Calls for Papers, News, and Events 2010 & 2011
CALL FOR ESSAYS OR PROPOSALS ON CHAPLIN
Deadline: June 1 (proposals), July 15 (essays), 2011
We seek essays or proposals for essays to be included in a book of collected critical assessments of Chaplin's films and career. The objective of this collection is to present Chaplin within a wide range of current critical thought. Thus, we are especially interested in work that reflects new theoretical perspectives. Submissions must be in electronic format (.docx or .pdf preferred) as attachments to an email message to Larry Howe, Roosevelt University, (
lhowe@roosevelt.edu).
Deadline for submissions: essays (up to 6000 words) by July 15, or proposals for essays by June 1.
For more information, please contact any of the following:
James Caron: jec@sas.artsci.hawaii.edu
Benjamin Click: baclick@smcm.edu
Larry Howe: lhowe@roosevelt.edu
Call for Papers
International Conference
Shakespeare on Screen: Othello
21-22-23 June 2012
Université Paul Valéry Montpellier III (France)
Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2011
This "Othello on screen" conference is based on a partnership between the university of Le Havre and the University Paul Valéry Montpellier III and between two research centres: the GRIC (Groupe de Recherche Identités et Cultures, EA 4314, Université du Havre) and the IRCL (Institute for Research on the Renaissance, the Neo-classical Age and the Enlightenment, UMR 5186 CNRS, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier III).
This international conference will focus on the adaptations of Othello from 1908 to 2012, including Orson Welles' 1952 and Oliver Parker's 1995 versions but also the films that are built on the Shakespearean plot but prefer not to use Shakespeare's text, such as O, directed by Tim Blake Nelson in 2001. It will also focus on less full-flegded versions of Othello by inviting papers on references to the play on all kinds of screens (TV, cinema, computer).
A variety of approaches will be welcomed in this conference. The papers may examine, among other aspects:
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how the play is (textually, aesthetically, ideologically, etc.) transformed when directed for the screen;
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what each adaptation reveals about the culture in which it is set;
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how Shakespeare's playscript (or plot) interacts with national ideologies and representations
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how the screen versions have been influenced and shaped by previous theatre productions;
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how gender and racial issues are treated on screen
Proposals, including a 300-word abstract and a short bio, should be sent to:
Sarah Hatchuel (shatchuel@noos.fr) and Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin (nathalie.vienne-guerrin@univ-montp3.fr) by 30 April 2011.
Selected papers will be published in the "Shakespeare on Screen" collection, edited by Sarah Hatchuel and Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin (Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre).
This "Shakespeare on Screen" conference, focusing on Othello, will prolong the series of conferences around "Shakespeare on Screen", which have been organized at the University of Rouen between 2003 and 2008 and in Le Havre in 2010. The University of Montpellier will host the event for the first time.
What gives this cycle of conferences its coherence and specificity is that it thoroughly interrogates what Shakespearean films do with and to Shakespeare's text. All the speakers share the same interest in the screen adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, but adopt various (historical, educational, cultural, analytical, practical, intertextual) approaches, thus focusing on multiple fields of study that testify to the richness of this research field.
If one film cannot render all the ambiguities of the play text, the confrontation of multiple versions can no doubt successfully convey a multiplicity of interpretations that may merge in the spectators' minds and grow to produce a kaleidoscopic form of meaning. If Shakespearean films have a life of their own, they also reveal the multifarious facets of each play whose hybrid nature is bound to feed "translations" of all sorts. Films based on Shakespeare fall into categories whose boundaries are always being transgressed. The conferences thus encourage scholarly interrogation on what the phrase "Shakespearean film" encompasses. They provide us with diverging assessments of the films, but also deploy a wide array of methodologies used to study "Shakespeare on screen".
Different scales of analysis may be used: some papers may focus on one film or on a selection of films; others may explore one theme or one particular scene considered in a selection of films. Some papers may adopt a primarily filmic approach while others may opt for a mainly textual "Shakespearean" approach. Some papers may contextualise the conditions of production, release and reception of the films; others may explore their ideological roots and impact. Some papers may focus on adaptations while others may focus on references to the plays on screen.
Organization
Sarah Hatchuel (GRIC, Université du Havre, France, shatchuel@noos.fr)
Janice Valls-Russell (IRCL, Université Montpellier III, France, cahiers@univ-montp3.fr)
Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin (IRCL, Université de Montpellier III, France, nvienneguerrin@orange.fr; nathalie.vienne-guerrin@univ-montp3.fr)
Call for Papers
BORDER VISIONS: BORDERLANDS AND FILM
A Joint Conference of Central Connecticut State University
and the Literature/Film Association
Extended Deadline: April 30, 2011
To be held at Central Connecticut State University
New Britain, Connecticut
October 12-14, 2011
LFA (only) Abstracts to: cymiller@tiac.net
The shifting boundaries between languages and national and ethnic identities in the late 20th and early 21st century are changing the notion of borders around the world, as borderland areas become places of hybridity, cultural transfer, and exchange, but sometimes also arenas of violent conflict and segregation. The Fall of the Berlin Wall, the resulting end of the Cold War, the expansion of the European Union, and the migratory movements across the continent have led to both peaceful and violent border negotiations and the attempted definition of a "New Europe." With the end of the Cold War, the notion of the "Americas" has been changing, as well, driven by an American foreign policy dominated by border politics, especially toward Mexico and the southern borders. In Spain, the transfers on the borders to North Africa are an enduring topic, as are the border disputes in South Asia and the Middle East.
