Blurb from the Edinburgh University Press:
“The first book to address the vast diversity of Northern circumpolar cinemas from a transnational perspective, Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic presents the region as one of great and previously overlooked cinematic diversity. With chapters on polar explorer films, silent cinema, documentaries, ethnographic and indigenous film, gender and ecology, as well as Hollywood and the USSR’s uses and abuses of the Arctic, this book provides a groundbreaking account of Arctic cinemas from 1898 to the present. Challenging dominant notions of the region in popular and political culture, it demonstrates how moving images (cinema, television, video, and digital media) have been central to the very definition of the Arctic since the end of the nineteenth century. Bringing together an international array of European, Russian, Nordic, and North American scholars, Films on Ice radically alters stereotypical views of the Arctic region, and therefore of film history itself.“
Here is a Link to the Full Text of the book’s Introduction, which is also available on the publisher’s website.
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Environmental organizations, student groups, business leaders, and politicians around the world are taking part today in Global Investment Day. As ecomedia scholars, we might consider the uses of affect and aesthetics in videos such as this one produced by 350.org.
According to the 350.org Fossil Free Project: “The fossil fuel industry is both fueling the climate crisis and blocking serious action. On Global Divestment Day, we will call on our institutions — our schools, our governments, our banks and our places of worship — to divest from destruction. Each act of divestment takes back power from fossil fuel companies and helps create a mandate for our leaders to take real action.”
Position Summary:
Gettysburg College invites applications for a oneâ€year Visiting Assistant Professor position in Environmental Humanities in the interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Department beginning August, 2015. Field of specialization is open. Teaching responsibilities include one or more upper-division courses in the candidate’s area of specialization, an environmental humanities core course for Environmental Studies majors, and introductory environmental studies courses for nonâ€majors. The teaching load for this position will be three courses each semester.
Qualifications:
The successful candidate should have a Ph.D., although ABD will be considered, and be committed to interdisciplinary teaching in the liberal arts tradition.
Application Details:
Applicants should apply online at: http://gettysburg.peopleadmin.com/postings/1260. A cover letter, curriculum vitae and statement of teaching and research goals should be submitted. In addition, applicants should enter the names and mail addresses of three professional references. After the applicant completes his/her on-line application, the professional references indicated will be contacted by Gettysburg College via email to submit letters of recommendation electronically. At least one individual should be able to speak to the candidate’s teaching effectiveness. Review of applications will begin on March 25th, 2015 and will continue until a successful candidate is found. Inquiries can be addressed to Dr. Sarah Principato at sprincip.at.gettysburg.edu.
Gettysburg College is a highly selective liberal arts college located within 90 minutes of the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan area. Established in 1832, the College has a rich history and is situated on a 220â€acre campus with an enrollment of approximately 2,600 students. Gettysburg College celebrates diversity and welcomes applications from members of any group that has been historically underrepresented in the American academy. The College assures equal employment opportunity and prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, and disability.
The internet and social media are abuzz today with images and discussion of a toxic chemical explosion in Igualada, Spain outside of Barcelona. An orange cloud of toxic chemicals, created by the unintentional mixing of ferric chloride and nitric acid, spread out over an area covering five cities. A report by the news agency Reuters speaks to the power of mediated images in drawing our gaze to what ecocinema scholars Robin Murray and Joseph Heumann call “Everday Eco-Disasters” in their recent book of that title.
These powerful images not only call to mind this specific event but so many others, from the igniting of oil fires on the Cuyahoga river fires of the 1950s and 1960s and the chemical warfare agents like Agent Orange in Vietnam and nerve gas unleashed during the first Gulf War to clouds of acid rain and the burning of toxic chemicals during e-waste salvaging in countries like Ghana.
VISIBLE EVIDENCE XXII:Â International Conference on Documentary Film and MediaÂ
Toronto: 19-23 August 2015
Cinema Studies Institute, University of Toronto
School of Image Arts, Ryerson University
Department of Cinema and Media Arts, York University
                   CALL FOR PAPERS
Proposals may address all aspects of documentary screen cultures, histories and practices.
Proposals for pre-constituted panels, individual papers, workshops, and screenings are invited.
Pre-Constituted Panels and Workshops:Â February 7, 2015.
Individual Papers and Screenings:Â February 15, 2015.
Please submit proposals online to: http://visibleevidencexxii.ca/callforpapers/
The Programming Committee will respond to all proposals by March 23, 2015.
Further information:Â http://visibleevidencexxii.ca
Panels, Papers, Workshops, and Screenings
Presentations will take place within 90-minute blocks shared by between 3 – 4 presenters and chaired either by a presenter or a moderator designated by the organizing committee. Panels and workshops may be pre-constituted, either through individual solicitation or public calls. Conveners of pre-constituted panels and their participants should coordinate their session to allow time for discussion, limiting individual contributions to 20-minutes.
Pre-constituted panels are organized around a well-defined critical, theoretical or historical topic that aims to generate dialogue among the panelists and audience members. Conveners are asked to submit a proposal that outlines the event as a whole and also provides for each presenter:
1) a title and abstract for the presentation (~300 words)
2) an autobiographical blurb (~50-100 word max)
3) a five-item bibliography
Individual papers are asked to provide proposals using the same format as for panelists of a pre-constituted panel (see immediately above). Presenters will be grouped into panels constituted by the Programming Committee.
