Essays needed for a scholarly book collection: *The Space of Lewis
Carroll's Wonderland*

I am seeking papers on Lewis Carroll's Wonderland from a variety of
theoretical perspectives, especially arguments that engage with spatial
and cultural ideas/implications.

A basic premise of this collection is that, since its initial
formulation, Wonderland has become increasingly independent from its
original texts, acquiring in the process new meanings and cultural uses.
Carroll himself sensed that his Alice books created a new type of fairy
story; this collection proposes that Carroll's Wonderland has become a
nearly universal and indispensable template for imagining and
representing aspects of the present and, interestingly, a
technologically defined future.

This collection will explore Wonderland from the circumstances of its
Victorian conception to its emergence in the late twentieth century as a
primary cultural metaphor, a story/space of unusual power and
popularity.

Some topics to consider:

Antecedents and origins of Wonderland
Wonderland and Victorian fantasy
Wonderland and modernism, surrealism
Wonderland and literary and cultural spaces
Political uses of Wonderland
Cinematic Wonderlands
Wonderland in scientific discourses/rhetoric
Wonderland and imagining the Cold War
Wonderland and countercultural space
Wonderland and genre-Victorian and contemporary
Wonderland and metafictional and/or science fiction worlds
Wonderland and virtual reality/video games
Illustrating/picturing Wonderland: then and now
Emergence and meanings of adult Wonderland(s)
Cultural value/function of Wonderland compared with literary spaces of
Oz, Narnia, Middle Earth, etc.
Internationalization of Wonderland
Wonderland in Japanese culture
Wonderland's influence on children's literature/the construction of
childhood

Please send a 500-word abstract by October 1, 2005 to Cristopher
Hollingsworth at chollingsworth_at_usouthal.edu (MSWord attachment
preferred). Submissions should include the author's name, affiliation,
surface and email addresses, and a brief CV. If you prefer to use
surface mail, send your materials to me at the following address:
University of South Alabama
Department of English
HUMB 240
Mobile, AL 36688-0002

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Received on Wed May 11 2005 - 15:50:20 EDT