CFP: 2006 Film and History League Conference "The Documentary Tradition"
The Film and History League conference details can be found at www.filmandhistory.org. The meeting will run from 8-12 November, 2006 in the Dolce Conference Center near the DFW airport. Many subject area venues are listed on the web page.
AREA: Sport Documentaries
From the classic and controversial Olympia (1938, Leni Riefenstahl) to the critical and commercial success of Murderball (2005: Rubin and Shapiro), sport documentaries represent a significant if under researched aspect of the documentary tradition. Certainly, documentary filmmakers have long recognized the sporting domain, whether that be sporting events, athletes, or sporting cultures, as fertile terrain for telling stories that reach an audience well beyond the sports aficionado: Hoop Dreams (1994, James) for example is in the top ten biggest grossing documentaries of all time. Furthermore, sport documentaries also constitute an increasingly important part of the burgeoning television sport channel output. As sport continues to expand and permeate global cultural consciousness, documentaries will continue to chronicle, critique and celebrate sport by offering us windows and mirrors on this universal human endeavor.
How do we account for the Sport Documentary? How have particular sport documentaries engaged with political and social issues, such as nationalism, gender, race and sexuality? Is it the case that sporting events, as one critic has argued, lie at the "actuality" end of the documentary spectrum? Is it useful to talk of the sport documentary as a sub-genre of documentary film? What is the relationship between: sport and the documentary; between sport documentaries and sport fiction; and between sport documentaries and mainstream sport programming? We are inviting submissions on all aspects of sports documentaries. Deadline for submission is July 25, 2006.
Send all inquires and proposals to
Ian McDonald
University of Brighton,
Chelsea School
Denton Road
Eastbourne, UK
BN20 7SP.
Tel: +44 1273 643852
i.mcdonald@bton.ac.uk
