Call for Proposals:

Fleshing Out: Racial Passing from Text to Film

In "Writing 'Race' and the Difference It Makes," Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,
writes: "Race is the ultimate trope of difference because it is so very
arbitrary in its application. The biological criteria used to determine
'difference' in sex simply do not hold when applied to 'race.'" American
authors have struggled with defining race through presenting the theme of
racial passing, relying on tropes of language, custom, and appearance;
American filmmakers have developed their own tropes in adapting these texts
to film. This proposed anthology invites consideration of these varying
attempts in a specific text and then an adapting film to define race as a
character accepts and/or assumes membership in a race different than birth
race in works such as, but not limited to, the following:

Cabaret
Gentleman's Agreement
God's Stepchildren
Human Stain
Imitation of Life
Little Big Man
Lost Boundaries
Pinky
School Ties
The Searchers
Shadows
Showboat
Veiled Aristocrats (based on Charles Chesnutt's The House behind the Cedars)
Zelig

Submissions should take the following matters into consideration:
1.Essays should not address material where one character disguises himself
or herself as a member of another race. Such works as Black like Me, Soul
Man, or White Chicks, therefore, would not be appropriate topics for this
study.

2.While blind casting may be relevant to the films under consideration,
submissions should not focus exclusively on the practice of blind casting.

3.This project will welcome submissions addressing all types of racial
passing; it will not limit itself to the more familiar theme of passing from
African American to Caucasian.

Submissions should include a cover letter, a c.v., and a 1000-word proposal.
Electronic submissions (in Word document format) should arrive by 15
November 2006; hardcopy submissions must be postmarked by 15 November 2006.
Please send inquiries and proposals to the following:

Prof. Gwendolyn Hale
Park Johnson Hall
Fisk University
1000 Seventeenth Avenue North
Nashville, TN 37208

ghale_at_fisk.edu

Gwendolyn Hale, Ph.D
Assistant Professor, English
Fisk University
1000 17th Avenue North
Nashville, TN 37208
Park-Johnson Hall, Room 225
Office: (615) 329-8688
ghale_at_fisk.edu

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Received on Sun Nov 05 2006 - 21:37:21 EST