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March 2012, Week 1

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Submissions are now open for all areas of Film & History's upcoming conference, Film & Myth (September 26-30, 2012; Milwaukee, Wisconsin). The conference currently features two dozen topic areas, addressing research interests including: gender and sexuality; sports; science fiction; war; national identity; and a wide range of historical periods; as well as production issues such as the use of color and soundtracks.  We also welcome submissions that may not fit comfortably within a given area.

Please scroll down to view individual area CFPs and contact information for area chairs. Additional information is available on the Film & History website: www.filmandhistory.org, or from Cynthia Miller, Director of Communications ([log in to unmask]).

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Adventure! Danger! Romance!: Myths of Exploration”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Exploration is central to notions of heroism, nationalism, progress, and adventure, and throughout history, the individuals who have ventured into the unknown have earned a special place in our collective lore. Whether scouting trade routes, sailing uncharted waters, or making “one small step for man” on the moon, explorers have embodied the hopes and aspirations of individuals and nations.

What are the strategies used to portray these individuals and their exploits on film and television?  Who becomes part of these narratives, and who is left out?  In what ways do explorers and their pursuits become larger-than-life representations of values, ideologies, and political groups, and in what ways to they resist those categories and burdens?  How are the crises of exploration: death and the struggles for survival; the conquest and domination of cultural groups; the appropriation and degradation of land, flora and fauna; the destruction or theft of treasures, monuments, and other resources; addressed in narratives of glory?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of exploration and explorers in films and television programs. Papers that explore how such myths are played out in depictions of adventure and exploration from outside the US and UK, and throughout various historical eras are especially welcome.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Explorations of the North American Frontier (portrayals of Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Wild Bill Hickok)
* Journeys to the Polar Regions (The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition, Forbidden Quest, Glory and Honor)
* African Safaris (Simba, Congorilla, Borneo, Rivers of Fire and Ice)
* Australia/Pacific Islands (Among the Cannibal Isles of the South Pacific, Captain James Cook, Against the Wind)
* Explorers in Space (Destination Moon, The Right Stuff, From the Earth to the Moon, Solaris, The Astronaut Farmer)
* The Age of Discovery (portrayals of Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, Francis Drake, Ferdinand Magellan, Sir Walter Raleigh)
* Scientist-explorers (Contact, Ten Who Dared, Darwin’s Darkest Hour)
* Missionaries (The Mission, The Mosquito Coast, Stanley and Livingstone, African Queen)
* Treasure Hunters (Indiana Jones, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Librarian)
* Undersea Expeditions (The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, Sea Hunt, SeaQuest DSV)
• Women and Exploration (The Journey of Sacajawea, The Far Horizons, The Dream is Alive, Beyond the Stars)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they
must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each
presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Cynthia J. Miller
Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
Adventure! Danger! Romance!: Myths of Exploration
Emerson College
[log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“America’s Pantheon: Superheroes and Sports Heroes in Film and Television”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Sports films and superhero films have been two of the most durable film genres in the 21st century.  Part of their success has been due to their reliance on myth, tapping on myths both ancient and inherently American, while establishing new heroes for American culture.  When Roy Hobbs hits the towering home run to win the pennant in The Natural (1984), it was not accidental that the film referenced myths, from King Arthur to The Odyssey.  America’s pantheon of mythic heroes also includes the superhero universes.  Indeed, the Marvel and DC universes of characters are the closest thing America has to the Greco-Roman deities.  Any papers related to film and television texts that deal with sports and superheroes are welcome.

This area, comprising multiple panels, welcomes papers exploring film and television texts of sports heroes and superheroes, as well as their conflations, intertextualities, and interrelationships. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Superheroes:

*”Original” superheroes in film (The Incredibles, Unbreakable, Darkman, Meteor Man)
*Superheroines in film and TV (Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Birds of Prey)
*African-American superheroes (Steel, Spawn, the Blade series)
*Superheroes on the small screen (Batman, Lois & Clark, Smallville)
*Children’s animated television series (Captain Planet and the Planeteers, X-Men)
*Motion comics and transmedia hybridity
*Superhero parody (Mystery Men, Superhero Movie, Hancock)
*Auteurs and the superhero film (Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan)
*Pre-1950 superhero serials (Adventures of Captain Marvel, The Phantom)
*Postmodern challenges to the superhero myth (Watchmen, Heroes, Kick-Ass)

Sports:
*Biographical sports documentaries (Unforgivable Blackness, Tyson)
*Sports films and myth (The Natural, Rocky, Rudy)
*Sports documentaries and the “American Dream” (Hoop Dreams)
*Sports documentaries and American identity (Ken Burns’s Baseball)
*Sports on the margins (Dodgeball, Balls of Fury, The Wrestler)
*Sports biopics (The Pride of the Yankees, The Stratton Story)
*Sports heroes and ethnic pride (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg)
*Boxing biopics (Gentleman Jim, Raging Bull, The Hurricane, The Fighter,  Ali, Cinderella Man)
*Racial reconciliation in sports films (Remember the Titans, Invictus, The Blind Side)
*Disney’s construction of sports myth (The Rookie, Invincible)
*Women’s sports on film (A League of Their Own, Bend It Like Beckham)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they
must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each
presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Zachary Ingle
Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“America’s Pantheon: Sports Heroes and Superheroes in Film and Television”
University of Kansas
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Ancient Egypt in myth, history and religion as shown on film and television”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline:  June 1, 2012

The history and myths of ancient Egypt have fascinated artists, scholars and the general public for thousands of years.  The motion picture and television industries have experienced several waves of Egyptian stories, from horror films, to Biblical narratives, to historical dramas.  This panel will explore all the variations of ancient Egypt on screen, from the epic (The Egyptian, The Ten Commandments, Cleopatra) to the parodic (Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, Carry on Cleo).  Modern updates of Egyptian stories are certainly welcome, for example Stargate or the Afrocentric Cleopatra Jones.  Even music videos have been designed around ancient Egypt (e.g., “Remember the Time” and “Walk Like an Egyptian”).

Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
* Mummies and the horror narrative
* Tales of the Pharoahs
* Afrocentric Egypt
* Biblical epics, e.g., the Joseph story, the young Moses, the Exodus from Egypt
* The Archeology of Egypt in fiction and documentary
* Cleopatra dramas, from Shakespeare to Shaw
* Cleopatra film and TV, from DeMille to Mankiewicz to Sam Raimi
* Egypt, orientalism and popular culture

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract, brief biographical details and contact information, including an email address, for each presenter.  Please email your 200 word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Peter Lev, Area Chair, 2012 Film and History Conference
“Ancient Egypt in myth, history and religion as shown on film and television”
Dept. of Electronic Media and Film
Towson University
[log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
Animating History: “Disney Americans” and Other Myths
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
http://www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

We live in a world made of myths, legends, and histories that are communicated, and often, conflated, by our entertainment media. For many of us, history’s earliest lessons have been animated – brightly-colored and endearing, with soundtracks that range from comical to compelling – taught by movies and television programming.  These lessons and legends, inextricably linked to the studios that produced them, are the building blocks of not only Western popular culture, but also, our collective constructions of the past. Disney’s Pocahontas, BBC’s Horrible Histories, and Animaniacs’ “The Ballad of Magellan” all shape our early understandings of histories and cultures, in ways that sometimes last long after we have turned off Saturday morning cartoons.

How does animation shape our conception of history and historical mythology? What are the benefits and drawbacks of the “Disneyfication” and co-opting of cultural products and national histories? What periods of history attract the most attention in animation? What historical myths are coming into prominence in the media as we move toward an increasingly globalized media culture?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will include presentations on animation produced for film, television, and new media, in both Western and non-Western modes of animation. Panel proposals comprised of three to four presenters are welcome.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

•       Telling history – animation as education (Liberty’s Kids; That’s America, Charlie Brown; Time Squad )
•       Myths and legends – Co-opting and crafting cultural narratives (Mulan; Hercules; Robin Hood; Ben and Me)
•       Alternate histories – Animated counternarratives (UPA, Warner Bros., independent animators)
•       Selling “history” – Collect the complete set! (Disney, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network)
•       History’s greatest hits – Popular genres in animation
•       Animation and national identity – Porky as the American everyman
•       Saturday (morning) school – history lessons from Bugs Bunny, Tintin, Schoolhouse Rock and Johnny Quest

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-300 word proposals by 1 June 2012 to the area chair:

Tiffany L. Knoell
Area Chair, 2012 Film and History Conference
Animating History: “Disney Americans” and Other Myths
Bowling Green State University
[log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Bunnies, Bars, and Stews”:  Myths of 1950s-1970s Cultural History in the Popular Present”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Contemporary producers of film and television seem eager to take on the post-World War II period, from the 1950s through the 1970s.  Perhaps spurred on by the popularity of Mad Men, now approaching its fifth season, the 2011 television fall lineup featured series such as Pan Am, about international flight attendants (then known as "stewardesses") at the beginning of the commercial jet age, and NBC's short-lived The Playboy Club, which featured a behind-the-scenes look at the original Chicago "gentlemen's" club that brought Hugh Hefner’s magazine to life. The time appears right to capture the era in all its popular culture glory.

How are we to understand films and programs such as these?  Are they products of cultural history, transmitting perceptions garnered from reputable primary and secondary sources, or are they powerful purveyors of a mythic past, whose narratives reflect and shape the stories we tell about ourselves?  In what ways do their iconic representations of “bunnies, bars, and stews” serve to overwrite or subvert other portrayals of the era?

This area, comprised of multiple panels, aims to examine how contemporary filmmakers represent the three decades following World War II, politically and culturally.  Especially welcome are papers that explore the ways in which films and television programs seek to support or subvert existing myths about the post-war history of the United States, and consider how these films reflect issues of sexism, racism, and homophobia during this period.

Questions for consideration may include, but are not limited to:

* In what ways does each of these post-war decades come with its own set of myths and
sense of nostalgia? Are certain time periods more prone to myth making or myth-busting?
* How might these contemporary depictions confirm, distort, highlight, or resist historical
narratives of the post-war period?
* How might these narratives reinforce or subvert stereotypical representations of gender,
class, sexuality, race, etc.? Are the myths dependent upon these stereotypes?
* How might we compare television versus film depictions of a given post-war decade or event?
* Is it possible for depictions of little known stories from post-war history to avoid the
binary of myth creating vs. myth breaking?

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter.  Please email your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Carney Maley
Area Chair 2012 Film & History Conference
“Bunnies, Bars, and Stews”:  Myths of 1950s-1970s Cultural History in the Popular Present”
UMass Boston
[log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Chicks with Brains: Representing Women’s Intellect in Film”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Since the Second Wave Feminist Movement during the 1970s, Hollywood has slowly begun to give prominent and leading roles to women.  However, the intellectual representations of women are out of line with reality, in many cases failing to reflect the successes and struggles that women have faced in a resistant social and political environment.  This area considers the portrayals of traditional myths about “chicks with brains” across film history, as well as new myths and/or myth-busters that may have arisen since the Second Wave.

