Re-Analyzing Mad Men

Critical Essays on the AMC Series’ Twentieth Anniversary

Edited by Scott F. Stoddart (Saint Peter’s University)

2027 will mark twenty years since the ground-breaking series Mad Men aired its first episode.  Since then, the world of Sterling Cooper – led by the universally talented “Mad Men” of them all, Don Draper (John Hamm) – has become synonymous with a glamorized mid-century culture, characterized by three-martini lunches, men with skinny ties, large fedoras, and huge egos; anxious women with Jackie Kennedy hairdos, form fitting skirts and bold ambitions to break the ubiquitous glass ceiling.  AMC’s episodic drama still ranks in the Top Five of all television series mainly due to the fact that Mad Men because a cultural phenomenon, detailing America’s preoccupation with commercialism and image in the Camelot era of 1960s America while self-consciously exploring our own cultural paths with image and self-reinvention.

In 2007, the television series and cultural phenomenon Mad Men broke ground, establishing AMC as a major competitor to the likes of HBO for prestige dramas. In 2027, twenty years after its original release and twelve years since it ended, its legacy endures.

In 2011, my book Analyzing Mad Men, brought together critical approaches to, what was then, an emerging series, capturing its immediate impact and pioneering the wave of scholarship that came after its publication. In anticipation of these anniversaries, I am looking to re-analyze the series in full, presenting a new collection of essays examining the many facets of the series as it moved from those halcyon days of America’s Camelot, the 1960s, though to the end of that decade, marked by Viet Nam, the culture wars, the rise of youth culture, and the move of Madison Avenue from the streets of New York to the sunny coast of California.

Building on the continued scholarly interest in Analyzing Mad Men and the enthusiasm of its original publisher, McFarland & Co, I issue the following call for chapters with the aim of eliciting new chapters and approaches to the series and its legacy. Suggested topics might include:

  • New Historical examinations of how the series uses the “Age of Camelot” and the “Death of the Sixties” to compare to our own times, particularly in respect to advertising, commerce and capitalism;
  • Psychoanalytic approaches to the series, particularly in the respect to the conclusion of Don Draper’s storyline; his marriages to Betty (January Jones) and Megan (Jessica Pare), and his relations to the industry shifts;
  • Mad Men’s approach to the selling of “self”, selling commodities, and the drastic shift in the culture toward the series’ end;
  • Sterling Cooper as a microcosm of culture mores, sexual politics, and changing attitudes toward capitalism;
  • The storylines of Peggy Olsen (Elizabeth Moss) and Joan Holloway/Harris (Christina Hendricks) who begin the series as office assistants, and end the series as representatives of the new woman in business;
  • The series’ approach to advertising and the shift from Madison Avenue to Los Angeles;
  • Mad Men’s continuing effect of fashion merchandising and furniture / décor;
  • Pete Campbell’s (Vincent Kartheiser) and Roger Sterlings’s (John Slattery) efforts to confirm images as “self-made” men of success and how their subsequent marriages and divorces affect their abilities as “self-made” men;
  • The series’ use of “the edge”: How heterosexism, homosexuality, drug culture and gender politics influence characters’ behaviors within the corporate atmosphere and in their private lives – particularly as the series progresses through the decade;
  • Theories of management at Sterling Cooper, reflected in Roger Sterling’s approach, Bertram Cooper’s (Robert Morse) new age tactics, and the hostile takeovers that challenge the company through the decade;
  • The series embracing of nostalgia in selling the series to a new (and supposedly evolved) contemporary audience. What is the legacy of Mad Men?   And why has the series remained in the Top Five of all television series?

Abstracts of 500 words concerning any of these ideas or any others should be sent via email to sstoddart@saintpeters.edu by 15 August 2026.  Final essays will be due by 15 December 2026 so as to make the publisher’s 01 March 2027 ideal date for release.