Archive for September 2013

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[ecrea] cfp: teaching transnational cinema and media: politics and pedagogy

Tue Sep 10 19:40:27 GMT 2013



Call for Papers

TEACHING TRANSNATIONAL CINEMA AND MEDIA: POLITICS AND PEDAGOGY
Edited Collection
Co-editors: Bruce Bennett (Lancaster University, UK) and Katarzyna Marciniak (Ohio University, USA)



This proposed edited collection will focus on the analysis of transnational cinema (also referred to in different contexts as “border cinema,” “cinema of migration,” or “cinema of displacement”) in conjunction with specific pedagogical challenges such cinema/media evoke in the classroom. Coming to the foreground in the early 2000s, the rubric of transnational cinema has galvanized film and media studies, drawing our attention to diasporic and “accented” filmmaking (Naficy), but also challenging us to think about cinema beyond the restrictive scope of the nation. For various reasons, since 2000 there has emerged a rich archive of new films that exemplify transnational cinema. Examples from around the globe include, for instance, Amreeka (2009), Babel (2006), Before Night Falls (2000), Biutiful (2010), Children in No Man’s Land (2008), Dirty Pretty Things (2002), The Gatekeeper (2002), Gran Torino (2008), Goodbye Lenin (2003), In This World (2002), Last Resort (2000), Machete (2010), Paradise Now (2005), Persepolis (2007), Silent Waters (2003), Sleep Dealer (2008), The Syrian Bride (2004), The Visitor (2007), or Unveiled (2005). Collectively, these films engage with issues related to immigrant identities, transnational encounters, foreignness and citizenship, the politics of visibility, terrorism, legality, race and racism. National borders emerge in these films as both violent geopolitical constructs and abstractions related to ideas of difference, otherness, travel, migration, neo-liberal capitalism, neo-colonialism and transcultural translation.



As the field of transnational cinema and media studies has been developing, scholars of cinema and media have not thus far turned their systematic attention to pedagogical practices. Discussions of teaching practices occur but they are mainly located in the fields of rhetoric, education and communication, or, occasionally, in gender studies. As more film scholars engage with transnational cinema in the classroom, our goal is to explore the complexities of teaching with and about such cinema, addressing such questions as: What happens when our students encounter the “foreignness” of various films, texts, and ideas in the classroom? How might teachers make the topics raised in transnational texts – national (un)belonging, racial tensions, cross-cultural encounters, difference, intimacy and family, the politics of anger – relevant, even urgent, to our students, a lot of whom have not knowingly brushed against experiences of immigration and foreignness? How do we avoid “consumerist” emotionality in teaching such complex topics? How might one implicate “the local” in “the global” and encourage students to see beyond their own borders of social and cultural contexts? How might we imbricate the transnational into one’s pedagogical practices so that issues of foreignness, migration, and dislocation begin to produce what we call “affective openings,” that is, an openness toward new ways of thinking about resistance to oppressive forms of phobic nationalisms and exclusionary practices of citizenship?



We hope to include a variety of theoretical perspectives from scholars with experience of teaching in diverse locations. We invite contributions that consider innovative pedagogies and think critically about such embodied experiences as spectatorial identification or disidentification and estrangement, spectatorial consumption of foreignness and “otherness,” culturally-mediated desire for “proper” representations of immigration, migration, or foreignness, or what Elspeth Probyn calls “affective reactions” in the classroom and their “management.” We also invite contributions that reflect upon the value of transnational cinema as educational tool or ‘weapon’ (Solanas and Getino), and the institutional politics of teaching and working in this area within universities and colleges in an increasingly neo-liberal global context and in the face of the “post-ideological” turn in many arts, humanities and social science disciplines.

Please submit a 500-word abstract and a short bio by October 18, 2013 to Bruce Bennett ((b.bennett /at/ lancaster.ac.uk)) and Katarzyna Marciniak ((marcinia /at/ ohio.edu)).


Bruce Bennett

Director of Film Studies

Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts

Lancaster University

LA1 4YW



Katarzyna Marciniak
Professor and Co-Editor of Global Cinema
Transnational Studies
Department of English
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701



Dr Bruce Bennett

Director of Film Studies

Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts

Lancaster University

Bailrigg

Lancaster LA1 4YW

United Kingdom

+44 (0) 1524 594753

http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/people/bruce-bennett(6431f861-5056-4ff7-a02d-7f8c8726fb7d).html





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