SYNOPTIQUE Journal Colloquium
October 16-17, 2015

HUMOROUS > DISRUPTIONS: Laughter and Technologies of Disruption in Feminist Film and Media

DEADLINE EXTENDED: August 15th, 2015

Colloquium hosted by the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
Concordia University
Montréal, Québec

Invited speakers:
DR. ALICE MING WAI JIM (Art History, Concordia University)
DR. CARRIE RENTSCHLER (Institute for Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, McGill University)
DR. MAGGIE HENNEFELD (Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota)
DR. ELENA GORFINKEL (Art History & Film Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
DR. ARA OSTERWEIL (Department of English, McGill University)
DR. LIZ CLARKE (Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Concordia University)
SHELLEY NIRO, ARTIST (Brantford, Ontario)

Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies is proud to announce its first colloquium dedicated to humour and technologies of disruption in feminist film and media practice. The conference is organized in collaboration with the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema.

HUMOROUS > DISRUPTIONS is dedicated to the polyvalent ways in which humour has functioned as a disruptive technology in feminist media theories and practices. Humour and its many manifestations—parody, satire, irony, and mimicry—have the potential to destabilize existing systems of representation, media production, and gender constructions. Humour can be used to forge new circuits of knowledge, as well as political and emotional solidarities. We are seeking conference proposals for individual papers that engage with the possibilities of humour as a technology, strategy, representational practice, and tool for renewing dialogues with feminisms (in all their manifestations) today. This approach necessitates a critical recognition of productive multiplicities and the centrality of critical race studies, Global South and indigenous feminisms, feminism and class, and posthuman concerns.

The colloquium will consist of two round tables of invited scholars and artists, and several panels composed of open call papers. We are also excited to announce that Synoptique Journal is curating a video essay installation as part of the colloquium. The curated installation will be unveiled in collaboration with the colloquium, and later exhibited on the Synoptique website.

This event is organized in conjunction with an upcoming special issue of Synoptique dedicated to humour in feminist media practices (Vol. 5, no. 1). Synoptique is accepting contributions to the issue until Dec. 31st, 2015. For the special issue CFP and more information about Synoptique, please visit the Journal's website: www.synoptique.ca

Potential topics for colloquium papers may include:

• Activism, piracy, and resistance through humour
• Critical race, transnational, Global South, and Indigenous feminisms
• Cybernetics, post-human(ism), or cross-species humour
• Ethics and feminisms for the anthropocene and its 'others'
• Feminist analyses of laughter as communal response ("sensuous solidarity")
• Humour as a critical and/or liberating interrogation of feminisms and femininity
• Humour in and through video art, found footage, and archival interventions
• Intermediality, interactivity and reflexivity in relation to notions of authorship, as well as artistic and cultural practice
• Internet humour, trolling, and resistance
• Intersectional or postmodern approaches to the feminist deployment of humour
• Laughter, irony and satire as political or interrogatory strategies
• Cinema as "l'écriture féminine"
• Mimicry and empire
• Narcissism, the pleasure principal, and psychoanalytical or sociological theories of laughter
• Negotiations and subversions of genre (science fiction, melodrama, fantasy, the western, etc.)
• Online participatory media, machinima, and video game modding
• Phenomenology of women's laughter and comedic pleasure
• Politics of the female body in relation to deviance, 'gross-out' or 'body' humour, and the carnivalesque
• Porn, sex parody and humour
• Roles and impacts of new and old media technologies and platforms (television, console video games, film, social media, cartoons, photography, VJing, etc.)
• Stereotypes, parody and performance, and alternative representations of gender
• The avant-garde, experimental media aesthetics, and humour
• Women, technology, and media industries (transnational, amateur, porn, Hollywood, etc.)
• Women's emotional labour and affect
• Women's performance, vestimentary and fan cultures around media (Comiccon, fanfiction, mash-up videos, etc.)

HUMOROUS > DISRUPTIONS welcomes submissions from graduate students, post-docs, established faculty, and early career professionals. Papers may be presented in French or English.

Please submit an abstract (300 words maximum), title of the paper, and author bio to: colloquium.synoptique@gmail.com