Keynote Speakers

Professor Scott Bukatman (Stanford University) ::
The keynote speaker launching the conference is Professor Bukatman who holds a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University. He is the author of three books: Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction, published by Duke University Press, was one of the earliest book-length studies of "cyberculture", and is currently in its third printing. The book combined close readings of film, fiction, comics, games and journalism to identify and analyze an emergent subjectivity within electronic culture. His second book is a monograph on Blade Runner commissioned by the British Film Institute, continued to explore the intersection of cinema and technological experience. In his most recent book Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Superman in the C20th (Duke UP) he considers special effects as a paradigmatic of the experience of modernity, and popular media (ranging from superhero texts to musical films) as, in fact, mediating between new technologies and human perceptual experience. Bukatman has also published in such journals as Camera Obscura, Architecture New York, October, and Iris, and his work (both original and reprinted) has appeared in many anthologies. Since 1997 has been a faculty member in both the departments of Art History and Comparative Literature at Stanford University, where he has also been working on the establishment of a film studies program. His website is available at: http://www. stanford.edu/dept/art/ people/ bios/bukatman.html

The title of Scott's paper is 'Secret Identity Politics'

Professor Henry Jenkins (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) ::
Henry Jenkins is Professor and Head of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. He has published numerous books dealing with film, television and popular culture, including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, What Made Pistacchio Nuts? Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic, and Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Dr. Who and Star Trek (co-authored with John Tulloch). He has also published widely in journals and book anthologies on topics that deal with a range of his research interests, including superheroes, television, computer games and fan culture. His website is available at: http://web.mit.edu/ 21fms/www/faculty/henry3/.

The title of Henry's presentation is 'Just Men In Tights':  Genre , Popular Memory, And Silver Age Comics.

Dr. Louise Krasniewicz (University of Pennsylvania) ::
Louise Krasniewicz is the Senior Research Scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. She injects her analysis of American media and popular culture with an anthropological spin and has published widely on a range of topics including memetics, rituals and symbolism, digital media, and the connections between dreaming and films. She is also a digital media artist and producer, and designed the website, "Dreaming Arnold Schwarzenegger" which documents 20 years of Schwarzenegger analysis. With Michael Blitz she is co-author of the 2004 book, Why Arnold Matters: The Rise of a Cultural Icon which examines Schwarzenegger's cultural influence and election as governor of California. The title of Louise's plenary presentation is "True-Lies" Superhero: Do We Really Want Our Icons to Come to Life?"