CFP Films of Jess Franco (7/30/14)

The Films of Jess Franco (Edited Volume)
Publication Date: 2014-07-30
Date Submitted: 2014-04-06
Announcement ID: 212836

Call for Papers

Edited Volume: The Films of Jess Franco

Editors: Antonio Lázaro-Reboll (University of Kent) and Ian Olney (York College of Pennsylvania)


Jesús “Jess” Franco (1930-2013) is one of the most prolific and madly inventive filmmakers in the history of cinema.  His remarkable career spanned more than half a century and produced almost two hundred films shot in Spain and across Europe.  He is best known as the director of jazzy, erotically-charged horror movies featuring mad scientists, lesbian vampires, and women in prison, but dabbled in a multitude of genres from comedy to science-fiction to pornography.  Although he made his career in the ghetto of low-budget exploitation cinema, he managed to create a body of work that is deeply personal, frequently political, and surprisingly poetic.  Franco’s offbeat films command a devoted cult following; they have even developed a mainstream audience in recent years, thanks to their release on DVD and Blu-Ray.  To date, however, they have received relatively little scholarly attention.  The Films of Jess Franco seeks to address this neglect by bringing together original essays on Franco and his movies written from a variety of different theoretical perspectives by noted scholars around the world.  Ultimately, its aim is to encourage a reassessment of this critically undervalued director and his significant contributions to popular European cinema.



The editors of this proposed volume invite original essays on any aspect of Jess Franco’s work; all theoretical approaches are welcome.  Possible topics might include:


Franco as Horror Auteur
Gender and/or Race in Franco’s Films
Queer Franco
The Franco Soundtrack
Franco’s Non-Horror Films
Late Franco (Films of the 1990s and 2000s)
Franco as Spanish Filmmaker
Franco as Transnational Filmmaker
Franco and the Art Film
Franco’s Influences
Sex and Eroticism in Franco’s Films
Franco and Film Adaptation
Performance and Stardom in Franco’s Films
The Politics of Franco’s Films
The Cult of Franco
Franco’s Legacy


Please send abstracts of 500 words to Antonio Lázaro-Reboll (a.lazaro-reboll@kent.ac.uk) and Ian Olney (iolney@ycp.edu) by July 30, 2014.  Final essays will be due January 30, 2015.  Essays should be 6,000-8,000 words in length and should follow MLA guidelines for citation and documentation.

Ian Olney
English & Humanities Dept.
York College of Pennsylvania
York, PA 17403
(717) 815-6446
Email: iolney@ycp.edu