Edited Volume on Contemporary Black Hollywood

The last decade has seen the emergence of a number of significant films featuring a black presence both behind and in front of the cameras. From arthouse films such as Pariah (dir. Dee Rees, 2011) to blockbusters like Black Panther (dir. Ryan Coogler, 2018) it would appear that Black films and Black directors have been granted a significant presence and authorial role in the mainstream of American cinema. Many have gone on to realize both critical and popular success, with films such as 12 Years a Slave (dir. Steve McQueen, 2013), Selma (dir. Ava DuVernay, 2014), Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele, 2017), Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2016), Black Panther, and BlacKkKlansman (dir. Spike Lee, 2018) achieving multiple awards and accolades to go along with their impressive (and, in the case of Black Panther, spectacular) box-office success. What does all this mean in the context of contemporary Hollywood and America? Does it signal a genuine shift in the nature of Black participation, representation, access, and acceptance? Or—notwithstanding the fact of these issues being part of an acknowledged popular conversation in and around Hollywood—is this merely the latest iteration of a Black Hollywood (like the New Black Hollywood of the late 1980s) that will inevitably be subsumed once more by the fundamental structures of whiteness upon which the hegemony of the Hollywood cinematic frame is sustained?

The editors invite essay submissions for inclusion in a book, tentatively titled Black Hollywood in the Twenty-First Century, engaging with recent iterations of a "new" Black Hollywood. Such aspects of address include the spectrum of thematic concerns in such films and their gendered, sexualized, and raced embodiment. No less important, consider their stylistic and aesthetic—Black aesthetic—sensibilities and corresponding significations for the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements. And, moreover their challenge to Hollywood stereotypes, racial tropes and conventions, particularly the assumptive in fantastical, horror, and science fiction genres. Welcomed, too, are comparative pieces within the long history of African American filmmaking and in relation to other Black cinematic traditions and formations in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and Europe. We encourage as broad a range as possible of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives. Essays should not exceed 9,000 words.

Please submit completed essays by July 1, 2020.

Submissions should conform to The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition.

Direct all questions and correspondence to David Wall at david.wall@usu.edu.