Posted by Sarah
Just to let you know that you can catch We Need to Talk About Kevin (2012), an important film for the forthcoming maternal melodrama symposium, on BBC iplayer until Saturday Evening: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p241z/We_Need_to_Talk_About_Kevin/
Posted by Sarah
Exciting news! We can confirm the date and location of the Melodrama Research Group’s first symposium.
Sponsored by CISFMI and KIASH, the Melodrama Research Group will host a Symposium on Maternal Melodrama during the 3rd of June in GLT3. While Maternal Melodrama is often associated with Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s, and actresses such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck, recent academic work on this topic has explored a new area. Sue Thornham’s ‘”A HATRED SO INTENSE” We Need to Talk About Kevin, Postfeminism and Women’s Cinema’ discusses the relevance of maternal melodrama to contemporary cinema, prompting us to re-evaluate some tired assumptions.
The Symposium will be a great opportunity to debate maternal melodrama generally and to respond specifically to Thornham’s argument. Her article appeared in the new journal Sequence: Serial Studies in Media, Film and Music 2.1, 2013. Unlike most journals, Sequence encourages a sequential approach to academic deliberations and its emphasis on a variety of forms for the submission of responses (the traditional written word, but also audio and video) will allow the Melodrama Research Group to engage more fully, and fruitfully, with the Digital Humanities.
The Group is delighted to welcome our special guests: Professor Pam Cook (University of Southampton) and Dr Catherine Grant (University of Sussex). Pam and Katie will present on video essays.
Sue Thornham’s article: http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/sequence2/archive/sequence-2-1/
Pam Cook’s University of Southampton page:
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/film/about/staff/pc3.page
Katie Grant’s University of Sussex page:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/183852
More details, including a timetable and the titles of talks, will be posted here in due course.
Posted by Sarah
Following discussion about this yesterday, please find below information on, and a link to, the online journal Sequence. Of special interest to us in the focus on Maternal Melodrama.
‘We Need to Talk about Maternal Melodrama’, a new publication atSEQUENCE Serial Studies in Media, Film and Music (part of the open accessREFRAME platform in Media, Film and Music), as well as a Call for Papers in response to, or in connection with, the topics raised by the lead article, an essay bySue Thornham. The title of Thornham’s essay is ‘”A HATRED SO INTENSE…”:We Need to Talk about Kevin, Postfeminism and Women’s Cinema’.
If you work on film or media representations of motherhood, or melodrama, and you think you’d like to respond to, bounce off of, or otherwise fruitfully interact with Thornham’s work, or with its topics more broadly,SEQUENCE would be very excited to hear from you. You can read more about respondinghere. Thank you. Best wishes
DrCatherine Grant REFRAME Editor, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies School of Media, Film and Music University of Sussex Silverstone Building Falmer BN1 9RG E:C.Grant@sussex.ac.uk T: +44 1273 678876 Editor: Film Studies For Free Guest Editor: Frames, Issue 1, July 2012: Film and Moving Image Studies Re-Born Digital?
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