What, when & where
Queering Disney: History of The Walt Disney Company and the Queer Community
With Disney’s initial apathetic response to the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill which recently passed in the state of Florida, it is time to shed light on Disney’s complex relationship with the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Recently, there have been works which briefly discuss the relationship of queerness and Disney, such as Sean Griffin’s Tinker Bells and Evil Queens (2000), Melanie S. Kohnen Queer Representation, Visibility, and Race (2016), Jennifer Sandlin and Julie Garlen’s edited collection Disney, Culture, and Curriculum (2016), and Joseph Brennan’s edited collection Queerbaiting and Fandom (2019). However, the queer artist/contributor has yet to be the main topic of discussion. These previous works shed light on these areas, but a sustained scholarly inquiry to bring this insight to the forefront and examine the historical and cultural significance of The Walt Disney Company’s complex relationship with the queer community has yet to be done.
The edited collection seeks to illuminate the various aspects and areas that the LGBTQIA2S+ community has impacted and been a part of in relation to The Walt Disney Company worldwide. This collection is looking to take part in the Transnational Queer Histories (TGH) book series with De Gruyter.
In the company’s history, The Walt Disney Company has had a substantial amount of queer artists work with them and for them on almost every project – from films, the merchandising, to the creation of their parks.
Abstracts on the following topics are welcome:
Queer animators (from all Disney eras)
Subversion of Disney through Queerbaiting and Queercoding
Queer actors/actresses
Queer musicians
Queer architects for Disney parks
History of queerness within the Disney Company
History of ‘Gay Days’ at the parks
Queering merchandise and transmedia
Queer actors/actresses in the parks
Disney’s political stances on queerness
Queer designers for parks and films/television shows
Disney cutting queer scenes in international showings of films
Queer fandom
Transnational critical audience and audience/fan reception of queerness, queer characters, queer scenes, etc.
This is not an all-inclusive list, and abstracts on other areas on the relationship between The Walt Disney Company and the LGBTQIA2S+ community, or queerness, are welcome. This includes queerness and its interaction with any company of which is owned by The Walt Disney Company (Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, etc.).
Deadline & how to apply
Please submit a proposal (300-500 words), and a short biography (100-200words) which states your name, affiliation, and email. Abstracts are due by June 30th at midnight. A selection of authors will be invited to submit full papers. Please not that acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee publication, given that all papers will undergo peer review.
Send abstracts to: Brittany.eldridge.18@ucl.ac.uk.
Other info, Links & conditions
Timeline:
Deadline for abstracts: 30 June 2022
Notification to authors: 15 July 2022
Deadline for submission of full papers: 24 February 2023
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