While land borders are erased and redrawn by social and political realities, conceptual borders are also challenged and reconfigured by various strategies of adaptation from page and stage to screen, as well as by the proliferation of the Internet and new technologies. At the same time, the new digital divide causes new barriers to emerge.
We would like to invite contributions that address the ways in which border conflicts and their resolutions, as well as mediations of different kinds in the borderlands, are reflected in the medium of film and the processes of adaptation. What are the newly imagined and real communities that are being shaped by border politics and how do films address the changing geographical, economic, ethnic, and cultural realities? What images of borderlands emerge from their filmic representations? How do these images influence the audiences and shape an understanding of borderlands among viewers not familiar with the local specifics? How do the filmmakers use the geographical borderlands as a metaphor to comment on other borders and boundaries: narrative, linguistic, or epistemological? How are the borders and boundaries between various media approached, reconciled, or in some cases, violated?
Our Conference proposes to be a space for debating how different communities form senses of borderlands originating from places of knowledge, politics, art, memory, and lived experience, and how these senses contribute to a changing global community. While the European borderlands are one of the main focal points of the Conference, we also welcome submissions that address borders between non-European countries (e.g. North/South borderlands in Vietnam, the Korean border, the US/Canada borderlands, the US/Mexican frontera, Afro-Arabic borders, border conflicts in Israel and the Middle East, etc.), as well as borderlands between page and screen, and conceptual borderlands, as well. We encourage submissions on both fiction and non-fiction films and on different genres or film movements.
Possible Subthemes of the Conference:
• Real/imaginary borders
• Narratives crossing the borders between literature and film
• Adaptations across national, cultural, or linguistic borders
• Language barriers and negotiations
• Modernity versus tradition
• Gender on the borderlands
• Dissolution of borders
• Anxiety about intrusion/Borderlands in horror narratives
• Violation of borders
• Visions of border zones, enclosed areas, no man's land
• New technologies and the digital divide
We invite scholars to submit 250-300 word abstracts for individual presentations (20 minutes) that address any of the proposed themes of the Conference. Abstracts, along with affiliation and contact information should be sent to cymiller@tiac.net by March 15, 2011.
CCSU organizing committee: Dr. Matthew Ciscel, Dr. Jakub Kazecki, and Dr. Karen Ritzenhoff.
LFA conference committee: Cindy Miller, Laurence Raw, and Jim Welsh.
Call for Papers
Music and the Moving Image VI
May 20-22, 2011
Deadline: December 11, 2010
The annual conference, Music and the Moving Image, encourages submissions from scholars and practitioners that explore the relationship between music, sound, and the entire universe of moving images (film, television, video games, iPod, computer, and interactive performances) through paper presentations.
In addition, this year’s conference will include a special session on teaching students about soundtracks. We invite those who teach within film, media, and/or music curricula to submit abstracts about applying particular theoretical approaches to the practice of teaching soundtracks. (For this special session, the faculty member should include with their abstract submission the courses they teach, their departmental affiliation, and the majors represented by their students.) The keynote address will be presented by Philip Tagg (Kojak: 50 Seconds of Television Music; Ten Little Title Tunes). Streaming video of the presentations will be available only at NYU from May 20-30, 2011.
The Program Committee includes Philip Tagg (see credits above); K.J.Donnelly (The Spectre of Sound, British Film Music and Film Musicals); Elsie Walker (Conversations with Directors; editor of Literature/Film Quarterly); and coeditors of Music and the Moving Image, Gillian B. Anderson (Haexan; Pandora’s Box; Music for Silent Film 1892-1929: A Guide); and NYU faculty, Ron Sadoff (The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation; Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood). The conference will run in conjunction with the NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop in Memory of Buddy Baker (May 24-June 2, 2011).
MaMI Conference website: http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/scoring/conference/
Calls for Papers, News, and Events 2009
CONFERENCE REPORT
From the Founder: Goodbye to All That?
