CALL FOR PAPERS:
Representing the War on Terror: post 9/11 television drama and documentary
One day conference at the ATRiuM, CCI, University of Glamorgan, Cardiff
Saturday November 21st 2009
The phrase ?the War on Terror? has become
shorthand for the West?s response to the attack
on New York?s twin towers in September 2001, and
has never been far from our television screens
since. Although the phrase itself is
controversial, television has engaged directly,
and obliquely, with the new realities of the
post-9/11 world. Much of the coverage has been
in news, current affairs and documentaries, but
there have also been several significant one-off
filmed dramas made by UK companies (largely
independents) and transmitted by broadcasters in
the UK and abroad to considerable acclaim. These
range from an account of the attack itself (The
Hamburg Cell, C4 2004); to an examination of the
David Kelley affair (The Government Inspector
C4, 2005); to a projected assassination of the
US President (Death of a President C4 2006); to
an analysis of the radicalisation of British
Muslims in the BAFTA-winning Britz (C4 2007); to
an account of the arrest, imprisonment and
release of British citizens in Guantanamo Bay
(The Road to Guantanamo C4 2006); to an
exploration of the role of the British army and
mercenaries in Iraq (Occupations, BBC 2009).
This conference invites colleagues to examine
these and other fictional and docudrama and
documentary programmes/series that take the ?War
on Terror?, and the complex response to it, as their subject matter.
Potential topics of discussion might include, but are not limited to:
· Textual analyses of specific representations
· Problems and possibilities of acting in such forms
· Production contexts, commissioning, independent production
· Aesthetic contexts: docudrama in a new
era; representing historical agents and agency
· Audiences and their response to contemporary docudrama
Peter Kosminsky, the award-winning filmmaker and
director of several important contributions to
post-9/11 drama (including Britz and The
Government Inspector), will attend and take part
in a discussion in the afternoon (see brief biog below).
The conference organisers are Stephen Lacey
(University of Glamorgan) and Derek Paget (University of Reading).
Please submit your title and a 350-word abstract
to Stephen Lacey (to whom any enquiries should
be addressed) at:
<mailto:(swlacey /at/ glam.ac.uk)>(swlacey /at/ glam.ac.uk) by September 30th 09
We look forward to hearing from you.
Peter Kosminsky: brief biog (extracted from the British Documentary website)
Peter Kosminsky began his career in 1980 at the
BBC as a general trainee, working as a Drama
Script Editor before moving to Current Affairs
as a director on Nationwide, Breakfast Time and
Newsnight. He then joined Yorkshire Television
in 1985 as documentary Producer/Director for the
First Tuesday series, which included the award
winning The Falklands War - The Untold Story,
Cambodia: Children of the Killing Fields and
Afghantsi, as well as the two-part drama Shoot
To Kill by Michael Eaton. In the early nineties,
he turned to fiction with Wuthering Heights and
since 1995 has worked freelance. After The Life
and Death of Philip Knight - the life and death
of a young man who is victim of a miscarriage of
justice and commits suicide in prison - he made
The Dying of the Light, about the murder of a
British aid worker working with UNICEF in
Somalia. Then came No Child of Mine and Walking
on the Moon, after which he directed Warriors,
in which he described the plight of a British
UNPROFOR peacekeeping battalion in Bosnia in
1992. He followed this with the docudrama
Innocents, which dealt with experimental
surgical practices used on children in Bristol.
The Project was a chronicle about the rise to
power of Tony Blair's Labor Party, after which
he directed a feature in Hollywood, White
Oleander. His recent work includes: The
Government Inspector a film for Channel 4 and
Arte about the suicide of leading microbiologist
and former chemical weapons specialist David
Kelly, and Britz , also for C4, about the
radicalization of British Muslims. Kosminsky was
a past winner of the Alan Clarke Award for
Outstanding Creative Contribution to Television
and is a Fellow-elect of the RTS.
Professor Stephen Lacey
Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural
Industries/Ysgol Diwydiannau Creadigol a Diwylliannol Caerdydd
University of Glamorgan/Prifysgol Morgannwg
ATRiuM
Adam St/Heol Adam
Cardiff/Caerdydd CF24 2FN
tel: 01443-668611 (direct line)
01443-480480 (university switchboard)
(swlacey /at/ glam.ac.uk)
