[Commlist] call for contributions: Essays on the Media History of Nurses and Nursing

*CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: *
Sexpots and Saints: Essays on the Media History of Nurses and Nursing

Proposed collection to be edited by Marcus Harmes, Barbara Harmes and 
Meredith Harmes

The intersection between nurses and popular media is longstanding.

Florence Nightingale died in 1910 and British Pathe’s coverage of her 
funeral is a very early instance of nurses appearing on film. 
Nightingale was the subject of a silent film biography by 1915 and 
thereafter film, television, theatre and live performance and other 
media have showcased the nurse and the nursing profession. The 
familiarity of the nurse is inherently visual; the iconography of nurse 
in cap, cape and uniform remains current in realms from the stripper to 
the pop culture memories of the matron of the Carry On films, even 
though that iconography, especially the cap, has disappeared from real 
world nursing.

The presence of the nurse and the nursing profession in popular media 
has attracted some scholarly interest. The expression of values and 
professional identities, the influence of the popular understanding the 
actual, and particular popular culture nurses such as Nurse Ratched from 
/One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest/ have appeared in the scholarly 
literature. However more remains to be said about the variety of 
impressions and the diversity of platforms and representations of 
nursing that occur via media depictions that can range from valorising 
to sexualising. The interactions between the actual and the fictional, 
the capacity of the nurses of popular culture to mirror, distort, or 
inspire the nurses of the real world warrants further attention. Does 
seeing a nurse on screen inspire people to enter the profession? To what 
extent is a gender disparity in the profession attributable to mediated 
distillations? If nurses are the caring profession, why are there so 
many nurses in horror films? If Florence Nightingale was a secular 
saint, why is the profession’s iconography appropriated by the stripper 
and the porn actress? These and other questions are starting points for 
unpacking the media representations of the nurse.

The proposed volume is intended to be scholarly but accessible in tone 
and approach.

This proposed collection is under contract with a US publisher.

Abstracts of up to 250 words are invited explaining the focus and 
approach the chapter will take. Please email (Marcus.harmes /at/ usq.edu.au) 
<mailto:(Marcus.harmes /at/ usq.edu.au)> by May 30^th 2020.

Submissions can address any aspect of the intersection of nursing with 
popular culture, which itself can comprise media from film, television, 
journalism and print cultures, new and digital media, and music,

-Soap opera and drama (Emergency Ward 10, Shortland Street, Angels, Call 
the Midwife among others)

-The nurse in horror films

-The sex industry and pornography

-The Carry On films

-Nurses and their reputations in the media (e.g. Florence Nightingale, 
Edith Cavell)

-Celebrity nursing

-Cultures of nursing

-Popular artefacts of nurses and nursing

-Popular history of nursing and nursing training

-Nursing and propaganda

Each contribution would be 6000words all inclusive. We could not accept 
contributions that require the reproduction of images unless you already 
hold the rights to reproduce them.

Editor biographies

*Associate Professor Marcus Harmes *has published extensively in the 
fields of religious and political history, with a particular emphasis on 
British religious history and popular culture. His most recent 
publications in the field of television studies include /Roger Delgado: 
I am usually referred to as the Master /(Fantom Publishing 2017) and 
/Doctor Who and the Art of Adaptation /(Rowman and Littlefield, 2015). 
He is the author of numerous studies on the church in modern popular 
culture, especially on film and television, including book chapters in 
the collections /Doctor Who and Race /and /Time and Relative Dimensions 
in Faith/, and articles in journals including /Science Fiction Film and 
Television/, /Journal of Popular Television / and /Journal of Religion 
and Popular Culture/. In 2018 he has edited the Handbook for Springer on 
/Postgraduate Education in Higher Education/.

*Meredith A Harmes* teaches communication and works in the enabling 
programs at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia.    Her 
research interests include modern British and Australian politics and 
popular culture in Britain and America.   Her most recent publication in 
the /Australasian Journal of Popular Culture /was on race and cultural 
studies on American television. She holds an honours degree from the 
University of Queensland in political science as well as a diploma of 
modern languages (German) from the University of New England and a 
graduate diploma of Journalism and a Masters of Public Relations from 
the University of Southern Queensland.  She is co-editor of 
/Postgraduate Education in Higher Eduaction /(Springer, 2018).//

*Dr Barbara Harmes* lectures at the University of Southern Queensland. 
Her doctoral research focussed on the discursive controls built around 
sexuality in late-nineteenth-century England. Her research interests 
include cultural studies and religion. She has published in areas 
including modern Australian politics, 1960s American television and her 
original field of Victorian literature.

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