Cinergie – Il Cinema e le altre Arti: Announcements

Cinephemera. Ephemeral materials for the study of Italian cinema between the 1930s and 1960s

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 08:51:26 +0100

This special issue of «Cinergie» - developed in the context of the research PRIN project Cinephemera. Ephemeral materials for the study of Italian cinema between the 1930s and 1960s - aims to investigate “cinephemera” in the history of Italian cinema during the period of its prime role in the media system and consumer habits (1936–1966), and use them to cast light on unexplored regions fields? of Italian film.

The study of the ephemera can aim to rebuild the everyday film experience in terms of memories, materials and mediation processes. They are all objects of transitory nature, which is linked to forms of use on a specific occasion (Makepeace 1985, 10). They mediate, build and extend a constant dialogue between public and industry (Moore 2016, 316) and contain precious evidence of past culture (Wickham 2010).

More in detail, we understand cinephemera as a category that includes manufactured objects and collectible items (trading cards, cigarette cards, postcards, envelopes, stamps, pocket calendars, gadgets and other movie-inspired, mass-produced objects); artefacts spontaneously produced by cinema fans (personal and appointment diaries, albums, “schedari” (spectator film files), scrapbooks and other movie-inspired private paper items); and correspondence from admirers and spectators (letters sent to Italian or international stars and columns devoted to reader-spectator correspondence in popular periodicals and in the sector press), all intended as elements mediating the spectator experience and as sources for the social history of “moviegoing” (Wickham 2010; Moore 2016).

Thanks to these collectible items and spontaneous artefacts, the moviegoing experience can be rebuilt using senses other than just sight (Casetti 2001), including touch and indeed the whole body. Personal and appointment diaries or objects from a cinema visit kept as a memory act as “portable” records and archives, private memorabilia, “mnestic protheses” (Caneppele 2018) and extensions of the memory of watching the film (Mariani and Comand 2019b). Finally, the activities of writing personal diaries and letters (Guerra and Martin 2019) and creating scrapbooks, and the spaces personal expression in the press (Martin 2019) can be interpreted more directly reserved to as concrete expressions of the mediation process “of retelling, interpreting and recreating social discourses that the spectator does during his or her film experience” (Fanchi and Mosconi 2002, 8).

Moving transversally through the traditions of study mentioned above, this issue aims to open a space for reflection on specific case studies, in order to investigate the cinephemera with tools derived especially from the following methodological frameworks:

- Material culture: in order to frame ephemera as “social objects”, everyday elements and expressions of a specific historical-cultural moment, whose value lies principally in the information provided by their material form (Kuipers 2004). With specific reference to collectible objects, we will follow the lines of material culture research concerned with mass-produced goods (Dei and Meloni 2015): when looked at as stock resulting from production and consumption infrastructures, ephemeral forms can help disclose new ways of understanding the dynamics and trends of the film industry’s entanglement with apparently distant sectors of industrial activity (cosmetics, food, confectionery, publishing, etc.);

- Microhistory: in order to frame ephemera as essential materials to uncover individual experiences and the relational universes that produced them. The eccentric and heterogeneous heritage of paper items and spontaneous artefacts demands a microanalytic approach, safeguarding the singular nature of each material under examination. In addition, concrete imaginative efforts are needed to interpret the social practices that they derive from (Grendi 1977). Facing radically different documentary sources to those used by quantitative studies on the cinema-going public and the film consumption of past audiences, the close-up view and the eclecticism of the methods belonging to microanalytical historiography (Levi 1991) enable an alternative way to rebuild spectator presence, which is not deduced so much from data, but more empirically and inextricably linked to “hands-on work” on the media and the objects at our disposal.

- Fandom studies: in order to frame ephemera as evidence of an active and participatory experience in the film spectacle. To this end, we propose to finetune the tools that “fandom archaeology” has already applied to objects produced by and for fans, to the swap groups and networks revolving around informal collection-building practices, and to identifying the cultural intermediaries of cinema discourse (Fuller-Seeley 2018). By raising fan mail columns, diaries and scrapbooks to the status of historical source, we can trace the different fan culture discourses that have been present in Italy, either on cinema fandom, or actor fandom (McQuail 1997). More in general, we will try to make an original contribution to research on past audiences in the form of “bottom-up” film history. We will not deduce spectator presence so much from data, but more empirically from “hands-on work” on the media and the objects at our disposal.

