Presented by the Department of Film & Media, University of California, Berkeley

Organized by:
Alex Bush, Co-Organizer
Renée Pastel, Co-Organizer
Linda Williams

Information: http://berkeleyfilmconference.com

Tickets: Eventbrite

Facebook: Berkeley Film Conference

The 3rd International Berkeley Conference on Film and Media: Serialities 1915/2015 will build on the success of the two previous silent-film conferences held at Berkeley in 2011 and 2013. This year, the Department of Film & Media has decided to widen the scope of our biennial conference to include comparative historical inquiry.

How do we explain the emergence of film serials in silent cinema and their revival in very different forms at present? The conference will provide opportunities to reflect on the emergence of serial cultures from various angles: then and now, nationally and transnationally, across old and new media platforms. We understand seriality as any kind of repetition in difference, as when a plot continues for a much longer time than Aristotle would have permitted. Why does it flourish at particular moments? What does seriality afford? What are its causes and consequences? What are its economic foundations and stylistic forms? Are serial plots automatically also melodramas? What does serial structure do to our understanding of the totality of a work?

Keynote Speakers

Sean O’Sullivan is Associate Professor of English at Ohio State University, where he is also Director of Project Narrative and a member of the Film Studies Program. His talk is titled, "The Sonnet-Season and American Television: 1915 / 1999 / 2014."

Matthew Buckley is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University. His talk is titled, "The Angel’s Wings: Melo-Seriality, Temporality, and the History of Form."

Mark Sandberg is Professor in the Department of Film and Media and the Department of Scandinavian at UC Berkeley. His talk is titled, "Spoiled! Trauma Time and Serial Knowledge.