Personal / Website News
New Edge Sword and Sorcery
The next three issues of New Edge Sword and Sorcery (numbers 5, 6, and 7, with one of them focused on the sword and planet genre) will be out soon! It sounds like digital and softcover copies will be out the last week of November and the hardcovers the first week of December. A reminder: I have a cocktail in each issue! Each cocktail is inspired by a different S&S and S&P character.
Copies of these upcoming issues (along with some older issues, in both softcover and digital) can be pre-ordered at Backerkit.
Panthans Journal #342
The newest issue of the National Capital Panthans Journal has been published. This issue contains a re-print of my review of issue four of the adult/neo-jungle girl series Vanya: The Lost Warrior. Of course the original version can be read at my website here.
Paraphrased from the zine: The National Capital Panthans Journal is a monthly publication issued as a .PDF file on the Saturday before the first Sunday of each month. Contribution of articles, artwork, photos, and letters are welcome. Send submissions to the editor: Laurence G. Dunn at laurencegdunn AT gmail.com in a Word document for consideration.
Sincere appreciation to Laurence for the opportunity to have my work published in the journal.
Scholars from the Edge of Time
The October Scholars from the Edge of Time episode is now online. Michele and I discuss Wrath of the Titans, which concludes our dive into the Clash of the Titans trilogy of films.
The episode can be watched on YouTube here, so check it out. We are not 100% sure if we will be doing an episode in November (Thanksgiving). If we do, we might be talking about William Castle’s 1953 peplum, Serpent of the Nile.
Publishing Recap
Below is a recap of my external publishing endeavors so far in 2025.
Comic Book Review: “The Moon Maid: Catacombs of the Moon #2″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #332.
Comic Book Review: “The Moon Maid: Catacombs of the Moon #3″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #333.
“Tarzan Cocktail: Deconstructed – Reconstructed” reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #335.
“She’s Got the Killer Instinct: Vanya Issue 01” reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #338.
“Hunter – Lover – Killer: Vanya 02” reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #339.
“Thunder in God’s Country: Interview with Jeffrey Mariotte” reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #340.
“Jungle Romps and T-Rex Chomps: Vanya 03″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #341.
“Going Commando: Vanya 04″ reprinted in National Capital Panthans Journal #342.
“There’s Always Room” in Merry Creepsmas: The Red Book. Edited by Parth Sarathi Chakraborty. Wicked Shadow Press, 2025.
“Tagliolini al Tarzan: Interview with Actress Bella Cortez on Taur the Mighty” in The Burroughs Bulletin #109. Edited by Henry Franke III. February, 2025.
Calls for Papers/Proposals
Here are some new pop culture CFPs that have crossed my path or I am sharing on behalf of my colleagues. Links to these will also be in the CFP page on the navigation bar.
Call for Chapters: Masculinities in Weimar Cinema
‘…many men shared the feeling of standing on the edge of a great upheaval’ (Harald Jähner)
‘…we were familiar with apocalyptic moods’ (Klaus Mann)
The aftermath of WWI saw a general acceleration of modernity, of social, political, and cultural transformation. This is arguably truest of Germany, where the explosive, violent, traumatic, at times ecstatic pace and perceptions of change were unprecedented. As a result, Weimar society (1918 – 1933) was characterised by acute self-awareness, regardless of the diverse views and interests of its population.
Against the background of Germany’s first experience of parliamentary democracy, born in the chaos of localised Communist revolutions and right-wing terror, the fifteen vertiginous years of the Weimar Republic witnessed an often iconoclastic, gigantic shift in every sphere, from architecture to gender and sexual mores to flight technology to art in all its forms. This extremely powerful, self-reflective chronotope inevitably affected German film production, itself reaching new heights of innovation, quality, and even genius.
A complex socio-political environment in a state of cultural flux, Weimar Germany thus yielded a vast range of associations, suggestions, and challenges which cinema could and did respond to, whether to negotiate, reflect, or negate them. Among the multiple aspects, strands, and societal references found in these filmic texts, the representation and performance of one, deceptively simple category stands out: men. However, despite the growing scholarly interest and exciting new perspectives brought to bear on Weimar Cinema, the broad topic of screen masculinities has not received the full attention it deserves. Yet from beginning to end, the 1918-1933 years saw male identities dominating German film in a wide, at times conflictive range of roles; most notably, male protagonists are often lost, humiliated, masochistic, self-destructive, annihilated, or simply redundant. This is not surprising given the upheaval surrounding manhood, especially affected by war trauma, catastrophic military defeat, the rise of women’s emancipation, amid the virtual collapse of the old systems of politics, currency, thought, morals, and art. Some of Germany’s greatest, most popular male stars and actors made a virtual career of playing bewildered, defeated, out-of-place characters: Emil Jannings is just the first name that comes to mind.
