European Journal of Life Writing

This is a call for abstracts for an international edited collection entitled Portrayals of the Bride in Screen, Stage and Literary Productions, and Pop Culture Narratives.

To whatever degree, every culture in the world is different to all others. Yet one figure that consistently features in almost every culture is the bride. The bride is a central figure in the wedding ceremony, a ritual that symbolizes the psychological and real foundation of marriage or committed union and expresses both the promise of happiness, security, safety, protection, and peace and unity in the home and the most exalted aspects of frith—the sanctity of the unionized state and human life. From antiquity to the present, brides feature in stories, witticisms, anecdotes, jokes and in both high and low culture. The concept of the bride symbolizes the promise of renewal and growth of the family and is an important part of social and cultural history and ritual in all societies, world-wide, yet it would seem that there are no published academic books on portrayals of the bride from the angle suggested in this cfp.