*CFP* "POST-CONFLICT CULTURES IN ASIA", MAJOR VOLUME, THE STUDIES IN POST-CONFLICT CULTURES SERIES

Critical, Cultural and Communications Press (London) announces the publication in early 2023 of a major volume focusing on post-conflict cultures in Asia.

The Studies in Post-Conflict Cultures series, which was inaugurated in 2006, has to this date published ten anthologies and three monographs exploring the cultural consequences of conflict across the globe. This is an ongoing series, originating in an Anglo-Italian Leverhulme-funded project, examining the specifically cultural aftermath of periods of national or international conflict, understood as war, civil war, dictatorship, terrorism, revolution, colonialism or persecution. 

No chronological or disciplinary boundaries are applied. Studies may be historical or contemporary, and may fall within any subject field. The ten volumes so far published have brought together international experts from disciplines as diverse as Political Science, History, Law, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Semiotics, Geography, Film Studies, Anthropology and Literature Studies. CCC Press intends to publish a major volume of papers on post-conflict cultures in Asia in the first half of 2023. 

*CFP* "HUMANISM AND THE FICTIONAL REPRESENTARIONS OF MONARCHS IN LITERATURE, ARTS AND MEDIA", BOOK CHAPTER

When Gilgamesh rejected the advances of Ishtar and refused to do what his father did, he renounced the status of the chosen lover and champion of the Goddess and (unwittingly) decided to be human. The death of Enkido made him realize that he is no longer favored by the Gods. His failed attempt to reach immortality can be read as an attempt to regain the former status he renounced. The epic of Gilgamesh, like other epics, anounces the severing of the connection between the divine and the human in the political realm. After Gilgamesh, the biographies of Mesopotamian rulers started to seem more human despite the formulaic presence of the divine. In ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, Monarchs were either gods or descendents of gods. In the Medieval age, he devine right of kings replaced the old myths about the divine lineage of monarchs. Machiavelli's realpolitiks and the advent of Renaissance humanism put the concept of divine right in question. The human rather than the divine started to define the monarchs in the West. In the East, however, while Europe was restricting its monarchs, the Meiji restoration puts the emperor at the center of the political system in Japan. The Victorian and Edwardian ages are the last literary periods to be named after monarchs. They both witnessed the rise of Gothic literature. The figure of Dracula strikes the reader as a monarchic figure. But this monarch is a posthuman figure cursed with immortality and a hunger for human blood. In recent years, the gothic and horror genres have gained remarkable popularity in cinema and popular culture. The figures of the Mummy and the vampire are usually depicted as monarchic figures that seek revenge for past wrongs. Revenge is closely related to the theme of royalty. In classical and Renaissance, modern and contemporary revenge narratives where loyalty to a deceased patriarch gives legitimacy to the actions of their heirs. Indeed, revenge narratives in Shakespeare and beyond are generally based on father-son emotional dynamics. These emotional dynamics are described as monarchic by Martha C Nussbaum in her book Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. In Victorian and contemporary horror fiction, the father-son dynamics are more complex as the royal father is the past self of the revenant. 

*CFP* "SUPERHEROES: A COMPANION", BOOK CHAPTER

As media texts show us superheroes from around the world(s), demonstrating extraordinary abilities and living a life shaped by a moral code, how we define their iconic features and cultural impact has been the focus of much scholarly debate.

Superheroes have proliferated and multiplied in the 21st Century, coming to prominence in film, television, and video game industries the same way that their popular narratives had begun to flourish in the comic book industry some eighty years before. Yet, while all of these stories and characters are tethered to these early years of the genre, through iterative retellings, reboots, and cultural readjustments, superheroes have consistently found renewed life in modern and contemporary re-imaginings.

Seen through examples, such as the synergy of “Batmania”, the convergence culture of the MCU, the conglomerate hierarchies that facilitate the Arkham games, or the multi-verse publications that enable spaces for a female Thor or an Afro-Latino Spider-man, superheroes continue to evolve through the conditions of their production and the cultural discourses that they engender. 

