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Call for Conferences

Screenwriting Research Network: Call for Conferences

The Screenwriting Research Network is looking for proposals to host its International Conferences in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The Screenwriting Research Network (www.screenwritingresearch.com) is an international research network of scholars, reflective practitioners and practice-based researchers, interested in the conceptualisation of film, TV and other media narratives; or Screenwriting Studies, as it has become known. Membership is currently drawn from 48 countries worldwide and still growing, with strong representation from the USA, Europe and Australasia, and recent members from several other countries, including Latin America, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa.

The SRN began as a study group at the University of Leeds, UK, in 2006, and started its programme of international conferences in 2008, also at Leeds. Since then annual conferences have been held in Helsinki (2009), Copenhagen (2010), Brussels (2011), Sydney (2012), Madison-Wisconsin (2013), Potsdam-Babelsberg (2014), London (2015), Leeds (2016), Otago-Dunedin in New Zealand (2017) and Milan (2018). A special international conference was also held in Santiago, Chile in May 2015. In 2019 we will meet at the Catholic University of Portugal in Porto, whereas the 2020 conference will be held in Oxford.

Over the years, the programme has attracted eminent scholars and Oscar-winning screenwriters amongst the keynote speakers, and includes: David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, Kristin Thompson, Torben Grodal, Adrian Martin, Brian Winston, Jonathan Powell, Milcho Manchevski, Larry Gross, Jean-Claude Carrière, Ronald Harwood, Hossein Amini and Neil Landau among many others. Key papers are often published in the Journal of Screenwriting (Intellect).

The SRN conferences usually take place in September/October each year. Recent conferences have attracted 150-175 participants and around 100 papers and presentations. We expect further growth. Our conferences are usually hosted by university departments or film schools, often as a partnership between such institutions; for example, our 2015 London conference was a collaboration between Royal Holloway University of London, University of Greenwich, University of East London and Bangor University, and the 2020 Oxford conference will be co-hosted by Oxford Brookes University and Canterbury Christchurch University. Collaborations with archives or festivals,
writers’ associations or guilds, and other public bodies are welcomed.

Each conference is financially self-supporting with actual costs borne or raised by the host institutions. Sources range from public bodies and institutions to sponsorship of some events, to conference fees from participants. The SRN supports each conference with advice and contacts, but not finance. This is not a profit-making enterprise, and commercial proposals are not accepted.

If you are interested in organizing an SRN annual international conference, please contact the SRN Chairman, Prof. Carmen Sofia Brenes (Universidad de los Andes, Santiago, Chile) at the address below, for further information or for an informal chat. Formal proposals should be received by 30thApril 2019, via email. The proposal should be no longer than four pages, outlining the location and institution, facilities, ease of travel and communication, appropriate organising staff, and an indication of how institutional and financial commitment will be forthcoming. A simple budget should be appended.

For further information or an informal chat (preferably via Skype), contact Prof. Brenes at csbrenes@miuandes.cl.

The SRN Executive Council will consider all proposals through Spring/Summer 2019, and may require further information, before making decisions. We hope to complete the process by the end of June 2019 and announce the next Conference in Porto.

The SRN exists to encourage networking among screenwriting scholars and will support and disseminate information about appropriate events. Besides our annual conferences, therefore, there is also the possibility of regional conferences, one-day workshops and other forms of smaller events. If you are planning to organize such an event and want the help and support of the network, please contact us, and the SRN Executive Council will consider how we might help.

 

 

SRN Executive Minutes November 2018

Screenwriting Research Network Executive Council

Minutes of the EC meeting 21:30 (Vienna time)

20.11.2018 via Skype

 

Attendees: Carmen Sofia Brenes (Chair), Claus Tieber (Minutes), John Finnigan, Paolo Russo, Anna Zaluczkowska

Excused: Christina Milligan, Margaret McVeigh

 

Agenda SRN EC Meeting

  1. Approval of the minutes 181030 (last meeting)

approved

 

  1. News from Porto Conference

2.1. Call for papers

2.2. Feedback from Guillhermina about our suggestions regarding schedule,

photos, places to have short meetings.

Organizers took comments into account. CfP will be send out via our list by Daniel Ribas or Giullhermina Castro.

CT has already communicated the CfP via diverse list, will send this list to PR, who will make a google doc so we can all help to spread the call as wide as possible.

Action: google doc with list of organisations, mailing lists etc. where we want to post the CfP for the Porto conference – PR

 

  1. Newsletter: any feedback?

No feedback so far, which is not considered as a bad sign by the members of the EC.

 

  1. SRN Webpage and social media:

4.1. New section in the webpage for ECR

4.2. FB and Twitter: movement?

4.3 SARP and Bibliography: how to proceed?

Space for ECR on our website is possible. We should all look for examples and best practices.

Action                        all

 JF is not satisfied with the growth of our twitter account. (117 followers so far), on FB we have 1123 subscribers, but we started earlier. These things need time.

One of the problems is content. There is just not enough content.

SARP and Bibliography should be at the center of a little communication “campain” in January, focusing on social media.

 

  1. ECRs questionnaire (John)

Was sent out by John.

 

  1. Awards

Nominations for the book category are already in. Information about the award was communicated via numerous channels. (additional ones are welcome)

 

  1. Any other business

Membership infos and access to jiscmail was handed over to PR by Ronald Geerts.

 

Meeting ended at ca. 22.30 Vienna time

Next meeting: Dec. 18that 21:30 Vienna time

Historiographic Research in Screenwriting – Call for Papers

Call for Papers: Historiographic Research in Screenwriting

The Journal of Screenwriting is calling for articles for a special issue on the historiography of screenwriting, to be published in November 2019.

The Journal wants to emphasize the importance of screenwriting history and historiographical research, covering the broad field from media archaeology to historical case studies to a crisis historiography that includes questions of format, copyrights, professionalization, and narrative structure.

In order to better understand the role of screenwriting in filmmaking as well as in academic research, it is our task to scrutinize the development of the craft, profession, and art: the discourses, the pedagogy, and the analysis of screenplays, script development and the work of specific screenwriters and their importance for the development of screenwriting.

Articles may include (but are not limited to) the following topics:

  • Pre-screenplay documents in Early Cinema
  • Screenwriting and Screenwriters in silent cinema
  • The history of the format
  • Screenwriting and historical modes of production
  • Global histories and local case studies
  • Historiography of manuals and screenwriting pedagogy
  • Female Screenwriters (especially in the silent era)
  • National and global tendencies – relations, influences, cultural transfers
  • Censorship and screenwriting
  • Development: analysis of script developments in historical case studies
  • Screenplay as literature: published screenplays in the 1920s
  • Autorenkino in Germany in the 1910s and 20s
  • Eminent authors: case studies of established writers and their fate in the industry
  • Screenwriting and the literary avant-garde
  • Social history of screenwriters, working conditions, reputation, etc.
  • Theoretical questions of authorship based on historical evidence (e.g. the case of

    the American Author’s Association AAA)
    In the first instance, please email abstracts of up to 400 words and a short biography, no

    later than Wednesday 16 January 2019 to BOTH of the editors of this special issue: Claus Tieber, claus.tieber@univie.ac.at
    Steven Price, s.t.price@bangor.ac.uk

    Completed articles of between 4000 and 8000 words should be sent by 29 April 2019via the Journal of Screenwriting’s web page, where you can also access information on the journal’s house style:

    https://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-journal,id=182/

    The Journal of Screenwriting is an international peer-reviewed journal published three times p.a. by Intellect, and is abstracted and indexed by Thomson Reuters: ISI Web of Knowledge, MLA and FIAF. It explores the nature of writing for the screen image; this includes not only writing for film and television but also computer games and animation. The journal highlights current academic and professional thinking about the screenplay and intends to promote, stimulate and bring together current research and contemporary debates around the screenplay whilst encouraging groundbreaking research in an international arena. The journal is discursive, critical, rigorous and engages with issues in a dynamic and developing field, linking academic theory to screenwriting practice.

