Paris, Musée de l'Homme - 14-20 NOVEMBER 2009

Presentation in English / Presentation en Français

CALL FOR PAPERS / CONTRIBUTIONS

The Comité du Film Ethnographique is organizing an International seven-days Conference to be held in Paris in November 2009. This Conference is to honor the scientific and cinematographic work of Jean Rouch, his founding father and leader.
Our purpose is to explore the many research works and investigations pursued to improve the imagetic languages for anthropology in the fields Jean Rouch has pioneered and initiated.
This call for contributions is open to filmmakers, critics, teachers, researchers, and students concerned with the different ways to experiment and to translate the "real" through various audiovisual languages.

Propositions have to focus on one of the chosen topics:
• The colonial ordeal and a contemporary's anthropology.
• The "real" as imaginary, the fiction tells the world.
• A shared anthropology.
• Direct cinema and a making of the "real".
• A new Anthropology, a today's anthropology.

Abstracts of 1500 characters maximum have to be sent electronically to the Comité du Film Ethnographique, together with the applicant information form, by September 15th 2008. The definitive programme will be set on November 1st, 2008. All accepted participants will be expected to submit a full draft of their paper (text and audiovisual documents for a 20 minutes maximum length) by 31st of May, 2009, to allow their circulation among Conference participants.

Please find attached the applicant information form and a detailed presentation of the Conference purpose, partners and proceeding.

Important Dates:
September 15, 2008; Deadline for abstracts
November 1st, 2008; Notification of acceptance
May 31st, 2009: Submission of Final Papers
September, 2009: Conference programme

Contact :
Comité du Film Ethnographique
Musée de l’Homme
17 place du Trocadéro – 75116 Paris – France
Tél. : 33 (0)1 40 79 36 82 - 33 (0)1 47 04 38 20
colloquejeanrouch@mnhn.fr
www.comite-film-ethno.net

1-3 May, Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne.

Registration forms, the program, abstracts and other information are all
available at: http://arts.monash.edu.au/cais/conference/index.php

A growing body of postcolonial research has established the importance of visual imagery in creating and popularizing ideas about race and cultural difference. Visual representation of Indigenous peoples circulated from local to transnational contexts, participating in colonial networks of global exchange and defining relations of power.
One strand of analysis has revealed the complicity of Western scopic
regimes and imperialism, tracing the ways that visual cultures express the colonizers' expanionist gaze. Another seeks to emphasise the role of Indigenous peoples within this relationship, identifying culturally distinct visual traditions and the reformulation of new media such as photography and museum exhibitions. Descendant re-valuation of the colonial archive is inverting colonial spectacle, producing new meanings through re-contextualisation of these images. This conference aims to bring together research on visual cultures and indigeneity that attends to local specificity as well as the global circuits of visual discourse, illuminating both colonial processes and attempts at decolonisation.

PLEASE REGISTER TO BOOK YOUR PLACE

Thank you,

Jane Lydon and Liz Conor (Convenors)

The fourth Visual Delights Conference: Visual Empires will take place at the University of Sheffield between July 3-5, 2009.
Call for papers: Popular visual cultures have been central to the construction and propagation of imperial and colonial narratives and have helped define the nature of Empire. They have been intrinsically linked to discourses about the rise and fall of Imperial fortunes in the 19th and early 20th centuries and have been studied as both evidence of imperial attitudes to race and colonial subjects and as propaganda texts which helped spread and cement imperial and colonial ideologies. This conference seeks to explore this rich visual archive and to examine the roles played by popular visual culture in the construction of narratives concerning issues of race, identity, colonial and imperial ideologies, nationalism, patriotism and the ‘Visual Empire.’
We would like to receive suggestions for papers with deal with these issues in popular cultural forms such as photography, advertising, cinema, theatre, the magic lantern, ethnographic display and world’s fairs before 1930. Suggested themes could include:
Photography and constructions of ‘otherness’/Ethnographic display and racial identities/Advertising and imagined colonies/Cinema and the mapping of Empire/The Magic Lantern and the topography of Empire/Music hall and the patriotic show
Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to Simon Popple @ s.e.popple@leeds.ac.uk or The Louis Le Prince Centre, The Institute of Communications Studies, The Houldsworth Building, The University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
The conference will be jointly hosted by the Louis Le Prince Centre, University of Leeds and the National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield. It is held in conjunction with the Journal of Early Popular Visual Culture. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17460654.asp

