We invite paper proposals for a symposium on
Embodied Film Language – Filmic narration as a biocultural phenomenon
Time and date: University of Helsinki, Friday to Saturday 4-5 December 2015
Organizing parties:
- Helsinki University Film and Television Studies
- Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (Lyuba Bugaeva)
- Helsinki University Theatre Studies post-graduate seminar
- Helsinki University Doctoral School in Humanities and Social Sciences
- University of the Arts, Helsinki
- Finnish Society for Cinema Studies
Core approaches: Cognitive science, formalist film analysis, phenomenology and hermeneutics
Keynote speakers:
- Eija-Liisa Ahtila (Finnish Academy of Fine Arts)
- Lyuba Bugayeva (St Petersburg State University)
- Aaron Taylor (Lethbridge University)
Content
How film narration on different levels of perception and understanding
- is based on mechanisms of perception and cognition that have developed through our evolution
- builds on our ability to infer on the basis of body language what other people are doing and why (embodied proto-narratives)
- emerges through acting in relation to what has been referred to as ”intentional visual behaviour of film” (Sobchack)
- models simultaneously both our biological and social being-in-the-word and our orientation towards it
- adapts other arts particularly as regards the narrativization of body language (facial expressions, gestures, prosodic features)
- calibrates verbal and nonverbal expressions by stylistic means
- participates in the construction of both collective and individual identities
- creates, echoes and negotiates selfhood vs. otherness patterns and encounter related scenarios
- expresses cultural differences related to body language
Proposals of max. 400 words on these or closely related topics should be sent to Henry Bacon (henry.bacon@helsinki.fi) by 31. August 2015. Symposium organizers will assist in making bookings for accommodation, but basically participants will have to make their own arrangements.