Candyman schedule

Friday 7 October

11.00-11.15am BST | 06.00-06.15am EASTERN | 03.00-03.15am PACIFIC

Opening Remarks – Maisha Wester

11.15am-12.30pm | 06.15-07.30am | 03.15-04.30am

Panel 1 – Candyman’s Swarm: Exploring the Film Franchise

Chair: Sorcha Ni Fhlainn (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Reece Goodall, University of Warwick – Untold stories: positioning Candyman through its unmade sequels

Gabriel Hankins, Clemson University – Candyman (2021), Care Work, and Candyman (1992): Race, Repetition, and the Reparative Horror Aesthetic

Shane Hesketh, Bowling Green State University – Slashing Genre Lines: Viewing Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh and Candyman 3: Day of the Dead as Crime Noir

12.30-1.30pm | 07.30-08.30am | 04.30-05.30am

Break / Lunch

1.30-2.45pm | 08.30-09.45am | 5.30-6.45am

Panel 2 – From Toxeth to Cabrini Green: Haunted Urban Neighborhoods

Chair: Kate E Taylor-Jones (University of Sheffield)

Sam Solnick, University of Liverpool – “Monstrous Sweetness”: Candyman, Merseyside and the Horrorcene

Ross Dawson, Liverpool John Moores University – Haunted Wastelands of “The Forbidden” and Candyman (1992)

Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski, Art Institute of Chicago – Four Walls and a Curse: Candyman’s Chicago and Art in Conflict

2.45-3.15pm | 09.45-10.15am | 06.45-07.15am

Break

3.15-4.30pm | 10.15-11.30am | 7.15-8.30am

Panel 3 – The First Time that I Saw Fear: Depicting the Traumatized Subject

Chair: Sasha Weiss (Indiana University, Bloomington)

Marisa Williams, Oregon State University – Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: De-Possessing Candyman as a Figure of the Past

Melody Blackmore, Leeds Beckett University – “I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom!”: Urban Legends and Inter-Racial Repression in the Unconscious Landscape of Helen’s Psyche in Bernard Rose’s Candyman (1992)

Li Zeng, Illinois State University – Representing Trauma in Candyman II: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and Candyman (2021)

4.30-5.00pm | 11.30am-12.00pm | 08.30-09.00am

Break

5.00-5.55pm | 12-12.55pm | 09.00-09.55am

Panel 4 – Not Just a Story: Soundscape as Narrative

Chair: Jennifer Coates (University of Sheffield)

Christy Tidwell, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology – Clipping’s “Say the Name”: What the Story of Candyman Demands from the Audience

Sean Woodard, University of Texas at Arlington – “Rearranging the Lullaby: Perpetuating Racial Themes via the Candyman Franchise’s Film Scores”

6.00-7.00 pm | 1.00-2.00pm | 10.00-11.00am

Break

7.00-8.20pm | 2.00-3.20pm | 11.00am-12.00pm

In Conversation with Bernard Rose and Tony Todd

Interviewer and Chair: Jon Towlson (film critic, University of Leeds)

Saturday 8 October

11.00-12.15 am/pm | 06.00-07.15 am | 03.00-04.15 am

Panel 5 – “What you gonna study”: Candyman’s Theoretical Grounding

Chair: Xavier Aldana Reyes (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Jack Black, Sheffield Hallam University – The Object of Horror: Gaze and Voice in Candyman

Andy McCormack, University of Cambridge – ‘Our Names Will Be Written On a Thousand Walls’: The ‘Thousand Faces’ of an Archetype

Victoria Santamaría Ibor, University of Zaragoza – From Female Abjection to Social Abjection: Race, Monstrosity and Sequelisation in Candyman

12.15-1.15pm | 07.15-08.15am | 04.15-05.15am

Break / Lunch

1.15-2.30pm | 08.15-09.30am | 05.15-06.30am

Panel 6 – Writing on the Wall: the Dynamics of Authorship

Chair: Agnieszka Monnet (University of Lausanne)

Matt Melia, Kingston University – Authoring Candyman

Marco Petrelli, University of Turin and University of Bologna – Which Story is it? Narratives of Violence and Narratives of Redemption in Candyman

Kristen Leer, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor – The Hive Lives On: Exploring Racial Revisitation in the Candyman Franchise

2.30-3.00pm | 09.30-10.00am | 06.30-07.00am

Break

3.00-4.15pm | 10.00-11.15am | 07.00-08.15am

Panel 7 – These Things Happened to Us: Speaking Black Horror

Chair: Maisha Wester (Indiana University / University of Sheffield)

Giuseppe Previtali, University of Bergamo – “Our names will be written on a thousand walls”: Narratives of Blackness and Subalternity in the Candyman Franchise

