CAUCUS ON CLASS NEWSLETTER -- SOCIETY FOR CINEMA STUDIES February 1997 ________________________________________________________________________________ Terri Ginsberg, Chair, 80 Central Park West #15H, New York, New York 10023 Semester's greetings to all SCS Caucus on Class members and affiliates! This memo is to update you on Caucus on Class activities for the academic year 1996-97. First, in case you haven't been Web-surfing in the direction of SCS, you may wish to visit the Caucus on Class Web site, which has been in operation since August of last year. There, you will find posted our Caucus mission statement, 1997 conference information, links to numerous other progressive and left-oriented organizations and sites, and a "guest book" for your comments, critiques, and suggestions, which are all welcome and greatly encouraged. The URL address is: http://pages.nyu.edu/~tjg9373/ . It may also be accessed via the SCS home page, located at: http://www.cinemastudies.org. Second, and more important, are our plans for the upcoming SCS conference in Ottawa (May 15-18, 1997). This year, the Caucus on Class will host two panels, co-host one workshop (with the Graduate Student Caucus), and sponsor the screenings of two films. Our first panel is entitled "Class Politics, Criminal Pleasures, 'Noir' and 'Neo-Noir'" and includes the following papers: 1) "Film Noir's Inverted Dream of Home" -- Paul Arthur (Montclair State U.) 2) "Middle-Class Values Under the Neo-Noir Light in the Coen Brothers' Films: From BLOOD SIMPLE to FARGO" -- Carol L. Robinson (Middle Georgia College) 3) "The Resistance of the 'Femme Fatale' Reconsidered" -- Jennifer Carrig (Arizona State U.) 4) "Home Is Where the Gun/Syringe/Cleanser Is: 'Film Noir' and the Criminal Class in PULP FICTION" -- Robert Bodle (Arizona State U.) As is evident by these titles, this panel has been constituted to enable critique of the current (re)turn to film noir in both the film industry and film scholarship, and to open the question of "noir" onto a more materially-based terrain. Our second panel is entitled "Fundamentalist Fictions: Politics and/of Hermeneutics in Contemporary Moving-Image Culture" and includes the following papers: 1) "Hollywood Fundamentalism and the Global Phallus: Queer Dependence, Alien High-Tech Labor, and Global Consumption in INDEPENDENCE DAY" -- Joseba Gabilondo (Bryn Mawr College) 2) "Casuistry and Historical Reaction in Eli Cohen's THE QUARREL" -- Terri Ginsberg (NYU) 3) "Nostalgia for the Organic-Redemptive in Contemporary Body Theory and Horror Film" -- Kent Casper (U. of Colorado, Denver) Clearly the focus here is on the rightward turn in interpretive cinematic and cine-theoretical strategies, including those associated with the politics of identity and its latest discursive development, the new cultural religiosity. The workshop we are co-hosting with the Graduate Student Caucus is entitled "Labor and the Contemporary Academy: A Collective Workshop." Special guest speakers are: 1) Gordon Lafer (GESO/Yale U.) 2) Jerry Lee Lembcke (Jobs With Justice/Holy Cross College) 3) Paula Willoquet-Maricondi (Indiana U.) The focus of this workshop will coincide critically with that of this year's Plenary, which focuses on strategies for ensuring the future of film/tv studies vis-a-vis the monumental structural, systemic, and institutional shifts that have been developing across academia, and certainly follows from issues raised, inter alia, by the Caucus on Class/Graduate Student Caucus joint statement to the Executive Council (included in the Fall 1996 SCS mailing; also available at http://www.uwm.edu/People/jamesp/scsite/draft.html) and the Coordinating Committee on Race, Class and Gender's letter to the SCS President (a greatly revised and updated version of which was finally sent, after much lively and often heated debate across the CAUCUS-L listserver, to Janice Welsch in early October; copies are available upon request). Finally, the two films we will be screening at the Ottawa conference are: 1) STRUGGLES IN STEEL (dir. Tony Buba and Ray Henderson, USA, 1995) Description: When a local television station did a program about the closing of a major steel mill in Duquesne, outside of Pittsburgh, Ray Henderson, a former mill employee who had worked there for 15 years, couldn't help notice that not one black worker was shown. This despite the fact that African-American workers had formed a critical part of the labor force in western Pennsylvania for 125 years. With his old friend and independent filmmaker, Tony Buba, Henderson set out to collaborate on a history of African-Americans and their contributions not just to the steel industry, but to the labor movement itself. Through eloquent living witnesses and revelatory archival footage, STRUGGLES IN STEEL presents a striking counterpoint to the stereotypical black male image. 2) GAY CUBA (dir. Sonja deVries, Cuba/USA, 1995) Description: With a dynamic cast of characters, including a radio show host, a union leader, a drag queen and a musician, GAY CUBA takes us through the personal experiences of family, society, politics and culture for lesbian and gay Cubans. Including stunning archival footage, the film demonstrates the sometimes contradictory and always changing reality of a society that considers itself to be "in the 36th year of revolution." If you are unable to attend the conference and would like distribution information on these films, please contact me at the address or telephone number listed above, or via e-mail. As always, I encourage as many of you as possible to attend the conference. Your presence and participation are needed now more than ever. For the convenience of those of you who do plan to attend, I will be sending out a brief pre-conference reminder notice in early May, in which will be listed times and dates of our Caucus on Class events as well as those of other caucuses and individuals which should be of interest to Caucus on Class members and affiliates. Best wishes for a productive Spring semester. ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]