*CFP* "DRACONES IN MUNDO: DRAGONS IN LITERATURE, FILM, AND POP CULTURE", A SERIES OF EDITED VOLUMES

As the popularity of mythical creatures in films and literature grows, there is one creature that remains prominent: the dragon. Dragons have become most visible recently in the cinematic versions of The Hobbit and in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones Series). However, there are other films, such as Dragonslayer (1981), Reign of Fire (2002), Dragonheart (1996), and the How to Train Your Dragon series (2010-2019), and numerous adult and children’s literature series that feature dragons.

This call for papers will result in several themed volumes under each of these main headings:

 

Full volume(s):

• Wings, Wonders, and Warriors: Dragons in Children’s Literature and Graphic Novels

*CFP* "EPIC AND ICONIC: ESSAYS ON THE WORK, INFLUENCE, AND LEGACY OF ALEX ROSS", BOOK CHAPTER

Nelson Alexander Ross, better known as Alex, has exerted nearly thirty years of profound influence upon sequential art storytelling. Ross emerged into the comics world in the early 1990s with his work on Terminator: Burning Earth, Marvels, and Kingdom Come, immediately establishing his photorealistic style of painting, influenced by Norman Rockwell, Salvador Dali, and Andrew Loomis, among others.

In the years since, Ross has drawn and painted nearly every recognizable character in the Marvel and DC universes, expanded the storytelling capacity of the graphic novel form, and taken home numerous Eisner and Harvey awards. His prolific output can be found across media platforms, from traditional comics to art galleries, from film and television to magazines, toys, and video games.

Given Ross’s substantial and acclaimed level of production, it is no exaggeration to consider him among the most important commercial artists of his generation – and yet, his work has garnered little academic interest. In this collection, we hope to curate the first definitive set of scholarly perspectives on Ross’s creative approach, his interventions into sequential art narrative and aesthetics, and his lasting influences upon popular culture and the creative community.

*CFP* "THE CLIMATE CATASTROPHE: A CREATIVE AND CRITICAL SURVIVAL GUIDE", BOOK PROJECT

The Climate Catastrophe: A Creative and Critical Survival Guide is a book project that builds on the ethos of the three (to date) eco_media symposia, in proposing an interdisciplinary response to the various catastrophes – human and nonhuman – currently threatening the planet. The editors of The Climate Catastrophe are posting an open call for chapter proposals. Chapters should address the current climate situation in various ways: some pieces will be critical/theoretical/empirical in nature, where others will recount and describe creative approaches through art, filmmaking, sound design, and photography.

With the circulation of vaccines around the world, we thought we were shifting to a new phase of life after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Delta variant of the virus threatens populations worldwide, plunging millions back into lockdown. The core questions for this publication will thus be: how might we maintain focus on environmental issues, on the ever-present existential threat that predated the chaos of 2020? How has the pandemic changed – and how does it continue to change – our approach to or understanding of our world and our place in it? What creative, theoretical, empirical or philosophical approaches might best help us move forward in innovative and responsible ways?

Topics could include — but are not limited to:

*CFP* "THEOLOGY AND VAMPIRES", THEOLOGY AND POP CULTURE SERIES COLLECTED VOLUME

From the ‘vampire craze’ of the eighteenth century, and up to contemporary takes on the genre, vampire narratives have been inextricably bound up with theological questions. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula and its many adaptations, the vampire is repelled by the crucifix and the consecrated Host. Two puncture wounds on the victim’s neck in Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ make the doctor send for a clergyman. In Anne Rice’s Memnoch the Devil, Lestat believes that he has witnessed the Crucifixion and tasted Christ’s blood. ‘God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we; for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves’, he tells Louis in Interview with the Vampire, styling himself as a God, and mimicking divine omnipotence. But he has no answers to give Louis, no revelation, and no known salvation or solace, because he is just like him in their shared vampiric nature. What do these examples tell us about where the vampire sits in relation to the divine? And what kind of theological vision do vampire stories uncover?

