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CFP: New Heart and New Spirit: Perspectives on the Modern Biblical Epic

July 8, 2016

The extreme profitability of Mel Gibson’s
The Passion of the Christ in 2004 came as a great surprise to the Hollywood establishment, particularly considering its failure to find production funding through a major studio.  Since this time, the big-budget mainstream biblical epic, long thought dead in terms of widespread marketability, has become a viable Hollywood studio product with regards to seeking both profits and critical acclaim, as well as outlets for auteurist ‘passion projects’ such as Gibson’s film, Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2014), and Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings.  With this year seeing two new fiction films featuring depictions of Jesus, the crucifixion, and resurrection [Risen (dir. Kevin Reynolds) and Ben-Hur (dir. Timur Bekmambetov)], academic consideration of the modern biblical epic is both timely and highly relevant.

This is a preliminary call for papers and proposals for an edited collection using a broad range of approaches in the analysis of these films and this phenomenon specifically.  Proposals can address, but are not limited
to:

Stylistic and narrative analysis

Considerations of genre

Historical and political contexts

Industrial efforts to capitalise on this trend (see the short-lived Fox Faith studios in the mid 2000s and its products)

Critical viability and acceptance

Intersections of, or discord between, faith and fandom

Representations of race and gender

Auteurist analyses of these films

Philosophical and more broadly theoretical approaches to these films and this trend.

Proposals and abstracts of approximately 300 words with a short bio can be submitted to Wickham Clayton by 31 August, at wickscripts@hotmail.com.  Also feel free to email for expressions of interest and questions regarding the project.

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Transformative Works & Cultures journal, Special Issue CFP: Social TV Fandom and the Media Industries

June 21, 2016

Transformative Works & Cultures, Special Issue CFP: Social TV Fandom and the Media Industries

When Henry Jenkins calls the mid-2000s media landscape one of convergence culture, he describes the intersection of media industries, online social media, and television audiences. Using emerging multiplatform strategies producers can directly engage and immerse potential television audiences. Likewise, industry shaped hailing of fans creates fan-like audiences, but it does so within limits, reflecting industry concerns and agenda.

Nearly a decade later, both audiences and industry expect direct and continuous engagement between a series and its audience. Industry-instigated fandoms exist alongside and in conversation with fan-instigated community engagement. In particular, the rise of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr have made multiplatforming both more efficient and more mainstream, meaning that now nearly every television show has an online presence that welcomes fan engagement. As this reality of “social television” matures, however, the connections it promises between producers, actors, and viewers are tested by each new platform, each controversial story development, and by the ever-present politics of power and identity that shape any and all interactions between industry and audience.

This special issue aims to put emerging research on social media platforms and ongoing work on online fan culture in conversation to consider the impact the proliferation of those platforms is having on our understanding of the consumption and negotiation of television in era of on-screen hashtags, cast livetweets, Periscope, and the new world of “Social TV.” Topics may include, but are not limited to:

* Case studies of industry/fan engagement for specific series or networks
* Discursive framings of Social TV fandom in trade/popular press
* Negotiations of good/bad fandom in industry discourse
* Industry-produced transmedia storytelling and emergent platforms
* Industry-affiliated fan activism through Social TV practices
* Social TV in a global/transnational industrial context
* Adoption of fan identities by industry professionals
* Linear vs. non-linear Social TV practices
* Industry cultivation of and management of Superfans

Submission guidelines

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC, http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) is an international peer-reviewed online Gold Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works copyrighted under a Creative Commons License. TWC aims to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics and to promote dialogue between the academic community and the fan community. TWC accommodates academic articles of varying scope as well as other forms that embrace the technical possibilities of the Web and test the limits of the genre of academic writing.

Theory: Conceptual essays. Peer review, 6,000–8,000 words.
Praxis: Case study essays. Peer review, 5,000–7,000 words.
Symposium: Short commentary. Editorial review, 1,500–2,500 words.

Please visit TWC’s Web site (http://journal.transformativeworks.org/) for complete submission guidelines, or e-mail the TWC Editor (editor AT transformativeworks.org).

Contact—Contact guest editor Myles McNutt with any questions or inquiries at mmcnutt AT odu.edu.

Due date—March 1, 2017, for estimated March 2018 publication.

