[ecrea] CfP International Conference of Film and Media Studies "From Spectacle to Entertainment"

CALL FOR PAPERS

*From Spectacle to Entertainment:*
*Cinema, Media and Modes of Engagement from Modernity to the Present*

XXIV International Film Studies Conference
Roma Tre University – Department of Philosophy, Communication and 
Performing Arts
Rome, November 22-23, 2018

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
Thomas Elsaesser (The University of Amsterdam), Tom Gunning (The 
University of Chicago)

*DEADLINE: September 2, 2018*

Over the course of the twentieth century, film style and consumption has 
been investigated in relation to both live performance practices and 
pre-cinematic visual devices. In particular, film scholars have 
focused on the ways cinema has re-mediated elements of the nineteenth 
century culture of spectacle; how film has complemented these elements 
with technological innovations; how it has relocated them within new 
visual regimes; and how cinema has represented an essential point of 
conjunction between the developments of popular entertainment and the 
dynamics of modernity.

The notion of attraction, for example, has allowed the debate in film 
studies to outline different modes of negotiation between spectacular 
and narrative regimes, between spectators and modes of 
representation, and between popular and bourgeois culture. Overall, 
cinema has contributed enormously to the configuration of modern 
subjectivity. At the same time, theoretical investigation has also dealt 
with the relationship between film spectatorship and metamorphoses in 
modern subjectivity. Notions such as that of visual pleasure, for 
example, have remapped the discussion of cinematic spectacle onto issues 
ofengagement, subjectivity and corporeality, as well as cultural, 
political and economical dynamics.

Recently, the discipline of media studies seems inclined to move beyond 
the notion of spectacle and towards the study of the entertainment 
practices pervading the present mediascape. Many scholars 
have reflected, for example, on technological transformations: on their 
connections to trans-media storytelling; on the way they shape the 
imaginaries of globalization; and on their influence on the politics and 
practices of creative industries. Crucial to the analysis of current 
Hollywood trends is, for example, the notion of total entertainment, as 
it accounts for both the expansive environments of entertainment created 
by global media conglomerates and the new immersive modes of engagement.

How can the scholarship on film as spectacle – and in particular its 
historical, theoretical, and methodological heritage – help us today in 
understanding our post-cinematic, post-media culture? How is the complex 
nexus of technologies, visual regimes, cultures of spectacle and forms 
of subjectivity rearticulated in current entertainment practices? The 
XXIV International Film Studies Conference at Roma Tre focuses on these 
issues in relation to the more established areas of debate – early 
cinema, ‘classical’, and post-classical Hollywood – as well as in 
connection to different modes, devices, historical and geographical 
scenarios.

The conference considers film as a crucial point of convergence between 
late nineteenth century spectacular culture and contemporary 
entertainment practices, but the areas of investigation are evidently 
not limited to cinema. Below are some topics and issues that participant 
could address from a historical and/or theoretical perspective, as well 
as starting from specific case studies:

• The notions of ‘spectacle’ and ‘entertainment’
• Spectacle and modern urban subjectivity
• The relationships between devices, screens and forms of subjectivity
• Archaeologies of immersivity: panoramic formats, 3D, stereophonic 
sound, etc.
• Melodrama as a narrative and spectacular regime
• The functions of epic and fantasy, and their exploitation
• Post-classical cinema, new blockbusters and cross-media storytelling
• Modes of the spectacular in everyday spaces (shopping malls, 
department stores, theme parks, urban screens, etc.)
• The scenic space, from cinema to immersive media: the role of image 
and sound
• The migration of cinematic imaginaries and narrative modes in new 
media contexts
• From pleasure to play: new emotional regimes and gamification
• Stardom as spectacular practice
• Live performance and post-digital scenarios

The proposals are to be sent to the following email address: 
(roma3conference /at/ uniroma3.it)
Please include a title, an abstract (max. 250 words), 3-5 keywords, a 
short biography, and contact information for the author(s).

Abstract deadline: September 2, 2018. Notification of acceptance: 
September 7, 2018.

Presentations will be 20 minutes long. Languages of the conference are 
English and Italian.

Organizers: Enrico Carocci, Ilaria De Pascalis, Veronica Pravadelli 
(Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts – Roma Tre 
University)

Conference fee (speakers): 40,00 EUR

*Website: <http://roma3conference.wixsite.com/filmmediaspectacle>*


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