[Commlist] CFP "Worlds of Imagination: Media, Place and Tourism in Today’s Global World" online conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

Worlds of Imagination: Media, Place and Tourism in Today’s Global World
April 7th- 9th 2021
Online conference / Erasmus University Rotterdam

Keynote speakers:
• Dal Yong Jin
• Sangkyun Kim
• Mimi Sheller
• Peter U. C. Dieke
• Lúcia Nagib
• Matt Hills

In today’s globalized, transnational and digitalized media environment, 
popular culture plays a significant role in the establishment and 
(re)negotiation of place identities and the ways in which people relate 
to physical locations. Traveling to film locations, participating in fan 
re-enactments or visiting theme parks are some of the varied and 
multifaceted ways in which the ties between people’s worlds of 
imagination and the real worlds they inhabit are made tangible through 
place.

This conference highlights the interconnections between media, tourism 
and place and aims to bring together the diverse perspectives, 
approaches and actors involved in this process while focusing on 
critical issues accompanying this multifaceted phenomenon. We venture 
off the beaten track by adopting a decidedly global perspective and 
putting emphasis on the exploration, analysis and comparison of cases 
from around the world. Consider Bollywood, which produces more films, 
for a larger audience, than Hollywood does every year, and how Chinese, 
Indian and Russian travellers increasingly determine the face of 
international tourist flows. This conference aims to broaden the 
horizons by including and comparing research into, for example, 
Bollywood films, Brazilian telenovelas and South Korean K-pop culture.

We proudly present the following keynote speakers: Prof. Dal Yong Jin 
(Simon Fraser University), editor of "Transmedia Storytelling in East 
Asia: The Age of Digital Media" (2020) and author of "Transnational 
Korean Cinema: Cultural Politics, Film Genres, and Digital Technologies" 
(2019);  Prof. Sangkyun Kim (Edith Cowan University), editor of "Food 
Tourism in Asia" (2019, with Ian Yeoman and Eerang Park) and "Film 
tourism in Asia: Evolution, transformation and trajectory" (2018, with 
prof. dr. Stijn Reijnders); Prof. Mimi Sheller (Drexel University), 
author of "Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene" 
(expected 2020) and "Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an 
Age of Extremes" (2018); Prof. Peter U. C. Dieke (University of 
Nigeria), editor of "Research Themes for Tourism" (2011, with Peter 
Robinson and Sine Heitmann) and "The Political Economy of Tourism 
Development in Africa" (2000); Prof. Lúcia Nagib (University of 
Reading),  author of "Realist Cinema as World Cinema: Non-cinema, 
Intermedial Passages, Total Cinema" (expected 2020) and "Brazil on 
screen: Cinema Novo, new cinema and utopia" (2007), and Prof. Matt Hills 
(University of Huddersfield), author of "Fan Cultures" (2002) and 
"Doctor Who: The Unfolding Event" (2015).

This year the current Corona crisis has hit the world hard, also with 
regard to its media and tourism industries. The lockdown has seriously 
hampered filming and all other media production practices both on 
location and in the studio. At the same time, the tourism industry as a 
whole is suffering a disastrous year after a virtually constant annual 
growth since the late 1950s. At the time of writing there are modest 
signs the media and tourism industries are finding answers to the 
current crisis. It is clear, though, that the need to find more 
sustainable ways to deal with the interrelation between popular culture 
and tourism is even more relevant now that the Corona crisis has become 
part of the global agenda. This conference also aims to address this issue.

We seek to bring together scholars across disciplines, including, but 
not limited to, media studies, cultural studies, cultural geography, fan 
studies, tourism studies, and development studies. We invite papers that 
address all themes around media, place and tourism, such as:

• Media tourism
• Popular culture and heritage
• Film location production
• Film (and) tourism policies
• Impacts of filmmaking and tourism on locations and communities
• Imaginative geographies in media and tourism
• Fan re-enactments
• Place identity and belonging
• Media tourist experiences
• Theme-parks and tourism
• Critical issues in media tourism
• Comparative studies on media tourism
• (Interdisciplinary) theories on media tourism

Creative presentation formats are welcomed. Moreover, we warmly 
encourage participation by scholars from the Global South, early career 
researchers and filmmakers working at the intersection of media, place 
and tourism. The conference aims to include a special (online) movie 
screening session, where filmmakers are invited to showcase and discuss 
their work on this topic.

Due to governmental measures regarding COVID-19, the conference will 
take place predominantly online. We plan on organizing some live events 
in the city of Rotterdam (such as public lectures), but these will also 
be livestreamed for those preferring to participate fully online. The 
conference is organized by the ‘Worlds of Imagination’ research group 
consisting of Prof. dr. Stijn Reijnders, dr. Emiel Martens, Débora 
Póvoa, Apoorva Nanjangud, Henry Chow and Rosa Schiavone, and sponsored 
by the European Research Council (ERC).

Please submit your abstracts of max. 300 words and a short biographical 
statement (max. 50 words) to (info /at/ worldsofimagination.eu) before December 
1st, 2020. For more information, please access our website: 
www.worldsofimagination.eu.

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