CFP for a Cambridge University Symposium: "The Alchemical Landscape: Counterculture, Occulture and the Geographic Turn"

Here's another call for papers that has been doing the rounds, this time for an upcoming symposium to be held at Cambridge University.

“The Alchemical Landscape: Counterculture, Occulture and the Geographic Turn”

Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, 23rd March 2015. An interdisciplinary symposium presented by the Cambridge University Counterculture Research Group

"If any one book put ley lines on the map, re-enchanted the British landscape and made Glastonbury the capital of the New Age it was John Michell's seminal 1969 tome The View Over Atlantis." ---Bob Rickard, Fortean Times, 2009.

In an age of vast ecological crisis and a widespread re-calibration of the arts and humanities towards questions of eco-criticism, an increasing number of writers, artists and film-makers are re-investing the British landscape with esoteric and mythic imagery. From the revival of 'Folk Horror' to the cross-over between magical and artistic practice, this 'enchanted' representation of the rural works as both a link to the past and an articulation of pressing contemporary concerns.

This special one-day symposium at the University of Cambridge seeks to explore the creative, aesthetic and political implications of this 'geographic turn'. 300-word proposals for presentations of up to 20 minutes are invited on any aspect of this theme. Possible topics could include but are not limited to:

300-word proposals for presentations of up to 20 minutes are invited on any aspect of this theme.

Possible topics could include but are not limited to:

* John Michell, T.C. Lethbridge, J.A Baker, T.H. White, Helen Macdonald, Paul Devereux, Andrew Collins, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Alan Moore, Derek Jarman, Penny Slinger, Arthur Machen, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, Dennis Parry, Sven Berlin, Geraldine Monk, Michael Bracewell, Gary Spencer Millidge, Alice Oswald, David Pinner, Diana Durham, Charlotte Hussey, Brian Catling, Janni Howker.

* English Heretic, Ghost Box, Drew Mulholland, Julian Cope, The Outer Church, Pye Corner Audio, Matt Shaw, The Sinister Insult, Phil Legard, The Geography Trip, The Wyrding Module, The Haunted Shoreline, The House in the Woods, Wyrd England Gazetteer, The Soulless Party, A Year in the Country, Wyrdstone, Scarfolk, The Old Weird Albion, The Sons of T.C. Lethbridge, Psychic Field Recordings.

* The Stone Tape, Children of the Stones, Quatermass and the Pit, A Field in England, The Wicker Man, Blood on Satan's Claw, Antichrist, Voodoo Science Park, Robinson in Ruins, On Vanishing Land, Cobra Mist, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, The Owl Service, Robin Redbreast, Penda's Fen.

* Mystical, visionary and imaginative landscapes, folklore, hauntology, alternative nostalgia, psychogeography, speculative archaeology, inner space, psychedelic pastoralism, the contemporary bucolic.

* The creative potential of magical thinking, Fortean phenomena and parapsychological practices: crop circles, dowsing, residual haunting, remote viewing, geomancy.

Proposals can be e-mailed to: thealchemicallandscape@gmail.com. Deadline: 5th January 2015. Please include a short biographical note with your submission. 

Yvonne Salmon FRSA FRGS FRAI

Preceptor, Corpus Christi College

Lecturer, University of Cambridge

James Riley FRSA

Fellow of English

Corpus Christi College

University of Cambridge