CALL FOR PAPERS
Mythic Characters and Places Made Real: TV and Film In Situ
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on Film and Myth

September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012

Popular media increasingly are becoming the foundation for “non-mediated” experiences with local, material culture. Now, the representation of certain fictive historical times, people and places on film and TV have led to their commemoration in real places. Fictional settings and characters have become mythic as certain films and TV shows have become depoliticized symbolic inducements with the power to transform the messy complexities of history into desirable but unfulfillable narratives. What does this mean? How are television and film used by the wider public as a resource of collective memory? Why are certain stories selected by civic
boosters for the purposes of place promotion, heritage and tourism production? Why do fans visit these sites and what do they get out of them? Fans of TV and movies much less residents of places that commemorate these media must confront questions of authenticity, popular culture as public culture, and the hyperreal.

This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of the relationships between mythic film and television and the real places that are connected to the narratives and characters associated with them.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Vampire Tourism from Transylvania to Forks, WA (Dracula; Twilight)
– Having a real pint in a mythic bar (Coronation Street; Cheers; Northern Exposure)
– Celebrating the Mythos of the final frontier. (Star Trek enshrined in Riverside, IO and Vulcan, AB)
– Mnemonic Myths: The significance of TV land statues. (Happy Days; Bewitched; The Honeymooners; The Bob Newhart Show)
– Take the Tour: Fandom in Mythic NYC. (Seinfeld, Sex and the City)
– The lasting attraction of Sylvester Stallone statues. (Rocky in Philadelphia and Serbia)
– Fandom and Conventions in TV and Films’ mythic places of origin. (The Prisoner in Portmeirion, Wales)
– Festivals in mythic hometowns: Embracing fictional TV and films as local culture. (The Andy Griffith Show in Mount Airy, NC; Superman in Metropolis, IL; Twin Peaks in North Bend, WA)
– Adaptation and Place Promotion: From Literary Tourism to TV and Film based Tourism. (Anne of Green Gables)
– Popular History and Popular Memory: Commemorating TV and Film in the settings that inspired them. (Robocop)
– Real places become mythic: Fictional Film-based tourism. (National Treasure inn Washington, DC; Transformers in Chicago; The Da Vinci Code)
– Mythic characters and mythic places as heritage tourism. (Alice in Wonderland; King of Kensington)
– Fans and Secular Pilgrimages: Visiting Mythic TV and Film Places. (The Sound of Music)
– New Zealand as Middle Earth. (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit)
– The Horror of being associated with Horror Films. (The Amityville Horror, The Blair Witch Project)

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information,including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012:

Derek S. Foster, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Mythic Characters and Places Made Real: TV and Film In Situ”
Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film
Brock University
Email: dfoster@brocku.ca