News and Events
Third Annual Midwest Undergraduate Film Conference
University of Notre Dame - April 24-25, 2009
All Events held at the Browning Cinema, Debartolo Center for the Performing Arts, unless otherwise noted
Sponsors: Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, Presidents Circle, Learning Beyond the Classroom, FTT Talks, Department of Film, TV and Theatre
Friday April 24th
9:00-9:30 Conference registration, refreshments
9:30 – 11:15AM Revisiting Authorship
Panel Chair - Brett Paice, University of Notre Dame
Tim Green, Wilfrid Laurier University, “Toward a New Bourgeois Camera Style: Alienation and Wes Anderson”
Will Irvine, University of Tennessee Knoxville, “Abjection and Chora in Three Films of Roman Polanski”
Alexandra Landers, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, “From Stanley to Steven” The Meaning of Contemporary Authorship through Steven Spielberg (and Stanley Kubrick’s) A.I: Artificial Intelligence”
Sean Smalley, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, “Romantic Comedy, Hitchcockian Style”
11:30-12:45PM Film and Society
Panel Chair - Prof. Aaron Magnan-Park, University of Notre Dame
Scott Elbin, The University of Toledo, “An Examination of Society Through the Eyes of a Killer: A Dissection of the ‘Businessman” in Mary Harron’s American Psycho”
Jordan Knoll, Wilfrid Laurier University, “From Persona to SLC Punk!: Toward a Paradoxical Politics of Dissent?”
Matt Lawson, University of Tennessee Knoxville, “Juno Gives the Stink Eye to Maturity”
Lunch
2:00-3:45PM Queer Masculinities
Panel Chair - Prof. Christine Holmund, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Sawyer J. Lahr, Columbia College Chicago, “Reconciling the ‘Brokeback’ Tragedy and Asserting the Gay Male Gaze”
Lara Maldjian, University of California Berkeley, “The Shining: Illuminating Queer Supernaturality”
Matthew Ownby, University of Tennessee Knoxville, “Landscapes of Disease: Representations of AIDS and Identity in the Work of Derek Jarman”
Javi Zubizarreta, University of Notre Dame, “Action Stars Who Don’t Get Any Action: Hong Kong Actors in U.S. Roles”
4:00-5:45PM TV Text and Intertext
Panel Chair - Prof. Jim Collins, University of Notre Dame
Lauren Bramson, Indiana University, “Life on Mars”
Nell C. Collins, Indiana University, “Alternative Voices in Variety”
Matt Lawrence, Indiana University, “Proto-Convergence: Intertextuality and Transmedia
Activity in Twin Peaks”
Meredith Levine, Indiana University, “Joss and JJ: The Role of The Television Author in
Marketing Contemporary American Television”
Dinner – Legends Restaurant
8:00PM Keynote Address – Eck Visitors Center
“The Art of Aging: Jackie Chan in Transnational Action”
Christine A. Holmund, Professor and Chair of the Cinema Studies Program, University of Tennessee Knoxville and President Elect of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Saturday April 25th
9:00-10:45AM Disappearing Forms
Panel Chair - Prof. Donald Crafton, University of Notre Dame
Stephen Barnett, CUNY College of Staten Island, “An Homage to Silent Film”
Kali Heitholt, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, “Nostalgia in Films and Filmic Memorials”
Samuel B. Prime, Northwestern University, “Live Disappearance: On the Absence of Celluloid in the Digital Age”
Tess Ariana Saunders, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, “Filmmaker as Political Agent: Chris Marker’s Grin Without a Cat”
11:00-12:15PM Behind the Scenes
Panel Chair - Prof. Christine Becker, University of Notre Dame
Melanie Brunell, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, “Through a Lens Darkly: Exploring Sven Nykvist’s Cinematography in Bergman’s Trilogy”
Erik Gonzalez-Lopez, Western Kentucky University, “Rebirth of Batman”
Michael Maslankowski, CUNY College of Staten Island, “Sister Act: the Making of Whatever
Happened to Baby Jane”
Lunch
1:30-2:45 Filming History
Panel Chair - Prof. Pamela Robertson Wojcik, University of Notre Dame
Jeff Falk, Vancouver Island University, “Zulu (1964): A Positive Portrayal of British Imperialism”
Hayley M. Pogue, University of Tennessee Knoxville, “Hollywood Controversy and Holocaust Revisionism in 2008”
Ben Whiteside, University of Tennessee Knoxville, “From Book to Biopic: A Guide to Adaptations Hosted by Harvey Milk”
3:00-4:45PM Feminist Approaches
Panel Chair - Prof. Susan Ohmer, University of Notre Dame
Eleanor M. Huntington, University of Notre Dame, “Individual vs. Collective Resistance: Portrayal of Women in Ousmane Sembene’s La Noire de… and Emitai”
Asya Mazurova, Indiana University South Bend, “Sorrow and Shine”