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CFP: Geek Feminism (edited collection)

June 9, 2016

CFP: Geek Feminism (edited collection)

Geek girls exist. But it wasn’t until a packed San Diego Comi-Con panel in 2010 actually entitled “Geek Girls Exist” that the ramifications of this fact began to be realized. Women’s increased visibility in science and technology, pop culture fandoms, sci-fi and fantasy storytelling, gaming, and other geeky endeavors has brought to the foreground a resistance to acknowledging a geek culture that isn’t straight, white, and male. On one level, geek feminism emerged to combat this oppressive atmosphere determined to discourage and erase the participation of geeks whose identities deviated from that norm. But on every other level, that fight is just a footnote to the myriad ways in which geek feminism is a unique (and frequently joyful) manifestation of what happens when the radical and imaginative potentiality of 1980s scientific, creative, and communications technologies intersected with the identity-conscious third wave feminism that emerged in the 1990s. While several books exist that detail first-person experiences and offer collections of resources for geek girls, this anthology will be the first book-length collection of scholarship exploring the ways in which geek feminism is expressed and practiced.

Submissions should draw on current work in fan studies, critical race theory, queer theory, feminist theory, jurisprudence, media studies, and transnational studies. While part of the anthology will need to be focused on feminist critique of geek culture, we encourage submissions that focus on the generative and imaginative aspects of geek feminism.

Potential topics and areas of interest could include:

The history of geek feminism
Analysis of geek fictions and characters
Speculative justice: when fictions correct fact
How to spot a geek girl: identity formation and performance
Cyber vs. IRL geek feminist praxis: the convergence of imagined, online, and “real” spaces
Geek-tivism as a response to systemic oppressions
The creative, productive, joyful practices of geek feminism
The business of geekdom: examinations of the creation, marketing and crafting of geek artifacts and products
And, of course, miscellaneous weird stuff

Send 300-word abstracts and short bios to Amy Peloff at apeloff@gmail.com and Nancy White at ncwhite@uw.edu with subject line “CFP – Geek Feminism.” Since geek feminism is a relatively undefined term, we ask that each submission also include a brief attempt (c. 100-150 words) to define geek feminism within which to situate your proposed chapter. Our hope is to draw on the community of contributors to develop a definition of the term.

Abstracts should include title, author name, and institutional affiliation, as well as contact details. The editors will ask the authors of selected proposals to submit their final chapters no later than March 1, 2017.

Timeline
Abstracts by October 1, 2016
Decision by November 1, 2016
Papers by March 1, 2017

Editors
Dr. Amy Peloff, Independent Scholar
Dr. Nancy C. White, University of Washington

Contact Info:
Amy Peloff at apeloff@gmail.com and Nancy White at ncwhite@uw.edu

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CFP: Tolkien and Jackson Fan Studies Special Issue

June 6, 2016

CFP: Tolkien and Jackson Fan Studies Special Issue (10-01-16)

Proposals are sought for fan studies scholarship on any aspect of fan production, creation, or activities relating to J. R. R. Tolkien’s Legendarium and/or Peter Jackson’s live-action film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

The editors hope to co-sponsor at least one dedicated paper session at the national Popular Culture Conference (San Diego, April, 2017), and then to develop those papers to submit to a special theme issue of Journal of Tolkien Research the same year.

NOTE: There is no requirement that scholars must present at the Popular Culture conference in order to submit proposals to the journal, nor does participation at PCA mandate submitting to the journal issue.

However, this option, we believe, will allow for multi-disciplinary dialogue among and between scholars in the preparatory stages of thinking about the special issue.

JTR is an open-access, electronic, peer-reviewed journal: 

http://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/

Timeline:

Popular Culture Submissions:  July 1-October 1, 2016

Popular Culture Conference: April 12-15th, 2017

Deadline for submission to editors:  June 1, 2017 (Proposal or First Drafts)

Deadline for submission to JTR: September 30, 2017 (Final Drafts)

Co-editors:

Katherine Larsen klarsen@gwu.edu
Robin Anne Reid robin.reid@tamuc.edu

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CFP: Monstrous Women in Comics—an Interdisciplinary Conference on Women in Comics and Graphic Novels

June 6, 2016

CFP: Monstrous Women in Comics—an Interdisciplinary Conference on Women in Comics and Graphic Novels

