Professional Notes

Note to Contributors: Due to the lengthy production timeline of Cinema Journal, many announcements and calls for papers cannot be included because of the time factor. Be sure to check Screensite at http://www.screensite.org/ for all current announcements, conferences and CFPs, and consider submitting your item to them if its deadline is in the next three months.

Calls for Papers or Submissions

• Contributions are sought for a special issue of the International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies that will address critically the role and function of media and film, both Western and Arab, in legitimizing—as well as possibly averting—continued U.S.-led war and occupation in Iraq and beyond. Papers might elucidate the corporate media institutions, strategies and tactics through which ideological and discursive rationales for perpetual war are produced and disseminated for film and media audiences internationally. They might explicate how moving-image technologies instrumental to such ends are concomitantly instrumental to the development and implementation of surveillance and torture in both Euro/America and Iraq. They might consider how Iraqis are represented in these instances, and how their aesthetic constructions are inscribed both literally and figuratively, through and across the institutional structures and cinematic/televisual practices facilitating and enacting today’s veritable Western crusade. They might speculate upon the significance of such inscriptions to the relative failure or success of particular social systems engaged historically in travestying world peace and justice. And they might explore the various alternative representations and modalities that have emerged against the war from the political margins via digital media and the Internet.

• Identity Theory (IdentityTheory.com), an online literary/cultural journal, is seeking film reviews of theatrical releases, new DVDs, and older titles. Reviews of older films newly appearing on DVD, as well as literary-related films and rediscovered classics, are highly desired. IDT also desires interviews with professional and underground filmmakers and seeks writers for a new group film blog (currently in development). Send a pitch of your idea with a writing sample, or the text of your submission, to Matthew Sorrento atfilm@identitytheory.com.

• The international peer-reviewed journal Style is announcing a special issue on globalization and film style. Original essays are invited on any aspect of the relationship between style, film, and globalization. Transnational approaches informed by current thinking in film theory and cultural studies are particularly welcome. The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2008. Essays should be 5000 to 9000 words in length, formatted in MLA style, and accompanied by a 150-word abstract. Illustrations should be incorporated directly into the essay as low-resolution jpegs (high-resolution digital images, together with relevant permissions, will be required on acceptance). Please submit essays and accompanying material electronically to the guest editor: Christoph Lindner (clindner@niu.edu), Department of English, Northern Illinois University.

• NZSA and the Centre for New Zealand Studies (located in Birkbeck, UK, and the University of London) have a new journal—the CNZS Bulletin of New Zealand Studies, a fully refereed journal which will be published, in the first instance, once a year. It will be available in June and will be distributed free to all NZSA members. Other copies can be purchased from the Centre or via Amazon. The Journal is keen to receive articles covering all aspects of New Zealand Studies of between 4000 and 7500 words for all issues. Please contact both Editors—Ian Conrich atian@ianconrich.co.uk and Gerri Kimber atgerri@thekimbers.co.uk for further information.

• Journal of Chinese Cinemas is a new refereed academic publication devoted to the study of Chinese film. The time is ripe for a new journal which will draw on the recent world-wide growth of interest in Chinese cinemas. We welcome submissions germane to any aspect of Chinese cinemas, including, but not limited to, the following topics: 1) the star performers of Chinese cinemas in both Chinese and non-Chinese-speaking films; 2) genre films including wuxia (knight-errant) and kung-fu (martial arts); 3) melodrama and films of the Maoist era; 4) key directors from both mainstream/popular and experimental cinema; 5) critical evaluation of films from China...