[csaa-forum] Media Film and Theatre seminars at UNSW

[James Donald]

UNSW Media Film and Theatre Seminars
5 p.m. Webster Building Cinema 327



Wednesday 6 September
Run Deleuze Run
Cinema Semiotics and Indigenous Representation
(Bush Mechanics, Ten Canoes and Run Lola Run)

ROGER DAWKINS

This paper is about Indigenous representation. I take as my starting 
point the idea that any representation that draws on colonial 
ideology is unethical. In response I envisage some ways the image 
(sign) can avoid such ideology, resulting in ethical representations 
of Indigenous peoples. My semiotic thesis is the product of two 
studies: Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition and his (more 
practical) semiotics of the cinema, outlined in The Movement-Image 
and The Time-Image. This paper is an interpretation of both studies, 
the inspiration for which comes from the very link between the two. 
Three texts will illustrate my discussion: Bush Mechanics, Ten Canoes 
and Run Lola Run. These texts were chosen because, in the arrangement 
of their moving images, they suggest potential ways to create ethical 
representations. My reasoning was something like this: Based on the 
intersection and overlap of Difference and Repetition and the cinema 
books, I have an idea of what an ethical representation may be, and I 
think Bush Mechanics etc. already demonstrates this idea to some 
extent, so why not put theory and practice together and see what 
happens? The thesis I arrive at is that the three texts give us a 
structure for developing ethical representations of Indigenous 
peoples because they avoid colonial ideology by maintaining viewers' 
thoughts within the parameters of their images.

Roger Dawkins lectures in Film at UNSW.

Wednesday 13 September
Porn DoxXx
Documentary as a discourse of domination, titillation and the 
emotional money shot

GREG DOLGOPOLOV

The distinctions between pornography and documentary are 
disappearing.  Recently there has been an upsurge of feature 
documentaries about pornography, the notorious films of the 1970s, 
the porn industry now and then, moving biopics of porn "stars" and 
the girls next door and even porn musicals. Traditionally, the porn 
documentary allowed viewers to claim a redeeming social, educational 
value while facilitating a proper prurience.  The new wave of 
documentaries provide all that and more. Looking at Porn Star: The 
Legend Ron Jeremy (Gill 2001), Pornography: The Musical (Hill 2003) 
Inside Deep Throat (Bailey & Barbato 2005) as well as the digital 
storytelling movement this paper seeks to interrogate these hybrid 
genre formats and experiential documentary strategies and discourses.

Greg Dolgopolov lectures in Film at UNSW.


Wednesday 20 September
SEAN CUBITT

Details to follow.

Sean Cubitt is Chair of Media and Communications at Melbourne University.

-- 
Dr James Donald
Associate Dean (Education), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Professor of Film Studies, School of Media, Film and Theatre
University of New South Wales
Sydney
NSW 2052
Australia

Telephone	(02)9385 4858
Mobile		0433 126445
Facsimile		(02) 9385 6812

International
Telephone	+612 9385 4858
Mobile		+61433 126445
Facsimile		+612 9385 6812


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