23rd May 2008

Department of Anthropology, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Convenor: Jennifer Deger, Macquarie University Research Fellow

How do visual experiences enable us to encounter culture and difference differently? What new possibilities for research and experimentation do digital visual technologies enable, if not demand? What scope is emerging for scholarly work that engages visual practices in the field? How might working with the visual recast questions about the politics of identity, knowledge and the ethics of representation? How can aesthetics be recast as an arena of contemporary social politics?
This one-day workshop will focus on new methodologies, epistemologies and practices in visual culture research. It will explore the intertwined practical and theoretical issues that arise when research takes the visual on its own terms. No longer simply illustrative or evidentiary�no longer secondary to the "real" work of politics, history or culture�the visual, as it matters here, conveys understandings and mediates encounters that are of a profoundly different order to ethnographies that emerge from processes of "writing-up".
The workshop will bring together scholars working in a variety of cultural contexts with film, television, photography, multimedia, the production of art or exhibitions; projects where the visual functions not simply as a data or subject for written analysis, but as a means to refigure conventional understandings of - and possibilities for - ethnography and anthropology.
Proposals are invited for presentations with a strong visual component. Special consideration will be given to the work of young, upcoming scholars representing the next generation of visual anthropologists.
Deadline for abstracts: 8th March 2008.
Contact: Jennifer Deger jdeger@scmp.mq.edu.au

Papers are solicited for an international, transdisciplinary conference
examining visual literacy as it is shaped by, shapes and integrates private
and public identity and subjectivity through social institutions and forces
including design, education, politics, ethics, technology, media, marketing,
commerce, the environment and society. The conference understands visual
literacy from the perspective of individuals, communities, groups and
organizations to mean the ability to successfully compose and deliver
meaningful communication as well as decode and interpret visual messages. It involves perceiving visual images as components of a larger culture matrix,
constituting their meaning and significance, discerning relationships
between their intended and actual purposes and audiences, and acting with or upon them. Visual literacy generates and is affected by relationships
between the visual, literacy and power, including disenfranchisement.
Particular themes or topics for papers may include but are not limited to
the economics of visual culture, constructing the visual landscape, visual
culture and affiliations and disenfranchisements, brands and users,
ethnographies of visual culture, the charge of education to superintend
visual literacy, visual literacy and power, visual illiteracy, visual
culture and social difference, and visual cultures of everyday life.

Abstracts between 250-500 words are sought for 15-20 minute paper
presentations.

Please send your abstract electronically as a word-document to Keith Owens,
Assistant Professor, Communication Design, University of North Texas College
of Visual Arts & Design, kowens@unt.edu.

Important Dates:

February 1, 2008, Deadline for abstracts
March 1, 2008, Notification of acceptance
June 7-8, 2008, Conference dates

Many thanks,
Keith Owens
University of North Texas
College of Visual Arts & Design
P.O. Box 305100
Denton, TX 76203
940-369-7243

Iranian War Cinema: Martyrdom, National identity, Ethnic diversity, and
Gender issues (Preliminary title)

The theme of Martyrdom within the context of Islam was central to the Iranian Revolution and to the subsequent war between Iran and Iraq, which Iranians call �The Sacred Defense�: �(Defa‛e Moqadas)�.
>From 1980 to 1988 there were 2920 days of "Imposed War" (another common term used by Iranians). Nonetheless, this horrible human disaster has been largely ignored by the world. The war left at least 300,000 dead on the Iranian side (Martyrs in Iranian discourse) and injured more than 500,000, out of a total population of approximately 60 million.
The Iran-Iraq clearly had a vast social and psychological impact on Iranian society. It is well worth inquiring about the reality and the impact on daily life for Iranians in wartime as a step toward more general conclusions about connections between war and society.
Images of war are shocking reminders of what actually happened and are, moreover, references for the future generations. Carefully preserved in folklore and enthroned as tradition, these images can be invoked for political purposes that transcend party and class factionalism, and serve to unite the nation in a supreme sacrifice for national purposes.
Iranian war cinema was born after the beginning of war. However it took many years to develop, and even today strives to find its own language, manner, and identity. Iranian feature war films, like most of war films globally, mostly concentrate on the home-front rather than on the conflict itself, and they are quite diverse, including epics, tragedy, and comedy.
�Iranian films (documentary& fiction) on war have been generally disregarded as objects of serious study, except by those who have been themselves involved in their production and distribution. However, today, about two decades after the end of the war, it is the time to have a more detached and dispassionate look at them. Depicting the warfront as a new Karbala and fighting as a kind of worship, proof of love of God and means of understanding the meaning of the life, they are unique filmic enterprises worthy of objective assessment. Another category of war-related Iranian films are those concerning the aftermath of the war, especially the problems of the wounded and disabled veterans�
(R. Safarian, 2007*)

