Sunday, November 28, 2021

CFP Shadow Screens: Unmade, Unseen, Unreleased Film and Television Conference (1/31/2022; Sheffield, UK/Online 5/23-24/2022)

Shadow Screens: Unmade, Unseen, Unreleased Film and Television

deadline for submissions: January 31, 2022

full name / name of organization: 

James Fenwick (Sheffield Hallam University) / Kieran Foster (University of Nottingham)

contact email: j.fenwick@shu.ac.uk

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/11/18/shadow-screens-unmade-unseen-unreleased-film-and-television


Two-day international conference, 23rd to 24th May 2022 to be held in person at Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK and online


Keynotes: To be confirmed


Convenors:


Dr James Fenwick (j.fenwick@shu.ac.uk Sheffield Hallam University)


Dr Kieran Foster (Kieran.foster@nottingham.ac.uk University of Nottingham)


Unmade, unseen, and unreleased films and TV programmes are a burgeoning area of academic study, allowing for the excavation of hidden and lost histories, new insights and perspectives on structural barriers and inequalities in the media industries, and the reframing of the understanding of how the media industries operate. The film and television industries are built on a labour force that has largely worked on projects that were never, and will never, be made, whilst substantial amounts of investment and resource goes towards these unmade projects. The reasons contributing to the unmade are myriad and the industrial scale of these lost projects is staggering. The availability of new archival sources, alongside academic and popular interest, are driving this field of inquiry, which presents opportunities for rethinking film and television history and for the development of counter histories. At the same time, the appeal of ‘lost’ films is furthered by the discovery of unproduced screenplays. As well as books on Kubrick’s Napoleon and The Greatest Movies You’ll Never See, recent years have seen documentary films on ‘lost projects’ such as Lost in La Mancha (2002) and Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013), radio adaptations of unmade films like Welles’s Heart of Darkness, and stage readings of unproduced Hammer horrors such as Vampirella. There are also archives filled with audio-visual footage of outtakes, cuts, and unseen material of films that might have been. Even more tantalising are those archives containing films and television that have been unseen for many decades, lost to time and that have gone unrecorded in official histories.


Building on recent works on this topic, including the collection Shadow Cinema: The Historical and Production Contexts of Unmade Film (2020), this conference proposes to examine the unmade, unseen, and unreleased across the full spectrum of film, television, and other screen industries. How can we make sense of the unmade, unseen, and unreleased? How does it impact on current histories of film and television? What are the counter histories that can be constructed? And what does it reveal about the way the film and television industries operate?


We invite papers for submission on any aspect of unmade, unseen, and unreleased film, television, and other screen media. Suggested topics include, but are by no means limited to:

  • Gender / racial inequalities and unmade projects
  • Structural barriers and the unmade
  • The screenplay process: agents, script readers etc
  • The unmade as alternative media history
  • Archival approaches to the study of the unmade, unseen, and unreleased
  • Case studies of unrealised screenplays
  • Development hell
  • Methodologies for using unmade screenplays as a resource for scholarly research
  • Realisations of unmade projects
  • Outtakes and unused footage
  • Forgotten and unseen films
  • Fandom and unmade projects
  • The literary status of unproduced screenplays
  • Industrial perspectives
  • Creative failure
  • Other unmade screen industry projects i.e. videogames


Proposals for twenty-minute presentations to be emailed to Dr James Fenwick: j.fenwick@shu.ac.uk and Dr Kieran Foster (kieran.foster@nottingham.ac.uk) with a submission deadline of 31st January 2022. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words and include a 100-word biography.


Convenor biographies:


Dr Kieran Foster, is a teaching associate in film and television at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of the forthcoming monograph Hammer Goes to Hell: The House of Horrors Unmade Films  and co-editor of Shadow Cinema (2020) and Studying the Unmade, Unseen, Unreleased: Theories, Methods, Histories (forthcoming, Intellect).


Dr James Fenwick, senior lecturer in Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University. Author of Stanley Kubrick Produces (2020) and Unproduction Studies and the American Film Industry (2021) and co-editor of Shadow Cinema (2020) and Studying the Unmade, Unseen, Unreleased: Theories, Methods, Histories (forthcoming, Intellect).


There will be a small delegate fee for attendees.


