CFP-Reminder Transgressive Film/Art/Exploitation/Trash Cinema-SWPCA 2012

From: "Weiner, Rob" <[email protected]>

Call for Papers Transgressive/Trash/Exploitation/Art Cinema
Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Associations
http://www.swtxpca.org

Please make plans to attend our 33rd Annual Conference
February 8-11, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel & Conference Center in
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
330 Tijeras NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA 87102
Tel: +1 505 842 1234 or 888-421-1442

Proposal submission deadline: December 1, 2011

Who We Are/What We Do
The area chairs are pleased to be seeking submissions for paper  
presentations on "Transgressive Cinema" for our sixth year at the SW/ 
TX PCA/ACA conference. We encourage submissions on any aspect of  
"transgressive" film, whether in the realm of horror films,  
experimental/art cinema, or classic and contemporary exploitation  
movies, among others. We especially encourage papers that engage the  
theoretical concept of "transgression" in their presentations. This  
area at SWTXPCA/ACA has expanded a great deal since our first panel  
six years ago, and we hope to continue to use this conference as an  
ongoing forum for scholarly discussion of this often-neglected area of  
film studies. In addition, this year we will also be continuing our  
well-received pairing of a film screening followed by a roundtable  
discussion panel. Last year, we looked Dwain Esper's 1934 film, Maniac  
with an eye towards how portrayals of mental illness have been used in  
both art and exploitation film to explore societal boundaries. This  
year will be looking at Jean Cocteau's Blood of a Poet/Le sang d'un  
poète (1930) paired with Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel's Un Chien  
Andalou (1929). We want to discuss the idea of Trangression in Art/Art  
in Transgression as it relates to the "high brow" art film.
(If you are interested in being a part of this roundtable, please  
contact us directly.)

Call for Papers
The limits of what can and cannot be said, done, or shown in a society  
are prone to change. Consequently, the risqué nickelodeon films of the  
early 20th century seem quaint, with their images of bare female legs  
long having lost the ability to induce gasping titillation.  
Nonetheless, taboos regarding violence, sexuality, race, and political  
beliefs (among others) persist even in this age of post-everything. We  
are looking for papers that examine films from the past and the  
present, from "stag movies" shown at American Legion "smokers" in the  
'50s to today's multiplex down the street. And we're looking for  
papers that take up the question of how such filmmaking helped  
redefine societal limits, for better or worse. The list of films that  
could fall under this category is very large, from the mass of low- 
budget horror films to rare experimental shorts. We also encourage  
submissions that come from a wide variety of disciplinary and
methodological backgrounds, from classical Freudianism to Critical  
Legal Theory.
Here's some topics that might help give you an idea of what we're  
looking for:
*Mondo films, especially ones that "exploit" a culture for the sake of  
spectacle (we might even think of Flaherty's Nanook of the North in  
this regard)
*Pornography, including anything that crosses racial or class  
boundaries (the persistent popularity of, say, Lexington Steele in  
this "post-racial" era, for instance)
*Films that fall to the extreme political right or left wing,  
including films whose message has been assimilated into today's  
political mainstream (anti-Communist propaganda, "hygiene" films  
depicting the homosexuality, sympathetic portrayals of minorities, etc.)

*Extreme violence in cinema (documentary footage of death,  
controversial scenes of sexual violence on film, the "realism" of  
blood and gore on screen, etc.)
These are just some general ideas; we eagerly anticipate discovering  
what you have to say about this surprisingly broad and complicated set  
of topics.  Alongside individual paper submissions about particular  
films or filmmakers, we encourage panel submissions as well, including  
those on specific genres (e.g. gialli) and directors (e.g. Kenneth  
Anger).

Please send us title and 100-250-word abstract by December 1, 2011,

through our website database which can be accessed at: http://conference2012.swtxpca.org

33rd Annual Conference Southwest/Texas Popular/American Culture  
Association
February 8-11, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel & Conference Center in  
Albuquerque,
New Mexico.
Submission Deadline: 12/1/11
Priority Registration Deadline 12/31/11
Conference Hotel:
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
330 Tijeras NW,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA 87102
Tel: +1 505 842 1234 or 888-421-1442
http://www.swtxpca.org
Co-chairs:
John Cline
University of Texas
[email protected]

Rob Weiner
Humanities Librarian Texas Tech University Library
[email protected]
http://www.swtxpca.org