CFP Women in Hollywood

Contact information of organizers Ellen Wright and Cinema & Television History (CATH) Research Centre is below.

Free Symposium: Women in Hollywood

To accommodate those affected by the current UCU strikes we are extending our call for papers. Deadline for submissions is now Friday March 30th 2018. Symposium organisers will still make final decisions on submissions by Friday 6th April

We are now accepting proposals for our free one-day symposium on the treatment of women in Hollywood at the Cinema and Television History Research Centre, DeMontfort University, Leicester

Date of conference: Bank Holiday Monday, May 28th 2018.
Deadline for submissions: midnight, Friday March 30th 2018.
Submissions to be sent to: ellen.wright@dmu.ac.uk 
To register to attend: mail ellen.wright@dmu.ac.uk

The focus of this event:
2017 saw a number of high profile news stories around the poor treatment of women in the entertainment industry, from the Weinstein allegations and the explosion of #MeToo, to revelations about gender pay gaps and the under representation of female labour, both in front of the camera and behind.
This symposium seeks to consider the range of intersecting factors that impact upon women working in Hollywood now and in the past and is intended as a platform to discuss the disadvantageous treatment of women and those who identify as female, and an opportunity to highlight examples of women’s autonomy, agency, subversion and innovation in the American film industry.
We therefore invite a broad variety of proposals that fit this theme, from a diverse range of voices.

In particular we are interested in:

•       The casting couch and scandal in contemporary and historic contexts
•       The treatment of aging female stars working in Hollywood
•       Hierarchies of power and/or women’s access to finances and resources
•       Feminism/intersectional feminism in Hollywood
•       The gendering of film industry roles and/or invisible labour
•       The sex wars and sex positive representations of women on screen
•       The exclusion of women and the glass ceiling
•       Threatening and inappropriate femininities in the American film industry
•       The portrayal of women and femininity on screen
•       Female homosexuality in Hollywood and Hollywood films
•       Direct sexual exploitation, harassment and inappropriate behaviour in Hollywood
•       The representation of women’s mental health issues in Hollywood and/or its narratives
•       Barriers to opportunity of women of colour and/or their representation both historically and now
•       Ableism in Hollywood and Hollywood narratives
•       Views from outside of Hollywood and/or how different cultural contexts might offer different perspectives on gender and power in the American film industry.

Confirmed key note speaker is Professor Shelley Stamp (University of California, Santa Cruz) founding Editor of Feminist Media Histories: An International Journal, and author of Lois Weber in Early Hollywood (University of California Press, 2015) and Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon (Princeton University Press, 2000).

Proposal Guidelines
We welcome both paper proposals and proposals for performance works of up to 20 minutes in length, around the symposium theme. Individuals submitting a paper or performance proposal should provide an abstract of 250 words, a short author biography and contact email. Co-authored, collaborative papers are also welcomed.

MA Travel Bursary
To ensure that participants across a range of career stages and wage brackets are part of the conversation at the Women in Hollywood symposium, there is no registration fee to attend, but we are aware that there are other costs involved in attending.
To help cover the cost of attending, we are offering a travel bursary to a limited number of postgraduate students whose research interests link with the symposium and who want to attend this event.
The CATH MA Travel Bursary is a competitive fund for exceptional students completing or who have recently completed MAs but who are not registered for a PhD.
You don’t have to present at Women in Hollywood to be eligible to apply.
Email ellen.wright@dmu.ac.uk for a form or if you have any further questions.

Contact Info:

Ellen Wright ellen.wright@dmu.ac.uk @DrSmut

Cinema & Television History (CATH) Research Centre @CATHResearchDMU