Extended call for proporsals for the 13th Small Cinemas conference “Totalitarianism in Literature and Films”

The 2022 international Small Cinemas conference extends its call for papers for “Totalitarianism in Literature and Films” until May 30.

Totalitarianism & other radical ideologies as social phenomena have always been a scourge of societies big and small. The present time demands from academics and intellectuals to engage in a detailed analysis of what happens in the rhetoric of radical approaches, and in the deconstruction of its influence on the content and form in which it is delivered.

On the other side of the spectrum of films embracing totalitarian ideologies, anti-totalitarian films involve thematic and aesthetic negotiation on many levels. Due to many forms of censorship imposed on both content and form, film authors have engaged in a play of alternative languages, the language of fairy tales, grotesque, Aesopian allusions, and many other formal elaborations. We invite film scholars, sociologists, philosophers, and scholars of other disciplines to participate in an open debate on representations of historical phenomena in totalitarian films, and the way they are expressed in literary texts and films big and small.

The conference takes place between 1-3 October, 2022 in Bielsko-Biala, Poland, in a hybrid format.

Submission deadline: Please submit your conference proposal in maximum 300 words before May 30, 2022 to: Prof. Janina Falkowska, jfalkowska@wseh.pl

These are some suggested topics, but we invite any creative contribution on the subject:

A. General

1. History and theory of totalitarianism

2. Freedom movements that tend to become totalitarian

3. Totalitarian practices presented as ‘revolutionary’ ideas

4. Contemporary forms of social censorships

5. Uses/place of technology in censorship by totalitarian regimes

B. Totalitarianism in literature and film

1. Totalitarian film in history

2. Comedy in totalitarianism

3. Universal features of a totalitarian film

4. Film propaganda in totalitarianism

C. Anti-totalitarian practices in literature and film

5. Texts and contexts

6. Content and its intricacies

7. Complex anti-aesthetics

8. Allusion and grotesque

Any other academic presentations related to the main subject are also invited.