*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* "MAKING A MURDERER: TRUE CRIME IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE", SPECIAL ISSUE, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS CRIME FICTION STUDIES JOURNAL

“Everybody’s fascinated with the notion that there is a cause and effect,” claims notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, quoted in the Netflix original, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019) – that we can “put our finger on it,” and reassuringly rationalise the genesis of the uniquely modern phenomenon of the American serial killer. But when there is “absolutely nothing” in the background of a serial murderer that would lead one to believe they were “capable of committing murder,” how do we begin to acclimatise ourselves to this violent defect of contemporary history? More challengingly, how do we bring depth to our collective portrait of what constitutes a murderer, so that we may then self-exempt our compulsion to look more closely at these perversely familiar figures? 

Over the last 50 years, a plethora of books, magazines, film and television adaptations on the subject of true crime has captured – and held – the public imagination in a vice-like grip, ultimately achieving cult status in postwar-American society while furthermore granting the white male serial killer the kind of cultural capital usually awarded only to celebrities. With the enormous popularity of such series as Making a Murderer (2015) and Mindhunter (2017), however, it seems like now, more than ever, the uneasy question of why we continue to glorify killers by inserting them into mainstream media – and what exactly the appeal of this enduring genre and its mythologization of ultraviolent masculinities tells us about ‘who we are’ and the nature of American society itself – has acquired a new level of urgency, which, in turn, requires new depths of understanding. Likewise, with the growing Netflixisation of true crime, and the narrativization of true crime more broadly, now is the time to establish a study that evaluates the politics of the ever-increasing fine line between actual crime documentaries versus fictional shows that reference true crime.

*CFP* "ENTERTAINMENT AND AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE SINCE 1950", COLLECTION OF ESSAYS

Popular Culture has been an integral factor in the fabric of America since its inception. Indeed, the clothes we wear, the music we listen to, the film and television we watch, literature we consume and other facets of our daily being is heavily, if not entirely influenced by the culture that we reside in. Exploring this culture can reveal some of our most deeply held beliefs and assumptions, ideas that we may otherwise take for granted. This is particularly the case since the mid 20th century. 

We are soliciting proposals for a collection of essays on Entertainment and American Popular Culture Since 1950. Submitted proposals should discuss any of the following topics, celebrities, events, awards, music, pageants, film, television, race, gender, religion, literature, sexuality, family. technology etc… Essays must focus on the topic of entertainment or the entertainment industry in some fashion.

While we will consider submissions from ABD’S and individuals from varied academic backgrounds, STRONG PREFERENCE will be given to Ph.D.’s, Ed.D’s, MFA’s, MBA’s , Juris Doctorate’s , Journalists, MD’s and others with terminal degrees. 

*CFP* "BLACK AND QUEER, MUSIC ON SCREEN", SPECIAL ISSUE, LIQUID BLACKNESS JOURNAL

This special issue of liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies proposes to work on Black Queer expression in audiovisual musics cutting across histories of the avant-garde, popular audiovisuality, and frameworks both transnational and critically transhistorical. The goal of the issue is to set up the framework for a survey of Black and Queer musicality in audiovisual media so as to suggest “non-contemporaneous” dialogues between and across historical registers and media platforms, so that the critical expressive power of non-conforming persons of color become a given rather than an alibi, an absence, or a projection.

From early sound cinema to the present, queer or gender non-conforming black artists have voiced a complex series of claims, propositions, demands, and desires, from the introduction of sound to the cinematic screen to the introduction of social media video in networked digital cultures. Black feminist and queer scholarship has often engaged with the meanings and powers expressed in these works, or in musical artists indebted to them or referencing them, from Angela Davis’ reading of transformations of historical memory in Smith’s St. Louis Blues (Blues Legacies and Black Feminisms), to Lindon Barrett’s study of Billie Holiday (Blackness and Value), to Saidiya Hartman’s discussion of errancy in relation to woman-identified women singers in the early years of recording (Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments), and Daphne Brooks’ recent reading of black women’s use of arrangement, sonic curation, and blackness as technology (Liner Notes for the Revolution) in articulating a politics of being and becoming. 

*CFP* "BEHIND THE SCREEN AND OFF THE STAGE: FILM AND TELEVISION REPRESENTATIONS OF AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT", TWO-DAY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

Behind the Screen and Off the Stage: Film and Television Representations of American Entertainment

Two-Day Virtual Conference

12 and 13 November 2021

London Metropolitan University

 

Movies and television shows set in the world of American entertainment have been a central feature of the big and small screens since the early days of Hollywood. From the backstage musical to the star biopic, and from the rise-and-fall narrative to critiques of the business of show, screen narratives have repeatedly sought to dramatize life behind the scenes of American entertainment. Their persistent allure is illustrated in film and television history ranging from Show People (1928) to All About Eve (1950), and from Valley of the Dolls (1967) to Fosse/Verdon (2019) and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020). The ten Oscar nominations announced for David Fincher’s 2020 film Mank only reinforce the appeal of the genre for audiences, directors and the film and television industries as reflections on entertainment history in the digital age.

