[Commlist] CFP -- Golden Girls! Edited Volume on TV Series Created by Susan Harris

Please see the following CFP for an edited collected on television 
series created by /Golden Girls/ creator Susan Harris.

*CFP: EDITED VOLUME ON TV SERIES CREATED BY SUSAN HARRIS*
*Screen Storytellers:*
*The Works of Susan Harris*
*Edited by Rosanne Welch *
This edited volume on the works of Susan Harris will be part of the new 
SCREEN STORYTELLERS series published by Bloomsbury Academic. Seeking 
250-word abstracts for previously unpublished essays on television 
series created by Harris. Final essays will be 3,000-3,500 words, 
written for an audience of student readers.
The SCREEN STORYTELLERS series is designed for students, professors, and 
enthusiastic consumers of film, television, and new media who seek 
information about contemporary and historically significant 
screenwriters that is both accessible and critically rigorous. The 
intention with this series is to bring much-deserved attention to screen 
and television writers who have developed noteworthy films and 
television series of significant aesthetic or cultural achievement, 
critical acclaim, or commercial success, and to offer close readings of 
the films and series from the perspective of story, screenwriting craft, 
audience reception, and cultural impact. Volumes explores the works of a 
single screen storyteller. The series places a strong focus on works by 
screenwriters often left out of classroom syllabi, including women, 
writers of color, LGBTQ writers, and international writers.
*The Works of Susan Harris*
Susan Harris’s television series were progressive before progressives 
became cool (to paraphrase a Barbara Mandrell song written by Kye 
Fleming and Dennis Morgan). From the moment Maude Findlay chose to have 
an abortion when it was legal in New York State (but not yet across the 
country) Harris has placed progressive ideas about women’s lives at the 
forefront of her writing. She deftly used farce to open up taboo topics 
such as creating the gay character of Jodie Dallas (Billy Crystal) on 
/Soap. /From there she turned African American butler Benson DuBois 
(Robert Guillaume) into a lieutenant governor in /Benson. /Finally, her 
powerhouse series covering the lives of women over 50, /The Golden 
Girls, /is not only perennially in reruns in the U.S. but also gave 
birth to localized versions in Turkey and Chile (/Los Años 
Dorados/)/./  One can see the trajectory of how Harris’s work paved the 
way for other feminist writer-producers such as Linda Bloodworth Thomson 
(/Designing Women/)/, /Diane English (/Murphy Brown/), Yvette Lee Bowser 
(/Living Single/) and Marta Kaufman (/Grace and Frankie/).
Possible essay topics could include but are not limited to:

 1. Representation of women’s careers and life balance
 2. Representation of pregnancy
 3. Representation of motherhood
 4. Representation of mature women (over 50)
 5.
    Crafting equal marriages
 6.
    Women’s desire, dating, and sex
 7. Representation of characters in engaged in community volunteerism
 8. Creation/representation of male characters as feminist men
 9. Focus on her one-season shows (/It Takes Two, I’m a Big Girl Now,
    Good & Evil)/
10. Treatment of gender and/or race in her work
11. Signs of genius in her early staff writing work on /The Courtship of
    Eddie’s Father/, /The Partridge Family, /and/ All in the Family/
12. Recurring themes in Harris’s series
13. Analysis of /Golden Girls/ recreated for Chilean audiences as /Los
    años dorados/.
14. Viewer response / critics’ response
15. Fandom in the Harris-verse
16. Influence on other writers’ later hit shows (/Designing Women, Sex
    in the City/); influence on later women television writers
17. Partnerships with actresses
18. Exploration of Harris’s use of comedy
19. Harris’s series in the context of women’s work in the 1970s and 1980s
20. Deep dives into individual series (pilots and/or individual episodes)
  *
    /Fay/ (1975-76)
  *
    /Soap/ (1977-81)
  *
    /I’m a Big Girl Now/ (1980-81)
  *
    /It Takes Two/ (1982-83)
  *
    /Hail to the Chief/ (1985)
  *
    /Benson /(1979-86)
  *
    /Good & Evil/ (1991)
  *
    /The Golden Girls/ (1985-92)
  *
    /The Golden Palace/ (1992-93)
  *
    /Nurses (/1991-94)
  *
    /Empty Nest/ (1988-95)
  *
    /The Secret Lives of Men/ (1998-99)

Please submit a 250-word abstract along with a 150-word biographical 
statement to Rosanne Welch ((_rwelch /at/ stephens.edu) 
<mailto:(rwelch /at/ stephens.edu)>_) by June 30. Please title the subject line 
of your email: Abstract – The Works of Susan Harris. Direct any 
questions or inquiries to this email address as well. I welcome 
submissions from scholars at all stages of their careers, as well as 
practicing and aspiring screen and television writing professionals. 
Feel free to contact me with any questions about the book, and please 
share this announcement with colleagues whose work aligns with the focus 
of this volume.
*Abstracts due June 30*
For questions about the SCREEN STORYTELLERS book series, contact Anna 
Weinstein at (_aweinst6 /at/ kennesaw.edu) <mailto:(aweinst6 /at/ kennesaw.edu)>_. For 
more information, visit 
_https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/discover/superpages/academic/screen-storytellers-series/ 
<https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/discover/superpages/academic/screen-storytellers-series/>_.


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