May 2017, University of North Texas, Denton, TX

Keynote: Dr. Carol Tilley, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The relationship between women and the comics industry is contested perhaps now more than ever before. Fresh conflicts in mainstream presses reveal lingering aversions to women creators, and fan-reactions to reboots demonstrate similar dis-ease with “non-canonical” re-imaginings of female characters. Far from being novel, these tensions are rooted in the very history of western comics. From the Golden Age, women were erased or marginalized in comics through, for instance, the use of “gender-neutral” monikers. Female characters were aesthetically constructed to meet and satisfy the male gaze and overwhelmingly, their narratives were penned by male authors. Women readers of comics were historically “pandered to” with romance comics but were otherwise ignored as a target audience. Even within the medium of graphic novels, where women’s work has arguably been more visible, women creators are being erased by industry-standard events like the Angoulême Festival. Here, as in other areas of popular culture, women are treated in very Aristotelian ways—at best, they are deemed to be monstrous derivatives of men, and at worst, they are simply monsters for daring to enter what has been overwhelmingly characterized as man’s domain. From a feminist perspective, there is ample room for critique of the ways in which women in comics are made into monsters, but now we want to ask if that is all there is? Must a theoretical investigation of monstrous women in comics be limited to surveys of marginalization and erasure?

Building on the work of postmodern scholars like Donna Haraway, and following from recent iterations of Monster Studies, we seek to critically engage with, and re-evaluate, monstrous women in comics. For Haraway, the figure of the monster is one who simultaneously illuminates and threatens boundaries; the monster is a creature who resides in borderlands and embodies transgression; she is the imbrication of text, myth, body, nature and the political—she is neither “self” nor “other.” To be deemed monstrous is to be situated in the margins, to be placed outside, and yet the monster is one who always threatens those margins, who promises to leak into and over. Constructively engaging with the monstrous can ultimately lead us into an “imagined elsewhere,” the monster can be full of promises. Therefore, we are seeking interdisciplinary examinations of monstrous women in comics not only in order to critically question and contest normative boundaries, but also to begin to imagine how the relationship between women and comics might be otherwise.

We invite all interested participants to join us in thinking about monstrous women in comics across genres: papers may engage with historical studies of women in comics, mainstream comics, graphic novels, indie comics, religious comics, or web comics. Paper proposals, in the form of 250-word abstracts, may also address—but are not limited to—any of the following topics:

  • The monstrosity of (early) women creators
  • Romance comics and “girl comics” as monstrous
  • Female characters as monstrous derivatives of male superheroes
  • Women characters/creators/readers as monstrous because of their sexuality, corporeality, race, religion, or (dis)ability
  • Monstrous female characters as manifestations of patriarchal desires/anxieties/fears
  • Monsters who are female
  • Female characters who transgress human/inhuman boundaries
  • Women readers/fans as monsters
  • Women fan/creator collectives as transgressive & monstrous
  • Maternity and monstrosity
  • Indie & web comics as monstrous
  • Monstrous feminism & comics

In order to further emphasize the fruitfulness of transgressing boundaries and engaging with the monstrous, this conference also seeks to leak over the boundaries of academia by inviting women comics creators who would like to submit their work for a temporary gallery exhibition and/or who would be interested in tabling the event. All interested creators/vendors should email a short bio and any relevant links to portfolios or previous works.

Accepted participants will be invited to present their 20-minute papers, or to exhibit their work, at a two-and-a-half-day interdisciplinary conference at the University of North Texas in Denton. To submit a paper proposal, or to express interest in exhibiting/tabling, please send an email tomonstrouswomen@gmail.com with the following information:

  • Name, institutional affiliation, email address
  • 250-word abstract (if applicable)
  • Short bio & portfolio links (if applicable)

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CFP: Expanding Universes. Exploring Transmedial & Transfictional Ways of World-Building 23rd-25th September 2016, Kraków (Poland)

May 11, 2016

Expanding Universes. Exploring Transmedial & Transfictional Ways of World-Building
23rd-25th September 2016,
Kraków (Poland)

Thinking of storyworlds as representations that transcend media
not only expands the scope of narratology beyond its “native” territory of language-based narrative […] but also provides a much-needed center of convergence and point of comparison to media studies.
M.-L. Ryan & Jan Noël Thon

