ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

June 21-23, 2021

Link Campus University, Via del Casale di San Pio V 44 – Rome

Deadline: November 15, 2020

Conference Website: https://www.detect-project.eu/detect2021/

[Keynote speakers to be announced soon]

Among the different expressions of popular culture, no other genre more than crime – meant as a composite made up of many different variants or subgenres -- has proved able to travel and expand its reach into international markets and with audiences. Nor has any other genre been more adept at laying bare the conflicts and contradictions – social, political and historical – that characterise contemporary European societies. The Detecting Europe conference offers an open forum to explore and discuss how narratives of crime and investigation, as well as their production and reception, have helped define the major industrial, commercial, thematic and stylistic trends of European popular culture since 1989, fostering both the transnational circulation of its products and the appearance of new transcultural representations in line with the emergence

of new social identities. We welcome proposals that interrogate the notion of Europeanness as a critical category, and its viability for the study of contemporary popular culture, both in print and screen media. We wish to explore both the scope and limits of the interrelated notions of transnational identity and cosmopolitanism when applied to the works of European crime fiction, including print fiction, film, and TV.

A few general — but not exclusive — questions may be asked. Are we to conceive of cosmopolitanism and the process of European transculturation merely as unifying factors, fostering the generation of a shared and uniform transnational identity? Or should we better acknowledge the existence of a variety of European transcultural identities, expressed in different writing and audio-visual styles, characteristic narrative models, place-specific production cultures and distribution and consumption patterns? What is the impact of national media ecologies in shaping the idea of the European, and how the national translate the European when foreign products appear in its mediascape? Should hybridization and transculturation be assumed as markers and powerful drivers of cultural homologation? Or rather the opposite is true, namely that cultural hybridization entails a growing differentiation of narrative forms and styles, contents and formats, production and reception practices, thus contributing to the emergence of a post-national assemblage of multiple and possibly diverging cosmopolitan identities? We deem it important, at this particular time, that the notion of Europeanness and its eventual instantiations in contemporary crime narratives is approached having in mind the multiple crises that are currently affecting the continent and its population.

We invite proposals from multiple fields of cultural studies, including representation studies, industry and production studies, and reception and audience studies. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Main stylistic trends of the crime-genre works produced in Europe in the last 30 years.

Debating/reframing Euronoir as a critical category for cultural studies.

• Hybridization and transculturation: toward homologation or increased cultural differentiation?
• Crime fiction and the European crisis: immigration, migrant labour, Brexit, and the rise of right-wing popularism.
• The restaging and critical analysis of Europe’s recent past in the work of crime writers, screenwriters and directors.
• Images of Europe and Europeans: investigating social change through the study of popular crime narratives.
• Restating vs challenging class, gender and ethnic stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination in the representation of crime.
• The multiple facets of European diversity: how have social, spatial and historical identities been expressed in the works of the European crime genre?
• Ecocriticism and environmental humanities in the era of widescale ecological crisis: eco-noir and the challenges to European environment policies.
• The profiled position of crime in fostering transnational cooperation in the European cultural and creative sectors.
• Relationships and discrepancies between national/local creative industries and transnational cultural policies in the production milieu of the European crime genre.
• Transnational production and distribution and the emergence of transcultural formats.
• The hopes and limits of European cohesiveness, as revealed in practices of co-production and

distribution of crime novels, films and TV dramas across the continent.

• Crime narratives and the media discourse on organized trans-European crime.
• Fictional representations of legal and forensic practices in comparative perspective.
• Translation, dubbing, subtitling as strategies for cultural adaptation and appropriation.
• The imbrication of local, national and transnational identities in the reception of foreign crime stories, between old and fresh perspectives on proximate or distant neighbors.
• Transnational distribution and the role of audiences in shaping the circulation patterns of European crime narratives across the continent.
• Detecting transcultural identity and social change through the study of the audiences’ response to crime stories and trans/cross-media universes.
• Engagement and design of crime audiences in the age of digital markets and online distribution.
• Making sense of social change through the audience’s response to the representation of female, gay, lesbian and queer characters.
• Theorising transnational/transdisciplinary research for the study of European crime narratives in print and screen media.

