CFP: Who Was That Masked Woman?

Who Was that Masked Woman: Representations of Women Vigilantes and Outlaws in Popular Media from Reconstruction to the Great Depression

NEPCA is sharing this CFP that we thought our membership might be interested in.

For more information, contact: Gregory Bray, brayg@newpaltz.edu

Deadline for submissions: December 15, 2021

We invite chapter proposals for a collection of critical essays that examine how women vigilantes, anti-heroines and outlaws of this era were represented in movie serials, radio dramas, films, comics, and pulp fiction.  

As this will be a multidisciplinary collection, we encourage submissions from scholars in any of the numerous fields that examine the representation of women in American popular culture from 1865-1940. The call is open to a broad spectrum of methodological and critical approaches, and we invite submissions from seasoned as well as emerging scholars.  

We encourage proposals that consider how representations of women intersect with matters of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and the gendered mores of mass culture. 

We especially welcome submissions that examine lesser-known figures, though a well-written chapter on a character like Wonder Woman or Annie Oakley would be considered. Chapters may also examine historical figures (i.e. Calamity Jane) but the analysis should focus on their representation in popular media, rather than their biography. 

Please send abstracts of 500-750 words by December 15 to: brayg@newpaltz.edu

Authors of accepted proposals will be notified on January 15; full chapter manuscripts will be due May 31. The full book manuscript will be ready for publishers by Fall 2022. A publisher is not yet attached; the editors are proposing the book to potential presses. 

About the editors:  Gregory Bray, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Digital Media and Journalism at SUNY New Paltz.  He serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Popular Culture, and has previously served on the Board of Directors at the Broadcast Education Association.  His work has been published through The Journal of Popular Culture, McFarland Press, and Atropos Press.  

Andrew J. Ball, PhD, specializes in 19th and 20th century American culture. His scholarship has appeared in American Literary Realism, Studies in American Fiction, and Philosophy and Literature, among other publications. His book, The Economy of Religion in American Literature: Culture and the Politics of Redemption, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury in 2022. He is the Editor of Screen Bodies: The Journal of Embodiment, Media Arts, and Technology and serves as Editorial Assistant in Harvard University’s Department of Mathematics.