Day One /
​Friday 13th August

12:00 – 12:10pm BST | CONFERENCE OPEN

• Welcoming Remarks with Daniel Sheppard and Wickham Clayton

12:10 – 1:10pm BST | PANEL 1: Unearthing the Gothic Roots of Slasher | Stream on YouTube
[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

The "Girl" in Final Girl: What Children’s Films Can Tell Us About the Generic Boundaries of Slasher and Female Gothic Cinema

• Catherine Lester (University of Birmingham, UK)

"You Love Her, Don’t You?" Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and the Slasher and the Final Girl as Romantic Heroes

• Thea Bamber (University of Roehampton, UK)

1:10 – 2:30pm BST | PANEL 2: Genre and the Transnational Influence of Italian Giallo | Stream on YouTube
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Through a Killer’s Eyes: First-Person Perspective and Audience Implication in Peeping Tom and Profondo Rosso

• Ted Silva (Boston University, US)

The Hybrid Gaze of the Slasher: POV Shots and the Influence of Italian Horror

• Émilie von Garan (University of Toronto, CA)

A Girl, A Knife, A Genre

• Joan Hawkins (Indiana University, US)

2:30 – 3:00pm BST | COMFORT BREAK

3:00 – 4:30pm BST | PANEL 3: Redefining Whiteness in American Slasher | Stream on YouTube
[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

The Ones Who Did Not Die: Captivity Narratives and Final Girls

• Kali Simmons (Portland State University, US)

The Fantasy of Whiteness in the Slasher Genre

• Michaela Wünsch (University of Klagenfurt, AT)

"There’s a Maniac Loose in the City": Space, Identity and Boundary Crossing in the Urban Slasher

• Miranda Corcoran (University College Cork, IE)

4:30 – 5:30pm BST | PANEL 4: Generic Absence and the Cultural Politics of Reappropriation | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

La Llorona and the Absence of Latinx Slashers

• Orquidea Morales (State University of New York, US) 

Class, Community & Carnage: The Swedish Teen Slasher

• Morten Feldtfos Thomsen (Karlstad University, SE)

5:30 – 6:00pm BST | COMFORT BREAK

6:00 – 7:00pm BST | KEYNOTE LECTURE | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACT]

The Metamodern Slasher Film

• Steve Jones (Northumbria University, UK)

7:00 – 8:00pm BST | COMFORT BREAK

8:00 – 9:15pm BST | PANEL 5: Critical Approaches to Blumhouse’s Halloween (2018) | Stream on YouTube
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Is the Slasher Dead or Alive? Conflicted Genre Discourse and the Supposed State of the Subgenre

• Alex Svensson (Emerson College, US)

"John Carpenter Has Some Harsh Words for Rob Zombie": Fan Nostalgia, the Halloween Franchise, and the Authenticity of the Horror Auteur

• Mark Richard Adams (New College Swindon, UK)

"I’ve Waited for Him": Laurie Strode’s Evolution from Final Girl to Neoliberal Militant in Halloween (2018)

• Khara Lukancic (Southern Illinois University, US)

9:15 – 10:30pm BST | PANEL 6: Fluidity and the Changing Nature of Horror Conventions | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

"Essence" of a Franchise: An Examination of Friday the 13th and Jason Voorhees

• William Chavez (University of California, Santa Barbara, US)

"I am a fucking piece": Revaluations of the Final Girl Trope in Contemporary Film

• Eric Brinkman (Ohio State University, US)

Slaughtering Dualisms: The Rise and Fall of Manichaeism in Contemporary Horror Films

• Lisa Avron & Valeria Dani (Cornell University, US)

Day Two /
Saturday 14th August

12:00 – 1:00pm BST | PANEL 7: Revisionist Approaches to Costume and the Mask in North American Horror | Stream on YouTube
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Leatherface and the Nixon Mask: Political Satire in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

• Martin Harris (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, US)

1:00 – 2:30pm BST | PANEL 8: Nuance and the Strategies of 1980s Slasher | Stream on YouTube
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X-Ray, the Final Woman and the Medical Slasher Film

• Murray Leeder (University of Manitoba, CA)

The Maturing of Madness: The Rise of Adult-centric Slashers in 1982

• Amanda Reyes (Independent Scholar, US)

In Love With Your Nightmares: Franchise Mutations and How Freddy Krueger Became the Hero of Elm Street

• Sam R.M. Geden (University of Essex, UK)

2:30 – 3:00pm BST | COMFORT BREAK

3:00 – 4:00pm BST | INDUSTRY PANEL | Stream on YouTube

Johnny Walker in conversation with:

• Lloyd Kaufman (President of Troma Ent. & Creator of The Toxic Avenger)

 
4:00 – 4:30pm BST | COMFORT BREAK
 
4:30 – 5:30pm BST | INDUSTRY PANEL | Stream on YouTube
​
Amanda Reyes in conversation with:

