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Conference Reports The Film Scene: Cinema, the Arts, and Social Change The Film Scene: Cinema, the Arts, and Social Change, University of Hong Kong, 21 – 22 April 2006 A report by Jing Yang, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 'The Film Scene: Cinema, the Arts, and Social Change' symposium was held on 21-22 April 2006 on the main campus of the University of Hong Kong, and was sponsored by the Film Culture Project of the Department of Comparative Literature, the Department of Music, and the Centre of Asian Studies at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). The interdisciplinary, two-day conference brought together scholars from Hong Kong and abroad to explore the connections between the cinema and the other arts within the context of social change. The symposium traced the growing relevance and internationalization of Hong Kong cinema and discussed the increasing interest from other parts of the world in the critical and scholarly work done on cinema, as well as providing a meeting ground for artists working in various forms on the cutting edge of aesthetic exploration and social change. Day One The symposium was scheduled into eight parallel sessions on the first day: 'The Scene as Site: Space, Place and the Film Scene' (9:00am-11:00am) chaired by Jinhee Choi from Carleton University, Canada; 'The Queer Scene' (11:15am-1:15pm) chaired by Petula S.Y. Ho from HKU; 'King Hu's Movies' (11:15am-1:15pm) chaired by Thomas Luk from Chinese University of Hong Kong; 'History Seen: The Past on the Screen' (2:45pm-3:45pm) chaired by Peter Cunich from the History Department of HKU; 'Micro-Narratives' (2:45pm-3:45pm) presented by Linda Chiu-han Lai from City University of Hong Kong; 'The Asian Scene: National / Transnational' (3:45pm-5:15pm) chaired by JoAnn Prochetti from Kyorin University in Tokyo and 'Bodies Seen and Unseen -- Religion, Sex and Disease' (3:45pm- 5:15pm) chaired by Eva Man from Hong Kong Baptist University. The 'Women and Activism' session (5:15pm-7:30pm) screened a documentary film Her Anti- WTO and invited the filmmaker Kong King Chu from Hong Kong to give a talk. The session on the works of veteran Hong Kong martial arts film director King Hu was particularly interesting for the diversified approaches adopted by the researchers. For instance, Chung Ling and Cheuk Pak Tong from Hong Kong Baptist University talked about 'Zen Allusions and Buddhist Ideas in King Hu's Raining in the Mountain' and 'The Temporal and Space Dimensions of King Hu's Film' respectively; Law Kar from Hong Kong Film Archive traced the inspirations of Chinese oral literature and Beijing Opera on King Hu's films, Natalia Chan studied the female representation in King Hu movies and Gina Marchetti discussed his films with a vision to Cold War consciousness. The first day of the conference concluded with an evening session of 'The Seen, the Unseen, the Obscene: From Spectacle to Information', given by Professor Ackbar Abbas from HKU. The keynote address juxtaposed five films by directors of Chinese origins—Hong Kong director Fruit Chan's Durian Durian (2000), Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 (2004), Alan Mak and Andrew Lau's Infernal Affairs (2002), Chinese director Zhang Yuan's Crazy English (1999), and Chinese-American director Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005). Professor Abbas compared and contrasted the understanding of cinema and the cinematic and posed the question: What happened to social and personal experience when 'space' and 'affect' can no longer be kept separate? He proposed that the awkward historical questions of cultural identity and colonialism get lost in a post-historical city like Hong Kong which was submerged in global language. Prof. Leo Ou-fan Lee from the Chinese University of Hong Kong responded that in spite of the fusion and confusion of generic cities at global scale, each city still retained some 'faked' 'local' features that are recognizable signifiers in the global dynamics of culture and economy. Day Two The symposium's second day covered an equally wide range of interests: 'The Arts Scene -- Music, Adaptations, Remakes, Citations' (9:00am-11:00am) chaired by Chan Hing-yan from the Music Department of HKU; 'The Asian Cinema Scene' (9:00am-11:00am) chaired by Suzie Young from York University in Canada; 'The Horror Scene, Myth, and the Supernatural' (11:15am-1:30pm) chaired by Paul Clark from the University of Auckland; 'Hong Kong Seen on the World Scene' (11:15am-1:15pm) chaired by Angelina Yee from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; 'The Arts Scene -- In and Out of the Gallery' (2:45pm-4:45pm) chaired by Carolyn Muir from the Department of Fine Arts of HKU; 'The Fighting Scene' (2:45pm-4:45pm) chaired by Kam Louie from Faculty of the Arts, HKU; 'Music and Accented Cinema' (5:00pm-7:00pm) chaired by Julia Kuehn from the English Department of