Date: August 1st 2012

Abstract Deadline: October 31st 2012

Call for contributors : Volume entitled: ‘Bringing History to Life through Film’ (Working title) to be included in the ’History and Film Series’

Please send a 500 word proposal, along with a brief CV or author bio, to Kathryn Anne Morey k.morey2@lancaster.ac.uk by September 30th 2012.

Final essays must be 5,000-7,500 words (including endnotes), and will be due by mid-February, 2013.

Book editor seeking chapter contributions to a compilation of essays to be published by Scarecrow Press in 2013.

The question of history and film being a compatible source of education is one that has been readily discussed by historians and philosophers alike and is still being discussed and re-evaluated. In fact in February 2006 there was a temporary ‘suspension of film reviews in the American historical review.’ It is widely thought that the film does not provide the ‘accurate’ view of history that historical texts and books do, but this collection of essays aims to challenge this idea introducing arguments about how storytelling within a film can help the viewer understand a historical situation better, and even empathise with individuals in a new way.

Cinematic history raises many important questions about the relationship between fact and fiction: When does history become myth, and when does myth become legend? Does a romanticized view of history distort the reality it is trying to convey, or in capturing the “spirit” of history, does it teach history in ways that mere fact cannot? What is the impact of motion pictures on our understandings of history, and on historical memory? And what of the lives of the individuals it portrays? Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Marie Antoinette, and Cleopatra are just a few of the historical figures that have attained mythic status through their romanticization on the big screen. Does cinematic history promote a tendency toward mythologizing historical figures? This collection of essays will explore questions around whether, and it what ways, the storytelling method used by filmmakers may serve to distance audiences from their own history by making it simply a story. Using films such as ‘Pearl
Harbor’ (Bay, 2001) and ‘Elizabeth’ (Chadwich, 2008) which take well known histories and portray them in a storytelling fashion, making them more accessible to audiences who may not have known about these histories, as well as examining why history on film can be a successful method of learning, and why the storytelling method helps with this.



Essays wanted on:

I. Royalty as myth

II. Nostalgic Utopias

III. Understanding History on Film

IV. IV. The myth of Robin Hood

V. V. Film or literature?