Students are encouraged to speak at conferences and explore territories during their tenure at Ohio University, but most don’t head almost 5,000 miles away to find the perfect conference.
Megan Brown, a master of arts student at Ohio University, did just that, boarding a plane for Romania Wednesday to speak at the XIV International Film and Media Studies conference, also known as The Cinema of Sensations.
Brown stumbled across the conference online. She liked what she saw and signed up to speak about Japanese horror films, or “J-Horror,” and how American remakes are unable to capture what makes them good.
To her surprise, she was chosen to speak at the conference, held at Sapientia University in Romania.
“I’m excited and nervous at the same time, but I’ve been working pretty hard on it,” Brown said. “I started it in the fall, before I had to take a break from it, and I feel pretty good about it.”
Brown has been to Europe previously and received her undergraduate degree in Russian Language, but has never travelled to Romania. Her concern about the language gap is eased because Cluj-Napoca, where the conference is held, is a college town where she hopes to find some English speakers.
“My professors have been very helpful with me and I think that this will be very intriguing,” she said. “From the culture to the environment to the way people interact, it all sounds similar to home.”
To qualify for the conference, Brown’s proposal had to address the issues that were relevant to the conference, while still remaining interesting. She also had to prove she had a well-founded knowledge in film and media studies.
“Megan Brown’s proposal fulfilled all of these requirements,” said Agnes Petho, head of film, photography and media at Sapientia and head member of the conference selection committee.
“Also, we hope that her paper on Japanese Horror movies and their remakes will have a good context alongside another presentation in the panel with the title ‘Horror, Attraction, Sensation,’ and there will be interesting discussions.”
Brown’s paper will focus on two J-Horror films — Kairo and Chakushin Ari — and how their American remakes — Pulse and One Missed Call, respectively — failed to capture what made these two horror movies effective.
Laura Marks, also speaking at the conference, said she hopes Brown’s talk will present an opportunity to speak about film in a new and profound way.
“Ever since its beginnings, cinema has always had a profound experiential quality: images not only move, but they move our senses,” Marks said.
“Whenever we go to the movies, we not only see the film, and the world of the screen not only communicates a message to us.
“We get to be immersed in a unique environment that engages our senses and our minds on different levels of consciousness and perception.”
wa054010@ohiou.edu