A Report on the 2009 Literature/Film Association Conference, Carlisle, PA, October 15-18, 2009
Things change, and not always for the better, I was saddened to think while driving out of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, after having attended the 2009 Liturature/Film Assn Conference organized by the retiring David Kranz, who had decided to give us one final gift, pro bono, as he said. The weather had been wretched—even British, overcast and rainy—but at least lacking the snow that had struck the higher elevations, making “Happy Valley” less so. Dickinson had provided a very successful and satisfying conference with an elegant and fluent plenary speaker (even if he cut off one of our precocious quippersnappers at the knees when asked—I thought reasonably— if he were privileging the verbal over the visual in discussing the “essay” film. Well, maybe the problem was in the asking: “I find your privileging of language quaint,” was the way one sympathetic friend remembered it.). Post-Dickinson, perhaps some of you will have noticed the review of Phillip Lopate’s Notes on Sontag (Princeton UP, 2009) by Rachel Hadas of Rutgers University that appeared in TLS (October 16, 2009—sporting a cover portrait of a young Chas. Dickens). Praising the book, she claims that Lopate, who met Susan Sontag when he was an undergraduate at Columbia, “has given us, in the modest guise of these Notes, an extraordinarily rewarding study.” Professor Lopate, she wrote, has “the thoroughness and clarity of a latter-day Edmund Wilson and an urbanity and wit that are all his own” (p.29). Perhaps you noticed?
This year’s achievement award was granted to the always remarkably composed past-President Peter Lev of Towson University, whom I consider the Perry Como of conference presenters, by which I mean that he has a particular genius for putting his audience at ease, besides being knowledgeable. The Conference had a terrific turn-out, pulling back regulars like Bill Bartley from snowy Saskatchewan and newcomers like Rick Wallach from sunny Miami. So I am obviously grateful to David Kranz, Nancy Mellerski, Cindy Miller, Linda Cahir, Tom Leitch, and others on the program committee I haven’t met. Having said all this, why, then, should I be depressed?
Because with David retired and Nancy Mellerski stepping down as President, I am afraid the string of conferences at Dickinson College might well be broken. It is, after all, a perfect venue for small conferences. All activities were confined to five conveniently-located campus buildings, and the campus itself is located only a short walk from the Comfort Suites Carlisle downtown, surrounded by festive boutiques and yuppie fernbars, with Fay’s for brunch just down Hanover Street. The hotel staff was constantly attentive and helpful and, well, Comfort-ing. When a forgetful Presenter “X” discovered he had left his paper in Kansas, for example, could a crisis be averted? No problem: the desk staff at the Comfort Suites quickly and cheerfully provided e-mail back-up with excellent printing capacity. So what if there was a loud wedding reception later on? All was forgiven.
Towson is the only other conference facility I know that can begin to compete with Dickinson College. Folks were certainly helpful at the University of Kansas, but the Union facilities there were atop Mt. Oread, causing logistical problems for conferees staying downtown in Lawrence. The University of the Bosphorus was simply spectacular, I can tell you, but also (alas) Istanbul is Out There on the cusp of Asia, and very expensive to get to. And Salisbury and Ocean City I fear are only memories of the distant and receeding past. So places like Dickinson and Towson are greatly to be valued. Next year we shall attempt to find happiness (and Love, perhaps?) in Milwaukee, cozied up to Film + History. (Actually, I am rather looking forward to Milwaukee, even if historians are something of a different breed.) And after that, who knows? An interesting possibility may exist in northern Ohio, not so far from the Pennsylvania border. But meanwhile, thank you David and Nancy for an excellent conference in 2009. Enjoy your retirement, David, but please don’t stop writing, and please do join us later.
Jim Welsh, LFA Founder
Founding Editor, Literature/Film Quarterly
Salisbury University Emeritus
LITERATURE/FILM QUARTERLY SPECIAL ISSUE
Focus: Papers Presented at the Literature/Film Association Conference 2009
Deadline: January 15, 2010
Presenters at the 2009 Literature/Film Association (LFA) conference are invited to submit their work for publication in a special issue of Literature/Film Quarterly; this special issue will be created by members of the LFA as well as the editorial board of Literature/Film Quarterly. Submissions will go through a peer-review process before being accepted for publication. Only presentations from the 2009 conference are eligible for submission; they should, however, be revised for publication in an academic journal and according to the guidelines below.
Although presenters are welcome to submit essays on any topic presented at LFA 2009, priority for the issue will be given to those articles which focus upon conference themes of technology, intertextuality, and adaptation in postmodernity.
Each submission should be approximately 5,000 words, be double-spaced in 12 pt. Times New Roman, referenced in the New MLA Style and sent as a text file document (in Microsoft Word 98, 2000, 2003, or 2007 format). Each submission should be sent in duplicate hard copies (with text file on CD) to:
The Editors
Literature/Film Quarterly
Salisbury University
1101 Camden Ave.
Salisbury, MD 21801
[USA]
Submissions may also be emailed to litfilmquart@salisbury.edu (please ensure confirmation of receipt). The deadline for submission is January 15, 2010.
If you have questions regarding this special issue, please contact the journal at litfilmquart@salisbury.edu
FILM & HISTORY/LFA CONFERENCE 2010
"Representing Love in Film and Television"
November 11-14, 2010
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Milwaukee WI
Second-Round Deadline for All Areas: March 1, 2010
Be sure to join the Literature/Film Association in 2010, for their joint conference with Film & History, "Representing Love in Film and Television," to be held November 11-14, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, in Milwaukee, WI. The onference will look at how love, inits many guises, forms, contexts and historical moments, has been represented and interpreted in moving image entertainment. Examinations of any facet of love, from the most brutal, to the most divine, are welcome.
