CAUCUS ON CLASS MEMO SOCIETY FOR CINEMA STUDIES May 1997 _____________________________________________________________________________ Terri Ginsberg, Chair, http://pages.nyu.edu/~tjg9373/ As you all know, the 1997 Society for Cinema Studies annual conference will be held next week, May 15-18, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The purpose of this memo is to highlight some of the panels, workshops, and paper presentations planned for the conference which may be of special interest to Caucus on Class members, and to remind those of you attending the conference about our Caucus on Class-sponsored events and annual meeting. CAUCUS ON CLASS-SPONSORED EVENTS: "Class Politics, Criminal Pleasures, 'Noir' and 'Neo-Noir'" Panel Chair: Robert A. Nowlan Saturday, May 17, 9:00-10:45, Frontenac Room 1) "Film Noir's Inverted Dream of Home" -- Paul Arthur (Montclair State U.) 2) "Middle-Class Values Under the Neo-Noir Light in the Coen Brothers' Films: From BLOOD SIMPLE to FARGO" -- Carol L. Robinson (Middle Georgia College) 3) "The Resistance of the 'Femme Fatale' Reconsidered" -- Jennifer Carrig (Arizona State U.) 4) "Home Is Where the Gun/Syringe/Cleanser Is: 'Film Noir' and the Criminal Class in PULP FICION" -- Robert Bodle (Arizona State U.) "Fundamentalist Fictions: Politics and/of Hermeneutics in Contemporary Moving-Image Culture" Panel Chair: Terri Ginsberg Saturday, May 17, 9:00-10:45, Laurentian Room 1) "Hollywood Fundamentalism and the Global Phallus: Queer Dependence, Alien High-Tech Labor, and Global Consumption in INDEPENDENCE DAY" -- Joseba Gabilondo (Bryn Mawr College) 2) "Casuistry and Historical Reaction in Eli Cohen's THE QUARREL" -- Terri Ginsberg (NYU) 3) "Nostalgia for the Organic-Redemptive in Contemporary Body Theory and Horror Film" -- Kent Casper (U. of Colorado, Denver) "Labor and the Contemporary Academy: A Collective Workshop" Workshop Organizers: Caucus on Class and Graduate Student Caucus Workshop Facilitators: Terri Ginsberg and Eddy von Mueller Saturday, May 17, 11:00-12:45, Seignory Room 1) Gordon Lafer (GESO/Yale U.) 2) Paula Willoquet-Maricondi (Indiana U.) 3) Jerry Lee Lembcke (Jobs With Justice/Holy Cross College) STRUGGLES IN STEEL (dir. Tony Buba and Ray Henderson, USA, 1995) Film Description: When a local television station did a program about the closing of a major steel mill in Duquesne, outside of Pittsburgh, Ray Henderson, a former mill employee who had worked there for 15 years, couldn't help notice that not one black worker was shown. This despite the fact that African-American workers had formed a critical part of the labor force in western Pennsylvania for 125 years. With his old friend and independent filmmaker, Tony Buba, Henderson set out to collaborate on a history of African-Americans and their contributions not just to the steel industry, but to the labor movement itself. Through eloquent living witnesses and revelatory archival footage, STRUGGLES IN STEEL presents a striking counterpoint to the stereotypical black male image. BALAGAN (dir. Andres Veiel, Germany, 1994) Film Description: A film about three Israeli actors: Khaled, a Palestinian man whose family has been living in the country for eight generations; Madi, a Jewish woman whose father almost died in the Sobibor extermination camp; and Moni, son of Iraqi Jews and himself a follower of Jewish Orthodoxy. From their personal experiences they developed a five-hour, Grotowski-esque station play and performed it in Akko and at the nearby Holocaust museum at Kibbutz Lo'hamei Hagetaot. The fact that they work together is a risk, especially for Khaled; his Muslim friends consider him a collaborator because he works with Jews and "believes in the Holocaust." The film interviews flashes of the station play with biographical fragments and views of the Israeli/Palestinian countryside into a dense collage. BALAGAN -- a film exploring the relationship between Israel/Palestine and what Madi calls the "Holocaust...opium of the Israeli masses." (This replaces GAY CUBA, which we learned was already screened at last year's conference in Dallas.) PANEL/WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS BY CAUCUS ON CLASS MEMBERS: Louise Spence (Sacred Heart U.) - "Watching Daytime Soap Operas: The Power of Pleasure" - Panel A1, Thursday, May 15, 2:00-3:45, Ballroom A Andrew Light (U. of Montana) - "John Sayles on Labor Crises and Class Identity" Panel A3, Thursday, May 15, 2:00-3:45, Victoria Room Virginia Wright Wexman (former SCS