Standard delegate fee: £35

Postgraduate colleagues: £15


Last updated November 19, 2021

Saturday, September 11, 2021

New from Oxford UP - The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism

Worth a look for medievalism on screen:
 

The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism

Edited by Stephen C. Meyer and Kirsten Yri 
 
 
Oxford Handbooks
 
Presents a cross-section of a diverse and growing area of study
Draws connections between musical styles and eras
Approaches topics from multiple disciplinary and thematic perspective



$175.00 (Hardcover)
 
Also Available As: Ebook

Published: 02 March 2020

848 Pages | 86 musical examples; 34 illustrations

6-3/4 x 9-3/4 inches

ISBN: 9780190658441




Description

The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism provides a snapshot of the diverse ways in which medievalism--the retrospective immersion in the images, sounds, narratives, and ideologies of the European Middle Ages--powerfully transforms many of the varied musical traditions of the last two centuries. Thirty-three chapters from an international group of scholars explore topics ranging from the representation of the Middle Ages in nineteenth-century opera to medievalism in contemporary video game music, thereby connecting disparate musical forms across typical musicological boundaries of chronology and geography. While some chapters focus on key medievalist works such as Orff's Carmina Burana or Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, others explore medievalism in the oeuvre of a single composer (e.g. Richard Wagner or Arvo Pärt) or musical group (e.g. Led Zeppelin). The topics of the individual chapters include both well-known works such as John Boorman's film Excalibur and also less familiar examples such as Eduard Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys. The authors of the chapters approach their material from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives, including historical musicology, popular music studies, music theory, and film studies, examining the intersections of medievalism with nationalism, romanticism, ideology, nature, feminism, or spiritualism. Taken together, the contents of the Handbook develop new critical insights that venture outside traditional methodological constraints and provide a capstone and point of departure for future scholarship on music and medievalism.



Table of Contents


Introduction [Stephen Meyer and Kirsten Yri] 

Section 1: Romanticizing the Medieval: The Longing for the Middle Ages in the Nineteenth Century
1. Medievalisms in Early Nineteenth-Century German Thought [Laura K. T. Stokes]
2. From Knight Errant to Family Man: Romantic Medievalism and Domesticity in Brahms's Romanzen aus L. Tieck's Schöne Magelone, op. 33 (1865, 1869) [Marie Sumner Lott]
3. Liszt's Medievalist Modernism [Balázs Mikusi]
4. Soldiers and Censors: Verdi's Medieval Imagination [Liana Püschel]
5. The Distant Past as Mirror and Metaphor:ÂPortraying Medievalism in Historical French Grand Operas [Diana Hallman]
6. Medievalism and Regionalist Identity in Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys [Elinor Olin]
7. Romantic Medievalist Nationalism in Schumann's Genoveva, Then and Now [Michael S. Richardson]
8. The Middle Ages in Richard Wagner's Music Dramas [Barbara Eichner] 

Section 2: Performing the Middle Ages
9. Medievalism at the University: Collegia and Choral Societies [Jacob Sagrans]
10. Medieval Folk in the Revivals of David Munrow [Edward Breen]
11. Re-sounding Carl Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc [Donald Greig] 

Section 3: Medievalism and Compositional Practice in the Twentieth Century
12. Medievalism and Anti-Romanticism in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana [Kirsten Yri]
13. Past Tense: Creative Medievalism in the Music of Margaret Lucy Wilkins [Lisa Colton]
14. Hucbald's Fifths and Vaughan Williams's Mass: The New Medieval in Britain Between the Wars [Deborah Heckert]
15. The Return of Ars subtilior?: Rhythmic Complexity and Appeal of Codex Chantilly Six Hundred Years Hence [Aleksandra Vojcic]
16. Miserere: Arvo Pärt and the Medieval Present[Laura Dolp]
17. The Postmodern Troubadour [Anne Stone] 

Section 4: Reimagining the Medieval Woman
18. Tolling Bells and Otherworldly Voices: Joan of Arc's Sonic World in the Early Twentieth Century [Elizabeth Dister]
19. Medievalism and Rued Langgaard's Romantic Image of Queen Dagmar [Nils Holger-Petersen]
20. Nature, Vision, and Light in Vision-Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen [Jennifer Bain]
21. Disciplining Guinevere: Courtly Love and the Arthurian Tradition from Henry Purcell to Donovan Leitch [Gillian L. Gower] 

Section 5: Echoes of the Middle Ages in Folk, Rock, and Metal
22. Early Music and Popular Music: Medievalism, Nostalgia, and the Beatles [Elizabeth Upton]
23. "Ramble On": Medievalism as Nostalgic Practice in Led Zeppelin's use of J. R. R. Tolkien [Caitlin Carlos]
24. A Gothic Romance: Neomedieval Echoes of Fin'amor in Gothic and Doom Metal [Ross Hagen]
25. Viking Metal [Simon Trafford]
26. Medievalism and Identity Construction in Pagan Folk Music [Scott R. Troyer] 

Section 6: Medievalism of the Screen
27. From the Music of the Ainur to the Music of the Voiceover: Sounding Medievalism in The Lord of the Rings [Stephen C. Meyer]
28. Faith, Fear, Silence and Music in Ingmar Bergman's Medieval Vision of The Virgin Spring and The Seventh Seal [Alexis Luko]
29. Hope Against Fate or Fata Morgana? Music and Mythopoiesis in Boorman's Excalibur [David Clem]
30. The Many Musical Medievalisms of Disney [John Haines]
31. Evil Medieval: Chant and the New Dark Spirituality of Vietnam-Era Film in America [James Deaville]
32. Fantasy Medievalism and Screen Media[James Cook]
33. Gaming the Medievalist World in Harry Potter [Karen M. Cook]


Author Information


Stephen C. Meyer is Professor of Musicology at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music. He is the author of Carl Maria von Weber and the Search for a German Opera (2003) and Epic Sound: Music in Postwar Hollywood Biblical Films (2015) as well as numerous articles on topics ranging from nineteenth-century German opera to film music to the history of recorded sound. He is editor of Music in Epic Film: Listening to Spectacle (2016), and from 2014 to 2018 he served as the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Music History Pedagogy.

Kirsten Yri is Associate Professor of Musicology at the Faculty of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. She has published widely on the role of the early music revival and the intersections between music and medievalism in American Music, Intersections, Early Music, and Women and Music. Her work on medievalism and rock music (Dead Can Dance, Black Sabbath, and Corvus Corax) has been published in Current Musicology, Popular Music, and Postmedieval. Her recent research examines parody, gender, and social programs in Carl Orff's Trionfi against a context of German contemporary literary and philosophical debates.
Contributors:


Jennifer Bain, Professor of Music, Dalhousie University

Edward Breen, Coordinator of the Music Department, The City Literary Institute, London

Caitlin Vaughn Carlos, Adjunct Faculty, Chapman University

David Clem, Instructor of Music History, Greatbatch School of Music, Houghton College

Lisa Colton, Reader in Musicology, University of Huddersfield

James Cook, Lecturer in Early Music, University of Edinburgh

Karen M. Cook, Assistant Professor of Music History, The Hartt School of the University of Hartford

James Deaville, Professor, School for Studies in Art & Culture: Music at Carleton University

Elizabeth Dister, Webster University Faculty Development Center

Laura Dolp, Associate Professor, Montclair State University

Barbara Eichner, Senior Lecturer in Music, Oxford Brookes University

Gillian L. Gower, Visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology, Southern Methodist University

Donald Greig, Founding Member, The Orlando Consort

Ross Hagen, Assistant Professor of Music Studies, Utah Valley University

John Haines, Professor of Music and Medieval Studies, University of Toronto

Diana R. Hallman, Associate Professor, University of Kentucky

Deborah Heckert, Department of Music, Stony Brook University

Alexis Luko, Associate Professor of Music, School for Studies in Art & Culture and the College of the Humanities at Carleton University

Stephen Meyer, Professor of Musicology, College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati

Balázs Mikusi, Head of Music, National Széchényi Library in Budapest since 2009

Elinor Olin, Music History Faculty, Northern Illinois University

Nils Holger Petersen, Associate Professor emeritus of Church History, University of Copenhagen

Liana Püschel, Teaching Assistant of Musicology, Università degli studi di Torino, Humanities Faculty

Michael S. Richardson, Assistant Professor of Musicology, University of St. Thomas

Jacob Sagrans, Independent Scholar, Editor, Administrator, and Choral Performer

Laura K. T. Stokes, Performing Arts Librarian and Visiting Lecturer in Music, Brown University

Anne Stone, Associate Professor of Musicology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Marie Sumner Lott, Associate Professor of Music History, Georgia State University in Atlanta

Simon Trafford, Lecturer in Medieval History, Institute of Historical Research, University of London

Scott R. Troyer, Ph.D. candidate, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

Elizabeth Randell Upton, Associate Professor of Musicology, UCLA

Aleksandra Vojcic, Associate Professor of Music Theory, The University of Michigan

Kirsten Yri, Associate Professor of Musicology, Wilfrid Laurier University 


Saturday, July 17, 2021

Now in paperback: From Medievalism to Early-Modernism

Out now in paperback. Definitely worth a look.

From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past 

Edited by Marina Gerzic and Aidan Norrie

Copyright Year 2019

Paperback ISBN 9780367664725

Published September 30, 2020 by Routledge
284 Pages 

Available at https://www.routledge.com/From-Medievalism-to-Early-Modernism-Adapting-the-English-Past/Gerzic-Norrie/p/book/9780367664725.



Book Description

From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past is a collection of essays that both analyses the historical and cultural medieval and early modern past, and engages with the medievalism and early-modernism—a new term introduced in this collection—present in contemporary popular culture. By focusing on often overlooked uses of the past in contemporary culture—such as the allusions to John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (1623) in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and the impact of intertextual references and internet fandom on the BBC’s The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses—the contributors illustrate how cinematic, televisual, artistic, and literary depictions of the historical and cultural past not only re-purpose the past in varying ways, but also build on a history of adaptations that audiences have come to know and expect. From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past analyses the way that the medieval and early modern periods are used in modern adaptations, and how these adaptations both reflect contemporary concerns, and engage with a history of intertextuality and intervisuality.



Table of Contents



Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Notes on Contributors



1. Introduction: Medievalism and Early-Modernism in Adaptations of the English Past

Marina Gerzic and Aidan Norrie



Section I: Cultural Medievalism and Early-Modernism

2. Wonder Woman and the Nine Ladies Worthy: The Male Gaze and what it takes to be a ‘Worthy Woman’

Simone Celine Marshall



3. The King, the Sword, and the Stone: The Recent Afterlives of King Arthur

Sarah Gordon



4. Brand Chaucer: The Poet and the Nation

Martin Laidlaw



5. Moving between Life and Death: Horror films and the Medieval Walking Corpse

Polina Ignatova



6. From Cabaret to Gladiator: Refiguring Masculinity in Julie Taymor’s Titus

Marina Gerzic



7. "There’s My Exchange": The Hogarth Shakespeare

Sheila T. Cavanagh



8. Bloody Brothers and Suffering Sisters: The Duchess of Malfi and Harry Potter

Lisa Hopkins





Section II: Historical Medievalism and Early-Modernism

9. Playing in a Virtual Medieval World: Video Game Adaptations of England through Role-play

Ben Redder



10. "I can piss on Calais from Dover": Adaptation and Medievalism in Graphic Novel Depictions of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453)

Iain A. MacInnes



11. Beyond "tits and dragons": Medievalism, Medieval History, and Perceptions in Game of Thrones

Hilary Jane Locke



12. Re-fashioning Richard III: Intertextuality, Fandom, and the (Mobile) Body in The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses

Marina Gerzic



13. The Many Afterlives of Elizabeth Barton

Annie Blachly



14. The Queen, the Bishop, the Virgin, and the Cross: Catholicism versus Protestantism in Elizabeth

Aidan Norrie



15. "Unseen but very evident": Ghosts, Hauntings, and the Civil War Past

Michael Durrant



Index




Editor(s) Biography


Marina Gerzic works for the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at The University of Western Australia, in both research and administrative roles. She also works as the Executive Administrator for the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and as the editorial assistant for the academic journal Parergon. She has published articles on film and adaptation theory, Shakespeare, pedagogy, cinematic music, cultural studies, science fiction, comics and graphic novels, and children’s literature.



Aidan Norrie is a historian of monarchy, and is currently a Chancellor’s International Scholar in the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at The University of Warwick. He is the editor, with Lisa Hopkins, of Women on the Edge in Early Modern Europe (Amsterdam University Press); and, with Mark Houlahan, of On the Edge of Early Modern English Drama (MIP University Press).





Saturday, June 26, 2021

Coming Soon from Mcfarland: Knights Templar in Popular Culture

Just announced:

The Knights Templar in Popular Culture: Films, Video Games and Fan Tourism

Full details at https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-knights-templar-in-popular-culture/

Patrick Masters
New 2021
Not Yet Published

Available for pre-order at $39.95

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: TBA
Bibliographic Info: appendix, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2021
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8197-9
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4571-1
Imprint: McFarland


Patrick Masters has published writings on the Knights Templar in The Conversation and The Independent. He lives in the UK.

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

CFP: Work & Play: 2021 Literature/Film Association Conference (7/1/21; New Orleans 10/21-23/21)

 

WORK & PLAY

2021 Literature/Film Association Conference 

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA 

October 21 to October 23, 2021 

(further details and link to registration at http://litfilm.org/conference/)

 

Keynote: Vicki Mayer, Tulane University 

Holding the annual conference of the Literature/Film Association in New Orleans raises questions of labor and leisure in relation to adaptation in the study of literature, film, and media. Not only has the city served as the home to writers and filmmakers, but it also has become a major media capital in its own right, enticing television and film production with tax incentives and its distinctive culture. As “work” and “play” have motivated a good deal of recent scholarship across literature, film, and media studies, we invite presentations that put these concerns in conversation with adaptation, broadly defined. While we welcome papers on any aspect of film and media studies, we are especially interested in presentations that address one or more of the following concerns regarding work or play: 

  • the work behind adapting into a different medium 
  • labor and cultural production 
  • authorship and adaptation 
  • the workplace as cultural intersection/metaphor in literature, film, and media 
  • production studies and below-the-line labor 
  • play in cultural production 
  • teaching adaptation and adapting teaching 
  • labor, social change, and adaptation 
  • adaptation as textual play 
  • game play as adaptation 
  • games as adaptations or adapting games 
  • play in analyzing and interpreting text 
  • plays as adaptations or adapting plays into a different medium 
  • performance as adaptation 

We also have significant interest in general studies of American and international cinema, film and technology, television, new media, and other cultural or political issues connected to the moving image. In addition to academic papers, presentation proposals about pedagogy or from creative writers, artists, and filmmakers are also welcome. 

 

Vicki Mayer is Professor of Communication at Tulane University. Her research encompasses media and communication industries, their political economies, infrastructures, and their organizational work cultures. Her publications seek to theorize and illustrate how these industries shape workers and how media and communication work shapes workers and citizens. Her theories inform her work in the digital humanities and pedagogy, most recently on ViaNolaVie and NewOrleansHistorical. Her books include Producing Dreams, Consuming Youth: Mexican Americans and Mass MediaBelow the Line: Producers and Production Studies in the New Television Economy; and Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans: The Lure of the Local Film Economy

 

Please submit your proposal via this link by July 1, 2021. If you have any questions or concerns, contact Pete Kunze at litfilmconference@gmail.com. Accepted presenters will be notified by July 15, and the conference program will be available by August 1. We anticipate being in person, but we will follow CDC guidelines accordingly.

The conference hotel rate of $199/night is available at the Four Points Sheraton French Quarter. Limited travel grant support is planned to be available for select graduate students, non-tenure-track faculty, and/or independent scholars and artists. We also will award Best Graduate Student Paper. Details for an added application process for such support will be shared following proposal acceptances in July. 

The conference registration fee is $200 ($150 for students and retirees) before October 1, 2021 and $225 ($175 for students and retirees) thereafter. All conference attendees must also be current members of the Literature/Film Association. Annual dues are $20. To register for the conference and pay dues following acceptance of your proposal, select your registration and click on the PayPal “Buy Now” button below that will take you to where you can sign in to your PayPal account and complete the transaction. 

 

Presenters will be invited to submit their work to the Literature/Film Quarterly for potential publication. For details on the journal’s submission requirements, visit here

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Medievalisms on the Screen Conference Schedule Posted

Here's the updated press release for the conference.  Try this alternate link to register. (My thanks to June-Ann Greely for the head's up.)

Medievalisms on the Screen: The Representation of the Middle Ages in Audiovisual Media in the 21st Century

March 24, 2021

Medievalisms on the Screen: The Representation of the Middle Ages in Audiovisual Media in the 21st Century (April 29 - May 1, 2021)

Register here to follow the conference online. 

The technological advancements in audiovisual production that have taken place in the first two decades of the 21st century have accentuated the multiple representations of the Middle Ages in popular media. The explosion of the video game industry, the refinement of digital technologies for the re-creation of historical locations and spaces, and the popularization of streaming services, like YouTube and Netflix, have all fostered an increase in platforms for representing the medieval past. Be it the crusaders of Assassin’s Creed (2007) or the Scandinavian world of Vikings (2013-2020), the fantasy universe of Game of Thrones (2011-2019), bands like Rhapsody of Fire or the hack-and-slash hell of Dante’s Inferno (2011), it is a non-academic version of the past that is more familiar to the general public.

The ways in which media affects our perception of the past have real-world ramifications. Specific, distorted representations of the Middle Ages have served as fuel for acts of violence and contributed to the rise of authoritarian, xenophobic, and racist political agendas. Interestingly, this process has gone past traditional “medieval” scenarios and entered into a more global arena: the 2015 Indian film Padmaavati exacerbated tensions in Hindu-Muslim relations in some regions of the subcontinent, further highlighting the close connections among media production, politics, and representations of the past.

The purpose of this interdisciplinary PhD conference is to explore the characteristics and implications of calling an audiovisual product “medieval” in the 21st century. From products that purposely undermine their own historicity like A Knight’s Tale (2001) to those that rely on “accuracy” as part of their advertisement, such as certain videogames, from “Europe-based” productions like Dark Souls to Netflix’s Kingdom (2019) set in Korea, or Team Ninja’s Nioh (2017) set in Japan, we have invited contributions from every area of knowledge relevant to this discussion. Topics might include but are not limited to:

  • Global Middle Ages in popular media
  • Media and national identity
  • Accuracy vs. authenticity
  • Gender relations in medieval productions
  • Magic and the supernatural
  • Political histories and their (sub)conscious implications
  • Middle Ages and fantasy
  • Rock music and the Middle Ages
  • Screenwriting, cinematography, and representation
  • Gameplay mechanics, coding, and procedural rhetoric
  • History popularization and education
  • LARPers and the Middle Ages
  • Museums, memory, and cultural institutions 

Organizing team: Juan Manuel Rubio Arévalo (main organizer), Karolina Anna Kotus, Vania Buso, Halil Evren Sünnetcioglu, Juan Bautista Juan López


Belated News: Medievalism on the Screen Conference

Sorry to have missed this earlier. H-Net is not my favorite resource for CFPs.

Call for Papers!: Medievalism on the Screen: The representation of the Middle Ages in Audiovisual Media in the 21st century


Announcement published by Juan Rubio on Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Type: Call for Papers

Date: February 1, 2021 to May 3, 2021

Location: Austria


Medievalisms on the Screen.

The representation of the Middle Ages in Audiovisual Media in the 21st century (April 29th-May 1st 2021)

PhD Conference, Department of Medieval Studies

Central European University, Budapest/Vienna

The technological advancements in audiovisual production that have taken place in the first two decades of the 21st century have accentuated the multiple representations of the Middle Ages in popular media. The explosion of the videogame industry, the refinement in digital technologies for the recreation of past spaces, and the popularization of streaming services like YouTube and Netflix have all allowed for an increase in the venues for the representation of the medieval past. Be it the crusaders of Assassin’s Creed (2007) or the Scandinavian world of Vikings (2013-2020); from the fantasy universe of Game of Thrones (2011-2019) or bands like Rhapsody of Fire, to the hack-n-slash hell of Dante’s Inferno (2011), it is a non-academic version of the past which is more familiar to the general public.

The way in which media affects our perceptions of the past have real-world ramifications. A specific distorted version of the Middle Ages has served as fuel for acts of violence and the rise of authoritarian, xenophobic and racist political agendas. Interestingly, this is a process that has gotten outside of traditional “medieval” scenarios into a more global arena: the 2015 Indian film Padmaavati exacerbated Hindu-Muslim relations in some regions of the sub-continent, further highlighting the relation between media and politics regarding the representation of the past.

