[ecrea] Memory, Identity, and New Fantasy Cultures in Film and Television

>*Memory, Identity, and New Fantasy Cultures*
>9 October 2010
>Kingston University, UK
>Penrhyn Road Campus
>http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=1358
>
>Proposals are sought for a forthcoming one day 
>conference to be held at Kingston University on new fantasy culture.
>
>Keynote speakers: Professor Fred Botting, Dr. Matthew Pateman
>
>The conference will be concluded with a plenary 
>talk between authors Roz Kaveney and Naomi Alderman.
>
>Fantasies about parallel worlds, inhabited by 
>vampires, shapeshifters, cylons, or simply 
>humans with extraordinary abilities, have an 
>ever growing popularity on television and film. 
>As we leave the first decade of the 21st 
>century, it seems more and more prime time slots 
>are being allocated to fantasy worlds, catering 
>for a diverse range of audience. Viewers vary 
>from science fiction fans, to adult viewers of 
>vampire fiction, to those indulging in 
>postmodern romcom. The popularisation of this 
>once-cliquey and geeky genre suggests this new 
>fantasy expresses something of the zeitgeist of contemporary Western culture.
>We believe such mainstream fantasy television 
>shows, in differing ways, express contemporary 
>concerns with time, death and memory. In Western 
>culture, we are continuously made to believe 
>that we can choose, mix and match, improve or 
>discard different identities and destinies at 
>will. Celebrities hold back the aging process 
>through plastic surgery or computerised image 
>manipulation; our nostalgic fascination with 
>retro and revival continues to celebrate a 
>selective or deliberately mis-remembered past; 
>domestic technologies allow the capturing and 
>storage of video libraries of childhood 
>memories, ceremonies, family dramas; while 
>societyâ¬"s most traumatic experiences seem 
>embodied in endlessly reproduced still 
>photographs, or endlessly looped sequence of TV 
>footage. As is the tradition of the genre, 
>recent fantasy texts reflect the anxieties and 
>impulses of contemporary culture, and engage 
>with the increasingly problematic relationships 
>between our own history and its inevitable, 
>albeit yet ceaselessly deferred, end.
>Within fantasy television and cinema cyborgs 
>treasure photographs as substitutes for a past 
>remembered prior to their manufacture. Science 
>fiction heroines and heroes are blank slates 
>onto which memory and personality are imprinted. 
>Whole futuristic societies retreat into ideal 
>synthetic versions of themselves, while a 
>century-old vampire sits in his girlfriendâ¬"s 
>grandmotherâ¬"s parlour discussing first hand 
>experiences of the American civil war. How such 
>texts reflect upon contemporary notions of 
>identity, corporeality, time, technology, 
>history and the self, will be the focus of this 
>lively and timely symposium. We also welcome 
>studies of fan and audience, or discussions of 
>production that seek to understand and examine 
>the current popularity of these texts.
>Subjects might include but are not limited to:
>" Time travel and destiny
>" Photography and memory
>" Video and history
>" The Cyborg sense of self
>" Amnesia and Trauma
>" Avatars in Film and Television
>" Death in Cyberspace
>" Uncanny media
>" Issues of identity
>" Notions of power/authorship
>" Issues of genre
>Deadline for abstracts: 1 August 2010
>Notification of acceptance: 16 August 2010
>Proposals should be submitted online using the abstract submission form
>
>Conference convenors
>Dr. Ewan Kirkland
>Dr. Aybige Yilmaz
>
>In case of enquiries please contact
>(fass-conferences /at/ kingston.ac.uk)
>

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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