At the annual meeting of the Horror Studies Scholarly Interest Group held in March as part of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual conference in Seattle, Johnny Walker was one of two new co-chairs elected to replace outgoing founding co-chairs Allison Whitney (Texas Tech) and Murray Leeder (Calgary).
From May 2019, Johnny will join the newly elected Ashley R. Smith (Northwestern), along with graduate student representative Sonia Lupher (Pittsburgh) and founding co-chair Adam Hart (Pittsburgh). Steve has just returned from Kurja Polt Festival where he presented a research paper about the slasher film alongside fellow presenters Dr Jamie Sexton (Northumbria) and Dr Alison Peirse (Leeds). The event was organised and chaired by Dr Russ Hunter (Northumbria). Our thanks as always to Masa Pece and the Kurja Polt team for having us back. More information about the event (including abstracts for the papers) is available here As part of the scholarly digital research network In Media Res, Associate Lecturer Tom Watson contributed to a contentious debate surrounding the labelling of contemporary horror cinema (or rather certain examples of horror). As part of a week-long debate (4th March - 8th March) alongside fellow horror scholars from the universities of Roehampton, Sheffield Hallam, Hertfordshire and Salford, Tom contributed a short article addressing the re-surfacing of art/ trash binaries facing the genre in the popular press (taking Lars Von Trier's recent serial killer narrative The House that Jack Built [2018] as a reference point). |