Call for Abstracts
X-Men and Philosophy

Edited by Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski

The Blackwell Philosophy and PopCulture Series

Please circulate and post widely.
Apologies for Cross-posting.

To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the Series Editor, William Irwin at wtirwin@kings.edu.

Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:
Race, Politics, and Difference: Non-Mutants vs. Mutants; The Inhumanity of Humanity: Is the Brotherhood right to give up on Humanity?; Nietzsche and Magneto: The Übermensch and Mutation; Sun-Tzu and the Brotherhood: The Art of War (on Humans and Mutants); Mystique and Machiavelli; The Essence of Humanity: Are Mutants Human?; Torture and Experimentation: Wolverine and Utilitarianism; Sinister and the Attempt to Breed Mutants; Bioethics and/in Experimentation/Mutation; Evolution and Humanity: Nature and Mutation; Philosophy and Love: Wolverine, Jean Grey, and Cyclops; Double-Identity and Mutants: Must all Mutants have two names?; The Politics of Disease: “Curing” Mutants; Speciesism: Our Duties to Mutants, and, Others; Evolutionary Ethics: Does might make right?; The Nature of Evil in X-Men; Memory, Body and Identity in X-Men; Loyalty and Friendship: Loving our Enemies (Magneto and Xavier, etc.); Gender in X-Men: Different is not Deficient; Power, Responsibility, and Corruption in X-Men; Postmodernism: Deadpool as the knowledge that you’re a comic book character; Moral Complexity: Changing Moral Commitments in Gambit, Rogue, Iceman, and Others; Political Paternalism and the Mutant Registration Act; The Virtues (and Evils) of Leadership in X-Men; Jameson, Capitalism, Globalization and X-Men; Baudrillard’s Hyperreality and X-Men: Does the Virtual mimic the Real?; Beyond Racism: Mutation surpassing Race as/in Identity; Warrior Philosophies and X-Men; The Divide between Divinity and Mutation: Storm, Apocalypse, etc.; Disability and X-Men: Rogue, Professor X., Beast, Nightcrawler, etc.; Motherhood and Mutation: Abandonment and Care Ethics (Rogue, Nightcrawler, Mystique, Iceman, Gambit, etc.); Compassionate Wisdom in X-Men: Professor Xavier, etc.; Vedanta and X-Men: Maya vs. the Real

Submission guidelines:

1. Submission deadline for abstracts (100-500 words) and cvs: March 17, 2008
2. Submission deadline for first drafts of accepted papers: June 9, 2008
3. Submission deadline for final papers August 4, 2008

Kindly submit by e-mail (with or without Word attachment) to:
Rebecca Housel, rahgsl@rit.edu