The purpose of this PhD interdisciplinary conference is to explore the characteristics and implications of calling an audiovisual product “medieval” in the 21st century. From products that purposely undermine their own historicity like A Knight’s Tale (2001), to those that rely on “accuracy” as part of their advertisement as in the case of videogames; from “European-based” productions like Dark Souls, to Netflix’s Kingdom (2019) set in Korea or Team Ninja’s Nioh (2017) set in Japan, we invite contributions from every area of knowledge relevant to this discussion.

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

  • Periodization and setting
  • Gender relations in medieval productions
  • Middle ages and pedagogy
  • (Sub)conscious political implications
  • Middle-ages and fantasy
  • Rock music and the middle ages
  • Accuracy vs. authenticity
  • Global middle ages in popular media
  • Media and national identity
  • Production, screenwriting and representation
  • Gameplay mechanics, coding and procedural rhetoric
  • LARPERS and the middle ages
  • Museums, memory and cultural institutions

Paper proposals, no longer than 400 words in length for a paper between 25 to 30 minutes, should be sent to the organizers (e-mail account) no later than February 1st, 2021. The full slate of selected papers will be announced within two weeks after the submission deadline.
Contact Info:


Juan Manuel Rubio Arévalo: PhD candidate in Medieval Studies, Central European University, Austria/Vienna: https://medievalstudies.ceu.edu/people/juan-manuel-rubio-arevalo

Karolina Anna Kotus: PhD candidate in Medieval Studies, Central European University, Austria/Vienna: https://medievalstudies.ceu.edu/people/karolina-anna-kotus

Juan Bautista Juan López:PhD candidate in Medieval Studies, Central European University, Austria/Vienna: https://medievalstudies.ceu.edu/people/juan-bautista-juan-lopez

Monday, March 15, 2021

CFP Shakespeare on Television: Seminar (4/1/21; World Shakespeare Conference remote 7/18-24/21)

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Shakespeare on Television: Seminar at the WSC 2021 (online)

Source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/03/12/deadline-extended-shakespeare-on-television-seminar-at-the-wsc-2021-online

deadline for submissions:
April 1, 2021

full name / name of organization:
World Shakespeare Congress, Singapore

contact email:
retowinckler@gmail.com



We hereby welcome contributions to the seminar “Shakespeare on Television” for the 11th World Shakespeare Congress: Shakespeare Circuits (Singapore, 18-24 July 2021), to be held online.

If you are interested, please send a short abstract between 100 and 300 words and your short bio by April 1, 2021 to the listed email address and enrol for our seminar by making it your first choice on the form on the conference website (http://139.196.28.181:9090/wsc2021/Seminars.html#form-tag).

Seminar Description

26. Shakespeare on Television

Convenors: Victor Huertas MARTIN (University of Valencia, Spain) and Reto WINCKLER (South China Normal University, China)

The reception history of Shakespeare’s works is mirrored in the trajectory of television series as a form of popular entertainment that has come to be appreciated as high culture. At both levels, Shakespeare is frequently alluded to, parodied, ransacked for characters and motifs, and emulated wholesale. This seminar welcomes theoretical papers and case studies that revise Shakespeare studies to bear on the analysis and interpretation of Shakespeare-inflected television serials; account for the proliferation of Shakespearean memes, echoes, allusions, citations, narrative structures, and references in contemporary television series; define adaptation practices in serial Shakespeares; discuss serial Shakespeares around the globe; undertake critical theory and cultural studies approaches to Shakespeare and television series; address gender, race, and class in serial Shakespeares; critically assess analogies between Shakespeare and television series; analyse the impact of television serials on contemporary Shakespeare performance; evaluate presentist approaches to Shakespeare and television; and more.



Last updated March 15, 2021


Monday, February 1, 2021

Recent Scholarship: Brode and Brode's It's the Disney Version!

 I finally picked up a copy of this intriguing collection. 