Leo Joseph Rubinkowski, University of Notre Dame, “Narrative and Representation of Violence in Torture Porn”
Ryan Warden, Northwestern University, “Dead and Still Pretty: The Subversion and Subsequent Elimination of the Final Girl in Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
2008 MUFC conference included the following papers
National Cinema, National Identity
Moderator: Jill Godmilow, University of Notre Dame
Daniel Platt, Loyola University: “Finding Caligari: War, History, and Genre”
Emily Zuckert Church, University of Notre Dame: “Dissecting the Atom: Identity and Canadian National Cinema in Atom Egoyan’s Family Viewing”
Martha E. Polk, Carleton College: “New Iranian Cinema and Mohsen Makhmalbaf: Abandoning the Terms of the Discourse on Iranian National Identity”
Dangerous Women
Moderator: Pamela Wojcik, University of Notre Dame
Matt Fagerholm, Columbia College: “Persona Non Grata”
Maria Iuppa, University of Notre Dame: “A Hint of Perversion: Domesticity in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt”
Abby Lee, University of Tennessee, Knoxville: “Villainous Power: Italian Horror Cinema’s Empowerment of Women”
Adaptation and Reformulation
Moderator: Christopher Sieving, University of Notre Dame
Kelly Welch, Illinois State University, “Rosemary’s Adapted Baby: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation in Cinema”
Hayley M. Pogue, University of Tennessee, Knoxville: “A Picture Paints a Thousand Words: Examining Writers as Narrators in Atonement, Stranger Than Fiction, and The Lake House”
Breana Leader, University of Notre Dame, “Disney and the Counterculture”
Representations of Christianity
Moderator: John Welle, University of Notre Dame
Joseph Brandon Colvin, Western Kentucky University: “Robert Bresson’s Illusory Grace”
Scott Elbin, University of Toledo: “David Fincher’s Se7en: Intersections of the Messiah and the Mass Murderer”
Justin Sherwood, University of Illinois at Chicago: “Into Great Silence: A Metaphorical Analysis”
Heroes and Anti-Heroes
Moderator: Aaron Magnan-Park, University of Notre Dame
Brittany Lash, University of Notre Dame: “The Modern Popular Hero in Cinema”
A. Kay Terrell, Indiana University: “Spike as the Other: Gender, Sexuality, and Redemption in Modern Vampire Narratives”
Matthew Ownby, University of Tennessee, Knoxville: “Don’t Get Mad, Get Even: An Examination of Female Revenge Films in 2007”
Unconventional Auteurs
Moderator: Susan Ohmer, University of Notre Dame
Julia Reeves, University of Chicago: “Reworking the Cinematic Feminine: The Experimental Filmmaking Techniques of Laura Mulvey and Chantal Akerman”
Mallory Richard, Wilfrid Laurier University: “The Apatow Effect: Transgression of Love, Sex and Masculinity in Contemporary Comedy”
Samuel B. Prime, Northwestern University: “Spike Lee’s Augmented Television-movie Preservation of A Huey P. Newton Story and its Interpretation of the Theatrical Principle of Liveness”
Silent Film Exhibition
Moderator: Donald Crafton, University of Notre Dame
Sawyer J. Lahr, Columbia College: “Jane Addams and Motion Picture Reformation: A Fine Line Between ‘Theater of the People’ and ‘Breeding Places of Vice’”
Alison White Jarzyna, Carleton College: “Forgotten Film Stars: Bridging Hollywood and Small Town Audiences”
Andy Lauer, Carleton College: “Some Films Are Better Than Others: Lyman H. Howe, Cultural Capital, and Bringing the World to Northfield, MN”
New Research in Television Studies
Moderator: Christine Becker, University of Notre Dame
Jenni Fong, University of Notre Dame: “Because We Believe: Cult TV Fandom and The X-Files”
Carla Barton, Northwestern University: “Better Sweaters: Compromise in The Cosby Show”
Cassie Belek, University of Notre Dame: “‘Pos-Mens’: Product Integration in 30 Rock”
Tales of the Uncanny
Moderator: Jonathan Walley, Denison University
Jamie Hook, Indiana University: “Double Identities: Duplicity, Vision and the Double”
Randolph P. Ma, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: “Crystallized Images: The Indiscernible Reality of the Brothers Quay”
Sara Freeman, Columbia College: “Max Ophuls’ Diary of the Dead: The Haunting Romanticism of Letter From an Unknown Woman”
Transgressive and Hybrid Genres
Moderator: Jane Greene, Denison University
Justin Rice, Indiana University: “Eight Million Stories: The Naked City and In the Street”
Mike Lippert, Wilfrid Laurier University: “Laughing Into the Darkness: The Forms and Functions of Black Comedy”
Jessica Burgers, University of Notre Dame: “Children’s Horror in the 1970s and 1980s”