Salford conference: “I’ll See You Again in 25 Years: The Return of Twin Peaks and Generations of Cult TV”

Call for Papers

“I’ll See You Again in 25 Years: The Return of Twin Peaks and Generations of Cult TV”

A two-day international conference.

School of Arts and Media, University of Salford, UK

21^{st- -} 22^nd May 2015

Confirmed keynote speakers:

· Professor David Lavery (Middle Tennessee State University, USA)

· Cristina Alvarez (Barcelona based independent video artist)

· Dr Adrian Martin (Monash University, Australia)

Proposals are invited for a two-day international conference on the return of the popular cult television series Twin Peaks. The conference presents a timely reconsideration of the critically acclaimed programme with the announcement of its return to television after a twenty five year hiatus. In the meantime, cultures of television production, circulation and viewer practices have changed dramatically; the US cable sector in this period becoming the primary site for a model of auteur-driven, big-budget offbeat serial drama that Twin Peaks served as prototype for, with this trend underpinning Showtime’s recommissioning of this series of broadcast network origin. But alongside such transformation, the cultural prominence of this landmark programme has endured, as the considerable enthusiasm among critics and fans for the series’ return demonstrates.

This conference seeks to address the issue of Twin Peaks’ significant influence and lasting appeal from a number of multi-disciplinary perspectives. We welcome proposals from scholars in the fields of cultural studies, television studies, film studies, visual arts, popular music studies, sound studies performance studies, digital and social media and related disciplines.

Proposals are invited on (but not limited to) the following topics:

Twin Peaks and fandom

Twin Peaks and generations of cult television

Music and sound design in Twin Peaks

Set design and visual style

The use and subversion of the crime and melodrama genres

Feminism and gender relations

Seriality in Twin Peaks and contemporary television

Camp performance styles in Twin Peaks

David Lynch and televisual auteurism

Twin Peaks and social media

Generations of quality television

Intertextuality between television, film and literature

Comic and melodramatic performance styles

Film and television convergence

Twin Peaks and the contemporary television industry

Deadline for abstracts: 31^st January 2015

300 word abstracts plus a 100 word biography should be sent to the conference organisers:

Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs K.Fairclough@salford.ac.uk

Michael Goddard M.Goddard@salford.ac.uk

Anthony Smith A.N.Smith@salford.ac.uk