With apologies for cross-posting:
University of Kent Annual Department of Film Studies Symposium
'TELEVISION, GENRE AND EVALUATION'
Thursday 1st June, 2006, 10.00am-4.00pm
Grimond Lecture Theatre 3, Canterbury Campus
Programme:
10:00am Arrival; tea and coffee
10.25am Welcome and introduction
10.30am Professor John Ellis - 'No Genre, No TV'
11.20am Short break
11.25am Dr Su Holmes - '(Re)visiting The Grove Family
(1954-57) - "Neighbours to the Nation" (1954-57): Television
History and Approaches to Genre'
12.15am End of morning sessions. Lunch break.
1.25pm Introduction to afternoon sessions
1.30pm Professor Robin Nelson - 'Rich mixes: worth-potential
in contemporary TV drama hybrids'
2.20pm Short break
2.25pm Dr Steven Peacock - 'Borders and boundaries in Deadwood
3.15pm End of afternoon papers; short break for tea and coffee
3.30pm Informal open discussion
4:00pm End of symposium
Rationale:
Despite the 'virtual omnipresence' (Mittell, 2004) of generic categories in
television, from television scheduling and listings, channel branding, and
everyday talk, through to academic study, the complexity of the medium's
relations with genre has rarely been subjected to sustained analysis. Given
contemporary developments in television itself, as well as the on-going
development of Television Studies as an academic discipline, the time seems
right to revisit the question of genre within the medium. With this in mind,
the University of Kent is hosting a one-day symposium that aims to
interrogate television's relations with genre, as these range across
questions of history, methodological approach, aesthetics and evaluation.
The fact that generic categories are never 'neutral' -- that ascribing or
debating generic categories also involves processes of evaluation -- forms a
particularly important theme of the day. The symposium aims to offer an
eclectic range of papers, including those that address specific programme
texts, and those that offer explorations of broader conceptual, theoretical
and historical debates, as well as time for open discussion of the themes
addressed.
Speakers:
Professor John Ellis, Royal Holloway, University of London, is the author of
Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty (I.B.Tauris 2000) and
Visible Fictions (Routledge 1982). From 1982 to 1999 he also ran Large Door
Productions making documentaries for British TV. His current research
interests include broadcasting and television history, and documentary. He
has recently been principal researcher on two AHRB funded projects: 'Did ITV
Revolutionise British TV?', and the AHRC Resource Enhancement project that
created a database from the TV Times programme listings 1955-1985.
Dr Su Holmes is Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Kent.
She is the author of British TV and Film Culture in the 1950s: Coming to a
TV Near You! (Intellect, 2005); and the co-editor of Understanding Reality
Television (Routledge, 2004) and Framing Celebrity: New Directions in
Celebrity Culture (Routledge, August, 2006).
Robin Nelson is currently Professor of Theatre and TV Drama at Manchester
Metropolitan University. He has published widely on theatre and media topics
in books and journals such as Media, Culture & Society, Performance
Research, European Journal of Cultural Studies and Journal of British Cinema
and Television. His books include TV Drama in Transition (Macmillan, 1997)
and (with Bob Millington) 'Boys from the Blackstuff': The Making of TV
Drama, (Comedia, 1986). His forthcoming book, State of Play: Contemporary
"High End" TV Drama will be published by Manchester University Press early
in 2007. Robin has also contributed substantially to the development of
'practice as research' and a chapter entitled 'Modes of PaR knowledge and
their place in the Academy' will shortly be published in the conclusions of
the five-year PARIP research project.
Dr Steven Peacock is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at
Southampton Solent University. He is the co-editor (with Sarah Cardwell) of
the 'Good Television?' issue of the Journal of British Cinema and Television
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, July 2006); the editor of Reading
24: TV against the Clock (London: I.B Tauris, December 2006); and the author
of Colour, 'Cinema Aesthetics Series' (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, forthcoming September 2007).
This one-day event is the latest in a series of annual Film Studies symposia
held at Kent since 1998 (previous keynote speakers have included David
Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Victor Perkins, Steve Neale, Richard Allen and
Robert Stam). The 2006 symposium is organised by Dr Sarah Cardwell
(Adaptation Revisited [2002]; Andrew Davies [2005]) and Dr Su Holmes
(British TV and Film Culture in the 1950s: Coming to a TV Near You! [2005];
Understanding Reality TV [2004], co-editor). Entrance is free. For further
information please contact Jan Langbein ([log in to unmask]; tel. 01227
823177) or Dr Catherine Grant ([log in to unmask]; tel. 01227 823749).
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Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu
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