Conference Chairs

Monica Dall’Asta (University of Bologna), Federico Pagello (University of Chieti-Pescara), Valentina Re (Link Campus University)

Organizing Committee

Luca Antoniazzi (University of Bologna), Sara Casoli (University of Bologna), Massimiliano Coviello (Link Campus University), Paola De Rosa (Link Campus University), Lorenzo Orlando (Link Campus University)

Advisory Board

Stefano Arduini (Link Campus University), Maurizio Ascari (University of Bologna), Jan Baetens (KU Leuven), Luca Barra (University of Bologna), Stefano Baschiera (Queen’s University Belfast), Giulia Carluccio (University of Turin), Silvana Colella (University of Macerata), Caius Dobrescu (University of Bucharest), Andrea Esser (University of Roehampton), Nicola Ferrigni (Link Campus University), Katarina Gregersdotter (Umeå University), Kim Toft Hansen (Aalborg University), Annette Hill (University of Lund), Dominique Jeannerod (Queen’s University Belfast), Sandor Kalai (University of Debrecen), Matthieu Letourneux (University Paris Nanterre), Natacha Levet (University of Limoges), Giacomo Manzoli (University of Bologna), Janet McCabe (Birkbeck University), Jacques Migozzi (University of Limoges), Andrew Pepper (Queen’s University Belfast), Marica Spalletta (Link Campus University)

Deadlines and practicalities

• Abstracts deadline: 15 November 2020
• Feedback: 15 December 2020
• Registration deadline: 31 January 2020

Regular conference fee: €120

Reduced conference fee (PhD students, Postdoctoral researchers): €90

Further information: info@detect-project.eu

Submissions guidelines

Submissions are welcome as individual papers (max. 20 minutes) and pre-constituted panels (3/4 papers).

Individual presenters are required to provide their name, email address, the title of the paper, an abstract (max. 300 words), references (max. 200 words), and a short bio (max. 150 words).

Submit your paper proposal here

Submit your panel proposal here (panel organizers are also asked to submit a panel title and a short description of the panel (max. 300 words).

The conference is supported by CUC – Consulta Universitaria del Cinema, Italy.

Special Research Topic of the journal Frontiers in Communication, Science and Environmental Communication Section

Deadline: December 26, 2020

Guest Editors:

• Dr. Dara M Wald, Iowa State University, Ames, United States
• Dr. Ulrike Felt, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
• Dr. Anabela Carvalho, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

We seek original research that can enhance our understanding of the social dimensions of COVID-19 by examining how communication relates to attitudes, practices and values that the pandemic has placed in harsh relief. In brief, we are particularly interested in exploring how publics are responding to social distancing and other protective measures; how trust, responsibility, uncertainty, accountability and democracy relate to each other during this pandemic; how messaging about the pandemic differs among and between countries, regions, organizations and key actors. We are also interested in theoretical and normative inquiries into science communication itself such as how engagement practices are shifting during COVID-19, how political considerations or presumptions about individuals and social collectives have shaped science communication and how inclusive and context-sensitive communication is being imagined and enacted.

We encourage multiple article types, including, but not limited to: original research, hypothesis and theory, review, perspective, opinion, conceptual analysis, community case study and policy & practice review.

Full manuscripts are due December 26, 2020.

Due to the importance and urgency of the topic, publication charges will be 100% waived for all papers submitted to this collection by the manuscript deadline.

Visit the collection homepage for the full description of the project: https://www.frontiersin.org/…58/

Special Issue of the Media Studies Journal (Medijske studije) 

Deadline: October 5, 2020

Guest editors:

• Domagoj Bebić, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Sciences, Croatia
• Dina Vozab, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Sciences, Croatia
• Oscar Luengo, University of Granada, Spain

Timeline:

• Submission Full Papers: 5th October 2020
• Peer Review and Revisions: 15th October – 10th December 2020
• Publication: December 2020 / January 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic crisis deeply influenced the relationship between media and politics. Slowing down of economic activity amid lockdowns and physical distancing influenced revenue and sustainability of media organizations and patterns of media consumption. Some preliminary research found that the crisis prompted higher trust in government and inclination to vote for the ruling party or president (Blais et al., 2020). Most of the parliamentary and presidential elections have been postponed in 2020. However, some have been held amid the 2020 pandemic (parliamentary elections in Croatia and Serbia, presidential election in Poland).This special issue invites authors to contribute to understanding elections that are taking place in an increasingly unstable political environment, characterized by hybrid media systems (Chadwick, 2017) and data driven communication (Kreiss and McGregor, 2018).