In what ways does Hollywood control expectations about the brains of women by foiling their intellect with their own bodies?  Beautiful and naïve Elle Woods becomes a successful lawyer based on her knowledge of hair care products in Legally Blond; Natalie Portman is an astrophysicist whose sarcastic charm wins over Thor, heir to the God’s Realm of Asgard in superhero blockbuster Thor; and Easy A reminds us that smart teens—even ones as stunningly gorgeous as Emma Stone—aren’t accepted in the brutal high school hierarchies of popularity.  How are smart women cast as threats to the social order, as in Julia Roberts' portrayal of 1950s Wellesley College co-ed Katherine Ann Watson in Mona Lisa Smile?  What do we make of cinematic strategies that cast women as the counter-intellectual to men of superior intellect, such as Bella Swan in the Twilight saga, and Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher, or don't allow them to display any characteristics of the intellectual at all?

This area seeks to critique the myths of women’s intellect in film across multiple genres and historic time periods, and across cultures and national borders (films do not need to have been produced in the U.S.).  Papers might consider film history as well as cultural, social, or political history when formulating their analysis, in order to examine the twin complexities of subjugation by the film industry as well as the broader oppression of women in society.

Questions for consideration may include, but are not limited to:

•       In what ways are women in film imprisoned by their intelligence?
•       In what way are women ostracized for it?
•       Are their cases in which women in film are set free, or live better, as a result of intellectual growth?
•       How do female roles in film reinforce standards of beauty, submissiveness, and silence, over intellect, problem solving, or leadership?
•       In what ways are smart women infantilized, or commodified, by their intelligence in film (i.e.: chicks, babes, and honeys who are, despite their appearance or place in society, intelligent)?
•       How does an actress’s personal standards of intellect in her real life affect the way she is given roles, or seen on screen?
•       Are there successes (i.e. females in film who are intelligent without also being objectified or villified)?

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they
must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each
presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Laura Mattoon D’Amore
Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies
Roger Williams University
One Old Ferry Road
Bristol, RI 02188
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“The Color of Myth: Aesthetics, Affect, and Apprehension”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Over the last decade color has returned as a subject of research in film, media studies and visual culture, spurred in part by new visual aesthetics enabled by digital color in films like O Brother Where Art Thou, Pleasantville and A Waking Life. Developments in affect studies and phenomenology ask us to consider the sensorial and perceptual dimensions of color in media, while cognitive, psychological or neurological approaches offer different interpretations of the relationship between the brain, color aesthetics, and meaning. How have different historical color processes, technologies or aesthetics shaped myth from applied color in A Trip to the Moon, to Technicolor in The Wizard of Oz or Agfacolor in Baron Münchhausen? What role does color play in connecting bodies, feelings, perceptions and/or ideas? How does color complicate or resist semiotic or structuralist understandings of myth? What is the relationship between structures of color and specific mythic structures like race?  Can we talk about myth as “collective pattern” with color? What might Godard’s famous dictum about color’s materiality as dye in Pierrot le Fou (“not blood, red”) suggest in terms of myth?

This area will treat all aspects of myth and color. Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following:

* Color, myth and affect, e.g. The Tree of Life
* Philosophical approaches to color; color theory;  mythic epistemologies
* Digital Color and new media, digitality, the pixel and myth, e.g. Pleasantville, Skycaptain and the World of Tomorrow, Sin City
* Synaesthesia and myth; sensorial cross-modalities and myth
* Color, myth and race: Pinky, Imitation of Life, Legally Blonde
* Epic color:  e.g. Spartacus, Alexander the Great, Henry V, Saving Private Ryan.
* Color, myth and spectacle, e.g. American Beauty, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, Saludos Amigos
* Color, myth and the avant garde, e.g. work of Oskar Fischinger, Jules Engel, Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Ulrike Ottinger
* Color realism/fantasy and myth: 300,  Red Desert, Wings of Desire, Alexander the Great
* Color’s materiality and myth
* Oneiric Color: e.g. What Dreams may Come, Inception
* Color, ethics and myth
* Color theory: e.g. indexicality/realism/stylization & artificiality. E.g La Chinoise, Une Femme est une Femme, Red Desert
* Color, myth and genre, e,g,  Moulin Rouge, The Godfather, Bridesmaids
* Chromophilia/chromophobia and myth
* Color, myth and the star system, e.g. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
* Color processes such as Technicolor, Eastmancolor, Dufaycolor, Kinemacolor and myth; color technologies and myth, e.g. La Cucaracha, Becky Sharpe, Toll of the Sea

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract, brief biographical details and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Dr. Kirsten Thompson, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“The Color of Myth: Aesthetics, Affect, and Apprehension”
Wayne State University
Department of English,
[log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Food of the Gods: The Mythic Poetics of Food, Drink, and Eating in Film and Television”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

This area of panels seeks papers that address the rich and textured presence—in other words, the special mythic import—of food and eating in film and television along two related trajectories.  In one trajectory, papers will look at how myths on film use food in order to depict the epic subject matter that runs the film’s narrative.  How do these plots use foods and scenes of eating to energize or organize a myth’s plot?  Are there special filmic techniques to show how food and eating work in a mythic tale?  Second, films and television shows that center around food suggest the ways in which the food itself contains specific mythic importance, as it enlivens, contains, or confounds the characters’ lives.  In both, foods take up important and powerful places as filmmakers interrogate various notions of ethics, political economy, cultural value, and identity.  How do these foods locate characters within networks of meaning?  How does food help or hinder a character’s development?  How does, in a deeply mythic sense, food matter?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will explore the relationship of food, eating, and myth. Papers are welcomed on film and television from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and national film traditions. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

