Society for Cinema and Media Studies
March 4-7, 2004
Atlanta, GA
DEADLINE: August 15, 2003

Paper proposals are sought for the following conference panel: "Globalization as Class Warfare": Globalization has been presented as a complex discourse, economic formation and theoretical position that encompasses multiple subject positions. A portion of the literature of globalization though focuses on what Jeremy Brecher calls "the race to the bottom," the global driving of the wage down as corporations scour the earth to find the cheapest price for manufactured goods. In the last decade there have emerged a significant group of films as well which deal with the phenomenon of globalization as it affects the lives and movements of ordinary people. There are a series of global immigrant films for example that highlight these uneven exchanges including Last Resort, Lilya 4-Ever, and La Promesse. There are films which examine in complex ways the socio-economic transformations wrought by this massive increase in global trade (Traffic; Life and Debt). There are also films which illustrate how migration patterns caused by this increased trade contribute to both worker resistance in the industrialized countries (Bread and Roses), to a challenging of the dominant culture of those countries (La Ciudad) and to an increased awareness on the part of developing countries of their place in the global system (the African film, The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun, and the Argentine film, Bolivia). This panel examines the body of films and critical literature on the class aspects of globalization, an absolutely crucial element of this discourse and one which is often obscured or shunted aside as discussions instead often focus on, for example, the technological aspects of globalization. The class aspect of globalization, though, is one of which contemporary filmmakers around the globe have shown themselves exceedingly cognizant. Sponsored by the SCMS Caucus on Class.