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May 1996, Week 1

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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Mon, 6 May 1996 08:28:28 -0500
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Forwarded by Jeremy Butler.
 
______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________
Subject: Vis Ev 4
Author:  [log in to unmask] (Chuck Kleinhans)
Date:    5/5/96 8:16 AM
 
CALL FOR PAPERS
 
VISIBLE EVIDENCE FOUR
Strategies and Practices in Documentary Film and Video
University of Wales, Cardiff
15-18  August 1996
 
 
We are pleased to announce that the Fourth Annual Visible Evidence
Conference will take place at the Centre for Journalism Studies at the
University of Wales, Cardiff from Thursday-Sunday, 15-18 August, 1996.
This is the first time that the conference will be held outside the United
States and in a European venue.
 
Visible Evidence is committed to a unique format: it is a small event (with
a limited number of three person, non-competing panels) with much time
devoted to dialogue and exchange among the attendees.  There are also
screenings of independent films and videos.  The conference is meant to
foster productive interdisciplinary cross-talk as well as promote exchanges
among scholars, teachers and producers.
 
Visible Evidence 4 will be a small conference, consisting of ten
panels that will run consecutively over the four days.  In addition to
panels, there will be several screenings as well as a simultaneous
videotheque.  Those wishing to present papers should send proposals of
approximately 250 words directly to the panel chairs.  The deadline
for proposals is MAY 30, 1996.  Please when possible submit proposals
by e-mail or fax.  Panel chairs will notify people as quickly as
possible of the acceptance/rejection of their proposals.
 
I. Knowledge and Visuality in Early Nonfiction Film
 
This panel considers how cinema was appropriated as a tool of
scientific, ethnographic, and social inscription by scientists,
explorers, missionaries, philanthropists, and social reformers between
1895 and the late teens, and solicits papers that examine the history
of cinema and photography as technologies of surveillance, colonial
policy, or social education.  Papers concerned with the relationship
between the truth claims and formal practices of scientific and
commercial filmmakers and  the legacy of these claims and practices on
the development of  documentary film are welcome, as are papers
concerned with historiographic and theoretical issues relating to the
circulation of knowledge between professional and lay communities.
 
Alison M. Griffiths (New York University)
370 Riverside Drive Apt. 6E, New York NY 10025.
Tel/Fax:  212 864 9804.
e mail: [log in to unmask]
 
II. The Trouble with Ethnographic Film
 
New practitioners and new forms of ethnography make the parameters
of"ethnographic film" less and less clear.  The genre is being
challenged by forms of self representation produced by ethnographers'
traditional objects of representation: women/natives/others.  Papers
should explore the origins and impact of these challenges to
ethnographic film through the analysis of influences such as feminist
anthropology, indigenous media, interactive media, and the blurred
boundaries in ethnography between fact and fiction, as well as situate
this disciplinary transformation within the context of the burgeoning
interest in the reconceptualization of non fiction film.
 
Nancy C. Lutkehaus (University of Southern California)
Department of Anthropology/Center for Visual Anthropology/S0S 154
USC/Los Angeles, CA 90089 0032 Tel: 213 740 1917/Fax: 213 747 8571 e
mail: [log in to unmask]
 
III. The Television Apparatus, Documentary Theory, and Advertising
Practice
 
The centrality of the domestic TV set as contemporary reception site
for documentary film and video suggests the importance of unpacking
the historical claims for television as an instrument of knowledge and
privileged "window on the world," aligned as they are with
historically specific regimes of visual truth, spectatorship and
community.  Invited topics include the strategic use of documentary
film tenets and aesthetic practices in the selling of television
receivers and commercial audiences; notions of electronic presence and
filmic realism, and methodological issues relating to the usefulness
of documentary film theory in the study of ephemeral industrial,
promotional and advertising films.
 
William Boddy (City University of New York)
370 Riverside Drive Apt. E, New York NY 10025
Tel/Fax: 212 864 9804
e mail: [log in to unmask]
 
IV. Experimental Autobiographies    What's Being Documented?
 
This panel analyzes experimental autobiographies in terms of the
tension these works maintain between two poles  texuality and
reference.  The film/video maker may construct an autobiography to
create a self, to present a version of the past or of experience, or
to fictionalize version/s of the self. Some issues panelists may wish
to consider include: the works' complex representations of
consciousness, identity, emotion, culture/subculture, history,
multiple discursive formations, depiction of the colonized mind;
subjectivities of the oppressed, authenticity and authorization,
relation to reference, experience, the past, the body, social
structures and relations to viewers.
 
Julia Lesage (University of Oregon)
English Department/University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403
Tel: 541 346 30979/ Fax: 346 1509
e mail: [log in to unmask]
 
V. The Documentary and Journalism
 
This panel explores the ways in which journalism's assumptions,
practices, and ethics have impinged upon the documentary.  At its
inception, the documentary did not resemble journalistic reportage.
While journalists were giving the "who, what, why, and where" of
events, documentarists were passionately trying to move audiences.
When television appeared, the documentary became a part of the
networks' news service; documentarists were forced to adhere to
broadcast journalism standards. Papers should explore aspects of the
historical, ethical and discursive conflicts that have arisen within
this uneasy alliance.  Attention to diverse national contexts is
encouraged.
 
Jay Ruby (Temple University)
P.O. Box 128/Mifflintown, PA  17059 USA
Tel: 215 204 7513/Fax: 717 436 9559
e mail: [log in to unmask]
 
VI. Being British: Historical Perspectives on British Documentary
Forms
 
This panel will investigate how British documentary forms have
concerned themselves with the idea of being British.  This concept of
national and cultural identity has been expressed both overtly and
unconsciously: overtly through deliberate agendas and subject matter,
unconsciously through unspoken cultural assumptions which nevertheless
become articulated through detailed examination of the visual
evidence.  The idea of "Britishness" is expressed in more ways than by
the mere representation of Britain itself.  By attempting to describe
cultures beyond the British Isles, documentarians have also succeeded
(unwittingly, perhaps) in further defining themselves.  Finally an
examination of "Britishness" in documentary serves as a springboard
for the investigation of the ontology of documentary itself.
 
Richard Howells
Institute of Communications Studies
University of Leeds
Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
fax 44113 233 5809
e mail: [log in to unmask]
 
 
The conference will also include four preconstituted panels: contemporary
British documentary; German documentary; Dutch documentary and national
identity; and Eastern European documentary.
 
Registration information will be available at a later date. To be put on
the e mail list for registration information send a request to
[log in to unmask]
 
Chuck Kleinhans
Associate Professor, Radio/Television/Film,
Northwestern University
1905 Sheridan Rd. Evanson IL 60208
Best phone: 312-871-5742  (area code changes in April)
fax: 847-467-2389
 
Jan 3, 1996-Sept 6, 1996:
3480 Mill
Eugene OR 97405
541-344-8129
no fax, same e-mail
 
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