CFP: Complicated Masculinities in Popular Culture
Recent scholarship supports the notion that contemporary American masculinity is complex and problematic. Many scholarly projects seem to reflect a “crisis” perspective and focus on the negative or limiting aspects of changing masculinities. In contrast, this edited collection will focus on the possibilities of multiple, fluid, complex, twenty-first-century masculinities.
Casting a wide net that considers all forms of popular media from film to video games, the collection will consider the ways that categories of race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, as well as the natural and supernatural, affect conceptualizations of male identities. All of these patterns of representation are shaped in response to our global political climate: threats of terrorism, the New Jim Crow, pandemic fears, violence and crime, and women’s increased financial and political empowerment. These elements all affect and complicate depictions of masculinities, but they also open up new possibilities in terms of the ways that they can be represented, constructed, and revised. The ever-evolving world of new media and technology offers new ways of conceptualizing masculinities. People now have more options available for constructing a variety of identities, and a variety of venues open for the performance of them.
Popular culture: contemporary representations of masculinity, preference will be given to critical discussions of twenty-first-century popular culture (2000-2015).
Theoretical Concepts
● Masculinities and Men’s Studies
● Feminisms
● Media Studies
● Gender Studies
● Intersectionality
● Female Masculinities
● Comparative masculinities
● New men/masculinities
● Evolution/Devolution of masculinity
Subjects
● Utopia/Dystopia
● Anti-heroes/Villains
● Post-Apocalyptic
● Monsters/vampires
● Politics/Politicians and the 24-Hour News Cycle
● Performers/Musicians
● Hip Hop Culture
● Professional Sports and Sexuality
● Domestic Violence in the Media
● Sexual Scandals
● Superheroes/Villains
Possible texts
● Anime
● Superhero films
● Television (ie: Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Mad Men,
Supernatural.
● Reality TV (ie: Duck Dynasty, Turtle Man)
● Police Procedural Shows (CSI)
● Films (Bromances, Chick Flicks, Buddy Films)
● Advertising
● Music/Performers
● Video Games (Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, MMOs, Sports
games)
● Sports (Fantasy Sports, Scandals)
● Internet (Avatars, Online Dating, Social medias)
Other ideas? Please query the editors!
Dr. Merry G. Perry (mperry@wcupa.edu) and
Dr. Cherise A. Pollard (cpollard@wcupa.edu)
West Chester University
Dept. of English, Main Hall
700 High Street
West Chester, PA 19382
Please send the following documents to complicatedmasc@gmail.com by June 28, 2015.
1. A one-page abstract (about 500 words) of your proposed chapter
2. A complete curriculum vita
The editors will notify authors of their abstract’s acceptance status by July 16, 2015.
Several presses have expressed interest in this collection.
Full chapter submissions will be original scholarly work of approximately 6,000-8,000 words in length and be due by Oct. 1, 2015.
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