News

Research and Publication Award Opportunity: Supernatural Cities Project and Revenant Journal

We are delighted to announce a £500 research award competitively available to PGR/ECR scholars to edit a special issue on Supernatural Cities for the journal Revenant: Critical and Creative Studies of the Supernatural. The Supernatural Cities project, led by Dr Karl Bell, is based at the University of Portsmouth and is offering a one-off £500 award for research costs involved with editing a special issue of Revenant which will be titled ‘Supernatural Cities’. Revenant is a peer-reviewed e-journal edited by Dr Ruth Heholt and based at Falmouth University.  

The research award can be used to cover the costs of travel, research materials and resources, to support archive research (including subscription or access to online archives), or for time spent on the issue. We invite proposals (with basic costs) which will outline the vision you have for the issue, where you will look for articles and reviews, and what type of creative work you will be soliciting. Send proposals and CVs as attachments to karl.bell@port.ac.uk and ruth.heholt@falmouth.ac.uk by Friday 2^nd July 2021. We will announce the winner at the Dark Economies Conference to be held at Falmouth University, 21-23 July 2021.

http://supernaturalcities.co.uk/

http://www.revenantjournal.com/

Further Details

• The aim of the research award is to promote scholarship and leadership by junior researchers, from registered postgraduate research students to early career post-doctoral researchers (up to six years after their viva). The award is open to individuals with a university affiliation and those operating as independent researchers.

• We strongly encourage applicants to read past issues of Revenant to gain an understanding of the nature, range, and structure of the journal. We also encourage applicants to examine the Supernatural Cities website to develop an appreciation of the project’s scope, interests, and activities. Please see the links above.

• Both the Supernatural Cities project and Revenant are committed to multidisciplinary research, diversity, and to scholarly and creative approaches to the subject matter. We invite proposals from a range of scholarly disciplines, including (but certainly not limited to) History, Literature, History of Art, Folklore, Geography, Archaeology, Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, Urban Studies, Game Design, and Film Studies. We also invite proposals from creative practitioners ranging from fiction writers and traditional visual artists to film makers and audio artists. 

• The proposal (with basic costings) should be a maximum of two sides of A4. The CV should also be no longer than two sides of A4.

• We will accept co-edited special issue proposals, but this will require the proposers to divide the research award accordingly.

• The winner of the research award will be expected to contribute a guest blog about their research to the Supernatural Cities website.

• The judges reserve the right to not award a prize if submitted material is not of an appropriate standard. The decision of the judges will be final. The judges for the award will be constituted from members of the Supernatural Cities project team and the editorial board of Revenant. 

If you have any queries about the research award and the Revenant special issue proposal, please contact Dr Karl Bell and Dr Ruth Heholt via the email addresses above.

We can now confirm Dark Economies 2021 will take place on 21st-23rd July 2021 (ending on the evening of the 23rd).

Accommodation is ready to be reserved if required. Conference accomodation is available at £51 per night for single ensuite room in the centre of Falmouth. If you would like to reserve accomodation please email darkeconomiesconference@gmail.com

Dark Economies: Anxious Futures, Fearful Pasts — Falmouth University, UK. 21st-23rd July 2021

After the success of the Folk Horror in the Twenty First Century conference hosted by Falmouth University, we are holding another related conference in 2021.

We are aiming to have a face to face conference at the beautiful Falmouth Campus in Cornwall. With sub-tropical gardens and the beach nearby, there will be a ‘Welcome to Dark Falmouth’ cemetery walk above the lovely Swanpool lake, an art exhibition, a gig and street food in place of the more usual staid conference dinner. If we’re going to beat Covid we want to do it in style!*

The present is dark. With the rise of Covid-19, right-wing populism, global migrations and immigrations, continued violence, abuse and crime, prejudice and intolerance, there is increasing anxiety about the future. The Earth itself is under threat from environmental catastrophe and a mass extinction event is anticipated. The collapse of society, morality, and the environment was often also feared in the past, particularly in Gothic, horror and dystopian fictions and texts. What were the monsters of the past? What are our monsters now?

Anxieties and uncertainties abound in the age of the post-human and the post-digital. Ours is a world with the dark web and past and present dark economies. Yet, there is radicalism and light here too as boundaries are traversed, subverted and annihilated. Gender binaries are collapsing. The old patriarchal order is at least seriously under threat (if not yet quite dead) in the light of movements such as #MeToo, #TimesUp, Black Lives Matter and the LGTBQi wave of positivity. Capitalism is shaking and activism is reshaping the world.

This conference addresses these issues head on. By encouraging provocative, radical and respectful discussions, we aim to generate serious interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary engagements with scholars, practitioners, artists, and activists. The conference will look back to the past in its examination of how dark concerns and anxieties were envisioned, and to the future and the visionary imaginings of how things can be. The debates will range from the local to the global. While the conversations will be transnational, the setting for the conference will be Cornwall, UK. Historically associated with pirates, piskies, and general lawlessness, Cornwall is a Celtic fringe that literally hangs off the end of England. With sublime landscapes, surging seas and deep mines, Cornwall is made up of black granite and makes the perfect backdrop for a conference on dark economies.

