*CFP* "30 YEARS SINCE THE ATTACK ON DUBROVNIK: POLITICAL, COMMUNICATIONAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE CITY UNDER SIEGE", SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE

Scientific conference titled “30 years since the attack on Dubrovnik: Political, communicational and cultural aspects of the city under siege” will be held on October 1-2, 2021 at the University of Dubrovnik.

Thirty years after the attacks on Dubrovnik, the University of Dubrovnik in cooperation with the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts and Linnaeus University, Sweden, are organizing an interdisciplinary conference on political, communicational and cultural aspects of the city under siege. A special focus of the conference will be given to analysis and comparisons with other cities that were under siege (Vukovar, Sarajevo, Srebrenica...) during the wars in the former Yugoslavia (1991-1999), but comparisons with other conflicts are also welcome.

Proposals may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Understanding the context: the dissolution of Yugoslavia 
• War reporting practices from the Dubrovnik area; 
• Media analysis on the subject of war in Dubrovnik, Croatia and the ex-Yugoslav area from 1988 to 1995; 

*CFP* "SOUND STUDIES, SOUNDSCAPES, AND SOUND ART OF THE BALKANS", SPECIAL ISSUE, THE JOURNAL OF SONIC STUDIES

City sounds and sounds of nature; sounds of progress and nostalgic sounds; sounds of revolution and change, and sounds of restauration; sounds deliberately produced or emerging unintentionally, serving a disciplinary function or expressing forms of freedom; musical as well as non-musical (functional) sounds; sounds of war and sounds of friendship. How do the Balkans sound? How can their sonic ambiances be characterized? What can be heard there? How should we listen to them, experience them, affect and be affected by them? What is their political, social, religious, ethical, economic, aesthetic influence or meaning? How do Balkan sound artists respond to these influences and meanings? How are sound studies developing in South-Eastern Europe?

The Journal of Sonic Studies is searching for scholarly and artistic contributions that deal with the connections and relationships between the history, culture, society, and politics of the Balkan countries and the production, distribution, and reception of sounds, noises, and silence. The broader aim of this special issue is to establish “sound” as an analytical category that provides us with challenging perspectives on and a new understanding of this part of Europe. Therefore, our call does not focus on a particular historical period or research methodology, but seeks to bring together scholars and artist-researchers who share an interest in Balkan sound studies, soundscapes, and/or sound art.

*CFP* "CINEMA AND ARCHITECTURE/URBANISM/MEMORY IN ROMANIA", SPECIAL ISSUE, EAST EUROPEAN FILM BULLETIN

Romanian cinema is at the forefront of addressing the challenges that the country faces today, often linking troublesome memories to urban spaces. Recent films such as Radu Jude’s I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History as Barbarians and Cristi Puiu’s Sieranevada address collective processes of remembering by linking them to physical places - public as well as private -, thereby exemplifying the way in which memory is dependent on and projected onto the locus of the city. Media artists, such as Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor, have also explored the topographies of memory. At the crossroads of the country’s past and future, architecture is a powerful force for cinematic storytelling, displaying a feeling of “restorative nostalgia” (Svetlana Boym) as well as a desire for change. 

As part of its Romanian focus 2021, the East European Film Bulletin is preparing a special issue on the topic of architecture and memory in Romanian cinema, television, video art and experimental film. We are looking for contributions that examine and analyse the diverse relationships between cinema, architecture and memory and their links with Romania’s complex memory, both remote and recent.

*CFP* "SOUND STUDIES, SOUNDSCAPES, AND SOUND ART OF THE BALKANS", SPECIAL ISSUE, JOURNAL OF SONIC STUDIES

City sounds and sounds of nature; sounds of progress and nostalgic sounds; sounds of revolution and change, and sounds of restauration; sounds deliberately produced or emerging unintentionally, serving a disciplinary function or expressing forms of freedom; musical as well as non-musical (functional) sounds; sounds of war and sounds of friendship.

How do the Balkans sound? How can their sonic ambiances be characterized? What can be heard there? How should we listen to them, experience them, affect and be affected by them? What is their political, social, religious, ethical, economic, aesthetic influence or meaning? How do Balkan sound artists respond to these influences and meanings? How are sound studies developing in South-Eastern Europe?

The Journal of Sonic Studies is searching for scholarly and artistic contributions that deal with the connections and relationships between the history, culture, society, and politics of the Balkan countries and the production, distribution, and reception of sounds, noises, and silence. 

*CFP* "MAINSTREAM. POPULAR CULTURE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE", 5TH CONFERENCE OF CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF POPULAR CULTURE 2020

Mainstream! Popular Culture in Central And Eastern Europe

29-31st October, 2020

Prague, Czech Republic

Mainstream media representations of celebrities remain problematic, as excited discussions regarding the recent funeral of singer Karel Gott have demonstrated. The appraisal of his long-term career has been divided into two extreme positions: uncritical admiration for the idol who spread joy under different political regimes on one hand and condemnation of his kitschy art associated with his selling out under these regimes on the other. What the overall debate has confirmed, is that stars and celebrities of popular culture can become symbols of any given period.

The focus of the conference is on mainstream culture, which can be defined as the most popular, widespread, most accessible and understandable cultural expressions across society. Following Gramsci’s and Hall’s approaches, it is the mainstream that is considered the essential sphere where ideological hegemony is negotiated.

*CFP* "DISSENT AND DISSIDENTS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN FILM", SPECIAL ISSUE, THE HISTORICAL JOURNAL OF FILM, RADIO AND TELEVISION

Following the establishment of the «people´s democracies» in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II, Lenin´s dictum about «film being the most important art» brought change in terms of an improved infrastructure for film production. Often, the Soviet film was seen as a role model for the other Socialist states. The establishment of Socialist film schools or academies, for example, in Czechoslovakia (Prague 1947), Poland (Łódz 1948), Yugoslavia (Belgrade 1948), Romania (Bucuresti 1950), Bulgaria (Sofia 1948), Hungary (Budapest 1948) and the GDR (Potsdam 1954), were all emulated in one way or another after Moscow´s famous VGIK, the first state film school in the world. The idea was, of course, that film was considered an important medium for propaganda and persuasion and that it was necessary to secure Socialist-minded ”cadres” for this cause. 

Yet, despite all measures to carefully regulate the film industry, the level of control varied significantly over time and in the different countries – despite the fact that film, for a number of reasons, lends itself to control. Alternative voices, as a number of examples demonstrate, could be heard in all of the Warsaw Pact states. By looking at filmmaking, exhibition and reception, film education and film criticism, this themed issue of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television considers dissent and dissidents in Central and Eastern European film during the Cold War and its aftermath.. 

*CFP* “STARS AND STARDOM IN EASTERN EUROPEAN CINEMA”, SPECIAL ISSUE, STUDIES IN EASTERN EUROPEAN CINEMA

A significant body of scholarship since Dyer’s groundbreaking work on stars (1979; 1986) has challenged the view that stardom was limited to Hollywood (e.g. Vincendeau 2000, Ascheid 2003, Hayward 2004, Soila 2009, Williams Bandhauer and Royer 2015). Although star biographies are ubiquitous in Eastern Europe [e.g. Bános on Pál Jávor (1978)], there is a wealth of archival material to mine (e.g. Zbigniew Cybulski headshots and lobby cards traded on online auction sites), and scholars have considered film actors in relation to representations of femininity (e.g. Attwood 1993, Iordanova 2003, Mazierska and Ostrowska 2006) and in relation to national identity (e.g. Williams 2015, Gergely 2016), much work remains to be done in the context of Eastern Europe on stars, stardom and infrastructure supporting star systems (e.g. agencies, the tabloid press, fan literature, and exhibition, distribution and marketing firms).

The false perception that stardom was negligible or even non-existent and the assumption that state-supported film industries were insensitive to audience demand and therefore had no need for stars remain hard to shake because what writing there is on Eastern European stars is dispersed and yet to grow into a body of work that can offer a comprehensive and nuanced view. At play, too, is the blurring of state socialist Eastern Europe with the region’s other faces and eras. The popular, but false image of the drabness of life behind the Iron Curtain does not easily mesh with the notions of glitz and glamour cultivated by classical Hollywood’s publicity departments.