Filmic Representations of Indigenous Peoples
Eleventh Annual Northeast Historic Film Summer Symposium
Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library
Scholars, particularly during the last two decades, have sought to understand cultural representations ofIndigenous peoples. In Dressing in Feathers: The Construction of the Indian in American Culture, anthropologist Elizabeth Bird explains that when we seek to understand popular constructions of the Native more clearly, we are then better able to counter the mythmaking process and transform those representations. The 2010 Northeast Historic Film Summer Symposium will explore how amateur and noncommercial filmmakers around the world have created a wide range of representations regarding Indigenous peoples and cultures. We are interested in presentations focusing on interpretations of moving images that will improve our historical, cultural, global and critical understanding of how filmmakers working outside of the mainstream have been informed by, contributed to, and countered popular representations of Indigenous peoples.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
Travel films and their audiences
Defining the Indigenous
Documenting lost languages and practices
Privacy and informed consent
Self-documentation
Indigenous peoples as filmmakers
Issues of the sacred and profane
Native Independent Media
Screening practices
Oral narratives and life histories
Ethnographic films
Control and definition of the image
Repatriation of records
Rights of the “subject”
Ethnomusicology and visual representation
The NHF Summer Symposium is a multi-disciplinary gathering devoted to the history, theory, and preservation of moving images. NHF is located in Bucksport, a town of 5,000 on the coast of Maine (for more info on NHF, please visit: http://www.oldfilm.org). Typically, presentations are 45 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of discussion. The symposium is open to archivists, artists and scholars from all disciplines. NHF houses a 125-seat cinema with 35mm, 16mm, videotape, and DVD projection. We especially encourage presentations that include interesting moving images.
We prefer e-mail submissions. Please send 250-500 word abstracts outlining your paper ideas to the symposium organizers at the address below. We are happy to discuss your presentation ideas with you in advance of a formal submission. The Symposium Program Committee (Snowden Becker, Univ. of Texas, Janna Jones, Northern Arizona University and Mark Neumann, Northern Arizona University) will begin reviewing proposals on April 1, 2010.
Please email questions and submissions to NHF2010@gmail.com