•       Representation and import of the Hero’s Feast (Thor, Conan, Beowulf, Xena, Sparatcus)
•       Interrogations of reverence for food (Big Night, No Reservations/Mostly Martha)
•       Ritualizations of food (Babette’s Feast, Secret of the Grain, Last Holiday)
•       Food and complexity in rites of passage (American Pie, Scent of Green Papaya)
•       Spectacle, modernity, and food menace (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Modern Times)
•       Food or eating as cure, poison, or pharmakon (The Road to Wellville, Super Size Me)
•       The powerful organizing force of food and consumerism (Mad Men, Extract)
•       Food and eating as social space (My Dinner with Andre, Sideways)
•       Questions of family and food (Eat Drink Man Woman, Soul Food)
•       Eating foods of unspeakable origin (Soylent Green, Silence of the Lambs)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Tom Hertweck, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Food of the Gods: The Mythic Poetics of Food, Drink, and Eating in Film and Television”
University of Nevada, Reno
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Marriage and Family Myths in Film and Television”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Representations of marriage and family in film and television are central to our shared cultural conceptions of these institutions. In every era, ideals are formed around marriage and family that are shaped just as much through presence (literal representations) as they are through absence (tales of longing for these ideals).  How do representations of marriage and family shift in order to accommodate changing cultural conditions? How are representations of marriage and family understood by critics and audiences as mythology?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will address the operations of mythology in moving image representations of marriage and family throughout historical and cultural changes. Papers that explore how such myths are played out in national contexts, outside of US culture, are especially welcome. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Ethnic Family Sitcoms in Early Television
* Backlash: Single Parent Families and Postfeminism in Film and Television
* Classical Hollywood Comedies of Remarriage
* The “Family Hour”: Broadcast Policies and Family Programming
* Generation Gap: The Impact of the Counterculture on Representations of Family
* Family Nostalgia: 1950s Ideals in Contemporary Film and Television (Far From Heaven, Pleasantville, Mad Men)
* The Family in Wartime
* Gender Trouble: Myths of Traditional Masculinity and Femininity
* The “Family” Film: Disney and the General Audience Market

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Caryn Murphy, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Marriage and Family Myths in Film and Television”
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Medieval Magic, Myths, and Legends in Film and Television”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

The Middle Ages have inspired some of the most enduring myths and legends of Western culture. Whether painted, on screen, in the bright colors of Camelot and The Adventures of Robin Hood or the drab grays and browns of Robin and Marian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, they represent a world in which right and wrong, love and honor, heroism and villainy were clearly defined.  Tales of larger-than-life medieval characters – whether adapted from original sources, or set in a wholly imagined middle ages – have been staples of film and television for generations.  These medieval-themed narratives, featuring historical figures like Joan of Arc, beloved folk heroes such as Robin Hood, and worlds where dragons and other mythical beasts roam the Earth, have retold and adapted familiar stories of adventure, conquest, magic, and romance, while adding new ones to the ancient tradition.

This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of the myth and legend in films and television programs. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Arthurian Legends and Myths
* Legendary Heroes  Fictional  and Factual (Robin Hood, Beowulf, Sigfried, William
Wallace, Alexander Nevsky, El Cid, etc.)
* Legendary Saints and Sinners (Joan of Arc, St. Francis, Hildegard of Bingen, Pope
Joan, Abelard and Heloise, etc.)
* Norse Gods and Heroes (The Vikings, The Long Ships, Thor)
*Dragons and Other Members of the Medieval Bestiary (Dragonslayer, Gargoyles, How
to Train Your Dragon)
* The Imagined Middle Ages (Tolkein, Monty Python, Ladyhawke, The Name of the
Rose, The Princess Bride, The Seventh Seal

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

L. Larson, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Medieval Magic, Myth, and Legend in Film and Television”
Our Lady of the Lake University
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Music, Motifs, and Mythmaking”
2012 Film & History Conference: Film and Myth
September 26-30, 2012
Hyatt Regency, Milwaukee Hyatt Regency Milwaukee
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Would Star Wars carry as much “force” without its iconic score by John Williams? Would the sentiment “hey kids, let’s put on a show!” be embedded in American culture if Judy Garland did not then sing her heart out? Would the tragic love story in Titanic pack such an emotional punch without Celine Dion? Three mythic themes — a hero’s journey, youth’s triumph, and eternal love — that all have music at their core.

“Music, Motifs, and Mythmaking,” an area comprising multiple panels, seeks papers and panels from a wide range of orientations, exploring how music and musicals add to our understanding of myths and enhance the process of mythmaking in film and television. Papers that explore the relationship between music and myth in cinematic traditions and industries beyond the United States are especially welcome. Papers might address (but are not limited to) the following:

* the function of film scores and/or specific musical motifs in creating, structuring or
perpetuating mythic narratives
* the circulation, and/or creation, of mythic songs in film
* films adapted from mythic ballads
* the ways in which film musicals—or their television descendants, Glee and American
 Idol—operate under and help to create understandings of “Hollywood”,
“Broadway”, or “the United States”
* the ways in which music videos create particular kinds of new heroes and/or engage in
mythmaking

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please send your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Kathryn Edney, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Music, Motifs, and Mythmaking”
Dept. of History
Regis College
Weston, MA 02493
Email: [log in to unmask] (email submissions preferred)

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Myth Inc., The Business World in Film and Television”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

The business world, as idealized in film and television, sustains many enduring myths of modern life, such as assuring audiences that anyone with the right stuff can rise from the ranks to “make it.”  The right stuff, however, can mean anything from honesty and industry to rapacious ambition and avarice, depending on the requirements of the narrative.  Wall Street, for example, is a perverted version of the Horatio Alger “rags-to-riches” myth, while 9 to 5 assures that “rags-to-riches” is a myth for women in business, too, if they’re bold and clever.