• Ellen Lutter (Costume Designer)
• John Newby, ASC (Cinematographer)

​5:30 – 6:00pm BST | COMFORT BREAK

6:00 – 7:00pm BST | KEYNOTE LECTURE
[CLICK FOR ABSTRACT]

The Stalker Film

• Vera Dika (New Jersey City University, US)

7:00 – 8:00pm BST | COMFORT BREAK
 
8:00 – 9:30pm BST | PANEL 9/10: Reframing Mental Health in Film and Theory | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

Slashers and Mental Health

• Valerio Sbravatti (Sapienza University of Rome, IT)

8:00 - 9:30pm BST | PANEL 9/10: Affective Politics and the Slasher | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

"If You’re Not Documenting Yourself, You Just Don’t Exist": The Digital Slasher

• Caitlin Duffy (Stony Brook University, US)

Empathy and Identification in Postmodern Slasher: The Case of Rob Zombie

• Yago Paris (Eötvös Loránd University, HU) & Ignacio Pablo Rico Guastavino (Rey Juan Carlos University, ES)

The Queer Woman as Outsider in High Tension and Knife+Heart

• Tosha R. Taylor (Manhattanville College, US)

Day Three /
​Sunday 15th August

12:00 – 1:20pm BST | PANEL 11: Critical Approaches to the Final Girl | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

Virgins Never Die: How Patriarchal Ideology Created the Most Important Trait of the Final Girl

• Jacqueline D. Kunkel (Butler County Community College, US)

Death and the Maiden: The Development of the Feminine Psyche in the Slasher Film

• Kevin McGuiness (Niagara College, CA)

The Evolved Final Girl: Reconfiguring Identification and Space for Women’s Narratives

• Charlotte Baker (University of Derby, UK)

1:20 – 3:00pm BST | PANEL 12: Slasher and the Revaluation of Generic Assumptions | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

Mute, Masked and Murderous: The 1940s Mummy as Proto-Slasher

• Basil Glynn (Middlesex University, UK)

"There Are Certain Rules That One Must Abide By": An Examination of the Problematic Relationship Between Conservative Morality and the Slasher Film

• John Kavanagh (Ulster University, UK)

Tools of the Trade: A Statistical Analysis of Slasher Hardware

• Marc Olivier (Brigham Young University, US)

Gazes, Glitches, and Gore: Found Footage Slashers as Records of Violence

• Miranda Ruth Larsen (University of Tokyo, JP)

3:00 – 3:30pm BST | COMFORT BREAK

​3:30 – 5:00pm BST | PANEL 13: Violence and the Politics of Splatter | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

The Slasher and the Real-World Murderer: The Reinforcement of the Established Discourse

• Erika Tiburcio Moreno (University Carlos III of Madrid & Complutense University of Madrid, ES)

True North, Strong and Obscene: Mapping the Snuff Mythos in Canadian Case Law Post-Butler

• Meg Lonergan (Carleton University, CA)

"Come and See, See and Come": Tom Six’s Aesthetics of Offence

• Elloit Cardozo (Independent Scholar, IN) & Aditi Khandelwal (Mithibai College of Arts, IN)

5:00 – 5:30pm BST | COMFORT BREAK

5:30 – 7:00pm BST | PANEL 14: Gendered Subjectivity and the Politics of Filmmaking | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

When the Woman Lurks: Gender in Modern Slasher Films

• Amy Jane Vosper (Trent University, CA)

"We Will Never Bow Down!" How Black Christmas Subverts the Tropes of the Slasher Subgenre and Offers a Possibility for Feminist Filmmaking

• Bruna Foletto Lucas (Kingston University, UK)

Queer Slashers, Sensibilities and Spectatorship

• May Santiago (George Mason University, US)

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow, or Will It? Reimagining the Slasher in Serial Mom

• Peter Marra (Wayne State University, US)

7:00 – 8:00pm BST | COMFORT BREAK

8:00 – 9:00pm BST | PANEL 15: Towards a Direction for Slasher Studies - Methods and Methodologies | Stream on YouTube
​[CLICK FOR ABSTRACTS]

"You Mean I Have to Live the Rest of My Life in This Body?" Examining the Slasher Genre Through the Gestural Performance of an Audience

• Darren Gary Berkland (Coventry University, UK)

Here-and-Now in Horror: Happy Death Day (2017) and Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

• Tugce Kutlu (University College London, UK)

9:00 – 10:20pm BST | Roundtable Discussion: Towards a Definition of Slasher Studies - Genre, Theory, Discipline | Stream on YouTube

Daniel Sheppard in conversation with:

• Wickham Clayton (University for the Creative Arts, UK)
• Joan Hawkins (Indiana University, US)
• Steve Jones (Northumbria University, UK)
• Murray Leeder (University of Manitoba, CA)

  
10:20 – 10:30pm BST | CONFERENCE CLOSE

• Closing Remarks with Daniel Sheppard and Wickham Clayton