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University of Pittsburgh

Program

Friday, October 14, 2011
Time Event Location
12:00–12:30pm Registration CL 501 Corridor
12:30–1:00pm

Welcome Address by Lucy Fischer

Distinguished Professor of English and Film Studies and Director of the Film Studies Program

 CL 501
1:00–2:15pm

‘Heart of the City’: Urban Space

Moderator: Lucy Fischer, Film Studies, Department of English

  • Katy Ralko (University of Michigan), “Cinematic Bunkers: A Changing Conception of Modern Military Urbanism in Gunner Palace“
  • Joseph George (UNC Greensboro), “The War at Home: Security versus Hospitality in Suburban Film”
  • Dominique Ficalora (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), “The Visual Spectacle of Urban Warfare: Graffiti/Anti-Graffiti as Rhetorics of Conflict”
 CL 501
2:15–2:30pm Break CL 501
2:30–3:45pm

‘Reminders’: Memory

Moderator: Marcia Landy, Film Studies, Department of English

  • Lauren Ross (The Art Institute of Chicago), “Ritual, Repetition, Transformation: Performative Art Works and the Politics of Mourning”
  • Katherine Fisher (University of Michigan), “‘If only they could see it all’: Image, Individualism, and the Construction of Memory in Vimy Memorial Park”
 CL 501
3:45–4:00pm Break CL 501
4:00–5:15pm

‘Killer System’: Games

Moderator: Ryan Pierson, Film Studies, Department of English

  • Brian Keilen (Bowling Green State University), “A Tale of Two Snakes: Negotiating Masculinity in Metal Gear Solid“
  • Shaun Richards (College of William and Mary), “‘Tomorrow There will be no Shortage of Volunteers, No Shortage of Patriots’: The Experience of War in Call of Duty”
  • M.-Niclas Heckner (University of Michigan), “Immersive Historicity in WWII Video Games”
 CL 501
6:30pm Main Reception Private Residence
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Time Event Location
8:30–9:00am Light Refreshments CL 501 Corridor
9:00–10:15am

‘This Is Who We Are’: National Self-Representation

Moderator: Randall Halle, German Film and Cultural Studies, Department of German

  • Nicholas Maradin (University of Pittsburgh), “‘Science Fiction: It’s What We Do Every Day’: Depictions of Contemporary U.S. Military Operations as Science Fiction Cinema”
  • Zoë Eckman (New York University), “This is a Woman’s War!: British Women at War, Propaganda, and The Gentle Sex“
  • Fiammetta Martegani (University of Milan-Bicocca), “‘Did David Betray His Soldiers?’: An Ethnographic Reading of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Representation in Israeli Cinema”
 CL 501
10:15–10:30am Break CL 501
10:30–11:45am

‘Face Off’: Seeing the Other

Moderator: Mark Lynn Anderson, Film Studies, Department of English

  • Jon Moore (Tulane University), “Photographic Memory and the Obligations of German Militarism During Weimar”
  • Linnea Hussein (Columbia University), “Shooting in Prison-of-War Camps: Where Travelogue and Propaganda Meet”
  • Maryam Monalisa Gharavi (Harvard University), “The Face Value: Simulacra and Surveillance of the Covered Face in the Age of Hypervisibility”
 CL 501
11:45–1:00pm Lunch CL 501
1:00–2:15pm

‘Already Home’: Home

Moderator: Daniel Morgan, Film Studies, Department of English

  • Cameron Kelsall (Ohio University), “Battle Scenes, Battle Scars: The Malleable Front Line in Stop-Loss“
  • Daniel Irving (SUNY Binghamton), “On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Border Life: The Wonderful Country and Exil/stenstialism”
  • Nate Campbell (The New School) and Adam Parsons (Syracuse University), “Thief in a Grey Flannel Suit: The Managerial Apocalypse of A Thief in the Night“
 CL 501
2:15–2:30pm Break CL 501
2:30–3:45pm

‘Empire State of Mind’: 9/11

Moderator: Neepa Majumdar, Film Studies, Department of English

  • Inga Meier (University of Pittsburgh), “The Conspirator, Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt, and Civil Rights in Post 9/11 America”
  • Brooke Ford (Ryerson University), “Image-Text Relations: The Sayable and the Visible in Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielle’s Comic DMZ“
  • John Trafton (University of St. Andrews), “‘We are met by the Colour Line’: Race and National Mythology in Post-9/11 Combat Films”
 CL 501
4:00–6:00pm

Keynote Event:
Stephen Prince, “American Film after 9/11″

Renowned film scholar and author of the recent Firestorm.

The event will begin with a screening of the HBO documentary, Baghdad ER (64 min.).

 FFA Auditorium
6:00–8:00pm Light Reception FFA Cloisters
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Time Event Location
9:00–9:30pm Light Refreshments CL 501
9:30–10:45am

‘Somehow, Some Ways’: Forms/Re-imagining Genre

Moderator: Dana Och, Film Studies, Department of English

  • Ryan Pierson (University of Pittsburgh), “Plasmas and Rhizomes: The Biology of Violence in Contemporary Animation”
  • Jeff Hinkelman (Carnegie Mellon University), “Laughter and the Great War: Comedians, Cartoonists and Memory, 1918–1934″
  • Erik Bolt (Pennsylvania State University), “Reclaiming Ancient Epic: The Power of Improvised Filmmaking to Recreate the Homeric Battlefield in Meynin and the Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy”
 CL 501
10:45–11:00am Break CL 501
11:00–12:15pm

‘Looked Over’: The Unseen

Moderator: Adam Lowenstein, Film Studies, Department of English

  • Sonya Pinero (New York University), “Science Fiction Cinema and Guerrilla Warfare of the 1980s”
  • Carolyn Dekker (University of Michigan), “Turning Away to Confront Nuclear War: On the Beach and the Nuclear Pastoral”
  • Felipe Martinez-Pinzon (New York University), “Reassessing the Tropics: Representations of Climate in the Colombia–Perú War (1932-1933)”
 CL 501
12:15–12:30pm Closing Remarks CL 501