The family can be a place of hidden and haunted spaces, and in these spaces they bring to mind the uncanny, often moving deftly from the ordinary to the extraordinary or supernatural. Families are also notorious receptacles for trauma and are frequently explored in writing from Isabel Allende’s La casa de los espíritus/House of the Spirits to Tara Westover’s Educated.

For Freud, the uncanny is “that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar” (1919). In narratives of uncanny families, something simmers under the surface, and marginalization occurs when individuals are unwilling or uncomfortable to acknowledge these hidden and dark secrets. However, ruptures can force sudden confrontation with the past, making the hidden visible. Bringing certain issues and experiences within this unit to light can ignite a revolution, reshaping and cauterizing the existing dynamics.

Such revolutions may involve picking the lock on intergenerational trauma, shaking up established ways of being and changing familial roles. The interface between families of origin and families of creation may also be a site of opportunity for uncanny repetition but also storytelling, cycle-breaking, revolution and radical change.

This panel welcomes abstracts for fiction, non-fiction and hybrid creative papers, readings and presentations which produce or encounter the family. We encourage non-traditional and international perspectives and all interpretations of “family” in your work. All submissions for this creative panel are due October 15, 2024: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21023

NeMLA (https://www.nemla.org) will take place on March 6–9, 2025, in Philadelphia, PA. Any questions or inquiries can be sent to Rachel McKinley (rmmckinley@alaska.edu) or Georgia Poplett (georgia.e.poplett@durham.ac.uk).