Nonetheless, side by side with this catastrophic or doom-laden representational strand, we also see the re-creation of ‘men’ along positively undetermined, hybrid, blurred, or defiantly oppositional lines. While this particular current frequently inhabits plots centring on gender and sexuality, it is not exclusively found there: a craving for Otherness and/or for being Other may be found in male screen narratives not primarily hinging on sex and gender identities. At the same time, it would be absurd to deny the presence of continuity, whether self-standing or deliberately countering change, in filmic representations of masculinity. Indeed, heroes and villains who bridge the gap, from thrillers to romantic comedies to science fiction to musicals, are plenty and equally worthy of careful study. What do these seemingly conventional males tell us about Weimar cinema?
As academic interest in the Weimar Republic’s cultural output continues to grow, foregrounding thought-provoking developments in the field, this edited collection aims at bringing together a range of new scholarly work on the specific, yet broad topic of screen masculinities. Chapters exploring Weimar cinema in this light may focus on, but are most certainly not limited to:
- Masculinity and power
- Masculinity and desire
- Masculinity and modernity
- Masculinity and its boundaries
- Masculinity and femininity
- Masculinity and the city
- Masculinity and reality
- Masculinity, sexuality and/or asexuality
- Masculinity and Otherness
- Masculinity and emotions
- Masculinity and violence
- Masculinity and defeat
- Masculinity and pain
- Masculinity and the body
- Masculinity and technology
- Masculinity and Germany
The editor invites abstracts of 250-300 words for chapters about 8,000 words long, plus a short bio of the author. Please send your abstract and bio to eg51@st-andrews.ac.uk by the deadline which is 15 November.
Please feel free to email me with any queries!
Dr Elisabetta Girelli Honorary Senior Lecturer in Film Studies University of St Andrews
Autographs from the Archive
Here are some autographed treasures I’ve shared on social media recently.
Carnosaur
Diane Ladd passed away recently, so sad! I remember her most vividly from David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, and, of course, Carnosaur.
In the wake of the success of Jurassic Park, there came the knock offs and the cash grabs. Roger Corman brought his Jurassic Park clone with the cult classic Carnosaur. If Jurassic Park had Laura Dern, then Carnosaur has Laura Dern’s mom… Diane Ladd!
I never had the opportunity to meet Ladd, but I did meet Jennifer Runyon (the movie’s heroine) at a convention and she signed my copy of Carnosaur, so that rules. RIP Diane Ladd!
New Sword and Sandal Acquisitions
The ever growing peplum research library grows with these recent sword and sandal acquisitions.
The Epic Film Music of Milos Rozsa
Not too many sword and sandal acquisitions as of late – I need to start watching more from the library! However, I do have a few movies pre-ordered on Amazon: A 4K edition of The Ten Commandments, and a Blu-ray of the new Red Sonja film. So, those will be fun when they arrive.
When I was at Half Priced Books on a recent outing, looking through the music section, there was a small stack (overstock from 30 years ago?) of The Epic Film Music of Miklós Rózsa, the composer behind lots of classic era Hollywood pepla and Biblical epics. This CD has scores from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, King of Kings, El Cid, Sodom and Gomorrah, Quo Vadis, Ben-Hur, Beau Brummell, All The Brothers Were Valiant, and Madame Bovary. Very cool!
News from Friends
Cool kids I know have been busy lately! Here are some signal boosts I’d like to give out.
New Ride the Stream Episodes
Michele Brittany and Travis Lakata are back with brand new episodes of their Ride the Stream vidcast and they dive into season 2 of the cult television series Lost.
First, they do a recap of season one of Lost.
Follow by their dive into episode one of season two:
And then into episode two:
New Fan2Fan Episodes
Pete and Bernie have new episodes of their Fan2Fan podcast online. Since October just ended, there are some horror-centric episodes to check out!
First there is “Is Jaws a Horror Movie?“:
Is Jaws is a Horror Movie? – Fan2Fan Podcast
Followed by “Final Cut – The Horror Movie Trivia Show: John Carpenter Edition“:
Final Cut – The Horror Movie Trivia Show: John Carpenter Edition – Fan2Fan Podcast
And finally, “Why Do Modern Horror Movies Love the 1980s? Part 1“:
Why Do Modern Horror Movies Love the 1980s? Part 1 – Fan2Fan Podcast
Older episodes of Fan2Fan can be found at its Libsyn page or via your podcast app of preference.