Portrayals of the Bride in Screen, Stage and Literary Productions, and Pop Culture Narratives.

It can be said that in any culture, the role of the bride differs to that of a wife. The act of becoming and being a bride is also vastly different to being a wife. This collection will reveal how the bride, and how the actual and the social and cultural realities of the role of the bride, are perceived in the popular and social culture of various cultures, as represented in screen, stage, and literary productions and pop culture narratives (including zines and comics).

Questions that could be addressed may include but are not limited to:

• What are the cultural and social duties of the bride, what are the cultural expectations, what are the realities, and what are some of the ways in which the bride is portrayed in the popular/social culture of a particular culture/society? Are there differences or sameness between the fictionalized portrayals and the realities and social dictates of that culture?
• How might the bride be viewed in a given culture? How do class, ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and possibly history, shape these representations?
• Are there cultural or socially historical antecedents for consideration of portrayals of the bride in popular/social culture, as screen, stage, and literary productions and pop culture narratives?
• How is the bride portrayed in pop culture narratives, and what are the underlying cultural, historical, or production motivations in each case?
• What are the distinctions between how the bride has been typically represented in wedding jokes and anecdotes, and in other forms in popular and social culture, such as screen, stage, and literary productions and pop culture narratives of various cultures?
• How often, if at all, are these portrayals told from the point-of-view of the bride herself?

This collection of scholarly essays will make an intervention in the field. It will be the first of its kind to explore whether or not there are characteristic features and definitions within the portrayals of the bride in popular culture; to document and record how our western and non-western societies perceive and represent the socially and culturally important figure of the bride in screen, stage, and literary works and pop culture narratives; to indicate if there is agreement or difference between the various cultures on how the figure of the bride is represented in popular-culture to the viewing/reading audiences; to establish a new and dynamic area of theoretical research in social history, gender studies, familial studies, cultural and social studies, behavioral studies, women’s studies, and the humanities in general; to point the way to possible future work in an ever-expanding field of cross-disciplinary fields through examining various portrayals of the bride in popular culture; and to permit scholarly consideration of the extent to which writers of screen, stage, literature and pop culture narratives establish popular representations of a figure who is an intrinsic part of every culture as a whole.   

Submission Instructions:

Abstracts should be written in English, no more than 1000 words in total, excluding the references list and the keywords. At the top of your abstract, after the word “Keywords,” please add five keywords for your abstract.

Full-length chapters (of no more than 6000 words each, including notes but excluding references lists) will be solicited from these abstracts. The abstracts should carry the same title as intended for a full-length chapter.

Please use Times New Roman, point 12, 1.5 spacing. Fully reference all work in-text and in a Reference list.

Use the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition (with in-text parenthetical referencing and a References list at end of document). 

Use endnotes not footnotes, use counting numbers not Roman numerals, and keep the endnotes to a bare minimum, but work the information into the text where possible.

At the same time as submitting your abstract, please include a short biographical note with your covering letter, and give your affiliation, and your contact details, and include your c.v. These may be attached to your abstract. No need to send separate documents.

Papers should be forwarded to:

Jo Parnell Jo.Parnell@newcastle.edu.au  alternatively annette.parnell@newcastle.edu.au or joandbobparnell@bigpond.com 

Deadline for abstracts: 30 November 2018.

Editor: Dr Jo Parnell, Conjoint Research Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Science, Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Newcastle, Australia.