[ecrea] JAM postgrad conference University of Reading

Journeys Across Media (JAM) 2017
Department of Film, Theatre and Television
University of Reading

Worldhood and World-Making

Call for papers

The JAM 2017 postgraduate conference will take place on Tuesday 11th 
April at the University of Reading with the theme of worldhood and 
world-making in film, theatre and television. In his essay ‘Where is the 
World?’ film critic V.F. Perkins (1936-2016) laments the lack of 
attention paid to the ‘fictional world’ and invites a new engagement by 
way of what he terms as worldhood -- i.e. the qualities and aspects that 
make a fictional world a ‘world’, rather than what makes it ‘fictional’ 
(2005: 22). For Perkins, ‘understanding the events of a movie as taking 
place in a world is a prerequisite of the intelligibility not only of 
plot, but also of tone, viewpoint, rhetoric, style and meaning’ (39). 
Theatre critic Gay McAuley  asserts that, ‘the spatial organisation of 
the fictional world is always to be perceived in terms of ideology’. 
(Gay McAuley, Space in Performance, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan 
Press, 1999, p18) suggesting that the world of the stage or the 
performance, however realistic, is always negotiable and provisional.

In memory and honour of Perkins, but also in keeping with the 
interdisciplinary spirit of JAM, this conference invites investigation 
from both researchers and practitioners into the malleable concept of 
worldhood in works of film, theatre, television and other appropriate 
art forms. What are the strategies that govern the conjuring of 
fictional worlds? What are their devices and mechanical underpinnings, 
and how can we best understand them? Do their boundaries extend beyond 
the film frame and performance space? How do film and theatre makers and 
performance artists reconcile the challenges of instilling ‘suspension 
of disbelief’ in their audiences? What discrepancies are there between 
the fictional world of the artist and the real world of the spectator? 
And to what extent is the imagination of the spectator complicit in the 
completion of these ‘worlds’?

We welcome research presentations, practitioner talks, and practice as 
research performances/films that address the overall conference theme, 
which includes, but is not limited to, the following topic areas:

-       Methods for addressing and unpacking fictional worlds
-       The practical challenges and considerations of fabricating 
fictional worlds in film, theatre, television and beyond
-       Medium-specific and/or cross-media fictional worlds
-       Utopias, heterotopias and atopias
-       Phenomenology and audience participation
-       Realism and artifice
-       Style and meaning
-       Point of view, narrative and epistemology
-       The use of technology in building fictional worlds
-       Critical disruptions in fictional worlds
-       Space, site and location
-       Spatial dynamics and the formation of fictions
-       Artificiality and the fictional world

Presentations and live performances must adhere to a 20 minute time 
limit. To submit your proposal by email, please address your Word 
Document file to the JAM committee at (jam /at/ pgr.reading.ac.uk).

We welcome abstracts for a 20-minute paper or talk or live performance 
piece that should be no more than 300 words and accompanied by a short 
biographical note (no more than 100 words). Performance proposals should 
detail the title of your piece and a description of your performance, 
including space and technical requirements. If possible, performance 
proposals should also include a video recording of the performance 
proposed or video examples of your previous work.

The deadline for proposals is 9 January 2017 All submissions will be 
reviewed and decisions will be communicated by 30 January 2017.


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