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June 2008, Week 4

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From:
Cynthia Miller <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 22 Jun 2008 09:31:33 -0400
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SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL Area

2008 Film & History Conference

"Film & Science: Fictions, Documentaries, and Beyond"

October 30-November 2, 2008

Chicago, Illinois

www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory

Third-Round Deadline: August 1, 2008

 

AREA: Surveillance and Control

 

In an increasingly mobile society, anonymity would seem to be a common feature of public space, were it not for the ubiquitous presence of surveillance technology, used as a means of controlling and monitoring behavior.  Documentary and fiction films take surveillance and invasion of privacy as a major concern and as a minor motif, in films from 1984 to 2001:  A Space Odyssey, to Total Recall, to Gattaca, to The Nanny Diaries, to name a few.  While many depictions of surveillance have been generally negative, advocates for surveillance technology point to the ability of British police to track down terrorists as a result of the security cameras placed everywhere in public space in the U.K.  One wonders how long the torture at Abu Ghraib might have continued if cameras had not recorded and exposed these actions.  

 

The Surveillance and Control area will consider the ethical, legal, historical, artistic, and aesthetic questions posed by the use of surveillance and electronic control.  For example, what rights should people have to freedom from surveillance in public and private places?  How does public surveillance affect behavior?  How have fictional filmic accounts forecast or influenced the use of surveillance?  How has the threat of terrorism affected our tolerance for surveillance?  What about private uses, such as Nannycams?  What effect has surveillance had on criminal behavior?  What role has it played in the behavior of law enforcement, where illegal behavior on the part of officers may be recorded?  Has surveillance diminished our freedom and privacy, or has it guaranteed safety and afforded greater freedom and security to vulnerable individuals?   

 

Paper topics may include public surveillance, convenience store videocameras, Abu Ghraib documentation of torture, British surveillance cameras, anti-terrorism, representations of surveillance in both documentaries and in fiction films featuring surveillance, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Gattaca and The Manchurian Candidate, etc.  Youtube, private detectives, Myspace and Facebook , twenty-four hour webcam sites, utopian and dystopian films/TV programs, ethics of surveillance, terrorism, surveillance and the law, government and institutions, voyeurism, gender, ethnicity, race, class, etc.

 

Please note that all accepted papers will be considered for an anthology

on Surveillance in the 21st Century

 

Please send your 200-word proposal by August 1, 2008 to

 

Rebecca Bell-Metereau, Chair, Surveillance and Control

Director, Media Studies Minor

Texas State University

San Marcos, Texas 78666

United States

Phone: 512-665-2157 

Email: [log in to unmask] 

 

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. Deadline for third-round proposals: August 1, 2008. 

 

This area, comprising multiple panels, is a part of the 2008 biennial Film & History Conference, sponsored by The Center for the Study of Film and History. Speakers will include founder John O'Connor and editor Peter C. Rollins (in a ceremony to celebrate the transfer to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh); Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of Visions of the Apocalypse, Disaster and Memory, and Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood; and Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University and author of Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, & the End of the World.   For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).

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