Jobs & Opportunities » Opportunities

Interrogating the Visual Culture of Trumpism: Edited Book Project

Type: Calls For Papers [View all]
Posted by: Virginia Tech and Ball State University
Deadline: Wed, March 15th, 2023

Call for Contributions

Edited Book: Interrogating the Visual Culture of Trumpism

Natalie Phillips and Grant Hamming

Trumpism—the ideological movement and personality cult attached to former President Donald Trump—has always had a distinctive visual component. From gilded escalators to cartoon frogs, from the "National Garden of American Heroes" to red hats and massive rally stages, Trumpism has unleashed imagery which is plainly appealing to some, but puzzling or frightening to most. After the insurrection and attempted autogolpe at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, much of this imagery took on a new immediacy, informing not just a turbulent political movement and Presidential Administration, but an attempt to overthrow the American government.

The still swarming, sprawling MAGA media sphere feels dizzyingly unprecedented on the one hand, and yet also alarmingly, painfully familiar on the other. With Trump’s announcement–shortly after the 2022 midterms–that he would once again seek election to the Presidency, the movement and its imagery is poised to once again dominate American cultural and political life. This book invites reckonings with this challenging and heterogenous body of material. We invite scholarly and artistic investigations of the visual culture of Trumpism and related ideologies. By gathering diverse perspectives on this topic, we hope to increase understanding of how visual production has been shaped by and given shape to the political, social, and cultural goals of Trump’s movement.

In particular, we encourage submissions that put Trumpist visual culture in dialogue with contemporary and historical practices, as well as discourses regarding race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and geographic or regional identity. Papers considering the (re-)appropriation of this material for protest or redress are also welcome.

The proposed length of each chapter will be 4000-5000 words.

Please send your 300-word abstract and a short bio to: Grant Hamming and Natalie Phillips at InterrogatingTrumpism@gmail.com

Deadline for abstracts: March 15, 2023

 

Posted on Tue, January 17th, 2023
Expires on Wed, March 15th, 2023

CAA is not responsible for the content of listings in the Opportunities section. All postings are subject to review; inappropriate submissions will not be published.