OVERVIEW
It is no doubt that with the dynamic evolution of fantastic narratives a world-centered model of storytelling has started to proliferate, changing the way one can interact with fictional representations of worlds in literature, movies, video games, comic books, any other media. A growing interest in media-conscious world-building, both amongst scholars and fans, clearly shows that the future of narrative and media studies lays not with monomedial, but transmedial studies—especially when no-one seems to question cross-overs, retellings, remediations, or any other narrative devices so common in contemporary storytelling. From Star Wars Expanded Universe/Legends top-down and bottom-up transfictional storytelling or transmedial campaign for The Hunger Games the movie to multimodal storytelling in Doug Dorst’s “S” or Bioshock: Infinite”—we all engage in a plethora of ways of world-making, and what transmedial narratology needs nowadays to do, is to analyze these storyworlds in their variety without imposing any paradigmatic world-building model for creators to follow. Consequently, organizers of the conference will welcome presentations or full panel proposals covering:

 key and emerging concepts in transmedia studies and transmedial narratology;
 theoretical discrepancies between transmediality, multimodality, and transfictionality;
 theory, history, and philosophy of world-building in literature and other media;
 top-down and bottom-up world-building and storytelling;
 ways of inhabiting fictional/virtual worlds: immersion, interactivity, and beyond;
 franchises and franchised universes: their expansion and narrative potential;
 fan & fandom studies with an emphasis on participatory authorship in shared universes, entertainment
supersystems, and more;
 means of narrative/economical control (i.e. canon, moderated/curated content, licencing etc.) in massive
world-building enterprises;
 psychological and philosophical contexts of world creation;
 case studies of transmediality, transfictionality, and world-building across media (MCU, Game of Thrones,
StarCitizen, Star Wars, DC Universe, and many more);

KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Confirmed conference keynote speaker is a prominent narrative theorist, Marie-Laure Ryan, author of the
most important books in possible worlds theory, hypertextuality, transmedia storytelling, transfictionality & multimodality,
immersion theory, and narrative studies, such as Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative
Theory (1991), Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media
(2001), Avatars of Story (2006), or (co-edited), Narrative Across Media: The Languages of Storytelling (2004)
and Storyworlds Across Media. Toward Media-Conscious Narratology (2015).

REGISTRATION, SUBMISSIONS & FEES
The conference language is English. To register for the conference, one should sent in editable format (.doc,
.docx.) 600-words abstracts featuring (1) the title of presentation, (2) a concise bio-note, (3) current affiliation,
and (4) all necessary contact information (official email address & phone number) at transmedialstudies@gmail.com
by June 30th
2016. Successful applicants will be notified within two weeks after the deadline.
Attendees are also encouraged to send us full panel proposals composed of (1) abstracts from a minimum
number of 4 delegates, (2) up to 600 words description of the pa-nel, (3) a suggested title of the panel and, most
importantly, (4) email addresses of all delegates included in the proposed panel.
The conference fee of 100€ will cover conference materials, catering and all other essentials, but does not
include accommodation.

MORE INFO
Further details regarding the venue, suggested accommodation and transportation will be continuously
updated at the website transmedialstudies.wordpress.com. Organisers do welcome all questions and requests
at transmedialstudies@gmail.com.
The conference will be followed by a peer-reviewed monograph, published by Facta Ficta Research Centre
and licenced under Creative Commons 4.0 as an ebook stored in a globally accessible repository (CeON Center
for Open Science) and / or in peer-reviewed special editions of renowned scholarly journals.
We look forward to seeing you in Kraków!

THE ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Ksenia Olkusz, PhD (Facta Ficta Research Centre in Kraków)
Piotr Kubiński, PhD (University of Warsaw)
Krzysztof M. Maj (Jagiellonian University, Facta Ficta Research Centre in Kraków) – project co-ordinator
Sven Dwulecki (Eberhard Karls University Tübingen)

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CFP: Academia and Humanities at Nine Worlds 2016

April 15, 2016

For the past three years, the Nine Worlds convention hosted an academic conference. We ran a combination of solely academic sessions, as well as placing academic speakers on panels and tracks in a more casual manner – details of last year’s sessions on the Academia and History tracks are still available on the Nine Worlds website. This year, we’re looking for content in a similar vein for the new Academia and Humanities content area, which has an even broader remit than previous years’ Academia track.

