Call for articles – ViewFinder Issue 120: Arena
LearningOnScreen’s ViewFinder Issue 120 is now open for submission from academics, researchers, doctoral students and video essayists.
In this issue we will be exploring the landmark BBC arts and culture series Arena. To celebrate the BBC offering increased access to their digitised TV archives for educational use, Learning on Screen have added all extant episodes of the long running series to the BoB streaming service (https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand). Dating back to October 1975 the collection amounts to over 500 individual episodes.
Voted as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time by Broadcast Magazine, Arena has always been highly innovative in its output. The show has been particularly noteworthy in its focus on cultural figures from marginalised social groups, musicianship, and the peculiarities of British culture. Individual episodes cover topics as diverse as the cultural meaning of the Ford Cortina, C. L. R. James’ First Cricket XI, the psycho-social resonance of the song ‘My Way’, as well as numerous profiles of the most significant artists, musicians, thinkers, writers and filmmakers of the 20th century.
We are looking for articles between 800 and 2000 words on any aspect of the series (content, production, creative personnel etc). Writers are welcome to focus on individual episodes (which can be found in BoB), or the series in general.
ViewFinder is designed to be accessible across academic disciplines and for public readership as well as academia. It is a chance to synthesise and summarise your project work and to offer think pieces and provocations that enrich the public conversation. More information about ViewFinder can be found here: https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/viewfinder/submissions/
Deadline for proposals: March 14th, 2022. Deadline for papers/submissions April 25th, 2022. All enquiries and proposals please email Ali Ward at alison@learningonscreen.ac.uk.
