The 2019 Film & History Conference
November 14-16, The Madison Concourse Hotel, Madison, WI (USA)
Keynote Speaker: David Bordwell
Introductory Notes and Reminders
On behalf of the Editorial Staff and the Advisory Board of Film & History, we welcome you to Madison, and we hope you enjoy this year’s conference.
• REGISTRATION opens on Thursday morning (at 10 AM) and continues throughout the conference. Sunday is reserved for travel and special meetings.
• Please WEAR YOUR BADGE to all conference-related activities, including the banquet on Saturday, which is included in your registration fee.
• COFFEE AND TEA will be provided in the morning and afternoon on the conference floor. Apart from the Saturday-evening banquet, meals are on your own.
• Film & History conferences give panelists adequate time to make presentations. Each panel (of 2-3 colleagues) is a full 90 minutes. However, each presenter should aim for 20 minutes for the formal presentation itself. In this way, 15-30 minutes will remain for questions and answers at the end. The panel chair should signal the presenter to finish immediately after 20 minutes. If the presenter does not stop within a minute or two of this notice, the chair must STOP the presentation and begin the next one (or must begin the Q&A). Please do not infringe upon a colleague’s time or upon Q&A time for the audience.
• The plenary banquet and keynote presentation will be held on Saturday evening, on the second floor. The event is COMPLIMENTARY for all registered participants and book exhibitors.
• Collegiality is paramount at F&H. During all meetings, please match your perspicuity about films and texts with your courtesy and generosity toward your colleagues. The point of a “conference” is to collaborate with them; it is neither to compete with them nor to condemn them. Although critiquing an argument is still vital to open academic exchanges, collegial support is also vital; the ethos of a conference should encourage the intelligence, not inhibit it. Above all, then, ATTEND PANELS OTHER THAN YOUR OWN.
Finally, the city of Madison has exceptional food, art, and entertainment, as well as spectacular views of the lakes, so we hope you’ll spend an evening or two relishing them, just as we hope that you will immerse yourself in the scholarship and conversations here at the 2019 Film & History Conference.
Loren Baybrook, Editor-in-Chief and Conference Director
Cindy Miller, Program Coordinator and Director of Communications
Preparing and Attending Presentations
You may load your media through any USB port or the SD slot on the back of the Mac mini or through the optical-disc tray of the attached DVD/Blu-ray drive (Region 1/A), or you may download media from an online source. The computers have Microsoft Office, including PowerPoint and Word. The TVs do not have cameras (for Skype or any other video exchanges). All presenter data will be wiped after the conference.
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE ANY CABLES FROM THE BACK OF THE TELEVISION.
If you intend to use your own laptop computer to present, you will need to connect the HDMI cable (attached to the F&H computer) and then “mirror” or “duplicate” the display on your laptop computer (available through “Display” in Apple’s “System Preferences” or, in Windows, through the “Display” icon in “Settings” or “Control Panel”) so that its display will appear on the TV. We’ll have some adapters on hand (e.g., DisplayPort-HDMI, mini-DisplayPort-DisplayPort, mini-HDMI-HDMI, mini-DVI-HDMI, VGA, etc.), all of which should accommodate most Apple MacBooks and PC laptops, but we can’t guarantee compatibility.
Please remember that a standard VGA connection (DB-15) does not transmit certain protected content (HDCP) on many video discs. (You might need to download and install a software decrypter, such as DVDFab.com’s free HD Decrypter or PassKey Lite, to display protected material through the VGA port on your laptop.) If you must use your own laptop computer, you should set the screen resolution to no higher than 1920×1080 for output to the monitor.
In all of this, please remember that even the best technology can fail. Well-prepared panelists should be ready to deliver their presentations even if the electricity cuts out or the machine malfunctions. It happens. The minimum requirement for a presentation is you. It helps to have your paper, sure, but even the technology of paper can fail or get misplaced, and sometimes reading a paper aloud can itself throw off your audience if you’ve not practiced reading it for clarity and flow. So, if your USB drive or optical disc or video clip or PowerPoint doesn’t work, don’t panic. Don’t waste the precious time. Move directly to the oral version of your presentation that includes concise descriptions of any audio or visual examples indispensable to your argument. You know your material; you can walk us through it. Most likely, in fact, your presentation will be all the stronger for your having practiced this language-only version. Don’t mistake your audio/visual aids for your argument, which is what matters at an academic conference.
Panel numbers are encoded with the date, session, and room. Use the last numeral in the four-digit panel number to find your room.
