CFP: Bohemians, Radicals, Progressives, and Lefties: Eugene O'Neill and His Contemporaries (3/30/07; collection)

full name / name of organization: 
Dowling, Robert M. \(English\)
contact email: 

CALL FOR PAPERS

"Bohemians, Radicals, Progressives, and Lefties: Eugene O'Neill and His Contemporaries"

For a book-length collection of essays, we seek to explore O'Neill's connections to the "left"-both through the rebellious, bohemian artists O'Neill came in contact with through his formative artistic years with the Provincetown Players (George "Jig" Cook, Susan Glaspell, John Reed, Louise Bryant, Djuna Barnes, Charles Henry Demuth, Mary Heaton Vorse, Floyd Dell, Mabel Dodge, Neith Boyce, etc.), and others from the avant-garde at any stage of his career.

Essays are welcome on O'Neill's politics and progressive "philosophy" as reflected in his plays and stagecraft. One direction the book will follow is to explore whether a vital key to the success of O'Neill might be attributable to the Provincetown Players; since the avant-garde theatrical group provided a haven for intellectuals and artists, where all-without fear-could experiment and discuss artistic and political maters of concern, they also provided an opportunity to openly question universal assumptions, still made today, about the social role and function of artistic creativity, imagination, and ideas. As such, while the book is not, strictly speaking, about the Provincetown Players, we do welcome contributions that highlight the thinking and artistic output of the individuals of the Provincetown-as that thinking relates to Eugene O'Neill.

A second direction is to locate O'Neill's progressive "identity" within his time. For example, while now the tendency is to read O'Neill as part of the Modernist canon of writers, the avant-garde Provincetown Players adopted an ironic attitude towards Modernism. Thus, what does such irony say about the relationship between the avant-garde and Modernism? Further, how politically radical and how "bohemian" was O'Neill, in fact, especially as compared with the "radicals" of those he came in contact with during his early years-e.g., Benjamin Tucker, Emma Goldman, Jack Reed, and Louise Bryant.

Papers of approximately 4,500-6,000 words (including footnotes) should conform to MLA style.

Please send all abstracts and queries by March 30, 2007 (NOTE: deadline extended from original earlier deadline) to the editors and completed essays by August 1, 2007 (NOTE: deadline extended from earlier June 1 deadline.)

Eileen J. Herrmann
Dominican University of California
50 Acacia Avenue
San Rafael, CA 94901-2298
e-mail: Giggi6000_at_aol.com
(Electronic submissions encouraged.)

Robert M. Dowling, Central Connecticut State University
7 Prospect Street
New London, CT 06320
e-mail: dowlingrom_at_ccsu.edu
(Electronic submissions encouraged.)

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Received on Sat Feb 24 2007 - 13:12:21 EST