Director and film theorist, Dr. Laura Mulvey, will be appearing as the keynote speaker. Dr. Mulvey, professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, is widely known for her influential essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975), and is also the author of Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image (2006), and Fetishism and Curiosity (1996), along with numerous articles. Her films, co-written and co-directed with Peter Wollen, are recognized for their complex explorations of identity, symbolism, and the female experience.
Submissions of papers, panels, and area proposals for the conference are currently being accepted. Please consult the Film & History website
for a list of active areas and their chairs, or email Director of Communications, Cynthia Miller, at cymiller@tiac.net, for additional information.
ADAPTATION SECTION, NATIONAL POPULAR CULTURE ASSOCIATION/AMERICAN CULTURE ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE 2010
March 30-April 3, 2010
Renaissance Grand Hotel, St. Louis, Missouri
Deadline: 30 November 2009
Adapting Politics
Papers on any and all aspects of adaptation will be considered, but we are particularly interested in politically charged adaptations this year. Film adaptations have, since their earliest days, been vehicles for political messages. The blockbuster status of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915), adapted from Thomas Dixion’s The Clansman, popularized Griffith’s bombastic political message of racism and segregation. Later film adaptations were often more subtle with their messages. Robert Wise’s 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still took a more or less innocuous Harry Bates adventure story and adapted it into a criticism of cold war militarism and the nuclear arms race. In that same year Howard Hawks made his own cold war statement film, this time adapting John Campbell’s science fiction thriller “Who Goes There” into The Thing From Another World (1951). Unlike Wise’s film, and Campbell’s short story, Hawks’s adaptation celebrates the role of the military as our only hope for survival in an increasingly dangerous world. High Noon (1952) is another ‘50s film that took a genre (this time the western) and an adventure story (John Cunningham’s “The Tin Star”) and turned them toward political ends. This year we’d like to take a special look at adaptations that have distinct political goals.
As always, we consider “adaptation” a way of looking at texts more than a particular brand of texts. Thus we welcome papers on video game adaptations, new media adaptations, literature to literature adaptations, and radio adaptations along with film adaptations. Papers on any and all aspects of adaptation (not just politics) will be considered.
Please send proposals as soon as possible to Dr. Dennis Cutchins (dennis_cutchins@byu.edu). More information on the conference can be found at
http://www.pcaaca.org/conference/national.php
LITERATURE/FILM ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2009
October 15-18, 2009
Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
Deadline: 15 August 2009
“Texts, Technologies, and Intertextualities: Film Adaptation in a Postmodern World”
Paper proposals are invited from ALL AREAS of adaptation studies and film or media studies. Proposals relevant to the conference title above, including questions about graphic novels, comics, CGI, HD/Blue-ray television, home theater/surround sound, YouTube and other internet media, adapted screenplays, remakes, etc., are especially encouraged. Also of significant interest are papers on literature/film theory, film and history, national cinemas, international cinematic influences, cultural and political issues related to film/media, and concepts of race/class/gender/sexual orientation in lit/film contexts. We welcome as well papers comparing a single film and its source text, individual film analyses, auteur studies, and fresh looks at traditional genres and subgenres like film noir, war films, Shakespeare films, biopics, romantic comedies, and so on.
Proposal abstracts should be 300-500 words in length (eventual papers must be read in no more than 20 minutes) and are due by 15 August 2009. Send by email attachment to David Kranz, LFA 2009 Conference Director, at kranz@dickinson.edu. Proposals sent by regular mail should be addressed to David Kranz at Dept. of English, Dickinson College, P.O. Box 1773, Carlisle, PA 17013. Rolling notifications of acceptance will arrive over the summer and by 1 September 2009 at the latest.
Conference Registration Fees: $100 before 25 September 2009 and $125 thereafter. Fees for graduate students and retired professionals: $75 before 25 September 2009 and $100 thereafter. Make checks out to Dickinson College and mail to David Kranz at the address above.
LFA Dues: All conference attendees must be now or soon become members of LFA. To join and pay 2009 dues of $20, please go to our website at http://alpha.dickinson.edu/departments/film/lfa/membership.htm
and use our PayPal feature or send a check to
Tina Lent, Professor and Chair, Fine Arts Department
College of Liberal Arts
Rochester Institute of Technology
92 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623-5604
Call for Papers:
Film and Science: Fictions, Documentaries, and Beyond
Biennial Conference by the Center for the Study of Film and History
30 October 2008 – 2 November 2008
Chicago, Illinois USA
Website: www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: August 1, 2008
Download the conference poster here.
The Center for the Study of Film and History, publisher of the scholarly journal, Film & History, will conduct its 5th biennial conference, “Film and Science: Fictions, Documentaries, and Beyond,” in Chicago, October 30 - November 2, 2008, at The Westin O’Hare Hotel.
