Call For Papers (Edited Collection): Rebuilding Saigon: 40 Years of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (working title)
Organization: Kingston University, Uk
2027 marks 40 years since the release of Stanley Kubrick’s penultimate film, Full Metal Jacket. Long regarded as one of the lesser entries in Kubrick’s filmography—especially when compared to his critically re-evaluated final work Eyes Wide Shut (now recognized as both a major film of the 1990s and a cult classic, Full Metal Jacket has received relatively limited scholarly attention compared to the director’s other work. This is surprising, given the film’s rich production history, its adaptation from Gustav Hasford’s novel The Short-Timers, and the compelling para-narratives surrounding it, including actor Matthew Modine’s detailed on-set diaries. The film also offers striking meta-commentary on the media’s portrayal of war, alongside complex depictions of race, gender, and violence.
This publication seeks to mark the film’s anniversary with a collection of diverse, archive-driven investigations into its creation and legacy. Topics might include the transformation of Beckton Gasworks in East London into a war-torn Saigon; the film’s reception and marketing; its place within Kubrick’s broader body of work; casting. performance and more. Together, these essays aim to explore how Full Metal Jacket reconstructs the Vietnam war reflecting both the American and Vietnamese experiences of the conflict. It will ask how the film fits into Kubrick’s wider discourse around violence, war and conflict.
Crucially, this collection seeks to engage with Full Metal Jacket’s media-centric commentary—its critique and exploration of how war is packaged, (re)mediated, and consumed as entertainment. It interrogates the film’s legacy, asking how it might be contextualized not only within Kubrick’s broader treatment of war, but also within the wider cinematic landscape of the 1980s and the evolving legacy of the Vietnam War on screen.
The proposal for this collection will be submitted to Liverpool University Press for their Stanley Kubrick series
Topics might include (but are certainly not limited to the following):
Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) in the Stanley Kubrick Archive
Kubrick and War
FMJ and media commentary
Production Histories and development
FMJ as a British film:
Architecture and the rebuilding of Saigon in East London
FMJ as a star vehicle – casting and performance
1980s cinema and the Vietnam War
Vietnam Histories and Full Metal Jacket
War Photography and Journalism (Kubrick’s use of Don McCullin and others)
Absurdity and comedy in FMJ
conflict and the brutalisation
Marketing and reception
Cinematography and production design
FMJ as adaptation – Gus Hasford’s The Short Timers
Surrounding production para-narratives - Matthew Modine’s production diaries
American militarism and the depiction of gender and race
FMJ’s legacy
Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words to Matthew Melia (Kingston University) at m.melia@kingston.ac.uk by November 11th 2025.
Matthew John Melia