For example:
Panel 1521 = Nov. 15, Session 2, Conference Room I (1)
Panel 1644 = Nov. 16, Session 4, Conference Room IV (4)
THURSDAY, November 14
Registration (Opens at 10 AM)
FRIDAY, November 15
Session 1: 8:00-9:30 AM
PANEL 1511 Race and Ethnicity I: IT, Space, and Place
Chair: Danyelle Greene, University of Kansas
Interaction in Interactive Spaces Through Media
Abimbola Iyun, Southern Illinois University
Trouble in Paradise: Class, Caste, and the Undoing of Family in Made in Heaven
Namrata Sathe, Southern Illinois University
“With My Ancestors”: Afrofuturistic Imaginings of Past and Present in Black Panther
Danyelle Greene, University of Kansas
PANEL 1512 Antiqui-tech I: Time travel, real and virtual
Chair: Matthew Taylor, Beloit College
Fixed Points in Time: Doctor Who, the TARDIS, and Roman History
Alicia Matz, Boston University
Iaponia Capta Cepit: Roman Technological Syncretism and Modern Tourism in Thermae Romae (2012).
Natalie Swain, University of Bristol, UK
Classics goes retro: Okhlos (2016) and 8-bit aesthetics
Matthew Taylor, Beloit College
PANEL 1513 The (Post-)Human Future
Chair: Jenny Mor, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Troublesome Tech: Genetic Manipulation in Marvel’s X-Men
Cynthia Porter, Vanderbilt University
Aged Not Obsolete: Moving Towards the Utopian Posthuman
Gwendolyn Asbury, University of Kansas
The Eternal Return of the Singularity: Advanced Technology in TV and Film
Jenny Mor, Tel Aviv University, Israel
PANEL 1514 The Industry I: Stories
Chair: Lala Palupi Santyaputri, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia
“Comedy is the Bane of His Existence”: The Struggles of Feature Comedy, 1913-1916
Megan Boyd, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Identification and Robert Montgomery’s Lady in the Lake
Macy Todd, SUNY, Buffalo State
Film Remakes in Indonesian Film Industry
Lala Palupi Santyaputri, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia
Session 2: 9:45-11:15 AM
PANEL 1521 Technology in the Western I: Guns, Killing Contraptions, and Cars in the Western
Chair: Timothy Scheie, University of Rochester
Clocks, Guns, and Lost Innocence in The Stranger (1946) and High Noon (1952)
Valerie H. Pennanen, Calumet College of St. Joseph
Killing Contraptions in Spaghetti Westerns
Frank Fucile, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Oldsmobiles, Rock-n-Roll, and Le Far-West: The Mythic West as Modern Consumer Product in the French Camargue Western
Timothy Scheie, University of Rochester
PANEL 1522 Antiqui-tech II: Humanity and its discontents
Chair: David J. Wright, Fordham University
Technological Humanity in Blade Runner 2049 (2017)”
Rocki Wentzel, Augustana University
“…it was good to be human”: Representations of Classical Space and Thought in The Talos Principle (2014)
Jessie Wells, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Folly of Man: Cosmic Destruction in the Godzilla Film Series and the Gigantomachy Myth
David J. Wright, Fordham University
PANEL 1523 Technology and the Filmmaker
Chair: Peter Falanga, Independent Scholar
Technology & Beauty: Madam CJ Walker as Filmmaker
Carol Bentley, North Dakota State University
Remembering the Trains: Coping with Trauma and Dispossession in the Works of the Polish Film School
Peter Falanga, Independent Scholar
Lunch Break: 11:30 AM-12:30 PM
Session 3: 12:45-2:15 PM
PANEL 1531 Rage Against the Machine I: Tech Before the 2000s: Historical Perspectives on Technology and Independent Cinema
Chairs: Matt Connolly, Minnesota State University, Mankato, and
Chelsea McCracken, State University of New York at Oneonta
Odorama and the Camping of Exhibition Technology in John Waters’s Polyester
Matt Connolly, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Unless a Triple A: On Walter Wanger’s Attempted Independent Adaptation of Steve Canyon
JJ Bersch, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Making Lists and Building Markets: Queer Home Video Sales Tactics
Chelsea McCracken, State University of New York at Oneonta
