FINAL CALL FOR CHAPTERS - ReFocus: The Films of Mary Harron

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Submission deadline: 
October 15, 2016

ReFocus: The Films of Mary Harron
Edited by Kyle Barrett and Paula Blair
Edinburgh University Press
Series Editors: Gary D. Rhodes and Robert Singer

ALTHOUGH WE HAD A GREAT RESPONSE TO OUR ORIGINAL POST, THERE ARE STILL WORKS AND TOPICS WHICH ARE UNDER-REPRESENTED IN THE VOLUME. WE ARE PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN RECEIVING ABSTRACTS AND EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST FOR THE FOLLOWING:

  • Exclusive interviews/discussions with Harron or regular collaborators (e.g. Guinevere Turner, Lili Taylor)
  • Forthcoming projects such as Alias Grace, The Family, XX, etc.
  • Commercials/advertising, e.g. Armani's 2012 campaign
  • Short projects and documentaries such as Sonnet for a Towncar, Holding Fast, We the Economy, Winds of Change
  • Harron as director for hire and/or analysis of her work on television shows such as Fear Itself, Graceland, Constantine, The Following, Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Nine, Six Degrees, Big Love, The L Word, Six Feet Under, Pasadena, Oz, The Late Show
  • Representations of transgender, non-binary, masculinity, class and race, particularly in supporting characters
  • Harron's relationship with the Horror genre
  • Can a narrative structure typical to Harron be identified? Does her work have common traits? If so, do these emerge when she is a director for hire in television as well as the film projects in which she has more artistic control? Given the collaborative and intertextual nature of her work, how might identifiable traits impact on discussions of authorship?
  • Any other original ideas on understudied aspects of Harron's work

We will accept expressions of interests and abstracts of up to 500 words accompanied by a short biography, to be sent to Kyle.Barrett@uws.ac.uk and peablair@gmail.com by 15 October 2016. We will aim to announce successful proposals by mid-September. Full chapters of 5000-7000 words will be provisionally due by the end of December 2016. Chapters should adhere to US English spellings and technical formatting, and endnote (Chicago) style citation.

ORIGINAL CALL FOR CHAPTERS:

Canadian-born filmmaker and screenwriter Mary Harron has created a distinctive body of work over the past twenty years, largely working in the United States, examining feminism in I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005), consumerist hyper-masculinity in American Psycho (2000) and teenage coming-of-age in The Moth Diaries (2011).  Harron has also directed episodes of network, cable and streaming television series, including Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999), Six Feet Under (2000-2005) and Constantine (2014-2015) as well as the television film Anna Nicole (2013).  This ReFocus volume seeks chapters that focus on Harron’s diverse career as an independent filmmaker and director-for-hire within television.

Harron emerged during the “Indiewood” boom in the 1990s and has often been overlooked in favor of filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh. Harron has also been accused of misogyny within her work, particularly in American Psycho, which she co-wrote with actress Guinevere Turner, a collaboration that would continue with The Notorious Bettie Page.  In examining such perceptions in relation to Harron’s growing and understudied feminist project, this book aims to unearth the significance of the subversive themes and practices that emerge throughout Harron’s understudied career, and to investigate her standing as a diverse and challenging filmmaker working in North America today.

We welcome a range of theoretical, philosophical, historical and industrial approaches to engaging with all aspects of Mary Harron’s work, including chapters concerning, but not limited to, the following;

-          Harron’s place in the history of women in the film and television industries
-          Adaptation and authorship
-          Biopics
-          Harron’s treatment of gender, feminism and/or sexuality
-          The economics of the projects to which Harron is attached
-          Harron as screenwriter and/or collaborator
-          Performance and performativity in Harron’s films
-          Harron’s television work
-          An exclusive interview with Harron
-          Engagements with Harron’s recent or new projects (e.g. The Family)
-          Your suggested topic

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