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

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





---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service from ECREA and Nico Carpentier.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://www.ecrea.eu/mailinglist
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
--
Postal address:
ECREA
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151
1180 Uccle
Belgium
--
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------