*Call for Papers for Proposed Panel* Society for Cinema Studies Conference: March 6-10, 2013, Chicago Illinois Panel Subject: *The Ruin as History, Memory, and Spectacle* *Chair: *Joy V. Fuqua, Dept. of Media Studies, Queens College/CUNY. This proposed panel engages with the concept of “the ruin” as a site of historical significance, cultural and personal memory, or commercial spectacle. From 19th century photography, to early cinema representations of disaster such as the Edison Company’s film of the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, to Alan Resnais’ narrative film *Hiroshima, Mon Amour* (1959) and beyond, this panel seeks scholarship that examines the visual history of the ruin in historical and or contemporary cinema and media.* *The panel is inspired by a fascination with urban ruin in visual culture found in blogs like *The Kingston Lounge* or documentaries such as * Detropia* (Ewing and Grady, 2012) as well as historical renderings of disaster. Papers may examine historical or recent examples of disaster in moving image culture. Indeed, contemporary scholarship (for example, Herzog and Rollins, et al., 2011) shows a resurgent and strong interest in the ruin as more than a mere repository of the past. It is also, as Walter Benjamin argued, an index for the future. Some questions the panel might consider are: What are the forces that render a particular place a “ruin”? What are the implications of visualizing the ruin? Potential Paper topics might include responses to the above questions or: -documentaries that focus on particular cities such as Detroit or New Orleans -the visualization of the ruin in narrative film -photography and the ruin -visual culture and the political economy of “ruin porn” -the gendered features of the ruin -race and class in relation to the representations of the ruin -cartographies of the ruin -urban ruin and urban renewal (and vice versa) -historical contextualizations of the ruin -the urban ruin and post-industrialization -nature and the ruin -touristic economies of the ruin -blogs and the ruin explorer -the queer space and history ruins -the sounds of ruin Please send 250-word abstracts with at least three bibliographic references and brief biographical note to Joy V. Fuqua ([log in to unmask]) by August 1, 2012. Please insert abstract and information into email rather than attachment as Word document. Selections will be made by August 10, 2012. * * ---- To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]