We invite papers that address mediatization of elections, relationship between journalism and politics, characteristics of media messages, frames and discourses, agenda-setting, characteristics of political campaign and communication strategies, the rise of new platforms (TikTok, Snapchat etc.), algorithmic selection and automatization, media effects, audiences and voters’ behavior. We encourage papers that derive from media sociology, critical paradigm and political economy of media and communication.

Call is also open to papers that are not necessarily related to elections but tackle some of the following topics:

• The rise of data driven communication
• “Social editors” and (dis)information on social media
• Artificially generated content and how it affects democracy
• Microtargeting and personalization of content in journalism and political communication
• AI and how it changes media industry.

There are no fees or any other payment for authors required in the publication process. All papers should be submitted through OJS https://hrcak.srce.hr/…ons.

For all other information please contact Dina Vozab (dina.vozab@fpzg.hr), Stela Lechpammer (stela.lechpammer@fpzg.hr) or Marijana Grbeša Zenzerović (ms@fpzg.hr).

For more information about journal and author guidelines please visit https://www.mediastudies.fpzg.hr/

University of Leeds

We are appointing a three-year, full-time postdoctoral research fellow to join us (Dr Giorgia Aiello, Professor Christopher Anderson & Professor Helen Kennedy) on Generic Visuals in the News: The Role of Stock Photos and Simple Data Visualizations in Assembling Publics, from 1st October 2020 until 30th September 2023.

Generic Visuals in the News, a research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, will explore how generic visuals assemble political publics. Do stock photographs and simple data visualizations - which are increasingly ubiquitous and understudied - bring groups of people together around shared interests and concerns? Do they activate citizens to care about particular issues and lead to specific forms of political engagement?

Generic Visuals in the News will use mixed methods, combining ethnographic fieldwork, focus groups, interviews, and social semiotic analysis. The successful candidate will be a key member of the research team, carrying out research in newsrooms, analysing generic visuals, and interviewing members of the public in order to explore how they respond to generic visuals in the news, amongst other duties.

Further information about applying can be found here: https://jobs.leeds.ac.uk/…047.

Closing date: August 17, 2020.

Papers on Language and Literature

Deadline: August 10, 2020

PLL (Papers on Language and Literature) invites reviews of current books on topics relevant to independent, avant-garde, experimental and art film for publication in PLL’s upcoming special issue (vol. 57) due in 2021.

Please send a review proposal and CV (including the list of publications) to the guest editor, Dr. Kornelia Boczkowska (kornelia.boczkowska@gmail.com) by August 10, 2020.

Authors of accepted proposals will be expected to write a book review (1,000 words) by September 10, 2020.

Papers on Language and Literature is published quarterly at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. It is indexed in Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, Periodicals Index Online, Art Abstracts, Art Source, Humanities Abstracts, Art Index, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, DIALNET.

Suggested titles (but other proposals are more than welcome):

• Devereaux, Michelle. /The Stillness of Solitude: Romanticism and Contemporary American Independent Film/. Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
• Goldberg, Marcy and Ian Wooldrige. /Minor Cinema: Experimental Film in Switzerland/. JRP Ringier Kunstverlag AG, 2020.

