Robin Hood: Media Creature

Robin Hood: Media Creature
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> An > International Conference, 22-25 October 2009 > http://www.rochester.edu/robinhood/ The International Association for Robin Hood Studies will
> sponsor the Seventh Biennial Conference on Robin Hood, to be held 22-25
> October 2009 at the University of Rochester , Rochester NY (USA). Scholars from North America, Europe, and Asia will present papers on well-established
> and perennially controversial aspects of the outlaw hero,
> and will offer new views and understandings as well.

Participants will be drawn from scholars and intellectuals in all fields
of academic, artistic, and popular culture, with no limits on time period,
media, or national literatures. Though film, media, and the popular and performing
> arts will have a featured role, sessions will include a broad range of
> disciplinary and interdisciplinary interests, including medieval and early
> modern historical studies, literary criticism, folklore, musicology and music
> practice, children’s literature, cultural studies, anthropology, film and media
> studies, performance art and oral recitations, art history, literary theory, and
> philosophy. Deadline for abstracts is 15 June 2009.

Highlights of the Seventh Biennial Conference:
> Plenary speakers: Professor Helen Phillips ( University of Cardiff ), author of Robin Hood: Medieval and Post-Medieval (2005), Bandit Territories: British
> Outlaws and their Traditions (2008), and Introduction to the Canterbury Tales: Fiction, Reading , Context (2000, 2005). Website:
> http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/contactsandpeople/profiles/phillips-helen.html
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> Ms. Gillian Anderson ( Bologna ), internationally renowned composer,
> conductor, and musicologist, has participated in the reconstruction and
> performance of some thirty-four orchestral scores from silent films, author of
> four books, founding editor of the new journal, Music and the Moving
> Image (University of Illinois Press ). Website: http://www.gilliananderson.it

Plenary events: Twenty-First Century “World Premiere” of Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (United Artists, 1922). A new 35mm tinted print, restored by the
> Museum of Modern Art and George Eastman House / International Museum
> of Film and Photography, will be screened 24 October 2009
> (Saturday) before an audience of 500 at the Dryden Theatre, George Eastman
> House.

Live Accompaniment for Robin Hood. Gillian Anderson will conduct a live
> orchestra playing the newly reconstructed score of Robin Hood. The showing – which will duplicate the experience of audiences who attended the first-ever
> Hollywood premier, and of those in early twentieth-century movie palaces – will be
> introduced by Patrick Loughney, Head, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Library of Congress (Packard Campus).

East Coast Premier of Robin Hood (Éclair America, 1912), the earliest surviving film featuring the outlaw hero, in a recently restored print (shown so far only once, in LA) from the Fort Lee Film Commission. With solo musical accompaniment by
> Philip Carli, renowned film expert and musicologist who has accompanied silent films at the Pordenone Festival in Italy, and elsewhere in Europe and North
> America.

Concert of Early Lute Music. Grammy-Award winner Paul O’Dette (Eastman School of Music) will offer a recital of Elizabethan Greenwood and Robin Hood-related lute music, drawing upon the repertoire he established in albums including Robin is to the Greenwood Gone (1992) and Robin Hood:> Elizabethan Ballad Settings (2001).
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Operettain Performance. Steven Daigle (Chair, Strings, Eastman School of
> Music, and Artistic Director, Ohio Light Opera) has organized an evening
> of arias and songs from Robin Hood musicals, spanning the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. This presentation will occur the evening of 22 October 2009
> (Thursday) , and will feature musicians and singers from the Ohio Light Opera, as well as faculty and students from the Eastman School of Music and the University of
> Rochester. Professor Daigle’s 2004 production with the Ohio Light Opera of Reginald de Koven’s Robin Hood (1891) is available as a CD from Amazon.com
> and other outlets.

> Events and Exhibitions:
> “An Impression of the Middle Ages”: Productions
> Stills from Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood. A major exhibition drawing upon an
> archive of nearly 1000 negatives at the George Eastman House, most never
> exhibited or examined before. The exhibition will also include original posters and lobby cards, and the boots which Fairbanks wore in the film. Support and
> contributions from the George Eastman House Motion Picture Department, and the
> University of Rochester Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.


The Americanization of Robin Hood, 1883-1923. A focused exhibition, tracing the
> development of American images of Robin Hood which have permanently changed the
> outlaw’s status in international popular culture. Incorporating the Fairbanks photographs from “An Impression of the Middle Ages,” it will provide a lavishly documented account of the impact and history of Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of
> Robin Hood, and present music, lyrics, advertisements, programs, and photographs associated with the operettas of Reginald De Koven, including Robin Hood (1891) and Maid Marian (1901). Support and contributions from the George Eastman House, the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, the Sibley Music Library, and a private collection.

> Robin Hood: Media Creature: An exhibition of Robin Hood-related materials, ranging from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries, in all media–selected from thousands of items in paper media (printed books, sheets, ephemera, cartoons, comic books, boys’ serials, garlands, prose lives, “histories,” posters from well known and obscure films and TV), film and TV recordings (DVDs, VCR tapes, various film formats of commercial, public, and cable productions), musical recordings (popular song,
> operettas, rock and roll, rap, soundtracks, spoken word, and more), photographs
> (including a selection from previously un-exhibited “keybooks” for The Adventures of Robin Hood [1938] with Errol Flynn), along with other artifacts such as games, puzzles, viewmaster reels, teapots and plates, and more. Support and contributions from the Strong National Museum of Play, the George Eastman House, the Rossell Hope Robbins Library, Rush Rhees Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, and a private collection. ***

> The conference will begin with simultaneous sessions on Thursday afternoon (October 22), and panels will proceed through Sunday morning (October 25). Highlights include operetta performances Thursday evening, a banquet on Friday evening, and the screening of Robin Hood on Saturday night.

> Helen Phillips will offer her plenary lecture on Friday morning. There will be a
> concluding session on Sunday morning, featuring a panel of experts from the George Eastman House, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Library of Congress, addressing issues of film history, popular culture, and the preservation of national treasures
> like Robin Hood (1922), moderated by Professor Stephen Knight (University of Cardiff).

> Gillian Anderson will then deliver her plenary lecture on the musical environment for silent cinema.

> The conference will conclude with a fare-well luncheon. Other participants include
> Chris Chism (Rutgers), Steven Daigle (Ohio Light Opera /ESM), Alan Gaylord (Dartmouth ), Richard Kaeuper (Rochester), Stephen Knight (Cardiff), Patrick Loughney (Library of Congress), and Thomas Ohlgren (Purdue).

Please post this notice, and forward or share it with anyone who might wish to attend
> or take part in the events. For further information on Conference Registration and full call for papers go to http://www.rochester.edu/robinhood. Send paper abstracts (limit 300 words)in MS Word or compatible formats to Thomas Hahn,
> IARHS Conference@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is 15 June> 2009.