Stanley Kubrick: A Retrospective

An International Conference, 11-13 May 2016, De Montfort University, Leicester

Keynotes:

Much has been said and written about Stanley Kubrick. But not everything. Nearly two decades on since the release of his posthumous final film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), it is only now, with the donation of his archive to the University of Arts London, that we are beginning to have our eyes opened to new perspectives and understandings of Kubrick and his work. The empirical potential that the archive offers has been highlighted in recent years in the research by one of this conference’s keynote speakers, Peter Krämer, who has broken open the debates around authorial agency, collaboration, adaptation and production contexts. Other scholars have similarly shone light on previously unexplored perspectives, including Nathan Abrams and his studies of the socio-cultural influences in Kubrick’s life, to the uncovering of Kubrick’s time as a photojournalist at Look magazine by Phillipe Mather, and most recent of all the new perspectives offered by the edited collection Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives. Taken together, this research is generating new ways of viewing Kubrick’s films and of understanding their aesthetics and themes.

In the sixtieth anniversary year of the release of Kubrick’s The Killing (1956), Stanley Kubrick: A Retrospective aims to take stock of the rise of these new scholarly perspectives of Stanley Kubrick and to survey the wide field of interdisciplinary research on his work. Therefore, we invite papers for submission on any and all aspects of Stanley Kubrick’s life and work. Suggested topics include, but are by no means limited to:

- Kubrick and Adaptation
- Kubrick’s short films
- Photojournalism
- Kubrick’s influences and lasting legacy
- Genre
- The Cult of Kubrick
- Music
- Conspiracy theories
- Screenplay studies
- Thematic interpretations
- Unmade films and lost projects
- Kubrick in the Internet age (Youtube, online fan forums etc.)
- Documentaries on Kubrick / Continuing Kubrick DVD re-releases and extras

Proposals for twenty-minute presentations to be emailed to Professor Ian Hunter: [log in to unmask] and James Fenwick: [log in to unmask] with a submission deadline of 11 January 2016. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words and include a 100-word biography.

The conference will feature keynotes from:
Jan Harlan, Kubrick’s brother-in-law and executive producer from Barry Lyndon (1975) through to Eyes Wide Shut (1999), and who continues to tirelessly promote and celebrate the life and work of Kubrick.

Professor Robert P Kolker, author of the acclaimed A Cinema of Loneliness (4th ed. 2011), featuring the chapter about Kubrick, 'Tectonics of the Mechanical Man'. Kolker is a renowned Kubrick scholar, with numerous other works, including the edited volume Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays (2006).

Professor Nathan Abrams, having written about Kubrick’s socio-cultural influences, including ‘Becoming a Macho Mensch: Stanley Kubrick, Spartacus and 1950s Jewish Masculinity’ (2015) and ‘An Alternative New York Jewish Intellectual: Stanley Kubrick’s Cultural Critique’ (2015).

Peter Krämer, who has written extensively on Kubrick, including two BFI Classics (2001: A Space Odyssey (2010); Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (2014)) and continues to provide new insights and perspectives into his career.