CFP Indiana Jones and the Edited Collection of Critical Essays (9/1/2018)

A great idea for a collection:

Indiana Jones and the Edited Collection of Critical Essays
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/05/20/indiana-jones-and-the-edited-collection-of-critical-essays

deadline for submissions: September 1, 2018

full name / name of organization: Randy Laist / McFarland

contact email: rlaist@goodwin.edu


With his signature bullwhip and fedora, the familiar sounds of his orchestral anthem, and his eventful explorations into the arcana of world religions, Indiana Jones – archeologist, adventurer, and ophidiophobe – has become one of the most recognizable heroes of the silver screen. Since his debut in 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones has appeared in three sequels, and Steven Spielberg has recently announced that he will soon begin production on a fifth Indiana Jones film. Along the way, the character has spawned a raft of children’s novels, cartoon and live-action television series, and video and role-playing games. Despite the longevity and popularity of the Indiana Jones franchise, however, it has rarely been the focus of academic criticism, a fact which is surprising considering the critical attention enjoyed by other early George Lucas and Steven Spielberg films. As stories about archeology, the Indiana Jones tales reflect an array of ethical questions and representational issues regarding the nature of the past. As stories about an American man globe-trotting in the middle of the twentieth century, Indiana Jones’s adventures intersect with a wide range of cultural narratives about World War II, the late colonial era, and late-century nostalgia for perceived mid-century ideals. As stories about the sacred, Indiana Jones’s quests engage questions about the nature of the sublime, the representation of the otherworldly, and the role of narrative in constructing reality.

McFarland is interested in publishing a multiauthor volume about the Indiana Jones franchise. While the study will approach the subject from a wide range of perspectives, the book will be centered around the theme of the quest. Indiana Jones narratives are propelled by the pursuit of what Hitchcock called the MacGuffin and what Lacan called objet petit a, and they dramatize and comment upon the nature of loss, desire, and ambiguous retrieval, as well as upon the dynamics of acquisitiveness, appropriation, and possession. Indiana Jones’s reclamation of sacred objects illustrates cultural attitudes about how the past is remembered and preserved (or not), how historical truth is defined and organized, and how socio-political power becomes invested in physical artifacts. At the same time, Indiana Jones films are themselves historical artifacts, glowing with the same shimmering aura of signification that Spielberg’s camera imparts to Indy’s quarries. The theme of the quest, therefore, unites the analysis of individual Indiana Jones texts with the wider analysis of Indiana Jones as a cultural reference point.

Chapter topics may include, but are by no means limited to, such subjects as:

• Representations of: archeology, Nazism, the sacred, the past, colonialism, non-Western cultures, mid-century America, World War II, heroism, paternity, globalization, geography, etc.
• Indiana Jones and cinematic pastiche: the inheritance of Gunga Din (1929), King Solomon's Mines (1950), The Secret of the Incas (1954), film noir, etc.
• The relationship between the Indiana Jones films and Spielberg’s other films
• Indiana Jones and the “hard body” action hero of the 1980s
• The extended franchise: children’s novels, Choose Your Own Adventure books, role-playing games, video games, “The Young Indiana Jones,” etc.
• Representations of women: plucky sidekicks, damsels in distress, femmes fatales
• Fan culture, from the Gen-X nostalgia of Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (2015) to the hostile reception of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
• Narratology of the artifact: the MacGuffin, le petit object a, the Holy Grail, etc.
• Cultural appropriation and the controversial legacy of Hiram Bingham
• Indiana’s fear of snakes and the theme of threatening encounters with different animal species throughout the series

Please send 300-word abstracts to Randy Laist at rlaist@goodwin.edu by September 1, 2018, or feel free to contact me with queries at any time.

CFP Greco-Roman Myth in Literature and/or the Arts (9/30/2018; NeMLA 2019)

Greco-Roman Myth in Literature and/or the Arts
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/07/03/greco-roman-myth-in-literature-andor-the-arts

deadline for submissions: September 30, 2018

full name / name of organization: Ronnie Ancona

contact email: rancona@hunter.cuny.edu


The Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) has recently added Classics as a secondary area of inquiry under Comparative Literature. Please consider submitting an abstract for a panel on Greco-Roman Myth in Literature and/or the Arts, which I will be chairing, for the 50th anniversary convention to be held in Washington DC March 21-24, 2019.


Since Classics is a new secondary area of inquiry for NeMLA, this session attempts to cast its net quite broadly. The intention is to appeal to classicists or others dealing with Greco-Roman literature, history, archaeology, and culture and its later reception for abstracts that will have wide appeal to the NeMLA audience.

Myth is a central feature of Greco-Roman studies as well as its legacy. We look for papers addressing any aspect of Greco-Roman myth in its original contexts or in its later reworkings. Papers may be theoretical in nature, addressing various ways of defining and interpreting myth, or may focus on one or more specific instantiations of Greco-Roman myth. Papers addressing the permutations of a single myth over time are welcome, as are discussions of pedagogical issues involving the teaching of Greco-Roman myth, in general, or of a specific myth or type of myth.

