[ecrea] CFP time travel

CfP: Time Travel in the Media



We are currently seeking chapter proposals for the first collection of 
essay to address time travel across different media formats. The 
collection, to be be published by McFarland, will be edited by Joan 
Ormrod (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Matthew Jones (UCL).



Time travel has been a topic that has fascinated the media since the 
19th century. Indeed, cinema has used flashbacks and montage since its 
earliest days to experiment with time. However, film is not the only 
medium fascinated by the concept. Television series such as Doctor Who 
(1963-1989, 1996 and 2005-present), Quantum Leap (1989-1993), The Time 
Tunnel (1966-1967) and Torchwood (2006-2011) explore history and play 
with notions of time as a social construct. Video games, manga and animé 
also examine time travel's unique narrative possibilities, for instance 
in The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (1998) or Final Fantasy 
XIII-2 (2011). Graphic novels such as Watchmen (1986-1987) and superhero 
narratives use time travel to explore heroes’ ingenuity and the problems 
created by paradoxes.

Time travel narratives have invoked socio-historic concerns for 
subjectivity, narrativity, history, the future and potential apocalypse. 
The future and the past are frequently depicted as a means of 
understanding the problems of the present. Lately, time travel 
narratives have used philosophical issues based on scientific theories 
such as string theory, multiple universes and the philosophical 
construction of time. Contemporary time travel stories also acknowledge 
the potential for experimentation in media narratives. Such diversity 
surely requires more scrutiny in academic discourse. This collection of 
essays will be the first dedicated solely to the topic.





The collection is aimed at:



· undergraduate and postgraduate students in film and media, cultural 
studies, philosophy, social sciences, history and science programmes.



· science fiction and fantasy fandoms across a range of media.





The volume will address a broad range of media, including television, 
cinema, video games, anime and manga, comics and graphic novels and 
radio plays. It will be divided into five sections addressing narrative 
and media form, time travel as genre, philosophical and theoretical 
concepts, time and culture and a number of case studies







We are currently inviting 500-word proposals for 5000-7000 word 
chapters. These might address, but need not be limited to, the following 
topics:



•  Adaptation and the differences between time in media forms

•  Parallel worlds/alternative realities in virtual media, gaming and 
avatars

•  Narrative devices such as the causal time loop

•  Cinematic and media apparatus as time machine

•  Experimental and avant garde depictions of time and time travel

•  Narrative tropes

•  Key characters - H. G. Wells, The Doctor, Sam Becket, Marty McFly

•  Iconography - the time travel machine, distinguishing the past/future 
from the present

•  The adaptability of the time travel narrative to many genres - 
science fiction, fantasy, romance, teenpics

•  The depiction of history and historical characters

•  The rules and regulations of time travel and parallel worlds

•  The experience and means of time travel (machine, magic, supernatural)

•  Use of specific theoretical models of narrative interrogation, such 
as psychoanalytic, carnivalesque, discursive, Deleuzian, Ricoeur, 
Bergson, postmodern and semiotic perspectives or new theoretical contexts

•  Philosophical considerations, such as free will and determinism, 
religious and ritualistic perspectives

•  String theory and parallel universes

•  Socio-historic notions of time (linear time, cyclical time, the 
Enlightenment and the mythic)

•  Tourism - cosmopolitanism, the flâneur

•  Time-travel narratives within the context of their socio-historic 
production

•  Case studies which examine a specific aspect of time travel in one text.



Proposals along with a 50 word biography should be sent to: 
(timetravelcollection /at/ gmail.com)



Deadline: 16 June 2013



Thanks

Joan



Dr. Joan Ormrod

Senior Lecturer

Chatham 307

Manchester Metropolitan University

Cavendish Street
Manchester
M15 6BR



01612471938

(j.ormrod /at/ mmu.ac.uk)

Editor of  Routledge, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

Conference of Scotland and the Birth of Comics, 24th-28th June 2013, 
http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ibds/?page_id=91

Office hours: Tuesday, 2-4pm, Thursday, 2-4pm




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