{"id":4352,"date":"2022-09-23T06:11:43","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T06:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=4352"},"modified":"2022-09-23T06:22:17","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T06:22:17","slug":"cfp-tales-of-terror-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=4352","title":{"rendered":"CFP – Tales of Terror conference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FIRESIDE TALES OF TERROR: The Gothic and Winter<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

University of Warwick, 15-16th December 2022<\/strong> <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHorrors belong as naturally to the fireside, as fireside belongs to Christmas\u201d declares the narrator of the
piece \u201cFireside Horrors for Christmas\u201d in the December 1847 issue of Dublin University Magazine. This
image of \u201cpopular fireside stories or winter\u2019s tales\u201d exchanged in communal settings had, as the late
Catherine Belsey explained, a \u201clong vernacular tradition\u201d (2010). Furthermore, it was, she argues, a
practice that often-challenged orthodox institutional discourse about, for example, the \u201ctrue meaning\u201d of
Christmas or the origins of ghosts and tapped into secular and \u201cpagan\u201d rituals and practices. The later
transference of this hearth-side image into textual and visual print, not only as content, but as collective
reading activities has helped immortalise Winter and\/or Christmas and the Gothic as ideal bedfellows, not
only in Western cultures but in the wider global imagination. Periodicals of the nineteenth-century such
as Household Words, Belgravia, and The Strand capitalised on the wider Christmas market and the desire
for ghost stories in their specific Christmas Numbers including accompanying illustrations, while an
increasing number of collections and anthologies began to emerge and have remained extremely popular
gifts, from collections of Dickens\u2019s Christmas ghost stories, to Edward Wagenknecht\u2019s 1947 anthology
The Fireside Book of Ghost Stories, to the recent British Library Tales of the Weird anthologies Chill
Tidings: Dark Tales of the Christmas Season and Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings.
Televisual\/cinematic and radio adaptations of traditional tales have transformed the communal experience
of terror at Christmas and utilise the oral and the visual in different ways: such as the BBC\u2019s televisual
series \u201cGhost Stories for Christmas\u201d, TV Christmas specials such as Inside No. 9: The Devil of Christmas
and podcasts such as \u201cGhost Tales by the Fireside \u2013 True Ghost Stories Podcast\u201d. The Gothic-Horror
film has twisted and co-opted the form of the fireside tale of terror and its seasonal trappings to bring us
horrifying delights such as Black Christmas (1974); Krampus (2015) and its sequels; apocalyptic Christmas
comedy Silent Night (2021), and many more. Even the seemingly twee Christmas film can send chills and
invite horror \u2013 Home Alone, anyone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n


So too, the collective-experience, not in the home but amongst strangers in public forums are offered
with watching the aforementioned in the cinema, or attending theatre shows such a Robert Lloyd Parry\u2019s
\u201cThe M.R. James Project\u201d which use the allure of a one-man show set by a fireside as a story-teller in a
wing-backed armchair recites some old favourites, or The Theatre of Dark Encounters who incorporate
ghost walks as well as shows in-theatre to seasonal delights. The horror of the life-sized Mouse King in the
traditional Nutcracker ballet based on E.T.A Hoffman\u2019s story or the Cute Gothic of Matthew Bourne\u2019s
ballet adaptation of Edward Scissorhands also offer interesting perspectives on what Gothic is and how it
is expressed. The mash-up of Winter\/Christmas and Gothic can be further enjoyed in media and
ephemera such as board games \u2013 a staple component of the Christmas season \u2013 like Christmas Murder
Mystery and Clue: Nightmare Before Christmas Edition, while vintage postcards of children being
terrorised by the Krampus blend nostalgia and dark humour, and gothic-Christmas decorations (such as
the lights Will Byers communicates with from the Upside Down), all revel, like Jack Skellington, in the
fusion of Halloween and Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Julia Briggs writes that \u2018The telling of tales around the fireside makes explicit a particular aspect of
the ghost story which depends upon a tension between the cosy familiar world of life (associated with Heim
and heimisch \u2013 home and the domestic) and the mysterious and unknowable world of death (unheimlich,
or uncanny)\u2019 (180-1), inviting us to think about the spaces and places of Winter Gothic; often juxtaposed against the chilling and deadly atmosphere and dark nights of the \u201coutside\u201d which the narrator of the
\u201cFireside Horrors\u201d piece insists make the conjunction of tale of terror and the winter period so ideal. In
fact, many other Gothic works use that setting of snow, ice, and long shadowy nights outside of the
Christmas period as they explore the horrors hidden in isolated arctic landscapes from Mary Shelley\u2019s
Frankenstein (1818), Dan Simmons\u2019 2007 novel The Terror which was adapted to television and released
in 2018 and based on a real failed expedition, Michelle Paver\u2019s speculative ghost fiction Dark Matter
(2010), and the various stories collected in the forthcoming British Library Tales of the Weird anthology,
Polar Horrors. So too, do works such as vampire horror film 30 Days of Night (2007) which play on
meteorological phenomena such as Polar Night. Yet, what happens to, and what does Winter\/Christmas
Gothic mean, in a global context and in regions where that season is hot and dry? And so, we also invite
pieces that challenge the traditional connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Topics that may include:
\u2756 Oral tales, folklore, travel writing.
\u2756 The \u201cGhost Story\u201d and Christmas \u2013 tradition and new innovations.
\u2756 The space of the fireside or the campfire, or the use of candlelight (blackouts etc) in Winter Gothic
representation etc.
\u2756 Arctic\/polar regions and terror.
\u2756 Specific authors, rediscovered authors as pioneers, frequenters, or unusual contributors.
\u2756 Anthologies, Periodicals, Magazines and other print cultures.
\u2756 Illustrated Winter Gothic\/Christmas Gothic stories.
\u2756 Collaborations, serials, short-story cycles and collections.
\u2756 The Gothic and Religious festivals; Paganism and Winter.
\u2756 In global regions and nations where it falls in with hot, dry seasons.
\u2756 Horror\/Gothic films or Television shows set at\/about Christmas; Christmas specials.
\u2756 Adaptations of or original works of Winter \/ Christmas Gothic across graphic novels, radio plays,
film, television, theatre, ballet etc.
\u2756 Gothic Tourism such as ghost walks.
\u2756 Board games, video games, RPG, postcards and ephemera.
\u2756 Global literatures, translations, de-canonisation.
\u2756 Children\u2019s literature and media.
\u2756 Papers which blend the creative and the critical are welcomed.
\u2756 Pre-formed panels are also invited.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please send the following information to Jen Baker and Sandie Mills at talesofterrorconference@gmail.com<\/a> no later than Monday 17th October 2022:
\u2022 Email subject: \u201cFireside Tales of Terror Abstract\u201d;
\u2022 Abstracts of no more than 250 words;
\u2022 Brief biography (c.150 words) of the speaker(s);
\u2022 5-8 key words.
\u2022 Whilst we hope this will predominantly be an in-person conference, we intend to offer hybrid
options for a more inclusive environment and so please indicate if you would most likely attend inperson or would prefer\/need to present remotely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIRESIDE TALES OF TERROR: The Gothic and Winter University of Warwick, 15-16th December 2022  \u201cHorrors belong as naturally to the fireside, as fireside belongs to Christmas\u201d declares the narrator of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":""},"categories":[14,8,10,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4352"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4359,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4352\/revisions\/4359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}