With that in mind, we’re inviting submissions for papers and suggested panels, as well as volunteers to talk on pre-organised panels. All areas of study surrounding ‘geek media’ are accepted – from video games to classic fantasy, and we welcome submissions from anyone who is a current student or has graduated with a degree in a field related to their topic. Talks will be ideally 20-30 minutes in length, and the standard panel time is 1 hour.

Nine Worlds will take place August 12th-14th 2016 at Novotel London West. Tickets are available for purchase, and they will grant you access to the whole convention – not just the academic content.

Suggested areas of submission include:

Video Games and their impact/role within wider culture
Board, Social and Role-playing Games
Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature
Diversity and representation in geek culture
‘Geek’ film and TV
Comics
Fanfiction
Research as a fannish practice
History and its relation to geek media/culture
Science and its relation to geek media/culture
Religion and philosophy and their relation to geek media/culture
Please ensure your paper/panel is suited to non-academics. Ideally, you may assume the audience has full knowledge of primary sources, but little secondary, so please take this into consideration. We intend to each session be accessible and understandable to those outside of the usual academic groups. In addition, please take note of our anti-harassment policy.

Please send a title, a 300 word abstract, your name and affiliation (the university you are currently at or most recently graduated from) to humanities-academia@nineworlds.co.uk.
The deadline for submissions is April 30th, 2016. This deadline is for abstracts/submissions to be a panellist only.

Registration will be completed through the purchase of a ticket to the convention as a whole. Accommodation should be booked separately by individual participants. All profits from the conference/convention will go to charity. Please do email if you have questions or concerns about finance, as we do have a limited budget available to assist those otherwise unable to attend.
Nine Worlds deliberately tries to promote parity of race, sexual orientation, genders and creeds as a part of its programming remit. We aim to follow this in our selection of panellists, and would also be interested in including papers or panels that address these issues. However, we are aware that some people do not want to discuss these as direct topics, and wish to be sensitive to this, so you will only be asked to speak on topics that you offer to.

Thank you,
Claire Wilkinson & Tony Keen
Academia and Humanities Content Group Organizers

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CFP: Audiences and Adaptation: Literature/Film Quarterly Special Issue (Abstract Deadline May 1, 2016)

April 11, 2016

In his essay “Adaptation and New Media,” Michael Ryan Moore reflects on the status of adaptation studies in the digital age, stating that with new media “adaptation becomes a strategy of participation. Rather than develop wholly new works, audiences take ownership over existing media, adapting the stories, shows, and films that they most identify with.” In this special issue of LFQ, we seek to explore the role of audiences in adaptation and the manner in which adaptation is a participatory process. How do audiences make meaning out of adapted properties? What is the role of memory or nostalgia in adaptation? How might transmedia storytelling ask audiences to interact with texts in new and exciting ways? How does fan culture complicate existing models of author/encoder and spectator/decoder?

Adaptation studies have long asked useful and engaging questions concerning the textual and authorial dimensions of adaptation processes, but has not as readily addressed the role of audiences in this equation. Nor has the field engaged fully with the rich and innovative work done in reception studies. For this issue of LFQ, we seek to put adaptation studies and reception studies in conversation.

We welcome work that explores the complex relationship between adaptation and audiences from a variety of disciplinary, critical, and historical perspectives. Possible areas of inquiry may include, but are not limited to:

•Amateur, unauthorized, “sweded,” or fan–produced adaptations
•Cosplay, role-playing, and –Con festivals
•Fan love and cinephilia for adapted properties
•Fan hatred or rejection of adapted properties
•Franchises, multi-platform, and transmedia storytelling
•Scholar-fandom and autoethnography
•Adaptation as a mode of reception/fandom
•Remaking, rebooting, and the “reclaimed” text
•Stardom and adaptation
•Adaptation to/from video games and other participatory formats
•Oppositional reading or queering adaptation
•Fan or slash fiction; exploration or extension of storyworlds
•Adaptation and affect, emotion, or sensation
•Adaptation and nostalgia/memory
•Paratexts and/as adaptations
•Merchandising and collecting
•Advertising and marketing of adaptations
•Censorship, rating systems, test audiences, and boycotts
•Kickstarter and crowd-sourced film adaptations
•Exhibition practices and distribution of adaptations

Please submit a 500-800 word abstract in MLA style to litfilmquart@salisbury.edu by May 1, 2016. Your abstract should outline your working thesis and briefly sketch the theoretical framework(s) within which your essay will be situated. If accepted, full articles of 5,000 to 6,500 words must be submitted by October 3, 2016. The Special Issue will run in October 2017 as part of LFQ’s new online open access format.

