Images of Justice:
Cinema, Law and the State in Comparative Perspective
The University of Iowa Obermann Center for Advanced Studies Announces Obermann Stipends for the Summer 2004 Research Seminar
Up to ten fellows to be selected, $2500 stipends, plus up to $500 (or $1,000 for overseas travel) to help defray travel/housing expenses of visiting scholars.
Popular representations of the law in cinema and the legal decisions and institutions that regulate such representations off-screen are crucial to how the public understands and experiences the legal system. In this interdisciplinary seminar, scholars are invited to explore and write about the intersections of cinema, law and the state through a comparative perspective, with particular attention to Asia, where both cinema and law have changed dramatically in recent decades. How, we will ask together, do the state and law impact film and popular culture in national, diasporic, and global contexts? How do legal fictions function as metaphors for larger historical, ethical, national, or international matters? How do citizenship and spectatorship intersect in specific film industries and on movie screens?
Some themes to be addressed "within and especially across national boundaries" may include: the fictional representation of legal systems and trials, and the dramatic characterization of lawyers, judges, and criminals in popular films; historical and ongoing state regulation and censorship of cinema, and the increased space for negotiation between filmmakers and their regulators; adaptations of law and regulation away from religious and colonial models toward secular and national concerns; film financing and distribution; and historical and persistent patterns of tension between creativity and control, innovation and tradition, or resistance and regulation that mark specific national cinemas as well as films with international circulation and audiences. These issues are all at work in Asia and in Asian communities around the world, and we will have a particular interest in those contexts.
The seminar invites applications from scholars in as wide an array of fields as possible, including but not limited to film and media studies, law and legal studies, Asian studies, women's studies, political theory, economics, religious studies, communications, journalism, sociology and other fields.
Successful applicants will be expected to develop a first draft of an essay by the start of the seminar. Participants will read and discuss each of the draft essays along with common readings and will attend special presentations by notable speakers. Participants will revise their essays during and immediately following the seminar for inclusion in an edited volume.
Directors:
Corey K. Creekmur, Associate Professor of English and Cinema &
Comparative
Literature and Director, Institute for Cinema and Culture, The University
of Iowa
Mark Sidel, Associate Professor of Law, The University of Iowa
Application Deadline: February 2, 2004
Seminar Dates: June 2-15, 2004
Services: Offices, personal computers, Internet access, library service, technical support, copying, meeting rooms.
Funded by the C. Esco and Avalon L. Obermann Fund and by the Office
of the Vice
President for Research at The University of Iowa
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Images of Justice: Cinema, Law and the State in Comparative Perspective
Obermann Center for Advanced Studies Summer 2004 Research Seminar
Deadline for Applications: Monday, February 2, 2004
Qualifications
- Applicants must hold a Ph.D., J.D. or other terminal degree.
- Participants should be ready to produce original, previously unpublished
work for publication in a volume that will emerge from the seminar and
to participate in sessions devoted to readings, individual papers, invited
lectures, and special events. Successful applicants will be asked to
submit afirst draft of their essay before the seminar begins.
-Participants will be chosen in part to provide sufficient range for
a published collection of essays. Some stipends are reserved for
competitively-selected University of Iowa scholars.
Application
Those interested in participating in the seminar should apply by February 2, 2004, by sending the following materials:
- A cover sheet that includes - title of your prospectus or draft essay
- name, rank, department, institution, office address, telephone number,
and e-mail address - signatures of department executive officer and
dean (University of Iowa applications only)
- Letter indicating your interest in the seminar, what you can contribute,
and what you hope to gain (maximum two pages)
- A prospectus of the essay that you plan to write for the seminar (or
a draft if you already have begun work on an essay that might be appropriate)
-Curriculum vitae or resume (maximum three pages)
- One writing sample, preferably from a published work
Application materials should be sent to:
Jay Semel, Director
Obermann Center for Advanced Studies
N134 Oakdale Hall
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242
Please direct any questions to Jay Semel, Director, Obermann Center
for Advanced Studies, The University of Iowa
(319) 335-4034 or jay-semel@uiowa.edu
For further information please see
http://www.uiowa.edu/~obermann/summer/index.html,
which includes the downloadable version of this announcement and the
application guidelines.