Call For Papers – Rethinking Film Genres: East Asian Cinema and Beyond (University of Hull, 14-15 September 2017)

​What is film genre? Does it still matter in today’s film production, distribution and consumption? How have some film genres become so closely associated with a nation or region, such as Chinese martial arts films, Japanese horror, and Korean melodrama? The fact that genre is widely discussed by the general public suggests that it is still important. However, the examination of genre theory and the scholarly discussion of genres have remained predominantly focussed on Hollywood and European cinemas, as exemplified by the work of scholars such as Thomas Schatz, Steve Neale, Barry Keith Grant, Rick Altman, Belén Vidal, and Antonio Lázaro-Reboll. Despite their rich screen culture and their influence within and beyond the Pacific region, East Asian cinemas remain under explored. In today’s context of increasingly international filmmaking, we would aim to explore the ways in which film genres underpin cultural translation between East Asia and beyond.

As the theme of ‘Rethinking Film Genres: East Asian Cinema and Beyond’ suggests, the conference intends not only to celebrate cinematic creativity through the interrogation of the narrative and aesthetics of film genres developed in East Asian (including mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean) cinemas, but also seek to expand scholarly discussion of the rich heritage and fast changing landscape of filmmaking of East Asian cinemas by examining the international co-production and cross-cultural consumption of film genres.

We therefore invite papers based on either theoretical research or on case studies to address any of following themes:

• Narrative, style and aesthetics of various genres of East Asian cinemas
• Film genre and local, regional, national and global identities of East Asian cinemas
• Cross-cultural consumption of East Asian film genres
• Fandom and East Asian film genres
• Creative professionals (e.g. stars, directors, producers, production designers) and film genres of East Asian cinemas
• Cross-border mobility (e.g. talents, finance, ideas) and the development of film genres in East Asian cinemas
• International filmmaking, coproduction and genre crossing between East Asian cinemas and other screen cultures
• Remaking and adaptation of East Asian films
• Sound, music and language (e.g. dubbing, subtitles, dialects) of East Asian film genres
• International distribution and exhibition of East Asian film genres
• Genre as a reflection of cultural flow, social economics, media policies, and political history

This is not an exhaustive list of thematic strands that we hope to explore at the conference. We particularly encourage submissions from those whose papers promote cross-disciplinary dialogue and critical debate in area studies, genre theory, film studies and cultural studies.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Professor Chris Berry, King’s College London

Professor Michael Berry, University of California, Los Angeles

Professor Shaoyi Sun, Shanghai Theatre Academy

Please submit your proposal (maximum 250 words), together with a short biography (maximum 50 words) and affiliation information to Dr. Lin Feng at Eastasiancinema@hull.ac.uk by 15 April 2017.

​CFP: For a Cosmopolitan Cinema

Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media

http://www.alphavillejournal.com/

Issue 14 (Winter 2017)

The 14^th issue
of Alphaville aims to address the recent cosmopolitan turn in film studies in an attempt to investigate
the international orientation of contemporary cinema in this age of intense crosscultural contact, transnational dislocations, and consumption of ethnicity. In a globalised context marked by the normalisation, and mediation of foreignness in everyday life,
cinema has been established as a fundamental cosmopolitan agent due to its ability to promote transcultural access to places, spaces and subjectivities.

In this regard, by proposing the idea of cosmopolitan cinema, we wish to articulate the migratory and mobile aspect of world cinemas, by focusing on how cinematic
texts negotiate their cultural specificities and forge intercultural connections in order to encourage border crossing. Also, our conception of cosmopolitan cinema embraces a possible practice or perspective that engages with notions of cultural diversity,
otherness, and hybridity with a positive and open disposition, rather than succumb to the specificities of a national cinema, or restrict ourselves to binary oppositions that separate self and other.

A cosmopolitan perspective for film studies, thus, cherishes difference by mapping the trajectories of interactive becomings between cultures as a mode of critical
practice that moves beyond the singular goal of universalism, and towards a mediation of contemporary interactions. Paul Willemen (2006) suggests a mode of outsideness or in-betweenness, which would forge a safe space from which to critically engage with personal
and cultural dispositions. This, in turn, poses a number of interesting questions concerning modes of address. To whom is a cosmopolitan cinema being addressed? Can it manifest the internal struggle between self and other, through open cultural interactions?
Does it concern those of no address or fixed abode, occupying a space that lies between the laws that govern city and state?

The forthcoming issue of
Alphaville, to be published in Winter 2017, will be guided by such ideas, welcoming articles
interested in approaching cosmopolitan cinema, questioning how it relates to a globalised context marked by postnational states, neoliberalism, postcolonial relationships, bureaucratic, (il)legal, and virtual modes of migration, transnational encounters, the
weakening of national identities and modes of being, and more. Finally, we also aim to cover how the multiple projects, imaginations and understandings of cosmopolitanism shape representational, aesthetics and stylistic cinematic discourses, also considering
the recent return to virulent nationalism, the shutting down of borders, and the current rejection of supranational values in postindustrial countries.

