The 19th Annual Graduate Student Conference
Department of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago
May 3-4, 2024, Cobb 307
playing.animals.conf@gmail.com
Friday, May 3
Opening Remarks 3:30pm - Cobb 307
Marc Downie (Associate Professor of Practice, University of Chicago)
Keynote Address 4:00pm - Cobb 307
Alenda Y. Chang (Associate Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara) - My Father Was a Fish: On Interspecies Play (or Playfulness)
Opening Reception Dinner 5:30pm - Cobb 310/311
Screening 7:00pm - Cobb 307
Dog Baseball (1986, William Wegman)
Popcorn (1931, Frank Moser & Paul Terry)
The First Cat Obstacle Course, New Jersey (2005, Trevor Shimizu)
Mechanical Cow (1937, Jack Zander & Paul Terry)
Blinky (1988, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto & Jeffrey Vallance)
The Big Dog House (1930, Zion Myers & Jules White)
Out of the Melting Pot (1927)
The Boy Who Liked Deer (1975, Barbara Loden)
(79 minutes, 16mm and digital video)
Saturday, May 4
Breakfast 9:00am - Cobb 310/311
Panel I - Playing across history 9:30am - Cobb 307
Fang Wu (University of Chicago) - Embarking on Desire: The Symbolism of Xingxing 狌狌 from Beasts to Auspicious Symbols in Ancient China
JM Nimocks (Brown University) - Choreographing the Living Dead: Spiritual Depravity in Enlightenment Media
Lex Ladge (University of Chicago) - Spectacular Sacrifices: Large-Scale Animal Sacrifice in the Hellenistic Greek World
Moderator: Wolfgang Boehm (University of Chicago)
Panel II - Playing with computers 11:00am - Cobb 307
Jacob Reese (Syracuse University) - Playing Documentary: The Eco-political Potential of Nature and Wildlife Photography Games
Hyejun Kim (Syracuse University) - Monstrous Kinships in the Age of CGI: Convivial Proximity in Bong Joon-Ho’s Films
Alex Neufeldt (University of Toronto) - Excavating GeoCities' E-ternal Menageries
Moderator: Kaelan Doyle-Myerscough (University of Chicago)
Lunch 12:30pm - Cobb 310/311
Panel III - Playing in the water 1:30pm - Cobb 307
Dingding Wang (UC San Diego) - Dreaming Fish, Becoming Fish: Animating Modern Mythology and the Zhuangzian Philosophy in Big Fish & Begonia
Nat Modlin (University of Chicago) - Aquatic Screenscapes: Mediation in the Public Aquarium
Sarah Nisenson (Northwestern University) - Tentacle Pornography: Franny Choi’s Corrective to Donna Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto'
Moderator: Hang Wu (University of Chicago)
Panel IV - Playful conversation 3:00pm - Cobb 307
Charlotte Goddu (Northwestern University) - All Bark and No Bite: Language and Play in 'The Debate of the Horse and the Greyhound
Natalie King (Georgia State University) - Chasing Rabbits in Their Sleep: Animation, Dancerly Texts, and Visualizing a Dog’s Dream
Yi Sun (UC San Diego) - Speaking for Animals: How Animal Anthropomorphism in Feng Zikai’s Paintings Blurs the Boundaries of Human Language
Moderator: Andrea Oranday (University of Chicago)
Closing Roundtable 5:00pm - Cobb 307
Alenda Y. Chang (Associate Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara)
Katherine Buse (Assistant Professor, University of Chicago)
Thomas Lamarre (Professor, University of Chicago)
Closing Dinner 6:00pm - Cobb 310/311