A Critical Companion to Robert Zemeckis

Home , Cast Away, Used Cars, Welcome to Marwen, What Lies Beneath

H-Film A Critical Companion to Robert Zemeckis

Discussion published by Elif Sendur on Wednesday, April 17, 2019

A Critical Companion to Robert Zemeckis edited by Adam Barkman and Antonio Sanna

Part of the Critical Companion to Popular Directors series.

The Critical Companion to Popular Directors series seeks chapter proposals for a new volume dedicated to Robert Zemeckis. The director’soeuvre includes major blockbusters such asWho Framed Roger Rabbit, the Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump and Cast Away, as much as equally-successful stories such as What Lies Beneath, Beowulf, A Christmas Carol, Flight and, most recently, Alliedand Welcome to Marwen. All of his achievements have offered (and still offer) an incredibly fertile ground for critical examination, analysis and discussion. Indeed, the scholarship on Zemeckis has never ceased to proliferate and several volumes have focused on the director’s works.

This anthology will explore Zemeckis’ multi-medial oeuvre from multidisciplinary perspectives. This volume seeks previously-unpublished essays that explore the director’s heterogeneous career, not only through his “greatest hits,” but also his earliest works (I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars) as well as his less success full works (Romancing the Stone) and his work for TV. We are particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the subject that can illuminate the diverse facets of the director’s work and his visual style.

There are several themes worth exploring when analyzing Zemeckis’ oeuvre, utilizing any number of theoretical frameworks of your choosing. Chapters are to be written at a high academic level as this volume will be peer-reviewed and scholarly. Contributions may include (but are not limited to) the following topics:

Fantasy and reality Representations of childhood, parenting and ageing Zemeckis and Spielberg Zemeckisand fairy tales Love Gender and queer readings Isolation and solitude Exploration of dreams and the subconscious Psychoanalytical readings of the films Alienation and misperception, conformity/nonconformity Fear of the Other Horror and the monstrous The temporal paradox Time and immortality

Citation: Elif Sendur. A Critical Companion to Robert Zemeckis. H-Film. 04-17-2019. https://networks.h-net.org/node/14467/discussions/4025485/critical-companion-robert-zemeckis Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Film

Biblical interpretations Cultural studies and popular culture Class consciousness Special effects and their evolution Zemeckis and Alan Silvestri The meaning and significance of colors Zemeckis’ legacy and the films he only produced Fan practice and fan communities Technology and the Environment Ethical and other philosophical issues Representations of UFOs Science, science fiction and mystery Representations of history Adaptation from another medium Movement and journeys Irony and humour

The anthology will be organized into thematic sections around these topics and others that emerge from submissions. We are open to works that focus on other topics as well and authors interested in pursuing other related lines of inquiry. Feel free to contact the editors with any questions you may have about the project and please share this announcement with colleagues whose work aligns with the focus of this volume.

Submit a 300-500 word abstract of your proposed chapter contribution, a brief CV and complete contact information to Prof. Adam Barkman [email protected]( ) and Dr. Antonio Sanna ([email protected]) by 15 July, 2018. Full chapters of 5000-6000 words will be due upon signing a contract with a publisher (we expect this to be the sixth volume in our series published with Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), in October/November. Note: acceptance of a proposed abstract does not guarantee the acceptance of the full chapter into the completed volume.