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EVENT Mar 06
ABSTRACT Sep 30
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Fifty years of Stephen King: American Horror, Gothicism, and Progressive Parables (NeMLA)

Philadelphia, PA
Organization: NeMLA
Event: NeMLA
Categories: Postcolonial, American, Hispanic & Latino, Interdisciplinary, Genre & Form, Popular Culture, Gender & Sexuality, World Literatures, African-American, Colonial, Revolution & Early National, Transcendentalists, 1865-1914, 20th & 21st Century, Adventure & Travel Writing, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Drama, Narratology, Poetry, Aesthetics, Anthropology/Sociology, Classical Studies, Cultural Studies, Environmental Studies, Film, TV, & Media, Food Studies, History, Philosophy, African & African Diasporas, Asian & Asian Diasporas, Australian Literature, Canadian Literature, Caribbean & Caribbean Diasporas, Indian Subcontinent, Eastern European, Mediterranean, Middle East, Native American, Scandinavian, Pacific Literature, Science, Miscellaneous
Event Date: 2025-03-06 to 2025-03-09 Abstract Due: 2024-09-30
Abstract Deadline has passed

This year’s 50th anniversary of the publication of Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, led to a celebration of the writer’s half century of popularity, along with his garnering ever-increasing attention and acclaim from literary circles. Margaret Atwood’s essay in The New York Times this March spoke of the book’s prescient themes, while underscoring how King’s nearly 80 texts continue to be ahead of the curve in terms of their all-inclusive progressive themes, stating:

…underneath the “horror,” in King, is always the real horror: the all-too-actual poverty and neglect and hunger and abuse that exists in America today…. The ultimate horror, for him as it was for Dickens, is human cruelty, and especially cruelty to children. It is this that distorts “charity,” the better side of our nature, the side that prompts us to take care of others.

I think this is part of King’s widespread appeal. Yes, he shows us weird stuff, but in the context of the actual. The clock, the sofa, the religious paintings on the walls — all the daily objects that Carrie explodes during her rampage — these are drawn from life, as is the everyday sadism of the high school kids that makes Carrie feel as frighteningly relevant as ever.

 

Atwood’s timely insights reinforce not only King’s ongoing relevance within the horror genre, but also how significantly his texts speak to and inspire the defining issues of America’s progressive left.   

This panel welcomes papers that focus on King’s novels and stories that not only examine the revolution and evolution of wide-ranging ‘horror’ literature he continues to lead, but which also speak to the 50-year arc of American culture’s progressive advances and set-backs, as well as with the cautionary warnings King’s texts provide for a nation confronting the frightening specter of a fallen democracy. Papers that explore American literary influences on King from Poe to H.P. Lovecraft, and/or King’s influence on his contemporaries are also welcomed.  

 

John.wargacki@shu.edu

John Wargacki