Given the richness of theological substratum in vampire fiction, we invite submissions for a collected volume entitled Theology and Vampires, for the Theology and Pop Culture Series published by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic. The aim of this volume is to explore the theology of vampires, with a particular focus on the pop culture aspect of vampire narratives. We are seeking essays exploring the theological implications of the vampire across a wide range of media, from popular Victorian tales through to films, video games, and animated series.

*CFP* "REFOCUS: THE FILMS OF ABEL FERRARA", BOOK CHAPTER

Over his four-decade long career, Abel Ferrara has built himself a reputation of being one of the most audacious and unconventional filmmakers in contemporary cinema. After his beginnings in the exploitation circuit of late 1970s he developed to become one of the central figures in the ‘indie’ wave of the 1980s and 90s and is by now a frequent guest at the leading international film festivals in Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Locarno.

Ferrara’s unique career covers the entire cinematic spectrum from grindhouse to arthouse but has seldomly been at the center of scholarly attention. The prospective collection of essays (planned to appear in the ReFocus series at Edinburgh University Press) aims to close this gap by offering a comprehensive critical survey of the director’s multi-faceted oeuvre covering his narrative features as well as his documentaries and his work for television.

In order to ensure a broad range of methodological, theoretical, historical or philosophical perspectives on Ferrara’s work, scholars of film studies and related fields such as cultural studies, screen and media studies, or philosophy are invited to submit a short abstract (approx. 300 words) for essays to be included in the collection. 

*CFP* "SATANISM AND FEMINISM IN POPULAR CULTURE", EDITED COLLECTION

In 2017 historian Per Faxneld published the landmark study Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture. The book argues for the existence of a nineteenth-century counter-reading of Satan that constructed the Devil as a symbol of women's liberation, progressive values, and intellectual freedom. For nineteenth- and early twentieth-century suffragists, artists, and radical thinkers, Satan served as an empowering model of self-determination and nonconformity. This collection seeks to build on the work of Faxneld and other scholars of the Satanic by mapping some of how Satanism has been employed as a lens through which to explore issues related to gender, sexuality, and feminist activism in twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular culture.

In the twentieth century, Satanism flourished as part of 1960s and 1970s popular Occulture, moving from real-life satanic organisations like the Church of Satan (founded in 1966) to sensationalist portrayals in films like Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Exorcist (1973). In both its real-world and fictional incarnations, Satanism often collided with issues central to the women's movement: reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and gender-based violence. Satan also served as a symbol of women's liberation in many texts of this period, with films like Black Sunday (1960), Don't Deliver Us from Evil (1971), The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), and Alucarda (1977) portraying Satanic women as alluring, even empowering, figures. Now, in the twenty-first century, Satanism retains its complex imbrication with feminist discourse and activism. Organisations like the Satanic Temple (founded in 2012) utilise Satanic iconography in campaigns for reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ rights. Around the same time, a new wave of films and television shows utilised Satanic ideas and iconography to explore feminist themes.

*CFP* CALL FOR PROPOSALS, CRITICAL COMPANIONS TO POPULAR DIRECTORS SERIES

The series covers many directors who have not been studied previously in academic publications and whose works nonetheless are highly renowned nowadays. The intent of the series is to offer interesting and illuminating interpretations of the various directors’ films that will be accessible to both scholars of the academic community and critically-minded fans of the directors’ works. Each volume combines discussions of a director’s oeuvre from a broad range of disciplines and methodologies, thus offering the reader a variegated and compelling picture of the directors’ works. In this sense, the volumes will be of interest (and will be instructive) for students and scholars engaged in subjects as different as film studies, literature, philosophy, popular culture studies, religion and others. We welcome proposals for both monographs and edited collections that offer interdisciplinary analyses, focusing on the complete oeuvre of one contemporary director per volume.

