Note
This CFP supersedes the prior version of the Emmanuelle legacy CFP that was open late 2022 to early 2023. This CFP has been updated to reflected accepted topics, project timeline, additional Emmanuelle films, and that this collection has the interest from an academic publisher who wants a manuscript submitted.
Overview
In 1974 Just Jaeckin’s film, Emmanuelle, was released to commercial success. The movie propelled its starlet, Sylvia Kristel, into the limelight, spurred a wave of similar erotic fare, and concurrently with the Golden Age of Porn, helped usher in mainstream acceptance of erotic content in cinema. Black Emanuelle, one of the many films that came in the wake of Emmanuelle, would go on to have its own impact, specifically in the realm of Italian cult cinema with its plethora of sequels starring Laura Gemser. The Emmanuelle, Black Emanuelle, and derivative Emmanuelle film phenomena lasted from the mid-70s to the early 80s before interest tapered off, though the Emmanuelle name continued to be used by producer Alain Siritzky for direct to cable softcore content.
Four decades later, the Emmanuelle movies have faded in pop culture memory, but are being kept alive with blu-ray releases from specialty and boutique labels such as Severin Films and Kino Lorber. While most of the Kristel and Gemser films are readily obtainable, scholarship on the Emmanuelle legacy is not. The majority of references to both Emmanuelleand Black Emmanuelle are found in film guides and books that focus on cult and exploitation films in a general sense (see the bibliography section at the end of this CFP) with a journal article here and there. Alex Cox’s 2000 documentary, Emmanuelle: A Hard Look, remains largely inaccessible, though companies like the aforementioned Severin Films release supplementary material on their Black Emanuelle and Emmanuelle derivative DVDs and Blu-rays. There is no singular, consolidated resource focused on the Emmanuelle film canon.
This collection of essays will strive to rectify this scholarship gap. The CFP is seeking additional abstracts (especially from women voices) to add to the collection with the aim to illustrate the various ways these movies are important, how they impacted both pop and film culture, and to illuminate subtexts and commentaries they impart.
Frameworks/Topics
Frameworks, essay ideas, and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Adaptations
- Anti/Reverse Emmanuelle roles/films
- Auteur theory (specific films and their directors)
- Class and wealth depictions
- Close textual analysis
- Comparative textual analysis
- Cultural and racial representations
- Feminism studies
- Ethical/Philosophical issues
- Genre studies (porn-chic, softcore, exploitation, grindhouse, travelog, women in prison, etc.)
- LBGT+ discourse and ideology
- Interviews with/perspectives from crew/filmmakers
- Literature studies (Emmanuelle Arsan books)
- Multiplicities (see Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots eds. Klein & Palmer)
- Music studies (soundtracks, songs, sampling)
- Parody and/or homage (Carry on Emmanuelle, SNL’s “Danielle” skit, Seinfeld’s “Rochelle, Rochelle”)
- Proto-Emmanuelle films (what came before, what inspired)
- (Post) Colonialism
- Schreiber theory (specific screenwriters)
- Semiotics and metaphors
- Sexuality (fetishism, voyeurism, exhibitionism, desires, romance, etc.)
