American Literature Association

35th Annual Conference

May 23-26, 2024

The Palmer House Hilton—Chicago

The SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF THE AMERICAN GOTHIC will organize two sessions at the 35th Annual Conference of the ALA.

CFP One: Gothic in Horror, Horror in Gothic

The Society for the Study of American Gothic invites papers that explore the intersections of gothic and horror in American texts of any period. How and to what effect do writers inject elements of horror into gothic texts? How and to what effect do horror writers incorporate elements of gothic? How does gothic/horror intertextuality intensify, dilute, or complicate the spooky atmospherics of particular texts? In what ways do interplays of gothic and horror speak to both genres' deep concerns with race, gender, sexuality, history, power, disability, and/or ecology? Panelists are welcome to take up one or more of these guiding questions or to develop questions and approaches of their own.

Please send a 250-300-word abstract, a brief CV, and your AV requests by January 20, 2024 to Eric Gary Anderson (eandersd@gmu.edu).

CFP Two: Folk Horror

The recent surge in folk horror productions and folk horror scholarship offers a new lens through which to explore American literature. The Society for the Study of American Gothic invites papers that explore folk horror in American texts of any period. Questions can include: What is folk horror in (the many) specific American historical and geographical contexts? What is the relation between folk horror and the gothic? Are there meaningful distinctions to be made between folk horror and gothic? If folk horror centers folklore, what are the sources of folklore that are important to a distinctly American folk horror? What cultural work does ‘folk horror’ do (both the texts themselves and the critical work of creating what could be called a folk horror ‘canon’)? While papers should center literary texts, folk horror is also (perhaps foremost?) a cinematic genre, so papers that take up cinematic or televisual adaptions or that do comparative analyses are welcome.

Please send a 250-300-word abstract, a brief CV, and your AV requests by January 20, 2024 to Dawn Keetley (dek7@lehigh.edu).