ATRiuM Public Lecture on Small-Nation Filmmaking by Professor Mette Hjort 5.30pm Weds 28th November 2007

The Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations Announces the next upcoming Cardiff Academic ATRiuM Event . . .

The Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries has moved from the University's Treforest campus to our new ATRiuM home in Cardiff city centre.

With ‘state of the art’ facilities this will offer exciting opportunities for joint work with new partners.

Public Lecture on Small-Nation Filmmaking by Professor Mette Hjort, 5.30pm Weds 28th November 2007

Distinguished academic Professor Mette Hjort will be speaking at ATRiuM on Wednesday 28th November. In her only public appearance in Wales, Professor Hjort will deliver a lecture on The ‘Advance Party’ Initiative: Scottish/Danish Solutions to the Problems of Small-Nation Filmmaking.

‘Advance Party’ is a Scottish Dogme project which sets out to do for Scotland what director Lars von Trier’s Dogme 95 had done for Denmark. Professor Hjort will examine how this unique model of transnational filmmaking helps to provide solutions to the problems of small-nation filmmaking.

Distinguished academic Professor Mette Hjort will be speaking at ATRiuM at 5.30pm Weds 28th November. In her only public talk in Wales, Professor Hjort will deliver a lecture on The 'Advance Party' Initiative: Scottish/Danish Solutions to the Problems of Small-Nation Filmmaking.



'Advance Party' is a Scottish Dogme project which sets out to do for Scotland what director Lars von Trier's Dogme 95 had done for Denmark. Professor Hjort will examine how this unique model of transnational filmmaking helps to provide solutions to the problems of small-nation filmmaking.

Professor Hjort is the Leverhulme Visiting Professor of Film Studies at St Andrews in Scotland and Professor of Visual Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. She has published Small Nations, Global Cinema, and co-edited volumes including The Cinema of Small Nations, Cinema and Nation, The Postnational Self and Purity and Provocation: Dogme 95.

About one of the newest books by Professor Mette, The Cinema of Small Nations:

Synopsis: Within cinema studies there has emerged a significant body of scholarship on the idea of 'National Cinema' but there has been a tendency to focus on the major national cinemas.

Less developed within this field is the analysis of what we might term minor or small national cinemas, despite the increasing significance of these small entities with the international domain of moving image production, distribution and consumption.

"The Cinema of Small Nations" is the first major analysis of small national cinemas, comprising twelve case studies of small national - and sub national - cinemas from around the world, including Ireland, Denmark, Iceland, Scotland, Bulgaria, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Written by an array of distinguished and emerging scholars, each of the case studies provides a detailed analysis of the particular cinema in question, with an emphasis on the last decade, considering both institutional and textual issues relevant to the national dimension of each cinema.

While each chapter contains an in-depth analysis of the particular cinema in question, the book as a whole provides the basis for a broader and more properly comparative understanding of small or minor national cinemas, particularly with regard to structural constraints and possibilities, the impact of globalization and internationalisation, and the role played by economic and cultural factors in small-nation contexts.



This book includes the first major study of a range of small national cinemas. It provides detailed and informative studies of particular small national cinemas from around the globe.

It features an implicit comparative element that reveals major similarities and differences across the case studies.

It also features a strong line up of international contributors including a number of major internationally recognised experts in the field.

It is written in an accessible style to appeal to students, academics and the general reader alike.

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries / ATRiuM
The University of Glamorgan Adam Street Cardiff CF24 2XF

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Prof Hamish Fyfe Inaugural Professorial Lecture ‘Cycles of Affirmation – Art and Community in the New Century’

[Pictured above: The Glamorgan Business Centre at the University of Glamorgan, Treforest campus, where Professor Hamish Fyfe of the Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries will deliver his lecture tonight.]

Event Date November 13, 2007 6 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Location – Glamorgan Business Centre, Treforest Campus

‘Cycles of Affirmation – Art and Community in the New Century’ given by Professor Hamish Fyfe of the Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries


“What I’d like to do in this inaugural lecture is to frame three questions – about the value of the arts in people’s lives, about the elements required to make creative space for people and about some of the ways that we might move our work forward in the next decade to ensure that these spaces continue to develop.”

Refreshments will be served at 5.30pm and following the Lecture a buffet will be served in the Glamorgan Business Centre.

For further information or to book a place contact June Landeg on 01443 482788 or email: researchoffice@glam.ac.uk

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Welsh Capital's Newest Neighbour: Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations Announces Exciting Cardiff ATRiuM Calendar of Events

The Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations Announces Cardiff ATRiuM Calendar of Events . . .

