CFP: Alan Moore Edited Collection, "Lost Loves" (July 15)

Alan Moore Edited Collection CFP

Lost Loves: Why Men and Women Make It (or Don’t) in the Work of Alan Moore

With the publication of Lost Girls and 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, the centrality of love and sex in Alan Moore’s work has become indisputable. Thus far, however, little scholarly attention has been paid to this facet of his work. This collection, provisionally titled Lost Loves: Why Men and Women Make It (or Don’t) in the Work of Alan Moore, aims to remedy that situation.

Sex and (possibly) love abound in Moore's novels and films. In V for Vendetta, Moore juxtaposes the love of the computerized state with the transient love of men and women. In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Watchmen, he poses difficult questions about the nature of (super)heroic love for others, and for democracy, nation, and empire. In sophisticated metapornographic works like Lost Girls and League, Moore (lovingly?) appropriates the work of others. Throughout his work, Moore is attuned to representation and to how representation demarcates the reality of those who love, and are “loved.”
 
Close analyses of Moore’s novels and “his” films, his appropriation of other works, his collaborations with illustrators, his artistic/spiritual relationship to his community, and his love-hate relationship with the film industry are of interest. A wide variety of disciplines (sociology, art, philosophy, etc.) and frameworks (feminist, disability studies, postcolonial, queer, Foucaultian, and psychoanalytic) are welcomed. Scholars might also consider addressing the topic in the context of posthumanism, Victorian repression, vampirism, hybridity, ecology, magic/spirituality, pornography, anarchy, and fandom and fan fiction. The collection defines “love” broadly so as to include ethical relation in general.
 
I have a number of essays on Moore’s dystopian texts (Watchmen, V for Vendetta) and on Lost Girls. I am particularly interested in locating more essays on Lost Girls and 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, as well as From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Voice of the Fire, Swamp Thing, and his lesser known texts.
 
A book proposal is currently being circulated. Please email any queries; abstracts of 300 words should be emailed to Todd Comer, Defiance College, by July 15, 2010, for earliest consideration.  Full or partial articles, if available, may also be included with your abstract. Email: tcomer@defiance.edu