cfp.english.upenn.edu

"Performing Love / Loving Performance: Broadway Musical Motifs in Cinema and Television"
2010 Film & History Conference: Representations of Love in Film and Television
November 10-14, 2010
Hyatt Regency Milwaukee
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory

First Round Deadline: August 1, 2009

AREA: Performing Love / Loving Performance: Broadway Musical Motifs in Cinema and Television

Musicals develop love—for a person, for a place, for an idea—more through bursts of song and dance than from dialogue, suggesting kinesthetic and performative dimensions to love that standard filmmaking only dimly translates. How does song and dance in films add to our understanding of love? Who are the audiences for such performances? Melodies and dance routines circulate from one person to another, structuring what kinds of patterns and forces within representations of love? How have shifting standards in the depiction of sensuality influenced musical performances of love? What aspects of love does "Broadway" import to film and television?

This Call for Papers seeks submissions of work from a wide range of orientations, exploring how musicals engage the concept of love through performance and/or how the love for performance itself--for song and dance--is understood within the genre.

Papers might address (but are not limited to) the following:
-the tensions between heterosexual closure in musicals and gay spectatorship
-fandoms (such as *The Sound of Music* or Buffy's "Once More with Feeling" sing-alongs)
-how non-musical films/television understand musicals as a genre (ex: Jersey Girl, Family Guy)
-musicals from countries other than the US (ex: India, England)
-Internet musicals (ex: *Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog*, *Prop. 8: The Musical*)
-television musicals (ex: *Cop Rock*)
-a particular era (ex: 1930s), studio (ex: MGM), performer (ex: Gene Kelly), subgenre (ex: cowboy musicals), or an individual film

Please send your 200-word proposal by e-mail to the area chair:

Kathryn Edney
16 Foreside Rd
Topsham, ME 04086
Email: katedney@hotmail.com (email submissions preferred)

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).