9th Global Interdisciplinary Fear, Horror and Terror Conference

9th Global  Fear, Horror and Terror Conference

Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Call for Presentations:
The reality and representations of Fear, Horror and Terror (FHT) increasingly pervade public spaces, discourse and popular culture. No matter where we turn we are either confronted with, or consume, images of these experiences. This in turn both effect, and affect, how we understand, produce and disseminate the multi-dimensions of FHT in everyday life as well as overtime. Accordingly this year’s inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary FHT conference will explore the role and consequences of experiences, production and dissemination of Fear, Horror and Terror. Specifically our aim is to critically examine questions such as:

~ How are aspects of FHT manifested, disseminated and experienced in everyday life, popular culture, fiction, society, communities or politics?

~ How do experiences or images produced by FHT affect the way we understand the world?~ What are the underlying power structures that determine how reality and its representations are produced and how are they are disseminated?

~ How do we communicate, activate, constrain and overcome the effects and consequences of experiencing, producing and disseminating FHT?

In addition to academic analysis and case studies, we welcome practitioners, artists, performers, and other approaches, such as those from religious environments, NGO’s, therapists, lawyers, and victims/survivors of terrifying events. We also encourage interdisciplinary research that crosses the divide between the social and natural sciences, architecture, law enforcement, medicine, pedagogy, visual arts, literature and popular culture.

At the end of the conference, our aim is to further develop the discussions and dialogues presented at our 9th FHT Conference into new and continued interdisciplinary research, workshops and publications which will help us make sense of the topics discussed in relation to the contested aspects of FHT. To this end all proposals accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected proposals may be developed for publication in a dialogic and/or themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors who will be selected from interested delegates attending the conference. Further to this workshops will be developed in line with delegate ideas and suggestions.

Accordingly abstract proposals are invited and can include: a presentation paper, a performance, a report, a work-in-progress, or a panel presentation on issues related to any of the following themes and related areas:

1) The Production, Dissemination, Experience of Fear, Horror and Terror:
– the thinking body in time and space
– the relationship between images and experiences
– mythologies/ideologies that are employed in the production of images
– mythical and ritual paradigms (e.g. creation, fertility, deliverance, hero, villain or chaos)
– practice and the transformative role of images

2) About Fear, Horror and Terror:
– narratives, definitions, interdisciplinary studies, cross cultural comparisons
– embodiment and comparison with different emotions/experiences
– institutions, constructions, and deconstructions
– theories, methods and philosophies

3) Contexts of Fear, Horror and Terror:
– case studies
– professionals and the public dealing with the fear, horror and/terror, e.g. therapists, clergy, lawyers, law enforcement, policy makers, accountants, human resources representatives, users of technology, etc.
– the properties, language, meaning or significance
– crime and punishment

4) At the Interface of Fear, Horror and Terror:
– the role of fear, horror and terror
– emotional releases (pleasant or negative) achieved by fear, horror and terror
– techniques, marketing, consumption and management
– recreational or aesthetic
– the temperature, sound, smell, taste, appearance or feel of fear, horror and terror
– silence as a strategic subversion
– fear, horror and terror and the visible/invisible

5) Representations of Fear, Horror and Terror:
– the imagination, the gothic and science fiction
– images, cinema, television, theatre, the fourth estate and the creative arts
– survival and/or horror video games
– literature (including children’s stories, and graphic novels)
– the other and purity
– hope and despair
– bullying, trauma, anxiety, disgust, dread, loathing, danger
– hope and the future
– awe, terror, the sublime or uncanny and the internet

6) Relationships with Fear, Horror and Terror:
– use of space, place, architecture and tools in outer space or rural/urban settings
– ceremonies, performances in everyday life, fiction, the arts
– war, militarisation, weapons, engineering and technology

What to Send:
300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday 5th June 2015. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th July 2015.Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: FHT9 Abstract Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using 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
Dr Shona Hill & Shilinka Smith: [email protected]
Rob Fisher: [email protected]