CfP: Issue #67 of The Velvet Light Trap: Seeing Race: Our Enduring Dilemma

"You lie!" Rep. Joe Wilson shouted during President Barack Obama's speech on health care
reform in the halls of Congress. Media pundits were quick to point out that the 19th
century was the last occasion of such an egregious breach of protocol took place in
Congress. Members of both Houses urged the Republican congressman from South Carolina to
apologize for his misconduct--and he did. Soon after, though, the discourse shifted to
the reasons for Wilson's outburst. The factor of
race became one major point in attributing blame, but that fire was never allowed to
flame because of the overwhelmingly hegemonic ideology of colorblindness that currently
saturates our culture. This same story could be told in relation to the nomination of
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the pop culture firestorm that singed Isaiah
Washington and the cast of Grey's Anatomy, or the discourses surrounding First Lady
Michelle Obama's hair. The notion that we cannot talk about race unless it is
specifically and clearly identified as such in media and culture-at-large is as
implicitly understood as is the notion of "one nation under God"--and it is just as
powerful. And yet, although we claim to be blind to the markers of external and cultural
difference, we always "see" race.

Issue #67 of The Velvet Light Trap will explore all the varied ways that we "see" race
in television, film and new media. While the editors maintain a broad definition of
"seeing race," special consideration will be given toward articles that interrogate the
nexus of racial visibility as a sociocultural fact and/or color blindness as an
ideological practice. Whether papers approach seeing race as a discursive category, a
commercial commodity, and/or an object of consumption, the editors anticipate
submissions that connect these strategies to the historical, industrial, political, and
cultural factors that underpin a society's values.

Possible Topics include, but are not limited to:
Seeing Race in War
Spectacle
Production Cultures
Race and Genre
Race in Political Media
Race and Gender Intersectionality in Media

Papers should be between 6,000 and 7,500 words (approximately 20-25 pages
double-spaced), in MLA style with a cover page including the writer's name and contact
information.

Please send one copy of the paper (including a one-page abstract with each copy) and one
electronic copy saved as a
Word .doc file in a format suitable to be sent to a reader anonymously. The journal's
Editorial Advisory Board will referee all submissions.

For
more information or questions, contact Andrew Scahill at adscahill_at_mail.utexas.edu.
Hard copy submissions are due January 30, 2010, and should be sent to:

The Velvet Light Trap, c/o The Department of Radio-Television-Film, University of Texas
at Austin, CMA 6.118, Mail Code A0800, Austin, TX, 78712

The electronic copy submission is also due on January 30, 2010 and should be sent to
Andrew Scahill at adscahill ATmail.utexas.edu.

The Velvet Light Trap is an academic, peer-reviewed journal of film and television
studies. Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of
Texas-Austin alternately coordinate issues. The Editorial Advisory Board includes such
notable scholars as Charlie Keil, Dan Marcus, David Desser, David Foster, Michele
Malach, Joe McElhaney, Beretta Smith-Shomade, Jason Mittell, Malcolm Turvey, James
Morrison, Tara McPherson, Steve Neale, Aswin Punathambekar, Peter
Bloom, Sean Griffin, and Michael Williams.