Pre-constituted workshops may include up to six (6) presenters making short opening statements leading to interaction among themselves and the audience. Conveners are asked to submit a proposal that outlines the event as a whole and provides for each presenter: a title and abstract for the presentation; an autobiographical paragraph and a five-item bibliography.
Individual screenings will generally take place within ninety-minute blocks. Presenters should prepare excerpts from their work, while allowing time for discussion. Proposals for screenings should include a title and description of the work, including a contextualization of its prominence within current documentary practice; an autobiographical paragraph; and distribution information the presenter wishes to have appeared in the conference program. If feasible, a screener or link to the work should also be submitted.
Inquiries:Â ve22toronto@gmail.com
It is not entirely clear from the cfp whether film/media proposals would be considered but interested parties are welcome to contact the conference organizers to find out. From the conference title and description it seems likely that they would welcome ecomedia scholars.
Animal Suffering: Inter-Disciplinary Investigations in Animal Studies
Southwestern College – Winfield, KS, USA
October 22 and 23, 2015
We are seeking proposals for a conference on the question of animal suffering. Papers might examine (but are not limited to):
•    Representations of Animals and animal suffering in Literature, Philosophy, and Religion
•    Animals in Disability, Gender, and Postcolonial studies
•    Animal Rights and/or Virtues
•    Animals as Wildlife and Household Pets
•    Farming, Fishing, and Hunting Practices
•    Treatment of Animals in the Mid-West
•    Animals and Theories of Environmental Justice
•    Human-Animal Studies
•    Companionship, Cooperation, and/or Friendship with Animals
Proposals not exceeding 350 words to be sent to alice.bendinelli@sckans.edu and jacob.goodson@sckans.eduby May 7th 2015.
Southwestern College is AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education), ACUPCC (American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment), KACEE (Kansas Association for Conservation & Environmental Education), and the Kansas Green Schools Network.
Volume 9 Issue 2
Animating Scale and Scalar Travel
Guest Editor: Sylvie Bissonnette (UC Berkeley)
The collection of articles in this special issue of animation: an interdisciplinary journal examines conceptions of life and the universe at a variety of scales in animated media. In our era of media globalization and bioengineering, recent modes of visualization have offered the opportunity to experience the world at microscopic and macroscopic scales. Explorations of the body’s interior, visual flâneries of miniaturized urban spaces, journeys through cosmic landscapes, reanimations of the genomic data of marine microbes, and mobile visions of protein folding in video games all challenge viewers’ spatio-temporal frame of reference and produce novel embodied experiences that transform our understanding of the physical limits of the body and its agency. The nine articles in this issue consider a range of visual styles and techniques that influence our understanding of the limits of animation and the particular ways in which each style or technique animates space, including cel animations, hybrid animated films, computer animations, CG cinema, and online video games.
“Introduction to the Special Issue: Animating Space and Scalar Travels”
Author:Â Sylvie Bissonnette
“Never Quite the Right Size: Scaling the Digital in CG Cinema”
“Scalar Travel Documentaries: Animating the Limits of the Body and Life”
“Remediating Panorama on the Small Screen: Scale, Movement and Spectatorship in Software-Driven Panoramic Photography”
“Tilt-Shift Flânerie: Miniature View, Globalscape”
Author:Â Jennifer Lynde Barker
“The Multilocal Self: Performance Capture, Remote Surgery, and Persistent Materiality”
“Reach In and Feel Something: On the Strategic Reconstruction of Touch in Virtual Space”
“Proteus and the Digital: Scalar Transformations of Seawater’s Materiality in Ocean Animations”
“Playable Virus: HIV Molecular Aesthetics in Science and Popular Culture”
The Media Review section of Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities calls for reviews that apply ecocritical and Green cultural studies approaches to the field of Japanese animation.
2014 was a watershed year for Studio Ghibli, arguably the leading anime studio, because it marked the retirement of the founding directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. who issued their swan-songs The Wind Rises and Princess Kaguya. To honor this moment and attract more critical attention to anime, we are soliciting reviews of the following:
Miyazaki’s films, especially Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Ponyo.
Takahata’s Ken the Wolf Boy, Heidi: Girl of the Alps, Pom Poko aka “Tanuki Wars,” Grave of the Fireflies, and Princess Kaguya.
We are also interested in work inspired by or intertextually related to Studio Ghibli, such as Disney’s Lilo and Stitch; Irish director Tomm Moore’s The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea; and the animated version of Avatar: The Last Airbender (including its sequel, The Legend of Korra, which is a gold mine for feminist, post-colonial, eco-cosmopolitan, and queer ecocriticism, just sayin’).
Reviews of other anime films, TV series, and manga unrelated to Ghibli will also be considered.
Reviews should be 500 to 2,000 words long. Final drafts are due April 16, 2015.
Please send inquiries or brief proposals to Anthony Lioi at alioi [at] juilliard.edu.