Media Mutations 08

Bologna, Dipartimento delle Arti, Via Barberia 4 - May 25th-26th, 2016

Organized by the University of Bologna, in collaboration with the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image and the research project Theoretical Innovation Strategies in the Analysis of Narration in Television Series.
Programme committee: Margrethe Bruun Vaage (University of Kent), Michele Guerra (Università di Parma), Veronica Innocenti (Università di Bologna), and Héctor J. Pérez (Universitat Politècnica de València).

The 8th edition of the Media Mutations International Conference is titled A Cognitive Approach to TV Series. Some recent studies have begun developing a cognitive approach to TV series, but nevertheless much is yet unexplored. This conference aims at aiding this nascent field in firmly establishing itself as an interdisciplinary approach in media studies. We encourage papers on topics such as the nature and the role of emotions in TV series, the cognitive processes elicited by serial narrative, the viewers’ participation and paratextual creation, and finally the relationship between cognitive TV studies and other relevant theoretical approaches such as that of narrative ecosystems and so-called embodied narratology.

PROGRAMME
Wednesday 25 May 2016
10.00 Greetings and introduction
Michele Guerra, Veronica Innocenti, Héctor J. Pérez, Margrethe Bruun Vaage
10.30 Keynote 1, Jason Mittell (Middlesbury College), Operational Comprehension, or How We Think About How We Watch Serial Television
11.45 Panel 1: Characters & Engagement
Fernando Canet (Universitat Politècnica de València), The Relationship Between Characters as a Metaphor for the Viewer’s Engagement in Television Series: the Figure of “Meta-viewer”
Luca Barra (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano), A Different Kind of Connection. Building the Audience Engagement in Contemporary US Sitcoms
14.30 Panel 2: Events & Plots
Sebastian Armbrust (University of Hamburg), Events in Serial Storyworlds: Towards a Theory of Serial Plotting
Paolo Braga (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano), The Contribution of Screenwriting Theory to the Analysis of Complex TV: the Case of “Downton Abbey”
16.00 Panel 3: Temporality & Rhythm
Bohdan Y. Nebesio (Brock University, Niagara Region, Canada), Rhythm in TV Series Storytelling
Francesco Parisi (Università di Messina), Olimpia Calì (Università di Messina), Identification, Memory, Elaboration. The Importance of Time in the Context of TV Series Fruition
17.20 Keynote 2, Jaak Panksepp (Washington’s State University) and Anesa Miller (Independent Scholar), Addicted to Emotion: “How Affective Neuroscience Sheds Light on Our Love of Narrative Arts”
Thursday 26 May 2016
9.30 Keynote 3, Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski (The University of Texas at Austin), Binge-watching, Immersive Experience and Creativity: An Embodied Approach
10.45 Panel 4: Emotions & Mise-en-scène
Federico Pierotti (Università di Firenze), Emotion and Color Design in “Mad Men”
Enrico Carocci (Università degli Studi Roma Tre), “I Can Smell the Psychosphere”: The Aesthetics of Mood in “True Detective”: Season One
María Jesús Ortiz (Universidad de Alicante), Alberto Nahum Martínez (Universidad de Navarra), Mise-en-scène, Embodied Metaphors and Moods
12.30 Panel 5: Emotions & Narrative Structure
Sara Casoli (Università di Bologna), The Emotional Anomaly. The Planning of an Affective Experience in a Serial Information Architecture: the Case of “Game of Thrones”
Massimo Locatelli (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano), Fear Relevant Narratives
14.30 Book presentation: Margrethe Bruun Vaage, The Antihero in American Television (Routledge 2015). Discussant: Jason Mittell (Middlebury College)
15.15 Panel 6: Interdisciplinary Approaches
Janina Wildfeuer (University of Bremen), Out of place!?– The Semiotic Role of Music in Contemporary TV Series
Adriano D’Aloia (Università Telematica Internazionale UniNettuno), Ruggero Eugeni (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano), The Boundaries of Never-ending. Events. Cognition and Complex TV Series Narratives
16.30 Panel 6: Interdisciplinary Approaches (II)
Pauliina Tuomi (University of Tampere), Today’s Provocative Television Production: Moral Dimensions in Finnish Television
Ariel Avissar (Tel Aviv University), Connecting the Dots: Narrative Complexity in Contemporary Catastrophic Series