[Commlist] CFP The Hulu Adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-2025): A one-day multidisciplinary symposium

*Extended Call for Papers*
‘A word after a word after a word is power’: The Hulu Adaptation of 
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-2025): A one-day 
multidisciplinary symposium.
Friday, September 13, 2024
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
We are inviting proposals for 20-minute conference papers on the Hulu 
Adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s famous 1985 
dystopia. The novel was published during Ronald Reagan’s troubled 
presidency, which witnessed second-wave feminism, anti-pornography, 
pro-life and pro-legal abortion campaigns, but the first season of the 
adaptation was likewise released during troubled times, a few months 
after the controversial election of Donald Trump as the 50th President 
of the USA, which created an equally tense political scene. Women across 
the world were protesting for female and human rights, often dressed in 
the now iconic Handmaid’s costume. In a photograph taken the day after 
Trump’s Inauguration, at the Women’s March on Washington, a protester 
held a sign bearing a slogan that spoke to the moment: ‘MAKE MARGARET 
ATWOOD FICTION AGAIN’.1 The eerie resemblance between facts and fiction 
is the main reason behind the critical and popular success of both the 
novel and its 2017-2024 TV Adaptation. The symposium supported by the 
Department of Humanities is a collaboration between the research groups, 
Gendered Subjects and Modern and Contemporary Writings.
The plenary speaker for the Symposium is Dr Fiona Tolan, who won the 
2024 Margaret Atwood Society award for her latest monograph /The Fiction 
of Margaret Atwood/, published by Bloomsbury in 2023.
The symposium is multidisciplinary, and we invite papers from the fields 
of literature, language, social and political sciences, film studies, 
fashion, and music. It coincides with the year that will see the airing 
of the sixth and final season of The Handmaid’s Tale, marking the end of 
an era. The symposium celebrates, exposes, and interrogates the 
boundaries and depths of misogyny, political correctness, public and 
private offence and outrage, repudiation of human and reproductive 
rights, violence and oppression, aesthetics and environmental disasters, 
all balancing on a thin line between a possible dystopic future and 
real-world events. Papers can approach Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale with 
reference to the following concepts, approaches or themes, though the 
list is not exhaustive:
· Dystopian and Speculative Fiction
· Theory of Adaptation – creating the novel on screen
· Exploring Gender
· Sex, Desire, and Consent
· Motherhood, Fatherhood and Reproduction
· Political and Personal Violence
· Place / Space
· Food
· Uniforms
· Eco-Criticism
· Immigration
· Music and its Significance
· Language and Narrative Voice
Submissions:
Proposals should include a title, an abstract of 150–200 words, a brief 
biographical note (up to 100 words), and contact details. If you would 
like to propose a themed panel, do please get in touch informally asap.
Please submit your proposals to the main symposium organiser *Dr Kiriaki 
(Korina) Massoura ((kiriaki.massoura /at/ northumbria.ac.uk))* by the *31st of 
July 2024*. We encourage submissions from scholars at all stages of 
their careers, including early career researchers and postgraduate 
students. Interdisciplinary approaches and innovative methodologies are 
welcome.
There will be a small conference fee (£15 for unwaged and £25 for waged 
delegates) that will cover light refreshments, lunch and a wine reception.

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