CFP: Anthology of Eastern and Central European Horror

Deadline: October 31, 2020

In the imaginations of Western European and US authors, Eastern and Central Europe function as a maledicta terra, a cursed mythical land where dragons dwell. Michael Goddard claims that “Eastern Europe is presented condescendingly as the new Europe as if it had no history before 1989 and above all in terms of abjection and monstrosity.“ Some post-Soviet horror narratives contribute to this narrative – for example, the 1997 Russian film The Vampire (Упырь), which combines the genre of the “wild 90s” crime story with vampire film. Other narratives, from Marc Chagall’s artwork to Igor Ostachowicz’s novel The Night of the Living Jews (2012), lean towards disenchanting the idea of the region as the epitome of chaos and emancipating it from the condescending Western gaze. Still, very little is known about the function of horror fiction in post-Soviet space more broadly – an issue this project aims to remedy.  

What kind of subjectivities induce fear in Eastern and Central Europe? Which uncanny narratives stir in the post-Soviet (sub)consciousness? How does horror construct outcasts and create narratives for its collective fears? How are the abjectal, the other, and the subaltern constructed, ideologically exploited, and reproduced/represented through horror? 

We define horror broadly; submissions could tackle the morbid surreal and the shocking avant-garde, grim noir, bloody gore, and the violent slasher, as well as visions of the apocalypse and relations with the non-human and post-human.  

Currently, we are seeking submissions focusing on Yiddish, Belarussian, Polish, Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, and Romanian cultures, which aim to address how horror is manufactured, distributed, and manipulated through film, literature, music, music videos, video games, visual art, and diverse new media. We welcome paper proposals focusing on historical specters as well as those haunting the region today – nationalisms, ethnocentricity, racism, sexism, homo/transphobia, and others.  

Topics may include, but are not limited to:  

  • Abjectal spatiality and doomed geographies 
  • Macabre erotica: ethics and aesthetics  
  • Dread and its discontents: race and class in horror 
  • Monstrous and demonic bodies and subjectivities 
  • Uncanny meat: body horror and transgression 
  • Theories and practices of ecohorror 
  • Gendered dread: masculinities, femininities, and beyond 

Format: 

A complete submission should include: 

  • A short bio 
  • A title 
  • A 250-word abstract 

Deadline: 

October 31, 2020 

Contact: 

Agnieszka Jezyk (University of Toronto): agnieszka.jezyk@utoronto.ca 

Lev Nikulin (Princeton University): levnik@princeton.edu