- Gender studies: in order to frame ephemera as active places in the construction of a “gendered” subjectivity from Fascist Italy up to the post-war period of recovery. While making use of the knowledge and methods offered by the literature on the condition of women audiences (Cardone 2009), a close-up analysis of the ephemeral materials will nevertheless enable us to call into question the assumption that places some of these practices – writing fan mail, scrapbooking, etc. – exclusively in the female domain (Grubey Garvey 2013). This evidence of “active” reprocessing will instead be investigated as a field of social tension between the male and female models of discourse put forward by film and the different access to film consumption permitted to men and women spectators.

Submission Details and Journal Deadlines

Please send a 300/500-word abstract (either in English or Italian) and a short biographical note to princinephemera@gmail.com by February 15, 2024.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by May 31, 2024. Contributions will undergo a double blind peer review. The articles must not exceed 5,000/6,000 words and may include images, clips, and links for illustrative purposes. Please, provide correct credits, permissions, and copyright information in order to be sure that the images or archival documents are copyright free and can be published.

The Number 26 of Cinergie will be published in December 2024.

Bibliography

Aasman S. e Montrescu-Mayes A. 2019. Amateur Media and Participatory Cultures: Film, Video, and Digital Media. New York-Londra: Routledge.

Buckley R. 2017. “Italian Female Stars and Their Fans in the 1950s and 1960s”. In Burke Frank, ed., A Companion to Italian Cinema, 157–178. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

Caneppele P. 2018 “Protesi mnestiche. Memorabilia ed esperienze spettatoriali”. Cinema e Storia. 1: 191–200.

Cardone L. 2009. “Noi donne” e il cinema. Dalle illusioni a Zavattini (1944-1954). Pisa: Edizioni ETS.

Casetti F. 2001. “L’esperienza dello spettatore attraverso le cartoline del cinematografo Centrale”. In Della

Torre R., Mosconi E, eds., I manifesti tipografici del cinema. La collezione della Fondazione Cineteca Italiana 1919-1939. Milano: Quaderni della Fondazione Cineteca Italiana.

Cubitt S. e Papastergiadis N., McQuire S. 2008. “Transient Media”, in Public 37: 76–85.

Comand M. e Mariani A. eds. 2019a. Ephemera. Scrapbooks, fan mail e diari delle spettatrici nell’Italia del regime. Venezia: Marsilio.

Comand M. e Mariani A. 2019b. Effemeridi del film: Episodi di storia materiale del cinema italiano. Milano: Meltemi.

De Berti R. 2000. Dallo schermo alla carta. Romanzi, fotoromanzi, rotocalchi cinematografici: il film e i suoi paratesti. Milano: Vita e Pensiero.

Dei F. e Meloni P. 2015. Antropologia della cultura materiale. Roma: Carocci.

Druick Z., Cammaer G. 2014. Cinephemera: Archives, Ephemeral Cinema and New Screen Histories in Canada. Montreal-London: Kingston-MQUP.

Fanchi M. e Mosconi E., eds. 2002. Spettatori, forme di consumo e pubblici del cinema in Italia. 1930-1960. Roma-Venezia: Marsilio.

Forgacs D., Gundle S. 2007. Cultura di massa e società italiana: 1936-1954. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Fuller-Seeley, K. 2018. “Archaeologies of fandom. Using Historical Methods to Explore Fan Cultures of the Past”, in Click, M. A., Scott, S., eds., The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, 27–35. New York-London: Routledge.

Grainge P, ed. 2011. Ephemeral Media. Transitory screen Culture from Television to YouTube. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Gray J. 2010. Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers. And Other Media Paratexts. New York-London: New York University Press.

Grendi E. 1977, “Micro-analisi e storia sociale”, Quaderni storici (35), 2: 506–520.

