[ecrea] Call for Papers: Documentary and the Environment

*Documentary and the Environment*

A one-day symposium hosted by the Film Studies programme at the 
University of Surrey

Friday September 14^th 2012

The third in the series 'Documentary and ...' to be held at the 
University of Surrey will be on Documentary and the Environment. The 
'Documentary and ...' series seeks to explore the conjunction of the 
documentary project with the worlds it encounters and the practical and 
conceptual modifications these combinations bring.

The first decades of the twenty-first century have seen a consistent 
flow of environmental documentary films which have managed to gain 
attention beyond special interest groups.

This one-day event aims to explore the emergence or perhaps resurgence 
of this documentary subgenre. How have documentary filmmakers worked 
with the concepts of the environment and environmental awareness?  What 
are the ethics and aesthetics of environmental documentary filmmaking?  
How do theories of documentary, ecology, and the theorisation of 
environmental politics interact?  How do audiences respond to 
environmental documentaries?

We invite speakers and contributors working on documentary film and 
non-fiction media as well as on the intersection of documentary with 
environmental education, environmental communication, and environmental 
psychology to respond to these questions.  The following topics are a 
guideline to potential paper proposals and are not meant to exclude 
other interpretations of the seminar's title /Documentary and the 
Environment/

· Defining the eco-doc: experimental, documentary and activist 
representations of environmental issues

· Place, space and ecology in environmental documentary

· Environmental justice and the documentary

· Nature and the natural in environmental documentary

· Wildlife documentary and environmental issues

· The history of the environmental documentary

·  Support structures for the production and distribution of 
environmental documentaries

· The evolving environmental film festival circuit and the social hub

· The sustainability of documentary filmmaking

Please submit a proposal including a 300-word paper abstract and a short 
biography to Dr. Helen Hughes ((h.hughes /at/ surrey.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(h.hughes /at/ surrey.ac.uk)>) by Friday 29^th June 2012.

http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/dft/research/currentprojects/surrey/