Etiquetas

Monstrosity and the Topography of Terror | 2018 Meeting of the Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts



2018 Meeting of the Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts
October 18-20
Sam Houston State University Woodlands Campus
Houston/The Woodlands, Texas

We fear that which is dangerous, painful, or threatening. Fear is an emotion that signals peril, one that heightens our senses and preps us for action. But the causes of fear are vast and varied. The monster in the dark causes fear, but so does the threat of poverty, deportation, and violence. A society’s fears manifest in a number of ways. One of these is through the figure of the monstrous. W. Scott Poole argues in Monsters in America that monsters are not individual fears, but take root in public imagination.

These monsters are effects of various cultural influences, social change, and historical events. Images, events, and circumstances of monstrosity and the surrounding fear foreground anxieties about identity markers such as race, gender, sexuality, ability and class, as well as religious beliefs, science, and politics. Indeed, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen writes that “Because of its ontological liminality, the monster notoriously appears at times of crises.” In our current political, historical, ecological, and social moment we are inundated with discourses of monstrosity and fear.

This conference explores how various literatures, arts, performances, and media are produced by fear as well as how we manufacture monsters and terror in the 21 st century At the 2018 annual conference of the SCLA, we want to examine broadly and comparatively the topography of monstrosity and fear. Although we are encouraging papers that directly engage the conference theme, we also welcome papers and panels on any topic that investigates literature and the arts.

  • Post-apocalyptic narratives 
  • Religious fundamentalism 
  • Racial terror 
  • Monstrosity and toxic masculinities
  • Queerness and monstrosity 
  • Security and mass surveillance 
  • Nationalism, fascism and terror 
  • Monstrous consumption 
  • Disability and monstrosity 
  • Monstrous politicians and politics 
  • Monstrous bodies
  • Catastrophe
  • Monstrosity and the female body
  • Terror and trauma
  • Hybridity and prodigality
  • Intersectionality and monstrosity
  • Monster theory
  • Horror and ludic terror
  • Abjection and the uncanny
  • Fear-mongering, populism, and performance

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: May 20, 2018


Panel and paper proposals related to the conference theme are especially encouraged, but all topics are welcome. Please submit panel proposals (500 words) and individual abstracts (250 words) by May 20, 2018. Please include in the body of the email your name, academic affiliation, status (faculty, grad student, etc.), and mailing address. For panel proposals, include the names, addresses, and affiliations for all participants.

Graduate students submitting a paper proposal may be eligible for an SCLA travel scholarship.

Complete information, here: https://complit-scla.org/conference/
Labels: