[ecrea] 'Childhood and Nation in World Cinema' conference

*Childhood and Nation in World Cinema*

* Borders and Encounters Since 1980*

Conference of the Leverhulme Funded International Network

*18th – 19th April 2016, Royal Holloway, University of London*


<http://childnationcinema.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/RHUL-CNWC-Logo.png>

Figuring filmic representations of the child is an important recent
trend in cinema studies.  Adult cultural investments in the child are
acknowledged whilst the most exciting work simultaneously pushes at the
boundaries of film theory to create a new cinematic politics of
childhood in filmic portrayals of the child’s experience.

This conference aims to take forward children’s perceptions of, and
involvement in, screen representation.  At the same time, it
acknowledges the importance of the child in figuring ideas of nationhood
in adult cultural and social consciousness, as it is explored through
film.  Given the current debates over national film studies, and serious
concerns over the status of the nation as a meaningful cultural unit,
our aim is not to assume some pre-social geopolitical empathy of child
and political entity.  Rather, we wish to observe how, why and indeed
whether the cinematic child is aligned to concepts of modern nationhood,
to concerns of the state, and to geo-political organizational themes and
precepts. World cinema is understood not as a commercial label but as a
discursive site for the mapping and remapping of local, national and
transnational understandings of both child and nation and for the
exploration of themes of belonging, encounter and experience as well as
agency and representation.  Cinema may include home video, participatory
video and found footage as well as commercial cinema whatever its
distribution strategy. Scholars may examine the structures of national
feeling in places of production and distribution, and the manner in
which the child is deployed to maintain, reflect or interrogate these
structures. The category of childhood is itself in slippage across
classes, ethnicities and regions whilst the complex relations between
national borders, language and political cultures are likely to produce
conflicted representations of the national subject, all of which require
politically and culturally informed and nuanced readings of the filmic text.

The conference aims to bring together scholars from around the world to
explore the child and nation on screen. We seek proposals that address
some of the key issues in relation to childhood and nation on screen in
post-1980 cinema.

*Confirmed keynote speakers*

·Professor Karen Lury (Glasgow)

·Professor David Martin-Jones (Glasgow)

*Network partners*

·*Dr Sarah Wright*(Principal Investigator, RHUL)

·*Professor Stephi Hemelryk-Donald*(UNSW and Liverpool),

·*Professor Emma Wilson*(Cambridge)

·*Dr Zitong Qiu*(Ningbo Institute of Technology, Zhejiang University).

*Registration*

http://onlinestore.rhul.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=1&catid=683


*More info*

http://childnationcinema.org/

Any questions or queries can be sent (tochildnationcinema /at/ rhul.ac.uk)
<mailto:(childnationcinema /at/ rhul.ac.uk)>or on twitter:@childcinema
<https://twitter.com/ChildCinema>


*Dr Lidia Merás*

Network Facilitator

Childhood and Nation in World Cinema

Leverhulme Trust, International Research Network

School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Royal Holloway, University of London, TW20 0EX

childnationcinema.org


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