10/12/2023
By Monica Melo

Trauma, Cinema, Memory, Affect – Interdisciplinary Film Studies Symposium

Join us on Friday, Oct. 27 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at University Crossing in Moloney Hall (room 260), 220 Pawtucket St.Attend all or part of this day-long event!

Keynote speaker: Sleepless in an experimental night: Feminist somnambulists in 21st century media, Alanna Thain
(McGill University)

The event is free and open to the public. Day-long interdisciplinary symposium with talks by Lani Akande (UNC-Wilmington), Pouya Ashfar (UMass Lowell), Mercédès Baillargeon (UMass Lowell), Giovanna Conti (Brown University), Shawn Driscoll (UMass Lowell), Diana Gomes Simoes (UMass Lowell), Florian Grandena (University of Ottawa), Laura Lazzari (George Washington University), Michael Millner (UMass Lowell), Giulia Po DeLisle (UMass Lowell), Oscar Ruiz-Hernandez (UMass Lowell), Kristen Stern (UMass Lowell), and Ellen Wetmore (UMass Lowell)

Schedule:

  • 9:00 - 10:15: Sleepless in an experimental night: Feminist somnambulists in 21st century media, Keynote speaker: Alanna Thain 
  • 10:15 - 10:30 Coffee Break
  • 10:30 - 12:00: Resistance, pleasure and pain: 
    • Trauma Memory and Queer affect in Post-Holocaust Film Narratives: the Case of L’arbre et la forêt/Family Tree (2008, O. Ducastel and J. Martineau), Florian Grandena, University of Ottawa
    • Alice Junior, by Gil Baroni (2019): Overcoming Trauma through Joy, Diana Gomes Simoes, UMass Lowell
    • “Did my sister suffer?” Teaching Memory, Trauma, and Gender in the Spanish Civil War through Film, Oscar Ruiz-Hernandez, UMass Lowell
    • The Pleasure of Vertigo, Ellen Wetmore, UMass Lowell
  • 12:00 - 1:15 lunch
  • 1:15 - 3:00: Time, society, and trauma 
    • The Ordinary Trauma of Everyday Life in Québec cinema, Mercédès Baillargeon, UMass Lowell
    • Future Memories, Affect, and a Death Foretold: Alain Gomis’s Aujourd’hui (Tey), Kristen Stern, UMass Lowell
    • African Cinema Realism: Seeing Through the Lens of Trauma, Lani Akande, UNC-Wilmington
    • Cool Cruelty: Warhol’s Race Riot Film, Michael Millner, UMass Lowell
  • 3:00 - 3:15 break
  • 3:15 - 5:00 Realism, fantasy, and memory
    • The Charm of the Unfamiliar, Pouya Afshar, UMass Lowell
    • Pregnancy Loss, Grief and Trauma in Contemporary Film, Laura Lazzari, George Washington University 
    • Remediating My Family Picture: A comparative study of Alina Marazzi’s and Lynne Sachs’s autobiographical documentaries, Giovanna Conti, Brown University
    • “Things fall down, People look up” ---Trauma and Forgiveness in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, Shawn Driscoll, UMass Lowell
    • Trauma Behind Bars in Rossella Schillaci’s documentaries. From Imprisoned Lulluby to Surfacing, Giulia Po DeLisle, UMass Lowell
Register now to attend all or part of this FREE daylong event!  See full schedule (pdf)

Made possible with the financial support of the Québec Government, World Languages and Cultures, English, Digital Media, Art & Design, History, Psychology, Sociology, Gender Studies, Philosophy, the Bachelors of Liberal Arts, the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, and the Provost’s Office at UMass Lowell

Contact information: Mercedes_Baillargeon@uml.edu