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16th Annual Craft Critique Culture Graduate Conference
April 8-9, 2016
Bridging Divides
University of Iowa

CRAFT CRITIQUE CULTURE is an interdisciplinary conference focusing on the intersections of critical and creative approaches to writing both within and beyond the academy. This year's conference will encourage an examination of the "inter" of interdisciplinary—as well as the construction and deconstruction of boundaries between and within academic, public, private, personal, critical, and creative discourses—through an inquiry into bridging divides.

In recent years, the web has seen an explosion of digital interpretations of nineteenth-century texts. The Lizzie Bennett Diaries web series translates Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice, via video diary, into an out-of-work grad student living with her family; "Texts From Jane Eyre" imagines how Jane would interact with Rochester and St. John via text message; David Copperfield has his own Facebook page; and there are at least four video games based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This session combines interests in nineteenth century, digital media, and cultural studies to investigate how we understand our current world through the lens of nineteenth-century characters and stories.

The terms "terror" and "horror" as defined by gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe, are diametrically opposed: while the former "expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life," the latter "freezes and nearly annihilates them" ("Supernatural" 150). This distinction subordinates horror's focus on the material - the visceral, the abject - to the intellectual stimulation provided by terror. Blood, guts, and the grotesque are the norms of horror and while gothic fiction anxiously stages the destruction of the human body, this panel is interested in how sensual apprehension constructs the body.

The editors invite contributions to Symbolism. An International Annual of Critical Aesthetics, an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to pursuing fundamental questions on the forms and functions of the symbolic. Symbolism publishes high-profile research on topics related to the use of figurative language, thought and signification in artistic expression and representation. While maintaining a strong literary focus, the annual also inquires into practices of the symbolic across discourses in media ranging from the cinema and painting to opera, sculpture and other arts.

Dear all,
We are glad to be able to communicate you the deadline for the submission of your final articles regarding our 2015 conference (to be published in our Hypercultura Journal, after passing through peer-review)
Deadline: DECEMBER, 1ST, 2015