[Commlist] CFP 35 years since Penny Marshall's Big Conference

*Call for Papers*

*One day symposium: Reflecting on 35 years since Penny Marshall’s /Big/*

*In association with BAFTSS*

*University of Leicester, 19^th May 2022*

*Keynote speakers*

Dr James Russell (De Montfort University)

Dr Deborah Jermyn (University of Roehampton)

Thanks to the support of the BAFTSS event fund, The University of 
Leicester is hosting a one day symposium, organised by Dr Claire 
Jenkins, reflecting on 35 years since Penny Marshall’s /Big/.

2023 marks 35 years since Penny Marshall became the first woman director 
to make over $100 million at the American domestic box office with hit 
comedy /Big/, widely recognised as Tom Hanks’ breakthrough movie. 
Following /Big/, Marshall had an impressive career as a 
director-for-hire, directing the Oscar-nominated /Awakenings/ (1990) and 
the much-loved /A League of Their Own/ (1992), amongst numerous other 
films. Marshall’s death in 2019 was followed by an outpouring of grief 
from her contemporaries, evident in social media and obituaries that 
noted her significance and influence as a trailblazer for women in 
Hollywood. Despite this, however, there is no academic work focused on 
Marshall or her films, and she does not appear in histories of Hollywood.

This one-day symposium will address this absence, and explore the 
ramifications of and reasons for the neglect of Marshall’s work in 
critical circles, using the anniversary of her most commercially 
successful film to reflect more broadly on Marshall, her films, her 
career and her wider influence on the film industry. Further, the event 
will afford the opportunity to focus not only on Marshall and her 
oeuvre, but also those women directors who followed in her footsteps to 
break further boundaries in Hollywood.

*Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:*

Explorations of Marshall’s films (for example, regarding stars, genre, 
authorship etc.)

Marshall’s career and/or route into the industry

Marshall’s early work as an actress

Marshall’s influence as a trailblazer

Women directors in Hollywood – in the 1980s and beyond

Studying directors for hire and their absence in film scholarship

/Big/ and its enduring appeal

The problematic sexual politics of /Big/

/A League of their Own/ and its feminist potential

Hollywood and its canons

Abstracts for 20 minute papers should be approx. 200 words, accompanied 
by a short bio. Pre-constituted panel submissions of three papers are 
also welcomed.

The symposium will be preceded by a public screening of /Big/ at the 
Phoenix cinema in Leicester on Thursday May 18^th .

A selection of papers delivered at this event will be included in a 
proposal for the ReFocus series published by Edinburgh University Press.

*Deadline for submissions: 24^th February 2023*

**

Please forward submissions and any questions to Dr Claire Jenkins at 
(cmj23 /at/ le.ac.uk) <mailto:(cmj23 /at/ le.ac.uk)>


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