[KineJapan] Call for Papers: Performing Intermediality (online symposium)

[Kerstin Fooken]

Hello everyone,

I’m currently based at Waseda University as a JSPS Postdoctoral Research
Fellow and we are organising an online symposium on women and
intermediality in pre-war Japanese film culture to take place in December.
With this we are of course also building on the invaluable work of other
KineJapaners and hope it might be of interest to some of you. I am sending
the Call for Papers attached in English and Japanese and will paste it
below. It is also available online here, deadline for proposals is 05 Sep
2021.

http://www.engekieizo.com/?p=1281


Please feel free to pass this on to anybody who might be interested and
don’t hesitate to get in touch with questions or comments!

With best wishes,

Kerstin
*CALL FOR PAPERS*

*Performing Intermediality *
* New Perspectives on Women’s Creative Contributions to Pre-War Japanese
Film Culture*

Online Symposium

Saturday 11 December 2021

Society for Studies of Theatre and Film Arts, Waseda University, Tokyo



This symposium aims to cast new perspectives on women’s creative
contributions to the increasingly intermedial filmmaking landscape as the
Japanese film industry transitioned from silent to sound film. Since during
the 1920s and 1930s women in Japan hardly had any opportunity to take up
established filmmaking occupations such as directors, editors or
scriptwriters, conventional media-historical approaches often struggle to
acknowledge forms of women’s creative work in the industry, apart from
appearing on screen. Through which methods and what kind of sources then
can we recognise the work of women and how can Japanese film history better
attest to their contributions? In this symposium we seek to explore how
approaching the concept of intermediality not only as object but rather, as
suggested by scholars such as Lúcia Nagib, as method of study might present
a way forward. Understanding intermediality as a method of study
de-privileges films themselves and the mostly male-dominated established
filmmaking occupations as analytical focal points by rejecting hierarchical
relations between the different artforms involved. Such an understanding
could facilitate access to a broader sense of film culture and its
film-related creative practices in which the range of women’s creative work
becomes more obvious while diversifying our understanding of the pre-war
Japanese filmmaking landscape in general.



Building onto indispensable existing research, we seek to bring together a
broad range of case studies of women primarily in a contextualised
performer-centred approach who worked across different media in relation to
film production inside but also outside of the established studio and
exhibition structures, of work that is extant or not. Our focus is on the
long transition from silent to sound film but there is flexibility on both
ends of this period. Equally, we are interested in women who worked in
Japan as well as those who might have been active in Japan’s colonies at
the time.



*Case studies could involve but are certainly not limited to:*



-Female actors who were active across different media, focussing on their
work with SP records or radio plays etc.

-Female singers who performed theme songs for *kouta*/ballad- and other
films

-Female dancers who appeared or were featured in films popularising related
dances

-Female performers who performed live in cinema interval attractions

-Female *benshi*



*For a broad range of insights into women’s contributions, we also welcome
more established approaches to:*



-Female-led film production companies

-Female writers on film and cinema culture

-New perspectives on the work of Sakane Tazuko



We are also open to critical discussions of methodologies and sources;
problematising the notion of searching for female creative agency within
the industry etc.



*Submissions:    *

We invite proposals for papers of 20-30 minutes to be given in English or
Japanese. Please submit paper titles and abstracts of ca. 300 words, along
with a short bio *by 5 September 2021* to:



*performing.intermediality at gmail.com* <performing.intermediality at gmail.com>



*Organised by the Seminar for Film History of Prof. Hiroshi Komatsu at
Waseda University, Tokyo*

*Co-Organised by the Society for Studies of Theatre and Film Arts, Waseda
University, Tokyo*

Dr Kerstin Fooken, JSPS International Postdoctoral Research Fellow
(Principal Organiser)

Yuki Irikura, PhD Candidate, JSPS Research Fellow DC1 (Co-Organiser)



--

Dr Kerstin Fooken

JSPS International Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Waseda University, Tokyo

kfooken2 at gmail.com
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