[Commlist] CFP: EURONOIR - Producers, distributors and audiences of European crime narratives

International conference

Call for papers

*EURONOIR*

*Producers, distributors and audiences of European crime narratives*

/30 September to October 2 2019/

/Venue: Aalborg University/

*Confirmed keynote speakers *

Robert Saunders (Farmingdale State College, SUNY)

Arne Dahl (penname for Jan Arnald)

Annette Hill (Lund University)

Gunhild Agger (Aalborg University)

Anna Estera Mrozewicz (Adam Mickiewicz University)

Katrine Vogelsang (head of fiction, TV 2 Denmark)

Jennifer Green (executive producer, TV 2 Denmark)

*Submissions*are welcome as open call papers and pre-constituted panels. 
Submit your proposal (max 300 words) to through this website: 
https://www.en.cgs.aau.dk/research/conferences/euronoir/abstracts/.

Although a widely popular genre for over a century, crime narratives are 
presently experiencing an unprecedented popularity all across Europe. In 
the fields of literature and television, we are witnessing a deluge of 
episodes and series utilizing crime and violence as a central source of 
inspiration. Reaching into the shadows of societal construction, these 
narratives do more than simply fascinate readers and viewers with 
fantasies of extreme brutality; at best, they express a remarkable 
tension in social engagement worthy of a critical and scholarly 
response. More than any other narrative genre, the crime genre has 
proven able to travel across the European continent and beyond, becoming 
a vehicle for cultural exchange and debate (Nestingen 2008).

As a result, the generic concept noir is now common among producers, 
distributors and audiences of crime fiction, and increasingly noir 
narratives have been located in recognizable places and regions across 
Europe. Several labels have been coined in order to identify different 
strands of EURONOIR by means of geographical qualifiers such as 
Mediterranean, Tartan, Catalan, Nordic etc. (Hansen, Turnbull and 
Peacock 2018). Besides evoking transborder cultural exchange, crime 
narratives are today a strategic means in European place branding on 
local, regional, national and transnational levels of communication.

Such spatial labels evoke local and regional narrative/visual styles 
that, carefully built by authors, publishers and producers, at the same 
time may achieve transnational success in foreign markets. Exchange 
between different strands of EURONOIR is creating new opportunities for 
generic and cultural hybridization. The international appropriation of 
certain stylistic features of Nordic Noir (possibly the most popular 
cross-media production strand on the continent for the past decade) in a 
great number of European crime narratives is a most interesting case in 
point.

Through especially the 1990’s, producers and distributors turned to 
international collaboration and circulation as a significant way of 
funding increasingly expensive film and television, here with the crime 
genre as an especially exploitable vehicle for international attention. 
In the increasing demand for crime film and television, producers turned 
to the vast European traditions of crime literature and utilized 
familiar franchises in crime narrative adaptations. The popularity of 
EURONOIR has since been fueled by a plethora of translations, 
co-production agreements, local, regional and transnational policy 
changes as well as transnational distribution channels and services.

Although EURONOIR is historically linked to the degrading notion of 
Euro-pudding, “a co-production determined by the necessities of funding” 
(Eleftheriotis 2001) or even “a perversion of the system” (Liz 2015), 
there has been a steady rise in successful trans-European 
co-productions, especially within film and television production. As a 
result, crime narratives are now rather labelled “natural transnational 
cop stories” (Bondebjerg 2016), since the topicality of the genre works 
very well with transborder activities. Significant transborder 
television crime fiction titles are Eurocops (1988-94), Crossing Lines 
(2013-) and The Team (2015-). As a concept, then, EURONOIR has gone from 
being a critical perspective on funding methods to now involve neutral 
references to cross-media crime fiction from somewhere in Europe 
(Forshaw 2013). Conceivably, EURONOIR is merely crime literature, 
television and film from anywhere in Europe, fostering potential social 
debates on a continental level.

In the new millennium, the “digital revolution” (Levy 2001) and “the 
Netflix effect” (McDonald and Smith-Rowsey 2016) has disrupted both 
production and distribution, challenging traditional distribution 
channels and providing new transnational opportunities for producers and 
audiences. In this context, written and screened crime fiction is one of 
the most important market drivers of transnational cultural exchange in 
Europe and beyond. Besides distributing dozens of crime titles, SVOD 
services also engage directly in producing crime films and serials, 
singling out crime narratives as an important way of penetrating local 
markets as well as reaching global audiences through digital streaming 
services.

The organizers invite speakers to present work on the production, 
distribution and reception of explicitly transnational European crime 
narratives as well as more local strands of European crime narratives 
production, distribution and reception. This includes significant market 
players and institutions in/across Europe, transcontinental creative and 
culture industrial processes and practices as well as more locally and 
regionally successful and less successful crime narratives. The 
conference invites papers on European crime narratives from 1989 until 
today.

*Thematic concerns of the conference include, but are not limited to the 
following topics:*

LABELS AND CONCEPTS

• What do we conceptualize as EURONOIR?

• What does EURONOIR mean for producers, distributors and audiences?

• What are the major failures and pitfalls of EURONOIR?

• In which ways do the production, distribution and reception of crime 
narratives forge a spatial negotiation of Europe and European cultures 
and identities?

• What will be the future major tendencies in European crime narratives?

• What role does national cinemas play within EURONOIR?

PRODUCERS AND MARKETS

• What are the significant contemporary European market players in crime 
production and distribution?

• How has the production and distribution of the crime genre changed 
during the past three decades?

• How has changing funding and media policies affected the production of 
crime narratives?

• How has production and distribution of crime narratives been affected 
by new transnational streaming services?

• Where are the crime stories located, and has the location strategies 
of crime narratives changed?

• Do writers and producers of crime fiction have specific European 
audiences in mind?

AUDIENCES AND RECEPTION

• (How) do the audiences of crime narratives conceive of Europe?

• How has the European consumption of the crime genre changed during the 
past three decades?

• How do audiences experience European crime fiction?

• In which ways has the critical reception of crime narratives changed?

• How does audiences’ reception of crime narratives affect the 
production the crime genre?

• How do audiences creatively engage with European crime narratives?

The conference will include industry and keynote panels with invited 
speakers from European crime production and crime narratives research.

*Deadlines and practicalities*

Abstracts: Deadline: 15 April 2019

Feedback: 15 May 2019

Registration deadline: 1 August 2019 (online on the conference website)

Conference website: 
https://www.en.cgs.aau.dk/research/conferences/euronoir/.

Conference fee: €240

Early bird registration: €175

PhD students: €125

Conference dinner: €80 (not included in the fee)

Other costs: Participants cover costs for travel, accommodation etc.

Organizing committee: Kim Toft Hansen (Aalborg University), Lynge 
Stegger Gemzøe (Aalborg University), Pia Majbritt Jensen (Aarhus 
University) and Anne Marit Waade (Aarhus University).

Academic board: Stefano Baschiera (Queens University of Belfast), Anna 
Keszeg (University of Debrecen), Jacques Migozzi (University of 
Limoges), Valentina Re (Link Campus University of Rome).

The conference is hosted by the Horizon 2020 research project DETECt: 
Detecting Transcultural Identity in European Popular Crime Narratives 
and co-financed by Aarhus University and Aalborg University.

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