Berlin Program Summer Workshop June 19-20, 2014 - Virtual Germans - Call for Papers
Thomas O. Haakenson
Berlin Program Summer Workshop
Virtual Germans
June 19-20, 2014
Freie Universität Berlin
Call for Papers
In her travels through Eastern Europe in the 1990s, the writer Ruth Ellen Gruber noted that non-Jews were embracing, creating, and marketing an idea of Jewishness that had little to do with the Jews who had lived in the region before the Holocaust. Through practices and cultural products, these “virtual Jews” had come in dialog with “their own visions of Jews and Jewish matters, and themselves.” In recent years, the historian Winson Chu has adapted this concept to show the enactment of a “virtually German” culture that serves commercial interests, European reconciliation, and cosmopolitan credentials in Poland today.
In 2014, the Berlin Program summer workshop will invite papers that expand upon the idea of “virtual Germans” in a variety of constellations, including Germans and German-speakers who have fashioned new identities for themselves abroad, people living in Germany of diverse backgrounds whose German belonging is contested, as well as constructions of Germanness in the virtual realm of cyberspace and in the classroom. This workshop will pay special attention to the global flow of “Germanness” as well as to its local constructions. By exploring such representations and contestations, we can see how new definitions of Germanness arise and how new inclusions and exclusions are made.
This workshop will seek participants from a broad array of disciplines in German Studies. Topics, both historical and contemporary, may include (but are not limited to):
- Commerce, Consumerism & Cuisine: When do German businesses highlight or hide their national background, and how has the concept of “Made in Germany” changed
in a globalizing world? How have German celebrities such as Karl Lagerfeld and Heidi Klum shaped notions of German identity abroad? How do certain goods and foods, such as the Döner Kebab, become coded as German, and what are the connotations (authentic, ecological,
fair trade, regional) that are invoked?
- Culture & Entertainment: How do music, theater and the visual arts rely upon and/or construct German identity? How have national and international audiences
received and imitated what they see as German in the arts? How do movies, video games, and historical reenactment, especially those dealing with the Second World War, foster and promote stereotypes of German identity?
- Diversity: How have Jews, Turks and others been selectively cast as “Germans,” either in Germany or abroad? Have “new Germans” such as Kevin Prince Boateng, Susianna Kentikian, Wladimir Klitschko, Marcel Nguyen, Mesut Özil, and Lukas Podolski become seen as the face of a new Germany? How are they seen abroad in their “homelands”? In non-German speaking countries, how do different communities celebrate, commemorate, and construct their sense of German distinctiveness?
- Language & Travel: How have German concepts made their way into other languages, and how have various foreign language “–isms” become used or misused in Germany? How has German culture and language teaching changed with digital technologies? How do different sites mobilize a German past to try to attract German tourists, and what role does “virtual Germanness” play in heritage travel in Germany?
- New Media & Politics: How has the internet allowed new expressions of Germanness to arise? How are debates about security and privacy in the virtual world rooted in Germany’s historical experience? How have these discussions impacted German political culture and policy responses to the challenges of virtual communication?
FORMAT: This workshop serves as a forum for Berlin Program fellows and alumni, but also welcomes current doctoral students, recent PhDs, as well as non-tenured and tenured faculty in any field.
APPLICATION, DEADLINE, NOTIFICATION: Submit a 250-word abstract and short, two-page curriculum vitae (including position, department and institution) in one pdf via email by 15 February 2014 to: bpro...@zedat.fu-berlin.de. Accepted presenters will be notified in mid-March.
REQUIREMENTS: Presenters are required to submit a 25-page paper (MLA style) or excerpt (i.e., chapter, article, etc.) and a one-page bio for circulation to workshop participants by 31 May 2014. All workshop participants are asked to read these submissions, as well as a selection of two or three required readings related to the theme, prior to the workshop. Presenters who do not meet the submission deadline will not be able to present their work.
SUGGESTIONS FOR BACKGROUND READINGS: Presenters will be invited to suggest one text (max. 25 pages) for the plenary session reading list.
WORKSHOP LANGUAGE: English.
WORKSHOP VENUE: Freie Universität Berlin.
FEES: Participation in the workshop is free of charge.
TRAVEL & ACCOMMODATION: Participants are responsible for organizing and paying for their travel and accommodation. We encourage participants to seek funding from their home institutions or alternative sources to cover those costs. Assistance with logistical matters will be provided.
