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This panel invites papers that compare the original Star Wars trilogy with the newer, prequel trilogy for the Popular Culture Association’s 2005 National Conference in San Diego, California. We invite all critical and theoretical approaches.
Few popular filmic narratives have so captivated the public’s imagination and invited critical commentary as George Lucas’s Star Wars series. Taken collectively, these films stand as one of our society’s richest repositories of contemporary myth and social meaning, a galaxy where cultural hopes and anxieties are revealed and imaginarily resolved. The release of the second prequel trilogy, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and the soon to be released Revenge of the Sith, has only deepened this field of social meaning and created new interpretive possibilities for those wishing to work there. While these later films have been both criticized and praised by fans and critics alike, there has yet been little serious study of how their release has altered how the Star Wars universe works as a site of ideological investment.
Possible paper topics could, but do not necessarily have to, compare the trilogies in terms of:
aesthetic value
the representation of race and racial stereotypes
gender issues
the representation of the environment
the representation of monstrosity in the form of alien species
fan communities and their respective relationships to the trilogies
specific character studies
Please send a 150-200 word abstract by October 25, 2004, to:
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