The editors are seeking some articles to complement the current selection, and are keen to receive
proposals on topics and issues including, but not limited to:

• Cinephilia and cosmopolitan audiences: promoting the cult of world cinemas, stars, and strangeness
• World identities: authorship and star trajectories in contemporary cinema
• Cosmopolitan institutions and the brand of national cinemas: exploring the role of film festivals, distributors, etc.
• Films across borders: cosmopolitan cinema as a strategy of internationalisation and border crossing
• Representing worldliness: virtual and real conceptions of world and communities
• Aesthetic, stylistic and narrative notions of cosmopolitanism
• Documenting the cosmopolis: nonfiction cinema and the transnational imagination
• Aesthetic cosmopolitanism and the dialogue between production and consumption
• Cosmopolitanism and national cinemas: multiple belongings and the relativisation of the local
• Cosmopolitan spaces of circulation: digital and virtual migration
• Hybridism, multiculturalism and postcolonialism: perspectives to approach cosmopolitan cinema
• Narratives of the crossing: intercultural contact, migrations, and exiles

Potential contributors are invited to submit a 250/300-word abstract,
and a biographical note by January 30, 2017 to the Issue Editors, James Mulvey, Laura Rascaroli and Humberto Saldanha, at the following address:
issue14.alphaville@gmail.com.
Authors will be notified of editors’ decision by 17 February 2016. Following acceptance, authors will be required to submit their completed articles of 5,500–6,000 words that adhere to
Alphaville guidelines, MLA and house style by
May 1, 2017.

Crossing the Boundaries of Reception

deadline for submissions:
April 15, 2017

contact email:
badiaj@ipfw.edu

The journal Reception invites submissions for its special-topic issue for the 2018 volume year focusing on “Crossing the Boundaries of Reception.” Authors are encouraged to construe “boundaries” as broadly as possible within a reception-study context, including:

adaptation from one medium to another
textual and genre boundaries in relation to audiencing
serialization and readership
unauthorized fan fiction
responses to narratives about gender and racial crossings
boundary crossing at sites of reception, including globalized reworking of texts, cross-cultural flows, cross-cultural comparisons of reception of a particular text
fandom among culturally hybridized and/or diasporic audiences
reception among refugee populations
boundary synergies for texts across multiple media and platforms, including social media platforms for delivering audiences to texts or appropriating audience ideas to generate new narratives

The deadline for submissions for the issue is April 15, 2017. Please also include an abstract of no more than 150 words. The essays should follow the Chicago Manual of Style and should not exceed 7,000 words. The issue will be guest edited by Janet L. Badia, Professor of Women’s Studies, and Steven A. Carr, Professor of Communication, both from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. Send completed articles directly to badiaj@ipfw.edu and carr@ipfw.edu.

Submission URL: https://goo.gl/forms/Slzg6hlJLyNWmNn93https://goo.gl/forms/Slzg6hlJLyNWmNn93https://goo.gl/forms/Slzg6hlJLyNWmNn93Deadline: 30th March 2017

This is an open conference, anybody can submit. It celebrates the end of project moment for the AHRC CEDAR network, in association with Universidade Católica Portuguesa, the Audience and Reception Studies section of ECREA and YECREA

Date: 28th and 29th September 2017

Venue: Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal

Some highlights of this conference include –

• Keynote speakers: Sonia Livingstone, Martin Barker, Thomas Tufte, Klaus Bruhn Jensen

• Highlight Plenary: End of Project launch panel for the CEDAR network’s findings

• Audiences2030 Respondents’ Panel:, Peter Lunt, Kim Schroeder, Pille Prullmann-Vengerfeldt

• Commentary on the Launch Event for the CEDAR Final Report: With a commentary from Denis McQuail

• YECREA Workshop: Voice and identity in academia

• Conference Dinner at Lisbon Castle: Our conference dinner will take place at the beautiful São Jorge Castle – a Moorish castle atop a hill, overlooking the historic Lisbon and Tagus River.

Conference Fee Bands: Option 1: 70 Euros (with lunch and refreshments); Option 2: 95 Euros (conference dinner, lunch and refreshments); Option 3: 35 Euros (non-presenting attendee fee).

At a time of political and socio-cultural flux in Europe, and as we begin to enter times of what is commonly being called the “Internet of Things”, Audiences 2030 brings together researchers taking diverse approaches to researching audiences, to ask what needs
(re)doing in the ways in which we research audiences, the ways in with we mobilise theory, and the extent to which we think of future challenges to a rapidly changing field. Audiences 2030 is the end-of-project conference for CEDAR – the Consortium on Emerging
Directions in Audience Research (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council) and will see a highlight plenary from CEDAR launch the outcomes of its unique foresight exercise about the future of audience research in 2030. The conference will see keynote
speeches from Sonia Livingstone, Martin Barker, Thomas Tufte and Klaus Bruhn Jensen. In our call for papers we are particularly keen to see a futuristic outlook – whatever project we speak from, we would like to see it contextualised in contemporary complexities
(intellectual, socio-cultural, political), and geared towards future challenges. Topics in our CFP include but are not restricted to –