Proposals may include (but are certainly not limited to) the following directors:

• Woody Allen; 
• Luc Besson; 
• Katryn Bigelow; 

*CFP* "CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA", EDITED COLLECTION

In the world of teen drama (or YA drama, as some prefer), there are a number of ways to represent adolescence and its attendant horrors, and we’ve seen a great deal of fantasy-based approaches; beginning with Buffy, some establish that high school is actual hell. But few series come close to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s devotion to that idea. The Netflix series (2018-20), based on the Archie Comics spin-off and featuring a much darker version of Sabrina Spellman, may be difficult for audiences to reconcile with ABC’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the previous adaptation. While one is a teen sitcom in which Sabrina’s powers get her into wacky situations, and she is supported by a talking Salem the cat, the other might feel closer to The Craft. However different this version of Greendale is from what we may be used to, it certainly offers much to explore.

We invite proposals for a forthcoming collection of essays on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and welcome those that engage with industry perspectives, textual approaches, audience studies, and issues of critical reception. We anticipate a broad audience for this collection, which includes scholars as well as students of the humanities at both graduate and undergraduate levels. As such, submissions from contributors at various levels and from diverse fields are encouraged. 

*CFP* "FILM EXHIBITION: THE ITALIAN CONTEXT", SYMPOSIUM AND EDITED VOLUME

This symposium and edited volume seeks to draw together research into cinematic exhibition in Italy throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century. Current research into Italian cinema is continuously expanding its purview to consider the great range of genres, forms and contexts that have been engaged by filmmakers working in the country. Similarly, recent studies have shone vital light on the complex make up of Italy’s film audiences, and on the practices of film producers and distributors in the country. This project will continue this critical expansion by investigating the myriad ways in which film media (both Italian and foreign) has been exhibited and consumed in Italy. It aims to investigate both the audience experience of film exhibition and the practices of exhibitors themselves (eg their programming habits, the construction and restoration of cinemas, their relationships with distributors and political organisations etc).

Possible subjects of discussion could include, but are not limited to:

• The screening of silent/early films at travelling fairs and other public events 
• The establishment/construction of Italy’s first purpose-built cinemas 
• The conversion of Italian cinemas to sound 

*CFP* "QUEER VISUALS: GENDER, SEXUALITY AND INDIAN CINEMA", BOOK CHAPTER

How society represents its gender and sexual minorities, and whether the visual media should, at all, bear the responsibility of fair and equal representation, form two crucial discourses for a broader discussion in the field of gender studies at present. While ancient Indian society treated sexuality as a fluid concept, homosexuality eventually acquired the label of being a sin or crime primarily during the British Raj. However, the Indian society, as a whole, attempted to engage in constant historical, social and political struggles, the result of which was the decriminalization of the Act 377 terming it as ‘unconstitutional’ in 2018 by the Supreme Court of India. In the post-independent era, the cultural representation of gender identities had undergone a drastic transformation in various forms of visual media. Indian Cinema, one of the most common and easily accessible mediums of entertainment to the common mass, represented gender discourses not only through its stories, but also the songs that it incorporated and which served very much to forward the narrative of the plot, unlike its Western counterpart.

While commercial Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood, has come a long way in its depiction of diversified gender identities, the stereotypes of comical relief and voyeurism still remain its dominant feature. Since songs play a crucial role in facilitating the narrative of the plot, the lyrics used also form a crucial space for critical investigation in the field of gender studies, and to understand in what ways Hindi songs uphold or subvert traditional gender roles. Though in non-Hindi Indian cinema, gender representation in commercial films and songs has often paralleled their Hindi counterparts, there has often been acclaimed efforts by Indian filmmakers who handled the subject and presented the story with a sense of ingenuity, along with sensitivity and sincerity, thus making a mark of socio-cultural significance. 

*CFP* "SUICIDE AND POPULAR CULTURE", BOOK CHAPTER

According to the World Health Organization, more than 700,000 people die by suicide every year; one in 100 global deaths is by suicide. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 45,000 deaths by suicide (14.2 per 100,000) for the year 2020, representing a 30 percent increase over a 20-year period. Suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death in the U.S., and among persons between the ages of 10 to 34, it is the second leading cause. Women are more likely than men to attempt suicide, but men are three to four times more likely than women to die by suicide. In short, suicide is an intractable public and global health issue that has shown few signs of abating. The growing salience of suicide in popular culture is unsurprising in light of these worrisome trends.

