Location: School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University, Melbourne November 21–23, 2018

In recent years film and television scholarship has seen a renewed focus on the uses of cinema – that is, on educational, instructional, non-theatrical, client-sponsored and government-sponsored filmmaking – in collections such as Films That Work (Hediger and Vonderau, 2009), Useful Cinema (Acland and Wasson, 2011), Films of Fact: A History of Science in Documentary Films and Television
 (Boon 2008) and Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film(Orgeron, Orgeron and Streible 2012). This work – along with 2018’s fiftieth anniversary of the events of May 1968 – provides an occasion for reflection upon the usefulness of film and television practice and scholarship, and offers twin points of reference for the Second Biennial Conference of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (SSAAANZ). SSAAANZ invites papers and panel suggestions from researchers, archivists, educators, policymakers, and practitioners on any aspects of the critical, social and political uses of cinema including, but not limited to the following themes:

• Activist film and television
• 1968 and global film culture
• Film and television practice and praxis
• Film and ethnography
• Utilitarian filmmaking
• Women and cinema
• Seriality and cinema
• Cinema and the environment
• Cinema and the brain
• Film and pedagogy
• Film and tourism
• Language use on screen
• Misuses of cinema

Expected plenary speakers (TBC) include:

• Stella Bruzzi (Warwick University)
• Allison De Fren (Occidental College, LA)
• Jason Mittell (Middlebury College, VT)
• Claire Perkins (Monash University, Melbourne)
• Haidee Wasson (Concordia University, Montréal)

Abstracts for individual papers and for pre-constituted panels (of up to three speakers) are welcomed on any of the conference themes. For papers, please submit an abstract of 150-200 words and a bio of 50 words for each presenter. For panel proposals please submit a proposal for a panel comprising 3 speakers (3 x 20 min papers). Please provide a descriptive title for the panel, abstracts of 150-200 words each and a bio of 50 words for each presenter. Submit proposal no later than: June 4, 2018. Please submit your proposals to the following email address: Arts-MFJ-UsesOfCinema@monash.edu. The conference convenors are: Constantine Verevis and Deane Williams (Monash University). For general conference enquires please send an email to con.verevis@monash.edu.