DEADLINE REMINDER: *The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2023*

Call for Chapters

Narratives of Confinement in American Literature and Popular Culture

Confinement is a phenomenon that presents itself in everyone’s lives in one way or another. While people are confined to the circumstances of their births (e.g. being born to one’s parents, siblings, country, culture, language or being abandoned at birth, etc.), more often than not they cannot escape these barriers very easily. People may be confined to the limits of their lifestyles, their jobs, their habits, addictions, families, or their physical as well as mental conditions. In the case of the United States, the types and degrees of confinement also become very diverse and complex. The phenomenon of confinement becomes a more urgent matter to be discussed when the history, society, and culture of America are considered. One of the ways of breaking out of confinement is through literary and aesthetic productions; these works tell the reasons, conditions, influences, and overall unique experiences of confinement that American people experience.

This call for chapters invites contributors to address such issues regarding confinement in the American context. American Narratives of Confinement in literature, film, TV shows, music, and art are the main subjects this work aims to collect from its authors. The topics may include but are not limited to:

• Confinement and Identity, Race, and Ethnicity
• Confinement and Class, Ideology, and Gender
• Confinement and Technology
• Confinement and Nature
• Physical Confinement:
     o Mental Institutions
     o Correctional Facilities
     o Hospitals, Care Homes
     o Neighborhoods, Cities, and Countries
     o Physical Disabilities, Being Confined to Care or Bed
     o Solitary Confinement (quarantine, punishment, isolation, etc.)
• Mandatory and Voluntary Confinement
• Mental Confinement
     o Addictions and Habits
     o Beliefs and Prejudices
     o Mental Illnesses and Disorders

Aside from the keywords in this list, analysis by genre, era, or author (for example, narratives of confinement in contemporary American drama or American science fiction literature) is very much welcome to be included in this volume.

If you are interested in writing a chapter for this volume, please send a 200-250 word abstract as your proposal and a CV by December 15, 2023, to Dr. Firuze Güzel (firuze.guzel@ege.edu.tr / firuzeguzel@yahoo.com). The deadline for sending full manuscripts is July 1, 2024. The full manuscripts should be 4000-5000 words and written in MLA style (8th version). The volume is planned to be published in late 2024 or early 2025 by an international publishing house (the details will be disclosed later when a final agreement is made). Please feel free to contact if you need further information.

Dr. Firuze Güzel

Ege University, Dept. of American Culture and Literature