IX MAGIS - International Film Studies Spring School
Porn Studies Section

Cartography of pornographic audiovisuals / Call for Papers

The Porn Studies Section of the IX MAGIS - International Film Studies Spring School (Gorizia,, Italy, April 8-14, 2011) intends to explore the geographies of audiovisual pornography by employing a cartographic perspective (cf. Barker 1996). This perspective accounts for at least two levels of theoretical formalization, which involve both the diachronic dimension and the synchronic one (cf. Cregan 2007). The first level deals with the construction of chronological systems that subtend the “historical space” in which a particular cultural phenomenon develops. The second level deals with the elaboration of topological systems that subtend the “geographical dynamic” through which that particular cultural phenomenon appears. By joining the temporal dimension and the spatial one (and vice versa), the cartographic dispositive acquires a double nature, overlapping the “plain” geographic atlas with the “deep” historic archive (cf. Buchloh 1999).

Beginning with the next edition of MAGIS - International Film Studies Spring School, the Porn Studies Section intends to promote a three-year research project devoted to the compilation of a cartography of pornographic audiovisuals. This project plans to investigate the discursive genealogy (and archaeology) of pornographic audiovisuals within different cultural contexts. In particular, two are the principal “cartographic axes”. On one hand, the project aims to reconstruct the historical variables (on an institutional, social, technological etc. level) which define the cultural existence of pornographic audiovisuals, thereby establishing their conditions of possibility. On the other, the project aims to trace the geographical constants (on a sociological, economic, linguistic etc. level) which distinguish the different pornographic audiovisuals in terms of national (or regional) identity (cf. Castro 2009). Our main objective, therefore, is to map the several morphological expressions (and transformations) which pornographic audiovisuals have undergone during their historical evolution and geographical expansion (cf. Russo Krauss 2010).

A further stage of the project intends to study the cartography of pornographic audiovisuals from a metatheoretical point-of-view. The culture of any society, in fact, is not an absolute body of work but the result of a continual act of selection and interpretation, which corresponds to a historically determined system of interests and values (cf. R. Williams 1961). It is a matter of power, therefore, if certain discourses prevail over others and thus establish the necessary resources to mould the social and cultural life. Traditionally, pornographic audiovisuals have been subjected to historical and geographical reconstructions which answered to specific normative requirements. Accordingly, the cartographic dispositive itself is not immune from this process of discursive abstraction and selection (cf. Yates 1966). From this point-of-view, our aim is to deconstruct the already existent cartographies in order to search for the social forces that have structured the pornographic audiovisuals (cf. Harley 2009).

In accordance with this methodological assumption, the Porn Studies Section intends to encourage the following perspectives of study:

· Analysis of the permanences (on an iconographic, figurative, performative etc. level) which constitute the “memory” of pornographic audiovisuals (cf. Grespi 2009) (i.e. the alleged “ritual substratum” in Japanese bukkake). 

· Analysis of the migrations (on a representative, sociological, economical, etc. level) performed by pornographic audiovisuals during their historical and geographical development (cf. Colombo, 2009) (i.e. the process by which Japanese bukkake turned into western “multiple facial”).

· Analysis of the equivalences and divergences (on a stylistic, productive, consumptional etc. level) which can be observed, from a comparative point-of-view, in pornographic audiovisuals belonging to different cultural and sub-cultural contexts (cf. Gnisci 2002) (i.e. Japanese bukkake vs Americam Bukkake series).

· Analysis of the categorizations (on a political, legislative, academic etc. level) to which pornographic audiovisuals have been submitted, according to different historical and geographical epistemes (cf. Hunt 1996; L. Williams 1999) (i.e. the relationship between the theoretical formulations of anti-porn feminists and American censorship commissions).

Although we do not discourage general historical or theoretical considerations, textual close readings devoted to discursive genres, stylistic configurations, representational practices, directors’ work etc. as well as case studies devoted to modes of consumption, legislative systems, star systems, industrial structures etc. are particularly welcome.

Bibliography

o Stephen Barker, Signs of Change: Premodern, Modern, Postmodern, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1996. 

o Benjamin Buchloh, “Atlas/Archive”, in Alex Coles (ed.), The Optic of Walter Benjamin, Blackdog Publishing, Londra, 1999, pp. 12-35.

o Teresa Castro, “Cinema’s Mapping Impulse: Questioning Visual Culture”, in The Cartographic Journal, vol. 46, no. 1, February 2009, pp. 9-15.

o Fausto Colombo (ed.), Tracce. Atlante warburghiano della televisione, Link, Colonio Monzese, 2010. 

o Kate Cregan, “Early Modern Anatomy and the Queen’s Body Natural: The Sovereign Subject”, in Body & Society, vol. 13, no. 2, June 2007, pp. 47-66.

o Armando Gnisci (ed.), Letteratura comparata, Bruno Mondadori, Milano, 2002.

o Barbara Grespi, “Chaplin acrobata. Il gesto comico e la memoria automatica”, in Barbara Grespi (ed.), Locus Solus. Memoria e immagini, Bruno Mondadori, Milano, 2009, pp. 97-117. 

o John Brian Harley, “Deconstructing the Map”, in Cartographica, vol. 26, no. 2, Summer 1989, pp. 1-20.

o Lynn Hunt, “Introduction: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500-1800”, in Lynn Hunt (ed.), The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500-1800, Zone Books, New York, 1996, pp. 9-45.

o Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Londra, 1966.

o Diana Russo Krauss, Le lingue. Una prospettiva geografica, Carocci, Roma, 2010.

o Linda Williams, Hardcore. Power, Plesure and the Frenzy of the Visible, University of California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles-Londra, 1999.

o Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1965.