[ecrea] CFP - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Adaptations, Histories, Legacies - Proposals due 1 Oct. 2018

/Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy/: Adaptations, Histories, Legacies

Call for Book Chapters

Editor: Randal Rogers

What accounts for the ongoing importance of /Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy/ 
in popular culture? First published in 1974, John le Carré’s novel has 
occupied an important place in the espionage imagination ever since, 
with a BBC television adaptation directed by John Irvin in 1979, BBC 
radio broadcasts in 1988, 2009 & 2016, and a film directed by Tomas 
Alfredson in 2011. The first in the Karla Trilogy, followed by /The 
Honourable Schoolboy/ (1977) and /Smiley’s People/ (1979), /Tinker 
Tailor Soldier Spy/ continues the critique expounded in /The Spy Who 
Came in from the Cold/ (1963) to focus upon, not the sexy, triumphant 
heroism and techno-fetishism of the Bond franchise, but the everyday 
paranoid underbelly of the secret service. Many have discussed the links 
between representation and reality as a structuring feature of both 
/Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy/ and its author, who worked as a spy in his 
early professional life. Its central character, George Smiley, pushed 
from the Circus (fictional British intelligence agency) only to return 
covertly to investigate a mole at the very top of the organization, is a 
type of anti-heroic Prometheus figure bringing light to humanity through 
forms of deceit. Surrounding Smiley is the unstable edifice of the 
espionage trade: changing notions of empires and nations as new 
transnational forms appear; a spy trade being redefined within the 
dynamics of historical transformation; individual struggles for 
characters trying to make sense of their work and lives; nostalgia for 
times that modernity has subsumed in the name of progress; the 
increasing incursion of the security state into new areas of public and 
private life; the uncertain relation between truth and deception; and 
the search for a truth of which no one can any longer be certain.

From the time of its publication to its latest adaptation /Tinker 
Tailor Soldier Spy/ has raised and negotiated key issues related to both 
fictional and real contexts of espionage. Its ongoing success and 
currency reside in this adaptability. What happens as /Tinker Tailor 
Soldier Spy/ is translated across platforms and historical contexts? How 
have its adaptations worked with the novel’s narrative context or 
updated it for contemporary formations and audiences? In short, why 
has/Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy/ remained vital for over forty years of 
production?

This is a proposal for an edited collection based upon /Tinker Tailor 
Soldier Spy/, its adaptations and subsequent media (books, television, 
film, fan cultures, etc.) from le Carré’s Karla Trilogy. Contributors 
will primarily consist of experts in the fields of literature, sound, 
film, or visual culture studies who have researched /Tinker Tailor 
Soldier Spy/ and/or related topics (e.g. John le Carré’s novels, spy 
media forms, adaptation), but artists, fans, and students are also 
welcome. Topics may include but are not limited to:

- /Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy/ (/TTSS/) in the espionage thriller genre

- Adaptations of /TTSS/ for television, radio and/or film

- /Mise en sc//e//ne/in adaptations of /TTSS/

- /TTSS /and popular representations of spies and spying

- /TTSS/ and the counter-Fleming movement

- Bureaucracy, procedure, and the State

- Technologies, techniques, techne

- Conspiracy narratives in the Karla trilogy

- Secrets, confessions, paranoia, fidelity, honour

- /TTSS/ and real spying

- George Smiley’s career

- Character studies of /TTSS/

- Fan cultures

- Memory and nostalgia

- Femininities, masculinities, queer sexualities

- Race and/or class in /TTSS/ and the Karla Trilogy

- Early drafts of the novel and/or screenplays

- Empire, nation, transnationalism and the geopolitics of the Karla Trilogy

- The Cold War in /TTSS/

- Real war, information war, communication

- Watching, seeing, listening and the surveillance/security state

- The double, reflection and refraction, mirrors and windows

- Time and/or space

- Affective domains of /TTSS/

- /TTSS/ as a moral/ethical inquiry

Interested contributors are invited to submit a 500-word proposal and a 
short biography to the editor by 1 October 2018. Selections will be 
communicated to contributors by 1 November. Final chapters of 
approximately 5000-7000 words will be due by 1 June 2019, with 
publication planned for late 2019 or early 2020. Editors of the 
‘Espionage and Culture’ series at Routledge have expressed interest in 
the volume and a full proposal will be made once contributors have been 
selected. Please feel free to contact the volume’s editor (Randal 
Rogers) with any questions or queries. In addition, a quick expression 
of interest email would be appreciated by 1 September.

This research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities 
Research Council of Canada.

Contact:

Dr. Randal Rogers

(randal.rogers /at/ uregina.ca)



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