Cinematic Bond at 60: National and International Perspectives - Call For Papers

 

A History Research Group Symposium

Bournemouth University (Online), 4 March 2022

Keynote Speaker: Professor Andrew Spicer (University of the West of England)

In 1962 the first James Bond film, Dr No (Terence Young) was released. The film was a huge financial success for EON productions, catapulted Sean Connery to lifelong stardom and started a period of Bondmania that lasted for most of the 1960s. As a cultural icon and cultural phenomenon, James Bond and the Bond film have become a globally recognised brand.

The films have been widely analysed for their spectacle, their often problematic engagement with masculinity, gender relations and cultural appropriation as well as the ideological implications of how they engage with their backdrop of social and geopolitical change across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 

With 2022 marking 60 years of the cinematic Bond and the latest instalment, No Time to Die (Cary Fukunaga), due (allegedly) for release in October 2021, critical reflections on this ongoing franchise are relevant and timely.

This one-day online symposium, hosted by the History Research Group at Bournemouth University, will offer delegates the opportunity to discuss and interrogate the Bond franchise across diverse concepts. We are especially keen for scholars from outside of the United Kingdom to bring international and transnational perspectives to the character of Bond and the films. Likely topics include but are not restricted to:

• Gender
• Class
• Race and ethnicity
• Imperialism and post-imperialism
• Colonialism and post-colonialism
• Cold War and/or Cold War I
• Stars and stardom
• Fashion/style/aesthetics
• Music and/or sound design
• Adaptation/adoption/appropriation
• Fans and fandom
• Audiences
• Reviews and reception
• Marketing and merchandise

Delegates will be invited to submit their papers for an intended edited collection to be published in the Routledge Studies of Espionage and Culture series.

We seek proposals for 20-minute papers, or for pre-constituted panels of three or four papers, that engage with any aspects of the above topic. 

Abstracts of no more than 300 words, along with a short biographical note, should be submitted for peer review to:

Dr Laura Crossley: lcrossley@bournemouth.ac.uk by 29^th October 2021.