'In the Shadow of
Empire -The Post-Imperial Imaginaries of London and Paris’ is a one day
conference that aims to initiate a dialogue between film theorists and
cultural geographers concerning the myriad ways in which London and Paris, as
former imperial capitals, are imagined and re-imagined from within the
framework of the post-imperial. The notion of the ‘post-imperial’ is derived
from Edward Said’s assertion that traces of imperialism continue to linger in
the present, even though colonialism as such has largely come to an end. Urban scholar Jane M. Jacobs agrees, stating
“that traces of the imperial” or memories of empire can be reactivated
through spatial means in former imperial cities. Narratives of imperial and post-imperial
mobilities continue to remain repressed within discourses on the ‘cinematic
city’ as the story of the flaneur
and other urban strollers continue to take precedence. One of the chief
objectives of the conference is to expand the parameters of the study of
these ‘cinematic cities’ through a resurrection and consideration of the
relevance of discourses related to empire and urban space.
An
exploration of the cinematic landscape of a city is often an interdisciplinary
endeavour, one that extends beyond the scope of film analysis and into the
terrain of urban studies and cultural geography. Similarly, certain cultural geographers and
urban theorists draw upon cinematic analogies in their examination of space,
culture and the city. This form of
cross-disciplinary fertilization is one that is acknowledged by scholars in
both fields and as such, this conference aims to develop a forum of exchange
whereby scholars from the disciplines in question as well as cultural
practitioners can discuss the ways in which such forms of interaction can
advance research by developing new paradigms of scholarship and debate across
more than one area of study
For further information & a booking form please
visit the conference website at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/hrc/confs/soe/
