A frame from Wings (1927) by William A. Wellman,
one of the first films to show two men kissing
Hollywood and American War
deadline for submissions:
November 1, 2016
full name / name of organization:
Andrew Rayment / Chiba University
contact email: rayment13@chiba-u.jp
Call for papers
Hollywood and American War (Edited Collection)
Edited by Andrew Rayment and Paul Nadasdy
Contemporary Cinema (Brill) (tentative)
Submission deadline for abstracts (400-600 words): November 1, 2016
rayment13@chiba-u.jp
“Most men would rather die than think. Many do”. – Bertrand Russell
This edited collection will critique Hollywood representations of American war in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by providing critically substantial commentaries on films representative of each major conflict in which the U.S. Military has been involved. Covering films that depict The Great War, World War II, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, The Cold War, The First Gulf War and The Iraq War, Hollywood and American War will subject the notion that war films ought to be considered ʻthe war memorials of today’ to critical scrutiny. Topics may include (but are not limited to): memorialization and romanticism; memorialization and glorification; memorialization and silence; memorialization and appropriation; the ideology of memorialization; memorialization and power; memorialization and entertainment; memorialization and masculinity; memorialization and comedy; the aporia of memorialization.
Abstracts should include: 1. a proposal for the critique of a particular Hollywood film in relation to its status as a ʻwar memorial’ (or anti-memorial) of the war it depicts; 2. a short commentary of a particular scene from the proposed film that should illustrate both how it develops the themes, tropes, motifs (and so on) in the film as a whole and how it might relate to the broader topic of memorialization through film.
In the final submission, commentaries will vary in length depending on the run-time of the film under discussion but, as a rule of thumb, approximately 5,000 words of analysis will cover each hour of film.
The commentaries will be theoretically substantial but also accessible, written to engage both academics and the intelligent lay reader.
