40th Anniversary Convention, Northeast Modern Language
Association (NeMLA)

Feb. 26-March 1, 2009

Hyatt Regency - Boston,
Massachusetts

This panel takes a step back and asks for us, as scholars, to consider the meaning and importance of why we study film outside of the cinematic discipline.

Film as a narrative (both fictive and non-fictive) medium presents certain challenges and advantages to the contemporary scholar who finds themselves pulled towards interdisciplinarity but also held to the standards of their individual departments. Film presents a fantastic opportunity for us to not only deal with an immensely powerful communication tool of language and story. It also presents an arena for us to investigate the relationships between these ideas, and it is time that we came together to begin to articulate why and how we do so. With a debatably increase in the visual nature of narratives in contemporary society, we must prepare and interrogate the role of this powerful visual medium in our studies of language, literature, and rhetoric.

Specifically, this panel seeks to raise and address questions of the perspectives that we as scholars of modern language can bring to the study and teaching of film and also address the ways that leaving our discipline open to the ideas of those in the media, film, and visual aesthetics fields provides vibrancy and challenges that strengthen and engage us. It is not intended as a venue for papers whose primary focus on the analysis of specific texts or individuals. I solicit papers from scholars working to theoretically bridge and mediate between the written, spoken, and viewed words, languages, and narrative.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Teaching, Studying, and Enjoying Film
Film as Politics, Pedagogy, Worship, or Identity
Film and Disciplinarity
Students and Non-traditional Approaches to Teaching with or about Film
“Visual Narrative” vs./and “Film
Beyond the Blockbuster/Indy
Film and Culture
Theories of Film as Dialogue

Please include with your abstract:

Name and Affiliation
Email address
Postal address
Telephone number
A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee)

The complete Call for Papers for the 2009 Convention will be posted in June at www.nemla.org.

Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA panel; however panelists can only present one paper. Convention participants may present a paper at a panel or seminar and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable.

Please submit your 150-250 word abstract to me at scs23@psu.edu with "[Last Name] NeMLA Film Panel" in the subject line.

Deadline:
September 15, 2008