[csaa-forum] CFP Apocalypse and TV

[Marcus O'Donnell]

Call for contributions: Small Screen Revelations: apocalypse and 
prophecy in contemporary television

Editor: Marcus O’Donnell
Publisher: Sheffield Phoenix Press
Series: Apocalypse and Popular Culture
Series Editor: Dr John Walliss
Publication date: late 2009

Contributions are required for a new collection of essays that explores 
the apocalyptic and prophetic in contemporary television drama and news 
reportage. It will form part of the Sheffield Phoenix Apocalypse and 
Popular Culture Series which is being produced in association with the 
Hope Centre for Millennialism Studies at Liverpool Hope University.

The volume will explore the intersection of apocalyptic and prophetic 
archetypes, story patterns, motifs and characters in contemporary 
televisual storytelling and reportage. Although the volume is 
specifically focused on essays which analyse the manifestations of 
these biblical genres in contemporary popular form we are interested in 
a wide variety of interdisciplinary perspectives that draw upon the 
resources of cultural studies, screen studies, journalism and media 
studies, sociology, political science, religious studies, anthropology, 
theology and biblical studies.

While a number of collections have explored cinematic representations 
of the apocalyptic, comparatively little work has been produced on the 
specifically televisual dimensions of contemporary apocalyptics. This 
volume aims to begin to map this area. One of the unique approaches of 
this volume is the decision to survey both television drama as well as 
news and current affairs. Raymond Williams famously described 
television production and consumption as “flow” which incorporates a 
collage of televisual experience ranging through drama, news and 
advertising. One of the underlying assumptions of this volume is that 
there are a range of important connections that deserve sustained 
analysis in the flow between apocalyptic images of the nightly news and 
apocalyptic scenarios of contemporary TV drama. We are interested in 
contributions which treat either of these domains separately but 
particularly welcome essays which seek to draw connections between the 
dramatic and the documentary. In either case authors should address the 
current cultural and political context as well as the aesthetic and 
biblical dimensions of contemporary television productions.

The volume will focus on post 2000 productions although space will be 
given to important 1990’s precursors to the current crop of apocalyptic 
television series. Consideration will be given to essays which focus on 
earlier works if the proposal is particularly strong and includes an 
analysis which draws out connections/contrasts with contemporary 
productions or issues. Essays which focus on a single series or moment 
of reportage as well as essays which follow a particular theme across a 
number of different programs or television genres are both welcome.

The following general areas have been identified as a possible 
structure for the volume but at this stage it is only indicative and 
should not be read as precluding other concerns:
1.	The monstrous and strange: revelations, visions and supernatural 
signs
2.	The final conflict: good versus evil and apocalyptic violence
3.	Remnant communities in apocalyptic times
4.	Comings and goings at the end: the raptured and the returned
5.	Fate and fatalism in contemporary televisual apocalyptics
6.	Prophets and preachers of the end: contemporary jeremiads

Essays dealing with one or more of the following television series are 
particularly welcome but again it is an indicative rather than a 
prescriptive list:
•	24
•	Angel
•	Babylon Five
•	Battlestar Galactica
•	Buffy
•	Carnivale
•	Jericho
•	Lost
•	Millennium
•	Revelations
•	Supernatural
•	Star Trek
•	The 4400
•	The Second Coming
•	Twin Peaks
•	X Files

Essays dealing with one or more or of the following aspects of 
contemporary television news reportage are also particularly welcome 
but again the list is indicative only:
•	News of wars and rumours of wars: apocalyptic nightly news
•	The fate of the earth: science and nature documentaries
•	Journalistic jeremiads
•	Reporting of Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters
•	Reporting environmental crisis
•	Televising terror: live broadcast journalism after September 11
•	Routine television news values and the apocalyptic
•	Reporting from the developing world: othering the apocalypse

Timeline

Email proposals should be sent to the editor (marcuso at uow.edu.au) by 5 
May 2008. Proposals should include a chapter abstract of up to 500 
words and a brief biographical note that details the author’s academic 
affiliations and relevant publication history. Where possible copies of 
previously published articles in the area or thesis chapters should 
also be included. Confirmation of acceptance should be finalised by 
early August 2008 and initial drafts of chapters will be expected by 
March 2009 with a publication date of late 2009. Final contributions 
should range between 6,000 - 10,000 words with more space applying to 
those who take a broad comparative approach.

Preliminary email enquiries and/or early proposals to the editor are 
welcome and encouraged.

Marcus O’Donnell
School of Journalism and Creative Writing
University of Wollongong
marcuso at uow.edu.au


Apocalypse and Popular Culture Series is a sub-series of the Sheffield 
Phoenix Bible and Society series. As such, the focus of each volume is 
on the ways in which Biblical apocalyptic texts, themes and dramatis 
personae are drawn upon, transformed and consumed within aspects of 
popular culture. Five volumes are currently under development dealing 
with film, television, cyberculture, music and literary/graphic texts. 
The series is being produced in association with the Hope Centre for 
Millennialism Studies at Liverpool Hope University under the general 
editorship of the centre’s director Dr John Walliss.

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