The 2013 Film & History Conference
Making Movie$
The Figure of Money On and Off the Screen
Keynote Speaker: David Bordwell
November 20-24, 2013
Madison, WI (USA)
Be an Area Chair • Propose a Paper
Deadline 18 May 2013 • Deadline 01 Jul 2013
Whether on or off screen, money is more than an image or a transaction; it is a set of assumptions—usually powerful, often hidden. It figures in almost everything that happens with a film, from the internal narrative world to the external systems of production, distribution, consumption, and appropriation. Money pushes and pulls on writers, directors, actors, and audiences. It defines characters, storylines, set designs, whole genres. More deeply than in almost any other artistic medium, money makes movies.
How does money—as material, metaphorical, or heuristical figure—shape the creation, delivery, and reception of moving-image media? What structural or thematic role does it play in romantic comedies or sci-fi adventures or documentaries? When Harry meets Sally or Elizabeth meets Darcy, how does money determine the cinematic logic of love? How do assumptions about money influence the spiritualism in Star Wars or the ethics in The Graduate or the style of The History Channel? As money is mediated through film, how does it create or contest our perceptions of sex, of ethnicity, of personhood, of labor and family, of religion or education or technology? When is money disguised by the film medium, and when is it advertised? Why does money sometimes fail—as image, as means, as principle—and for whom?
The 2013 Film & History Conference will explore the figure of money in film, television, and the other moving-image arts. Our annual conference will be held at The Madison Concourse Hotel (in the heart of downtown Madison, WI, next to the historic Capitol), November 20-24, 2013. Attendees will receive specially-discounted room rates for this premier hotel. Travel to Madison may be arranged conveniently through the international airports at Madison, Milwaukee, or Chicago.
Past Film & History Conferences
The Film & History conference, first staged by Peter and Susan Rollins in 2000, became an ongoing tradition -- first biennial and then, beginning with the 2013 meeting, annual -- and a meeting place for attendees, from graduate students to senior scholars, representing a wide range of countries and disciplines.
List of past Film & History conferences
