CFP: The Power of Love An area of multiple panels for the 2016 Film & History Conference:
Gods and Heretics: Figures of Power and Subversion in Film and Television
October 26-October 30, 2016
The Milwaukee Hilton
Milwaukee, WI (USA)  

When romance is brought to life on film and television, it becomes a public discourse capable of either normalizing or challenging behaviors and activating social criticism. Debates over the shape and form of love on the silver screen have been at the center of film and television history, pointing to its significant cultural power. This area, then, will explore both “the power of love” in screen history and the implications of love in film and television.

    Over the past 30 years, scholars have written extensively on the influence of skepticism in the early modern period, frequently characterizing the philosophical school as a threat to the era’s epistemology, ethics, and religion. But could skepticism also work to generate meaning, create stability, or provide a sense of tranquility? This panel series seeks to build on and compliment earlier readings by examining how ancient philosophical models-- such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Pyrrhonism-- as well as the skeptical texts available to early modern readers might complicate our current understanding of skepticism as a fundamentally destabilizing or disruptive force.