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Dear MECCSA List Members,
Please find below a reminder for our call for contributions to 'Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema', the deadline for which (30 September) is fast approaching . Note that in addition to the topics and issues listed, we also welcome proposals on representations of men and masculinity as well as on other configurations of gender identities in a postfeminist context.
If you have any questions regarding this call, please do not hesitate to contact us (Dr. Joel Gwynne and Nadine Muller) at the email addresses provided.
Very best wishes,
Nadine
Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema
– Call for Contributions –
One distinguishing feature of postfeminism is its acceptance, use and manipulation of its position within popular culture. The existence of postfeminism as both a cultural media phenomenon and a contradictory and contentious term within academic discourse raises a number of debates surrounding contemporary feminist politics and their status within as well as stance toward contemporary consumer and media cultures. Postfeminism is invariably invoked in discussions of not merely popular genres such as ‘chick lit’ but also in relation to a plethora of written and visual texts that invoke reconfigurations of femininity and female sexuality, often in order to emphasise and/or explore female solidarity as a discourse of ‘shared pleasures and strengths, rather than shared vulnerability and pain’ (Genz and Brabon, 2009). As such, postfeminism is frequently interrogated within the realm of popular media forms which centre around the visualisation of female sexuality. Since the publication of Laura Mulvey’s ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1973), female objectification has remained a popular and seemingly irresolvable site of conflict within feminist cinema studies in particular, revealing the complexities of the relationship between female objectification and empowerment.
The editors of this collection invite abstracts for contributions which investigate the diverse manifestations of postfeminism in contemporary Hollywood cinema, be it in order to highlight its regressive realities or its empowering potentials. Topics for consideration may include, but are by no means limited to:
- Reconfigurations of femininity and/or female sexuality
- Raunch culture, the mainstreaming of pornography and the sexualisation of culture
- Postfeminism as inclusive/ exclusive social practice
- Representations of particular female figures (i.e. mothers, porn stars and other sex workers, housewives, career women, superheroes, etc.)
- Genre-specific criticism (i.e. postfeminism in action, horror, rom-com, etc.)
- Postfeminism and girl cultures
- Postfeminism and ageing
- Postfeminism as backlash
Abstracts of 250 words for chapters of 6,000 should be emailed to the editors, Joel Gwynne ([log in to unmask]) and Nadine Muller ([log in to unmask]), by September 30th 2011. Deadline for completed chapters: March 30th 2012.