North
smatheson@ucn.ca

Gaylyn Studlar

Washington University in St. Louis

gstudlar@wustl.edu

Deadline for submissions: September 5, 2017
Full name/name of organization: C19 Conference, Albuquerque 2018
Contact email: travis.foster@villanova.edu

Homonationalism has typically been used to name a late-twentieth and twenty-first century phenomenon in which gay and lesbian rights discourse has achieved power, in part, by donning the rhetoric of U.S. exceptionalism. Yet Jasbir Puar’s 2013 re-articulation of homonationalism as a “facet of modernity and a historical shift” also points to an underexplored set of questions pertinent to nineteenth-century American Studies: What are the deeper genealogies of homonationalism? What forms does it take in periods prior to the popularization of the “homosexual” as a type in Euro-American sexology? What earlier iterations of nationalist homosociality also comprise something like a sexual politics? In what contexts does the homo- of homonationalism become useful for describing non-sexual social formations? What affinities exist between histories of homosociality—erotic, intellectual, aesthetic, literary, militaristic, class-based, or otherwise—and the machinations of white supremacy and settler colonialism?

Scholars of sexuality such as Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Peter Coviello, and Samaine Lockwood have paved the way for this work to be done, attesting to the fact that national belonging in the United States has long taken shape through the cultivation of same-sex intimacy and homosocial attachment. At the same time, scholars such as Mark Rifkin, Siobhan Somerville, and Leela Gandhi have urged scholars to look to the nineteenth century to explore intersections between queer sexualities, deviant racial formations, and anti-colonial politics. Building on this work, “Genealogies of Homonationalism” will interrogate where and how homonationalism takes shape in the 19th century, and in what contexts homonationalism becomes useful, as a category of analysis, for describing intersections between race, citizenship, and socialities oriented toward “sameness.”

We invite 300-word abstracts pertaining to any of the themes and questions addressed above. Please direct these and short CVs to Travis Foster (travis.foster@villanova.edu) and Don James McLaughlin (dmclaug1@swarthmore.edu) no later than September 5th, 2017.

Deadline for submissions: August 14, 2017
Full name/name of organization: C19 Conference, Albuquerque 2018
Contact email: gokce.tekeli@uky.edu

In her 2016 book, Staying with the Trouble, Donna Haraway suggests that the way beyond the anthropocene and capitalocene is “making oddkin” which is “always situated, someplace and not noplace, entangled and worldly.” For this panel we seek readings that explore the relationship (or kinship) between subject and object, body and environment, the self and the landscape. Posthuman ecology and new materialism may collide in texts that blur the self and her environment (both natural and social). This phenomenon may particularly manifest in texts where human subjects occupy Othered identity positions, such as women, non-white, and immigrant subjects who inscribe how their environments mark their bodies and their lives. We might ask: How is the self inscribed in the landscape? How do we build kinship with our environments? How does a climate shape the self? How are socio-political shifts reflected in the landscape?

Topics may include, but not limited to:

• Gendered and racialized bodies
• Posthuman body and identity
• Biopolitics and biopower
• (Dis)abled bodies
• Urban and rural communities
• Kinship and mobility
• Posthuman agency
• Representations of spatiality and temporality
• Memory and landscape
• Materialism and agency
• Ecologies of kinship

Abstracts of no more than 300 words and a current CV should be sent to Gokce Tekeli (gokce.tekeli@uky.edu) and Katie Waddell (katie.waddell@uky.edu) no later than August 14, 2017.

Deadline for submissions: September 30, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Kurt Vonnegut Society at NeMLA
Contact email: nllowman@buffalo.edu

This session will be held at the 2018 NeMLA convention in Pittsburgh from April 12-15 (https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention.html). Submissions must be sent through NeMLA’s online database: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16913. Deadline for submissions is September 30.