president) - Plenary Session - Friday, May 16, 11:00-12:45, Ballroom C Terri Ginsberg (NYU) - Plenary Session - Friday, May 16, 11:00-12:45, Ballroom C Paul Arthur (Monclair State U.) - "Film Noir's Inverted Dream of Home" (see Caucus on Class-sponsored events above) Gina Marchetti (U. of Maryland) - "Multicultural/Transcultural: Transnational Cinema, Hybrid Identities, and the Films of Evans Chan" - Panel F9 - Saturday, May 17, 9:00-10:45, Seignory Room Frank Tomasulo (Georgia State U.) - Workshop on Film History - Saturday, May 17, 2:15-4:00, Richelieu Room Diane Carson (St. Louis Community College) - Workshop on Film History - Saturday, May 17, 2:15-4:00, Richilieu Room; "Whose Story Is It Anyway? Remembering BONNIE AND CLYDE" - Panel I5, Saturday, May 17, 4:15-6:00, Laurentian Room OTHER EVENTS OF POSSIBLE INTEREST TO CAUCUS ON CLASS MEMBERS: Panel A3, "Labor and the Working Class," Thursday, May 15, 2:00-3:45, Victoria Panel A4, "Canada's Free Domain," Thursday, May 15, 2:00-3:45, Seignory Room Panel B4, "Documenting Canada," Thursday, May 15, 4:00-5:45, York Room Panel B5, "'Ideology,' 'Technology,' and 'the Scientific' in French Colonial Cinema," Thursday, May 15, 4:00-5:45, Laurentian Room Panel C1, "International Movie Industries: Australia, India, Mexico, and South Africa," Friday, May 16, 9:00-10:45, Richelieu Room Panel C3, "Challenging Reality: Documentary and Ideology," Friday, May 16, 9:00-10:45, York Room Panel C7, "What Is the Black and/or Canadian in Black Canadian Film?" Friday, May 16, 9:00-10:45, Frontenac Room Plenary Session, "Strategies for Ensuring the Future of Film and Television Studies," Friday, May 16, 11:00-12:45, Ballroom C Julianne Pidduck (Concordia U.) - "Spatial Frames in Canadian Cinema: Region, Class, and Gender in MARGARET'S MUSEUM," Panel D2, Friday, May 16, 2:00-3:45, Richelieu Room Panel D4, "Rethinking Critical Theory," Friday, May 16, 2:00-3:45, Frontenac Panel D7, "Critical Approaches to Television," Friday, May 16, 2:00-3:45, Victoria Room Christopher Sieving (U. of Wisconsin, Madison) - "The 'Buck' Stops Here: The Decline and Fall of Blaxploitation," Panel E6, 4:00-5:45, York Room Panel E8, "The Poetics and Politics of Indian Cinema," May 16, 4:00-5:45, Laurentian Room Panel F2, "Constructing Whiteness," Saturday, May 17, 9:00-10:45, La Chaudiere Eileen Cheng-yin Chow (Stanford U.) - "Remembering the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: History, Spectacle, and the Politics of Memory in Contemporary Chinese Cinema," Panel H3, Saturday, May 17, 2:15-4:00, Seignory Room Brian O'Leary (U. of Texas, Dallas) - "The Missing Discourse on Chaplin's Genocide Theme in THE GREAT DICTATOR," Panel H4, Saturday, May 17, 2:15-4:00, Seignory Room Christopher Sharrett (Seton Hall U.) - "The Postmodern Crime Film and the Cult of Anti-Politics," Panel H8, Saturday, May 17, 2:15-4:00, Seignory Room Dina Iordanova (U. of Chicago) - "The Yugoslav Prague Group Moving to America or Why Emir Kusturica Would Not Make It in Hollywood," Panel I3, Saturday, May 17, 4:15-6:00, York Room Panel I9, "On the Future of a Deleuzian: The Uses and Disadvantages of Deleuze for Film Theory," Saturday, May 17, 4:15-6:00, Frontenac Room Panel J1, "The Colonizing Gaze," Sunday, May 18, 9:00-10:45, Victoria Room Mark A. Reid (U. of Florida) - "Black Women Crossing Borders: Transracial Intimacy," Panel J2, Sunday, May 18, 9:00-10:45, Joliet Room Hamid Naficy (Rice U.) - "Making Film with an Accent," Panel J5, Sunday, May 18, 9:00-10:45, La Chaudiere Room Glorida Monti (Yale U.) - "Guess Who's Serving Crawdads for Dinner? Susan Kohner's Racial Personae in Imitation of Life," Panel K2, Sunday, May 18, 11:00-12:45, Joliet Room Panel K5, "Rethinking Third World Cinema," Sunday, May 18, 11:00-12:45, Richilieu Room In addition to these activities, we hope you will attend our ANNUAL CAUCUS ON CLASS MEETING, to be held on FRIDAY, MAY 18, 1:00-2:00 IN THE VICTORIA ROOM. In addition to continuing the discussion on how we together can make the discourse of "class" a more prominent and forceful presence within SCS, I will be stepping down and Robert Nowlan will be taking over as chair. This means that we will need to elect a new co-chair. If you know of someone whom you would like to nominate for the position of co-chair, please forward it to me ASAP so that we can bring it to the attention of the membership during the meeting. Looking forward to seeing you all in Canada! ---- 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]