[Commlist] CFP: Through a Glass Darkly: European History and Politics in Contemporary Crime Narratives

Call for papers « Through a Glass Darkly: European History and Politics 
in Contemporary Crime Narratives »| volume edited by Monica Dall’Asta, 
Jacques Migozzi, Federico Pagello and Andrew Pepper

Abstract length : 300 words

Deadline for submissions: May 31, 2020

To talk about the crime genre—as opposed to detective or spy or noir 
fiction—is to recognise the comprehensiveness of a category that speaks 
to and contains multiple sub-genres and forms (Ascari, 2007). In this 
volume, we want to uncover the ways in which the crime genre, in all of 
its multiple guises, forms and media/transmedia developments, has 
investigated and interrogated the concealed histories and political 
underpinnings of national and supranational societies and institutions 
in Europe, particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Two most popular expression of the crime genre, the detective novel and 
the spy novel, have long been identified as ‘sociological’ in their 
orientation (Boltanski,//2012). These forms often tackle enigmas or 
uncover conspiracies that are concealed by and within states, asking 
searching questions about the failures of democracy and the national and 
international criminal justice systems to deliver just societies. 
Similarly, following the example of U.S. hard-boiled fiction, the ‘noir’ 
variant of the genre has also established itself as a ‘literature of 
crisis’ (according to Jean-Patrick Manchette’s formula), where the 
shredding of official truths and of ‘reality’ itself ends up revealing 
dark political motives that elicit an even starker set of ethical and 
affective interrogations (Neveu, 2004). While the obvious links between 
the ‘noir’ and the ‘hard-boiled’ traditions of crime fiction (e.g. 
between Manchette and Hammett) suggest an American-French or 
trans-Atlantic connection, we are keen to stress that the sociological 
and political orientation of the European crime genre—especially since 
1989 and the corresponding opening up of national borders and 
markets—requires examining both global/glocal and multi-national (and 
state-bound) issues and challenges. It is here that the European 
dimension of the proposed volume is best articulated because, to do 
justice to this context, we need to pay attention not just to discreet 
national traditions, but the ways in which contemporary iterations of 
the genre interrogate the workings of policing, law, criminality and 
justice across borders and nations (Pepper and Schmid, 2016).

The transnational framework of the DETECt project (Detecting 
Transcultural Identities in Popular European Crime Narratives) is 
necessarily and acutely concerned with civic and ethical issues linked 
to the construction of new European new identities. The proposed volume 
aims to explore the ways in which these new identities are formulated 
and thematised in European crime novels, films or TV series, 
particularly in relation to the interrogations raised by the uncovering 
of hidden aspects of both the historical past and the contemporary 
political landscapes. Contributions are encouraged which look at 
particular case studies or identify larger national and/or transnational 
trends or synthesise the relationship between individual texts and these 
larger trends. It is envisaged that the volume will be organised into 
the three sections outlined below. Prospective contributors are invited 
to identify where their articles might sit within this structure as well 
as to outline the particular focus adopted by their essay in relation to 
the general topic. The list of topics in each section is to be regarded 
as indicative rather than exhaustive.

1 - Crime Narratives and the History of Europe

European crime narratives from the last thirty years have frequently 
referred to collective traumas and conflicts that have torn European 
societies apart throughout the 20^th century. Contributions are invited 
that look at the ways in which these fictional works have restaged and 
critically reinterpreted some of the most tragic pages in European 
recent history, including (but not limited to) the following iterations 
of violent rupture and social breakdown:

  * The Civil War and Francoist dictatorship in Spanish crime narratives
    (e.g. Montalbán, La isla minima);
  * Fascism, surveillance and the police-state (e.g. Lucarelli, Gori, De
    Giovanni) and the role of oppositional memory (e.g. Morchio,
    Dazieri) in Italian detective fiction;
  * Fascistic/right-wing nationalist movements in interwar Scandinavia
    (e.g. Larsson, Mankell);
  * The Third Reich as the historical biotope of crime fiction (e.g.
    Kerr, Gilbers);
  * The constant presence of wars as a breeding ground for crime in
    French crime novels: World War I and II, collaboration, the Algerian
    War, colonisation, post-colonisation (e.g. Daeninckx,Férey);
  * The heavy presence of Cold War images and axiology in spy novels and
    films, including those appeared after the fall of the Berlin Wall,
    both in Western and Eastern Europe (e.g. Kondor, Furst);
  * The ‘Troubles’ in Irish and British crime fiction (e.g. Peace, 
McNamee).

