[Commlist] CFP Screening Censorship

*CFP Conference*

*/Screening Censorship: New Histories, Perspectives, and Theories on 
Film and Screen Censorship/***

Ghent, Belgium, October 16-17, 2020**

*UPDATE: Our conference is going ahead, online. We will continue to 
adapt to the changing world. Based on abstract submissions Screening 
Censorship Conference will continue to adjust to circumstances, and 
implement best practices of virtual attendance to ensure the safety and 
comfort of delegates, presenters and attendees. The new deadline for 
abstracts is August 15, 2020. For more information, please contact 
(**(daniel.biltereyst /at/ ugent.be) <mailto:(daniel.biltereyst /at/ ugent.be)>**) 
and/or Ernest Mathijs (**(ernest.mathijs /at/ ubc.ca) 
<mailto:(ernest.mathijs /at/ ubc.ca)>**).*

Throughout the history of film and cinema, censorship has existed 
everywhere–in all kinds of shapes, colors, and dimensions. The act of 
restricting the free production, circulation, screening and consumption 
of movies was never unique to authoritarian regimes. Age restrictions, 
film cuttings, bans, industry discouragements, and other types of 
censorial interventions also occurred in countries where media freedom 
and the freedom of speech were and are highly regarded principles. 
Censorship has had far-reaching implications on filmmakers, 
distributors, exhibitors, and audiences across generations, and across 
genres. Hard, strict institutional censorship often came alongside 
implied or ‘suggested’ forms of soft censorship, including, importantly, 
the self-censorship or audiences disciplined into particular viewership 
positions.

Today, soft and hard censorship co-exist in even more fluid forms. The 
acts of banning, regulating, trimming, and tailoring films for 
‘harmless’ consumption, by bureaucracies, pressure groups and activists, 
are frequently embedded within wider debates about media use. But film 
nonetheless remains a ‘banner issue’, a point of reference for what 
constitutes screen censorship.

*Keynote participations will be a combination of live, virtual and 
recorded addresses.*

Academic keynote speakers:

Professor Richard Maltby (Flinders University, Australia)

Professor Linda Williams (University of California, Berkeley, USA)

Professional keynote speakers:

Manuel Mozos (filmmaker, Portugal)

Rachel Talalay (film director/producer, US/Canada)

 From the long tradition of investigating film censorship onwards, this 
conference aims at reflecting upon recent changes in policies, 
strategies and practices of film censorship, both in the past and in 
today’s media landscape. Amongst the many questions, this conference asks:

·What are film history’s lessons from censorship?

·What are the contours of censorship today? //

·Is censorship still a useful concept? How has it changed? //

·How do new or renewed sensitivities influence censorship today, in 
terms of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, ageism, ableism? //

·How do censorships compare, across time, space, genre, and technologies? //

·What is the role of social media in debates about censorship? How do we 
define film censorship in times of massive content moderation on social 
media platforms? //

·How does film censorship work on different screens: in the theatre, on 
television, on in-flight, mobile, across multitudes of digital screens? //

·What are the ‘aesthetics’ of censorship today and what is the function 
of pastiche, subversion, ‘just joking’, and other kinds of 
boundary-challenging work? //

·What do recent controversies and provocations reveal about the 
evolution of censorship? //

·What is the relationship between incidents and interventions in 
production culture, artistic integrity, and censorship?//

·What is censorship’s relationship with ‘hardcore’ and explicit 
material, past and now? If censorship is not always a simple matter of 
repression from above, but of conflicting discursive constructions 
arising from below, how do we account for the history of the emergence 
of hard-core pornography beyond thinking of it as the liberalization of 
censorship?//

/Screening Censorship /also invites reflections on the changing research 
environment:

·What are the tools for studying censorship today?

·How have digital technologies affected the study of censorship?

·What is the influence of new film and cinema historiography in 
exploring practices of distributing, screening, consuming and audience’s 
experiences of film and screen censorship?

/Screening Censorship/aims to showcase academic and industry voices on 
the issue of the shifting practices of censoring films on the different 
screens. The four keynote addresses confirmed for the symposium reflect 
that goal. The conference//is organized in tandem with the 47^th 
International Film Fest Ghent (FIAPF accredited, Variety’s top-50 
must-attend), and aims to examine how film and cinema censorship, as a 
concept and as a practice (ad hoc and post hoc), functions 20 years into 
the 21^st Century.

/Screening Censorship/welcomes contributions for 20-minute presentations 
from scholars, artists and practitioners whose work pertains to topics 
and themes of film and screen censorship. We are seeking abstracts for 
individual papers and panels of three or four contributors on topics 
including, but not limited to:

·Theories, concepts, and discourses on film censorship, control, 
discipline, silencing, content moderation

·New film censorship policies, strategies, tactics, practices

·The aesthetics of film censorship, subversion, pastiche

·Activism and resistance

·Film censorship, audiences and reception

·Institutions and power

·Comparison, entangled history, histoire croisée

·Film censorship and the museum: archives, heritage, platforms

·Artistic integrity, interventions, re-use

·Film censorship cases, controversies, panics

·Digital tools and new methods for doing film censorship research today

Please send *abstracts of 300 words and a 100-word biography* to Daniel 
Biltereyst ((daniel.biltereyst /at/ ugent.be) 
<mailto:(daniel.biltereyst /at/ ugent.be)>) and Ernest Mathijs 
((ernest.mathijs /at/ ubc.ca)) by *August 15th, 2020*, and address any queries 
to the same addresses. Abstracts should be submitted following this 
order: (a) author(s); (b) affiliation; (c) email address; (d) title of 
abstract; (e) body of abstract; (f) bibliography. E-mails should carry 
the subject line: /Screening Censorship/ Abstract Submission.

Conference sponsored by Digital Cinema Studies (DICIS, FWO Flanders) in 
collaboration with The Centre for Cinema and Media Studies (UBC).

Conference website: www.censorship-symposium.org 
<http://www.censorship-symposium.org>

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