[ecrea] CFP Transnational Monstrosity in Popular Culture

*Call For Papers: Transnational Monstrosity in Popular Culture*

*Saturday 3^rd June 2017, York St John University*

Invited speakers: Dr Colette Balmain (Kingston University); Professor 
Andrew Smith (University of Sheffield); Dr Donna McCormack (University 
of Surrey); Dr Alison Peirse (University of York).

This one-day conference will explore the figure of the monster in 
transnational popular culture, across cinema, television, games, comics 
and literature, as well as through fandoms attached to global monster 
cultures. It is our intention to bring together researchers to consider 
how transnational monstrosity is constructed, represented and 
disseminated in global popular culture.

Since the popularisation of monster narratives in the nineteenth 
century, the monstrous figure has been a consistent border crosser, from 
Count Dracula’s journey on the /Demeter/ from Romania to Whitby, to the 
rampaging monsters of Godzilla movies across multiple global cities. In 
folklore, such narratives have long been subject to specific local and 
national cultures, such as the shape-shifting Aswang of Filipino 
folklore or the Norwegian forest Huldra, yet global mediacapes now 
circulate mediatised representations of such myths across borders, 
contributing to a transnational genre that spans multiple media. Aihwa 
Ong has referred to ‘the /trans/versal, the /trans/actional, the 
/trans/lational, and the /trans/gressive’ in /trans/national ‘human 
practices and cultural logics’, and each of these categories can 
encompass the scope of /trans/formations imagined within cross-border 
constructions of monstrosity.

There has been significant recent interest in the ways in which 
transnationality, particularly in film studies, has depicted flows of 
people and demonstrated lines of cultural flow. This conference will 
explore cultural flow as it relates to the construction of a 
transnational genre (by producers and audiences), but will also explore 
the ramifications of representations of monstrosity in socio-political 
terms. The event also intends to engage with the ways in which monsters 
metaphorically represent forms of social and political otherness as they 
relate to cross-cultural or transnational forms and social groups, 
either directly or indirectly. Monstrosity has long been explored in a 
number of ways that connect gender, sexuality, class, race, nationality 
and other forms of otherness with depictions of monsters or monstrosity. 
The representation of refugees across Europe has been just one example 
of the ways in which cross-border monstrosity and otherness are 
culturally fused, with media outlets and political figures contributing 
to the repeated representation of refugees as a monstrous ‘swarm’ moving 
into and across European borders.

While the study of monsters in fiction is nothing new, the examination 
of the figure of the monster from a transnational perspective offers the 
opportunity to better understand: issues of cultural production and 
influence; the relationship between national cultures and transnational 
formations; hierarchies of cultural production; diasporic flows; the 
ethics of transnationalism; as well as the possibility to explore how 
shifting cultural and political boundaries have been represented through 
tropes of monstrosity. Hence, this conference seeks to offer new 
insights into the nature of transnational cultures and help us to 
understand how one of the oldest fictional metaphors has been 
transformed during the age of globalisation.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers, on topics around 
transnational monsters and monstrosity. Possible themes might include 
(but are not limited to):

*Monstrous-genders/sexualities/ethnicities*: transnational approaches to 
femininity and/or sexuality as monstrous or othered; interpretations of 
otherness in cross-cultural or comparative approaches.

*Monster fandoms: *transnational fandoms around monsters, or 
representations of monstrosity, which might include Whitby Dracula 
pilgrimages, /kaijū eiga/, or /Pokemon/.

*Transnational horror and the monster*: approaches to investigating 
particular monster tropes in comparative national cultures or across 
media that might include the figure of monsters in the slasher film, or 
the transnational appropriation of folkloric monsters in horror games 
such as the Wendigo//in /Until Dawn/.

*The transnational monster genre*: theoretical explorations of the 
genericity of monster narratives and their relationships with national 
and transnational cultures (including regional approaches to affinitive 
transnational areas, such as Scandinavia or Latin America).

*Reimagining monsters*:  cross-cultural appropriations of specific 
monster figures; issues of cultural power and difference within 
appropriations that might include Dracula, Godzilla, King Kong or zombies.

*Monster as metaphor*: cultural metaphors relevant to the figure of the 
monster as it relates to transnational, cross-border concerns, which 
might include the reflection of concerns about migration in /The Walking 
Dead/ and the potential impact of those metaphors.

*Proposals are welcomed on any other relevant topics*

*Please send proposals of 300 words, along with a brief biography (50 
words), to **(transnationalmonsters /at/ gmail.com)* 
<mailto:(transnationalmonsters /at/ gmail.com)>*by Wednesday the 1^st of March 
2017.*


Website: http://blog.yorksj.ac.uk/transnationalmonsters/


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