Edited by Douglas Brode and Shea T. Brode

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 254 • Trim: 6 x 9 
 
978-1-4422-6606-3 • Hardback • June 2016 • $95.00 • (£73.00)
978-1-4422-6607-0 • eBook • June 2016 • $90.00 • (£69.00) 
 
In 1937, the first full-length animated film produced by Walt Disney was released. Based on a fairy tale written by the Brothers Grimm, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was an instant success and set the stage for more film adaptations over the next several decades. From animated features like and Bambi to live action films such as Mary Poppins, Disney repeatedly turned to literary sources for inspiration—a tradition the Disney studios continues well into the twenty-first century.

In
It’s the Disney Version!: Popular Cinema and Literary Classics, Douglas Brode and Shea T. Brode have collected essays that consider the relationship between a Disney film and the source material from which it was drawn. Analytic yet accessible, these essays provide a wide-ranging study of the term “The Disney Version” and what it conveys to viewers. Among the works discussed in this volume are Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, Pinocchio,Sleeping Beauty, Tarzan, and Winnie the Pooh.

In these intriguing essays, contributors to this volume offer close textual analyses of both the original work and of the Disney counterpart. Featuring articles that consider both positive and negative elements that can be found in the studio’s
output, It’s the Disney Version!: Popular Cinema and Literary Classics will be of interest to scholars and students of film, as well as the diehard Disney fan.


Contents (from WorldCat):

Introduction: once upon a time at the movies / Douglas Brode --

"And they lived happily ever after?": Disney's animated adaptation of Snow White and the seven dwarfs (1937) and Fleischers' Gulliver's travels / David McGowan --

Marionette as metaphor: Pinocchio and evolving attitudes toward education / Jean-Marie Apostolides --

Here be gay dragons: queer allegory and Disney's The reluctant dragon / Tison Pugh --

Uncle Walt's Uncle Remus: Disney's distortion of Harris's hero / Peggy A. Russo --

"Glory in the flower": Disneyfying Bambi / David Payne --

Through the cinematic looking glass: Walt Disney's 1951 animated Alice and Tim Burton's 2010 film / Sarah Boslaugh --

Walt Disney and Robert Louis Stevenson: Haskin's Treasure island or Stevenson's Kidnapped? / Scott Allen Nollen --

Of medieval ballads and movie musicals: Walt Disney and the Robin Hood legend / Shea T. Brode with Douglas Brode --

"Do you believe in fairies?": Peter Pan, Walt Disney, and me / Elizabeth Bell --

"In God's good time": Walt Disney and 1950s Cold War culture / Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper --

Perchance to dream: a narrative analysis of Disney's Sleeping beauty / Alexis Finnerty with Douglas Brode --

"It's a jungle out there, kid!": Walt Disney and the American 1960s / Greg Metcalf --

"Higitus! figitus!": of Merlin and Disney magic / Susan Aronstein --

"This is not the Mary Poppins I know!": P.L. Travers goes to Hollywood / David S. and Olga Silverman --

The wonderful worlds of Dickens and Disney: animated adaptations of Oliver Twist and A Christmas carol / Shari Hodges Holt --

The tao at Pooh corner: Disney's portrayal of a very philosophical bear / Anne Collins Smith and Owen M. Smith --

From icon to Disneyfication: a mermaid's aesthetic journey / Finn Hauberg Mortensen --

Pocahontas as Disney princess: history, legend, literature, and movie mythology / Kathy Merlock Jackson and Gary Edgerton --

"Driven to sin": Victor Hugo's complex vision of humanity in Disney's The hunchback of Notre Dame / Michael Smith --

The integrity of an ape-man: Burroughs, Disney, and the meaning of the Tarzan myth / Stanley A. Galloway.
 
 
Authors:
 
Douglas Brode teaches popular culture at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Our Lady of the Lake University (also in San Antonio). He has published more than 35 books, including Rod Sterling and The Twilight Zone (2009). He is the coeditor of Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology (2012) and Sex, Politics and Religion in Star Wars: An Anthology (2012), and Dracula’s Daughters: The Female Vampire on Film (2013). Brode is a contributor to the upcoming PBS-TV mini-series: American Masters: Walt Disney. Shea T. Brode has an MA in Literature and Cultural Studies from the University Autonoma in Madrid. Douglas and Shea are the coeditors of The Star Trek Universe: Franchising the Final Frontier (2015) and Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek: The Original Cast Adventures (2015).