Gruber Garvey E. 2013. Writing with scissors. American scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press.

Guerra M., Martin S. eds, 2019. “La cultura della lettera. La corrispondenza come forma e pratica di critica cinematografica”. Cinergie – Il cinema e le altre arti. 15

Hastie A. 2006. “The Miscellany of Film History”. Film History (18), 2: 222–230.

Kuipers J. M. 2004. “Scrapbooks: Intrinsic Value and Material Culture”. Journal of Archival Organization (2) 3: 83–91.

Lanzilotta G., ed., 2017. L’arte in tasca. Calendarietti, réclame e grafica. 1920-1940. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini.

Levi G. “On Microhistory”. 1991. In Burke P. ed. New Perspectives on Historical Writing, 93–113. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Makepeace C. E. 1985. Ephemera: A Book on its Collection, Conservation, and Use. Aldershot : Gower.

Martin S. 2019 “Minie Piquet e le altre. Le rubriche di moda su alcune riviste cinematografiche negli anni del Regime”.In Comand M., Mariani A. eds. Ephemera. Scrapbooks, fan mail e diari delle spettatrici nell’Italia del regime, 231–246. Venezia: Marsilio.

Manzoli G. 2012. Da Ercole a Fantozzi: cinema popolare e società italiana dal boom economico alla neotelevisione (1958-1976). Roma: Carocci.

McQuail D. 1997. Audience Analysis. London: Sage.

Moore P. S. 2016. “Ephemera as Medium: The Afterlife of Lost Films”. Moving Image 16 (1): 134–139.

Noto P., Pesce S. eds., 2017. The Politics of Ephemeral Media. Permanence and Obsolescence in Paratexts. London: Routledge.

Rickards M. 1977. This is Ephemera: Collecting Printed Throwaways. Brattleboro: Grossamer Press.

Rickards M. 2000. The encyclopedia of ephemera: a guide to the fragmentary documents of everyday life for the collector, curator, and historian. Routledge: New York.

Scarpellini E. 2008. L’Italia dei consumi: dalla Belle Epoque al nuovo millennio. Bari-Roma: Laterza.

Tortora M. 2006. “Modi di transitare: dai fotoalbum cinematografici agli screen captures”. In Autelitano A., Re V., eds. Il racconto del film. La novellizzazione dal catalogo al trailer, 293–299. Udine: Forum.

Vitella F. 2015. “Forbice, album e carta da lettere. Hollywood come fan magazine”. Fata Morgana 27: 51–64.

Vitella F. 2016. “Mia carissima Alida. Le lettere degli ammiratori nell’Italia mussoliniana”. Bianco e Nero 58: 92–114.

Wickham P. 2010. “Scrapbooks, Soap Dishes and Screen Dreams: Ephemera, Everyday Life and Cinema History”. New Review of Film and Television Studies 8 (3): 315–330.

Young T. G. 2003. “Evidence: Toward a library definition of ephemera”. RBM 4 (1): 11–26.

Crime Unmasked: Exploring the Morphologies of Italian Giallo through Transnational Influences and Intermedial Hybridization

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 18:41:28 +0200

If a lively intermedial dialogue emerges between the two world wars in Italy, pushing the Giallo beyond the boundaries of literature (Mazzei and Valentini, 2017; Curti 2022), it is after the end of the Second World War, and especially with the advent of television, that the crime genre (Calabrese and Rossi, 2018; Pieri 2011; Priestman 2009; Knight 2004) branches out into popular culture, exploding in a multitude of forms, productions, atmospheres, styles, and characters.

The representations of crime within the transmedia macro-genre of the Giallo have thus accompanied and interpreted some fundamental cultural and social transformations in Italy, from the 1950s to the present. The polarity between detection and the criminal act – the core of the Giallo – expresses, on the one hand, the morphological complexity of the genre, its permeability to both indigenous and international narrative models and archetypes, and on the other hand, it serves as an amplifier of social anxieties regarding criminal phenomena in contemporary liberal democracies (Biressi 2001) and the tensions and desires of Western societies (Perissinotto 2008).