• Heck, Kalling. /After Authority: Global Art Cinema and Political Transition/. Rutgers University Press, 2020.
• Hobbs, Simon. /Cultivating Extreme Art Cinema: Text, Paratext and Home Video Culture/. Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
• Howes, Seth. /Moving Images on the Margins: Experimental Film in Late Socialist East Germany/. Boydell & Brewer, 2019.
• Kiejziewicz, Agnieszka. /Japanese Avant-Garde and Experimental Film/. Peter Lang, 2019.
• King, Geoff. /Positioning Art Cinema: Film and Cultural Value/. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.
• Ma, Ran. /Independent Filmmaking Across Borders in Contemporary Asia/. Amsterdam University Press, 2019.
• Murphy, J. J. /Rewriting Indie Cinema: Improvisation, Psychodrama, and the Screenplay/. Columbia University Press, 2019.
• Rees, A.L. /Fields of View: Film, Art and Spectatorship/. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
• Remes, Justin. /Absence in Cinema: The Art of Showing Nothing/. Columbia University Press, 2020.
• Sheehan, Rebecca A. /American Avant-Garde Cinema's Philosophy of the In-Between/. Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Sinwell, Sarah E.S. /Indie Cinema Online/. Rutgers University Press, 2020.
• Youngblood, Gene. /Expanded Cinema: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition/. Fordham University Press, 2020.
• Walley, Jonathan. /Cinema Expanded: Avant-garde Film in the Age of Intermedia/. Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Willis, Holly. /New Digital Cinema: Reinventing the Moving Image/. Columbia University Press, 2019.
• Zimmermann, Patricia R. /Documentary Across Platforms: Reverse Engineering Media, Place, and Politics/. Indiana University Press, 2019.

March 26, 2021

University of Pennsylvania (USA)

Deadline: September 1, 2020

As COVID-19 spreads across the globe and poses multiple crises to nations and humanity, our previous assumptions of community, mobility, personhood, and even society itself are called into question. Widespread border closure and travel disruptions have rendered conventional forms of sociality difficult. Lockdown, social distancing and work-from-home orders have affected different social groups in vastly different ways, with clear adverse impact on women, racial minorities, and the working poor. Pandemic narratives proliferate on social media and news networks.

Individuals in different world regions articulate different if not conflictual meanings of self, community, justice, and the nation in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Political elites in some nations propagate narratives of virus nationalism and populism and violently exclude and stigmatize certain social groups.

In a world troubled by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative for researchers to rework our theoretical assumptions and frameworks as we embark on new empirical and theoretical inquiries. The Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania seeks to bring together a group of scholars for an interdisciplinary workshop to examine these important issues and explore new research agendas. We particularly welcome empirical research which takes historical, critical, cultural, and political-economic approaches to the study of the following topics:

-New and radical practices and visions of technologies in the COVID-19 pandemic

-Changing narratives of borders, communities, and mobility

-The resurgence of racism and right-wing nationalism

-Gender and the crisis of social reproduction

-Evolving patterns of media/tech activism and surveillance, and their implications for future social movements

-Narratives of identity, solidarity, emotions, personhood, social justice, and nationalism

-Artificial intelligence, automation, and other technologies in economic, political and social processes

-Comparative studies of risks, vulnerabilities, and pandemic narratives across time and space

Please submit extended paper abstracts of 500-800 words in English to cdcs@asc.upenn.edu before September 1, 2020 with “COVID Workshop” in the subject line. The authors of accepted proposals will be invited to present the full paper at a workshop on March 26, 2021 hosted by the Center on Digital Culture and Society. Depending on the pandemic situation, the workshop may be virtual or in-person. If in-person, the workshop will be held at the University of Pennsylvania and organizers will cover the invited authors’ travel and accommodation. If the workshop is held virtually, organizers will pay an honorarium to invited speakers. Presented papers will be published in a special journal issue and/or as an edited book. The workshop will be co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Open University - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Qualification Type: PhD

Location: Milton Keynes

Funding for: UK Students

Funding amount: See advert text.

Hours: Full Time

Placed On: 24th July 2020

Closes: 7th September 2020

Reference: 13238

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has available one full-time PhD studentship funded by the Research and Evaluation budget allocated as part of The Open University’s Access and Participation Plan (APP) approved by the Office for Students (OfS) in April 2020. It is a collaborative award with Access, Participation and Success on ‘Critically examining race, racism and decolonisation at The Open University.’

The numbers of Black, people of colour, Asian and minority ethnic or ‘BAME’ students entering higher education have increased in the UK. However, persistent disparities in the attainment, experience and progression of these students compared to white students have been identified. Student-led anti-racist campaigns, such as Why is my Curriculum White (UCL) and Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford, have led some Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to prioritise work to remove inequalities in outcomes for ‘BAME’ students and ‘decolonise the curriculum’.

