Society for the Study of Cinema and Media Studies
Panel CFP
Due Date: August 1, 2011
Conference Date: March 21-25, 2011 (Boston, MA)

Title:

Perspectives on Kelly Reichardt

With films including Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, and the recently-released Meek's Cutoff, contemporary director Kelly Reichardt has generated a substantial body of acclaimed work. Her on-location filmmaking, spare style, and open-ended narratives may position her as the front-runner of a new American minimalism -- building on the work of Jim Jarmusch and Gus van Sant -- or, as a standard-bearer of what A.O. Scott has called American neo-neo realism -- putting her in the company of contemporary directors like Ramin Bahrani, Lance Hammer, and Courtney Hunt. Such genealogies interpret Reichardt as an auteur. However, her ongoing artistic relationships with regionalist writer Jon Raymond, producer Todd Haynes, and actress Michelle Williams suggest her investment in creative collaboration at all stages of production. Given the relative lack of critical scholarship on Reichardt, this panel seeks proposals from a variety of perspectives. Approaches may include, but are not limited to, adaptation studies, queer cinema studies, genre theory, ecocinema, star discourse, working-class studies, and auteur theory.

Abstracts should be approximately 300-400 words in length, and accompanied by a brief bibliography (five items maximum) and a short biography of the author. Please email your abstract as a .doc file to Katherine Fusco and Nicole Seymour (katherine.fusco@vanderbilt.edu and nicole.seymour@louisville.edu) by August 1, 2011. All authors will be notified as to the status of their proposals by August 15, 2011.