- Title: Make America Hate Again: Trump-Era Horror & the Politics of Fear
- Collection Editor: Dr Victoria McCollum (Ulster University)
- Deadline for Abstracts: September 30, 2017
- Contact: v.mccollum@ulster.ac.uk
- Publisher: Routledge
Summary: Make America Hate Again: Trump-Era Horror and the Politics of Fear explores the intersection of film, politics, and American culture and society through a bold critical analysis of popular horror films/TV produced in the Trump era, such as Green Room (2015); The Witch (2015); Don’t Breathe (2016); The Purge: Election Year (2016); American Gods (2017); American Horror Story (2017); Get Out (2017); and The Handmaid’s Tale (2017). This collection of essays will explore how popular horror scrutinises and unravels the events, anxieties, discourses, dogmas and socio-political conflicts of the Trump years.
Some Inspiration:
- American Gods, Season 1: Immigration, Myth, Race & Resistance in the Face of Trumpism
- American Horror Story, Season 7: Backpedaling on Trump-Clinton & Setting the Aftermath of the Presidential Election
- American Psycho (2000): Aggression, Narcissism & Rage: Trump’s Role as a Serial Killer’s Idol is Still Relevant Today
- Cloverfield Lane (2016): Slack-Jawed Psychos, The Politics of Paranoia & Monsters Lurking Beyond [the Wall]
- Desierto (2015): Rifle-Toting Vigilantes & the US–Mexico Border in Trump-Era Horror
- Don’t Breathe (2016) and Hush (2016): Physically Disabled. Menaced by Evil. Up for a Fight. Disabled, Shunned & Silenced in Trump’s America
- Don’t Hang Up (2016) and Unfriended (2014): Cyber-Centric Horror & Viral Fame Motifs
- Get Out (2017): Black Lives, Body Horror and Fracturing the Myth of a Post-Racial US
- Green Room (2015): The Kids are ‘Alt-Right,’ Neo-Nazi Storms Brewing in Trump Country
- House of Cards, Season 5: The First Lady and the Final Girl (Neve Campbell), Gothic Undertones & Trumpian Reality
- It Comes at Night (2017): Bare-Bones Horror, Disease, Immigration, Nativism & Otherness
- Raw (2017): Why a French Feminist Teenage Cannibalism Film Made Grown Men Faint: Fears of Consumerism, Consumption, Cultural Norms & Sexual Identity
- The Handmaid’s Tale (2017): Authoritarianism, Dystopianism, Feminism & Nasty Women
- The Man in the High Castle (2015): The Omnipresence of Nazisploitation Imagery & Resistance Radio in the Trump Era
- The Purge: Election Year (2016): Politics, Populism, Class-Based Violence & Hyper-Capitalism
- The Mist, Season 1: Allegorising the Political Tensions and Divisions in US Society Today & Stephen King’s Unyielding Trolling of Trump on Twitter
- The Witch (2015): ‘Burn the Witch(!)’, Puritanical Control, Religiosity & the Dark Underbelly of American Conservatism
- Tilt (2017): When Anti-Trump Rants Devolve into a Psychotic Murderous Rampage
Further Themes/Considerations:
- Horror Films Reimagined à la Trump: The Use and Significance of Trump’s Image in Horror-Centric Social and Cultural Internet Phenomena (Images, Memes, GIFS)
- Resident Evil 7: The Enormous Re-Direction of the Video Game, to the Deep South, Couldn’t Be More Timely
- The Babadook (2014): The Significance of a Horror Film Monster Becoming a Gay Icon in 2017
Make America Hate Again: Trump-Era Horror and the Politics of Fear will offer informed speculation about the possible correlations between very recent culturally meaningful horror films and television shows, and the broader culture within which they have become gravely significant.
Submission Guidelines: abstracts should be 250 words or less, with a 50-word biography. Notifications made by: October 31, 2017. Accepted and completed papers (5000-6000 words with references in Harvard format) due: August 31, 2018. Please send abstracts to the editor at: v.mccollum@ulster.ac.uk.
Further information available at: https://popcultstudies.wordpress.com/
