[Commlist] Call for Papers: 25 Years of The Big Lebowski

                     Call for Papers: 25 Years of The Big Lebowski

                     Call for Abstracts:

                     Ethan and Joel Coen’s The Big Lebowski (1998) is
        lauded as the first cult film of the internet age, due in no
        small part to the role played by online communities in its
        gradual rise to popularity.  It sees a travelling festival
        dedicated to it, The Lebowski Fest, celebrated annually across
        various cities in the USA and the UK since 2002 and 2008
        respectively. Over years, the film’s protagonist has garnered
        such adoration that it led to the formation of a contemporary
        religion, Dudeism, in 2005, with a community of more than
        600,000 members worldwide ordained through its simple online
        procedure. After being trashed initially, the film has gone on
        to garner critical acclaim and was even added to the USA's
        Library of Congress’ National Treasury in 2014. It has also
        drawn a fair share of scholarly attention with time in critical
        anthologies such as The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies (2009),
        The Big Lebowski and Philosophy: Keeping Your Mind Limber with
        Abiding Wisdom (2012), and Fan Phenomena: The Big Lebowski
        (2014). However, these represent only a fraction of the vast
        body of literature on the film, with numerous (aca)fan books,
        fan theories, and online forums passionately dissecting it as
        well. The film seems to have sustained its cultural relevance
        over the years — as evidenced by a Super Bowl commercial
        featuring its protagonist as well as popular films like
        Avengers: Endgame referencing it, in 2019, and a spinoff titled
        The Jesus Rolls releasing in 2020. As recently as August 2021, a
        reddit user posited that the underlying message of The Big
        Lebowski is more relevant now than it has ever been.

                     As the 25th anniversary of its release draws
        closer, we look to revisit The Big Lebowski to facilitate and
        foster further scholarly dialogue on this film which seems well
        on its way to becoming a cultural artefact. For this, we seek
        original contributions of qualitative research that offer fresh
        perspectives on The Big Lebowski from a myriad of vantage points
        and analytical frameworks. Prospective strands of discussion
        include but are not limited to:

                         Film theory and The Big Lebowski
                         The filmography of the Coen brothers
                         The Big Lebowski’s b(l)ending of conventional
        genre norms
                         Cyberculture and The Big Lebowski
                         Fan(dom) studies and The Big Lebowski
                         The Lebowski lexicon
                         Philosophical readings of The Big Lebowski
                         Comparative studies of The Big Lebowski
                         The Big Lebowski in and as adaptation
                         Gender in The Big Lebowski
                         Queer aesthetics in The Big Lebowski
                         Reading The Big Lebowski through critical race
        theory
                         The Big Lebowski beyond the anglophone world

                     We welcome interested contributors to submit
        Abstracts of around 250 words along with a bio-note of no more
        than 150 words as a single MS Word (.doc or .docx) file to
        (cinej25yearsoflebowski /at/ gmail.com)
        <mailto:(cinej25yearsoflebowski /at/ gmail.com)> by 31 January 2022.
        Authors of selected Abstracts will be invited to contribute full
        papers for a Special Section/Issue of the University of
        Pittsburgh's CINEJ Cinema Journal to be published around the
        25th anniversary of The Big Lebowski’s release. CINEJ Cinema
        Journal is an open-access journal that is free for readers to
        access, and does not levy any Article Processing Charges on 
authors.



                     Key Dates:

                         Abstract (250 words) Deadline: 31 January 2022
                         Intimation of Selection: 1 March 2022
                         Full paper (5,000-7,000 words) Deadline: 1 July
        2022
                         Publication: Early 2023



                     Guest Editors:

                         Elloit Cardozo, independent scholar, Mumbai, India
                         Dr. Sachin Labade, Associate Professor of
        English, University of Mumbai, India


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