In this respect, the Giallo becomes a heuristic device capable of capturing and deciphering the symptoms of an ongoing socio-cultural change, as well as revealing the traumatic signs of past historical events (Pezzotti 2014) or the traces of the evolution of criminal law theories and practices, especially in the oscillations between the inquisitorial and the accusatory models (Amodio 2016). At the narrative level, these models are often reflected in the development and hybridization of two different narrative paradigms: detective fiction and procedural drama.

Equally significant from a cultural perspective is Giallo's ability to intersect and reinterpret the paradigms of femininity and masculinity within specific historical periods. It accomplishes this through the use of plots and visual strategies that problematize the relationship between socially prescribed roles, characters, and gender identity, often highlighting contradictions related to stereotypes and hegemonic positions (Dresner 2007; Gates 2011; Buonanno 2017; D’Amelio and Re 2021).

The aim of the monographic issue – developed within the Prin 2020 project The Atlas of Italian “Giallo”: Media History and Popular Culture (1954-2020) – is to analyze the depiction of criminals and representatives of the law and institutions, exploring the intermedial connections between television, cinema, radio, fictional imagery, investigative journalism, and crime reporting. The analysis of how these figures are portrayed will reveal their significance and role in shaping and distorting the public perception of crime and justice.

Through the examination of recurrences and variations of patterns and expressive formulas, this issue aims to open a space for reflection on the diachronic, synchronic and geographical trajectories that have shaped new identity and cultural configurations within Italian crime narratives. The subjects that navigate the realms of detection can be studied in their diverse aesthetic and representational evolutions, taking into account changes in production contexts. Furthermore, it is important to consider the audience responses, including the impact of branding (Turnbull, 2019) and the mechanisms that sometimes associate a star image with a particular role.

Similarly, an interdisciplinary approach to the Giallo represents a privileged access to the complex web of interpretive pathways that span Media Studies, sociology, criminology, Legal Studies, and philosophical reflections on themes of guilt and responsibility. By interweaving these disciplines, this monographic issue aims to shed light on cognitive, political and gender identity issues.

This issue of Cinergie aims to collect contributions that focus on, but are not exclusively limited to, the following points:

The figure of the investigator, whether inside or outside state institutions, including law enforcement officers, investigative journalists, writers or private citizens, between professionalism and amateurism.
The developments and modes of representation of figures related to the defense of the accused and the staging of the victim as a civil party in the trial, beyond traditional patterns of detection and often in a problematic off-screen position, both in the investigative and procedural phases.
The relationship between investigation, trial and truth in the national representation of crime or true crime in a diachronic, intermedial and interdisciplinary perspective.
How the hybridizations of different genres and international influences redefine masculine and feminine models of detection as discursive positionalities in the Italian context.
The relationship between gender identity and the staging of violence in the dialectic between criminal transgression and the punitive restoration of social order.
The symbolic and narrative significance of atmospheres and spaces in the Giallo genre, where the exploration of different locations becomes an expressive practice that activates further levels of identity research.
The different sites involved in criminal, investigative, judicial, and punitive actions, such as crime scenes, police stations, courts, prisons, and more.

References

E. Amodio, Estetica della giustizia penale. Prassi, media, fiction, Giuffrè Editore, Milano 2016.

A. Biressi, Crime, Fear and the Law in True Crime Stories, Palgrave Macmillan UK, London 2001.

M. Buonanno, Television Antiheroines. Women Behaving Badly in Crime and Prison Drama, Intellect, Bristol-Chicago 2017.

S. Calabrese, R. Rossi, La crime fiction, Carocci, Roma 2018.

R. Curti, Italian Giallo in Film and Television. A Critical History, McFarland & Company, Jefferson 2022.

L.M. Dresner, The Female Investigator in Literature, Film and Popular Culture, McFarland, Jefferson 2007.

P. Gates, Detecting Women. Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film, State University of New York Press, New York 2011.