The American Dream itself, nebulous as it is, is a type of business myth—at least in those interpretations that equate success with material trappings and a happy home life, as seen in Bewitched and Executive Suite. Counter-myths, such as reassurances that underlings are happier than their bosses, may also be seen across genres in narratives as diverse as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and The Jetsons’ office episodes.  Similarly, lying, cheating, and stealing are legendary in cinematic and televised worlds of business, but even this widely embraced myth is the subject of challenge and parody: it has been satirized (The Hudsucker Proxy), spoofed (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying), and drowned in pessimism (The Method and Glengarry Glen Ross).

This area, comprising multiple panels, invites contributions that explore the myths propagated in depictions of the business world in television and film, including, but not limited to:

* Chronicles of the business world (Startup.com, Salesman)
* The boss from hell (The Devil Wears Prada, Horrible Bosses)
* Take this job and … (Wanted, Office Space)
* Climbing the ladder (The Secret of My Success, Swimming with Sharks, Head Office)
* The underdog prevails (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, 9 to 5)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Tony Osborne, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Myth Inc., The Business World in Film and Television”
Gonzaga University
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask] (September thru April)

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Myths of Stardom: How Hollywood Cultivates the Image of Star Identities”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012


Stars and celebrities have long served as objects of fascination; their fashions and possessions, triumphs and tragedies, idiosyncrasies and lifestyles, all garner attention from fans and detractors, alike. During the Star System, Hollywood sought to control and shape the images of their stars by carefully placing certain stories in fan magazines and other public venues, manipulating information on intimate relationships, sexual orientation, and personal struggles in an effort to garner and maintain fan appeal and increase box office sales.  The Studio Era may have passed, but contemporary fan magazines, along with their counterparts on television and in digital media, continue the tradition of shaping the way we view stars.

How does the media represent stars, and how do we respond to these representations?  What, if any, are the benefits of this kind of shaping, and to whom?  In what ways do the crafted images of stars (mis)represent their off-screen identities?  How effective are stars at crafting their own images, independent of the media outlets (such as well-known efforts by Mae West, Cary Grant, and others)?  How have the roles of star personas shifted from the Studio Era to present day?

This area, comprised of multiple panels, seeks papers on the myths and influences of star culture in film, television, and other related forms of media.  Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

* Alternate Identities: dividing the public from the private
* “Selling” Stars: how stars are promoted, “bought,” and “sold” to the public
* Identification with Celebrity: our own identities as influenced by the stars
* Star Powered Advertising: are you buying what product they’re selling?
* Fan Magazines: implications, history, and impacts
* From Luella Parsons to Parez Hilton: the gossip columnist
* Fan Culture: the importance of having “followers”

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter.  Please email your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:


Emily Schwartz
Area Chair 2012 Film & History Conference
“Myths of Stardom: How Hollywood Cultivates the Image of Star Identities”
Oakland University
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Myths R Us”: Nationality in Film and Television
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26–30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

The process of nation-building often relies on myth. Benedict Anderson famously contended that nations are “imagined political communities,” social constructions that exist only when a significant number of people consider themselves to be part of a nation or behave as if they have formed one (1983, 6). The idea of America, for example, is deeply entwined with the fantasies of the American Dream, the myth of the frontier, and American exceptionalism. Our mythologies define us, establishing boundaries between “us” and “them.”

How do film and television create, revise, and challenge mythologies of nation and nationality? Do they exploit or succumb to national myths? How do colonialism, imperialism, and migration factor in myths of national identity? In an era of increasing transnationalism, is the idea of national cinema itself a myth?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of the mythological underpinnings of nationality in films and television programs. Papers that explore how national myths are played out in films and television programs from outside the US are especially welcome. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Founding Myths, Myths of Founding (e.g. The New World, 1776)
* Mediating Folklore and Tall Tales
* Favorite Sons and Daughters: National Heroes on Screen
* Embodying the Nation (e.g., Uncle Sam, Lady Liberty, John Bull)
* Landmarks of National Mythology (e.g., Mount Rushmore, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben)
* Naming the Nation (e.g., Team America, This Is England, Captain America)
* The Special Relationship: Myths of International Relations (e.g., Love Actually, Cars 2)
* Propaganda as National Mythmaking (e.g., Triumph of the Will, Why We Fight)
* Mythic Nations (e.g., Fredonia in Duck Soup, Genovia in The Princess Diaries)
* Demythologizing the Other: Expatriates and Cultural Tourism (e.g., An Idiot Abroad)
* Myth Busters: Contesting Constructions of National Identity
* National vs. Transnational Film and Television

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Elizabeth Rawitsch, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Myths R Us”: Nationality in Film and Television
University of East Anglia
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Mythic Characters and Places made Real: TV and Film In Situ”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth” September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Popular media increasingly are becoming the foundation for “non-mediated” experiences with local, material culture. Now, the representation of certain fictive historical times, people and places on film and TV have led to their commemoration in real places. Fictional settings and characters have become mythic as certain films and TV shows have become depoliticized symbolic inducements with the power to transform the messy complexities of history into desirable but unfulfillable narratives. What does this mean? How are television and film used by the wider public as a resource of collective memory? Why are certain stories selected by civic boosters for the purposes of place promotion, heritage and tourism production? Why do fans visit these sites and what do they get out of them? Fans of TV and movies much less residents of places that commemorate these media must confront questions of authenticity, popular culture as public culture, and the hyperreal.

