[Commlist] Call for Papers: Geographies of Horror (Conference)

*Call for Papers: /Geographies of Horror/*
*Department of English Studies (University of Zadar) in collaboration 
with /The Society for the Study of the American Gothic /(SSAG)*
*Keynote speaker: Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (Central Michigan University)*
*May 20-21st 2027, University of Zadar (Zadar, Croatia)*
The study of horror has always been inseparable from the question of 
space. From the shadowed corridors of Gothic castles to contemporary 
digital voids, spaces in horror are never just passive backdrops. They 
function as active agents that shape perception, destabilize 
subjectivity, and collapse the distinction between interior and 
exterior, revealing how fragile our sense of spatial coherence can be. 
This conference seeks to understand how spaces become haunted - 
materially, symbolically, psychologically, and technologically, and how 
these hauntings articulate broader cultural anxieties, historical 
traumas, and epistemological uncertainties.
In Gothic and horror traditions, fear unfolds through space, guiding 
perception, and encounters with the unknown. Early Gothic forms, such as 
castles and monasteries, establish models of spatial excess, enclosure, 
and architectural anxiety, while the haunted house transforms domestic 
familiarity into something uncanny. In modern and contemporary horror, 
this logic extends to urban environments, where entire cities and 
infrastructures become haunted. While urban legends and other unsettling 
narratives embed fear in everyday life, abandoned malls, transit 
systems, and brutalist structures evoke concepts such as “non-places,” 
characterized by transience and anonymity.
At the same time, horror increasingly stages the breakdown of spatial 
logic itself. Non-Euclidean geometries, infinite corridors, and 
paradoxical environments destabilize perception and challenge 
epistemological certainty. In these instances, space becomes 
fundamentally unknowable, aligning with cosmic horror and philosophical 
pessimism. These concerns extend into digital and virtual environments, 
where video games, online narratives, and immersive technologies 
generate new forms of spatial horror. Phenomena such as /The Backrooms 
/exemplify liminal, endlessly reproducible environments that evoke both 
familiarity and existential dread. Simultaneously, haunted space becomes 
internalized within the body and mind, as psychological and body horror 
depict interiority as fragmented and invasive.
With all this in mind, we welcome papers from across disciplines and 
media that examine the spatial dimensions of horror, including but not 
limited to:

  * Gothic and classical haunted spaces
  * Urban and infrastructural hauntings, including “non-places”
  * Non-Euclidean, paradoxical, and incoherent spatialities
  * Digital and virtual environments (games, online narratives,
    immersive media)
  * The body and subjectivity as haunted spaces
  * Ecological and environmental horror
  * Spatial storytelling across literature, film, television, comics,
    and interactive media

*The keynote speaker for the event will be Professor Jeffrey Andrew 
Weinstock (Central Michigan University). *He is a Professor of English 
at Central Michigan University, where he teaches a range of courses on 
American literature and popular culture. He is the founder and president 
of /The Society for the Study of the American Gothic/, the founder and 
general editor of the peer-reviewed journal /American Gothic Studies/, 
and the co-founder and past chair of the /Modern Language Association 
Gothic Studies Forum/. He also serves as the associate editor in charge 
of horror for the /Los Angeles Review of Books /and is currently the 
general editor for Bloombury Publishing’s six-volume /Cultural History 
of Monsters /series.
His research focuses on the “cultural work” performed by the Gothic in 
its various manifestations - the ways in which Gothic texts and 
practices give shape to culturally specific anxieties and desires. This 
interest has led him from considering, for example, how nineteenth-and 
early twentieth-century American women made use of Gothic conventions as 
a strategy to express discontentment with their circumscribed roles to 
thinking about the ways contemporary monsters reflect shifting American 
fears and aspirations.
To date, he is the author or editor of 34 books and more than 100 essays 
and book chapters on the Gothic, American literature, cult film, and 
popular culture.
*Abstracts of 250–300 words, accompanied by a short bio (approximately 
100 words) and 3-5 keywords, should be submitted to 
(geographyhorror /at/ gmail.com)*.
*The deadline for the abstract submission is October 1st 2026.*
Selected papers focused on American Gothic and horror themes will also 
be considered for publication in the peer-reviewed journal, /American 
Gothic Studies Journal/.


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