Biweekly News Roundup 2024-07-28

Personal / Website News

Fred Phillips Interview

Back in 2018 I did an interview with poet Fred Phillips that was published at the Witch Haunt. However the website has been shuttered.

Because of this, I have republished the interview here at my website. It can be read here.

Panthans Journal #327

The newest issue of the The National Panthans Journal has been published. This issues contains a re-print of my review of Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond #2.

If you’re interested in receiving copies of Panthans, contact Laurence Dunn at laurencegdunn @ gmail dot com (sans spaces).

Scholars from the Edge of Time

For the July episode of Scholars from the Edge of Time Michele and I decided to look at a film that is pretty new: She is Conann (2023) by Bertrand Mandico.

The episode can be streamed on YouTube.

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2024.

From the Archives

This following podcasts episodes and articles were published from 7/8 to 7/28:

• 2015-07-19 – HP Lovecast ep 04: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
• 2018-07-09 – Voice of Olympus
• 2018-07-19 – Chatting with Sherri
• 2019-07-15 – Voice of Olympus
• 2021-07-20 – Voice of Olympus: Mythic Gaming: Minecraft Dungeons
• 2022-07-10 – HP Lovecast ep 52: Even in the Grave: Trevor Firetog and Steven Van Patten

Calls for Papers/Proposals

Here are some new pop culture CFPs that have crossed my paths. Links to these will also be in the CFP page on the navigation bar.

Occult Detectives

Edited by Michael Goodrum, Kris Mecholsky, and Philip Smith

The occult detective has a long history. Depending on how one defines the genre, occult themes coincide with the earliest detective fiction and theatre, 公案小說 (gong’an, or crime-case) stories from the Song dynasty (13th-14th century), which often featured supernatural appearances and interventions. To Anglophone audiences, however, the figure is, perhaps, most closely associated with the decades that followed the founding of the Society for Psychical Research in London in 1882. While Sherlock Holmes dedicated much of his efforts to exploding notions of the supernatural, most famously in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), other detectives both drew on and fought against the occult. Making his debut in 1898, Flaxman Low is perhaps the first to fit the (inevitably) loose model of the occult or psychic detective. Driven by a late Victorian interest in the occult and ghost-hunting, though, Low was rapidly followed by a stream of successors, a connection that continues to the present with new detectives appearing well into the 21st century in a wide variety of media (including novels, short stories, comics, theatre, television, film, games, and more). Horror and crime fused in weird fiction in the pulps; in comics such as Hellblazer and Dead Boy Detectives; in video games such as Alan Wake and Alone in the Dark; in TV shows such as Twin Peaks and True Detective; and in films such as The Exorcist III and The Sixth Sense, to name just a few.

The editors seek essays of ~4,000 words. Topics should include occult detectives and any text which sits at the intersection of detective and horror narratives. Texts can be of any medium or time period. Some possibilities include, but are not limited to, the following figures, genres, or texts:

• Gong’an (Judge Dee and/or Judge Bao in any medium)
• Abraham Van Helsing (in any medium)
• Flaxman Low
• John Silence
• Luna Bartendale
• Carnacki the Ghost-Finder
• Fantastic/horror noir (e.g., Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Angel Heart)
• Hellblazer and John Constantine (in comics and film)
• Hellboy (in comics and film)
• The Exorcist series (in novels and film)
• Stephen King (in any medium)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (in television, film, and comics)
• The X-Files
• Twin Peaks
• Supernatural
• Alan Wake
• Ed Brubaker’s Fatale

Essays should be accessible but touch on big ideas, using a single text, author, artist, or director as a lens to comment on the genre(s) and themes at play. We particularly encourage contributions that take an international, cross-cultural perspective, and/or touch on topics of queerness, ethnicity, gender, and disability.

Proposals of up to three hundred words due by 29 September 2024 to occultdetectivesbook@gmail.com Final drafts for accepted proposals will be due by 30 March 2025. Each essay will be subject to editorial review; authors should expect to undertake at least one round of revisions before final acceptance.

Genre and Video Games

We are seeking short chapters of approximately 2,500-2,700 words for an edited collection on literary genres in video games. We invite submissions for all five of the genres: Fantasy, Historical fiction, Romance, Horror/Gothic, and Science Fiction, that the collection endeavours to explore.

The collection fits into an ongoing genre studies series and will examine how literary genres function in video games, thereby bringing video games into the existing literary canon of genre studies. Each subsection will explore key themes in the existing canon while expanding on the interactive elements of video games that update and/or alter existing conversations about genre. The essays will be educational and accessible in nature with the aim of producing a comprehensive teaching companion for future courses in game studies, game development, or the digital humanities.
This call addresses all five general genre areas the collection seeks to address. These are meant to be general categorizations, but we encourage submissions that also move into inter- or cross-genres, as many of these genres overlap and share different features in both games and literary studies.

