Cinematic Extraterrestrials (30 Oct - 2 Nov 2008 Chicago)

[Jim]

Hello, Everyone... 

Extraterrestrial lifeforms--as they are represented in the popular
cinema--offer us insights about language and society. Yoda's rare sentence
structures--various enigmatic extraterrestrial writing systems...and of
course, Sci-Fi's habit of borrowing aspects of mysterious ancient cultures
into their projections of future and/or extraterrestrial cultures.

You, your colleagues and/or your students might be interested in joining us
in Chicago to investigate extraterrestrial lifeforms as depicted in popular
motion pictures. Our topic area is multidisciplinary, so a linguistic
anthropological perspective on this aspect of human culture is very welcome.
(So far, we have at least one anthropologist and even an entomologist making
significant contributions to this scholarly discussion!)

Follow the links below to documentation for more information on this topic
area, call for papers, etc. The new submission deadline is 1st of September.
Feel free to contact Jim Webb at zerzura at sbcglobal.net if you'd like to run
any ideas by the area chair. (Half-baked ideas are welcome for preliminary
discussion...) 

Paper proposals aside, I'd love to hear from anyone on this list who'd be
willing to offer me author/title of their personal favorite reading about
language and film. If you are impressed by scholarship that is specifically
concerned with extraterrestrial or "unearthly" language, recommendations
along those lines would also be greatly appreciated.

Best regards all around...

Jim

Cinematic Extraterrestrials Area Chair
2008 Film & Science Conference (30 Oct - 2 Nov 2008 Chicago)

http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory/index.php 
http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory/events/documents/CinematicExtraterrestri
als.doc