CFP: The Ages of Iron Man / Essay Collection (July 15, 2013)

CFP - Collection:

The Ages of Iron Man:

Essays on the Armored Avenger in Changing Times
Edited by Joseph J. Darowski
Publisher: McFarland & Company

The editor of The Ages of Iron Man: Essays on the Armored Avenger in Changing Times is seeking abstracts for essays which could be included in the upcoming collection. The essays should examine the relationships between Iron Man comic books and the period of American history when those comics were published. Analysis may demonstrate how the stories found in Iron Man comic books (and the creators who produced the comics) embrace, reflect, or critique aspects of their contemporary culture. This will be a companion volume to The Ages of Superman, The Ages of Wonder Woman, The Ages of the X-Men, and The Ages of the Avengers.

Essays should focus on stories from Iron Man’s comic book adventures, not media adaptations of the character. Furthermore, essays should look at a single period of comic book history, rather than drawing comparisons between different publication eras. For example, an essay that analyzed Iron Man comics from the early 1960s and contextualized them with what was happening in American society would be more likely to be accepted than an essay that contrasted Iron Man comic books from the 1970s with Iron Man comic books from the 1990s. Any team title or mini-series that features Iron Man prominently can be considered as source material for potential chapters. The completed essays should be approximately15 double-spaced pages.

Some possible topics for essays include, but are not limited to, the following:

• An Entitled, Womanizing, Weapons Designer is Our Hero?
• A Viet Nam War Superhero: Tony Stark, Industrialists, and the Cold War
• Communism and The American Superhero: Tony Stark’s Early Adventures
• The Mandarin: Cold War Stereotypes, and Supervillains
• "The Demon in a Bottle" and Social Relevancy in Superhero Comic Books
• Race Under the Armor: When James Rhodes Was Iron Man
• "Doomquest": The Changing Meaning of Heroism
• Armor Wars: Weapon Proliferation and Deterrence
• From Iron Man to War Machine: Rhodes’ Journey to Hero
• Force Works and a New Vision of Defense 
• Earth X Iron Man: Tony Stark as Millennial Doomsday Prepper
• "The Best Defense": Superhero Politics and the Aggressive Defense of America
• "Extremis" and the Biological/Technological Hybrid
• Marvel’s Civil War: Iron Man’s Quest to Control Potential Threats Post 9/11
• Iron Man – Director of Shield: A Weapons Engineer Leading the Military Industrial Complex
• Gender and Iron Man: Pepper Potts as Rescue

Abstracts (100-500 words) and CVs should be submitted by July 15, 2013. Please submit via email to Joseph Darowski, darowskij@byui.edu