FSU's Film and Literature Conference: 32 Years and Going Strong!
The Film and Literature conference, which focuses on intersections between film and literature, celebrated its 32nd birthday in 2007. The longest running conference of its type in the US, it began in the early 1970s as a literature symposium comprised of sponsored by the departments of English, Modern Languages, and Classics/Humanities. After a few years it was expanded into a conference and later, as faculty in these departments began to be interested in film studies, it became the Conference on Literature and Film. In the early 90s, the School of Motion Picture, Television & Recording Arts also became a sponsor.
English Department faculty participants from these early days included Professors Laura Jepsen (deceased), Peter Stowell, Gene Crook, and Fred L. Standley. Toward the end of the 1990s there were difficulties obtaining faculty who could direct the conference, another early director of the event, Bonnie Braendlin, says, "Several of us "old timers" felt it might be time to end the conference but Mark Cooper and Ralph Berry stepped in to save it." English department faculty who have organized recent conferences include Kay Picart, Robin Goodman, Barry Faulk, Andrew Epstein and others.
Today, the conference annually hosts 250 participants from around the United States and globe. This year's conference attracted participants from around the globe: Germany, the UK, Taiwan, and Mexico.
According to Barry Faulk, this years topic, Cosmopolitanism, is one that has gained new currency in the Humanities, it impetus arising from postcolonial studies. "While postcolonial study has been critical of how globalization widens the gap separating rich from poor, its also been interested in the new, invisible communities that have arisen in its wake. Put simply, the new interest in cosmopolitanism suggests the need to think beyond the nation in order to better understand the way we live now. Says Faulk, "I was pleased that the topic attracted a wide range of scholars, working in many different areas: media studies, gender study, modernist scholars, cinema scholars, film historians, and scholars in cultural studies."
Dr. Kay Picart is co-organizing the 2008 conference, entitled Cyborg Science and Virtual Materialities in Literature and Film, which she envisions might attract the conference's most interdisciplinary audience yet: The dates for the conference are planned to coincide with the dance centered Global Gatherings show, "Ballroom and Beyond: Translating Cultures," and Picart hopes to solicit other forms of art and performance that explore the interconnections between the sciences and the arts.
As Dr. Faulk notes, "The conference provides FSU grad students with a range of professional opportunities: one could gain experience presenting and chairing panels along with scholars with international reputations." All the more reason to take advantage of this unique opportunity, and turn out for the FSU Film and Literature Conference!
The 2008 Film and Literature Conference will take place January 31-February 2, 2008. Information on submissions is available at http://english3.fsu.edu/~kpicart/filmliteratureconf08/submission.htmprose by B. Seetachitt