Call for Chapters: Sex and Supernatural
*** Deadline extended! ***
As the long-running series Supernatural (2005-2020) comes to a close, fans and scholars can finally consider the text as a closed canon that offers new possibilities for analysis. While previous volumes from throughout its run have examined the series through the lenses of genre, theology, and philosophy, this collection will analyze the show through the thus-far underused lenses of fan, gender, sexuality, and porn studies. Supernatural’s use and interpretations of sexualities, queerness, consumption of pornography and human bodies (sometimes literally) speaks to both horror tropes and to cultural anxieties. The longevity of the show also allows it to act as a litmus test for changing mores in sex and gender representation. The goal of this edited volume will be to analyze these topics across the breadth of the show and its related texts, including licensed novels and comics and fan fiction and meta.
Possible topics include:
The portrayal of sex work on the show and in the show’s fanfiction
The depiction of porn and its consumption, including “Busty Asian Beauties” and “Casa Erotica”
The portrayal of STDs, including “Herpexia”
The sexual appetites of fangirls: Marie (“You can’t spell ‘subtext’ without s-e-x”) contrasted with Becky (“Can you stop touching me?” “No.”)
The usage (and sometimes subversion) of the “bury your gays” trope
Queerness and people of color (e.g. Cesar Cuevas, Max Banes)
Queerness as interpreted through different showrunners (Kripke, Gamble, Carver, Dabb)
Dean Winchester’s unconfirmed(?) bisexuality
Chuck/God’s confirmed bisexuality
Crowley (from his deal for “three inches” to his “summer of love” with Dean)
Queer couples and/vs. Heteronormativity
Toxic Masculinity (and John Winchester’s A+ Parenting)
“Benjamin is an angel. His vessel is a woman”: Angels’ queer/trans identities
Anyone who kisses Sam dies: heterosexual love as literal kiss of death?
“I’m full frontal in here, dude”: analyzing the differences in Dean and Sam sex scenes
Please send 500 word abstracts with 100 word biographical statements and a short (two page) CV to Cait Coker at cait.coker@gmail.com by March 1, 2021 Estimated timeline: First draft essays (5-6k words) should be completed by August 31, 2021 and final revisions by December 31, 2021.