Hello list members,
After a paper of mine on The Osbournes and Cribs was listed in the
program for a recent MLA conference, I was contacted by several
university presses about putting together a book on reality television.
Since I do not have enough material of my own to fill out an entire
book, I am putting together a collection of essays that will examine
the social implications of reality television from a number of
different disciplinary and theoretical approaches. I am including the
call for papers as part of this message.
Please contact me directly if you are interested in learning more about
this project, and I apologize for any cross-postings.
David Escoffery
David S. Escoffery, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre and Dance
Southwest Missouri State University
901 S. National Ave.
Springfield, MO 65804
(417) 836-3212
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Call for Papers
With the continuing presence of reality TV on our nation’s airwaves,
it is clearly time for a more thorough, scholarly analysis of the
effects of reality television upon our society. This proposed volume
of essays will bring together work on reality television by scholars
from numerous fields, providing analyses of this complex phenomenon
through several different theoretical lenses. The philosophy
motivating the selection of materials will be the notion that we must
analyze the social implications of reality television now that it has
become a major part of our daily cultural diet. Millions of people
watch reality programs every day, yet there are, as yet, very few
published works examining the social effects of this phenomenon.
Each essay chosen for inclusion in this volume, then, will address the
social implications of reality TV through one or more theoretical
lenses. Specifically, we are looking for essays that examine this
issue from the perspectives of cultural studies, film studies,
psychoanalysis, sociology, and history. A phenomenon as diverse in
nature and in implication as reality TV must be examined through a
variety of different lenses. A single approach to the study of this
genre will be limited and will not reveal all of the facets of these
cultural texts.
Essay submissions should consider the following types of questions:
For essays in the Cultural Studies section:
• How does reality television deal with issues of authenticity and
representation?
• How are we to read the narrative tropes used in reality television?
• What forms of signification are used in reality programming, and how
are they decoded by
audiences?
• How do the effects of reality television compare to the effects of
other cultural texts, from television
sitcoms and dramas to literary works, films, plays, etc.?
For essays in the Film Studies section:
• How do reality programs compare (in theory or in practice) to
documentary films?
• How does the (male? other?) gaze function in the hyper-voyeuristic
world of reality TV?
• How is editing used to create a narrative in reality television as
opposed to film or other television
genres?
• What sorts of framing devices are used in reality programs, and how
do they compare to the frames
used in films?
For essays in the Psychoanalysis section:
• How does reality TV create subject positions?
• What do these shows do to our already fragmented sense of identity?
• With their hypersexual stagings of desire, what do reality shows tell
us about the functioning of the
sex drive and of desire in our culture?
• What do these shows tell us about the ways in which we deal with
loss, otherness, and the search
for self?
For essays in the Socio-Historical section:
• What are the links between the development of reality television and
the workings of late capitalist
multinationalism?
• What are the economic forces behind the surge in reality TV, and how
do those forces effect both
program creation and reception?
• What happens when reality shows are taken from one cultural context
to another, and why have so
many British programs been transferred successfully to the United
States?
• What is the difference in “truthfulness” or “historical accuracy”
between the show as broadcast and
its subsequent VHS or DVD release, which generally includes “bonus
material?”
• Have these shows altered the way we think about historical or social
change? Have they added to
or detracted from our standards for documentation?
Essay submissions should be 20-25 pp. long, in MLA format.
Submissions are accepted either as hard copies, or electronically (in
one of the following formats: .doc, .pdf, or .rtf)
Please send submissions by May 2, 2005 to:
David S. Escoffery
Department of Theatre and Dance
Southwest Missouri State University
901 S. National Ave.
Springfield, MO 65807
Or electronically to:
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