2 - Crime Narratives and the Present of Europe

Our present time is characterized by a number of social, political, 
financial/economic crises that threaten the construction of a 
cosmopolitan pan-European identity in line with the EU’s founding 
ideals. Crime narratives attempt to offer realistic representations of 
such contemporary crises by putting in place a number of ‘chronotopes’ 
that symbolise social divisions and peripheral and marginalized 
identities. We encourage essays that examine the ways in which post-1989 
European crime narratives have represented the emergence of 
nationalisms, xenophobia, racism and other threats to the social 
cohesiveness of European democracies. We also invite contributions that 
use the trope of the crisis to explore how the links between crime, 
business and politics have polluted or corrupted the democratic 
imperatives of European social democracies and institutions from the 
outset. Topics might include:

  * The Kosovo War, and more broadly the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s,
    as the first signs of a generalised geopolitical chaos (e.g. in
    French noir novels);
  * The financial crisis of 2008 and its devastating consequences for
    individuals, communities and whole societies (e.g. Bruen and French
    in Ireland; Markaris in Greece; Dahl in Sweden; Lemaître in France);
  * The migrant crisis (within and outside the EU) and the emergence of
    new anxieties about belonging and/or otherness (e.g. Mankell, Dolan,
    Rankin);
  * Climate change, pollution, and environmental destruction (e.g.
    Tuomainen, Pulixi);
  * The blurring of crime and capitalism and the depiction of crime as a
    form of social protest vis-à-vis the effects of global capitalism
    and neoliberal deregulation and privatisation (e.g. Manotti,
    Carlotto, Heinichen, the TV series Bron);
  * Inquiries into the effects of contemporary forms of patriarchy,
    gendered violence and misogyny and their links to other forms of
    oppression and domination (e.g. Lemaître, Slimani, Macintosh,
    Gimenez-Bartlett Larsson, McDermid).

3 - Crime Narratives and the Future of Europe

European crime narratives explore a broad range of social and cultural 
identities across different scales: from the more stable identities 
attached to local contexts through the new mobile, precarious and 
mutating identities fostered by the dynamics of globalization. This 
section will look into how these different identities and their complex 
interplay can suggest ways to frame the future of Europe. Contributions 
could address how crime narratives try to make sense of the complex, if 
yet perhaps contradictory, set of representations circulating across 
different European public space/s/ and collective imaginar/ies/. On the 
one hand, we might ask whether something like a European crime genre 
even actually exists, given that these works typically demonstrate 
suspicions about ‘outsiders’ and only rarely offer positive 
representations of post-national transcultural identities. On the other 
hand, however, the genre does give us glimpses into what might be 
achieved through cross-border policing initiatives, organised under or 
by Interpol and Europol, in the face of organised crime gangs involved 
in transnational smuggling and trafficking networking. Contributions to 
this final section are encouraged to reflect upon how crime narratives 
produced by and in between the discreet nation-states frame the hopes 
and limits of European cohesiveness and the continent’s future or 
futures. Essays could focus on one or more of the following topics:

  * The interplay between local, regional, national and transnational
    identities as represented through specific narrative tropes, such as
    in particular the local police station, the interrogation room, the
    frontier or border, and so on;
  * The connection between social deprivation at the local end of the
    geopolitical scale and different global systems and networks at the
    other end;
  * The role of borders, cities, violence, rebellion, policing and
    surveillance in producing new identities and subjectivities not
    wholly anchored in discreet nation-states. Attention could also be
    given to formal innovations insofar as these allow or enable the
    expression of new identities;
  * The hope and consolation offered by the resilient community or
    village (Broadchurch, Shetland) or the extended family (Markaris’s
    Kostas Charistos series) in the face of the messy, brutal
    contingencies of a world ruled by criminal and business elites;
  * Social banditry as a form of contestation directed against social
    inequalities produced by capitalism (Carlotto’s Alligator series; La
    casa de papel).
If you are interested in submitting a proposal to be considered for 
inclusion in this volume, please send an abstract of no more than 300 
words and a short biography to (info /at/ detect-project.euby) May 31, 2020.We 
would encourage you to identify the section of the proposed volume where 
your essay would be best situated. We are looking to commission up to 14 
essays in totalof 7000 words each including footnotes and bibliographic 
references.

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