Core issues to be considered in the papers

The aim of this volume is to broaden the discussion on Iranian war cinema through the categories of martyrdom, national identity, ethnic diversity and discourses on gender. In this volume focus will be on both feature and documentary films, and also on topics such as:

- Iranian war cinema as a propaganda machine.

- The political framework of Iranian war cinema.

- Identifying the theological attitudes and socio-cultural aspects of war and martyrdom in Iranian war cinema.

- Investigating the dichotomy of presence and absence through testimony, survival and memory as well as the representation of war symbols in Iranian war cinema.

- Comparative studies between Iranian war cinema and war cinema in general.

(More topics will be consider)

Word length and illustrations

Papers should be about eight thousand words in length. Black and white illustrations can be included. Papers should reach Dr.P.Khosronejad, the editor, by the end of November 2007, if possible. (Email address: pedram.khosronejad@sant.ox.ac.uk ).

Narration of Triumph: War In The Documentary Cinema Of Post-Revolutionary Iran (Convenor: P.Khosronejad), 24 February 2007
(http://barbican.org.uk/film/event-detail.asp?id=5425)

13-16 June 2008
University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland.

A conference, film season and photographic exhibition that aim to interpret and theorise visual representations of Iran in ethnographic, documentary and feature films, as well as other visual art forms.

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS & FILMS
Presented by The Department of Social Anthropology, the Institute for Iranian Studies and the Centre for Film Studies of the University of St. Andrews and the Iran Heritage
Foundation

CONFERENCE
Organised by The Department of Social Anthropology, University of St. Andrews.

CONVENORS
Prof. Roy Dilley (Head of Department of Social Anthropology, University of St.
Andrews)
Dr. Pedram Khosronejad (Department of Social Anthropology and Research Fellow in The Institute for Iranian Studies, University of St. Andrews).

KEY SPEAKERS
Prof. Peter I. Crawford (Visual Cultural Studies, University of Tromsoe, Norway)
Dr. Rolf Husman (Chairman of Commission on Visual Anthropology, The Institute for Knowledge and Media, Goettingen, Germany)
Prof. Hamid Naficy (Professor of Communication, Department of Radio, TV, Film, Northwestern University).

DEADLINE
Abstracts for papers must be submitted no later than 31 January 2008.

FILM SEASON: ANTHROPOLOGICAL FILMS ON IRAN
Organised by The Department of Social Anthropology and the Centre for Film Studies, University of St. Andrews.

Programming by
Dr. David Martin-Jones (Lecturer, Centre of Film Studies, University of St.
Andrews)
Dr. Pedram Khosronejad (Department of Social Anthropology and Research Fellow in the Institute for Iranian Studies, University of St. Andrews).

DEADLINE for submission of films
Synopses of films plus films must be submitted no later than 31 December 20007.

EXHIBITION: KAVEH GOLESTAN - RECORDING THE TRUTH IN IRAN
Organised by
The Department of Social Anthropology and the Institute of Iranian Studies,
University of St. Andrews.

Curated by
Ms. Hengameh Golestan
Ms. Malu Halasa.

Additional information and details:
http://www.iranheritage.org/visual-anthropology/

Enquiries :
Dr. Pedram Khosronejad
Department of Social Anthropology & Institute for Iranian Studies
University of St. Andrews
St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland KY16 9AL
Tel: +44 (1334) 461968
Fax: +44 (1334) 462985
Email: pedram.khosronejad@st-andrews.ac.uk

First Interdisciplinary Conference on the Visual Anthropology of Iran - CALL FOR PAPERS

Web Site

Since the 1990s, there has been a growing interest in Iranian cinema which is now internationally recognised as one of the most original and prolific cinemas of all times and whose aesthetics and culture have in the twenty-first century increasingly appealed to a mass audience. The study of visual anthropology is motivated by [...]

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Web Site and program