Sunday 19th September – Wednesday 22nd September 2010
Oriel College, Oxford

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 Inc, the Addams Family)
* Making monsters; monstrous births, childhood
* Mutants and mutations and freaks
* Technologies of the monstrous (including RPG)
* 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
* Gothic Monsters
* Critical Theories on the Monstrous

Papers will be accepted which deal solely with specific monsters. This project will run concurrently with our project on Strangers, Aliens and Foreigners – we welcome any papers considering the problems or addressing issues on Monsters and Strangers, Aliens and Foreigners for a cross-over panel.

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 26th March 2010. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 13th August 2010.

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 Founder & Leader, Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire
United Kingdom
E-mail: m8@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 soon to be launched Journal of Monsters and the Monstrous.

For further details about the project please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/

For further details about the conference please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/monsters-and-the-monstrous/call-for-papers/

The blog will commence in the next fortnight.