In the Autumn Term and beyond we will be building on our research work through an exciting series of lectures, symposia, publications and other projects.

ATRiuM move:

The Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries has moved from the University's Treforest campus to our new ATRiuM home in Cardiff city centre. With ‘state of the art’ facilities this will offer exciting opportunities for joint work with new partners.



Symposium: ‘The Representation of Welsh Identity Abroad’ 13-14th November 2007

On 13th and 14th November 2007 the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations is hosting a symposium on The Representation of Welsh Identity Abroad. The Keynote Address will be delivered by First Minister, Rhodri Morgan AM, on the evening of Tuesday 13th November.



[Pictured above: Welsh National Assembly First Minister: Rhodri Morgan]

On Wednesday 14th November, a diverse group of arts and cultural practitioners and academics will address the symposium theme through a series of focused conversations and group exercises. These discussions will be set within the context of what is now a key economic sector, the creative and cultural industries.



[Pictured above: The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.]

We are most fortunate to have Dr Betty Belanus, Curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, as a participant at this symposium. Dr Belanus is currently a Visiting Research Fellow with the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations.



The symposium will be held in the ATRiuM, the University of Glamorgan’s new faculty in Cardiff city centre.

Please contact Jackie Aplin (address below) for a registration form and further details.

Public Lecture on Small-Nation Filmmaking by Professor Mette Hjort, 5.30pm Weds 28th November 2007



Pictured above: Dr. Mette Hjort]

Mette Hjort was born in Denmark but educated in Kenya, Britain, Holland, Switzerland, Canada and France. She did her B.A. and M.A. at McGill University in Quebec, Canada, where she did a thesis on Kant and art under the supervision of the Canadian philosopher and political theorist, Charles Taylor.



She holds a so-called ‘nouveau doctorat’ from the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. Her dissertation, entitled ‘Le procès du spectacle’ was written under the supervision of Louis Marin and focussed on anti-theatricality (pamphlet literature and treatises) in seventeenth century France and sixteenth century England.



Mette Hjort was for many years Associate Professor of English at McGill university, where she was Director of Film and Communications.



She moved to Denmark in 1997 for personal reasons and is currently on leave from her position as Professor in the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at Aalborg University.

Professor Mette Hjort Official Website

Mette Hjort is interested in the history of drama, critical theory, philosophy and literature, and minor cinema. She has published The Strategy of Letters (Harvard UP) and, with Ib Bondebjerg, an interview book entitled The Danish Directors: Dialogues on a Contemporary National Cinema (Intellect).

She is editor or co-editor of Rules and Conventions (Johns Hopkins UP), Emotion and the Arts (Oxford UP), Cinema and Nation (Routledge), The Postnational Self (U of Minnesota P) and Purity and Provocation: Dogma 95 (British Film Institute Publications).



'Small Nation, Global Cinema', a book focusing on the challenges faced by small nations in an increasingly globalized media culture, was recently published by the University of Minnesota Press, in the Public Planet series.

A monograph on Stanley Kwan's 'Center Stage' is forthcoming with the University of Hong Kong Press, in the Hong Kong Film Classics Series.

Mette Hjort is Series Editor, with Peter Schepelern, of a new Nordic Film Classics Series that will feature books by James Schamus (on Dreyer's Gertrud), John Hall and Charles Lindholm (on Bent Hamer's Kitchen Stories,) and many others.



Distinguished academic Professor Mette Hjort will be speaking at ATRiuM at 5.30pm Weds 28th November. In her only public talk in Wales, Professor Hjort will deliver a lecture on The 'Advance Party' Initiative: Scottish/Danish Solutions to the Problems of Small-Nation Filmmaking.



'Advance Party' is a Scottish Dogme project which sets out to do for Scotland what director Lars von Trier's Dogme 95 had done for Denmark. Professor Hjort will examine how this unique model of transnational filmmaking helps to provide solutions to the problems of small-nation filmmaking.



Professor Hjort is the Leverhulme Visiting Professor of Film Studies at St Andrews in Scotland and Professor of Visual Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. She has published Small Nations, Global Cinema, and co-edited volumes including The Cinema of Small Nations, Cinema and Nation, The Postnational Self and Purity and Provocation: Dogme 95.

Smithsonian Institution Visiting Fellow

Folklorist Dr Betty Belanus, Curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, has joined the Centre as a Visiting Research Fellow and is undertaking preparatory work for the Smithsonian Festival's focus on Wales in 2009.

2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington, DC



Since arriving, Dr Belanus has been engaged in an active period of fieldwork which has also involved consultative planning visits around Wales.