SRN Conference 2019

Dear colleagues,

We invite you to submit abstracts for the SRN Conference 2019 “Screen Narratives: Chaos and Order”, that will take place between 12th and 14th of September, at School of Arts, Catholic University of Portugal, Porto (Portugal). You can present an individual submission of traditional paper presentations, practice-based presentation, audiovisual essays or a panel submission (traditional presentation or discussion panel). For details and submissions, please see http://artes.porto.ucp.pt/en/SRN2019

As usual, we will also have pre-conference activities in 11th September. We will send you the pre-conference program as well as the keynotes information in a further e-mail.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

All the best,

The Organization Committee

Call for Papers forJournal of Screenwriting and Comunicazioni Sociali – Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural Studies

As announced during the last September SRN Conference, theJournal of Screenwriting and Comunicazioni Sociali – Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural Studies have planned a joint issue about the topic of the conference and are now looking to publish articles derived from the papers presented in Milan.

Please, find the call for the joint issues here CFP_JoS and CS

Best regards,

Steven Price (Journal of Screenwriting)

Paolo Braga (Comunicazioni Sociali)

SRN Awards 2019

The Executive Council has decided to establish an annual award for outstanding achievements in screenwriting research. The first SRN awards will be given at the SRN conference in Porto in autumn 2019 in two categories:

  • Book
  • Research article

Nominated texts should be published between September 2018 and June 2019. Nominated texts should be made available to the three members of the jury, either in print or in digital form no later than June, 15th 2019. The text can be published by the date of the conference.

Book: monograph or edited volume.

In general,everything that can be included into screenwriting research from narratology to production studies, can be nominated, even when they do not deal with screenwritingexclusively.Screen writing manuals will not be considered, except the jury argues for its scholarly value beyond its primary instructional purpose.

Research article

In general,articles published in academic journals (usually peer reviewed or editor reviewed), either in print or online. Articles outside of academic journals might be considered if they fulfil the conditions of a research article in length, form and content.

The criteria for the awards are just:

  1. Best new contribution
  2. Clarity of expression

 

Members of the Jury:

The Executive council chose three eminent scholars in the field of screenwriting research. We are proud and happy to confirmthe following three colleagues to serve in the jury:

In alphabetical order:

Jill Nelmes

Janet Staiger

Tom Stempel

 

The award will be a certificate without any financial value.

Anybody can make a nomination(even non-members of the SRN) and self-nomination is allowed. Nominations should be mailed to:

claus.tieber@univie.ac.at

 

Worlds of Storytelling

‘Worlds of Storytelling’ aims to discover, analyse and reflect on regional traditions of storytelling in relation to the global interests of media industries and politics. Human beings have always told stories, and storytelling acts as a powerful tool for communication, enabling us to express ideas around belonging, identity and connect within social groups (Koschorke 2012, Martínez and Scheffel 2007, Fiedler 2017, Leroi-Gourhan and Bischoff 1988). Stories, independent from the medium of presentation, are central to the cultural memory of civilisations, nations, ethnicities and other forms of social grouping (Assmann 2011, Assmann and Conrad 2010, Assmann 1993). Language, topography, climate, cultural traditions and politics influence national/regional storytelling styles, leading to rich and diverse expressions of this very human act.
    Although concepts of the transnational are key in many productions, with media content designed to reach an international audience, a distinction needs to be made between transnational productions which represent local cultures and a more homogenised globalised transnationalism (cf. Curiel 2010, amongst others). With this network research project, we aim to bring together researchers from various fields of screen studies relating to concepts of regional or national media cultures, and through this to develop an international research project around the relationship between national and global storytelling. The initial stage will culminate in a symposium from which we hope to draw out some core strands to explore future and foster international collaborative partnerships. This project may also give voice to the storytelling of minorities and small nations and support expressions of under-represented cultural identities and heritage.
Already involved are partners from China, Germany, and Australia, we are in discussion with colleagues from Canada and Brazil. The plan is to apply for funding in the UK and beyond, hopefully end of this calendar year.
    Therefore, I am inviting interested researchers to get in touch, from first ideas to more developed projects. Everyone is welcome to start the dialogue: kstutterheim@bournemouth.ac.uk