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Call for Papers: Television Histories in (Post)Socialist Europe

VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture Vol. 3, Issue 05.

Deadline for abstracts: February 1st, 2014.
Deadline for full papers: 15 March, 2014.

While recent comparative and transnational approaches in the field of European television history have demonstrated the need for (post)socialist television histories in Europe, there is currently limited scholarship dedicated to this geopolitical area of television in Europe. This area of study has mostly been relegated to the margins of other disciplines and remained isolated by national languages inaccessible to non-native scholars.

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The forthcoming issue of VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture is dedicated to the theme Television Histories in (Post)Socialist Europe. It aims to open up discussions of (post)socialist television in Europe beyond political histories of the nation-state, discourses of Cold War isolation and East-West antagonism. The very broad questions that motivate these aims are:

  • Which empirical case studies help us understand (post)socialist television histories beyond stories of political control?
  • Which primary sources allow us access to television histories that fall outside the mainstream histories of the socialist state?
  • What methods do we need in order to decentralize the state in the production of (post)socialist television histories and analyze television histories that have resisted, subverted or negotiated the politics of communist regimes?
  • How can we theorize (post)socialist television as an object of study that revisits the East versus West dichotomies that have been at the centre of television history in Europe
  • How do (post)socialist television histories help us revisit the Cold War geography of Europe?
  • How can we understand the shifting place of (post)socialist television within broader societal processes of communication?

VIEW welcomes contributions in the form of short articles (2000-4500 words), video and audio essays that take these broad questions on board and deal specifically with topics such as:

  • empirical case studies that help us understand (post)socialist television histories beyond stories of political control;
  • video and audio essays exploring television archival collections in Eastern Europe;
  • video and audio essays presenting primary sources (e.g. oral interviews, audio-visual and written material) of television in former socialist countries;
  • transnational cultures of (post)socialist television in Europe, namely: shared cultures of television production and professions, shared techno-political cultures of television and shared viewing cultures;
  • memories of socialist television and nostalgia;
  • popular television programmes during and since socialism.

This issue is guest edited by the European (Post)Socialist Television History Network in collaboration with the following guest editorial team:

  • Kirsten Bönker (Bielefeld University, DE)
  • Sven Grampp (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, DE)
  • Ferenc Hammer (ELTE University, HU)
  • Anikó Imre (University of Southern California, USA)
  • Lars Lundgren (Södertörn Univerity, SE)
  • Sabina Mihelj (Loughborough University, UK)
  • Dana Mustata (University of Groningen, NL)
  • Julia Obertreis (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, DE)
  • Irena Reifová (Charles University, CZ)

Submission info

  • Contributions are encouraged from authors with different kinds of expertise and interests in television broadcasting, from researchers to television professionals, to archivists and preservationists.
  • Contributions can be in the form of conventional articles, illustrated commentaries or photo-essays.
  • Paper proposals (max. 500 words) are due on February 1st, 2014. Submissions should be sent to the managing editor of the journal, Dana Mustata.

VIEW is published by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in collaboration with Utrecht University, University of Luxembourg and Royal Holloway University of London. It is supported by the EUscreenXL project, the European Television History Network and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

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