*CFP* "MAKING A MURDERER: TRUE CRIME IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE", SPECIAL ISSUE, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS CRIME FICTION STUDIES JOURNAL

“Everybody’s fascinated with the notion that there is a cause and effect,” claims notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, quoted in the Netflix original, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019) – that we can “put our finger on it,” and reassuringly rationalise the genesis of the uniquely modern phenomenon of the American serial killer. But when there is “absolutely nothing” in the background of a serial murderer that would lead one to believe they were “capable of committing murder,” how do we begin to acclimatise ourselves to this violent defect of contemporary history? More challengingly, how do we bring depth to our collective portrait of what constitutes a murderer, so that we may then self-exempt our compulsion to look more closely at these perversely familiar figures? 

Over the last 50 years, a plethora of books, magazines, film and television adaptations on the subject of true crime has captured – and held – the public imagination in a vice-like grip, ultimately achieving cult status in postwar-American society while furthermore granting the white male serial killer the kind of cultural capital usually awarded only to celebrities. 

*CFP* "COSMOPOLITAN STRANGERS IN LATINA/O LITERATURE AND CULTURE", EDITED VOLUME

This volume sets out to identify and analyze current definitions of the figure of the stranger, as well as ‘rooted’ or ‘vernacular’ cosmopolitanism at work in Latina/o literature with a cosmopolitan outlook that runs counter to discourses that criminalize ‘strangers’. While necessarily examining the workings of xenophobia, racism, gendering and othering in that specific context, we will focus on the alternative processes of interaction, conviviality, and inclusive practices.

While the stranger is a long-standing figure, the defining characteristics of the figure are specific in space and time. All studies of alterity implicitly contain the stranger (i.e., in postcolonial and gender studies, and critical multiculturalism). Most markedly, the figure of the stranger has been foregrounded in spatial and urban theory (Young 1986, Ahmed 2000, Sandercock 2003). The affinities between the stranger and the cosmopolitan subject have been recently dissected by Vince P. Marotta (2010, 2017), who conceives the stranger as a social type, and argues for its importance in understanding the human condition and cross-cultural interaction (2010, 106).

*CFP* "ENTERTAINMENT AND THE ARTS IN THE QUARANTIMES", CHAPTER BOOK

When the arts, culture, and entertainment industries of the world came to a screeching halt in late winter 2020, many commentators claimed this was the end of art as we know it. Theatre managers and museum directors grasped at straws, trying to stoke excitement via social media and running archival footage in hopes of generating revenue while their seats and halls remained empty. Artists’ opportunities to show or create non-digital work ran dry. Film and television sets were vacated and production put on hold. At the same time, gaming platforms and streaming services thrived. Animal Crossing on Nintendo’s Switch became a worldwide phenomenon; Netflix traffic hit all-time highs. DJs streamed to Instagram live, garnering record viewerships. Meanwhile, friends and colleagues got creative with distanced sociality and shared cocktails on Zoom, at least until the fatigue set in.

As we enter, from a North American standpoint, months 10 and beyond of “quarantine,” the question of how we have learned - as creators or consumers - to play, is far from settled. This proposed collection addresses the question of play in broad terms: how have the arts, culture, and entertainment industries adapted to a majority virtual world? How has our understanding of togetherness and play changed with public health guidelines in effect? Might new forms of art and play developed in quarantine outlive the pandemic and perhaps supplant earlier forms? What do these forms offer in terms of accessibility, equity, or exclusion?

*CFP* "MEDIA IN AMERICA, AMERICA IN MEDIA", CONFERENCE

We invite the submission of abstracts for Media in America, America in Media international conference to be held online on 25-26 March 2021. 

This is the third edition of a joint effort of the American Studies and Political Science scholars who aim to generate a cross-disciplinary debate that brings together divergent yet complementary voices reflecting on American media environment and America’s portrayals in media across the globe.

The conference Media in America, America in Media addresses a wide variety of topics across the disciplines of media, political science, language and cultural studies. 

They may include the following themes, among others:

• Media in America: 
• Media and their representations in America 

*CFP* "AMERICAN COUNTERCULTURES", SPECIAL ISSUE, LAMAR JOURNAL OF THE HUMANITIES

The Lamar Journal of the Humanities, an interdisciplinary journal, invites papers for its Spring 2021 Special Issue on American Countercultures. 

Papers are welcome that contribute new insights into American movements, in society or as reflected in literature, film, and art, that have run “counter” or against mainstream ideas and values. Examples are nineteenth-century utopian communities, non-conformists of the “Jazz Age” or “Roaring Twenties,” Beat poetry and lifestyles of the 1950s, and “hippies” of the 1960s and 70s. Landmark films include “Rebel without a Cause” (1950), “The Wild Ones” (1954) and “Easy Rider,” (1964). Consideration will also be given to studies that analyze other American religious, political, or ideological sub-cultures as countercultures.

