Call for Papers

Ephemeral Cinema, Invisible Media:
Sound and Image at the Edge of Awareness

Spectator, Volume 26, No. 2 (Spring 2006)

This issue of Spectator will explore media that hover at the intersection of
the fleeting and the
disposable. We are soliciting articles, essays, interviews, ethnographies
(textual and visual), and
short reviews that examine from historical, political, economic, and cultural
perspectives trash and
exploitation cinema, youth and minority media production, art film and video,
ultra low budget
production, ambient media and other production forms that are for the most part
ignored or excluded
from the ecology of mainstream and academic media discourse. In short, this
issue will focus on
media that are either rendered invisible by virtue of their difference from
Hollywood movies and
network-cable television or are momentarily seen by viewers and then for the
most part forgotten.

Furthermore many of these discarded cultural forms have been recently
“discovered” or rediscovered
by scholars and critics and are now moving toward institutional consecration.
How these media
respond to this increasing legitimization and the implication this has for
dominant media forms is
also open for examination.

Of course, there is a considerable amount of writing over the past two hundred
years that has
celebrated the discarded and the degraded as a shadow to that which is
considered ennobled or
transcendent. It has been pointed out by commentators, Foucault and Derrida
most famously, that this
shadow is intrinsically linked to the success of that which dominates.
This discourse of shadow and light – at issue a politics of absence and
presence – will serve as a
point of departure from which to acknowledge and analyze media that are either
ignored for reasons
of aesthetic elitism and “good taste” or for reasons of invisibility due to
ubiquity. In addition,
many of these shadow media forms have constituent groups – fans, bank managers,
teenagers – that
consume and produce them and these specific cultural groupings may be explored
as well.

Manuscripts submitted for consideration should look toward understanding why
some media forms strike
the eye and why some merely glance aside.

Deadline for Submission: December 1, 2005

Spectator is a biannual publication of the Division of Critical Studies at the
School of
Cinema-Television, University of Southern California. Manuscripts that address
the above topic are
now invited for submission:
Topics may include, but are not limited to, any of the following:

Histories of the Ephemeral and the Invisible
Ethnographies of the Ephemeral and the Invisible
Cultures of Trash, Camp, Cult, and Exploitation
Auteurs of the Ephemeral (Derek Jarman, Andy Warhol, Doris Wishman and
many others)
Trash Genres
Snapshots and Memory
Home Movies & Baby Pictures
Comic Books and Strips (Smiling Jack, Brenda Starr, Blackhawk, Sugar and
Spice, etc.)
Public Screens: Bank Machines, Sports Bars, Information Kiosks
Ambient Sound and Image
Recycled Media
Indigenous Media
Community and Public Access Television
Movies by Kids, Tots, and Teens
Napkin Doodles
Lost Websites, Movies, and TV
Misremembered Media
Scratched 78rpm Records
Answering Machine Messages

Manuscripts to be considered for publication should be sent to:

Dan Leopard, Editor
Spectator
1222 Hi Point Street
Los Angeles, CA 90035-2612
Attn: Spectator Submission
leopardusc.edu

One hard copy manuscript should be submitted as well as a copy on disk.
Submissions can also be
e-mailed directly. Manuscripts should include the title of the contribution and
the name of the
author (or authors), as well as the postal address, e-mail address, and phone
numbers for the author
who will work with the editor on any revisions. All pages should be numbered
consecutively.
Contributions should be no more than 5,000 words in length. Submissions should
also include an
abstract and a brief biographic description of the author. Rejected manuscripts
will not be returned.

Articles submitted to Spectator should not be under consideration by any other
journal.

Reviews are welcome and may vary in length from 300 to 1,000 words. For book
reviews, please include
the full title of the book, retail price, and ISBN at the beginning of the
review. For media
reviews, please include full title, creative credits, and release date at the
beginning of the review.

Electronic Submissions and Formatting. Authors should send copies of their work
via e-mail as
electronic attachments. Please keep backup files of all materials. Files should
be in Microsoft Word
formatted for PC or Mac depending on the author's preference. Endnotes should
conform to the Chicago
Manual of Style.

Upon acceptance, a format guideline will be forwarded to all contributors as to
image and text
requirements.

Current Board for Spectator

Founding Editor
Marsha Kinder
Managing Editor
William Whittington
Issue Editor
Dan Leopard

_______________________________
Dan Leopard, Editor
Spectator
1222 Hi Point Street
Los Angeles, CA 90035-2612
e-mail: leopardusc.edu