Many authors use real-life experiences as a foundation for their fiction, while others use highly imaginative spaces to create new worlds that still make room for personal reflection and cultural critique. Kurt Vonnegut does both and often in the same piece. Vonnegut not only sets his fiction in places that had an important impact on his life–for example, Dresden and Schenectady (in the form of Ilium)–but he also creates his own worlds like Tralfamadore, integrating the three into Slaughterhouse Five. One wonders which elements of these locations are accurate according to Vonnegut’s memory, which are fictionalized to meet a particular end, and how we (or he) can really tell the difference.

Vonnegut is not the only twentieth-century American author to play with setting and world-making. Authors like Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner use their war experiences or their upbringing as inspirations for their work, and this, too, can be seen in their reappropriation of place. Science fiction writers like Philip K. Dick reimagine earth in order to explore cultural and political themes, while others imagine their own worlds to do the same. How does Vonnegut align with these techniques or apply them in his own unique way?

Presentations in this session will consider the function of setting in Vonnegut’s work—space, place, and/or world–and the ways in which the location’s “realness,” “fictionalization,” and/or “alterations” affect and shape the characters, plot trajectory, or authorial relation to the text.

Presentations might consider:
*Vonnegut’s renaming of places and how he reimagines them (e.g. Midland City, Ilium)
*Vonnegut’s imaginary locations (e.g. San Lorenzo, Tralfamadore)
*Vonnegut’s use of “real” locations (e.g. Dresden, Galápagos)
*Comparisons of Vonnegut’s spaces, real, imagined or otherwise rethoughtComparisons between
*Vonnegut’s Midland City/Ilium and Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County; Hemingway’s Italy/Switzerland in A Farewell to Arms and Vonnegut’s Dresden in Slaughterhouse Five
*Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five
*Vonnegut’s America and Philip K. Dick’s America
*Other interpretations of Vonnegut’s (re)imagined spaces as the focus of the presentation or in discussion with the works of other twentieth-century American authors

Please submit a 250-word abstract and a 2-3 sentence bio by September 30 via NeMLA’s submission page: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/16913.

Direct questions to Nicole Lowman, co-Vice President of the Kurt Vonnegut Society: nllowman@buffalo.edu.

Deadline for submissions: September 30, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Northeast Modern Language Association, April 12-15, 2018, Pittsburgh, PA
Contact email: montgomerya@brcc.edu

“‘Go then. There are other worlds than these’” (King, Gunslinger, 266). These are the final words of one of Jake Chambers’s lifetimes in Stephen King’s 1982 novel The Gunslinger, Volume I in his Dark Tower series. Throughout the subsequent seven volumes—and other novels—King has continued to develop this “other worlds” concept, also described as “many levels . . . [of] the Tower of all existence” (King, Insomnia, 576). Recently, the metaphor may apply as well to adaptations of King’s work as to the multi-verse of the novels and stories themselves.

King’s fiction has been adapted for film and television for decades, with results from B-horror films to Oscar winners. In recent years, King adaptations have expanded into graphic novels and long-form streaming service television series. An interesting turn, exemplified by the releasing-in-2017 IT and The Dark Tower films and The Mist TV series (as well as by 2000s television series Haven and The Dead Zone), has involved adaptations that actively change or add to narratives—new locations, characters, and events; marked time shifts; cross-racial casting—doing something substantively different from standard novel-to-film changes.

This session invites papers examining a particular King work or series—not limited to those listed—and its adaptation into another medium or media. Papers may consider specific interpretive questions—what are the implications of moving IT forward 30 years, or of treating the Dark Tower film as a series sequel?—or more theoretical and structural ones—what happens to canonicity and authoritativeness when one work has a novel, multiple film adaptations, and several graphic novels? These and other questions specific to multi-media King adaptations are encouraged. Literature, film, popular culture, and media studies scholars and all critical approaches are welcome.

Please contact Abigail Montgomery (montgomerya@brcc.edu) with any questions.

Submission deadline is September 30; notifications will be made by October 15.

Submissions must be made electronically at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/17080.

