CFP



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THE VELVET LIGHT TRAP

A CRITICAL JOURNAL OF FILM AND TELEVISION STUDIES

Call for Papers: Subculture, deviance and normalcy in post 1969 film and television

 

Images of subcultures and deviance have become increasingly popular subjects of film and television narratives. Whether the drug addicts of Requiem for a Dream, the mobsters of The Sopranos, or the paranoid schizophrenic of A Beautiful Mind, audiences are continually confronted with a variety of depictions that can challenge or maintain hegemonic notions of these groups and their place in society. Such depictions can have consequences for what is considered "normal" or "acceptable" behavior, attitudes or beliefs in a wide variety of contexts.  

 

Issue #53 of the Velvet Light Trap will explore the textual focus of post-1969 television and film on subcultures, deviance and any possible implications for notions of normalcy.  The editors are seeking submissions that encompass many aspects of the culture industry, while emphasizing the relationship between pop culture and societal beliefs and structures. Submissions from a variety of analytical approaches are strongly encouraged, including reception, political economy, textual analysis, discourse theory, historiography, feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, psychoanalysis and any other methods in cultural studies. 

 

Possible topics for this issue include, but are not limited to:
* Shifting representations and/or reception of normalcy and deviancy in film and television
* Subcultures as interpretive communities 

* Analysis of mainstream and independent depictions of specific subcultures (e.g. Showgirls and Stripshow)
* Representations of experimentation with alternate sexualities and drug use (Velvet Goldmine, Trainspotting, etc.)

* Analysis of fictional and non-fictional political, social or sexual deviance (e.g. The People vs. Larry Flynt and Frontline: American Porn)
* Subculture/deviance as Other

* Radical/controversial subcultural media products or texts implicating them (S&M and other types of fetish porn, snuff)

* Narrowcasting and subcultures as target audience

* Breaks in or challenges to generic conventions in depictions of deviance

* Subcultures/deviance in spoof/comedy films
* Normalizing or appropriation of social and sexual deviance, "deviantizing" the norm.

* Mainstream or normal audiences and identification with deviant subjectivities

* Mental disorder and "deviance"

* Alternate cultural practices as they intersect with other American cultures, including African American, Asian, Latino, American Indian cultural practices.  

* Redefinition of social institutions, i.e. new religious beliefs, the single mom as a textual phenomenon

* Counter-cultural or subcultural social movements in film/TV (e.g. Malcolm X, American History X, etc.)

 

 

To be considered for publication, papers should be between 15 and 25 pages, double-spaced, in MLA style, with the author's name and contact information included only on the cover page. Queries regarding potential submissions also are welcome. Authors are responsible for acquiring related visual images and the associated copyrights. For more information or to submit a query, please contact Sarah Bowman ([log in to unmask]). All submissions are due January 15, 2003. 

The Velvet Light Trap is an academic, refereed journal of film and television studies published semi-annually by University of Texas Press. Issues are coordinated alternately by graduate students at the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After a prescreening, articles are anonymously refereed by specialist readers of the journal's Editorial Advisory Board, which includes such notable scholars as Donald Crafton, Michael Curtin, Alexander Doty, Cynthia Fuchs, Herman Gray, Heather Hendershot, Barbara Klinger, Walter Metz, Charles Musser, Chon Noriega, Lynn Spigel, and Chris Straayer.

Please address submissions to:

The Velvet Light Trap

C/o The Department of Radio-Television-Film

University of Texas at Austin

CMA 6.118, Mail Code A0800

Austin, TX, 78712


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