Posts tagged narratology

CFP: Contemporary Screen Narratives - Storytelling’s Digital and Industrial Contexts (Nottingham, May ‘12)

This one-day conference looks to trace connections between the narratives of contemporary screen media and their contexts of production, distribution and consumption. Keynote speakers are Henry Jenkins and Jason Mittell.

The deadline for proposal submission is Monday 13 February 2012. NEW DEADLINE is Sunday 4 March 2012!

Contemporary Screen Narratives - Storytelling’s Digital and Industrial Contexts. Conference to be held on 17 May 2012. Hosted by the Department of Culture, Film and Media, University of Nottingham. Keynote speakers: Henry Jenkins and Jason Mittell.

This one-day conference looks to trace connections between the narratives of contemporary screen media and their contexts of production, distribution and consumption. We refer here to narrative as the presentation and organisation of story via the semiotic phenomena of image, sound and written/spoken word. We anticipate that speakers will explore ways in which stories and their on-screen telling are informed by contemporary industrial and technological conditions. We invite contributions from postgraduate and early-career researchers working across screen-based narrative media, such as film, television, comics, literature, video games and other areas of new
media. We are interested to receive all paper proposals pertinent to the conference topic, though we particularly welcome those that engage with the following themes and questions:

  • Industrial determinants: In what ways are stories and their telling contingent on the production cultures, distribution methods, revenue models and governmental policies that configure a given creative industry?
  • Digital Technologies: How has the construction and/or reception of narratives been influenced by digital production equipment, distribution tech, online platforms and consumer hardware devices?
  • Seriality and Transmedia: In what ways do serial narrative forms, whether disseminated within a given medium or across multiple media, reflect industrial and technological contexts?
  • Audio and Visual Styles: How are the sounds and visions of contemporary screen narratives informed by conditions of production and reception technologies?
  • Paratextual Surround: In what ways do promotional materials, practitioner discourses, fan cultures and critical/journalistic responses discursively frame screen narratives?

Send abstracts of 250 words to Anthony Smith (aaxas4(at)nottingham.ac.uk) and Aaron Calbreath-Frasieur (aaxac2(at)nottingham.ac.uk). Papers should not exceed twenty minutes in length. The deadline for proposal submission is Monday 13 February 2012.

For updates, see: http://contemporaryscreennarratives.tumblr.com/

New Book: New Narratives Stories and Storytelling in the Digital Age

This book takes up the challenge, deeply and broadly considering the relationship between digital technology and narrative theory in the face of the changing landscape of computer-mediated communication.

Just as the explosive growth of digital media has led to ever-expanding narrative possibilities and practices, so these new electronic modes of storytelling have, in their own turn, demanded a rapid and radical rethinking of narrative theory. This timely volume takes up the challenge, deeply and broadly considering the relationship between digital technology and narrative theory in the face of the changing landscape of computer-mediated communication.

New Narratives reflects the diversity of it subject by bringing together some of the foremost practitioners and theorists of digital narratives. It extends the range of digital subgenres examined by narrative theorists to include forms that have become increasingly prominent, new examples of experimental hypertext, and contemporary video games. The collection also explicitly draws connections between the development of narrative theory, technological innovation, and the use of narratives in particular social and cultural contexts.

Finally, New Narratives focuses on how the tools provided by new technologies may be harnessed to provide new ways of both producing and theorizing narrative. Truly interdisciplinary, the book offers broad coverage of contemporary narrative theory, including frameworks that draw from classical and postclassical narratology, linguistics, and media studies.

Ruth Page is a lecturer in English language at the University of Leicester. She is the author of Literary and Linguistic Approaches to Feminist Narratology and Stories and Social Media: Identities and Interaction. Bronwen Thomas is a senior lecturer in linguistics and literature at the Media School, Bournemouth University, and is the author of Fictional Dialogue: Speech and Conversation in the Modern and Postmodern Novel (forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press).

http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/New-Narratives,674898.aspx