EU politics, democracy and media audiences
The Internet of Things: implications for audiences and institutions
Audiences’ new literacies, capabilities and coping strategies with digital media
Contemporary political complexities and audience studies
Digital interfaces and their implications for ‘audience’ studies
Speaking to stakeholders in audience research
Race, class, gender and religion in audience studies
Youthful audiences
Invisible, marginalised and under researched audiences
Social action, movements and audiences
Co-option of audience labour
Audiences, media regulation and media policy
New forms of media engagement
The role of texts in contemporary audience research
Cross-media audiences
Methodological and theoretical innovations

For each of this (or indeed, other topics), we particularly welcome papers thinking about the future, including socio-political challenges, anticipated technological changes and implications for research. Our conference also includes a workshop or PhD students
co-hosted by YECREA.

Please submit 250 word abstracts on https://goo.gl/forms/Slzg6hlJLyNWmNn93. The last date for submissions is 30th March 2017. We plan to announce results by 15th May 2017.

Ranjana Das (Director, CEDAR), Brita Ytre-Arne (Co-Director, CEDAR), David Mathieu, Ana Jorge, Ines Amaral, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, the Audience and Reception Studies section of ECREA and YECREA.

CFP: Game of Thrones – An International Conference

6-8 September 2017

University of Hertfordshire, School of Creative Arts, College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire,
AL10 9AB

Deadline for proposals: 30 March 2017

Email: GOTconf2017@herts.ac.uk

Widely rumoured to be moving into its final season, HBO’s
Game of Thrones (2011- ) has enjoyed 6 years of global popularity, attracting international scholarly and critical attention and reaching record-breaking audiences.  Famously adapted from George R.R. Martin’s book series, ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’, HBO’s
medieval fantasy world spans two continents, Westeros and Essos, and focuses on the power struggles between competing dynasties for possession of the Iron Throne and ultimate power over the Seven Kingdoms.  It is not only political intrigue that threatens
the inhabitants of this world, however, as dragons, witches, giants and whitewalkers also stalk its shores. 

Not just a simple fantasy series,
Game of Thrones has been likened to ‘The Sopranos in Middle-Earth’ by showrunner David Benioff and is notorious for its controversial storylines, particularly those centred
on its women.  Rape, incest and power brokering through marriage reveal a patriarchal society in which political intrigue is not always gendered but inevitably leads to uneasy alliances between families – both friend and foe – and violent ends for many.
Game of Thrones continues to enrage and enthral a global audience unsure if the series is misogynist, feminist or anti-feminist; or an uncomfortable blend of all three.

Populated by a large ensemble cast (reputedly the largest on television today),
Game of Thrones is filmed in many global locations: Belfast to Morrocco and Dubrovnik to Iceland, the series
has impacted upon the tourist economies as well as providing employment for a vast array of ‘behind-the scenes’ personnel from post production and special effects designers through to technicians, production designers, directors and producers to camera
operators, editors and carpenters (to name but a few).  The series has also spawned a vast merchandising enterprise from models to games and comics to spin-off books.  In short, the production of
Game of Thrones has played a large part in the creative industries since 2010 through the many employment opportunities it has offered transnationally.

This international conference invites proposals on a wide range of subjects.  While there have been several significant studies on the series and
its adaptation from literature to television as well as its multimedia engagements,
most notably: Gjelsvik, Anne & Schubart, Rikke (Eds.)
Women of Ice and Fire: Gender, Game of Thrones, and Multiple Media Engagements, Bloomsbury, 2016; Battis, Jes and Johnston, Susan (Eds.),
Mastering the Game of Thrones:  Essays on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, McFarland, 2015 and
Lozano Delmar, Javier; Raya Bravo, Irene; López Rodríguez, Francisco Javier (Eds.),
Reyes, Espadas, Cuervos Y Dragones. Estudio Del Fenómeno Televisivo Juego De Tronos. Madrid, Fragua. Colección Fragua Comunicación, 2013 (to name but three). This conference aims to widen the scope to include contributions from all aspects of the creative
industries.   We hope this conference will offer an opportunity to open up the discussion, make links between practitioners and theorists, industry personnel and critics as well as key creative personnel who have worked on the series. 

Short abstracts (250 words + bio) are invited on any
Game of Thrones related subject by 30 March 2017.  Varied presentation styles are encouraged, including formal papers (20 mins), fully formed panels, poster and digital presentations as well as roundtable discussions, short/lightning presentations
(5 mins) and PechaKucha (20X20).  Proposals for fully formed sessions will also be considered.  All abstracts and proposals will be peer-reviewed and a response will be sent by
31 May 2017.

Please email all proposals to Kim Akass at
GOTconf2017@herts.ac.uk

Keynotes will be announced in the near future and publishing opportunities are currently being sought.