- Vernacular film (see Mikel Koven)
- World Cinema studies (France, Italy)
- And other interdisciplinary approaches
The following topics have already been accepted from other submissions and are already accounted for:
- Adaptation studies on Crepax’s Emmanuelle
- Cosmopolitanism in Black Emanuelle
- Diachronic studies in Emmanuelle 6
- French culture and obsession in Emmanuelle in Tokyo
- Genre and intertextuality in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals
- Spatialness and eroticism
- James Bond/spy studies
- Transgressive studies in Tropical Emmanuelle and Brazilian cinema
- Vampire studies
Filmography
Films that fall under the Emmanuelle/Black Emanuelle/Et al. canon include the following:
Emmanuelle Series
- Emmanuelle (1974)
- Emmanuelle II (1975)
- Goodbye Emmanuelle (1977)
- Emmanuelle IV (1984)
- Emmanuelle 5 (1987)
- Emmanuelle 6 (1988)
- Emmanuelle 7 (1993)
- Emmanuelle in Space Series (1994)
- Young/Old Emmanuelle Series (1993)
- Emmanuelle 2000 series (2000)
- Emmanuelle in Rio (2003)
- Emmanuelle: The Private Collection series (2003)
- Emmanuelle Tango (2006)
- Emmanuelle Through Time Series (2011)
Black Emanuelle Series and Laura Gemser Films
- Black Emanuelle (1975)
- Black Emanuelle 2 (1976)
- Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976)
- Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle (1976)
- Emanuelle on Taboo Island (1976)
- Emmanuelle and the Deadly Black Cobra (1976)
- Emanuelle in America (1977)
- Sister Emanuelle (1977)
- Emanuelle Around the World (1977)
- Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)
- Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade (1978)
- Emanuelle, Queen of the Sados (1980)
- Divine Emanuelle: Love Cult (1981)
- Violence in a Woman’s Prison (1982)
- Emanuelle: Queen of the Desert (1982)
- Women’s Prison Massacre (1983)
- Scandalous Emanuelle (1986)
Misc. Films / Derivatives / Parodies / Related Films
- Emanuelle and Francoise (1975)
- Tokyo Emanuelle (1975)
- Laure (1976)
- Carry on Emmanuelle (1978)
- Felicity (1979)
- Emmanuelle in Soho (1981)
- The Awakening of Emanuelle (2021)
- Call Me Emanuelle (2022)
- Amityville Emanuelle (2023)
- Amor Emanuelle (2023)
There is an IMDB list that has a plethora of Emmanuelle derivatives: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls069765874/
Non-Emmanuelle films that star Sylvia Kristel or Laura Gemser (such as Julia [1974], Alice ou la dernière fugue [1977], etc.), Alain Siritzky produced films, and other Just Jaeckin movies will be considered if they can be strongly tied to theEmmanuelle/Black Emanuelle legacy.
Other related texts, such as the Emmanuelle Arsan novels, the Emmanuelle erotic comics by Guido Crepax, and the like, are also of interest.
Timeline of Project
- November 2023 – June 2024: Contributors compose their essays. Call for Essays remains open, accepting submissions on a rolling basis.
- June 30th, 2024: Draft of chapter due to editor.
- July 2024 – October 2024: Edits coordinated and incorporated into the manuscript.
- September 2024 – Rolling call for papers (this CFP) closes.
- October 30, 2024: Final drafts due to editor.
- November 2024: Compile and submit manuscript to publisher by end of the month.
Submission
Abstracts (no word limit), preliminary bibliographies, and CVs should be submitted to Nicholas Diak at vnvdiak@gmail.com. There is a publisher interested in the project who has asked for a completed manuscript to be submitted. Please feel free to share this CFP with other scholars. Any proliferation is greatly appreciated.
About the Editor
Nicholas Diak is a pop culture scholar with a range of interests: sword and sandal films, industrial music, synthwave music and aesthetics, horror studies, and other idiosyncratic topics. He edited the collection The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990s (2018) and co-edited Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays (2020). More information, including academic CV, can be found at nickdiak.com.
Emmanuelle Studies Bibliography
- 100 Cult Films by Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik
- Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945 edited by Mathijs and Mendik
- “Black is Beautiful” in DarkSide issue 211
- The Black Emanuelle Bible edited by Kier-La Janisse
- Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema 1970-1985 by Mendik
- Deadlier Than the Male: Femme Fatales in 1960s and 1970s Cinema by Douglas Brode
- “Forever Emmanuelle: Sylvia Kristel and Soft-Core Cult” by Leila Wimmer in Cult Film Stardom
- The History of French Literature on Film by Kate Griffiths and Andrew Watts
- Immoral Tales: Sex and Horror Cinema in Europe 1956-1984 by Tohill and Tombs
- “The Legacy of Emmanuelle: Oriental Desire and Interracial Encounters 562 in European Films Set in Thailand 1974-1980” by Alexander J. Klemm
- “Mondo Realism, the Sensual Body, and Genre Hybridity in Joe D’Amato’s Emanuelle Films” by Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare
- Offbeat Attractions and Processes of Cultification edited by Egan and Thomas
- “Orientalism, Star Power and Cinethetic Racism in Seventies Italian Exploitation Cinema” by Calum Waddell
- Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle to Chabrol by Jeremy Richey
- “Thailand in the European Cinematic Imagination: The Phenomenon and Legacy of Emmanuelle (Fr 1974)” by Alexander J. Klemm
- Undressing Emmanuelle: A memoir by Sylvia Kristel
