Call for Papers

SCIENCE FICTION IN BRITISH FILM AND TELEVISION Area
2008 Film & History Conference
"Film & Science: Fictions, Documentaries, and Beyond"
October 30-November 2, 2008
Chicago, Illinois
www.filmandhistory.org
First-Round Deadline: November 1, 2007

AREA: Science Fiction in British Film and Television

The consistent quality of science-fiction films and television programs in
Britain has won audiences for generations, both in the UK and around the
world. One reason for this sustained popularity lies in the ability of
British cinema and TV to constantly reinvent the genre, keeping it socially
and philosophically elastic. How, for example, has British science fiction
adapted to changes in the political and social climate or affected national
policy or civic character? How have SF films and television programs
represented Britain's concerns about the present or future or about the use
and perception of history? What makes science fiction film and television
in Britain distinctively "British"?

This area treats the last century of science fiction productions, from
Maurice Elvey's The Tunnel (1935) and William Cameron Menzies' Things to
Come (1936) to the landmark TV productions The Quatermass Experiment
(1953), 1984 (1954), A for Andromeda (1961), and the latest Doctor Who.
Presentations may feature analyses of individual films and/or TV programs,
surveys of documents related to their production, analyses of history and
culture as explored through a set of films/TV programs, or comparisons
between two or more science-fiction productions.

Paper topics might include utopian and dystopian films/TV programs, future
warfare, censorship, representation of non-human life forms, politics, the
Cold War, science-fiction after 9/11, ethics and morals, representations of
science and scientists, myths and legends, terrorism, early science
fiction, adaptations, comedy, government and institutions, disasters,
environment, gender, ethnicity, race, class, etc.

Please send your 200-word proposal by November 1, 2007 to

Tobias Hochscherf, Chair, Science Fiction in British Film and TV
Northumbria University
School of Arts and Social Sciences
Media & Communication
Lipman Bldg.
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST
United Kingdom
Phone: ++44(0)191-227-4932
Email: tobias.hochscherf_at_unn.ac.uk

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each
presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. Deadline for
first-round proposals: November 1, 2007

This area, comprising multiple panels, is a part of the 2008 biennial Film
& History Conference, sponsored by The Center for the Study of Film and
History. Speakers will include founder John O'Connor and editor Peter C.
Rollins (in a ceremony to celebrate the transfer to the University of
Wisconsin Oshkosh), and Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan Professor of Film
Studies at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and author of Visions of the
Apocalypse and Disaster and Memory. For updates and registration
information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website
(http://www.filmandhistory.org).


-- 
Iain Robert Smith
Doctoral Student
Institute of Film and Television
School of American and Canadian Studies
University of Nottingham
University Park
NG7 2RD