CFP : 6th Annual Association of Adaptation Studies Conference

The Intellectual Silk Road: Adaptation as Cultural Exchange
6th Annual Association of Adaptation Studies Conference

Yeni Yüzyil University, Istanbul, Turkey
29-30 September 2011

In recent years there have been movements to establish what might be described as ‘the new Silk Road,’ which will help improve trade routes
between countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.
In October 2010 the Turkish and Chinese governments signed a new accord, establishing a framework for this new ‘Silk Road’ to be
established. The significance of the Silk Road also extends to the cultural sphere: since 2007 the Turkish city of Bursa has hosted the
Silk Road film festival, dedicated to showing short films and documentaries as well as feature films from countries once involved in
trade on the Silk Road.

The topic of this year’s Association of Adaptation Studies conference will focus on adaptation as a site for cultural exchange, reflecting
the importance of trading activities along the Silk Road as sites for the transmission not just of goods but of ideas and cultures. Possible
issues to be addressed in this conference might include:
• Cross Cultural Theories of Adaptation: does the term ‘adaptation’ have different significances in different cultures?
• Filming Shakespeare or other western canonical authors in nonwestern cultures
• Adaptation as Transmission Between Cultures and Forms (e.g. print, radio, theatre, television, films, and video games, as well as cross-cultural stage and film adaptations)
• The Pedagogy of Cultural Exchange: Interdisciplinary or Cross-disciplinary approaches to teaching adaptation
• Occident and Orient: Adaptations across ‘east’ and ‘west’
• Travel Adaptations, both fictional and nonfictional (documentaries, feature films as well as shorts)
• Adaptation as a form of cultural (re-)negotiation
• The Mass Media and Cultural Exchange: globalization vs. localization
• Autobiography and Cross-Cultural Adaptation

It is hoped that this conference might underline the potential of adaptation studies to create new intellectual Silk Roads across cultures as well as across disciplines. However, we also welcome more general papers on the subject of adaptation studies, focusing on any kind of adaptation ­ film, television, video game, as well as other media.

Venue

Yeni Yüzyil University is a new university (opened in February 2009), established on the European side of Istanbul. It currently boasts ten faculties and two vocational schools. Its location seems especially suitable to the subject of the conference; the city of Istanbul has always been and continues to be a site for cultural, commercial and social exchange. In 2010 it was nominated as European City of Culture.

Proposals

Proposals for presentations (20 minutes max, plus Q & A) are invited to address the issues outlined above, either through individual case-studies or through more general theoretical approaches.

Please send proposals BY APRIL 30, 2011 at the latest to both addresses below:

Prof. Dr. Günseli Sönmez Isçi,
Dean, Faculty of Science and Letters
E-Mail gunseli.isci@yeniyuzyil.edu.tr

Laurence Raw
Baskent University, Ankara
E-Mail l_rawjalaurence@yahoo.com

CFP: Storyworlds across Media Mediality – Multimodality – Transmediality

International Conference Storyworlds across Media Mediality -Multimodality – Transmediality
Du 30 juin au 2 juillet 2011 à la Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz.

Even though narratology was conceived as a transmedial endeavour from its very beginnings in Russian formalism and French structuralism, most of its more influential models have been – and continue to be – developed in the context of literary criticism and film studies. In contemporary media culture, however, the creation of storyworlds is not limited to literature and traditional feature films. Rather, emerging forms of multimodal and interactive narration, experiments with the distinction between fictional and nonfictional narrative, various forms of intermedial adaptation, and attempts at ‘transmedia storytelling’ create new ways of presenting narrative content, thereby calling attention to the affordances and limitations of different narrative media as well as to their potential for cooperation. The increased interest in the relation between media and narrative sparked by the development of digital technology and the recent proliferation of delivery techniques in the context of media convergence has reinforced the need for an interdisciplinary and transmedial narratology that studies storyworlds across media.
We welcome proposals for papers on the following aspects of storyworlds across media:

– Transmedial narratological concepts: What are the theoretical problems encountered by the project of a transmedial narratology that spans different media?
– To what extent and under what conditions can narratological concepts be applied across narrative media?
– Mediality of Narrative: In what ways is the mediality of pictorial narrative (e.g. paintings, photographs), graphic narrative (e.g. graphic novels), audiovisual narrative (e.g. TV-series, film), and interactive narrative (e.g. computer games) relevant for their specific narrativity?
– Intermedial Relations: How do older media react to the emergence of new media by imitating their techniques or borrowing their resources?
– How do new media start out borrowing the narrative forms of older media but eventually develop their own forms?
– Transmedial Narration: What kinds of specific problems arise from the transmedial representation of characters, events, and storyworlds in the context of adaptations, transmedial storytelling franchises, and other forms of transmedial narration?

Please send proposals (including a 300-word abstract, contact information and a 100-word bio) for 30-minute papers via email (as a PDF) to storyworlds@uni-mainz.de no later than March 31th, 2011.
Accomodation for speakers will be provided. Publication of the conference proceedings is planned.