Two more Film and History CFP's: Special Effects and Gender and Violence

From: Cynthia Miller <[email protected]>

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Bigger, Faster, Brighter: The Histories and Economies of Special Effects”

An area of multiple panels for the 2013 Film & History Conference on
Making Movie$: The Figure of Money On and Off the Screen
November 20-24, 2013
Madison Concourse Hotel (Madison, WI)
www.filmandhistory.org/The2013FilmHistoryConference.php
DEADLINE for abstracts: July 1, 2013

AREA: Bigger, Faster, Brighter: The Histories and Economies of Special
Effects

Freeze New York, burn Atlanta, topple San Francisco, bury Pompeii. Unleash
a giant ape, a killer shark, or a shape-shifting assassin made of liquid
metal. Drill to the Earth’s core, circle the globe submerged, or swoop
among the towering trees of a distant planet. From the flesh-and-blood
“casts of thousands” in Cecil B. DeMille’s silent-era epics to the CGI
armies in Peter Jackson’s tales of Middle Earth, from the sleek
cannon-shell spacecraft of A Trip to the Moon to the city-sized leviathans
of Independence Day, a century of effects-driven movies has offered
audiences spectacles beyond the reach of any other medium. When and how
have special effects determined the economies of filmmaking or the
structures of their narratives? What cultural or historical factors affect
how audiences respond to special effects—as spectacle, as narrative medium,
as aesthetic stage? How are such effects bound to or by genres like
adventure and science fiction?  When are they not?

This area, comprising multiple panels, invites papers that examine film as
a site where art, technology, and money intersect, where studios and
filmmakers have, for more than a century, risked fabulous sums of money in
the hope of confounding our sense of the possible, the filmable, and so
reaping even greater rewards at the box office. Topics might include the
following:

•       Landmark/summer blockbuster films or film series
•       Effects-driven subgenres (disaster films, Biblical epics, SF
adventures)
•       Effects specialists (Cecil B. DeMille, George Pal, Irwin Allen,
Michael Bay)
•       Visual tropes (the ruined city, the giant machine, the destroyed
landmark)
•       Exhibition technologies (3-D, Sensurround, THX sound, IMAX)
•       The silent spectacle (Intolerance, The Ten Commandments, The Lost
World)
•       Television FX (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, V, Terra Nova)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also
welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information,
including an e-mail address, for each presenter. For updates and
registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History
website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).

Please email your 200-word proposal, by July 1, 2013, to:
A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Area Chair
Bigger, Faster Brighter: The Histories and Economies of Special Effects
[email protected]

******

From: Cynthia Miller <[email protected]>

CALL  FOR  PAPERS
"Marking  and  Marketing  Women:  Sex,  Violence,  and  Money  in  Film."

An  area  of  multiple  panels  for  the  2013  Film  &  History
 Conference  on     “Making  Movies:  The  Figure  of  Money  On  and  Off
 Screen”   November  20-­24, 2013   Madison  Concourse  Hotel  (Madison,
 WI)   www.filmandhistory.org/The2013FilmHistoryConference.php
DEADLINE  for  abstracts:  July  1,  2013

AREA: Marking  and  Marketing  Women:  Sex,  Violence,  and  Money  in  Film

Whether  in  mainstream,  independent,  international  fiction,  or
 documentary  films, images   and  narratives  of  sex—as  prostitution,
 pornography,  sex  trafficking,  or other  forms  of   sexual
 marketing—coalesce  around  violence  against  women, marking  them  as
commodities.  And  yet  many  of  these  films  struggle  to  promote the
 agency  of  women  and   give  voice  to  victims,  often  turning  women
 themselves into  agents  of  violence.  Are  such   contradictions  a
 function  of  genre?  How  do thrillers,  action  films,  westerns,  and
 romantic   comedies,  for  example,  shape  the narratives  of  sex
 toward  and  against  the  marking  and   marketing  of  women? Recently,
 film  genres  such  as  action  movies,  thrillers,  and  horror   films
 have featured  a  more  varied  depiction  of  femininity  and
 non-­conformist  gender   display.  When  does  sexual  or  gender
 violence—either  by  a  woman  or  against  a woman— attract  the
 audience,  and  why?  More  broadly,  what  cultural  or  historical
conditions  shape   our  response  to  this  marking  and  marketing  of
 women  and violence?  What  racial  or   economic  conditions  shape  it?

This  area  will  explore  all  questions  related  to  the  sexualized
 marking  and marketing  of   women  in  film,  television,  and  online
 media.  Papers  that  explore contemporary  films   about  “marked  women”
 in  various  national  or  international cinematographies  are
especially  welcome.

Possible  topics  include,  but  are  not  limited  to,  the  following:

*Surrogate  Sex  Workers:  The  Sessions  (2012)
*Enemies/Lovers  in  War:  Full  Metal  Jacket  (1987)
*Prostitution  and  Pimps:  Taxi  Driver  (1976);  Eyes  Wide  Shut  (1999)
*The  Noble  Prostitute  and  the  Cinderella  Myth:  Pretty  Woman  (1990)
*Houses  of  Pleasure  or  Pain:  Brothels  Across  Cultures:  La  Vie  En
 Rose  (2007)
*Pandora,  Pleasure  and  Perversion:  Famous  Seductresses  in  Weimar
 Cinema
*Sex  and  Addiction:  Prostitutes  in  Shame  (2011)
*Happy  Hookers:  Monsieur  Ibrahim  (2003)
*Male  Prostitutes  and  the  Margins:  Taxi  Zum  Klo  (1980)
*Children  of  Prostitutes:  Born  Intro  Brothels  (2004)
*The  Underbelly  of  Society  and  Musicals:  Moulin  Rouge,  Cabaret  and
 Chicago
*Nightclubs  and  drag:  La  cage  aux  folles  series
*Drugs,  Teenagers  and  Prostitution:  Christiane  F.  –  Wir  Kinder  Vom
 Bahnhof  Zoo  (1981)
*Moral  codes  and  Britain:  Downton  Abbey  and  the  “Fallen  Women”
*Sex,  Submission  and  the  Holocaust:  The  Night  Porter  (1974)
*Exotic  sex  sells:  Salaam  Bombay  (1988);  Highway  Courtesans  (2005)
*Erotica  or  Trade:  The  ugly  side  of  the  sex  industry  in  Film

Proposals   for   complete   panels   (three   related   presentations)
are   also   welcome,   but   they   must   include   an   abstract   and
contact   information,   including   an   e-­mail   address,   for   each
presenter.  For  updates  and  registration  information  about the
 upcoming  meeting,  see  the   Film  &  History  website  (
www.filmandhistory.org).

Please  e-­mail  your  200-word  proposal  by  July  1,  2013  to:

Karen  A. Ritzenhoff,  Area  Chair
2013  Film  &  History  Conference
“Making  Movies:  The Figure  of  Money  On  and  Off  Screen”
Central  Connecticut  State  University
1615  Stanley  Street   New  Britain,  CT   06050
[email protected]





-- 
Ken Nolley
Professor of English and Film Studies
Willamette University
Salem, OR 97301
Phone:  503-370-6280
Fax:  503-370-6944