CFP: The Power of Love
An area of multiple panels for the 2016 Film & History Conference:
Gods and Heretics: Figures of Power and Subversion in Film and Television
October 26-October 30, 2016
The Milwaukee Hilton
Milwaukee, WI (USA)


When romance is brought to life on film and television, it becomes a public discourse capable of either normalizing or challenging behaviors and activating social criticism. Debates over the shape and form of love on the silver screen have been at the center of film and television history, pointing to its significant cultural power. This area, then, will explore both “the power of love” in screen history and the implications of love in film and television.

Who are we allowed to love, where, when, why, and how? What do these various relationships illustrate about our social worlds? Under what circumstances are characters not allowed to love, and why? What role have entertainment executives and other key figures played in dictating “appropriate” behavior through on-screen loves? By analyzing the patterned representation and censorship of love, film and television scholars can address the important dialectic between what is revealed to us and what is concealed during any historical period, highlighting the critical power of love.

This area invites 20-minute papers or complete panels that explore the varying powers of love. Possibilities include, but are not limited to:


Forbidden Love and Unlikely Couples
Censoring Love: The Production Code and Beyond
What’s Love Got to Do With It?: Plot and Narrative
From Real to Reel: Biographical Romance
The Politics of Teaching Desire
Speaking Love: The Power of Dialogue
Bachelors and Bachelorettes: Normalizing Gender Roles in Reality TV
Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.filmandhistory.org).

Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2016, to the area chair:

Nicole Amber Haggard
Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles
nhaggard@msmu.edu