CFP: 21st-Century Hollywood: Movies in the Era of Transformation (7/15/12; 10/11-14/12)

[categories: CFP]
CALL FOR PAPERS

Literature/Film Association Annual Conference
October 11-14, 2012
York College of Pennsylvania
York, PA

“21st-Century Hollywood: Movies in the Era of Transformation”

In the twenty-first century, Hollywood remains the principal superpower of world cinema and a prime purveyor of popular entertainment for global audiences. But almost everything about the way it makes and markets movies has changed. Today, Hollywood movies are shot using high-definition cameras, with computer-generated effects added in postproduction, and digitally transmitted to theaters, websites, and video-on-demand networks worldwide. They are viewed on laptops, iPods, and cell phones, as well as on IMAX screens and in 3-D. They are the product of cutting-edge technologies that have revolutionized media production, content distribution, and the experience of moviegoing itself. What do these transformations bode for the future of Hollywood cinema and cinema globally? Has a new era of the moving image begun? Does it demand new understandings of “film” or new ways of making sense of “adaptation”?

Paper proposals are invited from ALL AREAS of film and media studies. Proposals relating to the conference theme outlined above are especially encouraged, but also of significant interest are submissions on adaptation studies, film and history, national cinemas, film genres and stars, auteur studies, film and technology, television and new media, and cultural or political issues connected to the moving image. Proposal abstracts should be 300-500 words in length and are due by July 15, 2012. Please send by e-mail attachment to Cynthia Miller (cymiller@tiac.net). Notifications of acceptance will be sent by August 15, 2012.

The conference’s keynote speakers will be Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, co-authors of the recent book, 21st-Century Hollywood: Movies in the Era of Transformation (Rutgers, 2011). Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Professor of Film Studies at University of Nebraska, Lincoln. His many books include A History of Horror (Rutgers, 2010) and Film Noir and the History of Paranoia (Rutgers, 2009). Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is a Professor of Film Studies at University of Nebraska, Lincoln and the author of Class-Passing: Performing Social Mobility in Film and Popular Culture (Southern Illinois, 2005) and Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/Constructions (SUNY, 2003), among other titles. Professors Dixon and Foster also co-wrote A Short History of Film (Rutgers, 2008), and currently share editorship of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video and Anthem Press’s New Perspectives on World Cinema series. Their joint address will be sponsored by the Literature/Film Association, in cooperation with York College’s Humanities Film Series.

The conference registration fee will be $150 before September 15, 2012 and $175 thereafter. Checks should be made out to York College of Pennsylvania and mailed to Ian Olney at English & Humanities Department; York College of Pennsylvania; 441 Country Club Rd.; York, PA 17403. All conference attendees must also be current members of the Literature/Film Association. To join and pay 2012 dues, please visit the LFA website at http://www.dickinson.edu/academics/programs/film-studies/content/ANNUAL-MEMBERSHIP-DUES/ and use our PayPal feature. Annual dues are $40. Information about travel and lodging will be forthcoming.