S. Knight, Crime Fiction 1800-2000, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2004.

L. Mazzei, P. Valentini (a cura di), Giallo italiano, «Bianco e nero», 587, 2017.

A. Perissinotto, La società dell’indagine, Bompiani, Milano 2008.

B. Pezzotti, Investigating Italy’s Past through Historical Crime fiction, Films, and TV Series. Murder in the Age of Chaos, Palgrave MacMillan, New York 2014.

G. Pieri (a cura di), Italian Crime Fiction, University of Wales Press, Cardiff 2011.

M. Priestman, The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009.

V. Re, E. D’Amelio, «Un lavoro inadatto a una donna»: protagoniste femminili nella serialità crime italiana, «Arabeschi», 18, 2021.

G. Scomazzon, Crimine, colpa e testimonianza. Sulla performatività documentaria, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2021.

S. Turnbull, Crime. Storia, miti e personaggi delle serie TV più popolari, Minimum Fax, Roma 2019.

Submission details

Please send an abstract of 300/500 words and a short biography to Giulia Scomazzon and Arianna Vergari at giulia.scmzn@gmail.com and a.vergari@unilink.it by October 17, 2023 - [subject: Cinergie Volti e scene del crimine+ name surname author(s)].

Notification of acceptance will be sent within October 23, 2023.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by December 15, 2023.

Articles must not exceed 6,000 words and may include images, clips, and links for illustrative purposes. Please provide proper credits, permissions, and copyright information to ensure that images, clips, and links are copyright-free and can be published.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

The issue will be published in July 2024.

Call for Papers - Repositioning Film Criticism. Critical Displacements among the Film Critics from 1930 to 1970: Space, Connections, Movements

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 14:08:41 +0200

The numerous and recurring cycles of institutionalization that film criticism has undergone throughout the decades have never fully disciplined this professional field, which is instead marked by a fruitful lack of specialization and uniformity. The history of film criticism therefore consists less of intellectual positions achieved once and for all than of cultural operators constantly moving across geographical space (for example along the center/periphery, or city/province axes, defined by the biographical experience of many cinephiles and film critics), across political, educational and military institutions (that are often the professional destinations of critics), across different media system (with connections between publishing industry, radio, tv, and digital media) and national as well as cultural contexts. Film criticism creates both occasional and enduring connections by means of ritual moments (such as film festivals and heated controversies in the press) that redefine the geography of cultural production. Criticism is also the gateway to the world of intellectual production for traditionally marginalized and underrepresented subjects for reasons related to gender, class, ideology, race and religion, that is the practice that allows such intellectuals to enter well-established and respected professional environments

In accordance with the related research project “A private history of Italian film criticism 1930-1970” (funded by the Italian Ministry of Research), the purpose of this monographic issue is to invite articles that question film criticism as a relational system and as a practice generating physical and symbolic repositioning, displacements, and transgressions. The main focus is on Italian film criticism, although proposals shedding light on other national contexts are more than welcome.

Proposals revolving around written and non-written sources related to the work of film critics (such as correspondence, recordings, photographs, editorial materials, ephemera), as well as methodologies capable of highlighting innovative ways of visualising critical work (such as new cinema history and digital humanities), will be assessed with particular interest. The time span insists on a long period, in the conviction that this can reveal long-lasting dynamics, overall developments of institutionalisation processes, but also “encroachments” that transcend macro-historical caesuras. Moreover, the period examined (with particular regard to the 1930s/1940s and the 1970s) sees several generations of critics confronting each other, thus increasing the complexity and multidimensionality of the fluctuations in the field.

The monographic issue invites contributions concerning topics such as (the list is not meant to be exhaustive):

the relationship between centre/periphery and city/province in the geography of film criticism;
trajectories of film criticism and critics within media environments and contexts;
the generational - geographical gap (e.g. young provinces vs. snub old center)
the repositioning of film critics in professional and ideological terms;
travel, cooperation and transnational networks;
film criticism as a form of cultural diplomacy;
the film critics’ work environment;
the entry of film criticism into educational, cultural, religious and political institutions;
film criticism as a gateway to the cultural ecosystem for under-represented subjects (minorities, opposition communities, women).

