Question on Cons, and CFP: Film (HP & LOTR)
Questions for my Flist:
1. These HP cons -- Terminus, Portus, Phoenix Rising, etc. Do I want to go to one or more of them?
Be aware that I am nearly as dweeby as I write. That is, not a teenager and fairly academic by nature. Ugh, I sound like schoolmarm!Hermione. Actually, I have many friends under 20 (and over 50) and am considered by all and sundry to be a social extrovert and good company, for values of "company" including drink, dance, good food, excited jabbering and happy hugs. I love going to academic conferences, but haven't been to a con since my "salad days", back before HP.
If I went I would want to present a paper. (Or something; see #2.) The list of papers from Phoenix Rising shows lots of grand ideas for teaching with HP, and/or publications. (Does no one on LJ post CFP's? Some sekrit aca-fan closed society thing, or am I overlooking a comm? ETA: Yep! ithiliana just clued me in to virgule. Blessings and thanks, dear friend!)
Also, this is probably not a complete list. Are there different ones I should be looking at? Like multi-fandom ones, for instance.
+ Terminus (7-11 Aug, Chicago). Deadline for papers is February 1, 2008. Chicago in the summer: O joy.
+ Portus (10-13 July, Dallas). Proposals due Jan 1, 2008. Another unpleasant place to go in the summer. I have elderly relatives there I could at least look in on. Dorky web interface; always a bad first sign.
2. I have a fairly whack idea for an HP 'presentation' sort of thing that my NIA instructor and I have been talking about:
NIA is an exercise form for body, mind and soul, instead of just body like most exercises that we inheritors of Descartes' mind-body split seem to be stuck with. NIA is more holistic. For me, that translates as "less boring," more likely to keep going! NIA combines movements from the 'healing arts' (like yoga), the 'martial arts' (such as Tai Kwan Do, Tai Chi), and the dance arts (modern, jazz, Duncan dance).
Movements are slow or fast, to various kinds of music, and often have accompanying 'visualization' comments, for instance, reaching up your hands to sweep the clouds away, or scooping something up or stretching a bow. I've been thinking how cool would it be to make these Potterverse movements: instead of swirling just any cloak, Snape's cloak. Or instead of waving the arms overhead like a tree, be the Whomping Willow. There's loads of distinctive movements in HP: stirring, flying, riding, dueling, swimming, etc.
I've worked in the past with "kinetic" learning in the classroom (i.e. trance dance or Earth dances) but I'm no instructor, I just help anchor the ideas into the general theory. I've had this folder of ideas for a couple years on doing an entire course on Being-with-Nature using different modes of music and dance. That's why HP popped into my head one morning. It would make a fun 45-minute break at a conference where there's a lot of sitting and standing. Any thoughts?
3. CFP: Film & History Conference: Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings papers
This Call for Papers is for an academic conference, also in Chicago.
Oct 30-Nov 2, 2008
2008 Film & History Conference
AREA: Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings.
Panel and paper proposals accepted, 2nd-round deadline May 1, 2008. Panels would be 4 papers.
I sent in an abstract last week for a different Area, Environmental Documentaries (yep, that kind of dweeb I am; film is one of my teaching areas, in what some call 'Environmental Humanities.' For me, that's with a ton of Anth & science thrown in).
HARRY POTTER AND LORD OF THE RINGS Area
2008 Film & History Conference
"Film & Science: Fictions, Documentaries, and Beyond"
October 30-November 2, 2008
Chicago, Illinois
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Second-Round Deadline: May 1, 2008
AREA: Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings
Upon the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in November, 2001, critic Roger Ebert proclaimed the film “a classic,” predicting that it would be enjoyed for generations to come, much like The Wizard of Oz. A month later, he once again invoked the 1939 MGM classic in his review of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. In doing so, Ebert (perhaps inadvertently) hit on two important qualities shared by the series: their roots in the fantastic and their appeal to mythological structures ¬ qualities that might make them especially relevant and appealing in the culturally divisive post-9/11 era.
The phenomenal popularity of both film series might suggest a revitalization of the genre film as a locus of contemporary mythology. To what extent do the conflicts in Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings mirror Western and global power struggles? How does the reliance on magic in both series tie into current debates over religion and science? How have these films (and others like them) sparked a renewed critical
interest in structuralism, anthropology, and sociology? How do mythologies of magic control or revise scientific discourse? Does it matter that the Lord of the Rings films come from a more “literary” source than the pop-fiction of Harry Potter? Or does the very popularity of the latter series strengthen its potential for mythologizing?
Papers and panels are invited on the topics of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series (novels-to-films or films alone).
--> If anyone wanted to put together a panel on this, I'd be totally for that!
Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
Issues of adaptation
Fantasy genres
Psychological models
Mythological structures
Anthropological analyses
Gender and sexuality
Textual analysis
Publishing and/or film distribution practices
The films’ use (or creation) of stars
Technological innovations in the films
Political allegory
Religious allegory
Fan cultures
Reception studies
Please submit all proposals by May 1, 2008, to the area chair:
Dr. Rodney Hill
School of Liberal Arts
Georgia Gwinnett College
1000 University Center Lane
Lawrenceville, GA 30043
678-407-5745
Rhill@ggc.usg.edu
Submissions by email are encouraged.
Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each
presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. Deadline for
first-round proposals: November 1, 2007; second-round deadline: May 1,
2008.
This area, comprising multiple panels, is a part of the 2008 biennial Film & History Conference, sponsored by The Center for the Study of Film and History. Speakers will include founder John O’Connor and editor Peter C. Rollins (in a ceremony to celebrate the transfer to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh); Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of Visions of the Apocalypse, Disaster and Memory, and Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood; Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University and author of Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, & the End of the World; and special-effects legend Stan Winston, our Keynote Speaker. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website
(www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).
