Call for Papers



Edited Volume: The Films of Jess Franco

Editors: Antonio Lázaro-Reboll (University of Kent) and Ian Olney (York College of Pennsylvania)



Jesús “Jess” Franco (1930-2013) is one of the most prolific and madly inventive filmmakers in the history of cinema.  His remarkable career spanned more than half a century and produced almost two hundred films shot in Spain and across Europe.  He is best known as the director of jazzy, erotically-charged horror movies featuring mad scientists, lesbian vampires, and women in prison, but dabbled in a multitude of genres from comedy to science-fiction to pornography.  Although he made his career in the ghetto of low-budget exploitation cinema, he managed to create a body of work that is deeply personal, frequently political, and surprisingly poetic.  Franco’s offbeat films command a devoted cult following; they have even developed a mainstream audience in recent years, thanks to their release on DVD and Blu-Ray.  To date, however, they have received relatively little scholarly attention.  The Films of Jess Franco seeks to address this neglect by bringing together original essays on Franco and his movies written from a variety of different theoretical perspectives by noted scholars around the world.  Ultimately, its aim is to encourage a reassessment of this critically undervalued director and his significant contributions to popular European cinema.



The editors of this proposed volume invite original essays on any aspect of Jess Franco’s work; all theoretical approaches are welcome.  Possible topics might include:



•	Franco as Horror Auteur

•	Gender and/or Race in Franco’s Films

•	Queer Franco

•	The Franco Soundtrack

•	Franco’s Non-Horror Films

•	Late Franco (Films of the 1990s and 2000s)

•	Franco as Spanish Filmmaker

•	Franco as Transnational Filmmaker

•	Franco and the Art Film

•	Franco’s Influences

•	Sex and Eroticism in Franco’s Films

•	Franco and Film Adaptation

•	Performance and Stardom in Franco’s Films

•	The Politics of Franco’s Films

•	The Cult of Franco

•	Franco’s Legacy



Please send abstracts of 500 words to Antonio Lázaro-Reboll ([log in to unmask]) and Ian Olney ([log in to unmask]) by July 30, 2014.  Final essays will be due January 30, 2015.  Essays should be 6,000-8,000 words in length and should follow MLA guidelines for citation and documentation.



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