[Discussion] CFP: Feminism, Filmmaking, Fluidity (8/31/05; anthology)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

From: corinn.columpar@utoronto.ca

Call for papers:

(Un)Making the Cut: Feminism, Filmmaking, Fluidity
Edited by Corinn Columpar and Sophie Mayer

In creative response to Hollywood�s continued domination of the 
global
film market, many alternate industrial practices have taken shape over 
the past
couple decades, destabilizing certain entrenched assumptions about not 
only the
process of filmmaking, but also the very nature of film itself. As a result
contemporary cinema has come to be characterized by a fluidity that is
unaccounted for in studies that take the conventions of classical cinema as
normative; that is, with increasing frequency people and/or products are 
moving
between venues (gallery, theater, on-line, television, festival, and 
classroom),
materials (celluloid and digital video), locales (including those in 
both the
"First" and "Third" Worlds), modes of production (studio-financed and
"independent," auteurist and collaborative), and artistic roles (actor,
director, producer, and writer). Given the extent to which such fluid 
practices
have resulted from or been influenced by those women who, fuelled by 
economic
and political imperatives, have struggled historically for access to 
cinematic
means of production, they are implicated in a feminist practice defined by
ongoing and contingent negotiation with and between a diverse range of
theoretical models.

(Un)Making the Cut: Feminism, Filmmaking, Fluidity will be an anthology
dedicated to the myriad ways in which women around the world are currently
participating in the production process outside Hollywood, thereby 
contributing
to these flows, and the fruits that their labors are yielding aesthetically,
commercially, and politically. Rather than assert isolation or 
ostracism, this
volume looks to subvert the constant erasure of women�s 
engagement with
cinema
by investigating working relations (as well) as textual relations of 
affiliation
and community.  Thus it has two methodological priorities. The first is 
to forge
a middle ground that militates against closure between, on the one hand, a
critical practice grounded in close textual analysis that severs a film 
from the
conditions of its production and circulation, often denying a film�s
engagement with feminist and other politics, and, on the other, an auteurist
approach that reads film, particularly that made by women, in terms of
autobiography. The second is concomitantly to expand discussions of the
filmmaking process to incorporate the creative contributions of all 
involved
and thus to broaden the definition of what it means to be a woman in 
film beyond
the masculinist director-centric model.

In the process, we seek to recognize and encourage definitions of 
"woman" that
are equally fluid and demonstrate the emergence of trans/Two-Spirit 
cinema(s)
and trans/Two-Spirit filmmakers, as well as others who trouble gender
distinctions and identity formations, for such definitions are an 
integral part
of the contemporary incarnation of feminism in practice.

Possible topics:
- those working in a transnational context and/or with an interstitial (å la
Naficy) mode of production
- women artists moving between multiple roles within filmmaking, and between
filmmaking and other cultural forms (dance, photography, creative writing)
- collaborative relationships
- fluid boundaries between documentary and feature film, in both formal and
production/distribution terms
- prominent producers and writers working in the �independent�
sector or the
context of a national cinema
- the new opportunities that have emerged in television, particularly due to
specialty channels like HBO and Showtime
- women's participation in the political economy of film festivals
- the ways women have negotiated the tension between the gallery and the
cineplex, aesthetic/political imperatives and commercial ones
- women's presence in on-line forums
- the ways that women's work with moving images is contributing to, engaging
with, and/or revisioning feminism and imbricated political movements (anti-
racism, anti homophobia)
- a consideration of whether reading practices based in identity 
politics are
still valid


Submit: paper proposals of 500 words (max.) with brief C.V., and a cover 
letter
including institutional affiliation and postal and email contact details.

Deadline: 31 August 2005
Notification of acceptance: 31 October 2005

Send proposals (as attachments) and CFP-related queries to:
Corinn Columpar <corinn.columpar@utoronto.ca>
and
Sophie Mayer <sophie.mayer@utoronto.ca>

Proposals may also be mailed to:
Corinn Columpar
Innis College
University of Toronto
2 Sussex Avenue
Toronto ON M5S 1J5
CANADA

Please include an SASE or IRC if you would like a postal response.


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