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Lord Grantham from Downton Abbey will be among television’s father figures to be studied at an academic conference sponsored by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in the new year.
The conference will be called conference “The Figure of the Father in Television Series”, and it will feature speakers comparing how British and American series portray the role of the father.
“We chose to speak about the role of the father because the role of the family is very vague and the father is a sort of window that represents it,” explained Professor Enrique Fuster, one of the organizers.
The conference is scheduled for April 22-23, 2013, at the university in Rome.
Talks will include an analysis of parental models found in the British dramas Luther and The Hour, as well as the American shows Mad Men, Breaking Bad, In Treatment, Shameless and Dexter.
“The father in Downton Abbey is very comprehensive and accepts mistakes, but he doesn’t accept what he sees as whims of his daughters,” said Professor Juan José García-Noblejas, who teaches film and TV script at the university,
He found it interesting that “the eldest daughter has a clear opposition to her father’s wish to marry her with the heir and the youngest marries the chauffeur, also against the father’s wishes”.
Television series, he said, “are a way of knowing our society’s current problems and mirror society in small weekly doses”.
At the conference, he added, “We simply want to gather people who have had time to analyse and watch these series, which have a huge number of viewers around the world, in order to discuss them without losing our Christian perspective.”
The conference, as well as being aimed at an academic audience and lovers of television drama, is also directed at creators “in the world of television drama, offering a unique opportunity to reflect on their craft”, according to the university’s website.
Sources:
Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
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