Fwd: CFP: "Sex, Media, Reception: New Approaches"

From: Peter Alilunas <[email protected]>

Sex, Media, Reception: New Approaches
  Call for Proposals
  University of Michigan
  Screen Arts & Cultures Department
  Ann Arbor, MI
  February 14-15, 2014

Keynote speakers: Linda Williams, Elena Gorfinkel

 Sexual content has never, perhaps, been more prevalent in mediated
culture. From depictions of sexuality on HBO and other cable networks to
the various kinds of pornography, both “professional” and “amateur,” that
proliferate at low or no cost online, consumers have greater access to (and
choice of) sexualized media than ever before. This proliferation,
concomitant with the development of digital and online technologies, poses
new questions to scholars interested in reception contexts.

This symposium brings together leading and emerging scholars on sexuality
and media in order to ask: how has the distribution and exhibition of
sexual content changed over time? What different scenes of encounter have
shaped viewers’ experiences of this content? What historical contexts can
be examined to better understand these changes? How has sexuality been
differently mediated in genres that have received little scholarly
attention, such as sexploitation in the US and Pink Film in Japan? What
modes of reception have informed the ways such genres were and are
experienced by audiences?

Other questions, too, remain significant for scholars: how do issues of
race, gender, and class intersect with technology? How has the move toward
“feminist pornography” altered questions of reception? How have regulatory
strategies (from both political and cultural perspectives) changed, and how
have viewers interacted with those strategies? What is the future of
academic study in terms of sexually-related content, and how will the
changes in reception technologies alter such work? What unique,
topic-specific challenges face scholars and historians interested in
mediated sexualities—and what can we learn from one another?

This symposium invites scholars to take up these (and related) questions
through the (broadly conceived) lens of reception studies. The term
“reception” need not be understood as enforcing a narrow empiricism or any
particular methodology; there are many ways of asking how spectators (or,
increasingly, interactive users) access, experience, and navigate mediated
sexualities, and how these scenes of reception have shifted since the
1960s. The event will feature a pre-conference address by Linda Williams
(UC-Berkeley), a keynote address by Elena Gorfinkel (UW Milwaukee), and
will conclude with a screening curated by University of Michigan librarian
Philip Hallman. The aim is to encourage cross-institutional debate and
intellectual exchange, within a complex and ever-shifting field.

Papers are welcome on the following topics, or in related areas:

 Stag films/peep shows/arcades

Adult film theaters

Adult drive-in theaters

Home video

 Sexploitation film

Softcore films

Cable television

Erotica and mainstream “adult” films

Tube sites, torrents, and filesharing

User-generated content

Cam sites

Interactive technologies

Queer pornographies

Social media and performer/audience interaction

Celebrity sex tapes

Post-porn/feminist pornography

Regulatory concerns such as obscenity law, mandatory condom usage, and
zoning

Non-US adult film

Theories of spectatorship pertaining to sex and media

 To apply to participate, please submit a 250-word abstract and a short bio
by November 15, 2013 to Damon Young and Peter Alilunas:


 [email protected]

Further details about the conference will be available soon on the Screen
Arts & Cultures website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/sac/events
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