[ecrea] Call for Chapters: Gonzo Journalism Beyond Thompson

*CALL FOR CHAPTERS*

*Fear and Loathing Worldwide: Gonzo Journalism Beyond Hunter S. Thompson*

With an aim to discover what "Gonzo" means in relation to literary
journalism around the world, submissions are invited for an edited
volume, projected to be published in 2016.

For more than forty years, the radically subjective style of
participatory journalism known as Gonzo has been closely associated with
the American writer Hunter S. Thompson. Over time, however, the Gonzo
label has occasionally detached itself from Thompson's person and work
and been applied to the work of other journalists, some of them prior to
Thompson and far from his hunting grounds. Around the world, literary
journalists have long been approaching unconventional material in risky
ways, often placing themselves in the middle of stories and relating
their tales in the hyperbolic rhetoric associated with Gonzo. In some
cases, Thompson’s influence is apparent, even explicit; in others,
writers have crafted their journalistic provocations independent of
their infamous American counterpart, only later to have that work
labeled “Gonzo.”

Several studies and discussions of Gonzo and Gonzoesque journalism in
various contexts, from Finland to Peru, have appeared in /Literary
Journalism Studies/ and other publications over the years as well as on
the programs of the annual conferences of the /International Association
for Literary Journalism Studies/. The time seems ripe to present an
edited volume of such international Gonzo studies to discover what
patterns and ideas of journalistic practice and agency emerge.

With this volume we want to examine the way Thompson's example serves as
a – possibly both liberating and constraining – frame of reference
around other journalistic troublemakers, who despite differences of
nationality, gender, race, sexuality, and class, do seem equally
determined to engage and shake up their readers and to challenge and
destabilize the ethos of professional journalism.

Contributors to the volume are encouraged to approach “Gonzo” as an
unstable signifier – powerful but notoriously vague – and to give
special attention to the ways in which its meaning, and the works
produced or read under that name, may differ with the various national,
cultural, political, and journalistic contexts in which it is deployed.

Possible topics include but are not limited to

?translating the Gonzo ethos into global practice

?Gonzo, empire, and the anxiety of transnational influence

?writers reading and misreading Thompson: adapting Gonzo in different
national and cultural contexts

?Gonzo and gender: women writers attracting and negotiating the Gonzo label

?encouraging bad behaviour: publishing Gonzo-style journalism around the
world

?Gonzo /avant la lettre/: historical analogues

?Gonzo and global countercultures

Expressions of interest should take for the form of a preliminary
description (300-500 words) of the chapter you would like to contribute.
Contributions from Asia, Central and South America, Africa, New Zealand,
and Australia are particularly welcome.

Editors are Christine Isager (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and Rob
Alexander (Brock University, Canada).

If interested, please e-mail Christine Isager at (isager /at/ hum.ku.dk) or Rob
Alexander at (ralexander /at/ brocku.ca)


Deadline for Proposals:

No later than September 15, 2015. After reviewing the chapter proposals,
we will invite contributions. Deadline for completed chapters will be
January 15, 2016.



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