Twilight Goes Academic

Melissa Click, Jennifer Stevens Aubrey, and Lissa Behm-Morawitz are soliciting proposals for chapters of 6000 to 8000 words to go into a book tentatively titled Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media, and the Twilight Saga.

Their call for papers says:

The editors seek essays that explore Stephenie Meyer's wildly popular Twilight series. We are particularly interested in essays that explore the cultural significance of the Twilight phenomenon and its impact on youth culture.

The collection will feature scholarly work from a diversity of theoretical and methodological perspectives, including: analyses of the series' messages, production and marketing processes, and audiences. We welcome work from a wide variety of disciplines, including: communication, sociology, cultural studies, psychology, religious studies, and gender studies.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Representations of gender, race, class and sexuality
• Religion, morality, and values
• Feminist and anti-feminist themes in Twilight
• Intended and unintended audiences
• Fans and anti-fans
• Genre and vampire/werewolf folklore
• Relationship models (romantic, friendship, and familial)
• Space and place in Twilight
• Celebrity culture and Stephenie Meyer, Robert Pattinson, and Kristen Stewart
• Translation of the series for the screen
• The Twilight franchise

This collection will be proposed to Peter Lang's "Mediated Youth" series.

People interested in contributing should email a 250-word proposal, short bibliography, brief author's bio, and contact information to Melissa Click by 10 Apr 2009. The editors plan to notify contributors of acceptances by 15 May, and first drafts of chapters will be due in early fall 2009.

(I note that all the titles in the series published by Peter Lang are about girls, despite the more inclusive series title and description. Would this book change that pattern? Probably not.)