This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of the relationships between mythic film and television and the real places that are connected to the narratives and characters associated with them. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Vampire Tourism from Transylvania to Forks, WA (Dracula; Twilight)
* Having a real pint in a mythic bar (Coronation Street; Cheers; Northern Exposure)
* Celebrating the Mythos of the final frontier. (Star Trek enshrined in Riverside, IO and
         Vulcan, AB)
* Mnemonic Myths: The significance of TV land statues. (Happy Days; Bewitched; The
        Honeymooners; The Bob Newhart Show)
* Take the Tour: Fandom in Mythic NYC. (Seinfeld, Sex and the City)
* The lasting attraction of Sylvester Stallone statues. (Rocky in Philadelphia and Serbia)
* Fandom and Conventions in TV and Films' mythic places of origin. (The Prisoner in
        Portmeirion, Wales)
* Festivals in mythic hometowns: Embracing fictional TV and films as local culture. (The
        Andy Griffith Show in Mount Airy, NC; Superman in Metropolis, IL; Twin Peaks in
        North Bend, WA)
* Adaptation and Place Promotion: From Literary Tourism to TV and Film based
        Tourism. (Anne of Green Gables)
* Popular History and Popular Memory: Commemorating TV and Film in the settings
        that inspired them. (Robocop)
* Real places become mythic: Fictional Film-based tourism. (National Treasure in
        Washington, DC; Transformers in Chicago; The Da Vinci Code)
* Mythic characters and mythic places as heritage tourism. (Alice in Wonderland; King of
        Kensington)
* Fans and Secular Pilgrimages: Visiting Mythic TV and Film Places. (The Sound of
        Music)
* New Zealand as Middle Earth. (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit)
* The Horror of being associated with Horror Films. (The Amityville Horror, The Blair
        Witch Project)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Derek S. Foster, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Mythic Characters and Places Made Real: TV and Film In Situ”
Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film
Brock University
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Mythic Mother Nature:  Storytelling and Myth Building Through Moving Image Representations of Nature and the Environment”
2012 Film & History Conference: Film and Myth
September 26-30, 2012
Hyatt Regency Milwaukee
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Myth has been used for centuries to explain nature, and the face of nature has been used to create national and personal myths. Cinematic, televisual, and cybervisual representations of nature and the environment affect cultural assumptions about peoples and places, affecting how we interact with nature and each other. In some cases Mother Nature directs the action; in others she has the starring role.

•       What does Kung Fu Panda teach us about nature and culture?
•       Are there mythic lessons embedded in the lives of the “extreme fishermen” of The Deadliest Catch?
•       Do new media like YouTube videos reinforce traditional natural myths or create new mythologies?
•       How do genre conventions shape nature?  How does nature affect genre? Westerns? Sci Fi? Noir? Screwball Comedy?
•       How have film auteurs used or shaped nature?  Hitchcock? Altman? Fellini?

This area, comprising multiple panels, welcomes papers and panel proposals that examine all forms and genres featuring nature and the environment as represented in film, television, and other moving image arts.

Possibilities include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
•       Nature as creator and/or Nature as destroyer in film narratives
•       Nature myth as nation-builder and cultural marker
•       Nature and the environment as the locus for scientific and political debate
•       Nature as mythic muse for filmmakers and the characters they create
•       Natural disaster as media event
•       Nature, Promotion, and Vacation Video on YouTube

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Deborah Carmichael, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
Mythic Mother Nature:  Storytelling and Myth Building Through Moving Image Representations of Nature and the Environment
Michigan State University
Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures
235 Bessey Hall
East Lansing MI 48824
[log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Mythic Structures: Sacred Architecture and Ornamentation in Film”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Medieval sanctuaries, Orthodox domes, Gothic stained glass, Romanesque portals -- all suggest cinematic settings full of hidden meanings, secret histories, and visions of the sacred. Their aesthetic perfection endows them with an aura of mystery as they silently narrate myths of faith, devotion, and the Divine.  Similarly, sacred ornamentation brings aesthetic beauty or symbolic significance to utility: Birds and trees connect heaven and Earth, the lotus represents purity, and the thorny-barbed acanthus guards the living from the dead. Each of these, whether adorning columns, doorways, ceilings, or altars, brings depth and intensity to cinematic settings and scenes.

This area, comprising multiple panels, seeks papers that explore the communication of myth in sacred buildings and architectural ornamentation in films across genres. Papers that explore how such myths are played out in films from outside the US and UK are especially welcome. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

*  Monasteries and austere architecture (as in Name of the Rose)
*  Ornamentation in sacred spaces (as in End of Days or The Wicker Man)
*  Architectural visions of the Divine (as in The DaVinci Code)
*  Windows of faith (as in The Blues Brothers or The Pillars of the Earth)
*  Sacred spectacle (as in The Secret of Sacred Architecture)
*  Altars of the gods (as in Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Hellfire Club)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Hee Sook Lee-Niinioja, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Mythic Structures: Sacred Architecture and Ornaments in Film”
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Mythical Movie Jews: Anti- and Philo-Semitic Stereotypes on the Silver Screen.”
An Area of Multiple Panels for the Film and History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Feature films usually have projected stereotypical motivations and traits onto characters belonging to ethnic, racial, and religious minorities.  Thus, the individual antagonist or protagonist typifies his or her group. The cinematic image of Jews, in particular, has been shaped by the legacy of Christianity’s views of Jews and Judaism, the economic and professional roles Jews have been associated with, and the conspiratorial or constructive goals Jews pursue to subvert or strengthen modern nation states and their economic and political systems. These stereotypes have changed dramatically over the course of the 20th century as the status of Jews has been transformed by the attainment of de jure civic equality in liberal and socialist societies, the Holocaust, the establishment of the state of Israel, and the rise of multiculturalism.

