Call for Papers:
The Uncanny in Language, Literature and Culture International Conference
Organised by London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research
August 22-23, 2025
University of Malta and Online
https://uncanny.lcir.co.uk/
Submission deadline for paper proposals up to 250 words: March 20, 2025
The uncanny captures the unsettling and the eerie—a feeling that defies boundaries between the familiar and the strange. Rooted in Freud’s exploration, the uncanny reveals how what is known and intimate can suddenly become alien, evoking dread and unease. Everyday objects, spaces, and experiences that once offered comfort transform into symbols of danger, disrupting not only our external environments but also the landscapes of our inner selves.
Freud identified the uncanny as an uneasiness that arises when the familiar becomes uncomfortably unfamiliar—when the sense of “home” is rendered strange, unsafe, or unrecognizable. This disquiet is not confined to physical spaces; it penetrates the psyche, creating fractures in our sense of identity and belonging. As architecture mirrors psychology, the uncanny embodies a crisis of self-certainty, triggered by trauma, loss, or the collapse of the boundaries we rely on to make sense of the world.
(Post-)Modern literature and art reflect this fractured experience. In response to a rapidly changing world, authors and creators depict characters fragmented by sensation, consciousness, and the half-dreamt workings of the subconscious. Narratives often embrace fragments, ellipses, and disrupted linearity to convey the instability of time, space, and identity. As a cultural and psychological phenomenon, the uncanny becomes a prism for understanding the disintegration and complexity of modernity.
This conference invites scholars to engage with the uncanny in its myriad forms, exploring how it shapes and is shaped by language, literature, and culture. From uncanny geographies to disquieting technologies, and from visual tropes to postcolonial and gendered perspectives, the uncanny provides a rich lens through which to examine the intersections of self, society, and the unfamiliar.
Papers are invited on topics related, but not limited, to:
- Uncanny Geographies: Spatial dislocation, eerie landscapes, and unsettling architectures.
- Uncanny Technologies: AI, cyborgs, automation, and the unease of technological advancement.
- The Uncanny in Visual Tropes: Disturbing imagery, unsettling juxtapositions, and symbolic representations in art and film.
- The Uncanny and Postcolonialism: Disrupted cultural identities, hybridities, and the unease of colonial legacies.
- Gender and the Uncanny: Subversions of normative gender roles, the body as a site of unease, and feminist interpretations.
- Sexuality and the Uncanny: The queer uncanny, forbidden desires, and the destabilization of sexual norms.
- Uncanny Temporalities: Nonlinear time, fractured memories, and haunting histories.
- Uncanny Voices: Echoes, silences, and the eerie presence of unheard or disembodied voices in literature and culture.
- Psychological Dimensions of the Uncanny: Trauma, repression, and the subconscious as spaces of unease.
- Uncanny Figures: Doppelgängers, ghosts, and monstrous others.
- The Uncanny and Childhood: Disruptions of innocence, eerie children, and unsettling fairy tales.
- The Uncanny in Myth and Folklore: Ancient narratives, supernatural elements, and the discomfort of archaic beliefs.
- Uncanny Futures: Speculative and dystopian representations of the unknown and unfamiliar.
- Uncanny Realities: The ordinary made strange in everyday life and culture.
- Uncanny Borders: Marginal spaces, liminality, and the unease of crossing boundaries.
- The Uncanny in Popular Culture: Horror films, Gothic literature, and unsettling tropes in mainstream media.
- Uncanny Linguistics: The strangeness of language, slips of the tongue, and alien forms of communication.
The conference aims to bring together scholars from different fields. We invite proposals from psychology, sociology, anthropology, literature, linguistics, etc.
Paper proposals up to 250 words should be sent by 20 March 2025 to: uncanny@lcir.co.uk. Download Paper proposal form.
Registration fee (online participation) – 90 GBP
Registration fee (physical participation) – 150 GBP
Conference venue: University of Malta (Valletta Campus)
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