The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0571  Wednesday, 18 November 2009

From:       Film-Literature Pr <
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Date:       Monday, 16 Nov 2009 09:51:23 +0000
Subject:    The Writer on Film: Screening Literary Authorship

Please forward to colleagues or postgraduates to whom it might be of 
interest.

The Writer on Film: Screening Literary Authorship
A one-day conference hosted by the Film and Literature Programme, 
University of York (UK)

Thursday 25th March 2010

In the past decade or so there has been a marked resurgence in the 
popularity of the literary biopic. Writers turned subjects of recent 
films include Shakespeare, Austen, Virginia Woolf, Iris Murdoch, Dylan 
Thomas, Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Kafka, Keats, 
Kaufman and many more, both fictional and historical. This cultural 
phenomenon prompts a re-examination of a long and varied history of 
cinematic engagements with literary lives, literary processes and other 
forms of authorial creativity.

Abstracts are solicited for individual 20-minute papers on subjects 
relating to the theme of the conference. Proposals of pre-constituted 
panels (composed of two or three 20-minute papers) are also welcome.

Questions informing case-studies might, for example, include (without 
being limited to):

- What appeal have literary lives and literary process historically held 
for the film industry?

- How are the processes of creativity and creation in one medium 
narratable through the codes and conventions of another?

- At what moments in film history (and film present) have particular 
writers proved cinematically modish, and how has their modishness been 
cinematically appropriated?

- Do the cultural and commercial operations of literary biopics differ 
from those of literary adaptations?

- How have different genres of writing (poetry, novelistic, dramatic, 
journalistic, screenwriting) been treated by the film industry in 
different periods?

- How might screen representations of acts of writing relate to screen 
representations of other expressions of creative/artistic endeavour 
(fine art, musical composition etc)?

- What approach to the material tools of literary composition (ink, 
quill, pen, typewriter, computer, paper, desk etc) has the camera 
adopted in different films and at different moments?

- How do audience engagements with fictional writers as film characters 
compare with audience engagements with historical writers as film 
characters?

- How might the formal and/or cultural challenges with which literary 
biopics have engaged relate to those attendant upon a work of literary 
biography?

Depending on clusters of expressed interest, it is anticipated that 
separate conference sessions may, for example, focus on:

    - screen representations of particular authors (eg Shakespeare, Austen);

    - screen representations of separate genres of writing (eg poetry, 
play writing, novels, screenwriting);

    - cinema's engagements with literary lives and literary processes in 
specified historical periods (eg in particular decades);

    - questions of medium identity, specificity and transmediality as 
expressed in this body of work;

    - the responses of particular national film industries to screen 
engagements with writers and the literary.

Abstracts of not more than 250 words should be submitted, not by 
attachment but within the body of the email, to: 

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Deadline for receipt of abstracts: Monday 21st December 2009.

A brief personal biog-sketch (of not more than 100 words) including 
institutional affiliation, current appointment or stage of study, 
principal publications (where applicable) and main areas of research 
interest, should be included in the same email. All submissions will be 
responded to, and all contributors notified, by Friday 8th January 2010.

To reserve a non-speaking delegate place, send your name and 
institutional affiliation in an email, subject line 'Conference 
Reservation: The Writer on Film', to: 
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Confirmation of conference places and registration details will be sent 
out subsequently.

Speakers thus far confirmed include Andrew Higson, Deborah Cartmell, 
Erica Sheen, Judith Buchanan.

Registration fee: