CALL FOR PAPERS: Queer Fears: A Symposium on New Queer Horror Film and TV
CALL FOR PAPERS:
Queer Fears: A Symposium on New Queer Horror Film and TV
University of Hertfordshire, Friday 28th June 2019
This call for papers invites scholarly investigations that aim to show that, in recent years, New Queer Horror has turned the focus of fear upon itself, on its own communities and subcultures. New Queer Horror designates film and television horror texts that are crafted by directors/producers who identify as gay, bi, queer or transgendered, or work that features homoerotic, or explicitly homosexual, narratives with ‘out’ LGBTQ+ characters. This symposium argues that New Queer Horror projects contemporary anxieties within LGBTQ+ subcultures onto its characters and into its narratives, building upon the previously figurative role of queer monstrosity in the moving image.
This symposium builds on the work of seminal queer horror academics (Benshoff, Halberstam, Scahill and Elliott-Smith) and seeks to explore the shifting approaches to the representation of queerness in horror film and television and via that examination also endeavours to develop a clearer understanding of the subgenre’s changing aesthetics, themes and depicted queer identities in the twenty first century.
Abstracts for papers are open (but not limited to) the following broad range of topics and contemporary debates in relation to queerness in horror film and TV:
LGBTQ identities in modern Horror film and television texts
Modern queer Horror auteurs
Queer representations of Gender - Masculinity/Femininity/Transgender
Queer appropriations of ‘Classical Horror’ (in television, theatre or film)
Homonormativity in Queer Horror
Eroticism and Pornography in Queer Horror
Genre intersections/fusions of Horror with other forms
Queer Horror inter-textuality and self-reflexivity
Abstracts should be no more than 250 words, accompanied by a short 150 word bio and should be sent to Dr. Darren Elliott-Smith (University of Hertfordshire): d.elliott-smith@herts.ac.uk
Deadline: Sunday March 31st 2019.
This symposium/project is part of the ongoing work of the Media Research Group (Humanities) at the University of Hertfordshire. Website: http://www.queerhorrordoctor.com
