The Northeast Alliance for Scholarship on the Fantastic and the Allied Fantastic Areas (NAS-FAFA?) is calling for papers for a conference at Southern New Hampshire University, in October 2020. Deadline: 1st June 2020. The venue is said to be “two hours from Providence”, by American reckoning of such things.

1) Specifically they want new papers that highlight ‘Wonder and the Marvellous’…

the more positive aspects of the fantastic genre … texts that bring about a sense of wonder in their receivers through their representation of the marvellous

Which seems to fit Lovecraft’s Dreamlands tales, and opens the door for a rare appreciation of tales such as “Iranon”, “The Cats of Ulthar”, and even “Hypnos”, or a survey of the quite extensive influence of his Dreamlands in rock music and comics from circa 1966-1986. “Hypnos”, especially, has been curiously neglected by critics. For instance, neither Joshi or Klinger have annotated it despite its rich vein of references and allusions. But I have an annotated version about 70% done, which will fill that gap, and which may perhaps be released for Lovecraft’s 2020 birthday.

2) The other part of the call is for ‘Monsters & the Monstrous’. But specifically papers on the scariness of such things, and how in devising such scariness an artist can draw on other traditions…

the things, whether mundane or marvelous, that scare us [discussed in papers which offer] fresh explorations into [how creatives have drawn on and transformed] texts from various countries, time periods, and media.

Which may offer some possibilities for paper on Lovecraft’s uses of the Classical tradition, and Lovecraft’s creative transformation of his fear of seeing the tradition’s dissolution in the face of modernity.