June 11-12, 2020

Liverpool (UK)

Deadline: January 20, 2020

This conference aims to forge interdisciplinary links between those working in Television and Media Studies, Modern Languages and Gender Studies. Television and media research is changing, the rapid evolution of this medium has been theorised in terms of the technological advances that changing modes of distribution bring, its textual, narrative and aesthetic developments, and its role as a mediator of cultural identity. Scholarship in this area has produced prolific studies of US and, to a lesser degree, UK television to exemplify the ways in which constructions of gender are mediated through different televisual formats and genres. This conference will refocus this research through analysis of television made beyond these English-speaking territories and consider the important work being done in Modern Languages to understand and analyse the ways in which transcultural and transnational mediations of gender are made visible, produced and understood through popular television.

This conference aims to explore this cultural specificity that will provide an important intervention into Gender Studies and Cultural Studies more broadly, as it works at the interface of Area Studies and these other disciplines. As a response to a global political landscape, in which power and gender have been brought into sharp focus, it will examine the way in which these structures of power play out in these ‘other’ television cultures. We will consider television as a key cultural mediator in the transcultural understanding of gender and a significant interlocutor in social change. If we consider TV one of the most influential agents of value construction, then TV shows can be considered a powerful tool to guide viewers through the moral climate of their time, attesting to a collective process of working through social issues.

Themes and research questions may include but should not be limited to:

• How is gender made visible on television?
• How are gendered subjectivities negotiated in different TV genres?
• How are gendered subjectivities framed by the format of the TV genre?
• To what extent is character engagement dependent on genre, hybridisation or actors?
• How do critics deal with gender on TV? What other extra textual discourses contribute to the production of meanings surrounding gender on television?
• To what extent is the continued application of Anglophone theory in a non-Anglophone context useful?
• Can the analysis of the geo-specific productions contribute to the theorisation of the media representation of gender?
• How does the reception of international productions compare to that of indigenous television?
• How has the transmedial configuration of television altered the ways in which configurations of gender and nationality are understood?
• How have streaming platforms changed the ways in which gender is mediated transnationally?

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Professor Milly Buonanno, La Sapienza University, Rome
• Professor Aniko Imre, Prof of Cinema & Media Studies, University of Southern California

Organisers:

• Dr Anja Louis, Reader in Cultural and Intercultural Studies, Languages and Cultures, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB
• Dr Abigail Loxham, Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Film, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX

Conference Formats:

• Individual papers: Oral presentations on original research by one or more authors.
• Full panels: Three thematically connected papers on original research by several authors.
• Posters: A0-size academic posters, which will be displayed during a dedicated poster session. A digital version of the poster must be sent via email 72 hours prior to the conference and submitted physically to the registration desk on the morning of the conference.

All papers consist of a 20-minute presentation by the author(s), with an extra 10-minute slot allocated for discussion at the end. Proposals for papers should include an abstract under 350 words and a bio of no more than 100 words. Panel proposals for three or four paper panels should combine the abstracts and bios of speakers in one document, and should also include a short rationale and panel title. Poster proposals should include an abstract of no more than 250 words and a 100-words speaker bio. All proposals should be submitted to the organisers: a.louis@shu.ac.uk and abigail.loxham@liverpool.ac.uk

The deadline for proposals is 20 January 2020. Accepted papers will be notified by 15 February 2020. Selected papers will be invited to submit for a peer-reviewed volume.

Registration fees: £100 | Concessionary rate (postgraduates): £60