Sola Osofisan
07-09-2007, 03:53 AM
CALL FOR PAPERS: Special Issue of COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF SOUTH ASIA, AFRICA, AND THE MIDDLE EAST (CSSAAME) on "Cinema and the Public Sphere"
Guest Editor: J. David Slocum, New York University
Essays are invited for a special issue of COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF SOUTH ASIA, AFRICA, AND THE MIDDLE EAST (Duke University Press) on the idea and critical discourse of cinema and the public sphere in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The proposed special journal issue seeks contributions from scholars in history, sociology, film and media studies, cultural studies, political science, anthropology, and related fields that examine the following areas.
300-word abstracts due, August 17, 2007; completed 5000-8000 word essays due, December 1, 2007.
"Cinema and the Public Sphere"
Cinema's relation to the public sphere, as a crucial domain of social life, has been discussed largely in reference to European-American social, historical, and political formations (Negt and Kluge, Hansen). This relation has tended to link cinema as space and institution of social interaction to the development of liberal democratic political structures and states. Indeed, major studies focusing on cinema and the public sphere have been class- and gender-based analyses of Europe and the United States. What is the corresponding status in the public life of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East of cinema as technology, cultural production and practice, and social institution? Might local or regional intellectual and cultural traditions and solidarities, social formations, political institutions, or modernities suggest other models for approaching and conceptualizing public life and cinematic culture, as some have argued (Appadurai, Göle, Mbembe)? Recognizing particula
rly that cinema's original appearance in these regions typically coincided and even colluded with colonialism, which critical approaches to, and understandings of, cinema elucidate their historical and contemporary public and private life? Do existing theorizations of cinema and the public sphere in specific regions (Diawara, Tomaselli) have broader relevance?
Possible topics include:
--The role of cinema in the historical development of the public sphere(s) in the region, particularly related to changing political structures and institutions, public life in zones of conflict, social and state formations, and cultural practices and the transitions from the colonial to the postcolonial and the democratic.
--Relationships between the public sphere and other critical models for conceptualizing individual, collective, and/or public cultural production, processes, and institutions, including civil society, social imaginaries, the liberal democratic state, modernity, transnationalism, globalization, cultural diversity, and diaspora.
--Conceptions of alternative, counter, vernacular, cosmopolitan, and colonial public spheres. Particular emphases here might be on the status of gender and private spheres, including the home, and on the role of religion, notably Islam, in shaping public sphere(s) across the region, including the idea of transnational Islamic public sphere(s)
--Individual films or filmmakers/producers and how they have imagined the public sphere(s) and, possibly, contributed to the actually existing public sphere(s). Also, cinematically imagined versus actually existing public sphere(s) of the region.
--The status and relations of cinema to other media historically and in contemporary life. A particular emphasis here might be the relations between cinema and indigenous storytelling or communication media, and the digitization of cinema.
--Cinema as an agent and institution of social control, resistance, or change in the region, particularly through constructions of history, memory, and tradition that serve as bases of public life.
--Cultural industries and how they may be understood and conceptualized in terms of publics, political structures and governance, and national or regional cinemas. These industries should be seen to comprise film production, distribution, exhibition, and consumption activities but also related practices, like advertising, cultural tourism, museums, and heritage projects.
--Film and media technologies, forms, and practices, including television, video, DVDs, satellite networks, new media, and festivals. Deserving special attention here are questions of generational publics separated and defined by distinct patterns of media consumption and the transformation of traditional distinctions between public, private, and personal spheres by new media technologies.
--The study of audiences and their reception or consumption of cinema in the region. In particular, the integration of the usually distinct research fields of mediated publics and participatory audiences.
--Cinematic "space" and its multiple meanings, including representations of public spaces, the cinema itself as architectural and social space, and cinema as institution serving as virtual space of social interaction.
Queries and proposals should be sent to David Slocum at david.slocum@nyu.edu. The deadline for 300-word proposals is August 17, 2007. Completed essays, of 5000-8000 words, will be due by December 1, 2007.
Further information about CSSAAME is available on the journal website at http://cssaame.com (http://cssaame.com/) . The journal's Submission Guidelines are at http://cssaame.com/submissions.htm (http://cssaame.com/submissions.htm).
