The Fan Studies Network

INTERNATIONAL VAMPIRE FILM AND ARTS FESTIVAL
http://www.ivfaf.com

CALL FOR PAPERS
The second annual International Vampire Film and Arts Festival will take place in Sighisoara in Transylvania, Romania, on May 25th ‐ 28th 2017.
Theme: VAMPIRES ON SCREEN: Life, Death, and Immortality
Curating University: EMERSON
Keynote Speaker: Cynthia J. Miller (Undead in the West, Horrors of War, The Laughing Dead)

This call for papers is for scholars interested in presenting their work in the academic symposium that runs alongside the Festival (in association with Emerson College).
From the silent era to the present day, cinematic vampires have menaced, critiqued, and entertained the living. From sexuality to race, and political‐economy to personal violence,
vampires have reflected our existential struggles as well as our everyday lives, Lending themselves to not only horror, but a wide range of genre mash‐ups and hybrids as well,
they can be found in cities and suburbs, battlefields and college campuses, the Wild West and quaint New England towns. As vampire narratives and tropes shift and evolve in
motion pictures, how do we continue to interpret their roles and functions? What do cinematic vampires—as familiar foils, monstrous Others, and cultural commentators—
bring to our theaters and homes when we invite them in? This session invites papers exploring the many forms and visions of the vampire on screen, from Nosferatu through the present day. Papers will be selected to broadly represent eras, fields of critical inquiry, and the cinematic and cultural evolution of vampire.
Proposals for single 20‐minute papers or pre‐constituted panels (of 3 x 20‐minute papers) on the conference theme are invited from scholars and advanced graduate
students. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

+ Landmarks of Vampire Film and Television (Dracula, Dark Shadows, Interview with
a Vampire, Near Dark, John Carpenter’s Vampires, True Blood)
+ Urban Vampires (Dracula A.D. 1972, Vampire in Brooklyn, Love at First Bite)
+ Genre Parody (Vampire’s Kiss, What We Do In the Shadows, Vampires Suck, Dracula:
Dead and Loving It)
+ Vampires as Social and Political Commentary (Fearless Vampire Killers, Blacula,
Vampires: Los Muertos)
+ The Vampire’s Role in Genre Evolution
+ Franchising the Vampire (Twilight, Underworld, Blade)
+ Children of Dracula: Spin‐offs, Adaptations, and Novelizations
+ Turned: Fan Editing and Vampire Cinema
+ Vampire Foodways
+ Non‐Western Cinematic Vampires (Thirst, Let the Right One In, Daughters of
Darkness, Mr. Vampire)
+ Vampires in Genre Mash‐ups (Curse of the Undead, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, From
Dusk Till Dawn, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter)
+ Still Cutting Their Teeth: Vampires for Children and Young Adults (The Little
Vampire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Vampire’s Assistant)
+ Sex, Gender, and the Children of the Night (Near Dark, Only Lovers Left Alive,
Vampyros Lesbos)

This conference theme is curated by Professor Cynthia J. Miller and Professor Meta Wagner, and is sponsored by the Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson
College (www.emerson.edu) Submit abstracts (500 words maximum) via email to vampiresonscreen2017@gmail.com, no later than February 1, 2016. Full panel proposals should include all three proposals
along with a summary (50 words maximum) of the panel’s central topic by the moderator. Accepted submitters must confirm commitment to attend and present their
own original work at the conference in Transylvania. For information on conference registration and location, visit http://www.ivfaf.com

POPULAR CULTURE, TOURISM, AND BELONGING
APRIL 5-7 2017
ERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM

Keynote Speakers:
David Morley
André Jansson
Marie-Laure Ryan

When the small Dutch seaside village of Urk was announced as a filming location for superstar director Christopher Nolan’s historical drama Dunkirk, featuring One Direction star Harry Styles and other big names, it was unsurprising that reports of fans traveling in hopes of catching a glimpse of the production followed. Indeed, it would have been more surprising if they hadn’t. Visiting places connected to media is increasingly mainstream – from searching for film locations of popular TV shows to taking part in literary walking tours to traveling around summer music festivals. Popular culture sets the touristic identity of regions, while fan conventions and festivals draw increasing numbers (and prices) year after year. These developments, and others like them, point to a growing interest in bridging the gap between reality and imagination through physicality, intertwining them in new ways. They also illustrate new ways in which place, and its role in creating a sense of identity and belonging, matters in a globalized and digital world in which popular culture plays an integral role.

This conference brings together these disparate threads and explores the ways in which popular culture and tourism interact in the contemporary media age. This is reflected in the keynote speakers: Professor David Morley of Goldsmiths University, author of many influential works of media theory, including The Nationwide Audience (1980) and Media, Modernity, and Technology: the Geography of the New (2007); Professor André Jansson of Karlstad University, editor of Geographies of Communication: The Spatial Turn in Media Studies (2006, with Jesper Falkheimer) and author of Cosmopolitanism and the Media: Cartographies of Change (2015, with Miyase Christensen); and Dr. Marie-Laure Ryan, author of Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media (2000) and Narrating Space/Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet (2016, with Kenneth Foote and Maoz Azaryahu).

The conference will also feature a special session on Fandom and Place, bringing together experts in the field to address the contemporary issues at this complex juncture. Our invited guests are Professor Cornel Sandvoss of the University of Huddersfield, author of Fans: The Mirror of Consumption (2005); Professor Matt Hills of the University of Huddersfield, author of Fan Cultures (2002); and Dr. Mark Duffett of the University of Chester, author of Popular Music Fandom: Identities, Roles, and Practices (2013).

We seek to bring together scholars across disciplines, including, but not limited to, media studies, literary studies, popular music studies, ethnomusicology, cultural geography, fan studies, and tourism studies and management, who work at the intersections of (popular) culture, place, and tourism. We invite papers that address all themes around this subject, such as:

• fan pilgrimages
• place identity and popular culture
• contemporary literary tourism
• music tourism
• historical media tourism
• themed and simulated spaces
• music festivals
• video-game-inspired tourism
• media and fan conventions
• transmedia marketing and tourism
• place and storytelling
• media tourism in the media

The conference will be held at Erasmus University Rotterdam, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Recently chosen as one of the “best places to visit” by Lonely Planet and the New York Times, Rotterdam is a vibrant and cosmopolitan city featuring cutting-edge architecture, an innovative dining scene, and top-class art museums. The conference is organized by the ‘Locating Imagination’ research group of prof. dr. Stijn Reijnders, Leonieke Bolderman, Nicky van Es, and Abby Waysdorf, and sponsored by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture (ERMeCC).

Please send abstracts of max. 300 words and a short biographical statement (max. 50 words) to conference@locatingimagination.com before November 1st, 2016.

Kind Regards,

The organizers of Locating Imagination 2017:
Stijn Reijnders, Abby Waysdorf, Nicky van Es and Leonieke Bolderman