
CFP: Collection of Essays on AMC's Breaking Bad

This is a CFP for critical essays for an edited collection on AMC's original series Breaking Bad. Premiering on January 20, 2008, Breaking Bad has been critically acclaimed and called one of television's best all-time dramatic series. It will end its fifth and final season in 2012-13.
Despite garnering critical notice, Breaking Bad has received little serious scholarly attention in academic circles. This edited collection will be the first publication to conduct a scholarly study of the series from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives—critical-cultural, feminist, gender studies, genre studies, phenomenological, philosophical, political-economic, sociological—all in an endeavor to delve deeply into the complex worlds of Breaking Bad, its characters, narratives, and audiences.
I am seeking critical essays (20-30 pages) that explore Breaking Bad along with the social, cultural, institutional, and political contexts of its production and reception.
Potential essays may include, but are not limited to the following topics:
Vince Gilligan as auteur
Series and AMC's branding and programming strategies Breaking Bad's moral, ethical, and philosophical universe universe
Series' representation of narco cultures, D.E.A., & the war on drugs Latino/a Americans, Mexicans, and border politics
Series' meth cultures and America's underclass Breaking Bad and the western landscape
Breaking Bad and life and myth in the modern American Southwest Breaking Bad as metaphor for modern American capitalism and culture
Series' representations of white and Latino American masculinity Good/bad fathers and sons
Series' representations of race, ethnicity, disability, and sexuality The women of Breaking Bad
The Tao of Gus Fring and Mike Ehrmantraut Walter White and the mythologies of the American western outlaw
The uses of black comedy and violence in Breaking Bad Breaking Bad's take on the television serial drama
The visual and aural style of Breaking Bad Breaking Bad's fan readings, cultures, production, and activities
Please send abstract proposals (350-500 word) with working title and brief biography listing any publications by email by 1 April 2012; finished essays by 3 December 2012. Send proposals and questions to David Pierson, Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of Southern Maine at david.pierson@maine.edu

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