[Commlist] CFP - Franchises and Mass Market Books at ALA Boston

*The Place of Franchises in American Literature*

Nancy Drew and Doc Savage. The Executioner and Sweet Valley High. 
Warhammer or Star Wars tie-in novels. Franchise series like these occupy 
a unique position, inspiring voracious (often young) readers while 
complicating traditional scholarly approaches to literature.

We seek 15-minute papers for a prospective panel on franchise fiction, 
mass market books, and pulp at the *American Literature Association 
*conference in *Boston, May 21-24, 2025*.

We welcome paper suggestions that cover any U.S. writers, publishers, or 
characters who are part of franchises (broadly defined as any large 
series of novels often tied to other media and/or owned by a corporation 
rather than their author). Any of the following topics could be considered:

* Book series with dozens or hundreds of novels
* Franchise books’ interaction with other media portrayals (comics, TV) 
of same characters and storylines
* Young-adult and juvenile series as access points to literacy
* Cases where pseudonyms concealed multiple authors of a single series
* Paperback rebranding of earlier media franchises, either as reprints 
or featuring new material
* Fan studies approaches, including the influence of readers as 
frontline literary scholars, collectors, and canon curators
* Economic influences on franchise fiction, including trademarks and 
property rights, including public domain

We want to consider the best ways to approach franchises and what 
including them in academic literary study adds to literary studies. 
Papers do not need to argue for the literary merits of each franchise 
covered (although we’re not opposed to that).

Send questions or your proposal (with CV and under 250-word description) 
to Nathaniel Williams at (ntlwilliams /at/ ucdavis.edu) 
<mailto:(ntlwilliams /at/ ucdavis.edu)> on or before January 3, 2025. Please 
share widely.

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