Interdisciplinary Symposium of the Irish Centre of Transnational Studies (MIC),
supported by the Centre for European Studies (UL)
Date & Time: Friday, 24 September 2021
Organisers: Dr Sabine Egger (German Studies, MIC), Dr Marcus Free (Media Studies, MIC)
Concept:
Panel 1 (11:00-12:30) Sport in European Film and Television
3 presenters & discussion (accessible format, also for non-academics, see below)
Panel 2 (13:30-15:30) Dance, Media and Embodied Identities in Europe (and beyond)
Breandán de Gallaí (UL): Riverdance as a Transnational Media Phenomenon/Transgression of ? (title TBC)
(TBC (Sports Museum, Cologne): Transgressing Body Cultures on Screen: Belly Dancing in the Eifel and African Dance in Kerry)
Eoin Flannery (MIC): Dance, Body and Transgression in Literature
Gert Hoffmann (UCC): Cultural Aesthetics of the Body
Panel 3 (16:00-17:30) Lola Montez: Spanish Dancer from Ireland, European Femme Fatale, 19th Century Media Celebrity?
Marita Krauss (Univ. of Augsburg): Lola Montez. Transnational Scandal and Stardom (title TBC)
Joachim Fischer (UL): A Limerick Woman? Myths around Lola Montez
Christiane Schönfeld (MIC): Introduction to Max Ophüls' Film “Lola Montez”, 1956
Film Screening (18:00) “Lola Montez”, 1956
The panels will focus on the spheres of sport and dance as codified physical and popular cultural activities that have historically connected peoples across the continent of Europe but also - paradoxically – highlighted its internal divides, fractures and boundaries through its rituals (international competitions. tournaments, performance practices, medial presentation). Sporting events both reinforce national identities and geographical boundaries through their competitive structures even as they unite the continent’s peoples through the spectacle of live broadcasting. Dance and related forms of corporeal movement can result in the transgression or reinforcement of national and cultural identities as well as gender roles through performance. The same applies to its presentation and reception through different media and media personalities. Depending on the cultural, social and medial context, dance is perceived as a form of sport or art. Both highlight tensions between the national and transnational, regional and local, in various ways.
All panels will consist of groups of presentations focusing on films - documentary and/or drama - and other media that in some way highlight transnational imaginative investment in sport and other forms of corporeal movement as cultural codes, but also their contradictory aspects.