Villainous Science: Cloning, Experimentation, and Hybridization in Transmedia Cultures and Storytelling

Conference Information

The 2023 Northeast Popular Culture Association (a.k,a. NEPCA) will host its annual conference this fall as a virtual conference from Thursday, October 12-Saturday, October 14. Thursday’s session will be held in the late afternoon-evening (EST), Friday’s session will be held mid-afternoon into the evening (EST), and Saturday’s session will be from morning until midday (EST).

For this event, NEPCA’s Monsters & the Monstrous Area invites proposals for papers for sessions focused on the concept of Villainous Science: Cloning, Experimentation, and Hybridization in Transmedia Cultures and Storytelling. Further details are included below.

Please make your submissions to the Area Chair, Michael A. Torregrossa, by 14 August 2023, using NEPCA’s automated system accessible from the conference information page at https://nepca.blog/2023-annual-conference/.  Please address any questions to the Area Chair at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com. 

The registration costs are as followed: Standard price: $50 + $5.20 Eventbrite fee or Updated & Lifetime Members & Past NEPCA Presidents: $15.00 + $2.85 Eventbrite fee. (“Updated members” are people who have paid the membership dues after 11/1/2022 (that is, after the last conference.)

We recognize that while this makes the conference more accessible in terms of cost, it still may be prohibitive to some. In that case, we strongly encourage folks to complete this Request for 2023 Conference Access. Please review the explanation at the top and complete the form by no later than Sunday, September 10, 2023 by 11:59pm EST. People will be notified by Wednesday, September 13 about their status.

Objective

Through these sessions on Villainous Science: Cloning, Experimentation, and Hybridization in Transmedia Cultures and Storytelling, we are looking to promote interdisciplinary perspectives on cloning, experimentation, and hybridization centered around issues of adaptation, appropriation, and transformation as revealed through aspects of transmediality. Submissions might include perspectives from art, comics, film, game, gender, literary, popular culture, and/or religious studies as well as approaches through ecocritical, philosophical, and/or sociological lenses. Papers should focus on some aspect of the ways cloning, experimentation, and hybridization have been represented over time (from their origins in history or creative texts) and in multiple incarnations as shown in their various adaptations in different contemporary (trans)media, including animation, comics, exhibitions, fiction, films, games and gaming (either live-action or electronic/video), graphic novels, illustration, manga, merchandise, performance, television programing, tourist attractions, virtual reality, and the visual arts. Ideas about cloning, experimentation, and hybridization might be revealed in a variety of genres, such as fantasy, horror, Gothic, science fiction, thrillers, and the Weird. 

Accepted papers will also be considered (with revision) for an essay collection to be part of the new book series “Villains and Creatures” edited by Antonio Sanna. 

Ideas for Submissions

Possible topics might include the following themes, types, and characters and texts. 

Themes:

• Alchemy

• Alteration through chemicals and/or surgery

• Artificial Intelligence 

• Artificial Life

• Cloning

• Experimentation 

• Forced Evolution/Devolution 

• Gene Splicing

• Genetic Engineering

• Genetic Manipulation 

• Insemination 

• Mutation 

• Prolonging Life

• Reanimation

• Recreation 

• Science Gone Wrong

Types: 

• Automata

• Chimeras

• Clones

• Cyborgs

• Demonspawn

• Dhampirs

• Nephilim 

• Mad Scientists

• Mutants

• Robots

Characters and Texts:

• Bizarro (DC Comics)

• Blade (Marvel Comics)

• Calvin and Hobbes-

• Colchis Bulls (Khalkotauroi) 

• Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

• Flowers for Algernon 

• The Fly

• Fringe 

• Futurama 

• Galatea

• Gargoyles franchise (Disney)

• Hawthorne's “The Birth Mark” or “Rappaccini's Daughter”.

• Herbert West Reanimator

• High Evolutionary (Marvel Comics)

• Horizon: Zero Dawn

• Incredibles franchise  

• Invisible Man

• Island of Doctor Moreau

• Jurassic Park franchise 

• Lex Luthor (DC Comics)

• Līo

• Megamind 

• Metallo (DC Comics)

• Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin (Marvel)

• Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus (Marvel)

• Pinocchio (and its many recent adaptations - why is this in the zeitgeist?)

• Saruman (Middle-earth)

• Thaddeus Bodog Sivana (Fawcett Comics/DC Comics)

• Soon I Will Be Invincible 

• Stargate franchise

• Star Trek franchise

• Star Wars franchise

• Talos

• Tron franchise 

• 2001

• Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom (Marvel)

• The Witcher franchise 

Thanks for your interest. 

Again, please address any questions and/or concerns to the Area Chair at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com.