MCLC: Handbook on Asian Cinema--cfp

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Gina Marchetti <gina.marchetti at gmail.com>
Subject: Handbook on Asian Cinema--cfp
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Handbook on Asian Cinema
 

Aaron Magnan-Park (University of Hong Kong), Gina Marchetti (University of
Hong Kong),
and Tan See-Kam (University of Macau), editors
 
CALL FOR PAPERS

 
 
 
Designed for Palgrave’s “handbook” series that brings together
cutting-edge scholarship on key topics in film and media studies, we plan
for this volume to make an intervention in ongoing debates surrounding the
nature and direction of the study of Asian film.  From Bollywood to
Hallyu, from the rising cinemas of West and Central Asia to the Chinese
“new waves,” Asia provides world screens with some of its most dynamic,
innovative, and provocative fiction, documentary, animated, experimental,
and hybrid films.  However, the concept of “Asian cinema” too often
conjures up visions of staid Hollywood imitations, turgid propaganda, and
exercises in national chauvinism.  The definition of “Asian cinema,” in
fact, lags behind what is actually happening on set and on location, in
the cinema as well as on the computer screen.  Not only have regional
flows intensified in recent years, but global currents have swept Asia in
heretofore unimagined ways.  Transnational co-productions seem to be the
norm rather than the exception and diasporic filmmaking has found a voice
that may be “Asian” to a degree but located in Europe, America, Australia,
or elsewhere.  New technologies enable the dissemination of films far
outside the established art house and festival circuits of the past.  New
institutions (archives, museums), alternative funding sources (NGOs,
festivals), and cutting-edge motion picture media (Web 2.0, cell phone
videos) come together to make established notions of “Asian cinema” passé.
There is clearly a pressing need for a reassessment of the utility of the
term to regional studies of Asia as well as to the disciplines of film,
media, and cultural studies.

 
It may be important, though, to go a step further, and make a case for
what are, in our opinion, some of the most productive places for the
invocation of “Asian cinema” as a conceptual framework. These include
studies of the depiction of the region in world cinema (Hollywood,
Europe); comparisons of common histories (colonial legacies); exploration
of Asian aesthetic traditions (linked to cultural flows along the Silk
Road, for example).  Asian cinema studies also welcomes comparative
analyses of modernity, postmodernity, globalization, and geopolitical
phenomena (Cold War) and transnational iterations of genres (noir,
gangsters, etc.) as well as examinations of Asian stars and fandom.
Asian “global” cities and urban cinemas (slums in Mumbai, Manila) can be
considered alongside the creation of counter-publics (importance of
transnational links in queer film, third cinema, and women’s filmmaking,
for instance) as well as the depiction of global issues within the region
(eco-cinema, anti-capitalist critique, other political movements).

 
Rather than focusing on Asian cinema as the sum of the national cinemas of
Asia, then, we argue that Asian film scholarship needs to do more in order
to continue to find a place within serious academic inquiry.  It must be
comparative and global with an eye to the ongoing importance of the
regional to filmmakers, distributors, programmers, audiences, as well as
scholars.  If this is not kept in mind, Asian cinema will dissolve into
thin air leaving the local, national, and global in its wake.

 
Planned sections include:
 
Section I:  Theorizing Asian Film
 
Section II:  Space and Place
 
Section III:  Questioning Asian Bodies
 
Section IV:  Contested Asian Values
 
Section V:  Art and Industry
 
Conclusion:  The Future of Asian Cinema
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Palgrave Macmillan has expressed interest in this project, and we are
currently putting together a table of contents for the volume.  We
envision 3-4 chapters per section with each chapter averaging 8000 words.
If you are currently conducting research in this area and would like to be
considered for this volume, please send us an abstract of your chapter
(250-300 words) and a brief biography (100 words) by September 30, 2014.
We plan to put together the table of contents and submit the project for
review by October 2014.  We will begin to edit draft chapters as soon as
the contract is finalized and expect to have the book completed by June
2015. 

 
Submit your proposals to Ms. Kasey Man Man Wong at kaseywmm at gmail.com by
September 30, 2014.