Call for Submissions

Call for Chapters for The Prisoner & Philosophy: It Takes a Village (Open Court)
Ed. Jason Lee and Kim Paffenroth

This edited collection examines the new series of The Prisoner (2009) and the original. Both instantiations of the story raise important philosophical issues, and act as touchstones in current debates. We therefore seek work from scholars who work in many fields, including, but not exclusively, Philosophy, English, Theology, Political Science, Psychology, and Film and Television Studies. Rachel Ray writing in The Telegraph claims the new series is better than the original, and asks the fundamental question "Are you part of the solution, or the problem?" Regardless of the relative merits or values of the two versions, the new one is clearly working on building a "thicker" mythos, as well as most likely reaching a much larger audience. Comparison between old and new will therefore be especially relevant.

Send your 250 word abstract and 50 word bio-note to both editors
Jason Lee j.lee@derby.ac.uk and Kim Paffenroth kimpaffenroth@msn.com

Proposals due MARCH 1, 2010

Areas of consideration (including, but not limited to):

How does a comparison of the two series reflect on philosophical interpretations and developments in philosophy?
Politically is the Village a metaphor for the state overall? Is anyone actually free?
The shows were produced in different global situations. What is the significance of the Vietnam War, and The War on Terror?
How does the program highlight issues in society today, in our culture of observation, and ongoing wars with the “other”?
How does this also reflect on the 1950s and 1960s during the Cold War?
What are the various meanings and functions of the analysis of community in both shows? Alternatively, is the Village an inner state of mind, and Number 6 trapped internally?
How does the fetishisation of technology work? Does this have a psychosexual tension?
Is The Prisoner a human experiment, and how does this relate to ethics, both in the 1960s and now?
What is the show saying about developments in psychology and science, particularly behaviourism?
What is “truth” to Number 6, and to those that run the village, such as Number 2?
What is the interpretation of memory and identity in both series?
What is the nature of the “real” portrayed in the show, and how is this philosophically played with?
What are the religious implications of this?
How do elements of the psychedelic, such as drugs, work in the philosophy of the show? And how does this relate to popular experimental, and existential, thinkers, such as R.D. Laing?
What does the Number 6 signify, if anything, and does this relate to numerology?
Does Number 6 want to be Number 1, 6 being the opposite of 1 on the dice?
How are archetypes and binary opposites used in the series?
What are the key narrative devises that relate to psychological and philosophical insights?
Who is Number 2, who is Number 1, what is Rover?
Who is actually running the Village?
Where is the Village really, in both shows, and what does this mean?
Who are the other residents, their histories, functions, and implications?