*CFP* "THE LABORS OF LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND HISTORY IN NORTH AMERICA", EDITED VOLUME

Although the corresponding SANAS conference is postponed until fall 2021, the organizers are moving ahead with preparations for the volume Work: The Labors of Language, Culture, and History in North America. The conference cfp also serves as the volume cfp (see below). The volume will be published in the series Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature (Narr/ Francke/ Attempto).

When the speaker in Philip Levine’s poem “What Work Is” says that everyone old enough to read a poem knows about work, he means that work is a universal condition. Some people work more often than others, or under more desirable circumstances, or for better pay, but we all do it. You’re probably working right now. If you’re reading a call for papers, you know what work is.

Yet like all fundamental categories, work becomes ever more complex as we examine it more closely. As Raymond Williams and Andrea Komlosy have shown, the terms “work,” “labor,” “job,” “employment,” “occupation,” “profession,” “vocation,” “task,” “toil,” “effort,” “pursuit,” and “calling” form a dense web of overlapping and contrasting meanings. Language must labor to grasp the connections between cooking a Big Mac and writing a novel, lifting a box in a warehouse and making beds at a hotel, professing and caring for children, hammering and tweeting. 

*CFP* CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS, SPECIAL ISSUE, AMERICANA: THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE

Americana invites submissions in Media Studies, Cultural Studies, American Studies, Women's Studies, and American history etc. - especially as it pertains to Americana popular culture, 1900 to present.

We welcome a variety of critical approaches on subject matter such as film, television, streaming shows, YouTube shows/channels, sports, bestsellers, venues, fashion, emerging popular culture trends, pop culture and technology, music, politics, style, quarantine, COVID-19, and other related topics.

All work is peer reviewed by our Advisory Board readers.

Please do keep your name off the submission itself as we use the double blind peer review process.

We encourage you to read past issues as well as the current issue if you would like to get a sense of the kind of work we have published.

*CFP* "IN THE WAKE OF RED POWER MOVEMENTS. NEW PERSPECTIVES ON INDIGENOUS INTELLECTUAL AND NARRATIVE TRADITIONS", SYMPOSIUM

In the Wake of Red Power Movements. New Perspectives on Indigenous Intellectual and Narrative Traditions

May 15/16, 2020

Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick

This symposium explores North American Indigenous intellectual and narrative traditions that were recovered, reclaimed, or (re-)invented in the wake of Red Power movements that emerged in the 1960s in the settler colonial societies of Canada and the USA. It asks: which new perspectives and visions have been developed over the last 50 years within Indigenous studies and related fields when looking at Indigenous land and land rights, Indigenous political and social sovereignty, extractivism and environmental destruction, oppressive sex/gender systems, and for describing the repercussions of settler colonialism in North America, especially in narrative representations?

The symposium is guided by the idea that North American Indigenous intellectual and narrative traditions developed and recovered since the 1960s offer new and reclaimed ways of being, organizing, and thinking in the face of destruction, dispossession, and oppression; Indigenous ways of writing and righting are connected to ongoing social struggles for land rights, access to clean water, and intellectual and socio-political sovereignty; they are, as Maile Arvin, Eve Tuck, and Angie Morrill (2013) have pointed out, “a gift” from which most academic disciplines can benefit greatly.

*CFP* "MUSIC, CINEMA, AND MODERNISM: THE WORKS AND HERITAGE OF KURT WEILL BETWEEN EUROPE AND AMERICA", CONFERENCE

Music, Cinema, and Modernism: The Works and Heritage of Kurt Weill between Europe and America

Torino, Università degli studi di Torino, Palazzo Nuovo

22-24 May 2020 

The conference aims to address aspects of Kurt Weill’s works in relation to his contemporaries and his heritage to succeeding generations, both in the United States and in Europe. The creative activities of the German-American composer have been characterized by his keen interest in new media: principally, in radio in Germany and in the cinema in the United States, and in new forms of experimentation in musical theater on both sides of the Atlantic. The fact that his compositions as well as his sensibilities tended to situate themselves somewhere between the poles of highbrow and the lowbrow culture allows for multiple interpretations, while prompting various possible themes for research. 

The themes suggested here are not intended to be restrictive but, rather, to invite a wide range of reflections, and other topics are also welcome:

*CFP* "THE GHOST READER: RECOVERING WOMEN'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES, 1925-1968 (EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA)", REANIMATE COLLECTIVE

“She did not go along with the crowd. Not because she was a Negro. She was not; she was White. Not because she was an Indian, but because a Southern White woman said that slavery was a cancer eating into our national life, and that it will in the end destroy us if we do not wipe it out; because she talked about the churches who sent missionaries to Africa and yet held slaves in their own backyard … that woman’s name has been wiped out of history!” (Shirley Graham Du Bois, “As a Man Thinketh in His Heart, So Is He,” Parish News: Church of the Holy Trinity, February 1954)

“If libraries hold all the stories that have been told, there are ghost libraries of all the stories that have not. The ghosts outnumber the books by some unimaginably vast sum. Even those who have been audible have often earned the privilege through strategic silences or the inability to hear certain voices, including their own.” (Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions, p. 21)