Screening Terror Australis: Manifestations of Terror and Horror in Australian
Film

Editors: Daniel Mudie Cunningham and Marise Williams

Australian Cinema has produced over eighty films that subscribe to the genre
categories 'Horror' and 'Thriller'. However, a genre-specific examination of these
films can prove limiting because of the way terror has been used thematically in
Australian cinema to address, among other things, the experience of national
and cultural identity. Terror is a motif that continues to haunt the Australian
cinematic imaginary in its representations by filmmakers and its reception by
audiences. The elemental quality of terror as a storytelling device and a
compelling filmic technique reflects an uneasy tension within narrative and
psychological cinematic spaces. While terror often relates to films that are
clearly encompassed by horror and thriller genres, terror as a much broader
theme has impacted on some dramatic and comedic films.

Terror is a recurring theme in Australian film and one that certainly haunts the
recent film success Wolf Creek. Specifically, terror often relates to the
psychological experience of place: the outback and the uniquely untamed
Australian landscape often produces terror, as does the domesticated
experience of suburban Australian life. Terror has also been produced in
aesthetic terms and relates to notions of the gothic, the grotesque, and the
abject. Terror has shaped identity in various ways, contributing to the way we
read race, ethnicity and nationhood; gender and sexuality; masculinity and
mateship; class and status.

We are seeking essays addressing the various experiences of terror in
Australian cinema. Screening Terror Australis: Manifestations of Terror and
Horror in Australian Film will address the multifarious applications and
understandings of terror across a broad range of disciplines such as film,
cultural studies, and Australian studies. Ideally the collection will be accessible
for a range of readers and includes shorter critical and historical essays
alongside longer, more complex theoretical arguments.

Possible areas of focus might include:

* Ecological terror, contamination
* Rural, suburban, urban, domestic, and outback landscapes
* Horror film sub-genres (slasher, splatter, gore, supernatural, thriller, the road
movie, etc)
* Australian film history or specific historic periods such as the 1970s boom in
horror filmmaking
* Directors, for example Peter Weir, Phillip Noyce, Richard Franklin, Philip
Brophy, Greg McLean
* Producers, for example Anthony Ginnane, David Hemmings, David Hannay
* The monster and the monstrous
* The grotesque, abjection and ambiguity
* Masculinity, mateship, the "ocker"
* Cultural identity, national identity, race and ethnicity

Please direct 500-word abstracts by 31 January 2006 to:

Daniel Mudie Cunningham
d.cunningham_at_uws.edu.au

--Dr Daniel M CunninghamLecturer, School of Communication ArtsUniversity of Western SydneyLocked Bag 1797Penrith South DC NSW 1797Australia ========================================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP_at_english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://cfp.english.upenn.edu or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu ==========================================================Received on Wed Nov 16 2005 - 10:26:53 EST