MONSTERS AND THE MONSTROUS: 9th GLOBAL CONFERENCE

 

9th GLOBAL CONFERENCE

MONSTERS AND THE MONSTROUS

Saturday 10th September – Tuesday 13th September 2011

Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

CALL FOR PAPERS

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary

project seeks to investigate and explore the

enduring influence and imagery of monsters

and the monstrous on human culture throughout

history. In particular, the project will have a

dual focus with the intention of examining

specific ‘monsters’ as well as assessing the role,

function and consequences of persons, actions or

events identified as ‘monstrous’.

The history and contemporary cultural influences

of monsters and monstrous metaphors will also be

examined.

Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and

pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to

any of the following themes:

* The monster through history

* Civilization, monsters and the monstrous

* Children, childhood, stories and monsters

* Comedy: funny monsters and/or making fun of

monsters (e.g. Monsters vs. Aliens, the Addams Family)

* Monstrous Avatars or objects

* Monsters and subjectivity

* Monsters and Sexuality

* Making monsters; monstrous births, childhood

* Mutants and mutations and freaks

* Technologies of the monstrous (including

Role Playing Games)

* Horror, fear and scare

* Do monsters kill because they are monstrous

or are they monstrous because they kill?

* How critical to the definition of monster

is death or the threat of death?

* Human ‘monsters’ and ‘monstrous’ acts? e.g,

perverts, paedophiles and serial killers

* Revolution and monsters

* Enemies (political/social/military) and monsters

* Iconography of the monstrous

* The popularity of the modern monsters; the

Mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein, Vampires, Cannibals

* The monster in literature

* The monster in media (television, cinema, radio, internet)

* Religious depictions of the monstrous

* Metaphors and the monstrous

* The problematic attraction and admiration of monsters

* Monstrous (In)Humanity / (In)Human Monstrosity

* Monstrous Politics

* Critical Theories on the Monstrous

Papers can be accepted which deal solely with

specific monsters. This project will run

concurrently with our project on Space and Place –

we welcome any papers considering the problems or

addressing issues on Monsters and Space and Place

for a cross-over panel. We also welcome

pre-formed panels on any aspect of the monstrous

or in relation to crossover panel(s).

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday

25th March 2011.

If an abstract is accepted for

the conference, a full draft paper should be

submitted by Friday 8th July 2011.

300 word abstracts should be submitted to the

Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word,

WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:

a) author(s)

b) affiliation

c) email address

d) title of abstract

e) body of abstract

E-mails should be entitled: Monsters Abstract

Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain

from using any special formatting, characters or

emphasis (such as bold, italics or

underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to

all paper proposals submitted. If you do not

receive a reply from us in a week you should

assume we did not receive your proposal; it might

be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look

for an alternative electronic route or resend.

ORGANISING CHAIRS

* Sorcha Ni Fhlainn

Hub Leader, Evil Hub, Inter-Disciplinary.Net

School of English, Trinity College, Dublin,

Ireland

E-mail: snf@inter-disciplinary.net

* Rob Fisher

Network F rounder & Leader,

Inter-Disciplinary.Net

Freeland, Oxfordshire

United Kingdom

E-mail: m9@inter-disciplinary.net

* Stephen Morris

Hub Leader

Independent Scholar

New York, USA

USA

E-mail: smmorris58@yahoo.com

The aim of the conference is to bring together

people from different areas and interests to share

ideas and explore various discussions which

are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted

for and presented at this conference are eligible

for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected

papers may be invited to go forward for

development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

Some papers may also be invited for inclusion in

the Journal of Monsters and the Monstrous.

For further details of the project, please visit

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/

For further details of the conference, please visit

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/call-for-papers/

Sponsored by: Inter-Disciplinary.Net