Steeped in the primal discomfort of the uncanny, dolls and the houses they inhabit are an especially fluid and perennially creepy motif within popular culture. Revealing historical and on-going tensions between what it means to be human and what it means to only perform those attributes, these remnants of childhood carry with them specific cultural messaging that has been particularly fertile ground for the horror genre.
For special issue #10 (spring 2026) of Horror Homeroom, we’re diving into the world of creepy dollhouses and their inhabitants. We’re interested in abstracts about the dolls and dollhouses of horror – or of horror adjacent narratives (thrillers, mysteries, science fiction etc.).
You can focus on literal dollhouses, from the sublime (Hereditary) to the wonderfully ridiculous (Amityville Dollhouse, Doll House) – and everything in between (e.g., The Twilight Zone, Betty Ren Wright’s The Dollhouse Murders, Creepshow’s “The House of the Head,” Tales from the Hood’s “KKK Comeuppance,” Doctor Who’s “Night Terrors,” The Lovely Bones, Sharp Objects). Think also miniatures and dioramas. And you can be creative: dolls and mannequins inevitably turn the places they live into de facto dollhouses – so what are the implications of this uncanny move?
We’re interested in all media – film, fiction, TV, video games, etc. Potential topics include (but are not limited to):
- surveillance
- Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
- 20th-century Americana
- domestic safety
- display and collection
- childhood innocence/play
- fabricated domestic spaces
- artificial consciousness
- identity performance
- architectural dread
- likeness dolls
- possession
Horror Homeroom’s special issues consist of relatively short (2,000 words) well-researched articles that are written for general and academic audiences. They are carefully reviewed by the editors. Check out our special issue archive here – and explore past issues!
Please send an abstract of no more than 200 words along with a brief bio to Dawn Keetley (dek7@lehigh.edu) and Elizabeth Erwin (ele210@lehigh.edu) March 1, 2026.
We will select essays to include in the special issue within two-three weeks and notify everyone who submitted an abstract.
Completed essays will be due by May 1, 2026, and should be written for a general audience. We welcome all questions and inquiries!
Suggested Reading
Botz, Corinne May. The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. The Monacelli Press, 2004.
Bouchard, Gianna. “Murder in Miniature.” Performance Research, vol. 24, no. 5, 2019, pp. 93-100.
Briefel, Aviva. “The Terror of Very Small Worlds: Hereditary and the Miniature Scales of Horror.” Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, vol. 44, no. 3, 2022, pp. 314-327.
Bristol, Olivia, and Leslie Geddes-Brown. Dolls’ Houses: Domestic Life and Architectural Styles in Miniature from the 17th Century to the Present Day. Mitchell Beazley, 1997.
Diniz, Clara Samwell. “A Matter of Liminality: Unraveling the Uncanny in the Miniatures of Hereditary.” Estrema: Revista Interdisciplinar de Humanidades, vol. 3, no. 1, 2024, pp. 66-86.
Erwin, Elizabeth, and Dawn Keetley, “Reading The Dollhouse Murders,” Horror Homeroom, 27 May 27 2021, https://www.horrorhomeroom.com/the-bloodcurdling-book-club-reading-the-dollhouse-murders/.
Hoorn, Roxanne. “Explore the Insidious Secrets of This Haunted Dollhouse.” Atlas Obscura, 31 Oct. 2023, www.atlasobscura.com/articles/southern-gothic-haunted-dollhouse.
King, Claire Sisco. “Not Your Mom’s Dollhouse: Miniatures, Mediation, and Trauma.” Women’s Studies in Communication, vol. 48, no. 2, 2025, pp. 249-265.
Leszkiewicz, Anna. “The Rise of the Creepy Doll’s House.” New Statesman, 31 October 2018.
Lisle, Nicola. Life in Miniature: A History of Dolls’ Houses. Pen and Sword History, 2020.
Lu, Chifen. “Uncanny Dolls and Bad Children in Contemporary Gothic Narratives.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, vol. 45, no. 2, 2019, pp. 195-222.
Millhauser, Steven. “The Fascination of the Miniature.” Grand Street 2.4 (1983): 128-135.
Varat, Deborah. “Family Life Writ Small: Eighteenth-Century English Dollhouses.” Journal of Family History, vol. 42, no. 2, 2017, pp. 147-161.
Watkins, Gwynne. “A Guide to the Most Delightful — and Sinister — Dollhouses in Pop Culture.” Vulture, 19 July 2018.
Wohlwend, Karen E. “Monster High as a Virtual Dollhouse: Tracking Play Practices across Converging Transmedia and Social Media.” Teachers College Record, vol 119, no.12 (2017): 1-20.