Submission details

Please send a 300/500-word abstract and a short bio to Jennifer Malvezzi, Andrea Mariani, and Paolo Noto at jennifer.malvezzi@unipr.it paolo.noto2@unibo.it andrea.mariani@uniud.it by November 12, 2022 – [subject: Repositioning Film Criticism+ name surname author(s)].

Notification of acceptance will be sent within November 22, 2022

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by February 02, 2023.

The articles must not exceed 5,000/6,000 words and may include images, clips, and links for illustrative purposes. Please, provide correct credits, permissions, and copyright information in order to be sure that the images, clips, and links are copyright free and can be published.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

The issue will be published in June 2023.

Next Issue Announcement - The Agency of Film Festivals. Geopolitics, Economies and Networks

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 10:26:23 +0200

Throughout the last ten years, Cinergie. Il cinema e le alter arti has represented an important platform of discussion and study for the interdisciplinary field of film festival studies in Italy, accommodating several special issues and a variety of articles which have explored the position of festivals within cinephilia, film industry and circulation. Rowing in this direction, the next issue draws from academic research which was presented at the Reframing Film Festivals conference, (Venice, February 2020) and hinges on three key concepts in studies of film festivals – geopolitics, economies and networks. The articles included in the next issue make use of different methodological approach (historical research, economical and institutional analysis, ideological critique) to unravel a variety of institutions, sub-circuits, exchanges and relationships in the domain of film festivals, adopting), spanning across a variety of research topics. These topics include the genealogy of the concept of festival in 1930s Europe, the mediating role and activities of festivals like Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Pula and Venice in the context of the Trieste Crisis, the establishment of the Locarno and its founding relationships with (touristic, industrial, cultural) stakeholders, and the proposal of a systematic mode of engaging with film festival’s public utterance and modus operandi from the lens of ideology critique. Therefore, although fragmented in different localities and historical formations, this issue demonstrates the branching-out and multidisciplinary nature of research on festivals and indicates viable ways to make the study of festivals relevant to the understanding of geopolitical relations, local economies and transnational histories.

UPDATED CALL FOR PAPERS - Critical Performances. Actors and Actresses at the Time of the COVID-19 Crisis in Italy

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 14:51:56 +0200

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted on media production, distribution, and experience. Long-established practices have undergone dramatic interruptions or major shifts and respective laborers have been forced to strongly revise their activities (Hediger, Keidle, Melamed, Somaini 2020; Damasio 2020; Adgate 2021; Fortmueller 2021). For instance, film sets and television studios reconsidered their modes of operation in the face of Covid-prevention rules, protocols and requirements. Likewise, in an epidemic scenario in constant change, film festivals and awards found themselves in the need to repeatedly revise their rituals and forms, to be able to carry on at least part of their activities. Media practitioners have thus been faced with the need of reflecting and discussing pitfalls and opportunities brought to light by the pandemic, while also implementing strategies for facing and countering the crisis.

In Italy, actors and actresses have been among the most affected groups of professionals. Whereas the usual pace of film, television and media production, release and promotion has met deep alterations, as much as usual networking activities during periods of lockdown, fame and exposure have foregrounded film and TV stars in social engagement activities and as testimonials of public health campaigns (including the first tentative rules, the lockdown periods, and the efforts towards mass vaccination).

The aim of this issue of Cinergie is surveying and understanding the manifold impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Italian actors and actresses. Topics within the scope of this issue include but are not limited to:

Training actors and actresses at the time of the COVID-19 crisis: schools, academies, coaching
Media production, acting performance, and restrictions: emergency, strategies, and tactics
Actors, actresses and the promotion of media products: from testimonials to remote endorsers?
Actors, irregular work, labour activism: workers’ solidarity and institutional and commercial policies during the pandemic
Acknowledging actors and actresses: festivals, awards, and the economy of prestige during the COVID-19 crisis
Stardom, public health, and social engagement
Social networks, self-promotion, and actors and actresses during the COVID-19 crisis
Job-seeking: finding acting jobs at the times of the pandemic
Actors, intermediaries, and the COVID-19 crisis: coaches, agents, management, casting departments, press agents, and social media managers during the pandemic
Theoretical and methodological contributions on actors and actresses in the pandemic
Case histories on specific actors or actresses, film productions, television shows, digital platforms in the national context and/or in the transnational connections between Italy and other markets.