Representations of suicide and suicidality abound in popular culture. More recent examples include young adult literature like Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why and Jennifer Niven’s All the Bright Places, on which the Netflix original series and movie, respectively, were based; narrative videogames like Life is Strange, The Suicide of Rachel Foster, and Indigo Prophecy; Charles Forsman’s graphic novel, I Am Not Okay with This (also the basis of a Netflix series); the ABC TV series, A Million Little Things; Eric Steel’s documentary film, The Bridge; and media coverage of and tributes to celebrity suicides like Robin Williams, Anthony Bourdain, Mindy McCready, and Chester Bennington. As many of these representations illustrate, suicide is not reducible to a singular cause, but lies at the juncture of myriad intersecting forces. 

*CFP* "ESSAYS ON POLICE AND POLICING IN 21ST CENTURY FILM AND TELEVISION", BOOK COLLECTION

The Black Lives Matter movement, the trial and conviction of Derek Chauvin, calls to defund the police, the prominence in the media of killer police such as Joseph James DeAngelo are recent manifestations of intense and even unprecedented levels of media attention on policing at interlocking points of race, inequality, social justice and political agendas.  Equally, exciting cross-disciplinary engagement between fields of justice studies, criminology, cultural studies and popular culture are increasingly opening up.

Police have been the inspiration for and focus of countless film and television stories, a long-standing dramatic strain that is a fictional backdrop to the intense recent public scrutiny, and at times rejection of policing. Perceptions of the police are shaped by these long standing narrative forms of film and television that can also convey other shapers of perception, from bodycam footage to mobile phone recordings. At this point of exceptional pressure on police conduct and the uncertain paths that policing will take in the 21st century, this collection is intended to be a topical opportunity to examine the themes of how police and policing are perceived and portrayed and these points are intended as the focal point for each contribution. We are assembling a special collection of essays that consider addressing the intersection of police and policing with film and television in the 21st century. 

*CFP* "BODIES OF WATER IN AFRICAN AMERICAN FICTION & FILM", BOOK CHAPTER

We invite abstracts for a new book of original essays which explore the meaning and/or function of still or moving bodies of water -- lakes, rivers, the sea, gulfs, streams, ponds, canals -- in narratives by African Americans.  In particular, we seek other innovative and provocative critiques of images of water in 20th and 21st Century African American fiction and film, poetry and drama.  At once, a few pieces of literature and film come to mind:  August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean; Zora Neal Hurston’s Janie Crawford in the Everglades; Michelle Cliff’s short story collection, Bodies of Water; so much of Toni Morrison’s fiction; readings of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust; Spike Lee on Hurricane Katrina; and, Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou, for example.  Our volume wants analyses which acknowledge the legitimacy of but move beyond the familiar or conventional interpretations of the Atlantic Ocean Middle Passage and/or Transatlantic Slave Trade.  

Some possible questions for African American analysis, including environmental or ecocritical contemplation:

• What roles do bodies of water play in African American literary and filmic creative imagination?  In particular, how does the trope of water/waterways get interwoven into works by African American authors and filmmakers?  

*CFP* "ESPORTS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC", PALGRAVE SERIES IN ASIA AND PACIFIC STUDIES VOLUME

Over the last two decades, the Asia-Pacific region has been central to the growth and development of esports. The establishment in 2000 of the Korean Esports Association placed competitive gaming within a government ministry at a time when it was still a niche hobby in other parts of the world (Jin, 2010). Three years later, the Chinese government also recognized esports, making it the country's 99th official sport, and broadcasting esports documentaries and tournaments on state-owned television stations (Lu, 2016).

Today, the region remains a major esports site, with Jakarta hosting an exhibition esports tournament as part of the 2018 Asian games (Etchells, 2018), and Hangzhou set to host the first medalling esports Olympic event as part of the 2022 Asian games (The 19th Asian Games, 2021).

