Registration Open for Behind the Screen and Off the Stage Virtual Conference

Karen McNally Announcement
Location
United Kingdom
Subject Fields
American History / Studies, Film and Film History, Popular Culture Studies, Theatre & Performance History / Studies, Music and Music History

Registration Open for Behind the Screen and Off the Stage: Film and Television Representations of American Entertainment Virtual Conference

 

London Metropolitan University

Thursday 11 to Saturday 13 November 2021

 

Conference Convenor: Dr Karen McNally, author of The Stardom Film: Creating the Hollywood Fairy Tale (Wallflower–Columbia University Press, 2020)

 

Registration is now open for the virtual conference Behind the Screen and Off the Stage: Film and Television Representations of American Entertainment taking place at London Metropolitan University from Thursday 11 to Saturday 13 November 2021.

 

The event is free but registration by Eventbrite at the below link is required to access the event:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/behind-the-screen-and-off-the-stage-tickets-175399473547?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

 

Full details of the conference programme are available through the conference website:

https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/research/centres-groups-and-units/media-culture-and-creative-technologies-research-group/events/

 

About the conference:

 

Keynote Speakers:

 

Professor Steven Cohan, Dean’s Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English, Syracuse University and author of Hollywood by Hollywood: The Backstudio Picture and the Mystique of Making Movies (OUP, 2019) and Sunset Boulevard (BFI–Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2022)

‘And They Lived Happily Ever After: Rewriting Hollywood’s History at Moments of Industrial Transformation’

 

Professor Adrienne L. McLean, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas and author of Being Rita Hayworth: Labor, Identity, and Hollywood Stardom (2004) and the forthcoming All for Beauty: Makeup and Hairdressing in Hollywood’s Studio Era (2022).

‘Making [It] Up: Cosmetics, Coiffures and Self-reflexivity in Classical Hollywood Cinema’

 

Movies and television shows set in the world of American entertainment have been a central feature of the big and small screens since the early days of Hollywood. From the backstage musical to the star biopic, and from the rise-and-fall narrative to critiques of the business of show, screen narratives have repeatedly sought to dramatize life behind the scenes of American entertainment. Their persistent allure is illustrated in film and television history ranging from Show People (1928) to All About Eve (1950), and from Valley of the Dolls (1967) to Fosse/Verdon (2019) and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020). Narratives that take the audience behind the screen and off the stage combine the exposure of the practices and strategies of the entertainment industries and the production of American culture with the dramatization of the experiences of their personnel and the mythologizing of both. They traverse every genre of film and television, and tell stories of fictional and real-life characters, as well as many who occupy a position in between. These films and television shows illuminate moments of crisis and opportunity in the entertainment industries, and raise broader issues about what defines American entertainment and the nation’s culture and why.

This three-day virtual conference hosted by the Media, Culture and Creative Technologies Research Group in LMU’s School of Computing and Digital Media seeks to explore the history and significance of these self-reflective films and television shows. Convened by Dr Karen McNally, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, the event brings together an international group of scholars to consider a wide variety of approaches to the production and reception of these texts and to their representation of American entertainment behind the screen and off the stage.

We look forward to having you join us for this free virtual event as we investigate and reflect upon the impact and significance of entertainment in American film, television and national culture from early cinema to the digital age.

 

Conference Convenor: Dr Karen McNally

Email: behindscreenoffstageconference@gmail.com