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:
- 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.
Conveners
Yvonne Salmon FRSA FRGS FRAI
Preceptor, Corpus Christi
College
Lecturer, University
of Cambridge
www.eviesalmon.com
James Riley FRSA
Fellow of English
Corpus Christi
College
University of
Cambridge