Asia is also a huge esports market. It is the fastest growing esports sector in the world and in 2019 it “generated nearly half of total global esports revenue at $519 million” (Niko Partners, 2020). The size of the Asian population plays a key role in both the number of spectators and the number of esports athletes from the region: “According to Juniper, 50% of the over 1 billion esports and games viewers in 2025 will be from the Asia Pacific region” (Campe, 2021).

*CFP* "THE WORKS OF SHONDA RHIMES", SCREEN STORYTELLING EDITED VOLUME

This edited volume on the works of Shonda Rhimes will be the first book in a new series to be published by Bloomsbury Academic. Seeking 250-word abstracts for previously unpublished essays on television series created by Rhimes. Final essays will be 3,000-3,500 words, written for an audience of student readers, and will be due in the Spring of 2022.

The Screen Storytelling series is designed for students, professors, and enthusiastic consumers of film, television, and new media who seek information about contemporary and historically significant screenwriters that is both accessible and critically rigorous. The intention with this new series is to bring much-deserved attention to screen and television writers who have developed noteworthy films and television series of significant aesthetic or cultural achievement, critical acclaim, or commercial success, and to offer close readings of the films and series from the perspective of story, screenwriting craft, audience reception, and cultural impact. Each volume will explore the works of a single screen storyteller. The series will place a strong focus on examining works by screenwriters often left out of classroom syllabi, including women, writers of color, LGBTQ writers, and international writers. (Note: The Works of Jane Anderson is slated as the second volume in the series.)

 

The Works of Shonda Rhimes

*CFP* "MANY DOORS TO FANTASTICA: THE NEVERENDING STORY & THE EDUCATION OF THE IMAGINATION", EDITED VOLUME

When thinking of family films from the 1980s, the plethora of weird yet engaging movies seems endless. Chief among them was Wolfgang Petersen’s 1984 film adaption of The Neverending Story. The film drew from Michael Ende’s 1979 Die unendliche Geschichte: Von A bis Z, known better by the English title which was shared with the film. Ende’s book ultimately spawned three films, two animated series, a hit song which has been covered by musicians in a variety of genres, and a host of short stories written as tributes to the imaginative work. Ende’s work managed to secure a spot in the collective memory of Americans. References to the film and the book populate television shows. This collection of essays seeks to engage in interdisciplinary readings and viewings which will help shed light on the lasting power of Ende’s fictional world.

The multifaceted framework of Ende’s story helps to shape the interdisciplinary approach of this collection. The lines between reality and fiction, between characters, and between purposes are all blurred in such a way that there is much to mine from the stores rich layers. This volume hopes to do the same by investigating the text from a variety of viewpoints, as well as offering pedagogical approaches for the classroom. It also seeks to highlight the various media representations of Ende’s story, including the films and cartoon adaptations. In the end, the book will enrich the reading and viewing experiences for those for whom Bastian and Atreyu are a part of their imaginative fabric, as well as serving as a gateway for those just coming to Fantastica for the first time. Contributors are invited to submit paper proposals that approach the imagination from a variety of lenses.

*CFP* "THE IDEA OF THE SHAKESPEARE ACTOR", EDITED COLLECTION

What comes to mind when we think about the Shakespearean actor, or Shakespearean acting? What do actors past, present, and future consider ‘Shakespearean acting’ to be? Is the idea of the Shakespearean actor helpful, or does it limit and restrict the notion of what Shakespearean performance can be?

Histories of Shakespearean acting have often provided catalogues of names weighted in favour of white cisgender actors including David Garrick, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, and Mark Rylance, in favour of cerebral or declamatory performance styles, and in favour of performing in an English accent. This collection will read against the grain of theatre history to confront the idea of the Shakespearean actor.

As performance trends have changed over the last thirty or forty years, and as landmark works in Shakespeare and early modern performance studies have shown, the limits and definition of ‘the Shakespearean’ have expanded.[1] New approaches address the limits of a teleological, British-centric approach to the histories of Shakespearean acting and acting practices: there have been interesting challenges to the limits of 'Shakespearean acting' from earlier periods, from figures such as Ira Aldridge, Paul Robeson, Asta Nielsen, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, Fanny Furnival, Sarah Siddons, and even Edward Kynaston.