From March 22 to March 26 in Chicago, Illinois, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) held their annual conference at the Fairmont Chicago hotel in Millennium Park. The Carleton Film Studies program was well-represented at the biggest film and media studies conferences in the world.
Several professors were either presenters, or chairs of panels. Professor Laura Horak chaired a panel called “Trans Media Production: Temporality, Authorship, Desire,” which is closely connected with her research. Her presentation, “Imagining Transgender: Impact of the First Trans Film Festivals,” offered a fascinating history of the first trans film festivals.
Professor Marc Furstenau chaired a panel called “Workflow, Style, and Aesthetics in Digital Cinema,” and presented on some recent experiments in digital filmmaking with his presentation “The Aesthetics of Digital Montage: Film, Editing, and Technological Change in the Cinema.” Furstenau and fellow panelists helped create a stimulating question period discussing how digital cinema is changing the industry.
Professor Aubrey Anable presented a paper called “Disorienting Game Studies: Feeling History in Kentucky Route Zero” on the panel “Journeys and (E)motion Engines: How Video Games Move.” Building on research related to video games and affect that are at the core of her upcoming book, Playing With Feelings: Video Games and Affect, Anable’s presentation was a compelling complement to the others on the panel.
Professor Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano presented on images of prostitutes in 1950s Japanese cinema on a panel called “Global Feminist Histories: 1950s Cinema and Its Afterlife,” and professor Malini Guha chaired a panel called “Cinematic Re-visions: New Approaches to Seeing through Media,” with a paper called “The Cinematic Revival of ‘Low London’ in the Age of Smart Urbanism.”
In addition, Film MA student Jake Pitre presented on a panel called “Nostalgia for the ’80s in 21st-Century Film and Television.” Pitre’s paper was “Shameless. . . but Sincere: Eighties Homage in Stranger Things,” which examined the popular Netflix series and attempted to understand its nostalgic paradox. His presentation is pictured below.
Professors Horak and Gunnar Iversen also attended an SCMS Queer Caucus-sponsored screening and event at the Leather Archives & Museum, also pictured below.
Nest year’s SCMS conference will take place March 14 to 18, 2018 in Toronto, much closer to home. The conference is an unparalleled haven of the world’s best thinkers coming together to discuss film, television, media, video games, sound, music videos, podcasts, and on and on. It’s not too early to start thinking about panels or presentations that you could propose! Submissions will be due around August, so keep an eye out on the SCMS website (http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=conference) and watch for calls for papers.
