[Commlist] CFP: Blade Runner @ 40

*/Blade Runner /**@40**/:/**Origins and Legacies*

An academic conference hosted by The Centre for Film, Television and 
Screen Studies, Bangor University, UK

June 20-21, 2022

/Blade Runner/ has left an indelible mark on popular culture. Adapted 
from Philip K. Dick’s novel /Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/ it 
anticipated with remarkable prescience the world in which we have lived 
for the past four decades. Scott’s breath-taking vision of a futuristic 
and cosmopolitan metropolis created an aesthetic and cognitive shock 
that continues to resonate to this day, not only in cinema but also in 
literature, art, design, gaming, fashion and even critical theory.

The film is often cited in debates related to robotics, biopolitics, 
posthumanism and urban planning. Denis Villeneuve's sequel, /Blade 
Runner 2049/, continues to explore these themes while introducing issues 
related to artificial intelligence, transhumanism and climate change. 
Ridley Scott himself does the same in other films, such as /Prometheus/ 
and /Alien: Covenant/, as well as in the series /Raised by Wolves/.

/Blade Runner/ is often credited with having spawned several aesthetic 
trends, such as retrofuturism, techno-noir or future-noir, and most 
significantly, cyberpunk. The latter has become a global cultural 
phenomenon that Fredric Jameson describes as “the expression, if not of 
postmodernism, then of late capitalism itself.”

In terms of style, cyberpunk /à la/ /Blade Runner /continues to be very 
popular in all media. But, in terms of spirit, the real heirs to 
cyberpunk are to be found in the work of artists, writers, and thinkers 
around the world who blend creativity with critical theory; who subvert 
cutting-edge technologies toward non-consumerist ends; and who pioneer 
new lines of flight into the future, refusing to be trapped by stagnant 
or predefined categories of identity.

To explore the origins and legacies of this monumental work by Ridley 
Scott, this conference proposes to bring together specialists from 
fields as diverse as literary and cinematographic studies; the history 
of art, design, fashion and architecture; musicology; philosophy; 
political sciences; computer science and robotics; urban and ecological 
studies; and gender studies.

Hosted by the Centre for Film, Television and Screen Studies at Bangor 
University, this symposium proposes to bring together scholars from 
diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore /Blade Runner/ forty years 
since its release, debate its legacy and consider its position within 
visual culture.

We welcome contributions from any perspective such as (but not limited 
to) the following:

/Blade Runner/ – origins, influences, production, aesthetics, publicity, 
reception, afterlife, sequels and directors’ cuts

/Blade Runner/ and gender

/Blade Runner/ and sexuality

/Blade Runner/and race, ethnicity and otherness

/Blade Runner/ and psychoanalysis

/Blade Runner/ and science fiction

/Blade Runner/, audiences, fandom and ‘cult’

/Blade Runner/ and capitalism, neoliberalism, post-industrialism and the 
rise of multinational corporations

/Blade Runner/ and robotics, artificial intelligence, cybernetic 
organisms, the transhuman and the post-human

/Blade Runner/ and biopolitics, posthumanism and urban planning. Denis 
Villeneuve's sequel, /Blade Runner /and climate change

/Blade Runner/ and tech noir, retrofuturism, future noir, and cyberpunk.

We are applying for funding to facilitate postgraduate and unwaged 
participation.

Please complete the following link 
<https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=VUxHxiOpKk2b1OzjcUjbstEPib22iEFNqYWVn2LmcVpUQjNCM0NLR0hQRkgxNEkwWlU2MFFPMzcxMC4u> 
by 1 February 2021.

For further information, please contact the organisers: Nathan Abrams 
((n.abrams /at/ bangor.ac.uk) <mailto:(n.abrams /at/ bangor.ac.uk)>), Elizabeth Miller 
((e.miller /at/ bangor.ac.uk) <mailto:(e.miller /at/ bangor.ac.uk)>) and Christopher 
Robinson ((christopher.robinson /at/ polytechnique.edu) 
<mailto:(christopher.robinson /at/ polytechnique.edu)>).

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