Alphaville Journal of Film & Screen Media - A Call For Papers

22 Jan 2016

Call for Papers

The New Old: Archaism and Anachronism Across Media

Guest Editors: Stefano Baschiera (Queen’s University Belfast) and Elena Caoduro (University of Bedfordshire)
Deadline: Friday 19th February 2016

http://alphavillejournal.com/Submissions.html

This special issue of Alphaville aims to investigate the role that deliberate anachronism and archaism play in relation to film, television and the digital media and how these sensibilities manifest in the contemporary mediascape. Over the past decade, the digitalisation of culture has revolutionised the way we experience and consume arts and mass media, deeply affecting how they are perceived in their digital materiality. In fact, the tangibility of cultural objects is somewhat lessened, so that they can relocate elsewhere in a constant process of remediation. At the same time, this digital disruption has contributed to the emergence of a postmodern “nostalgia for the analogue” with the rapid increase of vintage and retro phenomena in arts and society. This new sensibility towards the past manifests itself in two ways. On the one hand, it appears in the persistence of vintage objects as cultural artefacts from specific periods which find new (albeit often anachronistic) uses in contemporary life. While vinyls, old-medium-format cameras, polaroids, audiocassettes and typewriters populate our living rooms as design objects, artists and filmmakers rediscover 16mm films and U-Matic tapes. On the other hand, new cultural products look at the past mimicking old styles, stories, and textures. Video games rediscover the simplicity of 2D and 8-bit technology, computer and smartphone applications feature skeuomorphic design, photo filters applications are able to digitally age pictures, and everyday objects, from clothing to appliances, constantly look at past styles.

Popular culture critic Simon Raynolds has correctly identified the renaissance of past decades at the turn of the new millennium. He argues that “instead of being the threshold to the future, the first ten years of the twenty-first century turned out to be the ‘Re’ Decade. The 2000s were dominated by the ‘re-‘ prefix: revivals, reissues, remakes, re-enactments. Endless retrospection” (2001: xi). This special issue of Alphaville sheds light on the complexities of the consumption and representation of new-old styles in film and screen media, and questions whether this phenomenon is simply restorative and nostalgic or progressive and future-oriented.
Accordingly, the Guest Editors invite contributors to investigate topics and issues such as:

● technological anachronism in screen media;
● deliberate archaism;
● postmodern nostalgia and material culture;
● faux-vintage as aesthetic category;
● sustainability, recycling and vintage objects;
● “retro” and authenticity in visual media;
● media archaeology;
● ruinophilia;
● the revival of old sub-genres in Film & TV;
● films and video games as vintage objects;
● representation of “vintage” decades;
● retro “across borders” and transnational retro-aesthetic;
● vintage cinema and fashion industry;
● heritage vs. vintage cinema;
● “museum aesthetics” in Film & TV;
● props, costumes and set design;
● vintage/retro style and gender.

Potential contributors are invited to submit a 300-word abstract with a short bibliography by Friday, 19th of February 2016 to the following addresses: s.baschiera@qub.ac.uk and elena.caoduro@beds.ac.uk. Completed articles of approximately 6,000 words in length (minimum 5,500 words) that fully adhere to Alphaville Guidelines and House Style must be submitted by 1st of May 2016. Video essays with a supporting text can also be considered. Please contact the Guest Editors, Stefano Baschiera and Elena Caoduro, for any queries at the above email addresses.

Books for Review

If you are interested in reviewing one of the titles below contact us at: reviews.alphaville@gmail.com

Please note that only high-quality reviews that scrupulously observe Alphaville Guidelines and House Style, and display rigorous scholarly engagement with the title being reviewed, will be considered for publication. Please consult the journal Guidelines and House Style for further guidance.

Atkinson, Sarah. Beyond the Screen: Emerging Cinema and Engaging Audiences. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.

Chapman, James. Swashbucklers: The Costume Adventure Series. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015.

Chare, Nicholas. Sportswomen in Cinema: Film and the Frailty Myth. London: IB Tauris, 2015.

Cheshire, Ellen. Bio-pics: A Life in Pictures. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

Denison, Rayna. Anime: A Critical Introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.

Ibarra, Karen Arriaza, Eva Nowak, and Raymond Kuhn, eds. Public Service Media in Europe: A Comparative Approach. Oxon: Routledge, 2015.

Laine, Tarja. Bodies in Pain: Emotion and the Cinema of Darren Aronofsky. New York: Berghahn Books, 2015.

Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier. French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. Second Ed. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Leeder, Murray. Cinematic Ghosts: Haunting and Spectrality from Silent Cinema to the Digital Era. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Letort, Delphine. The Spike Lee Brand: A Study of Documentary Filmmaking. New York: SUNY Press, 2015.

Lowenstein, Adam. Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

McGowan, Todd. Psychoanalytic Film Theory and The Rules of the Game. New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.

Pallant, Chris, and Steven Price. Storyboarding: A Critical History. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Pramaggiore, Maria. Making Time in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon: Art, History, and Empire. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Schmerheim, Philipp Andreas. Skepticism Films: Knowing and Doubting the World in Contemporary Cinema. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Shaw, Tony. Cinematic Terror: A Global History of Terrorism on Film. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Skorin-Kapov, Jadranka. Darren Aronofsky’s Films and the Fragility of Hope. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Swimmer, Jeff. Documentary Case Studies: Behind the Scenes of the Greatest (True) Stories. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Szendy, Peter. Apocalypse-Cinema: 2012 and Other Ends of the World. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015.

Thakur, Gautam Basu. Postcolonial Theory and Avatar. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2015.

Turnock, Julie A. Plastic Reality: Special Effects, Technology, and the Emergence of 1970s Blockbuster Aesthetics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

Villarmea Álvarez, Iván. Documenting Cityscapes: Urban Change in Contemporary Non-Fiction Film. London: Wallflower Press, 2015.

Wassmann, Claudia. Therapy and Emotions in Film and Television: The Pulse of Our Times. New York: Palgrave, 2015.

Information for Publishers and Authors

Publishers and authors should contact the Editorial Board at the following email address, if they wish to send books for us to advertise for review: reviews.alphaville@gmail.com