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Film and History Area at the PCA/ACA National Conference (12/01/09; 3/31-4/3/10)
'Seeing History in Experimental Film and Media'
March 31-April 3, 2010, St. Louis, Missouri
Deadline: December 1, 2009

Presenters are sought for a panel on history in experimental media, as part of the Film and History Area at the PCA/ACA conference.

Although experimental media is sometimes dismissed for abstracting the realities of social, cultural, and political histories, it is also particularly well suited to express the complexities—the difficulties and potential—of representing the past in the present. Experimental film and media practices are often seen as uniquely able to express critical histories; that is, experimental visual forms can question or critique conventional notions and narratives of history in ways that other visual forms perhaps cannot. This panel will consider the complex intersections of experimental film and media, history, and culture. How do we see history in experimental film and media? How is this similar to and different from seeing history elsewhere? Papers may discuss a single film/project or filmmaker/artist in focus, or explore a historical question or event across a range of texts, or examine the intersection of experimental media and history through a specific cultural or national lens.

Possible topics for Seeing History in Experimental Media might explore, but aren’t limited to:

-How experimental film and media implicitly or explicitly critique constructions of history or established historical narratives
-Experimental film as a kind of counter-cinema
-Experimental documentaries that investigate a particular historical question, event, struggle, etc.
-How compilation films use archival or found images, how these images function in the present
-The role of allegory in a particular experimental film or project
-How historical narratives are constructed and deconstructed in experimental film
-Playing with time and temporality in experimental media
-How representations of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and/or sexuality function in relation to a particular historical period or event
-Experimental film and pedagogy—visualizing history to teach film, or teaching history with film

Please email a 250-word abstract or proposal (in the email, not as an attachment) to Kristen Fallica (kmf33@pitt.edu) by December 1, 2009.