Abstract Deadline: Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Chapter Drafts Deadline: December 15, 2025
Essays sought for a peer-reviewed edited collection focused on Brian De Palma’s film, Phantom of the Paradise.
Brian De Palma’s 1974 film Phantom of the Paradise, starring William Finley, Paul Williams, and Jessica Harper remains a cult classic of 1970s American independent cinema and popular culture. A throwback to the legend of Faust and Gothic narratives such as Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera (1910), and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), the film satirizes the modern music industry. The musical prominently features a stellar soundtrack by Paul Williams and many of De Palma’s trademark filmmaking techniques and Hitchcockian homages that he would perfect in further genre fare like Carrie (1976), Dressed to Kill (1980), and Blow Out (1981).
Furthermore, Phantom of the Paradise has a devoted fan base around the world. For example, a fan-made preservation website called “The Swan Archives”—devoted to detailing the film’s production history and cataloging and preserving its physical promotional materials and merchandise—was the subject of a 2013 Bright Lights Film Journal essay. In addition, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro owns an extensive collection of Phantom of the Paradise memorabilia, while director Edgar Wright specifically cast Paul Williams in a cameo role in Baby Driver (2017) out of his affinity his role in De Palma’s film. The film’s growing popularity has also led to sold-out repertoire screenings, shadow cast events, and fan cosplay at horror conventions. In an archived 2019 interview with The Globe and Mail, Williams commented on the film’s resurgence and its overall legacy: “Isn’t it bizarre? You can’t be quick to write something off as [a] failure. . . . I am beyond grateful.”
While academic research has been focused broadly on De Palma’s filmography, there has not been a singular scholarly text devoted to the film. The celebration of Phantom of the Paradise’s 50th anniversary in 2024 makes it an appropriate time to celebrate and re-evaluate the film.
The purpose of this edited collection is to place Phantom of the Paradise into a cultural and theoretical context, as well as critically analyze the film, its connections to other genre films, its place in Brian De Palma’s filmography, and its continued influence.
We seek proposals for chapters that approach the subject matter with theoretical concepts that will appropriately meet the rigorous expectations of an academic work, but through a prose style that shall be accessible for both an academic audience and a general readership.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Brian De Palma as an Auteur
- Paul Williams’ Career
- Film and Literary Adaptation and Intertextuality (Phantom of the Opera, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Faust, etc.)
- Narrative, Thematic, or Structural Analysis of the Film
- Audio/Visual Style
- The supernatural and the Gothic
- Body Horror
- Monstrosity/Abjection
- Class, Gender, Sexuality, and Queer Readings
- Psychoanalytic Film Theory
- Philosophy in Film/Film as Philosophy
- Voyuerism and “the gaze”
- Mirrors, Screens, Foils, and Doubles
- Genre Hybridity
- Soundtracks and Film Scoring
- Horror Musical Film Cycles (including Phantom of the Paradise; The Rocky Horror Picture Show [Sharman, 1975]; Shock Treatment [Sharman, 1981]; Little Shop of Horrors [Oz, 1986]; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street [Burton, 2007]; Repo! The Genetic Opera [Bousman, 2008]; and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog [Whedon, 2008])
- Cult Cinema, Fandom, and Popular Culture
Please send abstracts of 300 – 500 words with a working title and five (5) keywords, accompanied by a short third-person author bio (100 words max), to [email protected] as a Word document.
Final essays should be 5,000 – 6,000 words in length, inclusive of endnotes and bibliography. Citations and references shall be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition. Images may be included with chapters, upon approval. A formal proposal for the collection will be submitted for consideration to a leading academic press.
Proposed Timeline
- August 1, 2024 – April 15, 2025: Call for Papers
- May 15, 2025: Notification of abstract acceptances sent to authors
- May 15 – December 15, 2025: Book chapters drafting period
- December 15 – January 31, 2026: Initial editorial review of submitted chapter drafts; editing/revision remarks sent to writers
- February 1 – March 15, 2026: Contributor revision period
- March 15 – March 31, 2026: Second editorial review
- April 1 – April 15, 2026: Contributor revisions, as neede
- April 15 – June 15, 2026: Finalize full manuscript
- June 15, 2026: Submit full manuscript to press for editorial board consideration and peer review process
Editor Bio:
Sean Woodard (MA | MFA) is a PhD candidate in English at The University of Texas at Arlington. He also serves as the Assistant Editor for Global Insight: A Journal of Critical Human Science and Cultureand the Film Editor for Drunk Monkeys. He has co-edited an academic collection of essays with Michele Brittany on Universal Pictures’ The Mummy Franchise (Forthcoming, University Press of Mississippi). He has contributed chapters to the edited collections Journeys Into Terror: Essays from the Cinematic Intersection of Travel and Horror(McFarland and Co.) and Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad (University Press of Mississippi). His research interests include horror cinema, the American West, EcoGothic Criticism, psychoanalysis, fairy tales, and film scoring.