PANEL 1532 Antiqui-tech III: (Re)-engineering inventions and inventors
Chair: Roger Macfarlane, Brigham Young University
A Horse of a Different Color: Depictions of the Trojan Horse on Screen
Kirsten Day, Augustana College
The Mechanics of Myth: The Trojan Horse on Film
Gregory Daugherty, Randolph-Macon College
A Portrait of the Engineer as a Young Man: Recovery of Talos in the Daedalus Myth by Jim Henson’s Storyteller (2005)
Roger Macfarlane, Brigham Young University
PANEL 1533 Gender, Technology, and Emotion in Horror and Science Fiction: Fembots and Fantasies of Compliance
Chair: Cary Elza, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point
Bodied and Disembodied Minds in Her and “Be Right Back”
Rebecca Bell-Metereau, Texas State University, San Marcos
Techno Fairy Tales, Female Posthumans, and the Gendered Gaze
Nina K. Martin, Connecticut College
“Do you feel held?”: Gender, Community, and Affective Design in Midsommar
Cary Elza, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point
PANEL 1534 Real Places in Futuristic Fictions: How Filmmakers Use Actual Buildings as Settings for Science Fiction Futures
Chair: Vincent Casaregola, Saint Louis University
Urban Planning and the Road to Dystopia: How Planning Failures Are Echoed in Dystopic Film Visions
Robert Cropf, Saint Louis University
Machines for Living: Modernist Architecture as the Setting for Science Fiction
Vincent Casaregola, Saint Louis University
Session 4: 2:30-4:00 PM
PANEL 1541 Hardwired to the Grid I: More Human than Human: The Plight of the Transhumanism in Cyberpunk in Film, Television and New Media
Chair: Benjamin Franz, Medgar Evers College
Tron: Legacy and the death of the Transhuman Utopia
Graham J. Murphy, Seneca College, Ontario, Canada
From Westworld (1973) to Westworld (2016): From Humanist to Post Humanist Science Fiction, or Cyberpunk redux
Mehdi Achouche, Jean Moulin University, Lyon, France
Star Trek, Reality and Life: A Window into Ontology, Consciousness and Humanity
Sarah Schiffman-Ackerman, Hunter College
PANEL 1542 Antiqui-tech IV: Harnessing technological force
Chair: Jennifer A. Rea, University of Florida
Atom Age Gladiator: The Curse of the Faceless Man (1958)
Robert White, The Beaumont School (OH)
Archimedes and the Cold War: Soviet animation film ‘Kolya, Olya, and Archimedes’ (1972) and its political context
Ekaterina But, The Ohio State University
From Cyclopes to Coagula: Allusions to Vergilian Invention in Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017)
Jennifer A. Rea, University of Florida
PANEL 1543 Form and Format
Chair: Ido Lewit, Yale University
“A Return to Form:” Mutability of Format in the Superego Podcast
Megan Fariello, Independent Scholar
The Insta-Girl Next Door: Sexuality, Innocence and Technological Savvy in the Age of Social Media
Sara Ross, Sacred Heart University
Video Technology as Creating Discourse: Caché Once Again
Ido Lewit, Yale University
PANEL 1544 Technology and Gender
Chair: John Alberti, Northern Kentucky University
“Trust Me, I’m a Doctor”: Debating Reproductive Rights in 1960s Medical Dramas
Caryn Murphy, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh
From Remington to IBM: The Gendered Relationship Between Women and the Typewriter
Lynne Byall Benson, University of Massachusetts, Boston
The Technology of Gender: Romcoms at the Edge of Chaos
John Alberti, Northern Kentucky University
Break: 4:00-4:30 PM
Session 5: 4:30-6:00 PM
PANEL 1551 Antiqui-tech Roundtable
Chair: Meredith Safran, Trinity College
PANEL 1552 Technology in the Western: Roundtable
Chair: Sue Matheson, University College of the North, Manitoba, Canada
David Blanke, Texas A & M University, Corpus Christi
Christopher Minz, Georgia State University
Sue Matheson, University College of the North, Manitoba, Canada
PANEL 1553 Technology and Truth on Screen
Chair: Jo Ann Oravec, University of Wisconsin
Technology Towards Truth: The Sewol Ferry Disaster of South Korea and Intention
Hyo-Jeong Lee, Southern Illinois University
