Conference CFP: “What Lies Beneath Monster Movies: Exploring Ecohorror Cinema”

“What Lies Beneath Monster Movies: Exploring Ecohorror Cinema” is a panel proposed for the ASLE Eleventh Biennial Conference, June 23-27, 2015, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID.

Ecohorror reveals our fears about the natural world. In it, animals become monsters; landscapes become nightmares; environmental practices lead to apocalyptic destruction. In this panel, we are interested in exploring cinematic versions of these narratives and the ways in which these films help us grasp our own cultural anxieties, our relationship with particular species and ecosystems, and past and current environmental politics and policies.

Because horror is a genre concerned with dark and often hidden fears and desires, ecohorror provides a promising space for discussion of ideas relevant to this year’s conference theme of the underground. Ecohorror may engage with repressed anxieties about the natural world or environmental issues, resistance to the environmental status quo or to environmental change, or monstrous hybrid species and landscapes.

We are particularly interested in proposed papers about monster movies, but we are open to a range of ideas on ecohorror film.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to both Christy Tidwell (christy.tidwell@gmail.com) and Carter Soles (csoles@brockport.edu) by November 1, 2014.