*CFP* "THE CINEMA OF YORGOS LANTHIMOS: A CINEMA OF APATHY", EDITED COLLECTION

The cinema of Yorgos Lanthimos is emerging as one of the most exciting bodies of work in contemporary film. Lanthimos broke into feature filmmaking with the romantic-comedy My Best Friend before going on to direct his own screenplay with the considerably more experimental Kinetta, a film that foreshadowed much of his later work. Lanthimos found international acclaim with Dogtooth in 2009, which was followed by a string of festival hits that include Alps, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and The Favourite. While Lanthimos is mostly known for his work as a director, he has also notably served as actor and producer in collaborator Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg. There are arguments to be made that Lanthimos’s cinema demonstrates clear authorial continuity between texts, and is recognisable for its contravention of aesthetic, thematic and generic boundaries. Across an impressive body of work, Lanthimos has demonstrated a sustained preoccupation with trauma, grief, loss, loneliness, sex and violence that continue to be the thematic currency of his work.  Given the recent success of The Favourite, and coinciding with Lanthimos's now considerable status within international film discourse, it is high time that he is given the scholarly scrutiny that his cinema deserves. In keeping with the range of perspectives that Lanthimos’s cinema invites, an edited collection of writing will allow for an evocative survey of approaches to one of the most distinct filmographies in contemporary cinema.

This collection has considerable interest from a major publisher. I invite abstracts from both new and established scholars.

Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:

• Any of Lanthimos’ feature films 
• Lanthimos and film philosophy 
• Cognitive approaches to Lanthimos 
• National identity and/or history 
• Violence and/or sexual violence 
• Genre, convention and experimentation 
• Lanthimos and auteur theory 
• Lanthimos and intimacy 
• Lanthimos and hyperrealism 
• Lanthimos and Greek cinema 
• Aesthetic approaches to Lanthimos’s cinema 
• Feminist approaches to Lanthimos 
• Gender, sexuality and queer identity 
• Affect theory and performance 
• Political and/or ethical approaches to Lanthimos 
• Lanthimos and narrative theory 
• Lanthimos and absurdism 
• Lanthimos and sacrifice 
• Lanthimos and metaphor 
• Trauma, loss and grief 
• Lanthimos as producer and/or performer

Submission details

I would like to invite chapter proposals of approximately 250 words, accompanied by a short biographical statement. The deadline for ab­stract submissions is July 26, 2019. Please send your proposals and/or any inquiries to lanthimoseditedcollection@gmail.com. Accepted contributors will be expected to submit their full chap­ters of 6,000-8,000 words (including endnotes) by December 2, 2019.

Edited by Eddie Falvey, University of Exeter/Plymouth College of Art