CALL FOR PAPERS

Talking Heads Paper abstracts sought for proposed panel on documentary
media and the talking head

Visible Evidence Conference XII, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada
August 22-25, 2005

Despite being one of the most commonly used devices in documentary media,
the talking head has seldom been subject to sustained theorization or
historicization within documentary studies. The talking head facilitates
a wide range of speech acts (e.g. confession, testimony, interview,
lecture, monologue), which often coexist within a single scene. Since
this device functions as a fulcrum for many of the most significant
dynamics in play within documentary representation (authenticity, truth,
authority, intersubjectivity, performance), it has also become the focus
of critical interrogation and self-reflexive experimentation by
documentary filmmakers, including Trinh T. Minha (Surname Viet, Given
Name Nam), Mark Achbar (The Corporation), Marlon Riggs (Tongues Untied)
and, of course, Errol Morris. Furthermore, new media forms like video
art, home video, webcams and digital installations have remediated the
documentary conventions of the talking head into techniques and
aesthetics which have subsequently influenced documentary film and
television. This panel seeks to investigate the theoretical and
historical complexity of the documentary talking head by bringing
together a range of methodologies and approaches, including film studies,
art history, performance studies, rhetoric, communications and cultural
studies. Contributions from documentary makers also strongly welcomed.

Email a 150-word paper abstract, brief bibliography/filmography and a
short biographical statement to Roger Hallas (rhallassyr.edu) by January
15, 2005.

Visible Evidence is a peripatetic international and interdisciplinary
conference on the role of film, video and other media as witness and
voice of social reality, which encompasses a wide range of cultural,
political, social, historical, ethnographic and pedagogical questions and
perspectives from fields such as film studies, communication studies,
anthropology, architecture, art history, ethnic studies, queer studies,
history, journalism, law, medicine, political science, sociology, urban
studies and women's studies.

For general information on the conference:
http://artsandscience.concordia.ca/comm/visibleevidence.html

Visible Evidence XII is hosted by the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema and
the Department of Communciation Studies of Concordia University

For further information please contact:

Thomas Waugh
Professor and Graduate Program Head, Film Studies
Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies in Sexuality
Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
Concordia University
Waughvax2.concordia.ca

Or

Martin Allor
Professor
Department of Communication Studies
Concordia University
Allorvax2.concordia.ca