Submission details

Please send an abstract and a short biographical note to Luca Antoniazzi, Cristina Formenti, and Giulia Muggeo at: luca.antoniazzi3@unibo.it, cristina.formenti@uniud.it, and giuliafrancesca.muggeo@unito.it by November 21, 2021 — [subject: Cinergie Media Performers + name surname author(s)].

Abstracts, in English or Italian, should be from 300 to 500 words of length. Notification of acceptance will be sent within November 28, 2021.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by January 16, 2022.

The articles must not exceed 5,000/6,000 words and can include images, clips, and links for illustrative purposes. Please, provide correct credits, permissions and copyright information in order to be sure that the images, clips, and links are copyright free and can be published.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

The issue will be published in July 2022.

Bibliography

- B. Adgate (2021), The Impact Covid-19 Had on the Entertainment Industry in 2020, “Forbes”, https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2021/04/13/the-impact-covid-19-had-on-the-entertainment-industry-in-2020/?sh=50049538250f (Last access: July 9, 2021).

- M.J. Damasio (2020), Covid 19. The End of the Audiovisual Sector?, “CST online”, https://cstonline.net/covid-19-the-end-of-the-audiovisual-sector-by-manuel-jose-damasio/ (Last access: July 9, 2021).

- K. Fortmueller (2021), Hollywood Shutdown. Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.

- Vinzenz Hediger, Philipp Dominik Keidl, Laliv Melamed, and Antonio Somaini (eds) (2020), Pandemic Media: Preliminary Notes Toward an Inventory, Meson, Lüneburg.

Call for Papers - Critical Performances. Media Performers at the Time of the COVID-19 Crisis in Italy

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 19:26:02 +0200

In Italy, media performers have been among the most affected groups of professionals. Whereas the usual pace of film, television and media production, release and promotion has met deep alterations, as much as usual networking activities during periods of lockdown, fame and exposure have foregrounded celebrities in social engagement activities and as testimonials of public health campaigns (including the first tentative rules, the lockdown periods, and the efforts towards mass vaccination).

The aim of this issue of Cinergie is surveying and understanding the manifold impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Italian media performers. Topics within the scope of this issue include but are not limited to:

Training media performers at the time of the COVID-19 crisis: schools, academies, coaching
Media production, performance, and restrictions: emergency, strategies, and tactics
Promoting media products: from testimonials to remote endorsers?
Performers, irregular work, labour activism: workers’ solidarity and institutional and commercial policies during the pandemic
Acknowledging performers: festivals, awards, and the economy of prestige during the COVID-19 crisis
Celebrities, public health, and social engagement
Social networks, self-promotion, and media performers during the COVID-19 crisis
Job-seeking: finding acting jobs at the times of the pandemic
Performers, intermediaries, and the COVID-19 crisis: coaches, agents, management, casting departments, press agents, and social media managers during the pandemic
Theoretical and methodological contributions on media performers in the pandemic
Case histories on specific performers, film productions, television shows, digital platforms in the national context and/or in the transnational connections between Italy and other markets.

Submission details

Please send an abstract and a short biographical note to Luca Antoniazzi, Cristina Formenti, and Giulia Muggeo at: luca.antoniazzi3@unibo.it, cristina.formenti@uniud.it, and giuliafrancesca.muggeo@unito.it by October 24, 2021 — [subject: Cinergie Media Performers + name surname author(s)].

Abstracts, in English or Italian, should be from 300 to 500 words of length. Notification of acceptance will be sent within November 5, 2021.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article by January 16, 2022.

Contributions will be submitted to double-blind peer-review.

The issue will be published in July 2022.

Bibliography

- K. Fortmueller (2021), Hollywood Shutdown. Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.

- Vinzenz Hediger, Philipp Dominik Keidl, Laliv Melamed, and Antonio Somaini (eds) (2020), Pandemic Media: Preliminary Notes Toward an Inventory, Meson, Lüneburg.