Call for Proposals Arthur Miller in the 1960s An anthology to be published by Lexington Books, the academic imprint of Rowman & Littlefield
Due Date for Proposals for Articles: February 1, 2018 Send Proposals to David Palmer, President, The Arthur Miller Society: dpalmer@maritime.edu
Due Date for First Drafts of Accepted Articles: September 15, 2018
Acceptable Article Length: 5,000-9,000 words
Lexington Books, the academic imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, has expressed initial interest in working with the Arthur Miller Society to develop an anthology of articles on Miller’s life and work in the 1960s. Final acceptance of the project by Lexington will depend on the number and quality of articles that are proposed for the volume.
As a first step in this project, the Arthur Miller Society invites the submission of proposals for articles. Prospective contributors should plan on doing articles of 5,000-9,000 words and should email article proposals of fewer than 500 words to David Palmer (dpalmer@maritime.edu), the current president of the Arthur Miller Society, by February 1, 2018. Please include a brief academic biography or vita of no more than 250 words with your proposal.
The 1960s were a significant turning point in Miller’s work and his approach to themes he began exploring as a young writer in his early plays of the 1940s. This is the period of Miller’s own middle age, his 40s and 50s, and all the changes in personal perspective and understanding that come with it.
For Miller, the 1960s need to be understood as an extended period – roughly the decade and a half from 1956-1972 – because of the way his work in the actual 1960s has roots in events from the late 1950s and provides the impetus for his ideas and political activities in the early 1970s.
The period begins for Miller with his divorce from Mary Slattery and marriage to Marilyn Monroe in 1956 and his refusal to give names in his hearing before HUAC that same year. It continues with his work on the film The Misfits (1960); his divorce from Monroe and the death of his mother in 1961; Monroe’s death in 1962; his marriage to Inge Morath in 1962, their trip to the Nazi death camp Mauthausen, and the birth of their first child, Daniel, that year, and of their second child, Rebecca, in 1963.
In 1964, having not brought forth any new plays since the two-act version of A View from the Bridge (1956), Miller renewed his association with Elia Kazan, becoming along with Kazan and Harold Clurman a leader of the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, and two new Miller plays were produced by the company that year: After the Fall and An Incident at Vichy.
After the Fall was considered by many an opportunistic invasion and exploitation of Monroe’s privacy after her death, and the controversy tainted Miller’s reputation and the reception of his plays in coming years.
In the middle 1960s Miller also continued to develop his political activities. In 1964, much like Hannah Arendt before him for The New Yorker at Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem in 1961, Miller wrote articles for the New York Herald Tribune covering the war-crimes trial in Frankfurt of a group of Auschwitz guards. In 1965, he was elected president of PEN, and visited Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and later Czechoslovakia in that role.
Miller’s father died in 1966, and two years later Miller’s new play, The Price, about two brothers settling the sale of old furniture from their father’s estate, opened on Broadway. 1968 also is the year Miller was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention supporting the candidacy of anti-Vietnam-War candidate Eugene McCarthy for President.
In 1969, Miller published In Russia, a memoir of his visit to the Soviet Union illustrated with photographs by his wife, Inge Morath. As a result, Miller’s works were banned in the Soviet Union in 1970. That same year, he defended a Roxbury, Connecticut, high school teacher who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in her classroom.
1972 saw the opening of The Creation of the World and Other Business in New York, an overtly philosophical play addressing the timely and politically charged theme of the foundations of morality. It ran for 20 performances. Miller again that year attended the Democratic National Convention.
Throughout this period Miller continued to write short stories, essays, and poems, to be involved in television and international productions of his plays, and to develop his criticism of the emerging theatre of the absurd. This anthology invites essays on any aspect of Miller’s life and work during this period. Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
● Miller’s divorce from Mary Slattery and his marriage to Marilyn Monroe
● How Miller’s relationship with Monroe colored the themes of his plays and other works in the following years
● Miller’s marriage to Inge Morath and their family life; the effect of this marriage on his later work
● Miller’s relationship with Elia Kazan and his role in developing the Repertory Theater at Lincoln Center
● Analysis of any of Miller’s major works from this period: The Misfits, After the Fall, Incident at Vichy, The Price, or The Creation of the World and Other Bussiness
● Miller’s work for PEN
● Miller’s visits to holocaust sites and his coverage of Nazi war-crime trials ● Miller’s activities in protest against the Vietnam War
● Miller’s activities in the Democratic Party, especially his roles at the 1968 and 1972 Democratic Conventions
● Miller’s short stories, essays, or poems during this period
● Miller’s role in television and other productions of his plays
● Miller’s response to and critique of theatre of the absurd.
The following rough development schedule for this volume is anticipated: 1. February 1, 2018: Proposals for articles due to David Palmer (dpalmer@maritime.edu)
2. By March 1, 2018: Notification to contributors of accepted articles
3. March 15, 2018: Final proposal for anthology, including abstracts of articles, to Lexington Books
4. September 15, 2018: First drafts of articles due to David Palmer
5. By November 1, 2018: Response to first drafts of articles and editorial suggestions to contributors
6. February 1, 2019: Final versions of articles to David Palmer
7. March 1, 2019: Completed manuscript for entire volume to Lexington Books
8. Early in 2020: Publication of the book Thank you for considering contributing to this anthology.
David Palmer (dpalmer@maritime.edu) President, Arthur Miller Society