All abstracts (and eventual papers) should have in mind the general NeMLA audience and should not be aimed solely at classicists. All papers should be presented in English.

The topic of Greco-Roman myth will allow for a panel that deals with Greco-Roman literature and culture as well as its reception. The aim of the panel will be to demonstrate the contribution of Classics to a living tradition.



For further general information, go to the following links:

https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla.html

https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/17374


For submissions (due September 30th), go to the first link above and click on “Submit Your Abstracts.” Then in the search box at the upper right corner, search by “Ancona” or the panel title.



NeMLA membership is not required to submit abstracts but it is required to present at the convention.

CFP The Oxford Handbook of Children's Film (7/31/2018)

Of potential interest:

Call for Proposals - The Oxford Handbook of Children's Film
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/07/02/call-for-proposals-the-oxford-handbook-of-childrens-film

deadline for submissions: July 31, 2018

full name / name of organization: Noel Brown (Liverpool Hope University)

contact email: brownn@hope.ac.uk



Calls for Proposals: The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Film

Edited by Noel Brown (Liverpool Hope University, UK)

Deadlines

• Abstracts (300–400 words): 31 July 2018
• First Drafts (8,000 to 10,000 words): 31 May 2019

I am seeking proposals for chapters for possible inclusion in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Children’s Film, under contract with Oxford University Press. Oxford Handbooks are intended to offer authoritative and up-to-date surveys of original research in a particular subject area, with essays giving critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates, as well as a foundation for future research.

In recent years, the study of films for children has emerged as a vibrant and diverse field of critical enquiry. This volume in the Oxford Handbook series will reflect both the plurality of the format and the methodological diversity evident in current and recent scholarship, and serve as an authoritative introduction to children’s film. It will address themes, issues and topics from across the international history of children’s cinema from the early twentieth century to the present, aiming to reveal larger patterns, continuities and changes in the form, and reflect the ways in which children’s film content and reception have been shaped by major socio-historical events.

The Handbook will be interdisciplinary in scope and I am open to contributions from across a range of theoretical or methodological approaches, including film studies, children’s literary and cultural studies, children’s education, cultural history, and animation studies. Although I envisage that many of the chapters will focus on feature-length fiction films, I am receptive to proposals that seek to examine shorts and non-fiction films.

Possible topics might include (but are not limited to):

• The genre and form of children’s film
• Historical changes and continuities
• Early traditions of children’s cinema
• The relationship between children’s cinema and the state
• Children’s propaganda films
• Children’s film and national identity
• Children’s film programming
• The boundaries of children’s cinema
• Performance and stardom
• Racial/sexual politics
• Fandom and/or paratexts
• Children’s film and transmedia
• Family audiences
• Adaptation
• The reception of children’s film among young people
• Adults’ relationships with children’s film

Please send abstracts of 300–400 words, and a biography of 50–80 words, to Noel Brown at brownn@hope.ac.uk by 31 July 2018. Please give the subject header as ‘Oxford Handbook proposal’. Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than 31 August 2018. Chapters of 8,000 to 10,000 words will be due by 31 May 2019.

CFP Blade Runner International Session (9/21/2017; ACLA 2018)

CFP: ACLA 2018 Seminar, "Blade Runner International"
Announcement published by Antonio Cordoba on Friday, July 21, 2017
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/187751/cfp-acla-2018-seminar-blade-runner-international

Type: Call for Papers
Location: United States


CFP: Seminar "Blade Runner International." Annual convention of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), Los Angeles, March 29-April 1, 2018.

https://www.acla.org/annual-meeting

Thirty-five years ago, Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner (1982) brought Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) to the big screen and in the process introduced a groundbreaking visual language for science fiction film in its creation of a dystopian future Los Angeles. As ACLA prepares to convene in Los Angeles, just one year shy of the setting of Scott’s film, this seminar is interested in exploring Blade Runner’s influence on cultural production around the globe.

• To what extent has the film’s “retro-fitted” aesthetic shaped the visual language of the international iterations of science fiction sub-genres such as cyberpunk and steampunk? 
• How has its representation of human and robot relations intervened in subsequent explorations of – and scholarship about – the post-human? 
• What connections might we draw between Blade Runner’s portrayal of the future and more recent representations of dystopian futures and/or urban spaces? 
• How have re-workings of some of Blade Runner’s tropes in literature and film from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and non-Anglophone Europe in turn reshaped our current understanding of the original film? 

We welcome papers from diverse historical, ethno-national, and social contexts that examine and/or engage with a range of media (film, literature, animé, video-games, etc.).

We invite you to contact us or to submit an abstract to the ACLA website by September 21.
Contact Info:


Emily Maguire (Northwestern University), e-maguire@northwestern.edu, and Antonio Cordoba (Manhattan College), antoniocordoba@gmail.com.
Contact Email:
antoniocordoba@gmail.com
URL:
https://www.acla.org/blade-runner-international