Call for Chapter Proposals: Golden Age Detection Goes to War

Editors: Dr J.C. Bernthal (Visiting Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Suffolk) and Dr Rebecca Mills (Senior Lecturer in Communication and English, Bournemouth University).

Proposal deadline: March 31st 2024

Chapter proposals are invited for an edited collection exploring and evaluating the representation and navigation of war in writing set in, looking back to, and negotiating the parameters of, the Golden Age of detective fiction. Our first co-edited collection Agatha Christie Goes to War (Routledge 2019) explored the structuring principle of war in the work of the ‘Queen of the Golden Age’ Agatha Christie, demonstrating a recurring anxiety regarding war and its aftermath that permeates the idiom and structure of Christie’s work as well as plotting and characterisation; here we intend to follow up this investigation by extending our scope to both the Golden Age and later authors such as Robin Stevens and Catriona McPherson, who explicitly hark back to its conventions but develop more modern thematic approaches, foregrounding themes, issues and anxieties that would then have been subtextual. This will also afford readings of recently rediscovered and republished crime and mystery fiction from the early and mid-twentieth centuries by, for example, Dean Street Press and British Library Classics.

The Golden Age of detective fiction is often held to be a) English-centric, b) situated between the First and Second World Wars and c) focused on puzzles and clues rather than social and cultural reflection and context. Public imagination and academic conversations have started to capture the diverse, often nuanced, and impactful significance of Golden Age detective fiction, but its engagement with war, while richly varied and textured, has not been widely studied. The editors of Golden Age Detection Goes to War, then, envisage a collection of essays in conversation with the work of scholars such as Gill Plain, Alison Light, and Phyllis Lassner, that challenge traditional readings of isolation, escapism, or simple visions of national identity and purpose, and interrogating the role of these popular texts in the study not only of war fronts and battlefields, but also of complex moralities, social and cultural upheaval, trauma, displacement, and individual, national and internationally negotiated identities.

We are particularly interested in feminist, spatial, queer, post-colonial, and sociological readings that contextualise Anglo-centric English Golden Age work within its contemporary literary, political, and social environments; we also encourage interdisciplinary approaches, particularly drawing on cultural history, geography, trauma and memory studies, and the medical humanities.

Our chronological span for the Golden Age here is Agatha Christie’s lifetime (1890 to 1976) in order to include work leading up to the First World War and post-Second World War work that deals with its aftermath and the early Cold War.

Topics might include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Detective writers, life writing, and war work
• Codes and coding
• Thrillers and espionage stories with substantial detection elements
• National identities and propaganda -Censorship and ethics
• Individual and/or collective memory and trauma 
• Technologies of war 
• Gender and/or sexuality and war 
• Grief, loss, and bereavement 
• Displacement and exile 
• The Home Front and/or foreign fields
• Social and cultural change during and caused by war 
• War and psychology 
• Underrepresented writers and communities impacted by military conflict 
• Representations of ideologies such as Communism and Nazism 
• Conscientious objection
• Military heroism 
• War and reshaped cartographies 
• Colonial wars and Empire 
• Britain and the European Continent
• Britain’s relationship with its allies 
• Comparative analysis of war in the work of authors from Britain and other countries
• Foreign fields 
• The relationship between detective fiction and other literary modes such as modernism and the middlebrow 
• The relationship between Golden Age detective fiction and other crime narrative modes such as noir and pulp fiction 
• Cinema, radio, theatre, and the Golden Age in wartime 
• Historical detective fiction set in/navigating war and engaging with the conventions of the Golden Age

Authors we are interested in include but are not limited to: 

• Dorothy L. Sayers
• Agatha Christie (if you are planning a proposal on Agatha Christie, we encourage you to take a look at Agatha Christie Goes to War)
• Josephine Tey
• E.C.R Lorac
• J. Jefferson Farjeon
• Gladys Mitchell
• John Dickson Carr
• Nap Lombard
• Celia Fremlin
• Michael Gilbert
• Anthony Gilbert
• Graham Greene
• Elizabeth Bowen
• Ngaio Marsh
• Margery Allingham
• Edmund Crispin

We are also interested in detective fiction from outside England and America that can be situated in conversation with the Golden Age periodization and tropes.

We invite 300-500 word abstracts for contributions of 6,000-8,000 words taking a global and in-depth approach to wars and their traces in early-to-mid-century detective, crime, and mystery fiction, as well as life writing by and about authors in this field, and historical detective fiction written later. Please include a brief biographical note (up to 100 words). 

We have early interest from a major academic publisher.

Please send your proposals and enquiries to goldenagedetectiongoestowar@gmail.com by March 31st 2024.