Polygraphs, AI Truth Machines, and Brain Scanning: Lie Detection Technologies and Ubiquitous Honesty Themes in Film
Jo Ann Oravec, University of Wisconsin
7:00 PM Special Screening and Panel Discussion: They Shall Not Grow Old
Chair: Gary Edgerton, Butler University
Peter Jackson: Documentarian as Historian
Chris Yogerst, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Digital Restoration as Historical Spectacle
Tanine Allison, Emory University
Restoration, Revision or Enhancement: Colorization and Moving Image Archives
Mary K. Huelsbeck, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
What Is Old Is New Again: They Shall Not Grow Old, History, and Popular Memory
Gary R. Edgerton, Butler University
SATURDAY, November 16
Session 1: 8:00-9:30 AM
PANEL 1611 Rage Against the Machine II: Crafting Identities, Creating Communities: Social Media and Digital Connectivity in Independent Film and Media
Chairs: Matt Connolly, Minnesota State University, Mankato, and
Chelsea McCracken, State University of New York at Oneonta
From the Red Carpet to Cardboard Cutouts: The Promotion of Faces Places and the Auteur on Social Media
Matt St. John, University of Wisconsin, Madison
#Mompreneurs: Evangelicals, Latter-day Saints, and Network Marketing in the Age of Social Media
Victoria Le-Sweatman, University of Iowa
Visible Pirates: The Proliferation of Independent Film Communities with Digital Piracy
Hamidreza Nassiri, University of Wisconsin, Madison
PANEL 1612 Technology and the Visual
Chair: Richard Voeltz, Cameron University
Blended: The Digital Long Take
Brian Brems, College of DuPage
Before the Boom: Early Zooms From 1927-1935 and Their Stylistic Legacy
Zachary Zahos, University of Wisconsin, Madison
They Shall Not Grow Old and Mimesis: African Soldier: Technology and Remembrance
Richard Voeltz, Cameron University
PANEL 1613 The Industry II: Business
Chair: Kevin Hagopian, Pennsylvania State University
How exhibition technology affects film production
Mark Kerins, Southern Methodist University
“An Essential Industry”: Institutional Self-Reflexivity in the Wartime Motion Picture Industry, 1942-1945
Kevin Hagopian, Pennsylvania State University
Session 2: 9:45-11:15 AM
PANEL 1621 Hardwired to the Grid II: The Political Tech of Cyberpunk in Film, Television and New Media
Chair: Benjamin Franz, Medgar Evers College
Cyberpunk and the Problem of Dualism: Akira and Battle Angel: Alita
Jeffrey Ventola, Independent Scholar
A Fight on Two Fronts: On Jean Luc Godard’s La Chinoise
Shalon van Tine, Ohio University and Douglas Greene, Salem State University
Anatomy of Cyber-Torture: The Enhanced Interrogation of Altered Carbon Episode 1.4
Benjamin Franz, Medgar Evers College
PANEL 1622 Antiqui-tech VI: Narrative technologies
Chair: Janice Siegel, Hampden-Sydney College
Technology of the Double: Confronting the Dead through Archaeological Excavation
Emma Scioli, University of Kansas
The Scholiast’s Dream: DVD Featurettes and Commentaries
Jon Solomon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Gospel Truth: Ekphrasis and Narrative in Disney’s Hercules (1997)
Dan Curley, Skidmore College
PANEL 1623 Film, Technology, Context
Chair: Tomer Fischer, Tel Aviv University, Israel
The Light of Day: Discovering a Jam Handy Organization animated “orphan” film (industrial animation)
Brian Oakes, Kean University
“It’s Just an Old Story”: Microform and Database Research in Horror Films
Erin Hvizdak, Washington State University
It Was A Hit: Media Technologies as Experiences of Historicity in the Period Film Musical
Tomer Fischer, Tel Aviv University, Israel
PANEL 1624 Mind Games: Technology, Psychology, and Identity
Chair: Gail Sheehan, Salem State University
Framing Ghost/Ghosts Framing: Reading Ghost with Mark BN Hansen’s New Philosophy for New Media
Myrna Moretti, Northwestern University
Hybridism in Cyberia: Serial Experiments, Lain (1997-1998) as a Reflection of Hybridism in Japan and the Web
Ryan Freels, Southern Illinois University
A Trickster Psychic and a Psychic Trickster: The Technology of “Mentalism” in Two Films from the 1930s.