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Dr. April Eisman | Iowa State University
Dr. Winson Chu | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Karin Goihl | Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin Program
Dr. Thomas Haakenson | Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Dr. Jenny Wuestenberg | Freie Universität Berlin / European Law School Wiesbaden
Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs
Professor, Liberal Arts Department2501 Stevens Avenue
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. 55404
Email: thaak...@mcad.edu
Office Telephone: 612.874.3858 (x1858)
Office Fax: 612.874.3689
Series Editors, German Visual Culture, Peter Lang Oxford
Kerstin Stutterheim
October 16 – 18, 2014
will take place at Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen ‚Konrad Wolf’ / The Film and Television University ‚Konrad Wolf’ (HFF) in Potsdam Babelsberg, Germany www.hff-potsdam.de/en/home.html
Call for Papers
This is a call for papers for the 7th annual Screenwriting Research Network (SRN) International Conference, which will take place at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen ‚Konrad Wolf’ / The Film and Television University ‚Konrad Wolf’ (HFF) in Potsdam Babelsberg, Germany.
The key theme of this conference is ‘Screenwriting and Directing in Audiovisual Media’, focusing on the relationship between writing and directing, whether practiced by a writer and a director, or a writer-director and her / his team. We intend to look at this relationship across a wide field of media and practices, – from fiction, genre, TV series to documentaries as well as cross media, 180° and 360° cinema production.
Keynote speakers will be announced in early 2014
The SRN conference is interested in all types of research related to screenwriting. We would like to invite abstracts for research presentations on (but not limited to) the following topics:
Ø Screenwriting as a practice and knowledge of film language
Ø Screenwriting today between formats and tradition
Ø European (including East-/South-European) traditions of storytelling
Ø Practice based research in the field of screenwriting and dramaturgy
Ø Dramaturgy and Aesthetics as a toolset for screenwriters as well as researchers in the field of screenwriting
Ø Screenwriting and dramaturgy for documentaries
Ø Writing for new Media-context like 180°-cinema, 360°-cinema
Ø Writing for online-media, mobile phone devices, tablet computer, 5.1 radio plays
Ø Writing for games
Ø Aspects of authorship
Ø Reflections on narrative theory and dramaturgy
Ø Case studies on individual writers or texts
Ø Screenwriting for animation
Ø Alternative forms of scripting
Time allotted to each paper is 20 minutes plus discussion, practice-based presentations 30 min plus discussion. Presentations can be held in English or German.
Abstracts (250-300 words) may be submitted until January 25th, 2014 – in English or German. Earlier submissions are welcome. Please remember to state your name, affiliation and contact information. Include a brief statement (100 words) detailing your publications and/or screenwriting practice. You also can add a link to your website, imdb or similar online presentation.
Please send your abstract as a word document, with the email subject heading “SRN Conference abstract” to:
c.l...@hff-potsdam.de and k.stut...@hff-potsdam.de
Fee for participation will be regular € 75 / € 50 for students.
+++
The SRN is a research group which began in 2006 with a one-day conference at the Louis Le Prince Research Centre, at the Institute of Communication Studies (ICS), University of Leeds. The Screenwriting Research Network now consists of academics as well as practitioners interested in research centered on screenwriting studies. The network has achieved a critical mass in recent years with conferences taking place in Leeds (2008), Helsinki (2009), Copenhagen (2010), Brussels (2011), Sydney, Australia (2012), and Madison, USA (2013). The 7th conference will take place at Potsdam-Babelsberg in Germany, a place of great significance for film in history, where Ufa, and subsequently DEFA studios were based. Today Roman Polanski, Quentin Tarantino, Agnieska Holland, and George Clooney have made films at what is now Studio Babelsberg.
The SRN is comprised of scholars, writers, and practice-based researchers devoted to rethinking the screenplay in relation to its histories, theories, values and creative practices. The SRN launched an online forum for scholars and practitioners interested in this subject – www.screenwritingresearch.com
The Journal of Screenwriting, first published in 2009, stands as testament to the vitality of the screenwriting network across traditional and practice-based research. The Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting series grew out of this organization.
More information on the program as well as cost, traveling and accommodation details will be available on this website as it becomes available.
Conference goers and others may also be interested in making use of our library, and archive and the archive at our Filmmuseum for research during their stay:
www.hff-potsdam.de/en/bibliothek-mediathek.html,
www.filmmuseum-potsdam.de/en/355-0.htm
Basic information about Potsdam is provided here: www.potsdam.de/cms/ziel/26846/EN/
Dr. Kerstin Stutterheim
Professorin für AV-Mediendramaturgie/-Ästhetik
Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen "Konrad Wolf"
Marlene-Dietrich-Allee 11
D-14482 Potsdam
*49(0)331.6202-740
*49(0)331.6202-549 (fax)