CALL FOR PAPERS

To Act or Not to Act: Ethics in Romanian Cinema
University of Pittsburgh
October 28

We invite paper proposals for a panel on the topic of "Ethics in
Romanian Cinema." The graduate student panel will be organized in
conjunction with the second edition of the Romanian Film Festival
organized by the Pittsburgh Romanian Studies association at the
University of Pittsburgh in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural
Institute (New York) and the Romanian National Center for Cinema. The
festival benefits from the support of the Cultural Studies Program,
the Film Studies Program, the Jewish Studies Program, the Graduate and
Professional Student Assembly, the Office of the Dean of Arts and
Sciences, and the Russian and Eastern European Studies Program.

The new generation of Romanian filmmakers has opened the black box of
the communist past, as well as Pandora's box of the uncertain present,
to unravel personal ethical dilemmas, which reflect larger social
problems. The slow tempo and intimate atmosphere of many of the
post-1989 feature films and shorts enable the spectators to identify
with the protagonists and ponder over the way in which they might have
acted had they been in a similar position.

The panel will explore a range of ethical problems raised by post-1989
Romanian cinema. How do harsh socio-economic conditions shape personal
decisions? What are the strategies employed by Romanian filmmakers to
underscore the interdependence between individual and collective
responsibility? What is the relation between the gritty aesthetics of
these movies and the troublesome ethical questions they pose? How are
people adjusting their personal ethical compass to the new political,
economic, and judicial systems introduced in the wake of the 1989
revolution?

Symposium topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:
-heroes and anti-heroes of the communist and post-communist period
-correlations between ethics and aesthetics
-morality and the law
-ethics and the media
-the generation gap
-the convergence of multiple temporalities
-memories, melancholy, estrangement
-the relationship between East and West
-skepticism and pessimism

We encourage paper submissions from graduate students at all stages of
research, working in any discipline - film studies, philosophy,
sociology, art history, etc. Abstracts should be under 350 words.
Final presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. Please submit
abstracts and CVs to: ethicsinromaniancinemagmail.com by September
20, 2010. We will notify selected speakers by September 25.
http://ethicsinromaniancinema.wordpress.com/