Call for Proposals
The Cinematic Eighteenth Century
In recent years, the eighteenth century has been well represented on both the small and
the large screen. The Jane Austen franchise alone has generated numerous adaptations of
all her popular novels. The recent interest in piracy in our period generated at least two
TV dramas, Black Sails and Crossbones, as well as the admittedly farcical Pirates of the
Caribbean. At the most recent ASECS, there were at least three panels and two
roundtables that addressed the topic of film; ASECS has been running an “Eighteenth
Century on Film” panel for the last five years or longer. These panels are dynamic and
innovative in the sense that they engage with a different medium than the majority of the
panels at the conference and they often incorporate a reflection on pedagogy. In fact,
many of the poster sessions for the innovative course design competition also incorporate
these visual depictions as part of the teaching process. Clearly, the interest among
scholars and teachers is high.
Robert Mayer’s Eighteenth Century Fiction on Screen (Cambridge 2002) provides a
useful scholarly model for organized commentary on visual depictions of the period.
However, the focus exclusively on British fiction precludes conversations about recent
films like Belle and foreign adaptations of eighteenth century texts in French or Spanish.
As such, this collection has an admittedly broad purview of any aspect of the long
eighteenth century on film or television in any language. The scope of the project will be
determined by the types of proposals that are received. This collection proposes to
examine how these depictions of the eighteenth century in film and television engage
with the critical scholarly conversation about our period and what possible pedagogical
uses these depictions serve.
Proposals are invited to study any aspect of the long eighteenth century in any language
in movies and on television with an eye toward pedagogical as well as critical value.
Please send 250 word abstracts to the collection editor, Srividhya Swaminathan, at
cinematic18thcentury@gmail.com by May 25, 2015. Decisions will be made by June 5
and completed essays of 6,000-7,000 words will be due by August 31, 2015. Preliminary
interest in the collection has been expressed by Routledge and the editor has an
established relationship with Ashgate.
Proposals might consider the following topics:
Slavery on film
BBC adaptations
Piracy and television
Women and the eighteenth century
Eighteenth-century theater
Comparative analyses of Jane Austen films
Representations of revolution
Representations of monarchy