Call for Papers: Current Thinking on the Western III

From the Westerns All’Italiana blog at: .Westerns...All'Italiana!: Call for papers: Current Thinking on the Western III

Current Thinking on the Western III

14-15 June 2016
University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK.

A conference convened by Dr Lee Broughton (Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, University of Leeds) with Dr Mark Goodall (University of Bradford).

Keynote speakers:

Professor Sir Christopher Frayling (Professor Emeritus of Cultural History, Royal College of Art).

Alex Cox (filmmaker (Repo Man, Straight to Hell, Walker, Sid and Nancy) and academic practitioner, University of Colorado).

The conference will incorporate a special 50th anniversary celebration and screening of Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) that will be presented in collaboration with the National Media Museum in Bradford on the evening of 14th June 2016. This special screening event will include:

i) An introduction to the film by Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, author of Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone (1981), Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (2000) and Sergio Leone: Once Upon a Time in Italy (2005).

ii) A roundtable and Q&A featuring Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, Alex Cox (filmmaker and author of 10,000 Ways to Die: A Director’s Take on the Spaghetti Western (2009)), Ulrich Bruckner (President of Explosive Media home entertainment and author of For a Few Corpses More: The Spaghetti Western from its Beginnings to Today (2006)) and Jeremy Wooding (filmmaker and director of the cult Western Blood Moon (2014)).

2015-16 is proving to be a significant year for the Western. The Hateful Eight, The Revenant and Bone Tomahawk have all enjoyed critical success and there is every indication that we may be about to enter a period of renewed public interest in the genre. As ever, the genre in all of its multifarious forms continues to inspire new and fruitful avenues of academic research.

This two-day event seeks to draw together international scholars of all levels (independent scholars, postgraduate research students, early career researchers & established researchers) and media practitioners whose work engages with the Western on film.

Proposals (around 250 words in length) are invited for 20 minute papers concerning any aspect of current research or professional practice relating to Western genre films but the following areas are of particular interest:

Cult Westerns
Hybrid Westerns
US Civil War related Westerns
“Classic” Westerns
Western parodies
Revisionist Westerns
Political Westerns
Westerns made since 2000
Western stars
The Western on TV
Fan productions
The music of the Western
Gender in the West
Southerns

Papers can relate to American/Hollywood Westerns or those produced beyond the USA (Italian, German, British, South American, Australian, etc).

Proposals - accompanied by a brief biography - should be sent to:

Dr Lee Broughton: L.Broughton@leeds.ac.uk and
Dr Mark Goodall: M.Goodall@bradford.ac.uk

Deadline for proposals: Monday 11th April 2016

Lee Broughton, University of Leeds

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Wow - if I lived anywhere near there, I would be there in a heart beat!

See, I said this seven months ago:

Yup, me too.

I will be working hard to construct a flimsy excuse to the wife as to why I should attend this.

Delivering a paper at the conference would be a great excuse.

The conference will be open to fans and members of the public who will be able to register to attend. But fans as independent scholars are also welcome to submit proposals for 20 minute paper presentations.

I actually wrote an SW article for a film magazine that is coming out towards the end of this year (my first). The topic would also make a great presentation here. If the publishers were to have no issue, I’d love to present it. However, the bigger issue is I can’t afford the international flight…

Just a quick reminder that the deadline for proposals for papers for the Current Thinking on the Western III conference is the 11th April 2016.

Registration is now open for the ‘Current Thinking on the Western III’ event in June.

A full schedule of the event’s content and details of the registration and payment process can be found here:

http://www.bradford.ac.uk/ei/media-design-technology/film-and-media/current-thinking-on-the-western-3/

Registration closes on the 22nd May.

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