Daily Archives: 18 November 2015

Witchcraft & Emotions: Media and Cultural Meanings – Registration Open

Witchcraft & Emotions: Media and Cultural Meanings
University of Melbourne.
25-27 November, 2015

Convenors: Charles Zika, Laura Kounine, Sarah Ferber, Jacqueline Van Gent and Charlotte-Rose Millar

Information and Registration: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/witchcraft-and-emotions

Witchcraft is an intensely emotional crime. The crime of witchcraft fundamentally concerns the impact of emotional states on physical ones. Anger, envy or hate of one person towards another could manifest itself in a variety of physical ailments and even death. In early modern Europe, women’s passions and lusts were sometimes said to make them more prone to witchcraft than their male counterparts. It was not just the witch who was intensely emotional: the Devil could also play the role of jealous lover or violent master. So too the families, relations, friends, and sometimes the community as a whole, would be drawn into the complex web of emotional claim and counter claim from which developed accusations and condemnations of witchcraft.

Yet despite the path-breaking work of Lyndal Roper and Diane Purkiss on the emotional self-representation and imagination of accused witches and their accusers, an emotional history of witchcraft remains relatively unexplored. This conference seeks to bring together scholars from a number of different fields, including history, art history and anthropology, to probe further into the relationship between witchcraft and emotions through an inter-disciplinary perspective.

Confirmed speakers include: Victoria Burbank (Anthropology, University of Western Australia), Johannes Dillinger (History, Oxford Brookes), Iris Gareis (Anthropology, Goethe University Frankfurt), Malcolm Gaskill (History, University of East Anglia), Eliza Kent (University of New England), Isak Niehaus (Anthropology, Brunel University), Abaigéal Warfield, (History, University of Adelaide), Jan Machielsen (History, University of Oxford), Patricia Simons (History of Art, University of Michigan), Julian Goodare (History, University of Edinburgh), John Taylor (Anthropology, La Trobe University), Deborah Van Heekeren (Anthropology, Macquarie University), Charlotte-Rose Millar (History, University of Melbourne), Laura Kounine (History, Max Planck Institute Berlin), Jacqueline van Gent (History, University of Western Australia), Charles Zika (History, University of Melbourne) and Sarah Ferber (History, University of Wollongong).

NB: There will be a free, public film screening of the 1922 film ‘Haxan: Witchcraft through the Ages’ at 7:30pm on Thursday 26 November in the Singapore Theatre, Melbourne School of Design (University of Melbourne), followed by a panel with Q&A.

This symposium is the first of two, the second of which will be held in Berlin in June 2016.

Writing from Below: Masculinities Special Issue – Call For Papers

Writing from Below calls for submissions for a special themed issue on queer and non-normative masculinities – the diversity of masculinities, the disruption of traditional hegemonic heterosexual masculinity, the masculine written and rewritten from below.

We seek critical and creative works in any publishable format or medium on any aspect of masculinity and/or its critique in art, society and culture. Do not be limited. Be brave. Play with form, style, and genre. We welcome submissions from across (and outside of, against and up against) the disciplinary spectrum.

Topics might include (but should not be limited to):

  • Representations of men and masculinity in popular culture (literature, cinema, television, media, gaming, music, sound art, theatre and drama, visual and plastic arts, etc.);
  • Masculinity and/as performance, embodiment, machismo;
  • The history of the concept of masculinity, in any period or place;
  • Masculinity, sexuality and sexual difference/dissidence, masculinity and pornography;
  • Male intimacy, and non-violent male-to-male physical contact;
  • Gay male culture, butch lesbian culture, or any variations thereof;
  • Chauvinism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny in heterosexual or homosexual male cultures;
  • Women in masculine/male-dominated cultures;
  • Masculinity, nationalism and transnationalism, postcolonial studies and critical race studies;
  • Masculinity and disability studies;
  • Masculine architectures, urban design and public spaces, or cultural and human geographies;
  • Perceptions of masculinity and its impact on men’s public health and/or mental health outcomes;
  • Masculinity and education, masculinity in childhood, adolescence and youth;
  • Masculinity and the law, male-male and male-female violence, criminology, or incarceration;
  • Masculinity and public policy, men and masculinity in politics, business, commerce, and industry;
  • Masculinity in academia, or male-dominated disciplines and the issue of inclusivity; and
  • The specific place of masculinity in the disciplines of gender, sexuality and diversity studies.

We are now open for submissions until 11 December, 2015.

Written submissions, whether critical or creative, should be between 3,000 and 8,000 words in length, and should adhere to the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. All submissions – critical, creative, and those falling in between; no matter the format or medium – will be subject to a double-blind peer review. Submit here: http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/wfb/author/submit/1

We are also seeking reviews of recent books, films, television, theatre, live or recorded music, artwork or exhibition, etc. We typically publish longer review-essays of between 1000 and 2000 words, and again encourage generic and stylistic experimentation. If you’re interested in reviewing for Writing from Below, please contact our managing editors.

For more information, for editorial enquiries, or questions about unusual submissions, please contact our managing editors:

Stephen Abblitt: S.Abblitt@latrobe.edu.au
Karina Quinn: K.Quinn@latrobe.edu.au