***
1. These HP cons -- Terminus, Portus, Phoenix Rising, etc. Do I want to go to one or more of them?
Be aware that I am nearly as dweeby as I write. That is, not a teenager and fairly academic by nature. Ugh, I sound like schoolmarm!Hermione. Actually, I have many friends under 20 (and over 50) and am considered by all and sundry to be a social extrovert and good company, for values of "company" including drink, dance, good food, excited jabbering and happy hugs. I love going to academic conferences, but haven't been to a con since my "salad days", back before HP.
If I went I would want to present a paper. (Or something; see #2.) The list of papers from Phoenix Rising shows lots of grand ideas for teaching with HP, and/or publications. (Does no one on LJ post CFP's? Some sekrit aca-fan closed society thing, or am I overlooking a comm? ETA: Yep! ithiliana just clued me in to virgule. Blessings and thanks, dear friend!)
Also, this is probably not a complete list. Are there different ones I should be looking at? Like multi-fandom ones, for instance.
+ Terminus (7-11 Aug, Chicago). Deadline for papers is February 1, 2008. Chicago in the summer: O joy.
+ Portus (10-13 July, Dallas). Proposals due Jan 1, 2008. Another unpleasant place to go in the summer. I have elderly relatives there I could at least look in on. Dorky web interface; always a bad first sign.
2. I have a fairly whack idea for an HP 'presentation' sort of thing that my NIA instructor and I have been talking about:
NIA is an exercise form for body, mind and soul, instead of just body like most exercises that we inheritors of Descartes' mind-body split seem to be stuck with. NIA is more holistic. For me, that translates as "less boring," more likely to keep going! NIA combines movements from the 'healing arts' (like yoga), the 'martial arts' (such as Tai Kwan Do, Tai Chi), and the dance arts (modern, jazz, Duncan dance).
Movements are slow or fast, to various kinds of music, and often have accompanying 'visualization' comments, for instance, reaching up your hands to sweep the clouds away, or scooping something up or stretching a bow. I've been thinking how cool would it be to make these Potterverse movements: instead of swirling just any cloak, Snape's cloak. Or instead of waving the arms overhead like a tree, be the Whomping Willow. There's loads of distinctive movements in HP: stirring, flying, riding, dueling, swimming, etc.
I've worked in the past with "kinetic" learning in the classroom (i.e. trance dance or Earth dances) but I'm no instructor, I just help anchor the ideas into the general theory. I've had this folder of ideas for a couple years on doing an entire course on Being-with-Nature using different modes of music and dance. That's why HP popped into my head one morning. It would make a fun 45-minute break at a conference where there's a lot of sitting and standing. Any thoughts?
3. CFP: Film & History Conference: Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings papers
This Call for Papers is for an academic conference, also in Chicago.
Oct 30-Nov 2, 2008
2008 Film & History Conference
AREA: Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings.
Panel and paper proposals accepted, 2nd-round deadline May 1, 2008. Panels would be 4 papers.
I sent in an abstract last week for a different Area, Environmental Documentaries (yep, that kind of dweeb I am; film is one of my teaching areas, in what some call 'Environmental Humanities.' For me, that's with a ton of Anth & science thrown in).
HARRY POTTER AND LORD OF THE RINGS Area
2008 Film & History Conference
"Film & Science: Fictions, Documentaries, and Beyond"
October 30-November 2, 2008
Chicago, Illinois
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Second-Round Deadline: May 1, 2008
AREA: Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings
Upon the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in November, 2001, critic Roger Ebert proclaimed the film “a classic,” predicting that it would be enjoyed for generations to come, much like The Wizard of Oz. A month later, he once again invoked the 1939 MGM classic in his review of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. In doing so, Ebert (perhaps inadvertently) hit on two important qualities shared by the series: their roots in the fantastic and their appeal to mythological structures ¬ qualities that might make them especially relevant and appealing in the culturally divisive post-9/11 era.
The phenomenal popularity of both film series might suggest a revitalization of the genre film as a locus of contemporary mythology. To what extent do the conflicts in Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings mirror Western and global power struggles? How does the reliance on magic in both series tie into current debates over religion and science? How have these films (and others like them) sparked a renewed critical
interest in structuralism, anthropology, and sociology? How do mythologies of magic control or revise scientific discourse? Does it matter that the Lord of the Rings films come from a more “literary” source than the pop-fiction of Harry Potter? Or does the very popularity of the latter series strengthen its potential for mythologizing?
Papers and panels are invited on the topics of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series (novels-to-films or films alone).
--> If anyone wanted to put together a panel on this, I'd be totally for that!
Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
Issues of adaptation
Fantasy genres
Psychological models
Mythological structures
Anthropological analyses
Gender and sexuality
Textual analysis
Publishing and/or film distribution practices
The films’ use (or creation) of stars
Technological innovations in the films
Political allegory
Religious allegory
Fan cultures
Reception studies
Please submit all proposals by May 1, 2008, to the area chair:
Dr. Rodney Hill
School of Liberal Arts
Georgia Gwinnett College
1000 University Center Lane
Lawrenceville, GA 30043
678-407-5745
Rhill@ggc.usg.edu
Submissions by email are encouraged.
Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each
presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. Deadline for
first-round proposals: November 1, 2007; second-round deadline: May 1,
2008.
This area, comprising multiple panels, is a part of the 2008 biennial Film & History Conference, sponsored by The Center for the Study of Film and History. Speakers will include founder John O’Connor and editor Peter C. Rollins (in a ceremony to celebrate the transfer to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh); Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of Visions of the Apocalypse, Disaster and Memory, and Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood; Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University and author of Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, & the End of the World; and special-effects legend Stan Winston, our Keynote Speaker. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website
(www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).
***