CfP – Integrating Traditions 

Hosted online in collaboration with Maynooth University

Extended deadline for new/revised proposals, 27 November 2020

Letters of acceptance/rejection, January 2021

Keynote Speakers:

Professor Shelley Stamp (Film + Digital Media, University of California, Santa Cruz)

Professor Joao Luiz Vieira (Cinema and Audiovisual Studies, Universidade Federal Fluminese, Niterói) 

The HoMER Network invites submissions for 20-minute papers, as well as designated roundtables, panels, and workshops to be presented at the 2020 conference, which will be hosted by Maynooth University in May 2021.

At HoMER 2019 in Nassau, the conference explored ways of developing a more theoretical and methodological grounding for New Cinema History research.

Since emerging as a vibrant field of research in the early 2000s, New Cinema History has sought to distinguish itself from Film History by ‘shift[ing] its focus away from the content of films’, in order to examine cinema as a ‘site of social and cultural exchange’ (Maltby 2011: 3). However, in recent years there have been calls to reconsider the significance of the film itself within New Cinema History research.

For the Homer 2020/1 conference INTEGRATING TRADITIONS, we would like to continue answering that call: as cinema historians, we have traditionally drawn on frameworks and methodologies found in fields such as Social Geography, Economics, and Psychology, but how do we integrate these approaches with those of Film History and Film Studies more broadly? Furthermore, in order to become ‘methodologically more mature’ as a discipline, we must also reflect on how we approach comparative research as an essential part of our studies (Biltereyst and Meers 2016: 25).

Several empirical research projects have already used these methods within New Cinema History, comparing the cinema-going experience across cultural and geographical contexts; however, still lacking is the integration of productive methodologies from Film Studies. 

The aim of HoMER 2020/1 is to investigate how the traditional approaches of Film Studies  – as well as those disciplines that have shaped NCH to date – can be productively integrated. 

Possible topics and questions to explore might include (but are certainly not limited to):

1. Film as text. What is the film’s appeal to audiences? When we investigate cinema’s popularity, how do we relate the film’s content to its performance at the box-office? The relationship between cinema memories, film text and social and geographical spaces.
2. Genre and stardom and their relationship with programming and audiences. How can genre theory enhance our understanding of film reception and programming practices in specific cinemas?
3. The changing role of gender, however defined, in distribution, exhibition and reception.
4. Underexplored interdisciplinary possibilities or new historiographical paths. Are there potential connections with leisure or urban studies, for example? Can we use film as a source for investigating a historical period? Can we further engage approaches to the history of everyday life in our research? 
5. The novelty in New Cinema History. In what does its (continuing)  novelty Iie? What are its methodologies and conceptual frameworks? 

Presentations are welcome to critically explore the conference theme of INTEGRATING TRADITIONS through the interdisciplinary lens of academic Film and Cinema Studies. 

For any queries regarding submission, please contact conference co-ordinators, Clara Pafort-Overduin (c.pafort-overduin@uu.nl) and Daniela Treveri Gennari (dtreveri-gennari@brookes.ac.uk). 

Programming Committee

Clara Pafort Overduin

Daniela Treveri Gennari

Sarah Culhane

Denis Condon

Maya Nedyalkova

Åsa Jernudd

Karina Aveyard

Sam Manning

Kata Szita

Silvia Dibeltulo