[ecrea] Call for Chapter Proposals - Book on Children's Media

Call for Chapter Proposals for Book Proposal


The editors are seeking chapter proposals for a collection of essays 
that examine children’s media for non-stereotypical and/or 
counter-stereotypical portrayals of gender identities and sexualities.


Proposed Title: Challenging Traditional Representations: Breaking gender 
and sexuality stereotypes in children’s media


Editors: CarrieLynn D. Reinhard (Dominican University) & Christopher J. 
Olson (Dominican University)


Purpose: Research reveals that children’s programming contains 
numerous stereotyped representations of gender and sexuality. 
Furthermore, these stereotyped representations often advance binaristic 
notions of gender and sexuality that do not necessarily reflect the wide 
array of sexual and gender identities that exist in the real world. 
Currently, much of the public discourse surrounding these concepts 
focuses on their fluidity or lack thereof, and therefore we believe it 
becomes vital to understand whether children’s media reflect these 
prevailing sociocultural messages, and if so, how they conform to or 
resist such notions. Thus, it is important to identify those media and 
pop culture texts that reflect progressive social and cultural values 
regarding the fluidity of gender identity and sexuality.


The essays in this volume will identify and analyze children’s media 
that demonstrate and reflect the wide range of sexualities and gender 
identities. In particular, these essays will focus on a variety of 
different characters that demonstrate non-stereotypical sexualities and 
gender identities. The essays chosen for this collection will work 
together to examine the presence of these messages in media meant for 
children, including animated series, comic books, movies, and video 
games. Each essay will consider how the different texts reflect, 
reinforce, and/or challenge sociocultural notions regarding sexuality 
and gender identity. This collection is designed to reveal how these 
messages become disseminated across the entire media ecology with which 
children engage.


Proposed Structure: This collection will consist of an introduction, a 
conclusion, and ten essays exploring this topic across a range of 
children’s media.

  *   Each essay should contain original scholarship on this topic.
  *   Essays should consider any media text meant for children (i.e. 
animated series, feature film, video game, comic book, etc).
  *   Essays may consider non-stereotypical and/or 
counter-stereotypical representations of gender identities and/or 
sexualities.
  *   Essays should be 8000-9000 words long.

Essay proposals, to be considered for inclusion as a chapter, should 
contain a title, your name with your university and title, and 100-150 
word abstract explaining the following:

  1.  What children’s media text you will analyze.
  2.  What aspect of the media text you will analyze.
  3.  The importance of this aspect.
  4.  The potential conclusion drawn from your analysis.

The following presents information as to what will be covered in the 
introduction and conclusion chapters, as well as an example of an essay 
examining the media text Adventure Time.


Sample Table of Contents


Introduction: Looking past stereotypes of gender identity and 
sexuality in children’s media

CarrieLynn D. Reinhard (Associate Professor, Dominican University) and 
Christopher J. Olson (Adjunct Professor, Dominican University)

In this introduction, CarrieLynn Reinhard and Christopher Olson will 
describe the prevalence of research into children’s media that 
demonstrates how the predominant messages about gender identity and 
sexuality tend to reflect stereotypical notions of gender as a binary 
that features male on one end and female on the other. Given the rise in 
public discourse and popular culture of ideas that challenges these 
stereotypes, the authors argue for the need to examine children’s 
media with an eye toward uncovering non-stereotypical or 
counter-stereotypical messages. More recent concepts and theories of 
gender identity and sexuality that challenge these stereotypes will be 
introduced here to serve as the foundation for their use throughout the 
collection.


A Computer Boy or a Computer Girl?: Adventure Time, BMO and gender 
performance

Christopher J. Olson (Adjunct Professor, Dominican University)

This chapter analyzes the construction and depiction of the Adventure 
Time character BMO. The authors argue that BMO highlights how gender 
identity functions as a fluid construct that individuals negotiate and 
renegotiate via positionings and social interactions. To determine how 
the series encodes the concept of gender identity, the authors conducted 
a textual analysis of Adventure Time, focusing specifically on episodes 
that feature BMO. Through this analysis, they determined that BMO 
highlights and reinforces the idea that gender exists as a sociocultural 
construct imposed upon individuals by both themselves and through their 
interactions with others. Furthermore, BMO illustrates that individuals 
can negotiate between the two binary oppositions of gender dictated by 
society. Drawing upon Zizi Papacharissi’s concept of the networked 
self, the authors believe this construction and depiction of BMO 
represent a networked gender, which further illustrates the fluidity and 
performativity of the concept of gender.


Conclusion: New role models for children?

Christopher J. Olson (Adjunct Professor, Dominican University)

In the conclusion chapter, Christopher Olson will synthesize the ideas 
put forth in the various chapters to discuss the importance of 
understanding such messages that occur throughout the media ecology due 
to its prevalence in children’s lives, while also identifying areas of 
ecology that have not been studied enough and other types of messages 
not considered within these pages. Thus, the conclusion will consider 
how people in turn respond to those messages, and propose how other 
avenues of study can build off the theoretical and analytical foundation 
laid with this volume.


If interested, please email the authors with your proposal by January 
15th, 2016 at:

CarrieLynn D. Reinhard: (creinhard /at/ dom.edu)<mailto:(creinhard /at/ dom.edu)>

Christopher J. Olson: (colson /at/ dom.edu)<mailto:(colson /at/ dom.edu)>

CarrieLynn D. Reinhard
Associate Professor, Communication Arts and Sciences
Director, Social Media Minor
Undergraduate Faculty Associate, Borra CTLE
Dominican University
http://www.playingwithresearch.com
http://ducommstars.wordpress.com

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