Topics that might be considered (but are not limited to):

• Fantasy
• The Prominence of Fantasy Games and Nostalgia
• Fantasy Race and Colonization
• Non-Western Fantasy
• Resource-Gathering and Digital Landscapes
• Pseudo-Medievalism in Fantasy Game World
• Historical Fiction
• (Pre)Industrialism & economy and/or class dynamics
• Feudalism
• Monarchy and/or Empire
• Colonialism
• Myth and Storytelling (written, oral or otherwise)
• Gender and/or sexuality
• Disability
• Romance
• Player Character (PC) and Non-Playable Character (NPC) Agency
• Queer Romance Routes
• LGBTQ2IA+ Representation
• Digital Sex, Consent and AI Romance
• Romantic Subplots Across Genres
• Horror/Gothic
• Queer Horror and the Monstrous ‘Other’
• Gothic Games and the Undead Past
• Haunted Digital Landscapes
• Consumption Horror: Parasites, Vampires, and Cannibals
• Speculation and Apocalyptic Horror
• Science Fiction
• Digital Posthuman Landscapes and Mitigating Climate Nihilism
• Human/Technology Interactions and the Rise of Artificial Intelligence
• Space Exploration and Colonization
• Speculative Dystopias and Projected Futures
• Alternative Futurisms

Particular interest will be paid to pieces that engage with Indigenous and Non-Western perspectives in the chosen game or through the chapter’s proposed scholarship.

Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words alongside a brief (100 word) bio to genreandvideogames@gmail.com by the date below.
Abstract due by: August 15, 2024

Prospective draft due date: December 15, 2024

(Re)Animating the Middle Ages: Adapting the Medieval in Animated Media

Co-organizers Michael A. Torregrossa, Karen Casey Casebier, and Carl B. Sell

Sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

56th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)

Philadelphia Marriott Downtown (Philadelphia, PA)
On-site event: 6-9 March 2025

Submission Instructions

In this panel, we seek in particular to build upon the pioneering work of medieval-animation scholar Michael N. Salda and provide additional insights into the ways medieval-themed animation has impacted our contemporary world. Presenters might explore anime, cartoons, films, games, shorts, and videos produced through traditional ink-and-paint, stop-motion, claymation, or computer-generated imagery. Selections should represent and/or engage with some aspect of the medieval, such as artifacts, characters, settings, themes, etc., presented as central to the narrative, tangential, or appearing solely as cameos.

For ideas and support, please see our list of representative texts and resource guide devoted to studies of medieval-themed animation.

All proposals must be submitted into the CFPList system by 30 September 2024. You will be prompted to create an account with NeMLA (if you do not already have one) and, then, to complete sections on Title, Abstract, and Media Needs.

Notification on the status of your submission will be made by 16 October 2024. If accepted, NeMLA asks you to confirm your participation with the session chairs by accepting their invitations and by registering for the event. The deadline for Registration/Membership is 9 December 2024.

Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com.

For more information on the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please visit our website at https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com

The Dark Side of Lego: The Gothic Fantastic, and the Uncanny Pleasures of Lego

Lego is everywhere. The ubiquity of the children’s building is both a marvel at its popularity but also the kinds of financial muscle and cutthroat business practice that has seen Disney approach, what sometimes feel, as world domination of the entertainment and leisure industry — there’s no surprise that the Lego and Disney frequently work together.

Unsurprisingly Lego is not all fun and play and whilst much of the “dark side” of Lego can be seen to come making toys for all ages of “children” with no age restriction on who buys or plays
with them (other than a “age suggestion” on the box) there is much of it that purposely Gothic in tone and intent. In part this comes from the other franchises that Lego partners with such as Star
Wars, Jurassic Park, DC Superheroes, and Harry Potter, but they also have their own dedicated series using such themes as Ninjago, special Halloween and monsters series, as well as those promoting villains and even shark attacks in the crossover brands.

Equally unsurprising are the various compromises and missteps that have occurred over gender and ethnicity within the franchise with concerns over inclusion, the “yellowness” of the toys, cultural appropriation, and sets such as Jabba the Hutts’ Mosque/Palace. Some of this can be seen to stem from an under appreciation of the kinds of troubling identity and inclusion issues that are part
of the franchises they choose to deal with and the fandoms that follow them — Lego too has it’s more extreme fandoms amongst the faithful.

With this is what we might term real-world Lego in terms of theme parks (Legolands), shops, conventions and the parent company itself. The kinds of aggressive sales models that power Lego’s increasing global reach often pays little regard to those who work for them, other local businesses in the areas they move in to, or legal action against those deemed to be infringing on their copyrights.

This collection is interested in any aspect of the above or the suggestions below:

• Gothic aspects of any of the series such as Harry Potter, DC Superheroes, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Disney Princesses, Mario Brothers (Luigi’s Haunted House), Lord of the Rings, Marvel Superheroes, Ninjago, Scooby Doo, etc.
• The story arcs of any characters within those Batman, Joker, Lord Garmageddon, Darth Vader etc.
• How any of the above play out over different platforms, bricks, books, games, accessories, theme parks, conventions, etc.
• Gothic aspects of standard sets, Lego City, Creator, Dots and portraits, special editions etc.
• Special sets/figures of vampires, monsters, Halloween, picture books of Dracula & Frankenstein, gothic castles, villains, dinosaurs, sharks etc.
• Gothicism and play, mash-ups, and fluid Identity in self-creation.
• Inappropriate Lego or fan interventions: The Simpsons, Lego Rifle, terrorist figures, Lego death camp, Breaking Bad, etc.
• Lego fandom — Brickipedia, Legopedia, Wiki-Lego — and intersections with toxic fandoms from other franchises (ie Star Wars).
• Issues around gender and ethnicity.
• Ihe gothic nature of the company itself.
• Any other areas that seem gothic in nature or outcome.

Send ideas and/or 300 word abstracts for a prospective collection of essays by 30th November 2024 to Simon Bacon: baconetti@gmail.com