CFP: Exploring Boundaries in Film and Television, Wednesday 14 June 2017, CATH Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester

The Cinema and Television History (CATH) Research Centre, De Montfort University, invites postgraduates and early career researchers to its sixth annual postgraduate conference.

Cinema and television have always been media that operate on the boundaries of social, technological and artistic change. In light of recent socio-political events, it seems a pertinent time to consider and interrogate the concept in relation to film and television. This postgraduate conference encourages submissions that will examine emergent trends within cinema and television on the theme of boundaries – from diverse historical periods, production contexts and research methodologies – to encourage discussion on the term’s uses within cinema and television discourses.

The conference will aim to interrogate boundaries both within the texts themselves (such as genre, form, and geography) and also their production contexts (e.g. transnational co-productions or technological innovation).

The Cinema and Television History Research Centre houses a number of major film archives on-site. The day will also include a programme of archival training workshops focusing on key research methodologies within film and television scholarship.

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

·                   Textual boundaries – remakes, paratexts, and adaptation

·                   Boundaries of taste (e.g. exploitation, nudity, violence)

·                   Social/political/cultural boundaries of production

·                   Boundaries of genre

·                   Formal and stylistic boundaries

·                   Technological boundaries

·                   Boundaries/divisions of labour and production

·                   Transnational boundaries

·                   Ideological boundaries

Proposals for twenty-minute papers should include the title of the presentation, a 250-word abstract, and a brief autobiographical statement. Proposals should be submitted to cath.postgrad@gmail.com by Monday 3 April 2017. Participants will receive a response by late April.

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Dr. Iain Smith is Lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London whose research interests include film adaptation and remakes, transnational cinema, cult and exploitation cinema, and global Hollywood. His recent monograph, The Hollywood Meme: Transnational Adaptations in World Cinema, was published in 2016.