The panels in this area will explore the traditional and modern stereotypes of Jews that have informed cinematic depictions of Jews as threatening others, fellow citizens or loyal allies.  It will also examine how Jews personify various gender orientations. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

*  The Jew in Christian Theology (King of Kings, The Passion, Jesus Christ Superstar)
*  Contemporary Stereotypes and Biblical Jews (The Ten Commandments, Solomon and Sheba)
*  The Jews as Usurer (The Merchant of Venice, The Pawnbroker, The House of Rothschild)
*  The Jewish American Princess (Marjorie Morningstar, Goodbye Columbus, Private Benjamin)
*  The Orthodox Jewish Man (The Chosen, A Stranger Among Us, Kadosh, Crossing  Delancey)
*  Smart Jews (Independence Day, Bee Season, Barton Fink, Insignificance, Quiz Show)
*  Jewish Radicals (Street Scene, Daniel, Norma Mae, Running on Empty, The Way We Were)
*  The Neurotic Jew (Annie Hall, Miami Rhapsody, The Hebrew Hammer, Curb Your Enthusiasm)
*  Jewish Parvenus(The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Chariots of Fire, Disraeli)
*  Passive Jews (The Diary of Anne Frank, Fiddler on the Roof
*  Tough Jews (Exodus,  Inglourious Defiance, Basterds, Munich, Bugsy, The Young Lions)
*  My Son the Doctor (Symphony of Six Million, The Last Angry Man, Northern Exposure)
*  The Independent Jewish Woman (The Way We Were, Meet the Fokkers, House)
*   Images of Israelis (Exodus, The Little Drummer Girl, Walk on Water, Waltz with Bashir)
*  The Gay Jew (Boys in the Band, Torch Song Trilogy, Kissing Jessica Stein, The Bird Cage)

Proposals for complete panels (related presentations) are welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200 word paper proposal or panel proposals by June 1, 2012 to:

Lawrence Baron, Area Chair, 2012 Film and History Conference
“Jewish Monotheism in the Movies: From Abstraction to Personification”
San Diego State University
Email: [log in to unmask]
**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“MYTHOS: Screening Classical Mythology on Film and Television”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

From the earliest beginning of cinema, and throughout the history of screen entertainment, filmmakers and television producers have returned to the narratives and images of classical mythology for subject matter and motivation. Numerous films and television series have been based on ancient Greek and Roman mythological and heroic archetypes (The Matrix; The Lion King), while others take classical literary plots and motifs from the great epics and tragedies and adapt them to the screen (A Dream of Passion; O Brother, Where Art Thou?). Some films and television series even set themselves in an imagined “ancient mythological world” full of gods, heroes, monsters and femmes fatales (Xena: Warrior Princess; Hercules: The Legendary Journeys). Why do the classical mythological narratives and images remain such a powerful source of ideas and inspiration for modern filmmakers and television producers?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of classical mythology in films and television programs. Papers may explore recreations of ancient myths in “real time” (Clash of the Titans; Xena; Hercules) or adaptations of classical myths and narratives in modern settings (Moulin Rouge; Unforgiven). Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* The Hero’s Journey
* Features and Creatures of the Underworld
* The Katabasis Myth of Descent and Return
* Greek Tragic Myths on Screen
* The Odyssey and the Nostos-Myth on Film
* Pandora and the Myth of the Manufactured Woman
* Homer’s Iliad and the American Western
* Myths of Transformation and Metamorphoses
* Amazons on Screen
* The Dionysian Nature of the Cinema
* The Orpheus Myth
* Olympian Gods in Modern Settings

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Monica S. Cyrino, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“MYTHOS: Screening Classical Mythology on Film and Television”
University of New Mexico
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Queer Mythologies: Untangling Sex and Gender Myths”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Movies and television are one important way that many of us learn about gender and sexuality. The stories we see played out on the large or small screen tell us – explicitly or implicitly – what it means to be male or female, what it means to be in love, what the narrative possibilities are for constructing a life and forming relationships with other people. Too often in film history, gay and lesbian lives have been mythologized – in films from Cruising to Boys Don’t Cry to Brokeback Mountain – as lonely, desperate, and destined for a bad end, a trajectory famously catalogued by Vito Russo in The Celluloid Closet. Queer lives are often positioned as opposite “normal,”  heterosexual lives. Yet other – queer – mythologies are possible: from Hedwig’s re-imagining of the origin of love myth in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, to Omar and Johnny happily splashing each other at the end of My Beautiful Laundrette—certain films find ways to re-construct dominant mythologies and perhaps define new ones. How do films, TV, and online media perpetuate, subvert, or otherwise engage with these and other myths concerning sexuality and gender?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of myths concerning sexuality, gender, and queerness in film, television, and on-line media. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Coming Out Stories
* Romantic Mythologies
* Classical Mythology Queered
* Politics and Sex: From Myth to Public Policy
* The “Gay Gene”: Science and Gender
* “It Gets Better”: On-line Mythologizing
* Mythologies of the Closet
* Either/Or: The Myth of Gay or Straight

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Pamela Demory, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Queer Mythologies: Untangling Sex and Gender Myths”
University of California, Davis
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Science-Fiction Myths: Travels through Time and Space”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Films that depict travel through time and space have complex mythologies, which, as much as scientific principles, shape their plots, characters, and themes. These myths captivate us with tales of the past, the future, and the alien, but at the same time, narrate the “rules” of engaging with them. Altering the past, interfering with alien cultures, or toying with technology beyond our comprehension are all dangerous, these myths warn, because of their potential to alter larger historical realities, and create unintended social and political upheaval -- perhaps even resulting in our own annihilation. How do space- and time-travel myths give shape to our anxieties—of loving the wrong person, of leaving home forever, of being forgotten, of entering a different world?  How do these myths embody our hopes—that the future is ours to shape, that the universe is full of wonders, that human experience might transcend time and space?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of the mythological underpinnings of space and time travel in science-fiction films and television programs. Papers that explore how such myths are played out in science fiction from outside the US and UK are especially welcome.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Nomads: Cold Sleep, Relativity, and the Loneliness of Space Travel
* Generation Spaceships and the Ship-as-World (e.g., Alien, Pandorum)
* Time Travel and "Fixing History" (e.g., Quantum Leap, 12 Monkeys)
* Love, Sex, and the Time Traveler (e.g., Back to the Future, Somewhere in Time)
* Who Are You?: Myth and Identity in Space and Time Travel
* Paradox in Time Travel: Killing Grandpa, and Other Bad Ideas
* Just Like California: “Alien” Worlds and Space Travel as Tourism
* Galactic Empires: Rome with Spaceships?
* The Human(oid) Void: Myths of First Contact (e.g., Star Trek, Babylon 5)
* Myths of Lost Earth (e.g., Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Titan AE)
* Wormhole Diplomacy: Bridging Cultural Spaces

