Sopranos May 2008 Conference: Formal Call for Papers

Added 13 May 2008: Final Sopranos Conference program just posted.

==========================


And here's our formal call for papers ... to everyone...

David Lavery, convener, Paul Levinson and Douglas L. Howard co-conveners, solicit your proposals for an academic conference on The Sopranos to be held at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center Campus in New York, May 23-25, 2008. (Note: this is a change from the earlier announced date of May 8-10, 2008.) Sponsored by Film and Television and the School of Arts at Brunel University in London in partnership with the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University in New York, this first, major scholarly gathering devoted to the HBO drama The Sopranos aspires to provide a definitive assessment of one of what may well be the best television series ever made. Proposals on any aspect of The Sopranos are invited. The best papers from the conference will be published as a book.

We welcome proposals of 200-300 words (or an abstract of a completed paper) on any aspect of The Sopranos. We invite presentations from the perspective of any discipline: literature, history, communication, film and television studies, women’s studies, philosophy, religion, linguistics, music, cultural studies, and others. Discussions of the text, the social context, the audience, the producers, the production, and more are all appropriate. For a comprehensive but not exhaustive list of possible topics, look here. All proposals/abstracts should demonstrate familiarity with the substantial already-published scholarship on The Sopranos.

Papers are limited to a maximum reading time of 20 minutes. Since all rooms at the conference site are fully equipped, presenters can anticipate using DVDs, Power Point, the Internet, and visual presenters in their talks. Please fill out this form. Submissions by undergraduates and graduate students are welcome; however, undergraduate students should provide the name, email, and phone number of a faculty member willing to consult with them (the faculty member need not attend). Submissions from non-academics - writers, critics, unofficial "students" of The Sopranos - are also very welcome.

Proposals for prearranged, complete sessions of multiple presenters (no more than three) are welcome. Fill out the session form.

Proposals must be submitted by September 1, 2007.

Please write us with questions via the e-mail link in the column to the right of this blog post.

Feel free to distribute this call for papers everywhere in the known and unknown universe...

More on the conference:

Preliminary Announcement and Background

Further details from David Lavery

Further reading:

The Sopranos and the Closure-Junkies

The Sopranos, or the Tiger?

The Sopranos Ninth of Nine: The Anti-Ending Ending

This Thing of Ours: Investigating the Sopranos David Lavery's 2002 anthology, with essays by Lavery, Paul Levinson, Douglas Howard, and others.