CfP: Screening Australia – Australian Culture and Screen Media in Context

Dear Colleagues,

You may be interested in the following 'Screening Australia' seminar series that I am convening at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King's College London. The closing date for submissions is Mon 9 May 2016, and the series will run from September 2016 till June 2017.

See below for more details.

Kind regards,

Dr Peter Kilroy, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, King's College London

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Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London: Seminar Series 2016-17

CfP: SCREENING AUSTRALIA: AUSTRALIAN CULTURE AND SCREEN MEDIA IN CONTEXT

Australian culture and screen media (including internet output, gaming, film, television, video and other screen arts) might be said to occupy a somewhat anomalous position on the world stage: at once successful and internationally recognised, and yet relatively under-represented and under-researched in international scholarship. Indeed, such a positioning is a reminder of the ongoing interplay between ‘screening’ as a mode of display (e.g. showing a film), ‘screening’ as a mode of concealment (e.g. screening out undesirable material) and ‘screening’ as a mode of assessment (e.g. of medical, political or economic threats). How might this dynamic operate in Australian culture and screen media, nationally and internationally, and in what ways does it relate to the broader social, cultural, economic and historical forces that have shaped Australia and its relationship to the rest of the world?

Drawing on, but not limited to, the fields of Australian cultural studies and screen media research, this seminar series seeks a broad range of responses to these questions from an array of cognate disciplines and practices (e.g. anthropology, art history, Australian studies, communications, cultural studies, English literature, film studies, history, Indigenous studies, media studies, postcolonial studies, sociology, etc.), deploying an array of different approaches, theories, methods and forms.

Suggested themes might include the following:

• Lacunae in the history of Australian culture and screen media.
• Indigenous Australian culture and screen media.
• Australian ethnographic and documentary film and screen media.
• Australian history and/or literature on screen.
• Australian histories of medical, political or economic threat ‘screening’.
• Australian histories of ‘screening out’ unfamiliar landscapes, environments and people.
• Disciplinary approaches to the study of Australian culture and screen media.
• Postcolonial approaches to the study of Australian culture and screen media.
• Pedagogical approaches to the teaching of Australian culture and screen media.
• International perspectives on the study of Australian culture and screen media.
• The representation of Australia by non-Australian culture and screen media practitioners.
• The relationship between Britain and Australia as mediated by culture and screen media.
• The relationship between Australian culture and screen media and ‘world cinema’.
• The relationship between Australian culture and screen media and other international centres of production (e.g. Africa, Asia, Europe, India and North America).

We warmly invite academics, screen media professionals, postgraduates and other cultural practitioners working in the field to submit an abstract for the Screening Australia series. Submissions should contain an abstract of 300 words accompanied by a short biographical statement, and be sent to menzies.centre@kcl.ac.uk by Monday 9 May 2016 for the attention of Peter Kilroy.

We look forward to receiving your submissions.