Fwd: Revised and extended call for papers

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

The editors have told me they have nothing for Japan so far.

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From:        Peter Hughes, p.hughes at latrobe.edu.au

Call for papers

(New/revised/extended) Call for papers - Film/culture adaptation: Asia

Some months ago, Screening the Past called for papers about film/culture
adaptations in the very early years of cinema in Asia. We have received 
some
proposals, but more would still be welcome, and we are also extending this
call to cover such adaptations at any period of film history, right up to
the present.

The first call read as follows:
Film/cinema arrived in different countries at different times and in
different ways. In some countries (Britain and France are good examples),
locally-produced films were also the first films screened, while in others
(like China and India) there was a period when only imported films were
available for screening: though the centenary of cinema has already been
celebrated around the world, there are still many places where the 
centenary
of film production has still not been reached. Film always built upon the
local culture: so in Australia and USA it appeared first in vaudeville
performances in live theatres and in open air fairgrounds, while in Japan
the Benshi tradition continued from live theatre into film exhibition.
'Screening the past' is planning an issue devoted to this phenomenon of 
the
adaptation of film to the culture/s it colonised and of culture/s to the 
new
phenomenon of film production and exhibition. We are interested not so 
much
in the story of how film arrived in any particular place as in the
accommodations that took place between the new medium and the culture into
which it was being interpellated.

The sorts of questions that may be raised include (but are not limited 
to):
- Where did the first films screened in the country or area come from? If
from outside the local culture, how did local people respond to them, or
even understand them? If from inside the local culture, what other
entertainment forms or media influenced the kind of films that were made?
- Where were the first films screened? to what sorts of audience? what 
other
entertainment media influenced audience expectations? how did film
exhibitors build upon or bypass these expectations?
- Did other cultural activities (such as live theatre) or forms (such as
narrative structures) change as a result of films? Did entertainment
structures adapt to include film or to compete with it? Did film influence
religion? or education? or lifestyles?
- Did film / cinema adopt cultural structures from the 'indigenous' 
culture:
narrative structures, religious forms, educational practices and
philosophies, etc?

The current Call for Papers includes all the above, but also allows for
papers on more recent times: the films, the industry that produced them,
their audiences, and the culture/s within which all this operates.

Deadline for proposals (approx.500 words) has been extended to 1 April 
2000
(no - this is not an April Fool's Day joke). Completed papers (following
house style, as described in our Style Guide) will still be required by 1
August 2000.

Ina Bertrand
Screening the past
screen at latrobe.edu.au



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