[Commlist] Call for chapter proposals: Here come the clowns: critical essays on the circus of popular culture

Here come the clowns: critical essays on the circus of popular culture

The circus, the sideshow, the travelling side show, the freak show and 
vaudeville predate film and television but have been richly important 
contributors to these later forms of entertainment. Early cinema drew on 
the talents and performance styles of circus and vaudevillian 
performers. Since the earliest cinema, the circus itself has been an 
absorbing focus of interest for the characterful, itinerant and eerie 
people who populate them. But as a places of entertainment and 
especially of diversion and laughter, circuses and associated places and 
spaces have registered recurringly as darkly sinister and frightening, 
impressions at odds with their purposes as places of amusement. Cinema 
early registered this uncanny and menacing potential in /The Cabinet of 
Dr Caligari /(1920) and then /Freaks /(1932). They are places of 
entertainment, but when transmuted into other forms the type of 
entertainment they provide expands in often unexpected ways.

The circus is versatile in dramatic terms, and appearances of circuses 
or their personnel span genres from spy and espionage (/Get Smart, 
Octopussy, The Avengers/), grotesque comedy (/The League of Gentlemen, 
The Goodies/), horror (/Vampire Circus, Circus of Horrors, It, Killer 
Klowns from Outer Space/), zombie films (/Zombieland/) period drama 
(/The Elephant Man/), noir (/Nightmare Alley/), rock opera (/Repo! The 
Genetic Opera/), the supernatural (/American Horror Story: Freak Show, 
Carnivale/), science fiction (/Doctor Who/) and others. In popular 
culture, circuses can be everything from covers for international spy 
rings, a nest of vampires, an alien’s playground or a murder site.

Individual personnel, most especially the clown, register just as eerily 
from Pennywise in /It/ to the titular /The Terrifier /and /House of 1000 
Corpses/’s Captain Spaulding and Batman’s Joker, to the dramatizations 
of real world killer clowns such as /Gacy/.

However to date comparatively little has been written to explain the 
place of the circus in popular culture from the sinister resonances 
associated with them to the circus as a place of marvels.

The intention of this collection is to comprehensively interrogate the 
cultural messages found in the performances, performance traditions and 
performers of the circus as these translate into popular culture. The 
way the circus and other types of performance space and traditions and 
broken through into popular culture as an influence on film and 
television as sources of horror, drama or comedy are welcome ideas.

Possible areas include but are not limited to:

High and low culture

The circus and popular culture practices

The representation of circus history and culture

The circus and early cinema

The circus and material culture

Performance types and traditions transferred to the screen

Circus animals

Race and performance

Transgression

Clowns, circuses and fear

Horror in humor

The circus and symbolism

If you are interested in contributing to this collection, we ask that 
you submit an abstract of up to 250 words *by October 25^th * explaining 
the focus and approach of your proposed essay. Email 
(marcus.harmes /at/ unisq.edu.au) <mailto:(marcus.harmes /at/ unisq.edu.au)> and 
(Meredith.harmes /at/ unisq.edu.au) <mailto:(Meredith.harmes /at/ unisq.edu.au)>

The proposed volume is intended to be scholarly but accessible in tone 
and approach. Each contribution should be 6000 words.

This collection is under contract with an American publisher.


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