student conference

I just submitted my first paper/presentation to the Cinema Studies student conference. The theme this year is "Questioning Categories in Cinema Studies". I submitted the final paper I wrote for the Advanced Seminar: Film Noir that I took last spring with Chris Straayer which is in my opinion the best piece of academic research and writing I have done so far and, fortunately, fits in almost perfectly with the theme, as it deals with the complications involved in distinguishing between genres.

Here is the title and abstract that I submitted:

The Elusive Noir-ror Film

"In the 1940s, horror films and films noirs shared many visual conventions. Plots also frequently involved murder and suspense. While the stories and imagery are often something that these two iconic genres of the 1940s have in common, they are rarely confused with each other or categorized together. The thing missing from Forties horror is the distinctive existentialist themes associated with film noir. Several films, however, blur the distinctions between the two genres. While many films noirs have plot devices that are supernatural or borrowed from classic horror plots, a more productive approach is to examine the handful of classic, generic horror films that incorporate elements of the philosophy of film noir. An close look at several of the films by the philosophically-minded B-movie master Val Lewton, as well as noir auteur Robert Siodmak's Son of Dracula, reveals a great deal about the themes that distinguish the often difficult-to-define group of films traditionally known as noir."

The conference is on February 19th and 20th. Come out and listen to me read a paper!