The papers called for and selected will be asked to address some of the following issues:

• Covid-19
• The climate emergency
• The destruction of the environment
• The politics and economies of fuel and energy
• Extinctions and annihilations
• Decadence and/or Degeneration
• Past fears of environmental changes (agricultural revolution and legal amendments) and their effects on the rural population
• Degeneration and moral disintegration
• The ‘monsters’ of the present and past, and their representations and responses in Horror and Gothic fictions and texts
• Crime and criminality throughout the ages
• The dark side of gender abuse and violence in the time of  #MeToo and Incel rages
• Anxieties around the digital – the dark web, AI and the non-human
• Consideration of the post-human
• Slavery: modern and historical
• Issues of immigration and displacement
• Gendered fears
• Fears surrounding progress: industrialisation, new technologies, medical scientific and advances
• Fears and anxieties surrounding colonisation
• Dystopian representations of the future
• Dystopian representations from the past
• Historic ecological visions
• Folklore and Folk Horror
• Dark economies and tourism in the regions and localities, including Cornwall
• The rise of populism
• Racism in politics and society

Each paper will present a clear challenge to conventional and traditional ways of thinking. The aim of the conference is to explore the fears of the past and the contemporary, as well as the grave anxiety being expressed by many groups and individuals about the future – for both humanity and the world.

Please send 250 word abstracts + a short bio to: Darkeconomiesconference@gmail.com

We also welcome panel proposals, ideas for screenings of short films, or workshop proposals.

Submission deadline: 1 February 2021

* However, if the darkness continues we will move the conference online or to a blended format.

Due to the Covid-19 crisis we have decided to postpone the Dark Economies Conference until summer 2021. We are provisionally looking at 21st-23rd July 2021 for the conference. Further details will follow later in the year.

Dark Economies: Anxious Futures, Fearful Pasts

After the success of the Folk Horror in the Twenty First Century conference hosted by Falmouth University, we are holding another related conference in 2020.

The present is dark. With the rise of right-wing populism, global migrations and immigrations, continued violence, abuse and crime, prejudice and intolerance, there is increasing anxiety about the future. The Earth itself is under threat from environmental catastrophe and a mass extinction event is anticipated. The collapse of society, morality, and the environment was often also feared in the past, particularly in Gothic, horror and dystopian fictions and texts. What were the monsters of the past? What are our monsters now?

Anxieties and uncertainties abound in the age of the post-human and the post-digital. Ours is a world with the dark web and past and present dark economies. Yet, there is radicalism and light here too as boundaries are traversed, subverted and annihilated. Gender binaries are collapsing. The old patriarchal order is at least seriously under threat (if not yet quite dead) in the light of movements such as #MeToo, #TimesUp, Black Lives Matter and the LGTBQi wave of positivity. Capitalism is shaking and activism is reshaping the world.

This conference addresses these issues head on. By encouraging provocative, radical and respectful discussions, we aim to generate serious interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary engagements with scholars, practitioners, artists, and activists. The conference will look back to the past in its examination of how dark concerns and anxieties were envisioned, and to the future and the visionary imaginings of how things can be. The debates will range from the local to the global. While the conversations will be transnational, the setting for the conference will be Cornwall, UK. Historically associated with pirates, piskies, and general lawlessness, Cornwall is a Celtic fringe that literally hangs off the end of England. With sublime landscapes, surging seas and deep mines, Cornwall is made up of black granite and makes the perfect backdrop for a conference on dark economies.

The papers called for and selected will be asked to address some of the following issues:

• The climate emergency
• The destruction of the environment
• The politics and economies of fuel and energy
• Extinctions and annihilations
• Past fears of environmental changes (agricultural revolution and legal amendments) and their effects on the rural population
• Degeneration and moral disintegration
• The ‘monsters’ of the present and past, and their representations and responses in Horror and Gothic fictions and texts
• Crime and criminality throughout the ages
• The dark side of gender abuse and violence in the time of  #MeToo and Incel rages
• Anxieties around the digital – the dark web, AI and the non-human
• Consideration of the post-human
• Slavery: modern and historical
• Issues of immigration and displacement
• Gendered fears
• Fears surrounding progress: industrialisation, new technologies, medical scientific and advances
• Fears and anxieties surrounding colonisation
• Dystopian representations of the future
• Dystopian representations from the past
• Historic ecological visions
• Folklore and Folk Horror
• Dark economies and tourism in the regions and localities, including Cornwall
• The rise of populism
• Racism in politics and society

Each paper will present a clear challenge to conventional and traditional ways of thinking. The aim of the conference is to explore the fears of the past and the contemporary, as well as the grave anxiety being expressed by many groups and individuals about the future – for both humanity and the world.

Please send 250 word abstracts + a short bio to: Darkeconomiesconference@gmail.com

We also welcome panel proposals, ideas for screenings of short films, or workshop proposals.

Submission deadline: 2 February 2020