Edit (Oct 31,2010): The call for papers have been expanded and the deadline extended to the 6th December. Details are below, but please check the webpage for the conference (found here) for the most up to date information.

CALL FOR PAPERS

CUEAFS Presents

Asian Exposure: East Asian Cinema in a Global Context

(Coventry University, February 10-11, 2011)

A two-day international symposium and an East Asian Cinema and Film Festival (sponsored by Third Window Films) organised by Spencer Murphy (Coventry University), John Berra (Nanjing University) and Colette Balmain (Coventry University) and funded by Coventry University.

The films that have emerged from East Asia in the past decade have invigorated international cinema with their originality and vitality, capturing the attention of academics and audiences alike. Asian Exposure aims to capture this vitality through a combination of formal and informal talks, film screenings at the Warwick Art Centre sponsored by Third Window Films, Q&A sessions with key directors, workshops and themed events.

We seek papers that represent the diversity of East Asian Cinema and engage with the films from a variety of perspectives – academic, fan based, journalism, festival management, student, distribution companies and publishing – across disciplines and countries.

As this symposium emerges from the work done by CUEAFS (Coventry University East Asian Film Society), one of the foremost aims of the symposium is to challenge academic boundaries and conventions in relation to the production and dissemination of knowledge. As such, we actively welcome the submission of abstracts of work-in-progress, pre-formed panels, workshops or proposed discussion sessions by students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, in addition to academics, journalists, and people involved in the consumption, promotion and distribution of East Asian Cinema.

The purpose of the symposium and film festival is to develop a network of people involved with the production, distribution, reception and analysis of East Asian cinema. It is anticipated that the symposium will reflect the excitement and interest generated by the emergence of East Asian cinema onto the global screen, while also offering new insights into local productions and co-productions which have been overlooked by scholars and audiences in the West.

The main criteria is that proposals should be related to one of the four cinematic territories (China, Hong Kong, Japan or South Korea). Pre-formed panels, workshops, presentation of work-in-progress, and panels are sought. Suggested areas are below, but we welcome proposals on other areas of interest which fulfil the main purpose of the symposium.

Traditions and Directions

Diasporic texts/Diasporic directors
The auteur and the canon
Western co-productions and Hollywood Remakes/East Asian co-productions and remakes of Hollywood films
Academic approaches/theories of East Asian Cinema including questions of the transnational and the global
Orientalism/Occidentalism/Self-Orientalism
National Cinema and nationalism
Institution and Industry
Relationship between traditional arts and cinema as a mechanism of local identification and signification

Representations of Self and Other

Class, society and the representation of disenfranchisement
Ethnicity, empowerment and disempowerment
Gender and sexual politics
Sexuality beyond the heterosexual paradigm
Consumerism and new sexual identities
Monstrous becomings between East and West: zombies/ghosts/cyborgs/vampires
Social issues on screen
Trauma and national identity

Genre and Beyond

Traditional genres
Blockbusters and Franchises
K-horror/J-horror and A-horror
Feminist cinema/Films directed by women
Independent cinema/Experimental cinema
Queer cinema
Pink/Adult cinema
Anime – adult/family
Youth films
War cinema
Romance, comedy and melodrama
Film adaptations of novels/manga/anime
Star as genre
Hybrid/diffused genres
Technology and East Asian Cinema

Audiences and Reception

Fancultures
Translation – subtitling and/or dubbing
Screen quotas and exhibition
Film Criticism/Journalism/Websites
Cosplay and performance
Different modes of spectatorship (home/cinema/festival)

Promotion, Distribution and Marketing

Film Festivals e.g. Pusan Film Festival, London Korean Film Festival, FRIGHTFEST and FANTASIA film festivals, gay and lesbian film festivals.
East Asian cinema on the internet: websites, blogs, on-line journals, youtube, specialist Asian film sites
Production companies and governmental policy
Distribution companies and networks

The symposium will be held at Coventry University from February 10-11, 2011.

Please send a 300 word abstract for a 20 minute paper to . Pre-formed panels and workshops will be allocated no more than 60 minutes. General inquiries should be sent to Colette Balmain ().

Previous Post (Sep 6, 2010)

Here’s a piece of news / call for papers that might be of interest to a few of you – I’ve let the organisers speak for themselves – i.e. this information is directly from the press release on the event itself. Find the contact details at the very bottom of the page.

: Asian Exposure: East Asian Cinema Post-2000 (An International Symposium); A two-day international symposium on East Asian Cinema organised by Colette Balmain (Independent Scholar), John Berra (Nanjing University) and Spencer Murphy (Coventry University) and funded by Coventry University.The films that have emerged from East Asia in the past decade have arguably invigorated international cinema with their originality and vitality, capturing the attention of academics and audiences alike. The organisers of this symposium seek papers which promise to analyse certain aspects of contemporary East Asian Cinema by placing key films, filmmakers, production trends and national aesthetics into global or local context.Papers must be related to one of four cinematic territories (China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea) and topics of interest may include but are certainly not limited to:

Auteur Filmmaking (e.g. – Park Chan-wook, Wong Kar-wai, Zhang Ke Jia)
Genre Filmmaking (e.g. – Heroic Bloodshed, J-Horror, Wuxia, Yakuza)
Blockbusters and Franchises
Domestic Distribution and Reception
International Distribution and Reception
Economic Acceleration and Recession
Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality
Nostalgia and Memory
Post-Colonial Identity
Production Company Case Studies
Transnational Approaches and Narratives
V-Cinema
Western co-productions and Hollywood Remakes

The conference will be held at Coventry University from February 10-11, 2011. This academic event is being arranged in conjunction with the Third Window Film Festival, which will be held at Warwick Art Centre from February 11-13, 2011. The festival will host the UK premieres of several major releases from East Asia with special guests to be confirmed.

Please send a 300 word abstract for a 20 minute paper and a short biographical statement to

Deadline for proposals: 15 November 2010

A Facebook page can also be found .