Could you please distribute the following call for papers (in message
and in attach)?
With apologies for cross-posting.
Many thanks,
Philippe
____________________________________
Philippe Meers (Ph.D)
Assistant Professor
Research Group Visual Culture
Department of Communication Studies
University of Antwerp - Belgium
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
____________________________________
The Glow in their Eyes
Global perspectives on film cultures, film exhibition and cinemagoing
International Conference, Brussels, 15-16 December 2007
The aim of the conference is to review the current state of research in
the history of moviegoing and film exhibition and distribution. We seek
to bring together scholars dealing with these subjects from all over the
globe. The growing number of case studies in local film history
increases the need for comparative studies of cities, regions, and
nations, while the relationship between micro and macro history(ies) is
becoming a major issue for the field. The analysis of patterns and
networks in film culture also calls for special attention to
methodology. The conference aims to bring European perspectives on
cinemagoing and film exhibition into dialogue with British, American and
Australian research, and with research elsewhere in the world, in
Africa, South America and Asia.
The conference aims to explore and map several crucial tensions arising
from the issues of exhibition and cinemagoing, including:
* The attention given to "top down" forces of industry, commerce
and ideology as against "bottom up" forces of experience, consumption
and escapism;
* Contesting concepts of public and private space in media
experience;
* Questions relating to cinema's integration into to the
metropolitan experience of modernity, compared to its role in the
construction of community in less urbanised and rural areas.
In line with the ECREA film studies section philosophy (www.ecrea.eu
<http://www.ecrea.eu/> ) the conference approaches the phenomenon of
cinema in a broad, socio-cultural sense: cinema as content, as cultural
artefact, as commercial product, as lived experience, as cultural and
economic institution, as a symbolic field of cultural production, and as
media technology. On a methodological level, the conference is open to
multiple approaches to the study of historical and contemporary cinema:
film text, context, production, representation and reception. Cultural
studies perspectives, historical approaches, political economy, textual
analysis, audience research all find their place within this scope.
The conference also signals the completion of two major interuniversity
research projects, one in Belgium ('The Enlightened City. Screen culture
between ideology, economics and experience. A study on the social role
of film exhibition and film consumption in Flanders (1895-2004) in
interaction with modernity and urbanisation'), and one in Australia
('Regional Markets and Local Audiences: Case Studies in Australian
Cinema Consumption, 1927-1980'). These research projects use a
combination of oral histories, archival documentation, demographic data
and media reportage and personal papers to examine the audience
experiences and business practices of cinemas in Belgium and Australia.
The conference is supported by the International Cinema Audiences
Research Group (ICARG), and will be the second international gathering
of the Group's work on the HOMER (History of moviegoing, exhibition and
reception) Project, following the successful 'Cinema in Context'
conference held in Amsterdam in April 2006. The conference will be
preceded by an ICARG workshop.
Confirmed Keynote Speakers
Annette Kuhn (University of London)
Richard Maltby (Flinders University)
Possible topics for papers are e.g.:
* Film exhibition, cinemagoing and film experience in relation to
theories of imperialism, postcolonialism, etc.
* Long term tendencies such as the rise of cinemas in rural and
urban environments, the boom of cinemagoing, the decay and subsequent
closure of many (provincial and neighbourhood) cinemas and the rise of
multiplexes
* Tensions between commercial and/or 'pillarised' film exhibition,
between urban and rural areas, and between provinces and regions
* Institutional developments, geographical location and
programming trends
* Audience and film experiences in urban and rural contexts
* A comparative international perspective on cinemagoing and
exhibition
* Diasporic cinemagoing practices
* Representations in films of cinemagoing, film exhibition, film
culture(s)
* Reflections on methods: How to reconcile/combine large scale
analysis vs in depth case study? How to link up national or regional
databases on exhibition and cinemagoing?
A selection of papers presented on the conference will be published in
an edited volume in 2008 (publisher to be confirmed).
Please submit abstracts (500 words) with short bio to
[log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] before 6 July
2007.
Speakers will be notified of acceptance by 31 July 2007.
Organizing Committee
Philippe Meers (University of Antwerp Research Group Visual Culture /
ECREA film studies section)
Daniel Biltereyst (Ghent University Working Group Film and Television
Studies)
Stef Franck (Flemish Service for Film Culture (VDFC), the Royal Belgian
Film Archive)
Richard Maltby (Flinders University)
Kate Bowles (University of Wollongong)
Deb Verhoeven (RMIT University)
For more information:
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Website (under construction):
www.cinemagoingconference.ugent.be
<http://www.cinemagoingconference.ugent.be/>
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