The second meeting of the global inclusive interdisciplinary Evil Women: Women and Evil project will explore and examine all aspects of the conjunctions between women, the feminine and evil with a view to forming a selective publication to engender further collaboration, research and discussion.  On the one hand we will scrutinise what happens when women themselves behave in ways that are considered evil – when they rob, murder, manipulate, groom, abuse, beguile, embezzle. Women are not expected to behave in aberrant or illegal ways and we will consider the structural and systemic reasons for the heightened interest, repulsion, condemnation – and even hatred – that feminine transgression generates.

This permanent section of the Midwestern Modern Languages Association organized by the Marxist Literary Group seeks to examine the economics, politics, and aesthetics of remakes, reboots, and readaptations in film, television, and literature.  In 2019 alone, there are over twenty films being released that are remakes, reboots, or readaptations. These films range from Disney’s live-action remakes of Dumbo, Aladdin, and The Lion King to the second chapter of the readaptation of Stephen King’s IT and a reboot of the Child’s Play franchise. Why are these types of films so popular? More specifically, why is there an increasing market for such films and television shows?

Riverdale: a comic book turned hit TV show, a comic strip turned murder mystery, a town that is both nowhere and everywhere. Recently renewed for a fourth season, the CW’s popular campy teen drama is notable for its apparent departures from the checkout-stand digests of yore, and has a new witchy counterpart in Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, as well as a projected spin-off in the development of a Katy Keene series.

“Toxic masculinity” is a relatively new buzz phrase to capture, in the contemporary moment, problematics of male behavior and masculinist beliefs. However, the term needs interrogating if we are to fully understand its implications. What exactly is toxic masculinity? What agenda(s) does the term serve? What makes it toxic, and to whom is it toxic? Indeed, is toxic masculinity itself really a thing, or is it simply a new slogan for behaviours and beliefs that have always been a part of (too) many expressions of masculinity? What is the significance of this phrase to the study of masculinity?