The Thrill of the Dark: Heritages of Fear, Fascination and Fantasy, 25-27 April 2019, Birmingham, UK
Over recent years there has been tremendous interest in ‘dark heritage’ and associated ‘dark tourism’ but still we struggle with the powerful attraction of the darkness, the thrill it can provide, where (and if) we draw boundaries around its commodification, its representation, and the experiences we seek from it. This conference seeks to explore the multiple relationships we have with the concept of darkness, and asks:
-How is the thrill of darkness expressed through the widely framed notion of heritage?
-How do we experience, negotiate, represent, commodify, valorise or censor the heritages of darkness?
-What and where is the thrill of the darkness and how is it negotiated across cultures, generations and gender?
We invite researchers from the fullest range of disciplinary perspectives to consider these and other questions in an open-ended and thought-provoking manner. CfP Deadline: 31 October 2018. For more information please visit the conference website: www.thethrillofthedark.wordpress.com
Organisers: Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham UK, in partnership with the Collaborative for Cultural Heritage and Management Policy, University of Illinois, USA and Department of Ethnology/Critical Heritage Studies Network, University of Stockholm, Sweden.