The third-round deadline for the submission of abstracts and inquires is August 1, 2008, but panels are being formed now, and prompt submissions find the most compatible scheduling and contexts.
A wide range of areas, concerns, and historical eras will be represented at the conference, including scientific icons, animation, exploration, extraterrestrials, and forensics, and the work of filmmakers such as David Cronenberg and Steven Spielberg. Each area will consist of multiple panels, so opportunities abound. A complete listing of areas and their detailed calls for papers may be found on the Film & History website, along with contact information for area chairs. Abstracts may be sent directly to the chair of your chosen area, or to either Loren PQ Baybrook, the new director of the Center (filmandhistory@uwosh.edu), or Cynthia Miller, the Call-for-Papers Manager (cymiller@tiac.net).
Featured speakers will include special-effects legend Stan Winston. Also scheduled for plenary sessions are noted scholars Wheeler Winston Dixon (author of Visions of the Apocalypse, Disaster and Memory, and Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood) and Sidney Perkowitz (author of Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, & the End of the World).
Several publication opportunities will derive from the conference, ranging from proceedings to themed journal issues to edited volumes by publishers who will attend the event to talk with scholars.
Additional information on conference registration, accommodations, and other details may be found on the website. Conference registration fees include a full year of the journal, but a separate online subscription form for Film & History is available for individuals who would like to begin receiving the journal immediately.
Inquiries: filmandhistory@uwosh.edu
Web address: www.filmandhistory.org
Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Film and History.
New Website:
The Literature/Film Association now has a website: click here (or above) for their new home on the web! As the website itself notes, "The Literature/Film Association, established in 1989, encourages a wide variety of approaches to the study of cinema, with special focus on the relationship of literature and film. It supports and promotes cinema studies, largely by planning and running an annual conference of film scholars from across the country and around the globe." On their new website, you'll find a comprehensive newsletter on various events in the association, information on upcoming conferences, and also instructions for becoming a member. One excellent feature of their most recent newsletter includes "Favorite Adaptations to Teach," in which a number of scholars reflect candidly on their adaptation pedagogy. If you are at all interested in the study of adaptation, this association is well worth becoming a part of.
Periodically Yours: Plugging the Bosphorus, and then some
by Jim Welsh
Founder, Literature/Film Association, and Co-Founding Editor, Literature/Film Quarterly
[Part of this article also appears on the Literature/Film Association Newsletter, posted at their website here.]
Once upon a time, back when I fancied myself somehow in demand, I wrote a column called “Periodically Yours” that ran irregularly in a half-dozen newspapers, in Literature/Film Quarterly, then in American Classic Screen, and even, for a while, in Filmviews, in Australia. I thought (being me) the title was pretty clever, since the column appeared “periodically” and since the subject, after all, was “periodicals”—mainly film periodicals, but I’ve since grown up. Now that I am retired, my interests are running more towards academic conferences, where I still keep running into periodicals. There was the promise of a new periodical, for example, at that conference at Oglethorpe University last year, which resulted ion the publication of Adaptation this past March.
But wait—there’s still another possibility! At Popular Culture national in San Francisco Easter weekend of 2008 I met the outgoing and extraordinary Richard J. Hand, who worked his rhetorical legerdemain both at the conference and on the radio, since he was also involved in mounting a play out in the City By the Bay. Richard presented me with Vol.1, No.1 of his new Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, which celebrated its first issue just a bit earlier than Adaptation in November, 2007. Richard teaches at the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries (!) at the University of Glamorgan in Wales and, having met with him, I only wish I could attend his forthcoming conference in Cardiff (one of my favorite cities in the country my surname belongs to) in June 2008, but, alas, it’s too late for me, were I bright enough to qualify. Anyone else interested, however, should write to rhand@glam.ac.uk.
Therefore, I’ll just have to settle for the delights of Istanbul, courtesy of Laurence Raw and his friends running the American Studies Assn. of Turkey, when the next Literature/Film Assn. Conference convenes at the University of the Bosphorus on October 10th, 2008. This will be my next stop in my continuing quest for friendly conferences—though I must say it will be hard to top the continuing Geműtlichkeit of Albuquerque (Southwest/Texas PCA/ACA) and San Francisco (PCA/ACA national), or, for that matter, the wonderfully named ShInE Conference in Iaşi, Moldavia (“Shakespeare In Europe,” hooray for Balz Engler and Odette Blumenfeld, et al.—see my literaturecompass blog for Blackwell for pictures and details) The topic for our Istanbul Conference is “Adapting America/America Adapted” and American and British scholars are eagerly sought. Moreover, simply the best plenary speaker I know has been invited to keynote. Laurence Raw (no doubt on his way back to Ankara as I write) promises an excellent evening of “Fish by the Bosphorus,” combining conversation and cuisine in a Turkish-delightful way, so that a good time may be had by all. Laurence has just published a new book, entitled Adapting Nathaniel Hawthorne to the Screen (Scarecrow Press, 2008), so send him your congratulations and conference proposals at l_rawjalaurence@yahoo.com [Editor's Note: The CFP for the conference appears below. To access, click here.]
