CALL FOR PAPERS
*World Cinema Now*

Research Unit in Film Culture and Theory, Second Biannual Conference
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

September 27–29, 2011

"World Cinema" has become a new catchword and rallying cry. It points
assertively and polemically to what we have all always known, but too rarely
taken into account in our critical practice as critics, teachers, or
programmers: that the global span of cinema is far wider than what receives
general distribution in the commercial multiplexes and arthouses of most
countries. Film culture in most places has been slow to emerge from its
Anglo-Euro-American habits and biases, even as the past two decades has
given us one remarkable 'new cinema' after another: Iran, Taiwan, Romania,
Argentina, Africa ... And yet the discourses promoting World Cinema are
themselves not without problems and traps. Is there already a canon of World
Cinema that is too restrictive and selective? Are we caught in another round
of 'star auteurs'? Are we paying enough attention to all the invisible forms
of cinema, like shorts and experimental work? Is the Film Festival circuit a
satisfactory alternative space for distribution, exhibition and funding of
world cinema? How does the digital revolution fit into the World Cinema
picture? And quite simply, have we yet gone anywhere near like far enough in
our embrace,  pursuit and critical exploration of cinemas that are complexly
international, multinational, post-national and transnational? This
conference will explore both the state and the question of World Cinema Now.

World Cinema Now invites international film scholars, critics and
practitioners to present their thoughts on World Cinema as a contemporary
and historical formation. Proposals should address the conference themes:

   - Politics, ideology and social change
   - Indigeneity and film
   - Women’s film practice
   - Distrbution, exhibition and audiences
   - Locality and identity
   - Mobility, diaspora and exile
   - Cross-cultural translation
   - Mutations in art cinema
   - Transnationalism and post-nationalism

Proposed plenary speakers include:

   - Nicole Brenez (Sorbonne, France)
   - Elena Gorfinkel (U of Madison-Wisconsin USA)
   - Vinzenz Hediger (Ruhr University, Germany)
   - Song Hwee Lim (U of Exeter, UK)
   - Meaghan Morris (U of Sydney, AUS and Lingnan, HK)
   - Romaine Moreton (U of Newcastle, AUS)
   - R. Barton Palmer (Clemson University, USA)

The Conference Conveners will accept proposals for individual papers or
threespeaker panel sessions until April 30, 2011

Abstracts of no more than 250-words and a 100-word biography should be sent
to: worldcinemanow.monash.edu
Or visit the conference website at:
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ecps/conferences/world-cinema-now/

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Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.ScreenSite.org