This is the Second Call for Papers for the conference "Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria." The conference will investigate contemporary cinema’s interaction with modern societal change. We invite proposals for any papers that focus on social change in German-speaking Europe. How does contemporary film mediate societal change and represent or respond to the perceived disintegration of key concepts such as family, marriage, nation, nation-state, community? What are the tensions that dominate these film narratives? What are the shifts in the representation of identity formation? How does contemporary German and Austrian film contribute to or contradict the ideas and debates on social change circulating in the public discourse? How do changed consumer habits affect the production, distribution, reception and marketing of the filmic product?

Prof. Paul Cooke from the University of Leeds will be the keynote speaker, and we hope to invite a filmmaker to speak as well. A festival of contemporary German-language film will be held in conjunction with the conference. We also plan to publish an edited volume of proceedings.

Proposals are welcome from faculty members, independent scholars, and graduate students. We hope to be able to make some assistance available, especially to graduate students, to to offset the costs of attending.

A complete version of the call for papers with specific details on how to submit proposals can be found at www.wcgs.ca/filmconference. Please direct inquiries to filmconf@wcgs.ca.

Gabriele Mueller, York University, Co-organizer
James M. Skidmore, University of Waterloo, Co-organizer