[ecrea] CFP: Watching the Transnational Detectives: Showcasing Identity and Internationalism on British Television

*
*
*Watching the Transnational Detectives: Showcasing Identity and 
Internationalism on British Television*

*Institute of Modern Languages Research, London*

*8-9 November 2018*

*Organised by the School of Histories, Languages and Cultures of the 
University of Hull*

*with support from the Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, 
Transforming Societies project (part of the AHRC’s Open World Research 
Initiative)*

**A recent article in the Evening Standard posed the question ‘Is it a 
coincidence that just as governments are seeking to close their borders, 
television is opening them?’ (March 15 2017). Indeed, in post-Brexit 
Britain, television viewers have access to an ever increasing number of 
foreign language programmes. And ‘with the boom in streaming services, a 
single TV drama can cross borders like never before. Yet still, telling 
local stories appears to be the secret to international appeal’ (ibid).  
But what is the relationship between the local, national, and 
transnational that is presented on screen? And how do these dramas 
influence viewers’ perceptions of the countries, nationalities and 
languages which are depicted on screen?

This conference will address these questions by focusing on popular 
global crime dramas that are available with English sub-titles to 
British viewers. Although work has been done on the crime genre in 
literature and on film in different language contexts, there is little 
work available on the reception of these television programmes in a 
transnational context. The conference will therefore explore the way in 
which ideas of national identity and nationhood are interrogated through 
crime drama series when watched in Britain and thus outside of their 
original national context.

The conference will address, but not be limited to, the following areas 
and contexts:

·         Culture, heritage, preservation, and promotion: ways of 
screening the nation

·         Walter Presents, BBC4, Sky: successful broadcasting strategies

·         Notions of cultural value and the place of the middle-brow in 
national, international and transnational TV contexts

·         The local in the national, the national in the transnational: 
crime drama as ‘a site where the construction of everyday life may be 
examined’ (Turner, 1996: 6)

·         Cultural identities: local, national, transnational and 
‘other’ identities as represented in crime drama

·         Travelling ideas: which ideas and stereotypes of ‘the nation’ 
persist in and are reinforced in the viewer by such series?

·         Selling the nation, consuming the nation: crime drama as 
cultural ambassador or promotional tool?

Confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Lucy Mazdon (University of 
Southampton), Professor Andrea Esser (University of Roehampton)

We invite proposals of up to 300 words, on these and related topics, for 
papers of 20 minutes. Email proposals should be sent to Dr Angela 
Kimyongür ((a.m.kimyongur /at/ hull.ac.uk) <mailto:(a.m.kimyongur /at/ hull.ac.uk)>) 
by *_Friday 1 June 2018_*

Speakers may address any national or linguistic context; however, the 
working language of the conference will be English.

We are pleased to acknowledge the support of: the Multilingualism: 
Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies project (part of the 
AHRC’s Open World Research Initiative); the German Screen Studies 
Network; the School of Histories, Languages and Cultures (University of 
Hull)


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