All HEIs that charge above basic fee levels in England are required to have an approved APP as a condition of registration, setting out how they intend to spend a proportion of fee income over the basic £6,000 fee (£4,500 for part-time students) to deliver initiatives that support students who face the most challenges to enter higher education and achieve equitable outcomes. In the latest submission ambitious targets to close the awarding gap for ‘BAME’ students have been set and a significant amount of activity is underway to transform The Open University.

This doctoral thesis will aim to identify social, structural and institutional barriers that enable racial disparities in student experience and critically examine ‘anti-racist’ and/or ‘counter-racist’ initiatives and attempts to ‘decolonise’ The Open University. The studentship is a unique opportunity to critically theorise what it means to ‘decolonise’ the UK’s largest academic institution and distance learning provider. We aim to provide a broad mandate to the candidate, so that they can have scope for exploring avenues of research that interest them in relation to the project.

Awards for UK residents cover all tuition fees and provide a maintenance grant at the standard RCUK rate (£15,285 p.a. in 2020/21) and a £1,000 Research Training Support Grant. Non-UK citizens may be eligible to apply.

The Open University is internationally recognized for innovative research across the Arts and Social Sciences. We host a number of major AHRC- and ESRC-funded research projects. We have a strong commitment to cross-disciplinary work, to national and international public engagement, and to creative partnerships with a range of non-university partners.

The Access, Participation and Success (APS) Strategy provides a strategic framework for the delivery of The Open University’s agreements on access and widening participation across the four nations of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). These agreements commit the University to successfully deliver initiatives that support students who face the most challenges in entering and succeeding in higher education. The APS team will bring considerable experience, from working with colleagues across The Open University and wider higher education sector, to inform this doctoral studentship.

We invite candidates from all backgrounds and ethnicities and particularly, although not exclusively, Black, people of colour and minoritised candidates. Applicants should have an undergraduate degree (or an equivalent) in an arts or social sciences subject. A masters' degree or equivalent training in social research methods is preferred but not essential. We encourage candidates who will take an open and fresh approach to this exciting and highly relevant project at a moment when dismantling racism within higher education is at the top of the agenda.

The successful applicant would be expected to begin their studies in February 2021.

How to apply

Anyone interested in applying should follow the link to The Open University job website where full details of the opportunity are provided: http://www.open.ac.uk/about/employment/vacancies

For general enquiries about this studentship please contact Julia Downes, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Academic Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: julia.downes@open.ac.uk

For general enquires about postgraduate study in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences please contact Sara Haslam, Director of Research Degrees: sara.haslam@open.ac.uk

Application forms and details on how to complete your research proposal are available from http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/research-degrees/how-to-apply

Completed application forms, together with a research proposal and a covering letter should be sent to FASS-PhD-Applications@open.ac.uk

Closing date: noon Monday 7 September 2020

Equal opportunity is University Policy.

Roskilde University

The Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, invites applications for a fully funded position as postdoc in datafication and journalism studies from November 1, 2020 or as soon as possible thereafter. The position is limited to a period of 2 years.

The postdoc is part of the research project DataPublics funded by the Velux Foundation Denmark. The project is located at Roskilde University, and the successful applicant will be associated with the research groups Journalism and Democracy and Audiences and Mediated Life at the Department of Communication and Arts. The successful applicant will work in close collaboration with the project leader Associate Professor Jannie Møller Hartley and the Velux-research group around the project DataPublics, assistant professor Mette Bengtsson and PhD student Morten Fisher Sivertsen.

The research project Data Publics examines what the ever-increasing amount of data available in our society means to Journalism, and thus sheds light on the changes in the relations between the news media and the news users. In recent few years, big tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon have taken on an increasing role in news distribution, and their increased importance is changing not only the journalism as we know it today, but also the news media ecosystem itself. At the same time, news organizations have big data sets about the behavior of the news user, just as the news user can partly personalize his news consumption through filters and partly subject to filtering through various algorithms. In other words, the data affirmation has fundamentally changed the news journalism, and this project examines what it means and what consequences it has for the democratic conversation and public connection.

The ideal candidate is an excellent media studies scholar, who has experience in digital infrastructure studies – particularly the new empirical and methodological developments in social and digital media. The candidate should be familiar with or have a strong interest in a transdisciplinary methodological approach, and experience with the field of media production studies. The ideal candidate will also have a strong interest and experience in audience studies and journalism studies.

