[ecrea] CFP: CINEMA & HISTORY conference

Università degli Studi Roma Tre

Dipartimento di Filosofia, Comunicazione e Spettacolo

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*CINEMA & HISTORY*

*Time, memory and identity in the images of the new millennium*

*26-27 November 2015*

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International Conference

Conference convenors: Christian Uva and Vito Zagarrio

Institutional partners:

University of Leeds Centre for World Cinemas (UK)

Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)

SISSCO (Società Italiana per lo Studio della Storia Contemporanea)

CPA (Centro Produzione Audiovisivi) - Università degli Studi Roma Tre

Cinema e Storia. Rivista di studi interdisciplinari (Rubbettino Editore)

_Call for Papers_

The 21^st annual international conference of the Dipartimento Filosofia,
Comunicazione e Spettacolo (formerly Dipartimento Comunicazione e
Spettacolo) of Università Roma Tre will consider the relationship
between cinema and history, identifying new directions and contemporary
approaches in the field. This conference reprises a theme central to
discussion in the 1980s, when a number of important symposia and
publications in Italy responded to the translation of key French
scholarship. Returning to the question of cinema and history after three
decades implies the consideration of aspects and forms of knowledge
absent from those earlier debates. Bringing the discussion right up to
date, the aim of this conference is to employ a plurality of discourses
to explore in greater depth the theme of cinema and history and to
clarify a crucial relationship that has been essential to cinema since
its inception.

Taking as its premise the fact that in our digital era the relationship
between cinema and history is played out over a broad and complex
terrain, the conference seeks to consider cinema in /hybrid /and
/expanded /terms. This may require analysing cinema’s relationship with
history within a broader mediatic context, taking into account – for
instance – adjacent and tangential media such as *television*,
*videoart*, *internet* and *videogames*. The convenors**therefore warmly
invite contributions that aim to problematize the relationship between
cinema and history in ways not limited to the following:

-the use of cinema and history as a /method/ or lens through which to
read a range of film categories beyond any historical film ‘genre’:
films that, while setting their action in the present, suggest a
dialectical and critical attitude towards the past, especially in order
to address conceptions and perceptions of national, cultural, gender and
political identity; films that are capable of addressing and affecting
contemporary imaginaries and mentalities, thus becoming historical
/agents/ in their own right; films that become valuable primary sources
for scholars, by embodying the customs and material habits of their
time; films which, though set in the present, allow us to reflect on
material and everyday “microhistories” in which the story “dissolves”
time and erupts into the present (Baudrillard);

-the rethinking and transcending of traditional film histories by seeing
cinema and history in the light of a hybrid and global iconographic
system that forces us to wonder whether we should thinking in terms
distinct from the “longue durée” and allows us to avoid “textbook”
slogans and stereotypes;

-history as critique, between ‘the end of history’ (Fukuyama) and its
traumatic return following 9/11;

-history as /imaginary /(Ferro) and as /myth /(Rosen), but also as
/atmosphere/;

-counter-factual history (“What if?”);

-history as /anti-history/: a form of projection into the past of
scepticism and disillusion with present and future;

-history as /anachronistic/ configuration — for Georges Didi-Huberman a
‘heretical’ approach to image and history: while it confirms the
necessity to conceive of cinema and history as part of visual culture,
Didi-Huberman’s perspective stresses the intimate ‘exuberance’,
‘complexity’ and ‘overdetermination’ (/Überdeterminierung/) of images,
forcing a rethinking of the cinema-history relationship within the
context of the /construction of memory/;

-from ‘historical facts’ to ‘memory facts’ (Ricoeur): cinema as site of
memory (both individual and/or collective); cinema as an ideal space in
which to activate not the ‘time of dates’ (Bloch) but instead a
dimension — often framed negatively as nostalgia (Boym) — that
humanizes history and constantly reconfigures it;

-the digital imaginary between memory and history (Burgoyne);

-theoretical and practical reconsiderations of cinema through a feminist
and gendered lens:  analysing the dynamics of production and reception;
the interaction between Foucauldian genealogical thought and feminist
theories;

-from /‘official’ history/ to /‘popular’ history/, from /engagé /to
escapist cinema: the cinema-history relationship as an opportunity to
reframe works that have traditionally been excluded from the analysis of
cinema and history, not least because of the enduring legacy and role of
/engagement /in representing the past (Landy);

-the study of the experience and reception of the historical film, in
all its possible variations;

-history in audio-visual contexts: from television to videoart; history
in videogames; history and photography;

-the employment and potential of digital technology and quantitative
methods to serve an expanded understanding of cinema and history.

We will consider every proposal (*300-500 words*), with *5 keywords*,
*3-5 bibliographic references*, and a *brief biography* of the
proponent, sent *before September 7th, 2015*, to the address
*(cinemaestoria /at/ uniroma3.it)* <mailto:(XXXXXX /at/ uniroma3.it)>. The selection
results will be announced *before September 30th*.

Official languages of the Conference: *English, French, Italian*.

_Conference fees___

*Until 15 October 2015:*

50 € (Faculty member)

30 € (Student)

*From 15 October 2015 (late payment):*

70 € (Faculty member)

50 € (Student)

*(details of the conference website and of methods of payment will be
provided in due course)*

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Alan O'Leary

Associate Professor in Italian

School of Languages, Cultures and Societies

University of Leeds,

Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

http://leeds.academia.edu/AlanOLeary/

http://arts.leeds.ac.uk/italian-cinemas-italian-histories/

http://holidaypictures.tumblr.com/

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