CFP: Desire and the Televisual

Call for Papers for a Proposed Panel for
SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) 2007 Conference
Chicago, IL, March 8-11, 2007

Since its inception, television has functioned as a battleground between
"high" and "low" culture, sometimes derided as a "vast wasteland," other
times championed for heralding a public media revolution by illustrating
that everyone can find their place on and through the small screen.
This panel, however, will take a step back from the political arguments
about television's position in the cultural and social economy in order
to focus on a more personal relationship-that between television and its
viewer(s).

Some have called television addictive, many have accused it of fostering
escapist tendencies and idealistic notions, but either way most would
agree that television garners a different sort of attention than
virtually any other form of visual production. What is it about
television that inspires such loyal devotion from its fans and even its
more casual viewers? What is the origin of this desire for television's
pleasures and fulfillments? Why are we so easily seduced by television's
hypnotic glow? And how does television-as a desirable object of visual
and aural pleasure-thus shape the landscape of popular culture as a
whole?

This panel will explore the construction of desire in, of and for
television. Possible topics include explorations of specific television
programs; psychological or philosophical discussion of fans, spectators
and/or viewers; explorations of ideas surrounding concepts like
spectacle, the sublime, addiction, and hypnosis in regards to
television studies; scientific studies of the neuro- or biological
aspects of television's pleasures; psychoanalytic interrogations of
affect; and feminist or queer readings of televisual desire.

Please send abstracts or proposals (250-500 words) to
adovevie_at_mail.rochester.edu by July 25, 2006.

(Accepted presenters will be notified prior to August 15 and the panel
will be submitted to SCMS by September 1. Acceptance of your proposal
does not guarantee that SCMS will accept the panel as a whole.)

Aviva Dove-Viebahn
424 Morey Hall
Program in Visual and Cultural Studies
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14619

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Received on Sat Jul 01 2006 - 07:12:36 EDT