CALL FOR PAPERS
Reading CSI: Bodies of Evidence
Edited by Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Bridget Brown

The three series in the CSI franchise (CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation; CSI: Miami; and CSI: New York) have since 2000 both
capitalized upon and fed the American fascination with forensic
police work. Public response to recent high-profile court cases
(such as the O.J. Simpson trial) and other global media events
(including the display of the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein) have
revealed in the United States a deep cultural desire for the
empirical, a need to locate knowledge not in subjective
interpretation but in the objective analysis of externally
perceivable evidence. The three CSI series both express and mediate
such anxieties about knowledge, and particularly knowledge of bodies,
their actions, and their desires.

We are seeking proposals for an in-development collection of
approachable, engaging, intellectual essays exploring the three
series. This volume, entitled _Reading CSI: Bodies of Evidence_,
will be aimed at a mainstream audience, and the essays it contains
will thus be knowledgeable and sophisticated, but will maintain a
reader-friendly style. The volume will be included in Palgrave's
series of "Reading..." volumes, which includes _Reading Sex and the
City_ (2004) and _Reading Angel_ (2005).

Possible areas of interest include (but by no means exclusively):

-- Genres: the place of forensic shows within history of police
shows; forensics within history of detective fiction; forensics and
its relationship to reality/court TV; narrative and the urban
landscape; comparisons of the three series
-- Bodies: representations of gender; the autopsy, or knowing the
dead body; surveillance and control, or knowing the criminal body;
desire and damage, or knowing the scientist's body
-- Technologies: the uses (and misuses) of forensic technologies;
uses of CGI and other imaging technologies; Internet technologies and
the show's fan base
-- Theories: the relationship between postmodernism and empiricism

Proposals should be sent ASAP, but will be accepted until October 1,
2005. Please send inquiries, completed essays, or proposals of no
more than 750 words as email attachments (.doc or .rtf) to
kfitzpatrick_at_dci.pomona.edu and bmb9554_at_nyu.edu. Please include a
short biographical statement with your submission. Selected essays
must be completed and submitted by January 15, 2006.

--Kathleen FitzpatrickAssociate ProfessorDepartment of English/Media Studies ProgramPomona Collegekfitzpatrick_at_dci.pomona.edu ========================================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP_at_english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://cfp.english.upenn.edu or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu ==========================================================Received on Mon Sep 12 2005 - 11:12:32 EDT