University of Warwick, 20 March 2009

On 20th March 2009 the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick and the Midlands Television Research Group, in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of the journal Screen (and with the support of BFI Publishing), will host a one-day symposium about the notion of the ‘television classic’. The aim of this event is to open up the broad question ‘what is a television classic?’ and the day will feature both papers and shorter clip-based presentations from a variety of invited speakers. Significant discussion time is built into the day, in the hope of encouraging wide-ranging discussion on a subject, which is, though now central to much academic publishing in the field, in need of serious interrogation. As publishing (and thus research) on television moves increasingly towards volumes on single programmes, the relationship between television research, teaching and publishing gains ever greater significance. The event will raise questions such as: how useful is the notion of a ‘television classic’ for thinking about television? Why might we wish to refuse or argue against the notion of a ‘classic’? What does and does not make a ‘television classic’? How does the term ‘classic television’ function in research, teaching and the wider culture, including academic publishing?

Speakers

Kim Akass, Rebecca Barden, Janet McCabe, John Caughie, John Corner, Lez Cooke, Glyn Davies, Christine Geraghty, Jason Jacobs, Sarita Malik, Robin Nelson, Helen Piper.

Registration includes morning coffee, afternoon tea and lunch. There will be a drinks reception, sponsored by BFI Publishing, immediately following the event.

Symposium Fee: £35.00 (full registration)/£30.00 (student registration)

The symposium timetable can now be downloaded here.

Registration is now closed.

Click here to view/download the conference poster (JPEG format).

Enquiries: please contact James.Zborowski@warwick.ac.uk.