Avant-Doc: Intersections of Avant-garde and Documentary Film
The University of Iowa – March 5-7, 2009
Abstract Deadline: November 21, 2008
Keynote Speakers:
Alexandra Juhasz, Professor of Media Studies, Pitzer College
Scott MacDonald, Visiting Professor of Film History, Hamilton College, Harvard University
Organized by graduate students in the Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature, Avant-Doc: Intersections of Avant-garde and Documentary Film seeks to explore the historical and contemporary intersections of documentary and avant-garde film and media. While the categories of avant-garde and documentary have been used to designate separate modes of filmmaking and institutional frameworks, in practice, filmmakers, theorists and spectators have experienced and understood the two as malleable and interactive categories. Avant-Doc foregrounds the relationships between avant-garde and documentary modes in order to open examinations of their productive intersections and the historical and theoretical questions which emerge from them.
Possible approaches:
•Readings of documentary and/or avant-garde films, including, but not limited to, cross readings (i.e. reading avant-garde films as documentary, non-fiction film as avant-garde, etc.)
•Studies of experimental documentaries, including self-reflexive documentaries, historiographically engaged experimental films, experimental ethnographies and essay films, and/or the works of a particular filmmaker (Rouch, Marker, Berliner, Godmilow, etc.)
•Histories of intersections in production, distribution and exhibition
•Histories of the institutional categories, their intersections, and/or permutations
•Discussions of alternative media practices and mixed programs
Creative presentations and panels are also encouraged. To propose a panel, send the panel or session title, a brief description of the theme, names of participants, and abstract for each presentation. To propose a paper, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short CV by November 21, 2008 to avant-doc@uiowa.edu or send to David Harvey, Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature, E210 AJB, Iowa City, IA 52242. This conference is open to graduate students and faculty, as well as to independent scholars and artists.
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