Closing date: September 15th, 2020

See more and apply HERE.

August 24 - September 4, 2020 (online)

Maastricht Summer School, Maastricht University

Deadline: August 10, 2020

The focus of this course is on critical discourse analysis, social semiotics and news framing. A key objective is to enable you to design an analytical framework to study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons and social media posts). You can read more about the course content, course objectives and recommended literature below. You also find there the link to the timetable. To apply for the course, please visit the DreamApply website

Course Description

The tweets of US-President Donald Trump, the heated social media debate on Greta Thunberg and the many angles on migration stress the pivotal role of texts and images in our societies. This course teaches you the analytical skills to study the possible meanings of textual and visual media representations.

Interactive lectures offer you concepts and methods to examine what combinations of words and/or visual elements mean in terms of a broader debate in society. These lectures further help you to understand how national identities and power relations affect the interpretations of media representations. Your individual assignment concerns a short paper, in which you apply a method to study one or two news articles, cartoons or social media posts.

Dr Leonhardt van Efferink developed an exclusive Summer School template that helps you to write a well-structured course paper. On top of this, he offers individual feedback in class and active personal tutoring by e-mail. Finally, his support includes a simple framework to develop focused, consistent and transparent research questions.

Below you find the course objectives, timetable and suggested literature. The course fee is €399. If you have any further questions, please contact course leader Leonhardt at l (dot) vanefferink (at) maastrichtuniversity (dot) nl

Main objectives

1. Designing an analytical framework to study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons and social media posts).

2. Developing a research method that draws on critical discourse analysis, social semiotic analysis and/or news framing analysis, in line with your research objectives.

3. Explaining the role of the national and ideological contexts in which (social) media content is being produced.

4. Understanding the complexity of text-image relations and their role in meaning-making processes.

5. Producing a research design and dataset for your thesis or dissertation that is manageable.

Timetable

Since the first edition was quickly fully booked, Maastricht Summer School decided to organize a second edition of this course. This edition will last from 24 until 4 September 2020, with daily teaching hours limited to three hours at most. Teaching days will start at 13.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2) and end at the latest at 16.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2). This makes it easier for students from far away countries to deal with the large time differences. Please check Leonhardt's website for most up-to-date version of the timetable: https://vanefferink.com/en/media-representations-and-research-methods-summer-school-critical-discourse-analysis-social-semiotics-and-news-framing/

Literature

Leonhardt has based this course on publications in various languages (see overview below for some examples). You are not required to do pre-course reading. However, if you would like to do so, you are advised to select one of the publications below. You can also contact Leonhardt for tailor-made reading advice.

1. Caple, H. (2013) Photojournalism. A Social Semiotic Approach.

2. Dahinden, U. (2006). Framing. Eine integrative Theorie der Massenkommunikation.

3. D’Angelo, P. (ed.) (2018) Doing News Framing Analysis II. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives.

4. Geise, S., & Lobinger, K. (eds.). (2013). Visual Framing. Perspektiven und Herausforderungen der visuellen Kommunikationsforschung.

5. Machin, D. (2007) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis.

6. Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How to do Critical Discourse Analysis.

7. Richardson, J. (2007) Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis.

8. Royce, T. D. (2006). Intersemiotic Complementarity. A Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis. In T. D. Royce, & W. Bowcher (Eds.), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse (pp. 63-109).

9. Van Gorp, B. (2010) Strategies to take the Subjectivity out of Framing Analysis. In P. D’Angelo, & J. A. Kuypers (Eds.), Doing News Framing Analysis. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives (pp. 84-109).

10. Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds., 2016) Methods of Critical Discourse Studies.