In closing, another word of congratulations to the redoubtable Dr. Tibbetts, who organized the last LFA Conference at the University of Kansas in 2007, for John Tibbetts has been named a 2008 recipient of the Kansas Governor’s Art Award for Arts in Education. Meanwhile, John is working to complete his book on the British director Tony Palmer, whose work will be far better known in the United States (we hope!) after the release of Tony’s television history of popular music. Stay tuned for that (featuring the Rolling Stones and the Beatles; John Lennon, encouraged by Palmer’s 1968 rock documentary All My Loving, approached Tony Palmer to suggest that he undertake a documentary of the whole pop music scene, with Lennon securing interviews with many of the rockers profiled), and watch the forthcoming titles from Southern Illinois University Press.
I should probably also mention another book about to be uttered (a display copy had been printed up for the PCA/ACA San Francisco conference): Conversations with Directors: An Anthology of Interviews from Literature/Film Quarterly (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008), edited by Elsie Walker and Dave Johnson. In a way, no one would be better qualified to evaluate these interviews, since I originally vetted, solicited, and encouraged all but two of them. The collection begins with Gerry Barrett’s interview with Jonas Mekas. At the time Gerry, a friend and colleague of Tom Erskine’s at the University of Delaware, was one of the three original editors of LFQ (in fact, I remember driving with the two of them through the roadside attractions of Terre Haute, Indiana, on our way to the 1975 Popular Culture Association national conference in St. Louis). Gerry Barrett moved on from Delaware to Texas, but, years later, lo and behold, his enthusiasm resulted not in a book on Mekas, but in the G.K. Hall volume Stan Brakhage: A Guide to References and Resources (1983). Barrett was our go-to guy then for interviews, as evidenced by his second interview, this time with William Friedkin, addressing, initially, The Exorcist. (We should have interviewed Jordan Leondopoulus, who was Friedkin’s supervising film editor on The Exorcist and who, later taught cinema, and, for a while, became a regular at LFA conferences and lectured as my guest at Salisbury, where he described what it was like to work with “Hurricane Billy.”) Ah, sweet nostalgia.
I certainly remember two of the interviews I was most proud to have published: Krystyna Przybylska’s “Interview with Andrzej Wajda” (1977), and Royal S. Brown’s “Alain Robbe-Grillet” (1989). I remember the latter because it happened quite by accident. In a conversation with Royal Brown on something to do, perhaps, with music and film, he mentioned that Robbe-Grillet would be on his campus as a guest lecturer, and I flipped. The spokesman for the nouveau roman and the writer-director of the cinema’s greatest puzzler, Last Year at Marienbad? Please, Royal, I begged, will you interview him for us if possible, and he did, making my career as editor worthwhile, and justifying my very existence.
Speaking of whom, Royal S. Brown kept a regular column called “Film Musings” for almost twenty years for Fanfare magazine, where he also served as music editor, besides his academic career as chair of the Department of European Languages and Literatures and director of Film Studies at Queens College, New York. About half of what he wrote for that column has now been published under the title Film Musings (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007), in an oversized volume that runs to 417 pages. The organization is bothersome, by month and year, though a Film Index is provided to help readers find what may be of interest. Check out the entry for Eyes Wide Shut (pp. 320-322) and you’ll soon discover that the interest and scope of these “musings” go beyond film music, which Brown discusses, from Shotakovich’s Jazz Suite No. 2 to Gyorgy Ligrti’s Musica Ricercata, II. Of course, Royal knows music, but he is also worth listening to when explaining that the film is not simply about sex, but, rather, about a “patriarchal male’s displacement of his sexuality onto or into such things as impossible wealth, voyeurism, game playing, aesthetics, and, ultimately, death.” Such examples abound, but see also the tributes to film composer Miklós Rózsa (pp.179-180) and George Korngold (pp. 47-48). Too bad that the book may at first glance seem too specialized for readers who might really enjoy reading it.
____________________________________________________
Jim Welsh, Emeritus Co-Founding Editor of LFQ, is working on his 17th and 18th books. His last published effort was The [as yet unreviewed] Literature/Film Reader: Issues of Adaptation, edited with Peter Lev for Scarecrow Press in 2007. He has recently been invited to join the Advisory Board of The Journal of American Culture, where he has been quietly working with Book Review Editor Ray Browne, the Founder of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association.
The sometimes contentious Jim Welsh can be reached at jxwelsh@salisbury.edu but be advised, though not by nature a backbiter, he may bite back.
American Studies Association of Turkey
33rd Annual American Studies Conference
In collaboration with
The
Literature Film Association (LFA)
Adapting America/America Adapted
October 8 – 10, 2008
Bogazici University
Istanbul, Turkey
This conference seeks to define a new agenda for adaptation studies, specifically, as a branch of American Studies that not only encompasses literature and visual media, but also a wide-range of subject areas including, but not limited to, history, anthropology, political science, philosophy, sociology, the performing arts, and cultural/ethnic studies. By looking at adaptation in relation to the United States, we seek to investigate a variety of culturally and historically transformative strategies. We also seek to examine how the process of adaptation has been influenced by social, ideological and political factors both inside and outside the United States.
