Call for papers: Current Thinking on the Western III

Current Thinking on the Western III

June 14-15, 2016

University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK.

A conference convened by Dr Lee Broughton (Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow,

University of Leeds) with Dr Mark Goodall (University of Bradford).

Keynote speakers

Professor Sir Christopher Frayling (Professor Emeritus of Cultural History, Royal

College of Art).

Alex Cox (filmmaker (Repo Man, Straight to Hell, Walker, Sid and Nancy) and

academic practitioner, University of Colorado).

The conference will incorporate a special 50th anniversary celebration and screening

of Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) that will be presented in

collaboration with the National Media Museum in Bradford on the evening of 14th

June 2016.

This special screening event will include

i) An introduction to the film by Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, author of

Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone (1981),

Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (2000) and Sergio Leone: Once Upon a

Time in Italy (2005).

ii) A roundtable and Q&A featuring Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, Alex Cox

(filmmaker and author of 10,000 Ways to Die: A Director’s Take on the Spaghetti

Western (2009)), Ulrich Bruckner (President of Explosive Media home entertainment

and author of For a Few Corpses More: The Spaghetti Western from its Beginnings to

Today (2006)) and Jeremy Wooding (filmmaker and director of the cult Western

Blood Moon (2014)).

2015-16 is proving to be a significant year for the Western. The Hateful Eight, The

Revenant and Bone Tomahawk have all enjoyed critical success and there is every

indication that we may be about to enter a period of renewed public interest in the

genre. As ever, the genre in all of its multifarious forms continues to inspire new and

fruitful avenues of academic research.

This two-day event seeks to draw together international scholars of all levels

(independent scholars, postgraduate research students, early career researchers &

established researchers) and media practitioners whose work engages with the

Western on film.

Call for Papers

Proposals (around 250 words in length) are invited for 20 minute papers concerning

any aspect of current research or professional practice relating to Western genre films

but the following areas are of particular interest:

Cult Westerns

Hybrid Westerns

US Civil War related Westerns

"Classic" Westerns

Western parodies

Revisionist Westerns

Political Westerns

Westerns made since 2000

Western stars

The Western on TV

Fan productions

The music of the Western

Gender in the West

Papers can relate to American/Hollywood Westerns or those produced beyond the

USA (Italian, German, British, South American, Australian, etc).

Proposals - accompanied by a brief biography - should be sent to:

Dr Lee Broughton: L.Broughton@leeds.ac.uk  and

Dr Mark Goodall: M.Goodall@bradford.ac.uk

Deadline for proposals: Monday April 11, 2016

Lee Broughton, University of Leeds