Please email LFQ Assistant Editor Andrew Scahill at adscahill@salisbury.edu with any questions.

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CFP: Neo-peplum Films and Television 1990 to Present

April 9, 2016

Neo-peplum Films and Television 1990 to Present

Introduction
After the success of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator in 2000, the sword-and-sandal genre of films was officially resurrected and has not seen such a prolific output since its heyday in Italy in the late 1950s and 1960s. This second wave of peplum films – or more specifically “neo-peplum” to reflect this distinctive contemporary cycle – has achieved unprecedented critical and commercial success, with big screen films such as 300 to ambitiously realized small screen fare such as Spartacus and Rome. Marginal, critically panned and box office bombs such as Gods of Egypt still make an impact, contributing to the canon of films. With an upcoming remake of Ben-Hur on the horizon, films set in ancient Greek and Roman times, based on their mythologies or featuring gladiatorial combat or large centurion armies, are certainly in demand to theater-goers and Netflix binge watchers.
With such films enjoying popularity, it invites an academic gaze to unearth their cinematic importance beyond simple movie watching consumption. These films and television shows are definitely important: are they a reflection of our times? With our high tech lives, what is the fascination with depictions of the ancient world? With body and gender dialogue more open, what does this say about films that have a strong emphasis on the herculean male or Amazonian female?
This anthology is looking for essays that aim to explore this neo-peplum cycle of films that shares commonality to the original Italian films and Hollywood historic epics. The original peplum cycle of films began with Hercules in 1958, so it is appropriate to say the neo-peplum cycle begins anew with the Hercules character in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys of the 1990s. This anthology seeks to solidify the neo-peplum genre as a distinct term and re-appropriate it to specifically refer to sword-and-sandal films and television shows made after 1990 and evaluate these entries in a variety of interdisciplinary lenses and frameworks.

Potential Essay Topics
A list of possible (but not comprehensive) topics and themes that contributors could submit on:
Anti-Peplum – exploring change in tone from adventure and action to more dramatic and gritty stories
Portrayal of women from vamps and damsels in the original peplum cycle to Xena-inspired characters in the present cycle (Xena, The Arena)
General Masculinity/Femininity portrayal
Compare/contrast original Italian cycle with present cycle
Compare/contrast original stories/characters with remakes (Hercules remakes, Clash of Titans remake)
Close reading at source material and how neo-peplum films interpret them
Neo-peplums as allegory for present day politics
Peplums for young adults (Gods of Egypt)
Neo-peplums combining with other genres – such as sci-fi (John Carter) or disaster film (Pompeii)
Ancient worlds portrayed in “hyper-realistic” fashion
Mono-myth and neo-peplum characters
Auteur theory and neo-peplum directors (Timur Bekmambetov and The Arena)
Pastiche, parody, subversion (Hail, Caesar!, Meet the Spartans)
Representations of race, white-washing
Fans, fandom and fan cultures of neo-peplum series (Hercules, Xena, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson)
Shakespeare, tragedy (Titus)

Authors are encouraged to submit more than one abstract. If you have multiple great ideas for potential essay chapters, feel free to submit each one. I will assemble the most cohesive arrangement of essays that will provide the most well-rounded discussion of neo-peplum films.

Films and Television Series
Below is a list of potential films and television series post 1990 that could potentially fit into the neo-peplum formula. This list is by no means complete, but it is presented to give examples of the types of films/TV shows that fit within this genre and to inspire creative ideas for the films to write about. Not all neo-peplum films deal directly with ancient Greece or Rome, as some of the aesthetics and styles are being used for Egyptian, Viking and barbarian themed films as well. This list is only a guide; other films and TV shows that are neo-peplum-like will certainly be entertained for this book.
Films
300 (2007), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014), Agora (2009), Alexander (2004), The Arena (2001), Centurion (2010), Clash of the Titans (2010), The Eagle (2011), Gladiator (2000), Gods of Egypt (2016), Hail, Caesar! (2016), Hercules (1997), Hercules (2014), Immortals (2011), John Carter (2012), The Last Legion (2007), Meet the Spartans (2008), Pompeii (2014), Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2010), The Scorpion King (2002) and its sequels, Titus (1999), Troy (2004), Wrath of the Titans (2012)
Television Series
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995-1999), Rome (2005-2007), Spartacus (2010–2013), Vikings (2013-present), Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001), Young Hercules (1998-1999)

