CfP: Identität und Alterität im zeitgenössischen Chicano Kino
- Disziplinen: Literaturwissenschaft, Sprachwissenschaft, Medien-/Kulturwissenschaft, Weitere Teilbereiche
- Sprachen: Spanisch, Sprachenübergreifend
- Frist: 01.03.11
Call for Papers: iMex
Interdisciplinary Mexico / México Interdisciplinario
Second issue, July 2012: Questions of Identity and Otherness in contemporary Chicano cinema
iMex is a new fully refereed journal that aims to link research about Mexico in the fields of literary analysis, cultural studies, visual arts, philosophy, social and economic sciences, history and socio-linguistics. Different disciplines, methodologies and perspectives will be brought together to explore in -depth Mexico’s cultural diversity with regard to historical as well as contemporary developments and their interdependence. This includes comparative analysis of the relations between Mexico and the rest of the American continent, Europe and Asia.
Free of charge and easily accessible by internet, iMex will provide two issues per year with articles in Spanish or English language. We also accept reviews of monographs, anthologies and electronic databases on the topics indicated above.
Contributions to the second issue – scheduled for July 2012 – will focus on questions of identity and Otherness in contemporary Chicano cinemas. The films to be explored will be of substantial and/or increasing interest for the perception of Mexican migration to the United States and, in a wider sense, for Latin American communities abroad. As a virtual laboratory of cultural encounters and of the search for identity in the framework of a society marked by globalisation and mass migration, Chicano cinema provides a scholarly challenge, particularly to film critics, interculturalists and transculturalists, sociologists and anthropologists from different fields.
Certainly, traditional models of national identity are likely to be challenged by all forms of immigration considering that the migrant tends to feel a pressure to negotiate his/her cultural background in the new context, while ‘the native’ is confronted with alternatives to his models of social belonging (Bauman 2004). However, in the case of Mexican migration to the United States, the dimension of the demographic transformation in a relatively short period of time is outstanding, which might at least partially explain why Hispanic migration to the Anglo-American North has become a very hot topic in contemporary mass media, in particular in the United States. Chicano cinema participates very actively in that debate when it portrays cultural encounters and a Chicano search for identity from a range of perspectives, including examples of discrimination and racism on one side of the spectrum and of tolerance and mutual respect on the other side.
In this context, it is worth taking into account that – in our virtual world – the cultural references of the films are important not only as potential reflections of popular hopes and fears, but also as messages that could have a significant impact on common perspectives and opinions about migration and diaspora. If Junkelmann is right in assuming that movies like Gladiator (Scott 2000) have become key media for the formation of popular ideas about the Roman empire (Junkelmann 2004: 63), then it is worth discussing how far films like My family (Gregory Nava 1995) or La misma luna (Patricia Riggen 2008) have had a profound influence in shaping popular perspectives regarding Mexican migration to the United States, be it because of their cinematic success, or due to their large scale distribution via DVD and TV.
iMex number II aims to explore the filmic images of cultural encounters and life in the diaspora as well as their impact on North American (and/or Mexican) viewers. Particularly welcome are contributions that analyse discursive strategies which transform cultural differences in Otherness and cultural interactions in trans-cultural phenomena, but also empirical investigations of viewers and film industry representatives that could shed some light on the cinematic impact. Key topics are likely to be the migrants’ opportunities (or the lack thereof), his/her rights, violence against or caused by him/her and, ultimately, his/her image as social, economic and cultural problem or enrichment.
Scholars of film studies, visual arts, cultural studies, sociolinguistics, social and economic sciences, history and philosophy are explicitly invited to contribute to the debate of these aspects. Until 1st March 2012, articles and reviews can be forwarded in Microsoft Word 97-2003 or rtf format to Prof. Guido Rings: guido.rings@anglia.ac.uk.
Articles should not exceed a word length of 5000 to 6000 words; they should include an abstract of 200 words, short bio data (to include current profession, research areas and recent publications, maximum 10 lines) and 5 key words to identify the content. For more details, please do not hesitate to contact guido.rings@anglia.ac.uk directly.
Publiziert von: Barbara Ventarola