Confirmed keynote speakers:

Robert C. Allen (University of North Carolina)

Mariagrazia Fanchi (Catholic University of Milan)

Martin Barker (Aberystwyth University)

 

In recent years studies of audiences and reception in the Italian context have flourished, both in relation to cinema (see Fanchi 2014; Casetti and Fanchi 2006; Fanchi and Mosconi 2002; Treveri Gennari, Hipkins and O’Rawe 2011) and television and new media (see Barra 2015; Scaglioni 2013; Penati 2013). This work situates itself in the broader context of analyses of the empirical spectator in Anglo-American film history (see Allen 2006, 2007, 2011; Biltereyst, Maltby, and Meers 2012; Maltby 2011). The conference aims to bring together for the first time scholars working on spectators and audiences of Italian film, television, and new media. We particularly welcome contributions in the following areas:

Methodological approaches: oral history, ethnography, statistical surveys, mapping audiences

Genre and star reception by audiences

Gender, class, race and sexuality

Geographical and topographical emphases in audience work: rural and urban, North and South, centres and peripheries

Diaspora and mobility: audiences outside Italy/audiences within Italy consuming non-Italian productions

Audience behaviours and fan cultures

Memorabilia and material culture

Age and generations within spectatorship

 

Submissions should be:

250-300 word abstracts with a bibliography of 3-4 titles.

Abstracts should be submitted by 30th January 2016 to the conference organisers at:

Abstracts should follow this order:

author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) bibliography

E-mails should be entitled: Italy and its Audiences Abstract Submission.

We will acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in two weeks, you should assume we did not receive your proposal.

Pre-formed panels are welcome and papers can be submitted both in Italian and in English.