Publication Timetable
Below follows a generous timetable at essay composition, editing and submitting:
June 30, 2016 – Deadline for abstract submissions
July 10, 2016 – Notification of acceptance, distribution of style guide
December 4, 2016 – Chapter drafts are due
April 29, 2017 – Chapter revisions due
May 31, 2017 – Submission of manuscript to the publisher
Drafts and revisions are strongly encouraged to be submitted before the deadlines. The essays will follow Chicago style citations. The style guide when disseminated will round out the essay specifications.

Abstract Submission Instructions
Please submit your abstract(s) of roughly 500 words along with your academic CV/resume and preliminary bibliography to the email address below before June 30th. Please use an appropriate subject line when submitting – have it contain the phrase “neo-peplum submission.” I will confirm each submission via email within 48 hours.
Essayists will receive a contributor’s copy of the book when it is published.

Nicholas Diak, editor
Email: vnvdiak@gmail.com
Website: http://www.neopeplumbook.com

Nicholas Diak is an independent pop culture scholar residing in southern California. He has a strong interest in neofolk and post-industrial music, exploitation cinema, Italian genre films and H.P. Lovecraft. He has contributed to the book James Bond and Popular Culture: Essays on the Influence of the Fictional Superspy (McFarland, 2014) and has an essay appearing in an upcoming anthology on space-horror films. He is a frequent presenter at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Conference, a contributor to the website Heathen Harvest and a member of the H.P. Lovecast Podcast. He is also an academic member of the Horror Writers Association and National Coalition of Independent Scholars.

#peplum #neo-peplum #spartacus #rome #300 #gladiator

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CFP: Becoming: Essays on NBC’s Hannibal

March 30, 2016

kvmudan@gmail.com and elizabeth.j.nielsen@gmail.com
Deadline for Abstracts: July 1, 2016
Deadline for Completed Essays: January 15, 2017

The NBC series Hannibal has garnered both critical and fan acclaim for its cinematic qualities, its complex characters, and its fascinating reworking of Thomas Harris’ mythology so well known from Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs (1991) and its variants. The television series concluded late in 2015 after three seasons and in spite of a great deal of fan support for its continuation on a premium network or through a paid service like Netflix.

Hannibal builds on the serial killer narratives of popular procedurals, while taking them in a drastically different direction. Like critically acclaimed series such as Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, it makes its viewers complicit in the actions of a deeply problematic individual, and, in the case of Hannibal, forces them to confront that complicity through the character of Will Graham. As both an extension of and divergence from these trends, Hannibal is also worth exploring in its own right as a simultaneously stunning and grotesque exploration of the darkest depths of the human psyche. Also of interest is Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller’s easy relationship with fans, in contrast to other showrunners (Supernatural, Game of Thrones) who often clash with fans over directorial and interpretive choices.

We are soliciting essays for an edited collection and are presently in negotiation with a university press for publication in late 2017 or early 2018. Please send a 300-word abstract and brief biography to kvmudan@gmail.com and elizabeth.j.nielsen@gmail.com before July 1, 2016. Completed essays of 6,000-6,500 words will be due on January 15, 2017.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:
● The grotesque and the monstrous
● Transformations/metamorphosis
● The enduring appeal of Hannibal Lecter
● Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham as dual protagonists
● The seductive nature of evil/Hannibal as a Vice figure
● The viewer as voyeur or accomplice
● Queer motifs and readings
● Female characters (including those whose gender was changed from the novels)
● Horror/Gothic elements
● Visual aesthetics of violence/gore/murder
● Cannibalism
● Depictions of food/foodie culture
● Similarities and differences from Harris’ novels and previous adaptations
● Hannibal’s use of art, literature, and musical referents
● Depictions of mental illness and disability
● Serial killers in popular media
● Visual and narrative motifs of Hannibal
● Bryan Fuller’s relationship with the “fannibals,” fans of the show

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