Lisa Wood, Shenandoah University – Blaxploitation, Black Gothic, and Black Agency in Horror

Britton Seese, Bowling Green State University – Candid Conversations About Candyman (Nia DaCosta, 2021)

4.15-4.45pm | 11.15-11.45am | 08.15-08.45am

Break

4.45-6.00pm| 11.45am-1.00pm | 08.45-10.00am

Panel 8 – “Candyman ain’t a he”: Exploring Gender and Subjectivity

Chair: Sam Hirst (University of Liverpool/ Oxford Brookes University)

Tracey M. Salisbury, California State University – Black Women Be Knowing: The Invisibility of Black Women in The Candyman Movie Series (1992-1999) and their (re)centering in Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (2021)

Martin Jones, Liverpool John Moores University – Candyman ain’t a He’: Gendered Folklore and the Limits of Progressivity in Candyman (DaCosta, 2021)

Tajanae Barnes, University of Central Oklahoma – Her Eyes They Swarm: Black Women, Bearing Witness, and Reclaiming Power

6.00-7.00pm | 1.00-2.00pm | 10.00-11.00am

Break

7.00-8.20pm | 2.00-3.20pm | 11.00am-12.20pm

In Conversation with Win Rosenfeld and Sherwin Ovid

Interviewer and Chair: Novotny Lawrence (Iowa State University)

9.00-10.15pm | 4.00-5.15pm | 1.00-2.15pm

Panel 9 – Urban Legends and Daily Horrors: Metaphorizing Sociopolitical Nightmare

Chair: Alicia Christina Edwards (York University)

Christopher Pizzino, University of Georgia and George Mason University – Nia DaCosta’s Candyman and the Long 1980s: Refraction and Reproduction

Melissa C. Macero, University of Illinois Chicago – Candyman, Race, and Class

Chris Lanier, University of Nevada – Told and Retold: Candyman and Films of Social Transition

Sunday 9 October

12.00am-1.15pm | 07.00-08.15am | 04.00-5.15am

Panel 10 – Say the Name: Campfire Stories, Bedtime Narratives, and Folk Metaphor

Chair: Mary Going (University of Sheffield)

Douglas Clarke, Independent scholar – Don’t Forget to Tell the Bees

Ellesse Patterson, University of Sheffield – “To a Peopled Kingdom”: Community, Wrath, and Honeybees in Bernard Rose’s Candyman (1992) and Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (2021)

Rhonda Jackson Garcia, Lone Star College – Urban Legend Begetting Folk Horror Begetting Black Legacies: Circles of Black Experiences through the Candyman (1992 and 2021)

1.15-2.15pm | 08.15-09.15am | 05.15-06.15am

Break / Lunch

2.15-3.30pm | 09.15-10.30am | 06.15-07.30am

Panel 11 – “They will say I have shed innocent blood”: the Face of the Monster

Chair: Kelsey Shawgo (University of Sheffield)

Mo Moshaty, Author – Candyman: A Study of the Urban Phantom

Eric Wesselmann, Illinois State University – Candyman as Cinematic Bogeyman?

Britt Rhuart, Bowling Green State University – Scream, Candyman, Scream!: Forbidden, Sympathetic Black Monsters on Film

3.30-4.00pm | 10.30-11.00am | 07.30-08.00am

Break

4.00-5.30pm | 11.00am-12.30pm | 08.00-09.30am

Keynote Panel

Featuring: Kinitra Brooks, Tananarive Due, Robin R. Means Coleman, and Jon Towlson

Chair: Desiree Reynolds (author)

5.30-6.30pm | 12.30-1.30pm | 09.30-10.30am

Break

6.30-7.15pm | 1.30-2.15pm | 10.30-11.15am

Panel 12 – Scared of something?: Candyman’s Ghosts

Chair: Jamie Coates (University of Sheffield)

Emily Hammerton-Barry, University of Sheffield – Spectral Realities: The Politics of Ghosting and The Spectre of Race in Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (2021)

Jasmine A. Moore, University of California, Riverside – “Who Can Take Tomorrow, Dip it in a Dream?” Dark Time and Reclamation in Nia DaCosta’s Candyman

Laura Thorp, University of South Carolina – An Absent Presence and a Present Absence: Ghosts, Haunting, and the Anti-Blackness of Capitalism in Candyman

7.15-7.45pm | 2.15-2.45pm | 11.15-11.45pm

Closing remarks – John Jennings

8.00-9.00pm BST | 3.00-4.00pm EASTERN | 12.00-1.00pm PACIFIC

PANEL 13 – The Art of Rumor: Final Thoughts on Candyman’s Legacy

Roundtable discussion premiering on YouTube featuring:

John Jennings (University of California, Riverside)

Keith Harris (University of California, Riverside)

Courtney Baker (University of California, Riverside)

Watch on YouTube.