Some readers might be interested to know of this upcoming conference. More info here.
Call for Papers:
For this 10th Anniversary of the Monsters and the Monstrous Project we are looking forward to the future, and so are starting from Franco Moretti’s comment that “the monster expresses the anxiety that the future will be monstrous.” Our focus then will be on Monsters of the Future, no matter from which time or place that future is viewed. So whether the present is Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romantic, Modernist or Post Modernist it is the ways that, as further noted by Moretti, a “new order of beings” makes manifest the terror of an unknown and uncontrollable tomorrow and the forms these creatures take.
As such the monster becomes not the return of the repressed but an immanent Imaginary that constantly harasses and harangues the borders of the Real. Just as Grendel, Caliban, Frankenstein’s Monster, Dr. Moreau’s creatures and the clones from Blade Runner can be seen to manifest a hybrid future that blurs the borders between human/non-human, the humane and the in-humane, the converse is equally true where the tomorrow they envision is as much degenerative as it is evolutionary. Here, as in Wells’ the Time Machine, or Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness, the future is in fact a portal to the past and that the true anxiety we feel is not for inevitable change but for a monstrous stasis that, like the vampire, will lock us forever in a never-ending present (not unlike Wittgenstein’s immortality of the never-ending moment). This then is a call for monstrous visions of the future, whether it is a new and alien land or one that is only too familiar; for the Post-Human, the Non-Human and the Anti-Human, the Robot, the Golem and the Cyborg, the Pure-bred, the Hybrid and the Mudblood, the Unborn, the Unliving and the Undead.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
Monstrous Places/Spaces of the Future:
~The city, the town, the home of the future.
~Environmental disasters, global warming, nuclear meltdowns, plagues and terra incognito.
~Dystopias/utopias
~New Worlds, forgotten worlds, undiscovered worlds: Atlantis, Shangri-la. Eldorado
Human Monsters:
~Medical experimentation, cloning, reproduction.
~Cyborgs, robots and inanimate bodies made real
~Hybrids, both real and supernatural, post-human and beyond human.
~Evolution and degeneration
~Actual bodies and supernatural bodies.
~Monsterisation of the human body: fragmentation, surgical modification and bodies without organs
Monstrous Aliens & Alien Invaders:
~Invasions of unknown beings, conquistadors, Martians, heavenly or alien life forms.
~Humans as invaders, Starship Troopers, Iain M. Banks’ The Culture
~Parasites, diseases, flora and influences
Monstrous Generations:
~The glorification of Youth, Logan’s Run and In Time.
~Monstrous adolescents.
~Demonic children and alien babies.
~Middle-aged zombies and serial killers, possessed grandparents
~Romantacising the Monster: Paranormal Romance, dark lovers and heroes, Twilight, Vampire Diaries and Dexter.
Monstrous Politics:
~Protest, revolt and revolution
~Zombie Capitalism and undead labour
~Class, status and the aristocracy
~Post colonialism, diasporas and migration.
~Ageism, sexism, health-ism and separatism e.g, District 9, Metropolis, Matrix, Daybreakers.
Papers can be accepted which deal solely with specific monsters. This project will run concurrently with our project on The Erotic– we welcome any papers considering the problems or addressing issues on Monsters and The Erotic for a cross-over panel. We also welcome pre-formed panels on any aspect of the monstrous or in relation to crossover panel(s).
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 16th March 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 22nd June 2012. Abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs.
Details on submissions here.
Related posts:
Thanks for the mention of the review kerfluffle. I sure stirred up a poopstorm. Still trying to make sense of it. I mean: death threats? For saying old ladies can do something to support their favorite authors? I left this comment on the Fangs review site. I hope people will see it maybe ease up on the personal attacks. (I can dream.)
I agree with everything you say. Every word. Seriously. Without unbiased reviewers, no reviews would have meaning. Everything would simply be a press release. Honest reviewers are more important than they’ve ever been, so thanks for all you do.
My post was not aimed at reviewers. It was aimed at older persons like myself who 1) have NEVER LEFT AN AMAZON REVIEW BEFORE and 2) ALREADY LOVE A BOOK.
We over 50-readers are a demographic that tends to get ignored by the Big 6, so writing reviews of our favorite authors is a way to let New York know there are still buyers of stuff like sweet romance and family sagas. I was writing to empower those readers.
I told them Amazon algorithms don’t pick up three-stars for “also bought” recommendations. I didn’t write the algorithms. Heck, I’m a geezerette. I wouldn’t know an algorithm if it bit me on the hiney.
I very specifically told my audience that regular reviewers (like Fangs) are a great resource and we should ” be giving props to the reviewers who were kind enough to post a thoughtful review. There are regular Amazon reviewers who write dozens of reviews per month. (We LOVE these people.) You can check their tastes and ratings by clicking on the “see my other reviews” button after the review.”
I talked about how a synopsising review can be of special help when the publisher doesn’t give good blurbitude (like the Penguins who haven’t done well by Nathan Bransford.)
That’s from the original post. I didn’t “water it down” with the edits as much as try to help people who had read the crazy angry stuff about it understand what was actually in the post.
It doesn’t seem to have helped much. I’m still getting death threats. Seriously. I’m so naive I didn’t even know there was an Amazon Taliban.
But the whole thing has taught me a lot about the subject of “framing.” When somebody “frames” a piece with a diatribe like–
“This be-atch is a fascist/Bolshevik bully who is telling reviewers we all have to wear evening gowns!!!!” (Yeah. Somebody actually accused me of telling her how to dress.)
–Then readers can’t seem to comprehend what’s actually on the page.
Tells me a lot about why our current political climate is the way it is.
And that little old ladies like me are not welcome in the Amazon jungle. Which is too bad. Let’s hope the Japanese write better algorithms for Kobo.