[ecrea] CFP: Multiplicities: Cycles, Sequels, Remakes and Reboots in Film & Television (anthology)

SENT ON BEHALF OF THE EDITORS: R. Barton Palmer: (PPALMER /at/ clemson.edu) 
<mailto:(PPALMER /at/ clemson.edu)>

Amanda Ann Klein: (kleina /at/ ecu.edu)

*Project Overview:*

Like film genres, film cycles are a series of films associated with each 
other due to shared images, characters, settings, plots, or themes. But 
while film genres are primarily defined by the repetition of key images 
(their semantics) and themes (their syntax), film cycles are primarily 
defined by how they are used (their pragmatics). In other words, the 
formation and longevity of film cycles are a direct result of their 
immediate financial viability as well as the public discourses 
circulating around them. And because they are so dependent on audience 
desires, film cycles are also subject to defined time constraints: most 
film cycles are financially viable for only five to ten years. The 
contemporaneity of the film cycle—which is made to capitalize on a trend 
before audience interest wanes—has contributed to its marginalized 
status, linking it with “low culture” and the masses.

As a result of their timeliness (as opposed to timelessness), film 
cycles remain a critically under examined area of inquiry in the field 
of film and media studies, despite the significant role film cycles have 
played in the history of American and international film production. 
This collection of essays seeks to remedy that gap by providing a 
wide-ranging examination of film cycles, sequels, franchises, remakes 
and reboots in both American and international cinema. Submissions 
should investigate the relationship between audience, industry and 
culture in relation to individual production cycles. We are also 
soliciting essays that examine how production cycles in the television 
industry are tied to audience, culture, and production trends in other 
media.

*Possible topics include, but are not limited to:***

-sequels, trilogies, and franchises as cycles

-the relationship between film cycles and subcultures

-the relationship between film cycles and political and social movements

-analyses of intrageneric cycles (film cycles within larger film genres) 
such as teen-targeted musicals (/High School Musical, Save the Last 
Dance, You Got Served/) or torture porn horror films (/Saw, Hostel, 
Touristas/)

-analyses of intergeneric film cycles (stand-alone film cycles) like 
disaster films (/The Day After Tomorrow, Poseidon, 2012/) or mumblecore 
((/Baghead, Cyrus, Tiny Furniture/)

-the transmedia nature of cycles (the relationship between /Harry 
Potter/ books, films, toys, video games, fan fiction, vids, etc.)

-the relationships between cycles in television, music, and film, like 
the appearance of fairytale television shows (/Once Upon a Time, Grimm/) 
and films (/Snow White and the Huntsman, Mirror, Mirror/) in 2011-2012

-production cycles found within television (television musicals, comedy 
verite, etc.)

- essays that explore the (dis)connections between film cycles, on the 
one hand, and remakes, sequels, adaptations, and appropriations on the other

*/please note/**:* Essays dealing with the American blaxploitation cycle 
of the 1970s should approach it from a fresh perspective, not yet 
represented in the substantial scholarly literature on the topic.

* *

*Submission Guidelines: *

Please submit your abstracts of 400 words and a brief (1-page) CV via 
email to both of the editors by August 30, 2012. Finished essays should 
be approximately 6,000 to 7,000 words in length, including footnotes. 
Acceptance of essays will be contingent upon the contributors’ ability 
to deliver an essay that conforms to the work proposed by the submitted 
abstract. We will notify contributors by November 2012.

*Please email your abstract and CV to both editors:*

R. Barton Palmer: (PPALMER /at/ clemson.edu) <mailto:(PPALMER /at/ clemson.edu)>

Amanda Ann Klein: (kleina /at/ ecu.edu)