While, traditionally, adaptation refers to the transformation of literary texts into different forms of media (e.g., films and television programs), the concept of adaptation can also be applied to other disciplines. Historians engage in process of negotiating or "adapting" various histories, or dialogues, when they tell the story of a nation; politicians adapt/adopt different philosophies, at different times, to suit their particular interests; and artists and musicians adapt/adopt a broad range of cultural signifiers when creating new works, conventions, and/or trends.
The American Studies Association of Turkey invites proposals that consider adaptation, broadly conceived. We particularly encourage proposals which incorporate transdisciplinary explorations of adaptation, and welcome proposals from any field of study. Possible themes include, but are not limited to:
Processes/purposes of adaptation
Adaptation and its motives (e.g., intentionality)
Adapting history for political reasons/historical reinvention
Popular history: creation and reception
Foreign policy and adaptation
Audience and adaptation
Trans or intercultural adaptation
Cultural outcomes/products of adaptation (hybridity, creolization, metissage, mestizaje)
Racial adaptation ("passing")
Musical adaptation (e.g., sampling in rap music)
Artistic adaptation
Cross-cultural adaptation (e.g., African elements in American Jazz/Blues)
Lingual adaptation (e.g., ebonics)
Transformation/transmutation of ideas
(Re)creation/simulacra
Mimicry, authenticity, and adaptation
Forced adaptation (e.g., colonization, imperialism)
Americanization, assimilation, acculturation
Indigenous adaptation
Identity and adaptation
The appeal/limits of adaptation
Sex/gender adaptation (e.g., transvestitism, berdachism)
Conscious adaptation (e.g., metafiction)
Self-writing (e.g., transforming personal experiences into literature)
Biopics
Pastiches/parodies/satire
Literature/film adaptation
Video/board games and popular songs based on classic films and/or literary texts
Architectural adaptation
Semiotics of adaptation
Psychological/emotional adaptation
Pedagogical applications of adaptation
The time
allowance for all presentations is 20 minutes. An
additional 10 minutes will be provided for discussion.
Proposals for papers, panels, performances, exhibits,
and other modes of creative expression should be sent to
both Louis Mazzari (louis_mazzari@hotmail.com)
and Tanfer Emin Tunc (asat2007@gmail.com)
and should consist of a 250 - 300 word abstract in
English, as well as a 1 - 2 paragraph biographical
description for each participant. Alternatively LFA
members may also send a proposal to the LFA
representative on the conference organizing committee,
Laurence Raw (l_rawjalaurence@yahoo.com).
Deadline for submission of proposals: May 31, 2008
Notification for acceptance of proposals: August 15, 2008
Co-sponsored by the Embassy of the United States
Calls for Papers, News, and Events 2007
Literature/Film Association Conference 2007
University of Kansas, Lawrence
October 11-14, 2007
Primary Focus:
Adapting Theatre into Film & Television
Also related issues of screen adaptation covering all genres
REGISTER ON-LINE NOW (CLICK HERE)
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE NOW AVAILABLE
(CLICK HERE)
Updated Call for Papers
11-14 October 2007, The University of Kansas, Lawrence
Featured Speakers Announced:
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Director and Playwright, Neil LaBute
Film Scholar, Dr. Frank Manchel
Theatre and Vaudeville Scholar, Dr. Andrew Erdman. (See below for more information)
Primary Theme: Adaptations of Theatre
into Film and Television. Papers are also invited from
all areas of literature/film studies, including
adaptations and remakes, literature/film theory, history
and film, biography and film, genre topics, social
issues (including race, class and gender studies),
auteur studies, and individual film analyses. The
Theatre/Film focus should not be regarded as
restrictive.
Proposals: 300-500 word abstracts due 15
August 2007. Send to
tibbetts@ku.edu and copy
jxwelsh@salisbury.edu,
cymiller@tiac.net,
and
tom.prasch@washburn.edu.
About Our Speakers:
Neil LaBute: Director, screenwriter, and
playwright, Neil LaBute is known for his edgy and often
unsettling portrayals of relationships. A recipient of
awards and nominations from the Sundance Film Festival,
the New York Film Critics Circle, the Society of Texas
Film Critics, and the Independent Spirit Awards, among
others, LaBute is known for theatrical productions and
films alike, including In the Company of Men, Nurse
Betty, Your Friends and Neighbors, Wicker Man, Fat Pig,
and In a Dark, Dark, House, among others.
