Social Sciences

8th Global Conference: Fear4, Horror and Terror: Rituals, Myths and Symbolism

8th Global Conference: Fear4, Horror and Terror: Rituals, Myths and Symbolism

Thursday 11th September - Saturday 13th September 2014
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Call for Presentations
Concepts of fear, horror and terror (FHT) increasingly pervade public discourse and popular culture. Countless urban myths and 'morality tales' told to us by friends, relatives and the mass media provide the foundations for how we understand and react to concepts of FHT. Central to these foundations are the myths, rituals, and symbols we use to communicate, activate, constrain and help overcome the effects and consequences of experiencing fear, horror and/or terror. Accordingly this year's inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary FHT conference seeks to examine and explore the role and consequences of feelings, attitudes and emotions related to FHT. We aim to draw out understandings and sense making in terms of our various myths, rituals and symbols in diverse cultural, organizational and behavioural forms.

We invite proposals on any area related to the conference purpose. We encourage creative and challenging presentations. That is, in addition to academic analysis, we welcome practitioner case studies or other approaches, such as people in religious environments, therapists, and victims/survivors of events that have been provoked by FHT. We particularly encourage interdisciplinary research that crosses divides such as law enforcement, medical, teaching, artistic environments and/or fiction writers whose work aims to evoke these reactions.

Presentations, papers, performances, reports, work-in-progress, panels and workshops are invited on issues related to any of the following themes and related areas:

1) Myths, Ritual, Symbolism and Fear, Horror and Terror:
- the relationship between myth, culture and literature
- mythologies/ideologies
- myth and ritual paradigms (e.g creation, fertility, deliverance, hero or chaos)
- sacred v profane, or individual v. collective or inclusion v. exclusion or stabilizing v. innovative rituals
- practice and the transformative role of rituals
- symbols, motifs and semiotics
- organisational, behavioural and cultural symbolism

2) About Fear, Horror and Terror:
- narratives, definitions, interdisciplinary studies, cross cultural comparisons
- comparison with other emotions/experiences
- institutions, constructions, and deconstructions
- academic theories

3) Contexts of Fear, Horror and Terror:
- case studies
- professionals and the public dealing with the fear, horror and/terror, e.g. therapists, clergy, lawyers, law enforcement, policy makers, government policy, accounting , human resources, technology, etc.
- the properties, language, meaning or significance
- crime, and punishment

4) At the Interface of Fear, Horror and Terror:
- the role of fear, horror and terror
- emotional releases (pleasant or negative) achieved by fear, horror and terror
- techniques, marketing, consumption and management
- recreational or aesthetic
- the temperature, sound, smell, sight or feel of fear, horror and terror
- silence as a strategic subversion
- fear, horror and terror and the visible/invisible

5) Representations of Fear, Horror and Terror:
- the imagination, the gothic and science fiction
- images, cinema, television, theatre, the fourth estate and the creative arts
- survival horror video games
- literature (including children's stories, and graphic novels)
- the other and purity
- hope and despair
- trauma, anxiety, disgust, dread, loathing, danger
- hope and the future
- awe, terror and the sublime or uncanny

6) Relationships with Fear, Horror and Terror:
- use of space, place, architecture and tools in outer space or rural/urban settings
- ceremonies, performances in everyday life, fiction, art
- war, militarisation, weapons, engineering and technology

Proposals will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes.

In order to support and encourage inter-disciplinarity engagement, it is our intention to create the possibility of starting dialogues between the parallel events running during this conference. Delegates are welcome to attend up to two sessions in each of the concurrent conferences. We also propose to produce cross-over sessions between these groups â?? and we welcome proposals which deal with the relationship between Fear, Horror and Terror and Multiculturalism.

What to Send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th April 2014. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 11th July 2014. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: FHT8 Abstract Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs
Shona Hill and Shilinka Smith: [email protected]
Rob Fisher: [email protected]

The conference is part of the 'At the Interface' series of research projects. The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All proposals accepted for and presented at the conference must be in English and will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected proposals may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.

Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract for presentation.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/fear-horror-terror/call-for-papers/

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

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Social Sciences