In Search of Lost Futures: Visual Narratives of Economic Migration

University of Warwick, 19-20 September 2024

University of Warwick central campus

Zeeman Building, MS.05Link opens in a new window

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Email lostfutures@warwick.ac.uk for online attendance

9.30 welcome, reception, coffee  

10:00 1st session: Reframing the Cinematic Gaze in European Borderlands  

Chair: Molly Harrabin (University of Warwick)  

1. Bengisu Kepsutlu (University of Leeds) ““The Perfect Refugee Doesn’t Exi…”: Migrant Girlhood, Neoliberal Feminism and Sports Labour in Sally El Hosaini’s The Swimmers (2022)”

2. Dr Matthias Kispert (University of Westminster): “Europe beyond itself: colonial temporalities, border struggles and media representation in No More Beyond”  

11.15 Keynote Lecture  

Doing Decolonization’s Dirty Work: Refugee-Migrant Labour for the Film Sector

Dr Kay Dickinson (University of Glasgow)  

Chair: Jacopo Francesco Mascoli (University of Warwick) 

12.15 – 13:30 Lunch  

13.30 2nd session: Alternative (hi)Stories of Migration in Sea and Oceanic crossings  

Chair: Dr Vladimir Rosas-Salazár (University of Warwick)  

1. Fatma Ozen (York University, Toronto) "Alternative Voices of Migration: Deconstructing Representations in Diverse Visual Narratives"  

2. Zach Meltzer (University of Cape Town) “Water, Wounds, and Wraiths: Rethinking Trauma and Migration in Transnational African Cinema”  

14:30 Coffee Break  

15.00 3rd session: Cinematic Portrayals of Displacement and Transformation in the Middle East  

Chair: Raghad Melfi (University of Warwick)  

1. Alessandra Fredianelli (University of Genoa) “Exploring the migratory condition in Syrian film production”  

2. Oğuzhan Dursun (George Mason University) “Exploring Societal Change through Migrant Portrayals in Late 20th Century Turkish Cinema”  

3. Hera Lorandos (King’s College, London) “Unveiling the Political Economy of Migration in Jumana Manna's "Wild Relatives" (2018): A Border Abolitionist and Decolonial Perspective”

17.00 end

 Day 2 

9.00 Keynote Lecture 

Transnational Comics: Breaking the Frame of Memory

Dr Barbara Spadaro (University of Liverpool)  

Chair: Silvia Vari (University of Warwick)  

10.00 – 10.15 Coffee Break  

10.15 – 12.00 4th session: Comics, Picturebooks, and Digital Resistance in Mediterranean Migration  

Chair: Dr James Taylor (University of Warwick) 

Dr Yu Feng (Shanghai Normal University) “Crossing the Mediterranean: Balancing Reality and Comfort through Metaphors in Migration Graphic Novels and Picturebooks”  

Dr Mokshda Manchanda (BITS Law School) "Archiving the Crisis of Displacement: Comics and Migration" 

Dr Federica Mazzara (University of Westminster) “Mocking the Border: Strategies of Visual Resistance in the Mediterranean”  

Dr Driss Faddouli (Chouaib Doukkali University) “Investigating Migratory Aesthetics of Crossing the Sea in Moroccan Networked Visual Narratives. Media, Morocco, Illegal migration”  

12 – 12:10 Closing remarks