[ecrea] CFP for SCMS 2015: Panel abstracts for 'Television Monsters'

Call for Abstracts for the proposed panel:
Television monsters: representations of monstrosity in post-millennial horror television series

Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference Montreal March 25-29 2015.


While the horror genre is not a stranger to television, and the medium has produced classic titles from Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the Twilight Zone to Tales from the Crypt, it has rarely been a staple genre for prime-time or global television audiences. However, since the mid-2000s, there has been an explosion in high-end horror television series produced for both cable and prime-time television. This surge in horror television series has brought with it a diverse array of monsters on the small screen from psychopathic serial killers such as Hannibal and Dexter; to vampires, werewolves and mythical creatures in True Blood; to zombies in The Walking Dead and In the Flesh; and all manner of supernatural apparitions in Supernatural and American Haunting.

At the core of the representation these monsters is an increasingly blurred line between good and evil, monstrous and human, morality and immorality. On the one hand, protagonists in such television series find themselves threatened by panoply of monsters. Yet in many series, protagonists are themselves human/vampiric monsters such as Stefan Salvatore or Bill Compton (from The Vampire Diaries and True Blood respectively); or morally ambiguous serial killers in the case of Dexter. As Jowett and Abbott (2013, 111) argue, regardless of whether we are human, vampire or werewolf, the ‘proximity of monsters to humans – to us – means that familiar tropes and conventions from melodrama are used to negotiate the all-too-human areas of family, sexuality, friendship and work’. As such the demarcation between humanity and monstrosity is evolving. Moreover, in this landscape, as Carroll (1990, 41) has argued, ‘monsters need not be ugly or grotesque’, but may pose a threat morally, social
ly or psychologically, or ‘seek to destroy the moral order’.

This panel proposes to examine the representation of the monster in post-millennial horror television series. More specifically, it proposes to examine the following themes:

-  the contemporary reimagining of monstrosity
-  the morally ambiguous protagonist and human monster
-  evolution and revision of archetypal monsters (zombies, vampires, werewolves; ghosts) for TV and the intertextuality between TV and cinematic monsters; and
-  hybridity and the television monster.

We also welcome papers in the following categories:

Human monsters: Game of Thrones, Dexter, Hannibal
The Undead (zombies, vampires, ghosts): True Blood, In The Flesh, Young Dracula, The Strain, Being Human
The Supernatural: Carnivale, Supernatural, Grimm, Torchwood, American Haunting, Teen Wolf, The Returned

The panel will limit submissions to those focusing on the Western monster in television series produced post-2000.

Paper abstracts are due August 16th. Please (emailemma.somogyi /at/ qut.edu.au)  with your abstract of 250-300 words, a bibliography of 3-5 sources, and a brief biographical statement.
Authors will need to apply for, or renew, their SCMS membership by August 28th 2014.
http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=upcoming_conference



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