CSTonline

The Center for 21st Century Studies (C21) at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee invites proposals for papers and presentations for
our Ends of Cinema conference, to be held May 3-5, 2018.

Are we now in an age of "post-cinema?" Has the massive global wave of
digital production, distribution, and exhibition finally eradicated
cinema as we've known it? Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, and Peter
Greenaway seem to think so, as well as academics from Paolo Cherchi Usai
to Alexander Zahlten.

[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jonathan-andreo-198681-450x253.jpg){.alignleft
.size-large .wp-image-5017 loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="450"
height="253"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jonathan-andreo-198681-450x253.jpg.webp 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jonathan-andreo-198681-300x169.jpg.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jonathan-andreo-198681-140x79.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jonathan-andreo-198681-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jonathan-andreo-198681-1536x864.jpg.webp 1536w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jonathan-andreo-198681-2048x1152.jpg.webp 2048w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jonathan-andreo-198681-1080x608.jpg.webp 1080w"
sizes="(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jonathan-andreo-198681.jpg)Whatever
the object "cinema" was, it seems to have been summarily executed in the
digital era. But whose cinema is ending? If "cinema" implies a universal
canon built on default ideologies, has its "death" been a response, in
part, to deeper investigations into diversities made possible by
increased access to the means of production? Are cinema's many deaths,
then, bound to another kind of end: what we understand to be the goal of
cinema, whether political, aesthetic, representational, theoretical, or
technological?

Over visual media's long century, the emergence of new technologies,
both filmic and otherwise, have repeatedly elegized cinema's ruin and
celebrated its rejuvenation. The end of cinema, it seems, is fissiparous
and cyclical; it has happened, it hasn't happened, it has happened in
fits and starts, and it will happen again. If no one death can be
attributed to cinema, perhaps the answer is to consider its multiple
endings---and subsequent new beginnings.

A complete CFP can be found on our [Ends of Cinema conference
website](http://www.c21uwm.com/endsofcinema/){target="_blank"
rel="nofollow"}.

Please send your abstract (up to 250 words) and a brief CV by Monday,
**January 9, 2018**, to Richard Grusin, Director, Center for 21st
Century Studies, [c21@uwm.edu](mailto:c21@uwm.edu){target="_blank"
rel="nofollow"}.


The Center for 21st Century Studies (C21) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee invites proposals for papers and presentations for our Ends of Cinema conference, to be held May 3-5, 2018.

CfP: &#8220;Ends of Cinema&#8221; May 3-5, 2018 @ University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (USA). Deadline: Jan 09, 2018.

*The Melodrama Research Group presents:*

**At home with horror? Terror on the small screen**

27^th^-28^th^ October 2017, University of Kent

**Keynote speaker: Dr Helen Wheatley (University of Warwick)**

 

**CALL FOR PAPERS**

The recent horror output on TV and the small screen challenges what Matt
Hills found to be the overriding assumption 'that film is the \[horror\]
genre's 'natural' home' (Hills 2005, 111). Programmes such as *American
Horror Story*, *Penny Dreadful* and *The Walking Dead* are aligned to
''quality TV', yet use horror imagery and ideas to present a form and
style of television that is 'not ordinary'' (Johnston 2016, 11).
Developments in industrial practices and production technology have
resulted in a more spectacular horror in the medium, which Hills argues
is the 'making cinematic' of television drama (Hills 2010, 23). The
generic hybridity of television programmes such as *Whitechapel*, and
*Ripper Street* allow conventions of the horror genre to be employed
within the narrative and aesthetics, creating new possibilities for the
animation of horror on the small screen. Series such as *Bates Motel*
and *Scream* adapt cinematic horror to a serial format, positioning the
small screen (including terrestrial, satellite and online formats) as
the new home for horror.

