MEDIA MUTATIONS 8

A COGNITIVE APPROACH TO TV SERIES

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Organized by Michele Guerra (Università di Parma), Veronica Innocenti (Università di Bologna), Héctor J. Pérez (Universitat Politècnica de València), Margrethe Bruun Vaage (University of Kent)

Free entrance | www.mediamutations.org

venue: Salone Marescotti - Bologna, via Barberia 4
date: 25-26/05/2018

evento trasmesso in live streaming

Media Mutations 8. A Cognitive Approach to TV Series is a two-day conference organized by the University of Bologna in collaboration with the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image. The conference is part of a research project titled Theoretical Innovation Strategies in the Analysis of Narration in Television Series (CSO2014-51872-R) funded by the Spanish Government.

With a rich and promising program, the 2016 conference aims at aiding the nascent employment of cognitive theories to the study of TV series to firmly establish itself as an interdisciplinary approach in media studies, defining trends, possible lines of research and future work in this new and still partly unexplored field.

Papers will explore the role of emotions in TV series focusing on the engagement stimulated by characters, events, plots. Speakers will also concentrate on the cognitive processes elicited by serial narrative as well as on the relationship between cognitive TV studies and other relevant theoretical approaches, such as that of narrative ecosystems and embodied narratology.

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

11.30 Break

11.45 Panel 1: Characters & Engagement
Olivier Kronen (University of Glasgow), Hating Characters in Contemporary Television Drama

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

13.15 Lunch break

14.30 Panel 2: Events & Plots
Sebastian Armbrust (University of Hamburg), Events in Serial Storyworlds: Towards a Theory of Serial Plotting

Adriano D’Aloia (Università Telematica Internazionale UniNettuno) and Ruggero Eugeni (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano), The Boundaries of Never-ending. Events. Cognition and Complex TV Series Narratives

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) and Olimpia Calì (Università di Messina), Identification, Memory, Elaboration. The Importance of Time in the Context of TV Series Fruition

17.00 Break

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

10.30 Break

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) and Alberto Nahum Martínez (Universidad de Navarra), Mise-en-scène, Embodied Metaphors and Moods

12.15 Break

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

13.30 Lunch break

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

Adam Resnick (The City University of New York), Social Media, Reality Soap and the User Experience. How Transmedia Narrative and Affected Marketing Are Utilized in Bravo’s “The Shah’s of Sunset”

16.15 Break

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