***********************************
J. David Slocum
Associate Dean
Graduate School of Arts and Science
Visiting Associate Professor of Cinema Studies
Tisch School of the Arts
New York University
P.O. Box 907 (U.S. Mail)
One-half Fifth Avenue, Garden level
(Courier, Walk-in)
New York, NY 10276-0907
(212) 998-8060
(212) 995-4557 [fax]
********************************** end message
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
989-774-3117 (direct line)
989-774- 3171(main office)
989-774-1271 (fax)
eke1mn@cmich.edu or
maureen.eke@cmich.edu
Guest Editor: J. David Slocum, New York University
Essays are invited for a special issue of COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF SOUTH ASIA, AFRICA, AND THE MIDDLE EAST (Duke University Press) on the idea and critical discourse of cinema and the public sphere in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The proposed special journal issue seeks contributions from scholars in history, sociology, film and media studies, cultural studies, political science, anthropology, and related fields that examine the following areas.
300-word abstracts due, August 17, 2007; completed 5000-8000 word essays due, December 1, 2007.
"Cinema and the Public Sphere"
Cinema's relation to the public sphere, as a crucial domain of social life, has been discussed largely in reference to European-American social, historical, and political formations (Negt and Kluge, Hansen). This relation has tended to link cinema as space and institution of social interaction to the development of liberal democratic political structures and states. Indeed, major studies focusing on cinema and the public sphere have been class- and gender-based analyses of Europe and the United States. What is the corresponding status in the public life of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East of cinema as technology, cultural production and practice, and social institution? Might local or regional intellectual and cultural traditions and solidarities, social formations, political institutions, or modernities suggest other models for approaching and conceptualizing public life and cinematic culture, as some have argued (Appadurai, Göle, Mbembe)? Recognizing particula
rly that cinema's original appearance in these regions typically coincided and even colluded with colonialism, which critical approaches to, and understandings of, cinema elucidate their historical and contemporary public and private life? Do existing theorizations of cinema and the public sphere in specific regions (Diawara, Tomaselli) have broader relevance?
Possible topics include:
--The role of cinema in the historical development of the public sphere(s) in the region, particularly related to changing political structures and institutions, public life in zones of conflict, social and state formations, and cultural practices and the transitions from the colonial to the postcolonial and the democratic.
--Relationships between the public sphere and other critical models for conceptualizing individual, collective, and/or public cultural production, processes, and institutions, including civil society, social imaginaries, the liberal democratic state, modernity, transnationalism, globalization, cultural diversity, and diaspora.
--Conceptions of alternative, counter, vernacular, cosmopolitan, and colonial public spheres. Particular emphases here might be on the status of gender and private spheres, including the home, and on the role of religion, notably Islam, in shaping public sphere(s) across the region, including the idea of transnational Islamic public sphere(s)
--Individual films or filmmakers/producers and how they have imagined the public sphere(s) and, possibly, contributed to the actually existing public sphere(s). Also, cinematically imagined versus actually existing public sphere(s) of the region.
--The status and relations of cinema to other media historically and in contemporary life. A particular emphasis here might be the relations between cinema and indigenous storytelling or communication media, and the digitization of cinema.
--Cinema as an agent and institution of social control, resistance, or change in the region, particularly through constructions of history, memory, and tradition that serve as bases of public life.
--Cultural industries and how they may be understood and conceptualized in terms of publics, political structures and governance, and national or regional cinemas. These industries should be seen to comprise film production, distribution, exhibition, and consumption activities but also related practices, like advertising, cultural tourism, museums, and heritage projects.
--Film and media technologies, forms, and practices, including television, video, DVDs, satellite networks, new media, and festivals. Deserving special attention here are questions of generational publics separated and defined by distinct patterns of media consumption and the transformation of traditional distinctions between public, private, and personal spheres by new media technologies.
--The study of audiences and their reception or consumption of cinema in the region. In particular, the integration of the usually distinct research fields of mediated publics and participatory audiences.
--Cinematic "space" and its multiple meanings, including representations of public spaces, the cinema itself as architectural and social space, and cinema as institution serving as virtual space of social interaction.
Queries and proposals should be sent to David Slocum at david.slocum@nyu.edu. The deadline for 300-word proposals is August 17, 2007. Completed essays, of 5000-8000 words, will be due by December 1, 2007.
Further information about CSSAAME is available on the journal website at http://cssaame.com (http://cssaame.com/) . The journal's Submission Guidelines are at http://cssaame.com/submissions.htm (http://cssaame.com/submissions.htm).
***********************************
J. David Slocum
Associate Dean
Graduate School of Arts and Science
Visiting Associate Professor of Cinema Studies
Tisch School of the Arts
New York University
P.O. Box 907 (U.S. Mail)
One-half Fifth Avenue, Garden level
(Courier, Walk-in)
New York, NY 10276-0907
(212) 998-8060
(212) 995-4557 [fax]
********************************** end message
Maureen N. Eke
Professor of English
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
989-774-3117 (direct line)
989-774- 3171(main office)
989-774-1271 (fax)
eke1mn@cmich.edu or
maureen.eke@cmich.edu