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

A. Bowdoin Van Riper
Southern Polytechnic State University
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“'Storytelling 101 - History as Myth on the Big Screen”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth”
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Cinematic history raises many important questions about the relationship between fact and fiction: When does history become myth, and when does myth become legend? Does a romanticized view of history distort the reality it is trying to convey, or in capturing the “spirit” of history, does it teach history in ways that mere fact cannot? What is the impact of motion pictures on our understandings of history, and on historical memory?  And what of the lives of the individuals it portrays? Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Marie Antoinette, and Cleopatra are just a few of the historical figures who have attained mythic status through their romanticization on the big screen. Does cinematic history promote a tendency toward mythologizing historical figures?

This area will explore questions around whether, and in what ways, the storytelling method used by filmmakers may serve to distance audiences from their own history by making it simply a story. In the ongoing debate among historians as to whether history on film is a viable source of learning, film is often criticized for not being historically accurate and for creating what Marnie Hughes-Warrington has called a “Nostalgic Utopia.”

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

* Royalty as myth, Marie Antoinette, (Coppola, 2006), The Other Boleyn Girl (Chadwick, 2008), Elizabeth (Kapur, 1998)
* The debate over history and film; does film have a tendency to create ‘nostalgic utopias’ instead of portraying true events? Life is Beautiful, (Benigni, 1997)
* How do we understand history on film? Does it promote new interests in History by mythologizing figures and events? Pearl Harbor (Bay,2001), Titanic (Cameron, 1997)
* The myth of Robin Hood. Robin Hood (Scott, 2010), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves  (Reynolds,1991), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (Brooks, 1993), Robin Hood (Reitherman, 1973)
* Is it better to learn of historical figures through film or through literature? Why? Public Enemies (Mann, 2009), Ned Kelly (Jordan, 2003), Donnie Brasco (Newell, 1997)
* Can major historical events be portrayed in a simple storytelling fashion? Saving Private Ryan (Spielburg,1998) Life is Beautiful (Benigni, 1997) , Pearl Harbor (Bay, 2001), Titanic (Cameron, 1997)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Kathryn Morey, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“'Storytelling 101 - History as Myth on the Big Screen.”
Lancaster University
Email: [log in to unmask]

**

CALL FOR PAPERS
“War Myths: Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Fiction and Documentary Films”
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on “Film and Myth” ?
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

This area, comprising multiple panels, will explore all aspects of the mythical underpinnings of the construction of heroism in war and combat in fiction, propaganda, and also documentary films. The discussion will include, but is not limited to, the ways in which these mythical motifs in war film narratives are used to justify specific ideological positions, shape the understanding of past and current military conflicts, support political agendas and institutions, and influence collective memory by providing images of heroism from past wars.

In this context, the debunking of war myths is particularly relevant. Thus, papers that explore the creation of myths about heroism in war and war heroes in media, their propagation in diverse cinematic forms, their reception among different audiences, and in different historical and political contexts are especially welcome. Of further interest are the ways in which these myths are deconstructed in specific cinematic genres (such as anti-war films and documentaries) or subverted by various humorous strategies (such as parody, grotesque, spoof, or exaggeration) in both humorous and non-humorous genres.

This area is also interested in highlighting issues related to racialized and gendered codings of heroism and their connection to myth-making processes: the establishing and questioning of male heroism in combat; the heroism of women in the context of war; and the different strategies used to represent male and female heroes in war narratives. Papers that explore such heroic mythmaking in various national cinematographies are also particularly welcome.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* 9/11: Myths about the loss of innocence
* Propaganda and mythmaking about recruitment: Visual representations of war heroes in
        government films
 * The Great War and its heroes (Passchendaele, The Red Baron, Merry Christmas)
* War and peace, and the end of heroes: All Quiet on the Western Front
* Heroism as nation: Creating myth in WWII
* Gender myths in war films: Female warriors in Hollywood narratives
* Rosie the Riveter: Myths of women on the home front
* Hurt Locker: Kathryn Bigelow, female authorship, and the male desire for combat
* Documentary films on war: Anti-heroes and the deconstruction of myth
* Bursting the bubble: Abu Ghraib and the lack of heroism
* Heroism and race (Miracle at St. Anna, Glory, Letters from Iwo Jima)
* Disillusioned myths and forgotten war heroes: Born on the Fourth of July
* The military unit as hero (9th Company)
* Surviving war: Myths about fighting the odds
* Spielberg and myth: Fighting the war in the jungle and WWII (Saving Private Ryan)
* Acts of compassion: Myths of human kindness and civil heroes (Schindler’s List)
* The Cold War and the myth of the necessity of combat
* Flawed war heroes: Stanley Kubrick and the anti-war film (Full Metal Jacket)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012 to:

Karen A. Ritzenhoff and Jakub Kazecki,
Area Chairs 2012 Film & History Conference “War Myths: Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Fiction and Documentary Films”
Central Connecticut State University
Email: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]

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