CFP: Visible Evidence XX

Visible Evidence XX 
Stockholm, Sweden
August 15-18, 2013

Call for proposals

In 1990, a group of American scholars were provoked by the marginalization of documentary in the scholarly field of film studies. Their initiative for an international conference series resulted in Visible Evidence, first organized in 1993 by Jane Gaines at Duke University. In concert with this initiative appeared a number of influential books, such as Representing Reality (Bill Nichols, 1991), Blurred Boundaries (Bill Nichols, 1994), Theorizing Documentary (Michael Renov, ed., 1993), and Claiming the Real: The Griersonian Documentary and its Legitimations (Brian Winston, 1995). Ever since, these volumes have been followed by related and complementary work in the growing academic field of documentary studies.

The annual event of Visible Evidence has infused and keeps on inspiring the cross-disciplinary research on documentary film and media. The conferences have also encouraged and provided an important dialog between scholars and filmmakers, including opportunities for practitioners to screen new films and to present work in progress.

The international importance of Visible Evidence is remarkable, as a travelling
conference that moves across the globe, this year to take place in Canberra, Australia (December 19-21, 2012), co-hosted by the Australian National University and the National Film and Sound Archive.

The 2013 edition of Visible Evidence – its 20th anniversary! - will convene August 15-18 in Stockholm, hosted by the Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, and organized in collaboration with the Royal Library, Filmform The Stockholm Archive of Art Film and Video, and the Swedish Film Institute.

In line with the previous conferences, Visible Evidence XX will address the history, theory, and practice of documentary cinema, television, video, audio recording, digital media, photography, and performance.


Proposals for panels and presentations
Proposed panels and presentations may address any aspect of documentary film and documentary screen cultures, or any theoretical or historical approach to documentary. At the same time, demarcating its 20th anniversary, Visible Evidence XX will pay special attention to a set of problems that have been subject to recurrent articulation during these two decades of conferences and related scholarship. These are salient issues that call for further exploration, new theoretical and historical insights in scholarly work, and which reverberate, or are subjectto conceptual work, in film and media.

For comprehensive information on the Conference, suggested topics and how to submit proposals, find out more in the pdf document below.   Information regarding conference and submitting proposals.