Guest lectures from the VI Edition of the Congress
DINOSAURS AND SCIENCE FICTION: A COMBINATION OF CINEMA.
Ainara Aberasturi has a degree in Geology from the University of the Basque Country, specializing in Stratigraphy and Paleontology. Her scientific activity has been linked to institutions such as the Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis and the Paleontological Museum of Elche, of which she is the current director, covering both the excavation of numerous sites and participation in several research projects (I+ D) related to the geological and paleontological heritage as a resource for development.
THE CREATION OF A BLOODSUCKER: FANTASTIC BIOLOGIES, THE ABJECT AND SCREEN IDEA WORK GROUP (SIWG).
Jasper Vrancken is a researcher and professor at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). He is a filmmaker specialized in the horror genre, with works such as “Muil” (2018) or “Souvenir” (2023). He has recently completed his doctorate in Arts “The Anxiety of Genre. horror between craft, theory and the screen idea workgroup” on the influence of theoretical concepts (for example, the abject) on the creation of the new cinematic horror. More information at https://jaspervrancken.com/
Guest lectures from the V Edition of the Congress
TEXANS BEYOND THE BLACK RIVER. THE TEXAN ROOTS OF A CIMMERIAN HERO.
Paolo Bertetti works as teacher and researcher at the University of Siena (Italy). His research interests concern Narratology, Transmedia Storytelling, Semiotic Theory, Film Semiotics and Semiotics of Text. He is scientific director of the Fantasy and Science Fiction Museum (MUFANT) of Turin (Italy). Among his books: ll mito Conan. Identità e metamorfosi di un personaggio seriale tra letteratura, fumetto, cinema e televisione (2011), Il discorso audiovisivo. Teorie e strumenti semiotici (2012), Lo schermo dell’apparire (2013), Transmedia Archaeology (2014; with C. Scolari and M. Freeman), Che cos’è la transmedialità (2020).
INTERROGATING THE LIMINAL SPACE: VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES IN MIDDLE-EARTH.
Sara Brown lives in North Wales and is Chair of the Language & Literature faculty at Signum University. She has been with Signum since 2012 and has taught on courses that have included ‘Modern Fantasy’ with Corey Olsen, ‘Tolkien’s World of Middle-earth’ with Verlyn Flieger, ‘Roots of the Mountain’ with Doug Anderson, ‘The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien’ with John Garth,and ‘Celtic Myth in Children’s Fantasy’ with Dimitra Fimi. Sara has also taught her own 12-week lecture series entitled ‘Tolkien in Context: Middle-earth as a Roadmap to Twentieth-Century Anxieties’, which examines Tolkien’s writing as a response to modernity. She completed her Ph.D. in Literature at Salford University in 2013and has given several lectures at various conferences on the topics of Tolkien, fantasy fiction, and fandom, and is regularly seen at Tolkien Society events in the UK. She currently serves on the editorial board of The Mallorn, the academic journal of the Tolkien Society and co-hosts on podcasts such as The Tolkien Experience, Rings of Power Wrap-Up, and The Prancing Pony.
Guest lectures from the IV Edition of the Congress
LOVE LETTERS FROM THE FUTURE: THE SALVAGE SUBLIME.
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock is Professor of English at Central Michigan University and an associate editor of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. He is the author or editor of 26 books and almost 100 essays and book chapters that address the Gothic, American literature, cinema, and popular culture. Among his book publications are Pop Culture for Beginners (Broadview Press, 2022), Giving the Devil His Due: Satan and Cinema (co-edited with Regina Hansen; Fordham University Press, 2021), The Monster Theory Reader (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), The Cambridge Companion to the American Gothic (2018), The Age of Lovecraft (co-edited with Carl Sederholm; University of Minnesota Press, 2016), and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Wallflower Press, 2007). Jeffrey is also the host of the long-running online goth/industrial radio show, DJ cypher’s Dark Nation Radio, recorded broadcasts of which can be streamed at http://www.mixcloud.com/cypheractive. Visit him at JeffreyAndrewWeinstock.com.
FROM RETRO TO STEAMPUNK AND BEYOND.
Elizabeth Guffey is Professor of Art and Design History and head of the MA Program in Art History at the State University of New York, Purchase College. She is the author of Retro: The Culture of Revival (Reaktion, 2006) and Posters: A Global History (Reaktion, 2015). She is also co-editor of Making Disability Modern (with Bess Williamson, Bloomsbury, 2020), and author of Designing Disability (Bloomsbury, 2018). She is also the Founding Editor of the peer-review journal Design and Culture (Routledge). Her scholarly work has appeared in a variety of venues, including Design and Culture, Design Issues, and the Journal of Visual Culture. As part of her efforts to bring design and disability studies to broad publics, she has also authored essays in a number of range of publications, including The New York Times and The Nation.
Guest lectures from the III Edition of the Congress
Forms of Fear: Crime and Fantastic Figures in Today’s Hispanic American Literature
Anna Boccuti has a doctorate in American Studies and currently works as a researcher and teacher of Spanish American Language and Literature at the University of Turin. He has devoted himself especially to the study of humor in 20th century Argentine literature and culture, contemporary fantastic literature, the discourse of tango-song and its irradiations to other genres, Hispanic-American microfiction, topics on which he has published several articles in specialized magazines and given lectures at various universities (Università di Padova, Sapienza-University of Rome, National Autonomous University of Mexico, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, University of Paris-Sorbonne IV, Autonomous University of Barcelona, University of Buenos Aires).
The Canadian Giallo, or how the Italian thriller influenced the Canadian slasher movie.
Mikel J. Koven is Senior Lecturer & Course Leader in Film Studies at the University of Worcester. He holds a PhD in Folklore Studies from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and has published extensively in the areas of film & folklore, with a particular focus on horror cinema. He is the author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema & the Italian Giallo Film (2006), Film, Folklore & Urban Legends (2008), and Blaxploitation Films (2010). Recent work includes chapters and articles on the Slender Man phenomena, mythological cinema & biblical epics, found-footage films, and of course, he continues to write on the giallo.
Crime, post-memory and current affairs in contemporary Latin American fantasy cinema: the silent voices speak.
Audrey Louyer-Davo has a doctorate in Spanish-American Literature from the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, and works as Associate Professor and Researcher of Language and Literature at the University of Reims, France (CIRLEP). She is dedicated to fantastic expression in Latin America, in literature and in the cinema. She is the author of a thesis on the stories of the Salvadoran Claudia Hernández and another on the Peruvian novel La piedra en el agua, by Harry Belevan. She published Pasajes de lo fantástico (2016), a theoretical proposal for a study of the literature of fantastic expression, which is combined with the publication of an anthology of Peruvian stories presented in the perspective of said theoretical approach (2017).