[ecrea] CFPs: Childhood and Nation in World Cinemas, Royal Holloway, University of London, April 2016

*CHILDHOOD AND NATION IN WORLD CINEMAS:*

*BORDERS AND ENCOUNTERS SINCE 1980*

CONFERENCE OF THE LEVERHULME FUNDED INTERNATIONAL NETWORK:

http//:childnationcinema.org <http://childnationcinema.org/>

*17**^th **- 20**^th ****APRIL 2016, ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON*

*Call for Papers: *

Figuring filmic representations of the child is an important recent
trend in cinema studies.  Adult cultural investments in the child are
acknowledged whilst the most exciting work simultaneously pushes at the
boundaries of film theory to create a new cinematic politics of
childhood in filmic portrayals of the child’s experience.

This conference aims to take forward children’s perceptions of, and
involvement in, screen representation.  At the same time, it
acknowledges the importance of the child in figuring ideas of nationhood
in adult cultural and social consciousness, as it is explored through
film.  Given the current debates over national film studies, and serious
concerns over the status of the nation as a meaningful cultural unit,
our aim is not to assume some pre-social geopolitical empathy of child
and political entity.  Rather, we wish to observe how, why and indeed
whether the cinematic child is aligned to concepts of modern nationhood,
to concerns of the state, and to geo-political organizational themes and
precepts. World cinema is understood not as a commercial label but as a
discursive site for the mapping and remapping of local, national and
transnational understandings of both child and nation and for the
exploration of themes of belonging, encounter and experience as well as
agency and representation.  Cinema may include home video, participatory
video and found footage as well as commercial cinema whatever its
distribution strategy. Scholars may examine the structures of national
feeling in places of production and distribution, and the manner in
which the child is deployed to maintain, reflect or interrogate these
structures. The category of childhood is itself in slippage across
classes, ethnicities and regions whilst the complex relations between
national borders, language and political cultures are likely to produce
conflicted representations of the national subject, all of which require
politically and culturally informed and nuanced readings of the filmic
text.

We seek submissions on childhood, nation and cinema for our
international conference in April 2016. The conference aims to bring
together scholars from around the world to explore the child and nation
on screen. We seek proposals that address some of the key issues in
relation to childhood and nation on screen in post-1980 cinema.

*Confirmed keynote speakers:*

Professor Vicky Lebeau

Professor Karen Lury

Professor David Martin-Jones

**

*Topics may include (but are not limited to):*


  * the child’s POV and new cinema aesthetics in national or
    transnational cinemas
  * participatory video or child-led cinema
  * the child as gendered or sexual subject on screen
  * the liminality of childhood and its relation to questions of
    nationhood on screen
  * children’s rights to benefits such as health, education, housing and
    security across borders and nations
  * emerging nations, strong nations and childhood as national avatar
  * national belonging, intra-national encounter and the child
  * trauma or memory and the child

*Submissions:*

Abstracts of 250 words should be sent (tochildnationcinema /at/ rhul.ac.uk)
<mailto:(childnationcinema /at/ rhul.ac.uk)>by*_1st September 2015_*. All
submissions should be accompanied by brief bio.  Postgraduate students
may prefer to submit a proposal for a poster paper, which we would also
welcome.

Any questions or queries can be sent (tochildnationcinema /at/ rhul.ac.uk)
<mailto:(childnationcinema /at/ rhul.ac.uk)>or on twitter:@childcinema
<https://twitter.com/ChildCinema>.


*Network partners: *
**Dr Sarah Wright (Principal Investigator, RHUL), Professor Stephi
Hemelryk-Donald (UNSW and Liverpool), Professor Emma Wilson (Cambridge)
and Dr Zitong Qiu (Ningbo Institute of Technology, Zhejiang University).

*The Leverhulme Trust, International Network: *

Childhood and Nation in World Cinema presents an interdisciplinary,
international, and multi-modal interrogation of the appropriations of
childhood in the cinematic imaginaries of diverse national projects
through an international network of expert scholars. For information on
events, guest blog posts and the researcher database please see
http://childnationcinema.org/

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