CFP: Who's afraid of ...?
At the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn will take place in September 2010 a conference on the many facets of fear in the English literature (and other media take place) (via CultDoc ).
Deadline: 30 April 2010
Who's afraid of ...?
Facets of Fear in Anglophone Literature and Media
Bonn, Germany
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn,
24th-25th September 2010
Deadline for proposals: 30 April, 2010
The study of human emotions proves to be enormously interesting for neurobiologists and psychologists as well as for scholars in the fields of literary studies and media studies. Fear is a state which seems to have fascinated countless novelists, poets, playwrights and screen writers. From a clinical perspective, fear is rooted in a response to (potentially) dangerous situations. In a situation causing fear, the body and the mind react intensely. Edmund Burke famously remarked that "[n] o passion Sun effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear", and Charles Darwin described the physical consequences of what would nowadays be called a panic attack as follows: "[T ] he eyes and mouth are widely opened, and the eyebrows raised. The frightened man at first stands like a statue motionless and breathless, or crouch down as if instinctively to escape observation. The heart beats quickly and violently, so that it knocks against the ribs or palpitates. "(Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals)
The many facets of fear, including phenomena like anxiety, phobia, terror and horror, as well as the manifold strategies employed to cope with fear (avoidance, escape, etc.), have been explored in a wide range of literary texts, movies and TV series, such as Poe's short stories, Stoker's Dracula, Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, McEwan's Saturday, films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Sixth Sense and Vertigo. Addressing phenomena including sublime terror, teenage anxieties and panic in the face of death, literary texts and audio visual media have tried to portray and analyze the manifold physical and psychological expressions of fear. The conference seeks to encourage a dialogue between various disciplines that are interested in the study of fear, including psychology, literary studies, media, film and television studies, gender studies and horror studies.
A reading by British author Joe Dunthorne and a film screening will complete the conference program.
Please send abstracts of 400-600 words (for 20-minute papers) to:
