*CFP* "BEHIND EYES WIDE SHUT", CONFERENCE LONDON COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION

Behind Eyes Wide Shut

London College of Communication, University of the Arts London,

Elephant and Castle, London,

16th and 17th December 2019

Twenty years since its release, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut remains a complex, visually arresting film about domesticity, sexual disturbance, and dreams. This was the final enigmatic work from its equally enigmatic creator. It has left an indelible mark on our popular culture and remains as relevant as ever. Much maligned and much misunderstood when it first came out, Eyes Wide Shut has since been the subject of an animated debate and discussion among critics and academics. It has been explored from a wide variety of disciplines and methodological perspectives. This conference proposes to bring together scholars and fans from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, as well as those who worked on the film itself, to explore Eyes Wide Shut twenty years since its release, discuss its impact and consider its position within Kubrick’s oeuvre and the wider visual and socio-political culture.

Possible angles might include:

• Eyes Wide Shut – origins, influences, production, aesthetics, publicity, reception, afterlife 
• Where does Eyes Wide Shut sit in Kubrick’s oeuvre? 
• What is the cultural/film-making legacy of Eyes Wide Shut? 
• What is the position of Eyes Wide Shut within the wider visual culture? 
• Eyes Wide Shut and parenthood 
• Eyes Wide Shut and race, ethnicity and otherness 
• Eyes Wide Shut and Arthur Schnitzler 
• Eyes Wide Shut and psychoanalysis 
• Eyes Wide Shut as a dark comedy 
• Eyes Wide Shut, audiences, fandom and ‘cult’ 
• Eyes Wide Shut and the conspiratorial imagination.

Please send 300-word abstracts, along with a brief biographical note, to Nathan Abrams (n.abrams@bangor.ac.uk) and Georgina Orgill (g.orgill@arts.ac.uk) by October 1st, 2019. Early submissions are encouraged, and we will endeavour to confirm acceptance shortly after receipt.

The conference is a joint collaboration across the University of Arts London Archives and Special Collections Centre and the Centre for Film, Television, and Screen Studies at Bangor University in Wales.