Deadline for submissions: August 15, 2017
Full name/name of organization: David Palmer, President, The Arthur Miller Society
Contact email: dpalmer@maritime.edu

The Arthur Miller Society
Call for Proposals

A Palgrave Macmillan Anthology on Arthur Miller for the 21st Century

The Arthur Miller Society (http://arthurmillersociety.net/) has a preliminary commitment from Palgrave Macmillan to publish a 90,000-word anthology (roughly 15 articles of roughly 6000 words each) on Arthur Miller as part of their series American Literature Readings in the 21st Century, which is edited by Linda Wagner-Martin at the University of North Carolina. The series “publishes works by contemporary critics that help shape critical opinion regarding literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States.” Here is a link to the series’ description on the Palgrave website: http://www.palgrave.com/de/series/14765. Final commitment to the project from Palgrave will depend on peer review and approval of our proposal for the actual articles to be included in the anthology.

As a first step in launching this project, we are seeking proposals for 6000-word anthology articles. Each article proposal should be 100-200 words long and be accompanied by the contributor’s brief academic biography of no more than 100 words; both documents should be suitable for inclusion in the compilation of article proposals that will constitute the proposal for the anthology as a whole. Article proposals and biographies should be emailed to David Palmer, the current president of The Arthur Miller Society (dpalmer@maritime.edu), by August 15, 2017.

The final proposal for the entire anthology then will be compiled and submitted to the editors at Palgrave by September 15, 2017, for their peer review process.

In planning how to fit this project into your own work-flow, use the following dates as a rough preliminary guide: first drafts of articles completed by June 15, 2018; revised articles in response to editor’s comments completed by September 15, 2018.

In general, we are looking for articles on why Arthur Miller’s works and ideas remain relevant today and why they continue to resonate so well with contemporary audiences around the world.

We are seeking proposals on the following topics and any others you believe might be suitable for this volume:

• Analyses of individual Miller plays or sets of plays
• Discussions of Miller’s essays and interviews about theatre
• Discussions of Miller as a public intellectual and political activist
• Analyses of Miller’s plays in relation to those of other dramatists, both those who influenced Miller and those he may have influenced
• Analyses of Miller as a short-story writer and novelist
• Personal reminiscences of Miller that shed light on his relevance to contemporary drama and social issues
• Miller as a moral commentator on American values and culture
• Discussions of the ways Miller’s personal biography provides a background for his dramas and other works
• Miller’s work and contemporary themes in American theatre, such as the role of women in Miller’s plays and stories, visions of the American dream, Miller and theatre of the absurd, or Miller and postmodernism
• Changes in the style of performance of Miller’s plays from the 1940s to today
• Miller’s work with set designers and directors in shaping productions of his plays

We hope that this volume will consider Miller’s work and ideas from a variety of perspectives and serve as a significant guide to ongoing engagement with his oeuvre: plays and articles that were born at specific past moments in American culture yet continue to address themes we all face going forward into the 21st century.

Thank you for considering this call for proposals.

David Palmer
President, The Arthur Miller Society
(http://arthurmillersociety.net/)
(dpalmer@maritime.edu)

Deadline for submissions: August 1, 2017
Full name/name of organization: Kevin M. Scott and Connor M. Scott
Contact email: ohthehorror80s@gmail.com

Call for Paper (June 7, 2017)

Oh, The Horror: Politics and Culture in Horror Films of the 1980s

Kevin M Scott (Albany State University)

Connor M Scott (Georgia State University)

Contact email: ohthehorror80s@gmail.com

In the 1980s, a decade significantly known for Ronald Reagan, the Moral Majority, and the ascendance of the corporation as an aesthetic, Hollywood recovered from and reacted to the director-centric 1970s by reasserting studio control over mainstream cinema. With notable exceptions, the films of the 1980s were constructive—supporting a neater and more optimistic view of history and American culture—as opposed to the deconstructive films of the prior decade, challenging and, often, fatalistic. A simple review of Oscar nominees for the 1980s, compared to those of the 1970s, demonstrates that the capitalistic desires of the studios aligned neatly with an increasingly self-congratulatory culture and the fantasy of a return to an earlier, simpler, more conservative, whiter, United States.