For further details, see https://jcbernthal.com/2024/01/19/call-for-proposals-golden-age-detection-goes-to-war

Call for Submissions - American "Golden Age" Mystery and Detective Fiction 1920 - 1945

 Call for Submissions

Third issue of Mean Streets: A Journal of American Crime and Detective Fiction

Topic: AMERICAN “GOLDEN AGE” MYSTERY AND DETECTIVE FICTION 1920-1945

Proposals: July 15, 2021

Final essays: December 1, 2021

The “Golden Age” of mystery and detective fiction is generally agreed upon as bounded by World War I and World War II. While the designation is widely applied to both British and American fiction of the period, it has most closely adhered to British fiction, perhaps because American crime writing in the period was sharply bifurcated between Classical and Hard-boiled writing. Indeed, Stephen Wright claims that “It was in Britain that the clue-puzzle had its richest development” and also traces the important revision of narrative structure that became known as the “inverted” story to an English writer. So, in what lay the contribution of American writers? Are there unique features in their offerings to the Classical detective narrative? Is there any cross-fertilization (or creative friction) between Classical and Hard-boiled practices? Do the circumstances of American life and culture of the period produce qualities notably different from British narratives?

Some possible approaches:

• Interrogate the question: Is there an American Golden Age?

• Thematic explorations

• Contemporary resurgence of Golden Age interest/popularity

• Contributions of particular American publishers to Golden Age popularity and/or rediscovery (e.g., Rue Morgue Press, Library of Congress Crime Classics)

• Juxtaposition of Classic and Hard-boiled fiction in the period

• Analysis of the critical receptions of American writers by British critics

• Selected authors associated with the period

  Anthony Abbot	Stuart Palmer
  Anne Austin	Zelda Popkin
  Hugh Austin	Ellery Queen
  Earl Derr Biggers	Patrick Quentin
  Anthony Boucher	Virginia Rath
  John Dickson Carr	Clayton Rawson
  Clyde B. Clason	Mary Roberts Rinehart
  Dorothy Cameron Disney	Mabel Seeley
  Todd Downing	Rex Stout
  Mignon Eberhart	Kay Cleaver Strahan
  Erle Stanley Gardner	John Stephen Strange
  Frances Noyes Hart	Phoebe Atwood Taylor
  C. Daly King	Darwin Teilhet
  Rufus King	S.S. Van Dine
  Helen McCloy	Carolyn Wells

  Abstracts of 250 words with proposed title should be directed no later than July 15, 2021, to the editors: Rebecca Martin (doc.rmartin@gmail.com) and Walter Raubicheck (wraubicheck@pace.edu).

  Final papers of 7000-8000 words will be due by December 1, 2021, with publication anticipated in spring 2022. Feel free to send questions to both editors.

  About Mean Streets

  This journal is published by the Pace University Press (New York City), which has been sponsoring scholarly journals since the 1980s.

  Mean Streets is a refereed journal edited by two scholars in literature and film and guided by an Editorial Board comprised of distinguished scholars from several disciplines. Submissions will be reviewed by the editors and selected Board members.

  The journal’s first issue appeared in spring 2020, with the second issue anticipated in June 2021. Copies may be ordered at press.pace.edu/journals/mean-streets/.

  
  

Call for Papers (Extended) - New York State of Crime

Mean Streets

Call for Papers--Extended

Mean Streets: A Journal of American Crime and Detective Fiction

Issue 2

Topic: New York State of Crime

Proposals: November 30, 2020

Final essays: February 15, 2021

For the second issue of Mean Streets, the editors seek proposals focusing on crime literature of New York City or elsewhere in the Empire State. The “extended” CFP will give particular preference to crime literature set in New York outside of New York City. 

This “extended” CFP also invites proposals dealing with detective/crime fiction in urban environments in which the urban setting is given particular significance.

Raymond Chandler’s “mean streets” were the deceptively sun-dappled streets of Los Angeles, but the streets of New York City and its environs have a longer history of association with crime fiction. The vice-filled streets upon which Horatio Alger’s ragged newsboys trudged were the gritty New York City streets of the 1860s. Detective Nick Carter made his first appearance in the New York Weekly in September of 1866 in a serial focused on a crime in Madison Square, the original location of Madison Square Garden.

Decades later, Rex Stout, Chester Himes, Elizabeth Daly, Ed McBain, Ellery Queen, S.S. Van Dine, Amanda Cross, George Baxt, Julia Dahl and so many others found in New York the perfect setting for crimes, genteel or gruesome. The neighborhoods, bars, waterfronts, police precincts, theaters, subway tunnels and gleaming towers of New York have provided rich settings for sordid activities. Upstate New York—the Westchester and Long Island suburbs, Hudson Valley hamlets, the political cauldron of Albany, the once-thriving Catskill resorts, the Rust Belt, and the Snow Belt—has been featured in much crime writing, too.