The history of television and horror has often displayed a problematic
relationship. As a medium that operates within a domestic setting,
television has previously been viewed as incompatible with 'authentic'
horror. Television has been approached as incapable of mobilizing the
intense audience reactions associated with the genre and seen as a
medium 'restricted' in its ability to scare and horrify audiences partly
due to censorship constraints (Waller 1987) and scheduling arrangements.
Such industrial practices have been seen as tempering the genre's
aesthetic agency resulting in inferior cinematic imitations or,
'degraded made-for-TV sequels' (Waller 1987, 146). For Waller, the
technology of television compounded the medium's ability to animate
horror and directed its initial move towards a more 'restrained' form of
the genre such as adapting literary ghost stories and screening RKO
productions of the 1940s (Ibid 1987). Inferior quality of colour and
resolution provided the opportunity to suggest rather than show. Horror,
then, has presented a challenge for television: how can the genre be
positioned in such a family orientated and domesticated medium? As Hills
explains, 'In such a context, horror is conceptualised as a genre that
calls for non- prime-time scheduling... and \[thus\] automatically
excluded from attracting a mass audience despite the popularity of the
genre in other media' (Hills 2005, 118).

Helen Wheatley's monograph, *Gothic Television* (2006), challenges the
approach of television as a limiting medium for horror, and instead
focuses on how the domestic setting of the television set is key to its
effectiveness.  Focusing on the female Gothic as a domestic genre,
Wheatley draws a lineage from early literary works, to the 1940s cycle
of Gothic women films and Gothic television of the 1950s onwards.
Wheatley argues for the significance of the domestic setting in
experiencing stories of domestic anxiety for, 'the aims of the Gothic
drama made for television \[are\] to suggest a congruence between the
domestic spaces on the screen and the domestic reception context'
(Wheatley 2006, 191).

Developments in small screen horror are not restricted to contemporary
output. In his work on the cultural history of horror, Mark Jancovich
argues that it was on television in the 1990s where key developments in
the genre were taking place (Jancovich 2002). Taking Jancovich's work as
a cue, Hills develops his own approach to the significance of horror
television of the 1990s. Hills cites *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* and *The
X Files* as examples of programmes striving to mobilise the genre's more
graphic elements while existing as a 'high-end' cultural product:
'authored' TV that targeted a niche fan audience (Hills 2005, 126).

Taking these recent developments into account, the aim of this
conference is to engage with such advances. Can we say that it is on the
small screen where critical and creative innovations in horror are now
being made? How has the expansion of satellite television and online
sites impacted the genre? How has the small screen format developed the
possibilities of horror? Is the recent alignment with 'quality TV'
evidence of horror's new mainstream status? This conference will also
reflect on seminal works on television horror and revisit the history of
the genre. In addressing these questions the conference will underline
the importance of the small screen for horror, within the study of the
genre and of the medium, and ask: is the small screen now the home of
horror?

Topics can include but are not limited to:

- The seasons and horror on the small screen
- Gothic television
- Gender and horror
- Historical figures and events in small screen horror
- Small screen horror as an 'event'
- Adaptation from cinema to small screen 're-imaginings'
- Production contexts
- Censorship and the small screen
- Serialisation and horror production
- National television production of horror
- The impact of Netflix and Amazon Prime
- TV history and horror
- Literary adaptations
- Children's TV and horror
- Genre hybridity
- Fandom
- Teen horror
- Stardom and horror

 

Please submit proposals of 400 words, along with a short biographical
note (250 words) to
[horrorishome@gmail.com](mailto:horrorishome@gmail.com){target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer"} by **Friday 30th June**. We welcome 20 minute
conference papers as well as submissions for creative work or
practice-as-research including, but not limited to, short films and
video essays.

 

Conference organisers: Katerina Flint-Nicol and Ann-Marie Fleming

[https://tvhomeofhorror.wordpress.com/](https://tvhomeofhorror.wordpress.com/){target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer"}

[https://twitter.com/Homewithhorror](https://twitter.com/Homewithhorror){target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer"}


The Melodrama Research Group presents:


 At home with horror? Terror on the small screen

27

 th

-28

 th

October 2017, University of Kent

 Keynote speaker: Dr Helen Wheatley (University of Warwick)

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

CfP: “Ends of Cinema” May 3-5, 2018 @ University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (USA). Deadline: Jan 09, 2018.

CfP: “At home with horror? Terror on the small screen” Oct 27-28, 2017 @ University of Kent. Deadline: June 30, 2017