Cinemas, Identities and Beyond: St. Andrews-Glasgow Postgraduate Conference

Call for Papers

The exploration of identity is one of the most contested and thought-provoking contemporary subjects. As a dominant and penetrating cultural form, cinema conditions and shapes the manner in which we interpret issues of identity and space. Our understanding of representation, narrative conventions, film form, industry issues and a host of other socio-political factors related to cultural production and consumption powerfully define our ever changing ideas of identity.

This AHRC funded one-day event is run entirely by postgraduate students from the Universities of St. Andrews and Glasgow. We are primarily seeking to bring together PG students from Scotland and the North of England but we will also consider abstracts from those studying further afield. Successful applicants will use film in their work as a means of understanding and interpreting issues of society, culture, and identity. We invite participants from a range of disciplines: Film, television and cultural studies, languages, comparative literature, anthropology, and area studies.

We will interpret the conference theme broadly. Papers exploring the following areas are particularly welcome:

· National, regional, and transnational cinemas and identity
· Aesthetics and cinematic identification

· Time, space and signification
· Early cinema and modernity

· Non-mainstream cinema practices and identity
· New media and digital cinemas

· Cinema and gender
· Western film theories and cross-cultural paradigms

· Globalisation, transnationalism and cinemas
· Cinemas and stardom

· Media imperialism
· Linguistics and cinematic formalities

· Cinemas and cultural politics
· Sound and music

· Soap operas and reception
· Genres and interpretations

· Migrant and diasporic cinemas
· Media synergies

Panels will be moderated by leading academics who will respond to the papers. Confirmed convenors include:

Professor Pam Cook (University of Southampton)
Dr. Dimitris Eleftheriotis (University of Glasgow)
Professor Christine Geraghty (University of Glasgow)
Professor Andrew Higson (University of East Anglia)
Professor Dina Iordanova (University of St. Andrews)
Professor John Caughie (University of Glasgow), who will open the conference, will be our Guest of Honour.

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Please send an abstract of 200 words for a paper of approximately 20 minutes, together with your contact details and a brief biographical note to Ruby Cheung at wyrc@st-andrews.ac.uk. Please indicate “Abstract Submission” in the subject line of your email.

Ten bursaries of £50 will be given away to selected participants (please indicate you would like to be considered for a bursary at the time you send in your abstract).

The papers will be selected by an inter-University PhD student committee: Ruby Cheung and David Fleming (St. Andrews) and Philippa Smith and Katharina Lindner (Glasgow). Selected participants and bursary recipients will be notified in early September.

Closing date of abstract submission: 18 August 2006

Further information will be available at ;
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/modlangs/filmstudies/events/index.html