Re-visions of Eden: The Idea of the Midwestern Gothic
Due Date: 09-01-2018
Critical academic essays are sought for a volume on the Midwestern Gothic in American literature and culture. This edited volume looks to establish the Midwestern Gothic as genre, exploring relationships with other regional gothics and the American gothic broadly speaking. It is also interested in critical essays on particular authors or works associated with the Midwestern Gothic tradition, including Sherwood Anderson; Toby Altman’s Arcadia, Indiana; Frank Bill; Sam Shepard’s Buried Child; Bonnie Jo Campbell; Laura Ingalls Wilder; Harmony Korine’s Gummo; Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son; Sinclair Lewis; Edgar Lee Masters; Ander Monson; Toni Morrison; Donald Ray Pollock; C. S. Giscombe’s Prairie Style; Michael Lesy’s Wisconsin Death Trip; Laird Hunt’s Indiana, Indiana; James Wright; and others.
This edited volume is particularly interested in original contributions (between 5,000 and 8,000 words) on topics including
- intersections with other regional American gothics (e.g., the Southern Gothic, Great Plains Gothic, etc.)
- the Midwestern Gothic and popular culture
- race, class, and gender politics in the Midwestern Gothic
- grotesque, uncanny, and abject domestic spaces in the Midwestern Gothic
- histories and myths of place and region
- community formation politics and identity politics
- the Midwest and frontierism
- deindustrialization and economic disparity
- the opioid crisis, addiction, and mental illness
- pastoral and postpastoral studies
- the decline of the Rust Belt
- rural studies
- the dark side of Midwestern “niceness”
- current politics of the Midwest
- documentary and nonfiction approaches to the Midwestern Gothic
- visual studies in the Midwestern Gothic (film, photography, and multimedia)
Please submit 300–500-word abstracts to Brandi Homan and Julia Madsen at mwgothicscholar@gmail.com by 1 September 2018. Selections will be made by 1 December 2018. Final essays of 5,000–8,000 words are due 1 March 2019.