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

Editors: Daniel Mudie Cunningham and Marise Williams

The revised deadline for abstracts for this proposed collection is 5/15/2006.

All abstracts received to date are still under consideration. At this stage of the process we are specifically interested in abstracts addressing:

* Early Australian cinema
* 'New Wave' Australian cinema of the 1970s
* Horror film sub-genres (especially slasher, splatter, gore, and supernatural)
* The horror film work of specific directors, for example Peter Weir, Phillip Noyce, Richard Franklin, Philip Brophy, Greg McLean
* Horror film producers, for example Anthony Ginnane, David Hemmings, David Hannay
* Key films we are interested in include: Wake in Fright, Body Melt, Bad Boy Bubby, The Cars That Ate Paris, The Last Wave, Patrick, Roadgames, Turkey Shoot, Undead, Lost Things

Please note:
* We have quite a few abstracts already addressing Mad Max films and Picnic at Hanging Rock.
* A publisher is yet to be confirmed for this collection. Abstracts are being sought in order to do this.

The original brief was as follows:

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

Please direct 500-word abstracts by 5/15/06 to:

Dr Daniel Mudie Cunningham
University of Western Sydney
d.cunningham_at_uws.edu.au

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Received on Fri Feb 24 2006 - 11:29:09 EST