Mean Streets is essentially a literary journal, so while discussion of film or other media is welcome, the balance of discussion will deal with literature.

Abstracts of 250 words with proposed title should be directed no later than November 30 to the editors: Rebecca Martin (doc.rmartin@gmail.com) and Walter Raubicheck (wraubicheck@pace.edu).

Final papers of 7000-8000 words will be due by February 15, 2021, with publication anticipated in spring 2021. Feel free to send questions to both editors.

About Mean Streets

This journal is published by the Pace University Press (New York City), which has been sponsoring scholarly journals since the 1980s.

Mean Streets is a refereed journal edited by two scholars in literature and film and guided by an Editorial Board comprised of distinguished scholars from several disciplines. Submissions will be reviewed by the editors and selected Board members.

The journal’s first issue appeared in spring 2020. Copies may be ordered at press.pace.edu/journals/mean-streets/.

CFP for Special Issue of Studies In Crime Writing:

The True Crime Renaissance

Guest Editors:

Jean Murley, Associate Professor of English, Queensborough Community College. Author of The Rise of True Crime: 20th Century Murder and American Popular Culture(Praeger/ABC-Clio, 2008). JMurley@qcc.cuny.edu

David Schmid, Associate Professor of English, University at Buffalo. Author of Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture (Chicago, 2005) and editor of Violence in American Popular Culture (2 vol.s, Praeger, 2015). schmid@buffalo.edu. 

True crime sits at the fascinating intersection of law, morality, and psychology, and at its best interrogates our notions of truth, narrative form, and experience. The genre of true crime is experiencing a renaissance at the moment and has been given a boost from emerging and new media forms: from such podcasts as Serial and My Favourite Murder to streaming series like Making a Murderer, The Jinx, and OJ: Made in America, the current popularity of true crime is immense and unprecedented. This issue is devoted to scholarly explorations of the reasons for this popularity and a deep analysis of the genre in its present and multiple forms. While scholars have done extensive work on the history, historiography, and evolution of true crime, our aim is to understand as much as possible about true crime in its present iterations, including why it is so appealing to audiences now, what cultural work it does, new areas of inquiry posed by the genre, and what ongoing questions it raises about the relationship between crime and culture.

We welcome submissions on any aspect of this phenomenon. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

True crime fandom

TC and gender (consumers and producers)

Transnational/international TC

Historical TC

Emerging topics/subjects of TC (including but not limited to race, wrongful conviction, and sociological/political subjects)

Terrorism and TC

Intersections of TC and crime fiction

TC and race

TC and new media—podcasts and streaming series 

TC and the criminal justice system

Changing focus of narratives—memoir and victim-centered perspectives

TC and victimology

TC and the High/Low divide

TC and forensic science/psychology

TC and feminism/misogyny/masculinity

TC and film (fiction, non-fiction, documentary, docu-drama)

Please send 300-word abstracts and a 1-page cv to the co-editors by June 30, 2019. First drafts of accepted essays will be due by September 30, 2019, and final drafts by January 31, 2020 for a 2020 publication date.

Call For Papers—American Women Writers of Detective and Crime Fiction, Especially the Writing of Sue Grafton

Mean Streets

The editors of a new scholarly journal, Mean Streets: A Journal of American Crime and Detective Fiction, are pleased to present this Call for Papers for the inaugural issue. The journal will be published by the Pace University Press (New York City), which has been sponsoring scholarly journals since the 1980s.

The first issue will be dedicated to the late Sue Grafton and this CFP invites proposals on American women writers of detective fiction, with special consideration given for topics on Grafton. Mean Streets is essentially a literary journal, so while discussion of film or other media is welcome, the balance of discussion should deal with literature.

While American detective writing has been associated since the twenties with the “hard-boiled” tradition established by Hammett and Chandler, many American authors have excelled in the “whodunit” mystery tradition of British writing. The journal is open to literary discussion of both types of writing, as well as to texts in the broader category of crime fiction.

Mean Streets is a refereed journal helmed by two scholars in literature and film and guided by an Editorial Board comprised of distinguished scholars from several disciplines. Submissions will be reviewed by the editors and selected Board members.

Abstracts of 250 words with proposed title should be directed no later than October 15, 2018, to the editors: Rebecca Martin (rmartin@pace.edu) and Walter Raubicheck (wraubicheck@pace.edu). Final papers of 7000-8000 words will be due by February 1, 2019, with publication anticipated in late spring.  Feel free to send questions to both editors.