vampiros

CFP FANPIRES: Audience Consumption of the Modern Vampire

Posted on por Adriamaral

Acabo de receber mais um call for papers sobre vampiros. Isso já está virando uma praga rs. Mas dessa vez é sobre recepção e novas audiências dos vampiros como produto da cultura pop.

CFP FANPIRES: Audience Consumption of the Modern Vampire
Editors: Gareth Schott & Kirstine Moffat (University of Waikato, New Zealand)
Publisher: New Academia Press (Washington, DC)

This edited collection will examine the cultural resurgence of the vampire. It aims to provide inter-disciplinary accounts of the reception and cultural impact of contemporary representations of the vampire evident across a broad range of mediums, including literature (e.g. Evernight, The Vampire Academy), film (e.g. Twilight saga), television (e.g. The Vampire Diaries, True Blood), graphic novels (e.g. Chibi Vampire) and games (e.g. Vampire Rain). The appeal of vampire mythology and its associated folklore for modern audiences will be examined in an age characterised by the transformative possibilities of the internet with both its low barriers to artistic expression and the erosion of the boundaries between author and audience.

From evil villains to tragic heroes, modern appropriations and re-workings of the vampire genre, evident in popular manifestations such as the Twilight saga and the television adaptation of The Southern Vampire Mysteries (True Blood) are noted for their focus on the everyday. The ?new wave? vampire is commonly nested within communities, seeking to temper their urges and coexist with humans. Such contemporary treatments of the vampire fulfill the performative role traditionally associated with media fandom that has seen the creation of texts that ?enact, share in, and see scenes that the canonical author never created? (Lancaster, 2001, p. 131).

Within the context of reception and fandom, we aim to attract contributions that address (but are not limited to):
#    Fan Practices (art, fiction and films as well as discussions devoted to key vampire texts)
#   Anti-fans, negative reactions and responses
#    Impact and appeal of the vampire for different audiences (intended and unintended).
#    The scholar as fan. Distinctions between experience, interpretation and thinking as a fan and a scholar.
#    Author as fan (for example, homage/adaptation works such as Pride and Prejudice retellings Vampire Darcys Desire by Regina Jeffers or Mr Darcy Vampyre by Amanda Grange)
#   The journey of the fan. Where does fandom of a particular text lead audiences? A reference to the gothic appeal of Wuthering Heights in Twilight, led Publisher Harper Collins to reissue Brontes novel with the tagline Bella and Edwards favorite book,?quadrupling its annual sales.
#  The role of merchandising within vampire fan culture.
#   Issues related to film, television, game adaptation/translation (e.g. Why are there very few original or franchise tie-in vampire videogames? What prohibits the translation of vampire narratives into interactive games?)
#    The relationship between modern representations of the vampire (e.g. TV?s Being Human or Blood Ties) and other contemporary media genres (e.g. reality tv, sitcom, murder mystery etc.)
#   The construction and appeal of the ?dark romance? genre
#    Analysis of the plight of the vampire and the burden of immortality. Inter-generational differences between vampires and humans and vampires from a different age. For example, True Blood?s Bill Compton, turned during the American Civil War, and his young progeny Jessica Hamby (who keeps her own blog on http://babyvamp-jessica.com). How forgotten social conventions, mannerisms and standards are reintroduced into society through the presence of vampires. How vampires from a previous age negotiate the demands of a contemporary world.
#    The domestication of the vampire. The shift in contemporary texts from vampires as mythic creatures to quasi-human beings confronting everyday, human problems and relationships. For example: the vampire family (such as the Cullens in Twilight), the bond between creator and ?child? or the challenges of bodily sustenance (such as the ?vegetarian? Cullens in Twilight or the vampire blood banks in True Blood).
#    World media and cross-cultural comparisons (e.g. Sergei Lukyanemko?s Russian Vampire quartet currently adapted into two films Nightwatch and Daywatch).

KEY DATES:
Chapter Proposals (Abstract), 500-800 words + 6 keywords – October 29th, 2010
Notification of Acceptance ? November 19th, 2010
Chapter Submission (5,000 words) ? February 29th, 2011
Final Submission for Revised Chapters ? 31st May, 2011

All submissions to g.schott@waikato.ac.nz or kirstine@waikato.ac.nz

CfP Vampires: Myths of the Past and the Future

Posted on por Adriamaral

Nada melhor que um domingo para postar mais uma chamada de trabalhos para um evento de estudos sobre vampiros, graças à Ana Lucia Araújo. Achei muito legal essa conferência e ainda por cima é em Londres o que deixa tudo muito mais atraente :).

Vampires: Myths of the Past and the Future An interdisciplinary Conference organised by Simon Bacon, The London Consortium in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London

Deadline for submissions: 30 April 2011

Conference dates: 2nd – 4th November 2011

Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, School of Advanced
Study, University of London

Myths of vampires and the undead are as old as civilisation itself,
wherever humans gather these ‘dark reflections’ are sure to follow.
Whether as hungry spirits, avenging furies or as the disgruntled dearly
departed, they have been used to signify the monstrous other and the
consequences of social transgression. Embodying the result of a life
lived beyond patriarchal protective proscription that quickly changes
from dream to nightmare and from fairy tale to ghost story.

However their manifold and multifarious manifestation also provides a
point of opposition and resistance, one that subverts majority narrative
and gives agency to the disenfranchised and oppressed within society.
This is seen most clearly in the late twentieth century where, in a
plethora of filmic and literary texts, amidst a growing ‘sympathy for
the devil’ the vampire is constructed as a site of personal and social
transition. Here alternative narratives (e.g. feminist, ethnic,
post-colonial discourses etc) find expression and ways in which to
configure their own identity within, or in opposition to, the dominant
cultural parameters revealing hybridity as the catalyst for future myth
making.

In the course of the past century the vampire has undergone many
transformations which now see them as a separate evolutionary species,
both genetically and cybernetically, signifying all that late capitalist
society admires and desires thus completing its change from an
abhorational figure to an aspirational one; the vampire is no longer the
myth of a murky superstitious past but that of a bright new future and
one that will last forever.

This interdisciplinary conference will look at the various ways the
vampire has been used in the past and present to construct narratives of
possible futures, both positive and negative, that facilitate both
individual and collective, either in the face of hegemonic discourse or
in the continuance of its ideological meta-narratives.

Keynote speakers include:

Stacey Abbott

Catherine Spooner

Milly Williamson

We invite papers from a wide variety of disciplines and approaches such
as:  anthropology, art history, cultural studies, film studies, history,
literary studies, philosophy, psychology, theology, etc.

Possible themes include but are not limited to:

*       Myths, fairy tales and urban legends
*       Cross cultural colonisation; vampiric appropriation and
reappropriation
*       Cinema, Manga/ Anime and gaming
*       Fandom, lifestyle, ‘real’ vampires and identity configuration
*       Minority discourse and the transcultural vampire
*       Genetics, cybernetics and the post human
*       Blood memory, vampiric memory and the immortal archive
*       Dracula vs. Nosferatu; Urban vs. Rural
*       Globalisation, corporations and ‘Dark’ societies
*       Immortality, transcendence and cyberspace
*       Old World/ New World and vampiric migration
*       From stakes to crosses to sunlight
*       Blood Relations and the vampiric family
*       Abjection, psychoanalysis and transitional objects

Papers will also be considered on any related themes. Abstracts of 300
words should be submitted to Simon Bacon at vampiremyths1@googlemail.com
no later than April 30th 2011.