Dear WFHTN members,

In the run up to the Doing Women’s Film and Television History IV proposal deadline – Monday, November 13th (10pm GMT) - I will be sharing a biography of our keynote speakers each day this week. The CFP for the conference is below.

Dr Rashmi Sawhney is an academic, occasional writer and co-founder of the VisionMix<http://www.visionmix.info/> network. Rashmi has been faculty at CTMP<http://www.ctmp.ie/>, Dublin, where she taught and supervised doctoral research on a practice-based PhD programme in ‘Cultural Studies and Social Documentary Practices’. She has curated a range of public programmes including film screenings and symposia in Dublin and was visiting faculty at Trinity College, while she lived there from 2006-12. Her research explores the production, circulation and exhibition of moving image cultures at the intersections of cinema, visual arts, and digital media in the South Asian context and she has a special interest in science fiction film and video<http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=2987/>. Rashmi has been teaching, doing research, and publishing<https://jnu.academia.edu/RashmiDeviSawhney/Papers> since 2002, and prior to joining Srishti, was Associate Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University and also briefly headed the Arts Practice and Curatorship programmes at India Foundation for the Arts. At Srishti, Rashmi leads the M.A. in Aesthetics and Visual Cultures<http://srishti.ac.in/programs/pg-program-ma-in-aesthetics-and-visual-cultures>. This is the first interdisciplinary postgraduate programme in India, focusing on Curatorial practices and film/art writing, in response to the cultural histories and ecologies of South Asia.



*CFP

Doing Women's Film and Television History IV: Calling the Shots – Then, Now, and Next

May 23 – 25, 2018

University of Southampton, UK
Organising team: Shelley Cobb, Linda Ruth Williams, and Natalie Wreyford

The focus for DWFTH-IV is predicated on the idea of the contemporary as an historical formation. The conference will offer a space to think about the interconnectedness of the past, present and future in feminist historiography and theory, as well as across all forms of women’s film culture and film and television production. It will also consider women’s film and television histories and their relationships with the contemporary, framed and read historically, to reflect on our methodological, theoretical, ideological and disciplinary choices when researching and studying women and/in film and television. In addition to this theme, we are interested in proposals/panels on all topics related to women’s film and television history, from all eras and from all parts of the globe.

The following is an indicative (and by no means exhaustive) list of possible topics:

  *   history formulated as in medias res: how do we do contemporary history, and what are the implications of thinking of the historical in this way?

  *   the impact of social, economic and industrial conditions on women’s roles and creative practices

  *   new ways of doing textual analysis of women’s films (rethinking feminist theory?)

  *   re-thinking women as ‘auteurs’ of film and television (directors, showrunners, producers, actors)

  *   international and transnational contexts: connections, comparisons, collaborations, migration

  *   crossing industry boundaries: film, television, theatre, radio, journalism, art, etc

  *   practice-based research: directing, screenwriting, sound/set/costume design, etc

  *   women audiences/viewers and women as fans

  *   women campaigner/activists in film and television and for on-screen/off-screen change

  *   women’s film criticism/women film critics

  *   women’s independent filmmaking and/versus women’s mainstream (or blockbuster) directing

  *   changing the curriculum: critical canons, pedagogies core modules/classes

  *   the relationship between film and television genres

  *   women practitioners’ negotiations of femininity and/or feminism in their working lives

  *   the intersection of class, race, sexuality, disability and women both on screen and behind the camera

  *   issues of archiving and preservation and distribution and exhibition and broadcasting

Proposals for twenty-minute presentations must include the title of the presentation, a 250-word abstract and a brief biography the author(s). Pre-constituted panels of three speakers may also be submitted, and should include a 250-word panel rationale statement, as well as individual abstracts. Proposals should be submitted to [log in to unmask] before 3 November 2017. Participants will receive a response from the selection committee before 20 December 2017.

Hosted by:
Calling the Shots: Women and Contemporary Film Culture in the UK, 2000-2015: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/cswf/ and Women’s Film and Television History Network - UK/Ireland: https://womensfilmandtelevisionhistory.wordpress.com

--
Dr Shelley Cobb
Associate Professor of Film
University of Southampton
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/film/about/staff/sc1p07.page

Principle Investigator of AHRC-funded Calling the Shots: women and contemporary film culture in the UK
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/cswf/index.page

Author: Adaptation, Authorship, and Contemporary Women Filmmakers
http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230283848

Co-editor: First Comes Love: Power Couples, Celebrity Kinship and Cultural Politics
http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/first-comes-love-9781628921205/