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 ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]