cfp.english.upenn.edu

It is through politics that affairs are governed, and order and justice are expected. However, the word “politics” often connotes corruption and abuse. Politics involve power, and power implies its own misuse. The double bind of politics is in its very inescapability. Politics serve to organize, yet simultaneously produce dishonesty through the abuse of power.
The word “horror” is connected to painful emotions, deep, dark fear, and intense abhorrence. The power displayed in the horror genre is intense and evil first and foremost, taking hold of innocent lives and turning them inside out. Everyday routines are suddenly disrupted by something that “cannot be,” something outside of the terms of reality. This power seizes, controls, and makes escape impossible.
When the politics of the Real combines with the politics of fiction, namely that of horror, the outcome is polarizing.

The journal Jura Gentium Cinema (www.jgcinema.org) seeks submissions for an online volume entitled “Understanding the Game: the Politics of Horror, the Horror of Politics.”

The editors are looking for creative proposals of about 250 words that shed light upon the presence, purpose, and effect of politics in the horror genre.

Articles should be 3,000 - 5,000 words in length.
Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

- Political philosophy and horror

- Politics, horror, and viewer manipulation

- Political systems as represented in horror films

- Theories of political behavior and sources of influence

- Horror and ideology

- Horror as a reaction to an unstable political climate or to political change

Please contact Jana Toppe for proposals (jana@toppe.de) by September 28, 2009. Final drafts will be due by October 25, 2009.

Jura Gentium Cinema
www.jgcinema.org