[ecrea] CFP: 'Rethinking Disability on Screen' Symposium, University of York, 14 May 2015

*CFP: Rethinking Disability on Screen: A One-Day Interdisciplinary 
Symposium*



Thursday 14th May, 2015, Humanities Research Centre, University of York



Website: rethinkingdisabilityonscreen.com

Twitter: @rdos2015



* Deadline for abstracts: 16th January 2015 *



Keynote speakers: Stuart Murray, Professor of Contemporary Literatures 
and Film and Director of the Leeds Centre for Medical Humanities and 
Justin Edgar, Filmmaker and Founder and Creative Director of 104 Films 
(www.104films.com)



Cinema's visual interest in disability registered almost from the moment 
of its invention. The historical tendencies of fiction film to show 
disabled subjects as objects of pity or comedy, as 'monstrous', as 
'resentful' or as segregated from mainstream society have been 
critically documented from the 1980s onwards, but more recently, a 
number of international films featuring disability - Les 
Intouchables,Amour, Rust and Bone, The Sessions - have enjoyed both 
critical and commercial success.



Alongside TV coverage of the London-hosted 2012 Paralympics on Channel 
4, UK terrestrial programming has addressed disability across a range of 
genres, from drama (Best of Men, BBC2) through comedy-sitcom (Derek, 
Channel 4) and social documentary (The Undateables, Bodyshock, Channel 
4), to mixed receptions. Such developments call for a re-examination of 
representations of disability on screen and their contribution to 
ongoing cultural, social, economic and political debates surrounding 
disability. This one-day interdisciplinary symposium at the University 
of York aims to unite postgraduates, early career researchers, 
established scholars and industry practitioners working across a range 
of fields and disciplines - including film studies, history, literature, 
cultural studies, gender studies, sociology and health sciences - to 
explore the ways in which cinema and television have reflected, and 
shaped, subjective and objective experiences of impairment and 
disability throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.



We invite contributions in the form of 20-minute papers on a range of 
topics and genres, encompassing both fiction and non-fiction materials, 
as well as analyses of disability in production and reception contexts. 
The event will be underpinned by a number of key critical questions:



 - How visible is disability throughout the history of cinema and 
television? In what screen contexts is disability present? When has it 
been occluded, marginalised or suppressed?

 - What specific forms of disability has cinema embraced? Which has it 
neglected or rejected?

 - To what extent have cinema and television engaged with the 
emotional, physical and social implications of impairment and disability?

 - What forms of spectatorship do screen representations of disability 
construct/ presume?

 - How have representations of disability on screen changed over time? 
How much progress has been made, and what further directions should this 
take?



Our aims are to facilitate constructive, interdisciplinary conversations 
on existing scholarship, to discuss new avenues of enquiry and to 
promote interest and growth in this important but relatively 
under-studied area.



Presentation topics could include, but are not restricted to:



- disability, sexuality and romance

- disability and exceptionality

- isolation and integration

- dependence, independence, interdependence

- disability and genre (comedy, satire, romance, melodrama, thriller, 
documentary  soap, reality, children's film and TV, animation, 
science-fiction, period drama, medical film)

- disability and film-making (able-bodied and disabled actors, directors 
and producers, disability activism in the entertainment industry)

- commercials, advertising and promotional material

- spectatorship and reception

- discursive exchanges between the fields of disability studies and film 
studies, past, present and future.



Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be emailed to 
(rethinkingdisabilityonscreen /at/ gmail.com) by Friday 16th January, together 
with a brief biographical note (100-150 words).



A number of travel bursaries, primarily for postgraduate students and 
ECRs from the White Rose Consortium and the Northern Network for Medical 
Humanities (nnmh.org.uk), may be available. Details of how to apply will 
be announced in due course.


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