The Central/Southeast European Film & Visual Culture Symposium (April 15-16, Ohio State U)

[Jessie Labov]

The Central/Southeast European Film & Visual Culture Symposium 2011

hosted by The Center for Slavic and East European Studies

in conjunction with the Midwest Slavic Conference

The Ohio State University
The Blackwell, Columbus, Ohio
April 15-16, 2011

The Central/Southeast European Film & Visual Culture Symposium is a recent
initiative to create a new forum for presentation and discussion of visual
texts from East-Central Europe and the Balkans, broadly defined. There is
currently no such venue or regular conference for this field of scholarship,
despite the large number of people working on such topics in the Midwest &
Great Lakes area. The Symposium will take place annually within the larger
framework of the Midwest Slavic Conference. Each year, we will highlight
film & animation, photography and multimedia art, graphic narrative &
graphic design from a region that has excelled in these arts, particularly
since achieving independence after World War I. As the Symposium grows each
year, we expect to include more special events that correlate with our
academic focus, such as film screenings, exhibitions, and presentations from
artists and filmmakers.

All sessions held in Pfahl 330, except for the Friday night film screening
in Pfahl 202

FRIDAY, April 15

PANEL I: By Any Means Necessary: Romania Then and Now (8:15am-10:00am)

PANEL II: The Irreality of Everyday Life: Socialist-era Central European Film
(10:15am-12:00pm)

PANELS III & IV: 
FILM SCREENIING & ROUNDTABLE: Poland’s Invisible Others (1:15-5:00pm)

This roundtable featuring Katarzyna Marciniak (Ohio University) is inspired
by her recent book Streets of Crocodiles: Photography, Media, and
Postsocialist Landscapes in Poland (Intellect, 2011). The films screened
first provide the context for a discussion of Marciniak’s last chapter, “An
Act Against the Wall,” about the complex reception of various foreigners,
migrants and refugees in Polish society that traditionally sees itself as
ethnically and racially homogenous. Ultimately, the Polish context serves as
a platform for a larger commentary on foreignness and the responsibility
toward reimagining phobic nationalisms.

FILM SCREENING (6:00-8:00pm)
Czech Peace (Cesky mir, 2010, Czech Republic) 100 min; in Czech and English
Directed by Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda

This long-awaited follow-up to the filmmakers' hit mockumentary Czech Dream
(2005) is a documentary about the planned installation of a U.S. antimissile
system in the heart of the Czech Republic—in the very same forest where
Soviet soldiers once camped. A post-Cold War parable about Czech-American
relationships that brings the audience up close to the woods and streets
that became a battlefield, but also to the White House and the back rooms of
the Pentagon, starring Bush, Obama, and the like.

Screening made possible thanks to the support of the Czech Centre New York.
(new-york.czechcentres.cz)

*    *    *    *    *
SATURDAY, April 16

PANEL V: Packaging the Body (8:15-10:00am)

PANEL VI:  Iconography & Design (10:15am-12:00pm)

PANEL VII:  Transnational Approaches to Post-Socialist Film (1:15-3:00pm)

For a full program with presenters and paper titles, please go to:
http://slaviccenter.osu.edu/mwsc2011schedule.html

For more information, please contact Jessie Labov <labov.1 at osu.edu>.

Thanks to the Czech Centre New York, the Midwest Slavic Association, and the
Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures at OSU for
their support for these events. 

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