Appel à comm: Alan Moore and the Gothic Tradition

[Madeleine L.]

Call for Abstracts

"Alan Moore and the Gothic Tradition"

While Alan Moore's work continues to receive acclaim from within the
comics industry and in the media more widely, it remains
under-represented within academic research. This edited collection
will draw together current scholarly investigations of Moore and his
collaborators, paying particular attention to the way in which Moore
adapts, appropriates and otherwise responds to previous works from the
Gothic tradition. Far from a unified or stable legacy, the Gothic is
itself characterised by multiplicity and heterogeneity. For this
reason, an examination of the particular ways in which Moore responds
to this portion of his cultural inheritance can be expected not only
to shed light upon particular aspects of the tradition more broadly,
but also to yield insight into the interpretative and artistic
decisions embedded in his work.

That Moore's work can be situated in relation to this tradition is
evident both in the range of Gothic elements (monsters, demons,
supernatural powers, plots motivated by questions of violence and
oppression) present at the narrative level in his work, and, at a
formal level, in the ways in which Moore and his collaborators draw on
artistic techniques and forms from a range of Gothic media. The
underlying premise of the collection is that Moore, and the artists
with whom he works, engage in a process of dialogue with a diverse
array of source material. Accordingly, the collection will address two
interrelated topics: how an understanding of the Gothic can enhance
our understanding of Moore's work and, conversely, the ways in which
the ideas and reading practices engendered by Moore s work might
impact on a reflexive analysis of one or more of the traditions out of
which it emerges.

Though it is anticipated that the majority of papers will concentrate
on the comics, the area in which Moore is most prolific and for which
he is best known, this should not deter proposals to examine his work
in other media (spoken word/audio recordings, prose fiction, etc).

Papers on any aspect of the relationship between Moore and the Gothic
are invited, including, but not limited to, the following areas of
enquiry:

Representations of monstrosity
The supernatural and/or superhuman
Violence and terror
The Sublime
Sexuality
Gothic technologies
Psychology, geography and/or the environment
Degeneration
Hybridity
The double
Gothic romanticisms
Magic and the occult
Trauma
Taboo
The uncanny
Crisis and catastrophe
Dystopia
Oppression and/or repression
The Gothic and sci-fi or detective fiction

Abstracts should be approximately 500 words and should be emailed to
Dr. Matt Green (matt.green@nottingham.ac.uk) on or before Friday
September 25, 2009.