HKU and 'Alternative Scenes' (5:00pm-7:00pm) chaired by Ho Chi- Kwan from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. These panels were followed by an evening session of cutting-edge film experimenters entitled 'Sex Environments Online and Network Imaginaries'. The session of 'Hong Kong Seen on the World Scene' addressed the issue of how the Hong Kong identity got constructed / de-constructed, located / dislocated in a flexible specialization through film studies. Chan Ka-ming from the University of Melbourne reviewed the transnational co-production of Hong Kong Cinema; Wendy Gan from the English Department of HKU studied the weather representation in Hong Kong films and explored its significance in exploring the western perception of Hong Kong and Hong Kong's relation to Mainland China. Following the successful 'Hong Kong / Hollywood at the Borders: Alternative Perspectives, Alternative Cinemas' symposium held by HKU in April 2004, this event encouraged new perspectives in the connection between the cinema and the other arts within the context of social change and created research synergies through inter-institutional and international collaboration. Third Annual MeCCSA Postgraduate Conference Third Annual MeCCSA Postgraduate Conference, University of Ulster, 22 – 23 June 2006 A report by Bernhard Gross, Cardiff University, UK The Coleraine campus of the University of Ulster is an isolated place. Without local knowledge and possibly the help of a taxi ride it is difficult to get away. This made it an ideal setting for the third annual MeCCSA Postgraduate Conference on the 22nd and 23rd of June 2006. The point of a conference like this is to get people together. The emphasis is less on exchanging academic expertise and more on sharing the experience of being a postgraduate student. The locale did keep the group of more than 60 delegates together and talking about teaching, bursaries and life as a postgraduate student after the formal sessions of the day had concluded. Of course there was also discussion about the papers presented during the panel sessions. For many delegates this conference was the first time they had had the opportunity to reach an audience beyond their own department. Mostly they focused on research related to their MA dissertations or PhD theses. With the broad range of possibilities coming together under the MeCCSA heading, the panel topics differed widely. This provided the delegates with an opportunity to look beyond the confines of their own or their department's usual focus -- again, something I consider a strength for this type of conference. During each day, a total of up to four panels of ninety minutes ran concurrently. As far as possible the organizers combined related topics into one panel. I tried to make the most of this by attending the panels closer to my own research interest -- media discourses around Europe -- as well as some that were not. To provide just a few examples: a presentation by Niamh O'Sullivan from the University of Ulster on the portrayal of refugees in photojournalism was of direct interest to me; the role of Shakespeare in Secondary Education developed in a paper by Sarah Martindale from the University of Aberystwyth was less so, but gave me a interesting perspective on the various movie adaptations of Romeo and Juliet; and Bas van Heur from Goldsmiths College synthesized a fascinating approach of cultural theory and geography to map the electronic music industry in Europe in a paper on 'Electronic Music, Aesthetics and the Political Economy of the Post Industrial City'. The downside of such a wide variety of topics and theoretical approaches is often the lack of engagement by the audience in the question and answer section of the panel. Some chairs tried to generate a discussion, but more often than not failed to get it going. Without a more in-depth understanding, many delegates apparently did not feel in a position to participate. However, as mentioned above, the exchange of academic ideas was only one of the several aims of this conference. Besides making contacts and getting a better feel for the wider research field, one key purpose of the conference was to help postgraduate students gain an understanding of the academic job market. Three presentations during the plenary sessions focused on this topic. They offered good advice on dealing with the challenges new PhDs are likely to face when they want to make the transition from student to academic professional. Like most professions today academia is a competitive field. The completion of a PhD rarely suffices in itself to get a job. Potential university employers often require some sort of a track record, even from newly minted Drs, and proof that they are suitable for the demands of results-oriented research or teaching. This was the message conveyed by the first day's afternoon plenary session: 'The PhD and After'.
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