Deadline: 12 April 2011
Literophile is an independent, theme based bimonthly journal for amateur academic research in India. Literophile is open to all students of English Literature, Literature in English, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies regardless of their institutional affiliations and hopes to become an active and engaging forum for debate and criticism on a range of issues pertinent to both the scholarly and literary community as well as the general public at large.
Literophile was launched in 2005; this, volume four, is an initiative to revive that original impetuous which led to its formation. Our first issue, about to be launched in the coming week, is on Indian Popular Fiction. We plan the second to be on the theme Tales Terrible: Then, Now and Beyond and so invite original academic papers and/or semi-academic articles and commentaries by any student on any aspect or nuance of the same. The deadline for submission is Tuesday, 12th April.
Keynote for Issue 2, Volume 4:
Tales Terrible
Then, Now and Beyond
Is strife the fount of creativity?
In a world where art and criticism are increasingly seen as intrinsically enmeshed in the politics of everyday life, the forces which determine our world and shape society to be what it is, this simple proposition assumes monumental proportions. For if we as artists and critics are to press for a better world – in whatever sense of the phrase, right, left, centre or any where up and down – then it is imperative to consider whether the necessity of doing so is born essentially from not as much as an inherent desire for peace and love but from the overriding, inevitable presence of hatred, bloodshed and oppression.
This, then, is what this issue hopes to address. If creativity is a consequence of chaos, then is not the terrible, all that horrifies, unnerves, destabilises, the undeniable inspiration for much of art? To us much of literature reflects as much, the written word carrying more often than not the stamp of more than one subliminal source of inspirational horror. Horror too does not necessarily have to be the obvious, hair-raising prototype of the Gothic and murder thrillers: from the horror of rejection in love to the horror of the terrible loss of hair, horror too is varied in ways which would make it redundant to attempt a canonisation.
Yet, the canon is what we must come back to, and in inviting papers for issue two, volume four of Literophile, we needs must present a sketchy outline of the areas we would be most interested in in considering tales terrible. You are, of course, free to innovate, but still, to give a few pointers:
a) “Pity the tale of me!” : Misery and Mistress
b) And then there was night: Tales of Terror from the Fundamentalist Fringe
c) Uncle Sam is watching you: The Omniscient Superpower
d) Those Revolutionary (Wo)Men with their Killing Machines: Mobocracy in times of Change
e) Detecting Crime: Defusing Terror through Detection
f) No creature so vile as man: Class paranoia in Neoclassicism
g) “…robot may not harm humanity”: Fear and the Future
h) Man and man: Negotiating Homophobia
So on and so forth. Please remember only original and annotated academic papers and/or semi-academic articles and commentaries are allowed, that these must not exceed 2,500 words and that papers must be in the MLA style. Do try to be in by 12th April, 2011. Feel free to email contributions and queries to literophile@gmail.com.
Prashaste Sinha
Editor
Literophile is an independent, theme based bimonthly journal for amateur academic research in India. Literophile is open to all students of English Literature, Literature in English, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies regardless of their institutional affiliations and hopes to become an active and engaging forum for debate and criticism on a range of issues pertinent to both the scholarly and literary community as well as the general public at large.
Literophile was launched in 2005; this, volume four, is an initiative to revive that original impetuous which led to its formation. Our first issue, about to be launched in the coming week, is on Indian Popular Fiction. We plan the second to be on the theme Tales Terrible: Then, Now and Beyond and so invite original academic papers and/or semi-academic articles and commentaries by any student on any aspect or nuance of the same. The deadline for submission is Tuesday, 12th April.
Keynote for Issue 2, Volume 4:
Tales Terrible
Then, Now and Beyond
Is strife the fount of creativity?
In a world where art and criticism are increasingly seen as intrinsically enmeshed in the politics of everyday life, the forces which determine our world and shape society to be what it is, this simple proposition assumes monumental proportions. For if we as artists and critics are to press for a better world – in whatever sense of the phrase, right, left, centre or any where up and down – then it is imperative to consider whether the necessity of doing so is born essentially from not as much as an inherent desire for peace and love but from the overriding, inevitable presence of hatred, bloodshed and oppression.
This, then, is what this issue hopes to address. If creativity is a consequence of chaos, then is not the terrible, all that horrifies, unnerves, destabilises, the undeniable inspiration for much of art? To us much of literature reflects as much, the written word carrying more often than not the stamp of more than one subliminal source of inspirational horror. Horror too does not necessarily have to be the obvious, hair-raising prototype of the Gothic and murder thrillers: from the horror of rejection in love to the horror of the terrible loss of hair, horror too is varied in ways which would make it redundant to attempt a canonisation.
Yet, the canon is what we must come back to, and in inviting papers for issue two, volume four of Literophile, we needs must present a sketchy outline of the areas we would be most interested in in considering tales terrible. You are, of course, free to innovate, but still, to give a few pointers:
a) “Pity the tale of me!” : Misery and Mistress
b) And then there was night: Tales of Terror from the Fundamentalist Fringe
c) Uncle Sam is watching you: The Omniscient Superpower
d) Those Revolutionary (Wo)Men with their Killing Machines: Mobocracy in times of Change
e) Detecting Crime: Defusing Terror through Detection
f) No creature so vile as man: Class paranoia in Neoclassicism
g) “…robot may not harm humanity”: Fear and the Future
h) Man and man: Negotiating Homophobia
So on and so forth. Please remember only original and annotated academic papers and/or semi-academic articles and commentaries are allowed, that these must not exceed 2,500 words and that papers must be in the MLA style. Do try to be in by 12th April, 2011. Feel free to email contributions and queries to literophile@gmail.com.
Prashaste Sinha
Editor
