italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
REMINDER:
CALL FOR PAPERS
Cherchez La Femme : the Cinematic Femme Fatale, her History and
Transmissions
University of Exeter, Friday 2nd - Saturday 3rd September 2005
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Ginette Vincendeau (University of Warwick)
Professor Griselda Pollock (University of Leeds)
Confirmed Speakers:
Professor Stephen Gundle (Royal Holloway)
Professor Steve Neale (University of Exeter)
Professor Christine Geraghty (Glasgow University)
Professor Susan Hayward (University of Exeter)
The femme fatale has been an enduringly popular persona in film
criticism and in wider popular discourses outside the cinema, but she is
a figure that is very difficult to define and pin down. She has been
understood as a figure of fantasy, embodying both unreal sensuality and
a profound threat to post-war American masculinity. In the cinema she
has been understood as arising out the French critical reception of
Hollywood films noirs, but her historical and international roots are
rather more complex: the femme has traces in figures such as the
Victorian vamp, and across the visual arts and popular literary
fictions. Thus the femme fatale might be said to be at once a
fascinating and elusive figure, overtheorised but under- contexualised.
The School of English at the University of Exeter, in collaboration with
Italian Studies at the University of Leeds, will be holding a one and a
half day conference on the femme fatale figure. The conference aims
both to explore, and account for, the fascination with the femme, and to
restore background to the figure by focusing on the historical, national
and cultural contexts out of which she arises. The organisers hope to
bring together scholars from different disciplines, and papers are
invited on the following topics and areas:
The historical traces of the fatal female in earlier fictions and
figures
Intertexts of the fatal woman in other media, such as popular fictions
or visual arts
Manifestations of the fatal female figures in European (and world
cinemas) eg. the Weimar woman in German cinema, the diva in Italian
cinema; the relationship between the femme fatale figure and national
cinemas and/or representations of national identity
Ways in which the transmission and reworking of the femme fatale figure
in post-war cinemas (and neo-noirs) illuminates the femme fatale as a
trans-national figure. How does that transmission speak to the
relationship between Hollywood and European/World cinemas?
Concepts and debates surrounding the femme: why has the femme figure
been so central to the development of feminist film theory? What can the
fascination with the femme tell us about our relationship to 'problem
women' in different media? Is the femme, as Elisabeth Bronfen argues, a
'catchphrase for the dangers of sexual difference'?
Proposals of 200-300 words for papers of 15-20 minutes should be sent by
Monday 14 th February 2005, to the following email address:
[log in to unmask]
Or by mail to:
Dr Helen Hanson
School of English
University of Exeter
Queen's Drive
Exeter
Devon
EX4 4QH
Website: http://www.ex.ac.uk/english/conferences/cherchez-la-femme.shtml
Conference Organisers:
Dr Helen Hanson, Lecturer in Film, School of English, University of
Exeter
Dr Catherine O'Rawe, Lecturer in Italian Studies, Italian Department,
University of Leeds
---------------------
Dr Catherine O'Rawe
Dept of Italian
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT
Tel: + 44 113 3433635
Email: [log in to unmask]
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