Call for Papers

1st Global Conference

Thursday 6th May – Saturday 8th May 2010
Prague, Czech Republic

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project seeks to engage and explore the cultural significance and enduring narratives within the realm of the Gothic in culture at large. From its literary and historical roots to its (post)modern incarnations as a cultural subgenre present in popular fiction and film, this project seeks to explore the territories of the Gothic in all of its manifestations.

Suggested topics and themes include (but are not limited to):

• Classic Gothic Literature and its resurgence
• The Gothick
• Gothic Culture(s) as a living experience/ethos
• Gothic Media (Cinema, Television, Games, Graphic Novels, Role Playing)
• Gothic Music
• Misrepresenting the Gothic
• Apocalyptic narratives
• Fashioning Bodies, styles and convention
• Modern and Postmodern paradigms (19^th, 20^th & 21^st century ‘Gothics’)
• Gothic and Horror Narratives
• Gothic as Horror or Horror as Gothic?
• Popular Culture
• Queer Gothic
• Identity
• Scapegoating/ derision/ condemnation of the Gothic in culture
• The philosophy of ‘dark’ culture
• Geographical Gothic
• Gothic space; Gothic architecture
• Gender and Sexualities
• Contrasting the ‘emo’ and the ‘goth’

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 27th November 2009. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 19th March 2010.

300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and 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, Project Co-Leader, School of English, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
• Stephen Morris
  Hub Leader, Independent Scholar, New York USA
• Rob Fisher
  Network Founder and Leader,Inter-Disciplinary.Net,Freeland, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

The conference is part of the Critical Issues programme of research projects. It aims 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 the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook.  Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).

Style Sheets
In preparing your papers, please pay strict attention to the following style sheets

• Download Oxford Style Sheet – v7 (pdf)
• Download Oxford Reference Style Sheet 2 (pdf)
• Download Template document (Word)