Gail Sheehan, Salem State University
Lunch Break: 11:30 AM-12:30 PM
Session 3: 12:45- 2:15 PM
PANEL 1631 Race and Ethnicity II: Harnessing IT for the Greater Good: Technology and Marginalized Voices
Chair: Novotny Lawrence, Iowa State University
How Minority Women use Digital Media in American Comedy: 2 Dope Queens, Broad City and Tiffany Haddish
Alex Symons, LIM College
Fix It Black Jesus!: The Iconography of Christ in Good Times
Novotny Lawrence, Iowa State University
PANEL 1632 Technology in the Western II: Frontier Tech
Chair: Sue Matheson, University College of the North, Manitoba, Canada
DeMille’s Women in Westerns
David Blanke, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi
Westworld’s Outlaw in the Age of Simulation
Erin Lee Mock, University of West Georgia
Stagecoaches and Coffeegrinders in John Ford’s Westerns
Sue Matheson, University College of the North, Manitoba, Canada
PANEL 1633 Antiqui-tech VII: Technology refigures the divine
Chair: Polly Hoover, Wilbur Wright College
Phones Are Fickle Gods: The Odyssey of Booksmart (2019)
Katie Cantwell, Independent Scholar
Pandora’s Effect: The Destructive Power of Technology and Hope in Jung-woo’s Pandora (2016)
Anastasia Pantazopoulou, University of Florida
The Technology of Memory: Park’s Oldboy (2003), Oedipus the King, and the Construction of Identity
Polly Hoover, Wilbur Wright College
PANEL 1634 The Industry III: Technology and Innovation
Chair: Caleb Allison, Indiana University
Sound recording practice in 1930s Hollywood: The ‘female’ voice at 165-255 Hz
Casey Long, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Homemade and Jerry-Rigged: The Amateur Cinema Gadget during WWII
Caleb Allison, Indiana University
Session 4: 2:30-4:00 PM
PANEL 1641 Rage Against the Machine III: Streaming Independence: Platforms and Politics in Contemporary Digital Distribution
Chairs: Matt Connolly, Minnesota State University, Mankato, and
Chelsea McCracken, State University of New York at Oneonta
Harmonizing the Indie Niche: Data-Driven Independent Filmmaking and Censorship in China
Hao Zhou, University of Iowa; Tyler Hill, University of Michigan
“Are You Still Watching?:” The Promise and Peril of Netflix’s “Streaming-Only” Model
Dora Valkanova, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Her Story: Building a Trans Network
Laura Stamm, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
PANEL 1642 Antiqui-tech VIII: Technologies of desire
Chair: Stacie Raucci, Union College
Unlocking the Underworld: Golden Keys in the Aeneid and Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009)
Meredith E. Safran, Trinity College
Oh, Lambent Flame(r)!: Queer Pleasure and the Technicolor Sex Drive in Quo Vadis (1951)
Thomas J. West, Independent Scholar
Coiffures and Cosmetics: Crafting the Ancient Roman Woman on Screen
Stacie Raucci, Union College
PANEL 1643 Processing Trauma on Screen
Chair: Caroline Guthrie, College of Charleston
Safety Last on a Clock Tower: Interrogating Nuclear Trauma in Back to the Future
Khara Lukancic, Southern Illinois University
“My Father Died Before He Taught Me to Care:” The Trauma of Technology’s Failed Promise in The Venture Bros.
Caroline Guthrie, College of Charleston
PANEL 1644 Playing with Technology
Chair: A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Martha’s Vineyard Museum
Computer Gagged Imagery: Special Effects and Gag Construction in Contemporary Comedy
Luke Holmaas, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Licensed Merchandise: Technology Gadgets from Film and Television to Toy Store
David Sedman, Southern Methodist University
Cartoon Engineering: Fantastic Transportation in 1960s Film and Television
- Bowdoin Van Riper, Martha’s Vineyard Museum
Break: 4:00-4:30 PM
Session 5: 4:30-6:00 PM
PANEL 1651 Antiqui-tech IX: Worldbuilding in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Chair: Hamish Cameron, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Pericles, Medusa, and Aliens? Using Science Fiction to Escape from History in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Ky Merkley, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Resynchronizing Atlantis: Herodotos & Conspiratorial Euhemerism in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Hamish Cameron, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Pixelomachy: Battling the Gods in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Kira Jones, Emory University
PANEL 1652 Visions of the Technological Future
Chair: Christine Sprengler, Western University
The Shape of Things to Come: Mission: Impossible (1988-90) and Technology of the Future
Erwin Erhardt, University of Cincinnati
“For We Have Stomachs”: Future Food and Physical Instrumentality in Forbidden Planet (1956)
Thomas Prasch, Washburn University
Futuristic Fifties: The Postwar Imaginary in Last Man on Earth (1924), High Treason (1929), and Transatlantic Tunnel (1935)
Christine Sprengler, Western University
6:30 PM Banquet and Keynote Address