Women and the Silent Screen Congress
Montreal, June 2-6 2004

http://cinema.concordia.ca/wscreen/

Call for Papers

This will be the third international conference dedicated to women and silent film. The first was held in Utrecht in 1999, the second in Santa Cruz in 2001. Highlighting international cinemas and featuring a meeting of the Women Film Pioneers, this third edition will be hosted by Concordia University and the Université de Montréal, and sponsored by the Women Film Pioneers Association and the Groupe de recherche sur l'avènement et la formation des institutions cinématographique et scénique (GRAFICS).

To include the transition to sound and the early sound period, especially within national contexts and geographical areas where film practices did not emerge or consolidate until the thirties, this conference will cover the period 1895 to 1936. As well, we do encourage contributions on pre-cinema topics. Within this historical framework, we will consider papers on all facets of women's contribution to cinema (including filmmakers, screenwriters, laborers, critics, theorists, taste-makers, stars, movie-goers, censors).

A French version of this call for papers follows; papers in French are invited. Simultaneous translation will be provided at the conference.

Please submit a 150-word abstract, a two-line biographical statement, and a paper title by e-mail to: wscreen@alcor.concordia.ca before August 15, 2003.

For more information about the conference please consult our website: http://cinema.concordia.ca./wscreen/

Proposals are invited in the following topic areas, although additional topics will also be considered:

Spectatorship and the Public Sphere: Papers are invited on the roles of women in the public spheres during the various phases of silent film, as well as institutional and social histories of women at the movies in an international context. Discussions of cinema as a mass medium, in conjunction with other public activities associated with modernity and urban development, such as shopping, fashion, literature and journalism, are invited. We welcome studies of fan cultures, reception, and theories of spectatorship.

Women and national cinemas: Papers are invited on women's contributions to early filmmaking outside Hollywood and the gendering of national identities. Relevant here are studies of women's genres and gender-based issues in cinema from a global perspective. We especially seek contributions that address these questions in the Canadian context as well as Asian, Middle-Eastern, Latin American, and other emergent cinemas.

Women working in the film industry: Papers on professional women, including producers, technicians, editors, and photographers working in national film industries from all parts of the globe are invited.

Case studies and discussions of labour issues as well as historiographic questions and issues arising from the gendered workplace are appropriate.

Gender in narrative and non-narrative film forms: Feminist historians have stressed how women played a key role in the diversification of gender stereotypes in the silent period, both in narrative and non-fiction silent filmmaking. We seek papers examining this contribution with respect to issues of women's social roles in a variety of national contexts and film modes, including industrial, educational, and other ephemeral film practices.

Race, Ethnicity and Cultural Identity: Discourses of gender are often crossed with racial and ethnic representations in the silent period, in narrative and non-narrative filmmaking. Analyses of cultural identity, racial and ethnic stereotyping, and colonial and ethnographic practices as they relate to gender in silent films are invited.

Women in film genres and serials: Papers are invited on the role of women in film genres and serial films, from different film contexts and periods. Histories and analyses of women in early cinema genres such as magic films and burlesque films, as well as in silent comedies, westerns, melodramas, women's films, horror films, and "city films," are welcome. We are interested in hearing about female actors, filmmakers, producers, screenwriters, and spectators involved in genre and serial films, from an international context.

Masculinities, sexualities, and the silent screen: Feminist historians have been at the forefront of identifying and analyzing gender roles, masculinities, and sexual preferences in the silent cinema. We seek studies on this important aspect of silent film from an international range of cultural and social contexts.

Film historiography and early cinema: Papers are invited on the role of gender in new methodological approaches to early cinema, with particular emphasis on the relationship between theory and history. Issues such as the coincidence of new technologies and early cinema; notions and theories of modernity, "vernacular modernism," urban culture and the flâneuse; gender and archiveology, and other metacritical analyses addressing issues of gender, cinema, and international film history are invited.

Stars and performance: A variety of female star figures appeared in the silent period, even before the concept of stardom was institutionalized and commercially exploited. Studies of production strategies, picture personalities, and reception patterns in the emergence of female star discourse are invited. We also welcome discussions of new technologies, such as sound, as they relate to performance and stardom. Papers are invited on female actors in Asian, Latin American, Middle Eastern and other non-Western cinemas.

Female authorship in silent cinema: This section invites theoretical and historical contributions on women's authorial film practices and concepts of authorship in silent cinema. Papers are especially welcome on female directors and authorship in Asian, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and non-Western cinemas. Theoretical approaches to avant-garde and commercial filmmakers are welcome. Individual case studies of directors and writers, as well as theoretical analyses of the function of female écriture in silent cinema, and its relation to other forms of artistic and cultural writing such as literature, theatre, criticism and journalism are invited.

Women Film Pioneers Workshops: In conjunction with the Women Film Pioneers Project, workshops and screenings dedicated to individual pioneer figures will be held during the conference period. These will be opportunities to exchange information and ideas on ongoing research projects in a less formal setting. We welcome proposals for workshop topics indicating the name of the pioneer woman and the nature of the new research you wish to present.