[ecrea] CFP: Women and New Hollywood

Call for Papers: Women and New Hollywood

Maynooth University, Ireland

29-30 May 2018

Recent decades have witnessed no shortage of critical or academic 
writing on the industrial upheaval and creative innovations of New 
Hollywood (1967-80). But as scholarship has shaped the era, it has done 
so around a very narrow set of concerns, the overriding one casting New 
Hollywood as an era of great directors, which, by default, has meant an 
era of “great men.” Such a vision relies on the kind of identification 
of creativity with masculinity that Geneviève Sellier has discussed in 
relation to the French New Wave, and its construction has required a 
marginalisation, erasure even, of the creative labour of countless women 
practitioners.

In reality, the late ‘60s and ‘70s saw women begin to re-enter Hollywood 
production in numbers never before seen. While achieving nothing close 
to real parity, women nevertheless wrote, edited, designed, and produced 
many of the era’s most influential films. Most of these contributions 
have been, at best, paid lip service, but more often overlooked almost 
completely.

For example, one of New Hollywood’s iconic films, /Bonnie and Clyde/, is 
regularly recognized for its innovative editing – Dede Allen arguably 
changed the style of Hollywood filmmaking forever. And yet, Allen is 
marginalised within discourses that discount women’s contributions and 
privilege the roles of men like Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty.

Media Studies at Maynooth University and the Irish Research Council are 
happy to announce the conference Women and New Hollywood, to be held at 
Maynooth Unversity on 29-30 May, 2018.

The conference will endeavour to excavate and reassess the various roles 
that women’s creative labour played in shaping the New Hollywood era 
across all facets of production and within the broader cultural context. 
We hope to challenge the dominant discourse around New Hollywood, which 
is, among other things, heavily gendered in its bias towards a 
creativity, an innovation, and a labour that continue to be framed as 
almost entirely male.

To that end we invite proposals on any aspect of Women and New 
Hollywood, including but not limited to:

  * women practitioners – analysing the work of specific editors,
    designers, directors, writers, producers, etc.;
  * how the work of particular women of the ‘70s has influenced later
    Hollywood filmmakers;
  * actors behind the camera;
  * women in charge – charting the rise of the first wave of women
    executives and studio heads and their influence on later eras of
    Hollywood;
  * the relationship between women in production and women’s
    representation on screen;
  * women’s film criticism during the era;
  * women, New Hollywood, and second-wave feminism;
  * historiography & institutional memory – how contemporary
    institutions such as publishers, archives, or film studies
    departments perpetuate or challenge the marginalisation of New
    Hollywood women;
  * theorizing the ‘70s – through a contemporary lens or by revisiting
    ‘70s feminist theory.

Furthermore, while the main topic of the conference is Hollywood 
filmmaking, we recognize that artistic women have often been impelled to 
work across creative spheres. So we are also open to proposals on the 
following, especially where links can be made to the conference’s main 
topic:

  * independent women filmmakers;
  * women in television;
  * women working in other national film industries.
We are accepting submissions for individual papers or pre-constituted 
panels of three papers each. In either case, please include abstracts of 
no more than 300 words and brief biographies for each presenter (100 
words). Pre-constituted panels should also include a brief rationale 
statement (250 words). In keeping with the spirit of the conference, we 
would like to discourage all-male panels. Proposals should be submitted 
in one email to (WomenNewHollywood /at/ gmail.com) by 20 December 2017. 
Participants will be notified by the selection committee before the end 
of January 2018.

Further queries can be directed to the email address above or to one of 
the conference organizers: Aaron Hunter ((aaron.hunter /at/ mu.ie)) or Martha 
Shearer ((martha.shearer /at/ kcl.ac.uk)).

/Maynooth is a university town, located approximately 30 minutes by 
train from Dublin city centre. It is home to a historic castle, the Duke 
of Leinster’s former estate, and lively pubs and restaurants. 
Accommodation will be available on campus and in local hotels./

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