CFP SFFTV Special Issue on Mad Max franchise (2/1/16)

SFFTV CFP: Special Issue on Mad Max franchise
full name / name of organization: Dan Hassler-Forest
contact email: dhasslerforest@gmail.com
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/62589

Science Fiction Film and Television seeks submissions for a special issue on the Mad Max franchise.
Guest editor: Dan Hassler-Forest

The original MAD MAX (1979) was a hard-edged low-budget exploitation film with sf elements, frantically put together in twelve weeks by a small crew working in and around Melbourne on a $325,000 budget. Its worldwide success led to two incrementally more ambitious sequels that expanded the first film’s dystopian vision significantly: MAD MAX 2 (aka THE ROAD WARRIOR) in 1982, and Hollywood behemoth MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME in 1985. The film trilogy became hugely influential in its depiction of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the sequels in particular establishing a visual style that soon became a default for visual representations of punk dystopias in film, television, comic books, video games, and music videos. At the same time, a wide range of comics, novels and novelizations, and video games expanded the films’ storyworld significantly.

When the fourth film in the franchise was released to much acclaim three decades after the original trilogy ended, it proved to be neither prequel, sequel, nor reboot. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD instead revived the franchise as a variation on established themes, full of references to earlier films, but without a clear chronological relationship to its precursors. The film’s gender politics, ideology, and aesthetics have been widely debated, and new films and transmedia expansions are once again being prepared.

SFFTV invites fresh approaches to Mad Max as a sf entertainment franchise and transnational cultural phenomenon, with possible emphases on:

* politics and ideology
* fossil fuel and peak oil in sf
* post-apocalyptic narratives
* franchising and transmedia world-building
* sequels, spin-offs, and novelizations
* ecological disaster sf
* transnational cinema
* exploitation cinema and cult film
* materiality and sf: film vs. digital cinema
* transnational celebrity: Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron
* representations of race and ethnicity
* gender politics and queer theory
* sf literature influences
* music video aesthetics
* “the indie blockbuster”: independent cinema in post-classical Hollywood
* representations of children and childhood
* George Miller and auteur theory
* MAD MAX and transnational exploitation cinema
* MAD MAX 2 and queer theory
* MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME and 1980s corporate synergy
* MAD MAX: FURY ROAD and digital cinema

Articles of 6,000-9,000 words should be formatted using MLA style and according to the submission guidelines available on our website. Submissions should be made via our online system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com:80/lup-sfftv. Articles not selected for the special issue will be considered for future issues of SFFTV.
Any questions should be directed to the editors, Dan Hassler-Forest (dhasslerforest@gmail.com), Mark Bould (mark.bould@gmail.com), Sherryl Vint (sherryl.vint@gmail.com), and Gerry Canavan (gerrycanavan@gmail.com).
The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2016, with anticipated publication in spring 2017.

By web submission at 06/17/2015 - 20:51