Edited volume on Power and Society in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series
We invite proposals for an edited collection of essays on issues of power and society in the fantasy world created by Terry Pratchett in his Discworld series. The book proposal will be submitted to Bloomsbury Academic’s new series “Perspectives on Fantasy”.
Deadline: May 31st, 2023.
In his Discworld series, Terry Pratchett depicted a comprehensive – and hilarious – view of an organised society set in a fantasy world, where groups and individuals are moved by various and often conflicting powers, including supernatural forces. Following a few brilliant papers highlighting specific social and political implications of Pratchett’s worlds[1], we intend to propose in this edited collection a wide-ranging approach to the way the Discworld is built alongside social powers, and the way power and society interact with fantasy.
Proposals could tackle topics such as: social movements (for golems or goblins, etc.) and their reception within the Discworld; interactions between society and magical powers (witches, Unseen University, etc.); economic policies; races and their interactions; official forces (Patrician Vetinari, nobility, the Watch, the guilds, etc.); unofficial forces, including groups and individuals (Lady Sybil, Moist von Lipwig, Granny Weatherwax, religious groups, etc.); superpowers and supernatural forces (Death, Time, etc.), their personification and their interactions with society; passive resistance; tyranny vs. democracy; peace vs. war; civilization; fantasy countries; etc. We encourage proposals about individual and collective forms of power, as well as proposals about the social organisation of this fantasy world.
We welcome submissions from various fields, including but not limited to literature, philosophy, economics, history, geography, social studies, gender studies, critical race studies and psychology.
Proposals from 300 to 400 words, with a short author bio, should be sent to Dr Justine Breton, justine.breton [at] univ-reims.fr, by Wednesday May 31st, 2023. Notification of acceptance will be sent by July 1st, 2023. Potential enquiries can be sent to the same address.
[1] See for example Anne Hiebert Alton and William C. Spruiell (eds.), Discworld and the Disciplines: Critical Approaches to the Terry Pratchett works, Jefferson: McFarland & Co., 2014; Marion Rana (ed.), Terry Pratchett’s Narrative Worlds: From Giant Turtles to Small Gods, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; and, more recently, Kristin Noone and Emily Lavin Leverett (eds.), Terry Pratchett’s ethical worlds: Essays on Identity and Narrative in Discworld and Beyond, Jefferson, McFarland & Co., 2020.