[ecrea] CFP: Documentary and the Voice

Call for Papers and Workshop contributions
VOCAL PROJECTIONS: DOCUMENTARY AND THE VOICE
September 19, 2014 – University of Surrey (Guildford, UK)

Keynote speaker: Dr. Patrick Sjöberg (Karlstadt University, Sweden)
Filmmaker: TBC

Despite a renewed scholarly interest in documentary film and television 
in the last decade, scholars have yet to fully account for the role of 
sound in documentary and, in particular, the ways in which the human 
voice figures as a complex and potentially ambiguous element within the 
audiovisual landscape. Documentary scholarship has tended to focus on 
the visual, emphasising the importance of the photographic basis of the 
film image and its indexical relationship with reality. When it 
is discussed, the human voice has been figured in primarily rhetorical 
terms as an element that reinforces the visual truth claims of 
documentary. This symposium seeks to address this gap in documentary 
scholarship by exploring the connections among the voice, the body, the 
visual image and issues of rhetoric, affect, politics and performance in 
documentary.

Proposals are sought for contributions on any aspect related to the 
human voice in audiovisual documentary, including documentary 
film, television, video, audio recording, digital media, photography and 
performance. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
-       Voice and performance
-       The singing voice in documentary
-       The voice actor
-       Voiceover narration in documentary
-       Documentary and the acousmetre
-       Voice as evidence
-       Beyond the voice as rhetoric
-       Voice as cultural marker (e.g. voice and class, race, gender, 
sexuality)
-       The politics of the voice
-       Vocal fidelity and documentary realism
-       Vocal distortion and masking
-       The voice and the body/ the disembodied voice
-       Documentary genres and the voice (e.g. nature documentary, 
rockumentary, activist films)
-       Historical perspectives on the voice in audiovisual documentary
-       Impact of technological issues on the documentary voice

Contributions may be in the form of either a panel paper or workshop 
participation. Panels will consist of 3 speakers, each delivering 
a 20-minute paper. Workshops will consist of 4-5 speakers who will 
collectively present for 30 minutes. Workshops emphasise 
the unstructured exchange of ideas between workshop panellists and 
audience. Proposals will be accepted for pre-constituted panels 
and workshops.

Please submit name, affiliation, short bio and 300-word abstracts to 
(vocalprojections /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(vocalprojections /at/ gmail.com)> by 1 May 
2014. We will inform participants by 1st June.

Conveners:
Dr. Bella Honess Roe (Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Surrey, UK)
Dr. Maria Pramaggiore (Professor and Head of Media Studies, NUI 
Maynooth, Ireland)


Dr. Bella Honess Roe
Lecturer in Film Studies
Film Studies professional placement tutor
School of Arts
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey, UK
GU2 7XH
01483 683049
http://bellahonessroe.wordpress.com/