By nature, however, the horror genre retains a bleaker view of society. In the 1980s, horror subverted corporate influences more often that other mainstream genres and did so both in covert support and critique of politics and values of the era. Because horror films were (and remain) lower budget productions and, hence, lower risk for studios, filmmakers enjoyed a greater degree of freedom. Some filmmakers used that freedom to reify “Reagan-era values” in violent and bloody ways (through figures like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and other slashers) while others offered dark critiques of the politics of the decade—the anti-militarism of George Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985) or the deconstruction of the nuclear family in Joseph Rubin’s The Stepfather (1987).

The editors are developing a new collection of essays with McFarland Books and seek essays investigating the ways horror films during the 1980s responded to the cultural, social, and governmental politics of the decade. We welcome essays from a variety of critical stances (theoretical, psychological, formal, and so forth), but the volume’s purpose is to explore how horror films functioned as a site of political, cultural, and social engagement and/or critique.

We especially welcome essay proposals that take these approaches:

• Close readings of individual films and their engagement with the politics and culture of the era.
• Studies of particular filmmakers and the development of ongoing critiques or concerns within their films.
• Investigations of particular cultural and political themes (poverty, Barbara Creed’s idea of the “monstrous feminine,” the power of corporations, and so forth) in multiple films.
• The evolution within a subgenre over the decade (the slasher, religious/occult horror, and so forth) and how those changes reflected developments in American society.
• Discussions of how horror filmmakers interacted with the film industry and with American culture on an industry level.

This list is not intended to be complete. Other approaches are welcome. While the horror genre thrived in other countries, this volume is primarily interested in American films, films that were prominent for American moviegoers, and films that addressed American political and cultural concerns. While David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983, Canadian) fulfills this role, Dario Argento’s Italian films are less likely to do so. However, the inclusion of discussion of foreign films or films outside the decade in order to contrast “American” films of the 1980s or to highlight American political and/or cultural trends may be productive.

The editors seek essays of about 6,000 words.

The audience for this volume is undergraduates through active scholars, though books on this topic will attract an audience among fans of the genre.

Please submit abstracts of 500 words or less to Kevin M. Scott and Connor M. Scott (ohthehorror80s@gmail.com) by August 1, 2017. Abstracts should be accompanied by a short biography. Notification of acceptance will be given by August 15, 2017. Completed essays will be expected by December 15, 2017. And please email us if you have any questions.

Below, find a short list of films we would be especially interested in seeing discussed in essays for the volume. The list is certainly not meant to be exclusive, and we welcome any productive discussion of other films.

1980

Alligator

Altered States

Cannibal Holocaust

Demented

Friday the 13th

The Fog

Maniac

Motel Hell

Mother’s Day

The Watcher in the Woods

1981

An American Werewolf in London

The Entity

The Evil Dead

Friday the 13th PT 2

The Fun House

Graduation Day

Halloween II

Hell Night

The Howling

The Incubus

Inseminoid

My Bloody Valentine

Night School

Omen III: The Final Conflict

Wolfen

1982

The Aftermath

Alone in the Dark

Basket Case

Cat People

Creepshow

Curse of the Cannibal Confederates

Friday the 13th Part III

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

The Last Horror Film

Poltergeist

The Thing

1983

Christine

Cujo

Eyes of Fire

House on Sorority Row

The Hunger

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Videodrome

1984

C.H.U.D.

Children of the Corn

Gremlins

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Silent Night, Deadly Night

1985

Day of the Dead

Fright Night

The Hills Have Eyes Part II

Lifeforce

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

The Return of the Living Dead

1986

Aliens

Class of Nuke ‘Em High

The Fly

The Hitcher

Little Shop of Horrors

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

1987

Dark Tower

Evil Dead II

Killing Spree

The Lost Boys

Near Dark

Predator

Prince of Darkness

Hellraiser

Stepfather

1988

The Blob

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Maniac Cop

Pumpkinhead

1989

Dr. Caligari

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child