Critical Companions to Contemporary Directors SERIES

The series covers many directors who have not been studied previously in academic publications and whose works nonetheless are highly renowned nowadays. The intent of the series (which is made of eleven volumes published so far, and four more under contract/production) is to offer interesting and illuminating interpretations of the various directors’ films that will be accessible to both scholars of the academic community and critically-minded fans of the directors’ works. Each volume combines discussions of a director’s oeuvre from a broad range of disciplines and methodologies, thus offering the reader a variegated and compelling picture of the directors’ works. In this sense, the volumes will be of interest (and will be instructive) for students and scholars engaged in subjects as different as film studies, literature, philosophy, popular culture studies, religion and others. We welcome proposals for both monographs and edited collections that offer interdisciplinary analyses, focusing on the complete oeuvre of one contemporary director per volume. Proposals may include (but are certainly not limited to) the following directors:

J.J. Abrams;

Woody Allen;

Pupi Avati;

Michael Bay;

Luc Besson;

Kenneth Branagh;

John Carpenter;

Chris Columbus;

Francis Ford Coppola;

David Cronenberg;

Joe Dante;

Claire Denis;

Brian De Palma;

Richard Donner;

Roland Emmerich;

Tobe Hooper;

Ron Howard;

John Landis;

Spike Lee;

George Lucas;

Michael Mann;

Hayao Miyazaki;

Roman Polanski;

Michael Polish;

Sam Raimi;

Guy Ritchie;

Robert Rodriguez;

Brian Singer;

Zack Snyder;

Oliver Stone;

Quentin Tarantino;

Lars von Trier;

the Wachowskis;

James Wan;

Franco Zeffirelli;

Edward Zwick.

We will gladly welcome any queries by prospective authors/editors for the preparation of a proposal. Please contact Prof. Adam Barkman (abarkman@redeemer.ca) and Dr. Antonio Sanna (isonisanna@hotmail.com). To directly submit a manuscript for consideration, please send the following:

• a prospectus (we will send you a sample of it)
• your curriculum vitae

SERIES EDITORS

Adam Barkman (PhD, Free University of Amsterdam) is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Redeemer University College. His primary focus is on aesthetics and the philosophy of film. He is the author or co-editor of a dozen books, including Making Sense of Islamic Art & Architecture (Thames & Hudson, 2015), The Philosophy of Ang Lee (University Press of Kentucky, 2013), and four edited volumes with Lexington, most recently A Critical Companion to Mel Gibson (Lexington, 2024). He has also published a hundred articles, with more than half being on the philosophical analysis of film and related cultural artifacts, and has lectured widely across North America, Europe and Asia on film-related themes.

Antonio Sanna completed his Ph.D. at the University of Westminster in London in 2008. His main research areas are English literature, Gothic literature, horror films and TV, epic and historical films, superhero films and cinematic adaptations. In the past twelve years he has published about ninety articles and reviews in international journals. Antonio is the co-editor of theLexington Books’ Critical Companions to Tim Burton (2017), James Cameron (2018), Steven Spielberg (2019), Robert Zemeckis (2020), Julie Taymor (2023) and Mel Gibson (2024). He has also edited the volumes Pirates in History and Popular Culture (McFarland, 2018), Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return (Palgrave, 2019), Arthur Machen: Critical Essays (Lexington, 2021) and Alice in Wonderland in Film and Popular Culture (Palgrave, 2022).