CALL FOR PAPERS
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference PANEL
2010 Conference in Los Angeles, March 17-21
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This American Life: Television and the American Family
>From I LOVE LUCY to MAD MEN, shows portraying the myriad facets of American
family life have dominated television programming since the medium's
inception. Ranging from darkly dystopian visions of a unified struggle for
survival to the lighthearted, and often downright raucous, hijinks of sitcoms,
seemingly straightforward representations of family dynamics and familial
relationships may reveal underlying commentaries on American culture, society,
and politics. This panel aims to explore representations of the
American family
on television throughout the medium's history. Topics may include, but are not
limited to
- Theoretical analyses of specific television shows
- Advertising and marketing
- Utopian and dystopian versions of familial units
- Representations of motherhood or fatherhood
- Family and the construction of identity
- Family and democracy
- Family and the "American Dream"
- Television and parenting
- Programming for children and teenagers
- The representation of "alternative" families
- Biological family vs. the "families we choose"
- Watching television and family bonding
- Gender and racial tensions and negotiations
- Feminism and the family vs. career debate
- The dichotomy between public and private
- The function of domestic spaces on television
Please send abstracts or proposals (250-500 words) to
(adovevie /at/ mail.rochester.edu) by July 31, 2009.
(Accepted presenters will be notified prior to August 15 and the panel will be
submitted to SCMS by September 1. Acceptance of your proposal does
not guarantee
that SCMS will accept the panel as a whole.)