Student reviews (from LinkedIn recommendations)

1. “I found Leonhardt very well familiar with all the dynamics of his class room, as he very efficiently caters to the need of all his students coming from different social, cultural and educational backgrounds.” – Sadia from Pakistan

2. “Leonhardt is a great lecturer who knows his subject matter. I found his inclusive approach particularly useful in teaching media analysis techniques.” – Koen from Belgium

3. “Not only did Leonhardt demonstrate a high level of expertise in the subject, but he also helped his students understand difficult concepts in a very accessible way, effectively bridging the gap between theory and practice, and fostering fruitful discussions in class.” – Carolina from Brazil

Comparative Cinema

Deadline: September 15, 2020

https://www.raco.cat/index.php/Comparativecinema/announcement/view/79

Over the last ten years, the biopic has been carried out by many relevant filmmakers —within and beyond the mainstream— and it has become a key genre in contemporary cinema. This fact is attested by titles like 'Carlos' (Olivier Assayas, 2010), 'J. Edgar' (Clint Eastwood, 2011), 'Hannah Arendt' (Margarethe von Trotta, 2012), 'Camille Claudel 1915' (Bruno Dumont, 2013), 'Saint Laurent' (Bertrand Bonello, 2014), 'Steve Jobs' (Danny Boyle, 2015), 'Neruda' (Pablo Larraín, 2016), 'Snowden' (Oliver Stone, 2016), 'First Man' (Damien Chazelle, 2018), 'Loro: International Cut' (Paolo Sorrentino, 2018), 'At Eternity’s Gate' (Julian Schnabel, 2018), 'Bohemian Rapsody' (Brian Synger, 2018), 'The Traitor' (Marco Bellocchio, 2019), 'Judy' (Rupert Goold, 2019), 'Rocketman' (Dexter Fletcher, 2019) and 'A Hidden Life' (Terrence Malick, 2019). At the same time, documentary biopics have increased, as in the case of 'George Harrison: Living in the Material World' (Martin Scorsese, 2011), 'The Salt of the Earth' (Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, 2014), 'Amy' (Asif Kapadia, 2015), 'Diego Maradona' (Asif Kapadia, 2019) and 'Pavarotti' (Ron Howard, 2019).

The diversity among these titles is proof of Belén Vidal’s statement in the prologue to the volume 'The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture' (Belén Vidal and Tom Brown, eds., 2014): the term biopic —usually undervalued as a synonym of narrative restrictions and aesthetic conservatism— is also used to name a space that is open to formal experiments. That is the reason why, in the past decade, this genre has also received renewed attention in the academic world, with volumes like 'Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre' (Dennis Bingham, 2010), 'Biopic: de la réalité à la fiction' (Rémi Fontanel, ed., 2011) and 'Invented Lives, Invented Communities: The Biopic and American National Identity' (William H. Epstein and R. Barton Palmer, eds., 2016).

In this issue of 'Comparative Cinema', we want to approach the biopic from the specific perspective of comparative cinema. How much does the story of a lifetime allow to compare aesthetic and narrative differences between two separate works? Which biopic elements are especially relevant for a comparison? Rather than discovering what the comparison between two biopics reveals us, we are interested in how such comparison can be articulated and in finding out which of its elements can be the most fruitful. Some lines of work are suggested:

Biopic and life: biopics privilege certain moments of a trajectory. Which of the life chapters are the most revealing of narrative and aesthetic differences? Between the personal and the professional life, which one of them has a greater impact on the comparison between different biopics?

Biopic and film time: by its very definition, the biopic is developed throughout a long, well delimited period. How can the length of the portrayed period, the length of the film and the time dedicated to each event be compared between different works?

Biopic and star studies: biopics entail professional challenges for performers because they can strengthen or renew their star persona. How can a biopic be compared to other performances by the same actor? How can the real character and the previous roles of the performer be compared through specific gestures?

Biopic and authorship: some filmmakers have transformed the biopic into a sign of identity. Is it possible to find common elements between different biopics directed by the same author? How much do the author’s other films —not biopics— influence these biopics?

Biopic and documentary film: many characters have been biographed both in documentaries and fiction films. Moreover, the fiction biopic can sometimes include real images. How can comparison between a documentary biopic and a fiction biopic be articulated? How much does the biopic allow to approach methodologies about documentary film?

Priority shall be given to papers focused on cinema from the 2000-2020 period (or papers containing, at least, one film from this period in their comparison). Papers must be between 5000 and 6000 words long, including footnotes. The texts (in a Word format) and the images accompanying them must be sent through the RACO platform, available on the website of the journal.

This special issue is also open for publishing interviews that have been previously agreed with the editors. Suggestions can be sent to comparativecinema@upf.edu.

The time limit for receiving papers is the 15th of September 2020.