Dr. Frank Manchel: A foundational scholar
in the field of film studies, Dr. Manchel's work in the
areas of film history and criticism has guided and
informed generations of film scholarship. He is the
author of numerous volumes, including Terrors of the
Screen (1970), Box Office Clowns: From Bob Hope
to Woody Allen (1979), Gangsters on the Screen
(1978) Great Science Fiction Films (1982), and
the four-volume Film Study: An Analytical
Bibliography (1990), along with countless articles
in scholarly journals. Dr. Manchel has had an extensive
career teaching in the departments of both English and
Communications at the University of Vermont, where he
also served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences for more than a decade. He is currently
Professor Emeritus of English and Film at the
University, and is celebrating the release of his latest
volume, Every Step a Struggle: Interviews with Seven
Who Shaped the African-American Image in Movies (New
Academia Publishing, 2007), critically acclaimed as
"must reading for anyone interested in the cultural
politics of race in America."
Dr. Andrew Erdman: Author of Blue
Vaudeville: Sex, Morals and the Mass Marketing of
Amusement, 1895-1915 (McFarland, 2003), Andrew
Erdman has taught film, theater, writing, and media
studies at a number of New York Universities. His work
has appeared in Theatre Studies, The Theatre
Annual, and The Bulletin of Biography, as
well as Fortune and National Lampoon. Dr.
Erdman has also written for LifetimeTV.com, VH1, and the
stage ("Likeable War Criminals" 2000), and is also
featured as an expert in the documentary film, The
Original Mermaid: The Amazing Story of Annette Kellerman,
about a famous swimmer-turned-vaudevillian, produced for
the Australian Broadcasting Company. He is currently at
work on a biography of Eva Tanguay (1878-1947), the
so-called "Queen of Vaudeville."
Conference Director
Dr. John C. Tibbetts, Associate Chair
Department of Theatre and Film
The University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas 66045
Co-Directors
Jim Welsh, LFA Founder, Salisbury University emeritus
Tom Prasch, Washburn University, Topeka, KS/
Cynthia J. Miller, Emerson College, Boston, MA.
Sponsored by The Literature/Film Association, the
University of Kansas Department of Theatre & Film, and
the Hall Center for the Humanities (Lawrence, KS).
The Association
The Literature/Film Association was established in 1989 as an outgrowth of Literature/Film Quarterly, its editors, contributors and supporters, to provide for expedient conference planning and to encourage humanistic approaches to cinema studies. The first LFA conference was held at Salisbury State College in Maryland in 1980. Subsequent conferences have been held at Towson University in Baltimore, at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, at Arizona State University, the University of Rhode Island, Ashland, Oregon, and at the University of Bath in England. Jim Welsh, co-founding editor of Literature/Film Quarterly, was first President of the Association. The line of succession has included Tom Leitch of the University of Delaware, Peter Lev of Towson University, David Kranz of Dickinson College, and our current President, Nancy Mellerski of Dickinson College. John Tibbetts, our Conference Director for 2007, has served as Vice-President of the Association.
Jim Welsh
LFA Founder
Hotel Facilities:
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Spring Hill Suites Riverfront Marriott,
Holiday Inn, Holidome
Hampton Inn
Please Note: LFA Conference rates will apply only if rooms are booked by 11 September 2007. Rooms may be scarce thereafter, since on the Saturday of the Conference KU will host a home football game.
Parking at the Kansas Union should be available for $6.50 per diem. Best to arrive early on Saturday, however, because parking can be scarce on football weekends.
Location: Lawrence, Kansas, is located 35 miles west of Kansas City Airport (MCI), where cars can be rented. There is also an airport shuttle service to Lawrence. The University of Kansas is located on a hill (called Mount Oread) that overlooks the city of Lawrence. Spring Hill Suites are situated downtown on the Kansas River. Lawrence, one of the most livable cities in the Midwest, has a functioning "main street" (Massachusetts Avenue) where conferees will find decent restaurants, and many delightful shops, including a Borders for the bookish.
A PDF of the original conference brochure is available for download here.
The Association of Literature on Screen Studies
2nd Annual Conference
This year’s conference will be in Atlanta, 20-22 September 2007. Anyone interested in submitting a paper should contact the seminar leaders below. Papers will be selected for publication for the first issue of the international journal, _ Adaptations: The Journal of Literature on Screen Studies_ (OUP). Any suggestions for further panels should be directed to the organiser, Barton Palmer, Department of English, Clemson University at ppalmer@Clemson.edu or visit our website http://www.literatureonscreen.com. A complete programme and additional seminars and panels will follow.
Panels proposed so far include:
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Children’s Literature on Screen Deborah Cartmell: djc@dmu.ac.uk
Film and the Critical Tradition Timothy Corrigan: tcorriga@sas.upenn.edu
The Literatures of Film: screenplays, film romans, film reviews Kamilla Elliott: k.elliott@lancaster.ac.uk
Parody and Adaptations Douglas Lanier: doug.lanier@unh.edu
Videogame adaptations Ian Hunter: iqhunter@dmu.ac.uk
Victorianism and Neo-Victorian Literature on Screen Eckart Voigts-Vircow: voigts-virchow@anglistik.uni-siegen.de
'Chick Flicks': Women's Writing on Screen Imelda Whelehan: imw@dmu.ac.uk
The Screenwriter and the Director Jack Boozer: jousb@langate.gsu.edu
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