A conference exploring the mortality of cinema and its redifinition by digital technology
Slought and the Penn Cinema Studies Program is pleased to announce "The End of Cinema and the Future of Cinema Studies", a day-long conference on Friday, April 12, 2013 from 9:00-5:00pm. A series of introductory remarks by the organizers will be followed by three panels from 9:30-11am, 11am-12:30pm, and 2-3:30pm. It will conclude with a keynote presentation by Francesco Casetti from 3:30-5pm.
This conference brings together scholars, film critics, and practitioners at the cutting edge of debates about technological and institutional transformations in film and media. The disappearance of celluloid, the redefinition of the image by digital technology, and the transition from theatrical viewing to heterogeneous spaces and devices has transformed the field's object of study - producing a kind of cultural pessimism and obsessive discourse on the mortality of cinema. At the same time, we are witnessing a renewed vitality and vigor in cinema, a widening sphere of influence, and the rebirth of cinephilia.
Lynn Spigel, Frances Willard Professor of Screen Cultures, Northwestern University
Francesco Casetti, Professor in the Humanities and Film Program, Yale University (Keynote)
Dudley Andrew, R. Seldon Rose Professor of Film and Comparative Literature, Yale University
John Belton, Professor of English and Film, Rutgers University
Mark Betz, Professor in Film Studies, King's College London
Francesca Coppa, Professor in English, Muhlenberg College
Geoff Gilmore, Chief Creative Officer of Tribeca Enterprises, former director of Sundance Film Festival
Barbara Klinger, Professor in Film and Media Studies, Indiana University
Lev Manovich, Professor at CUNY Graduate Center, founder and director of Software Studies Initiative
Jonathan Rosenbaum, former head film critic for the Chicago Reader, and contributor to Cahiers du cinéma and Film Comment