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 ************************************************************************ ***************************** 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: [log in to unmask] ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html