OMS 2 - Online Midsummer Seminar 2023

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MYTHCON ONLINE MIDSUMMER SEMINAR SPECIAL TRACK
Fantasy Goes to Hell: Depictions of Hell in Modern Fantasy Texts

Co-chairs: Janet Brennan Croft and Erin Giannini

Hell in modern fantasy is usually a far cry from traditional depictions in major world religions — the dry and dusty hells of ancient Mesopotamia and the Classical world, the ambiguous Hel of the Norse, the fiery pit and everlasting torment of medieval Christianity and Islam, the purgatorial hells of reincarnative religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. How do creators of fantasy imagine Hell differently? And more importantly, why? What do these depictions have to tell us about what is hellish in our modern world?

This special track will run in parallel with the usual more general Mythcon tracks devoted to other topics in Mythopoeic Fantasy. The 2023 Online Midsummer Seminar will also include the presentation of the annual Mythopoeic Society Awards and other programming.

In addition to hosting this Online Midsummer Seminar, the co-chairs will be co-editing a special issue of Mythlore, in which they intend to present selected papers from the special track of this seminar.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The CFP deadline is May 15, 2023.

The Mythopoeic Society invites paper submissions for an online conference that focuses on the various depictions of the concept of hell in modern fantasy works. Aspects of this topic might include but are certainly not limited to any of the following:

• The mystical spiritual descent: what can be gained from a descent to hell
• The escape from hell: What is saved, and what is left behind
• The harrowing of hell: the rescue of others from hell
• The pact with hell: self-damnation or turning the tables
• The intersection of race, racism, and hell
• Hellish places: Mordor, Charn, the Upside Down, the post-apocalyptic world
• The influence of fantastic ur-texts about Hell: Aeneas’s visit in The Aeneid; Dante’s Inferno; Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus; Milton’s Paradise Lost; Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit; the art of Hieronymus Bosch; Mozart’s Don Giovanni
• “This IS the Bad Place!”: The primary world as Hell

Papers from a variety of critical perspectives and disciplines are welcome. We are interested in ANY form of media — text, graphic novels, television, movies, music and music videos, games — as long as it can be described as fantasy and includes a hell or its denizens.
Some texts to consider:

• C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce
• Charles Williams’s All Hallows’ Eve and Descent into Hell
• Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens (book and television series)
• Lois McMaster Bujold’s Five Gods series
• Music videos: Lil Nas X’s “Montero” and “Industry Baby”
• Television series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Lovecraft Country, Supernatural, The Good Place
• Movies: Get Out, Dogma
• Tanith Lee’s Tales From the Flat Earth series (Death’s Master et seq.)
• Works by Vaclev Havel, Franz Kafka, Nikolai Gogol, George Orwell
• Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (graphic novels and television series)
• Walter Wangerin, Jr.’s Dun Cow trilogy
• Evan Dahm’s Harrowing of Hell (graphic novel)

Each paper will receive a 50-minute slot to allow time for questions, but individual papers should be timed for oral presentation in 40 minutes maximum. Two or three presenters who wish to present short, related papers may also share a one-hour slot. Participants are encouraged to submit papers chosen for presentation at the conference to the special issue of Mythlore devoted to this theme. All papers should conform to the MLA Style Manual current edition.

Proposals for papers or panels for the special track should be approximately 200 words in length and should be sent to both co-chairs:
oms-chair@mythcon.org and oms-co-chair@mythcon.org.
For general topics not related to the special track theme, please send proposals of approximately 200 words to oms-chair@mythcon.org only. All submissions, for either general or special track, must be received by May 15, 2023.

REGISTRATION

Registration is US$20.00 per person. You may register up to four people on this page.

Since a major component of the online seminar is the discussions and other activities on Discord, we would also like to know what screen name (or "handle") you use, or would like to use, on that platform. Specifying both your real name and your Discord name helps us keep track of who is registered and who is not. However, supplying your Discord name is technically optional, especially if you do not plan on participating in any Discord activities.