Smithsonian Internship

Glamorgan postgraduate student Dr Aparna Sharma has successfully completed an internship which was developed in collaboration between the University of Glamorgan and the Smithsonian Institution.



[Pictured above: Madhvi Dalal, 31, a dancer of Indian origin who currently lives in Cardiff, who is featured in research and articles by Dr. Aparna Sharma]

Please click here to read: A Step Ahead by Aparna Sharma

Aparna, who recently completed her PhD, is a documentary filmmaker and journalist with a particular interest in the visual representation of minority cultures and national and cultural identities.

Centre 'Round Table'

The Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations held its first Round Table working lunch event in June. Expert practitioners with an interest in the Centre’s concerns were brought together to share their thoughts and inform future work.




[Pictured above: Patricia Aithie "Valleys, Wales" oil on canvas 2007 40 x 50cm sold}


The guests were photographer and painter Patricia Aithie; Artist and commentator Iwan Bala; Broadcaster and former BBC Wales arts correspondent Jon Gower; and Electoral Commissioner, Ofcom board member and former BBC Wales & ITN political editor Glyn Mathias.



A wide ranging discussion covered links with other minority cultures, particularly Galicia, cultural diversity, tribalism, faith, the decline of ideologies, democratic engagement and more.

Another event with new guests is planned for the Atrium in early 2008.



Other items of interest . . .

Channel 4: The First Twenty-Five Years

BFI / Channel 4 Conference, 17 –18th November 2007

Professor Steve Blandford, Associate Dean, Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries, will present a paper on C4 and National Voices - S4C and Cinema at the British Film Institute's conference on the first 25 years of Channel Four.

British Film Institute's conference on the first 25 years of Channel Four

Communication in the Age of Suspicion: Trust and the Media



This volume, edited by Dr Vian Bakir and Dr David Barlow, includes 14 international contributions which examine a number of media genres and media forms.

Communication in the Age of Suspicion: Trust and the Media

To make your reservation for the conference you must quickly contact Ms. Jackie Aplin, at the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations:

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries / ATRiuM
The University of Glamorgan Adam Street Cardiff CF24 2XF
Email: jsaplin[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk
Web: http://culture.research.glam.ac.uk/

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/feature-news/2006/11/22/small-nations-big-subject-91466-18137212/

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

How Liminal is My Coastline? ‘On The Edge: Margins and Peripheries in Welsh Writing’

[Pictured above: Conference Organizer Dr. Katie Gramich, School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University]

ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2008

The focus of the twentieth annual conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English at Gregynog Hall in Powys, Wales, UK from April 4-6, 2008 will be ‘On The Edge: Margins and Peripheries in Welsh Writing.’

The theme is open to a range of interpretations, both literal and symbolic.

On the literal (littoral?) level, Welsh writers have long been engaged in representing the coastline and islands of Wales, from Allen Raine’s Cardiganshire cliffs and caves to Dylan Thomas’s Rhossili and the marginal estuary town of Under Milk Wood . . .

More recently, Brenda Chamberlain and Christine Evans have provided powerful poetic accounts of living on the edge in Bardsey Island, while R. S. Thomas spent his later years probing life out on the limb of the Llŷn peninsula.

Other writers, like Emyr Humphreys and Kate Roberts, have seen Wales on the uncomfortable edge of Empire, while many Welsh works, like Raymond Williams’s Border Country, have explored the liminal spaces between nations, and between the rural and the industrial.

International artistic movements are often interpreted differently by writers of ‘marginal’ status, such as the Welsh Modernism of Glyn Jones or the Anglo-Welsh Romanticism of Felicia Hemans or Ann of Swansea.

Welsh identities, too have frequently been represented as edgy and fractured, such as in the multiple selves projected in the work of David Jones, Dannie Abse, or Charlotte Williams.

More recently, Welsh writers have explored cultural, ethnic and linguistic margins in productive experiments with form and symbolism, as in the writing of Lloyd Jones, Gwyneth Lewis, or Peter Ho Davies.

This conference will be an opportunity to explore the various edges of Welsh writing: those places where the self comes up against the something else which, arguably, defines it as what it is.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Papers are invited on any aspect of the theme ‘On The Edge: Margins and Peripheries in Welsh Writing.’

Both short papers (c. 20 minutes) or longer ones (c. 50 minutes) will be considered; a brief abstract should be submitted to the organizer for consideration by the deadline of December 14th, 2007.

Organizer: Dr. Katie Gramich, School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU. Email: GramichK@cf.ac.uk;

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods