Inaugural Centre for Film and Television Studies Conference
Call for Papers:
B for BAD Cinema: Aesthetics, Politics and Cultural Value
Inaugural Centre for Film and Television Studies Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, April 15–17, 2009
Over the past decade, paracinema – a movement that has grown up around sleazy, excessive, or poorly executed B-movies – has seen a counter-cultural valorisation of all forms of cinematic trash or ‘badfilm.’ In many internet and print sources devoted to the celebration of paracinema, the term B-movie has (in contrast to its earlier studio-era sense) come to mean almost anything: disreputable and unworthy movies, low-budget exploitation movies, straight to TV or video movies, and even big-budget studio movies. B for BAD cinema seeks to negotiate some of the (aesthetic and moral) values and judgments inscribed in a B-movie culture in which films are deemed to be good-because-bad or bad-because-good. B for BAD cinema invites international film scholars, critics and filmmakers to present their thoughts on badfilm, with a particular focus on the following themes:
- Cultural value and theory
- Bad feeling and affect
- Aesthetic value and bad art
- Cultural morals and politics
- Bad film theory and criticism
Plenary speakers include:
- Elisabeth Bronfen
- J. Hoberman
- Adrian Martin
- Ernest Mathijs
- Murray Pomerance
- Jeffrey Sconce
The Conference Conveners will accept proposals for individual papers or three-speaker panel sessions until November 14 2008.
Abstracts of no more than 250-words and a 100-word biography should be sent to Con Verevis.
2008 Film Screenings
In the lead-up to the conference Film & Television Studies presents a series of film screenings related to the conference’s themes and content. Click here for schedule and details.