November 7-9, 2019
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7
4:00 Conference event at First Thursdays, monthly outdoor festival of the arts (IU Auditorium)
5:00 Opening Remarks (Moving Image Archive, Wells Library)
5:15 Opening Address: Lisa Coulthard (University of British Columbia) and Lindsay Steenberg, (Oxford Brookes University), “Between Blood and Data: An Anatomy of the Fight Sequence in John Wick”
Introduction: Stephen Watt (Indiana University)
6:30 Reception for registered conferees
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8
9:00-10:30 Panel 1: The Economies of John Wick (President’s Room, IMU)
Moderator: Vivian Halloran (Indiana University)
Aaron Jaffe (Florida State University), “Bitcoin, Shitcoin, Wick-Coin: Risk, Trust, Security, and the Symbolic Form of Crypotocurrency”
Erik Bohman (Independent Scholar), “John Wick, Heidegger, and Capitalism’s Dark Mirror”
Skip Willman (University of South Dakota), “The Continental Abyss: John Wick and the Frankfurt School”
10:45-12:15 Panel 2: The Design of John Wick: Architecture, Style and Decorated Bodies (President’s Room, IMU)
Moderator: Edward Comentale (Indiana University)
Andrew Battaglia (Rice University), “Architecture’s Affordances in the World-Building of John Wick”
Marleen Newman (Indiana University), “The Architecture of Fear: Shattered Illusions”
Stephen Watt (Indiana University), “John Wick, Style, and the Eucharistic Body”
12:15-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:45 Plenary Lecture: Charles M. Tung (Seattle University), “John Wick, Time Traveler ” (President’s Room, IMU)
Introduction: Mi Jeong Lee (Indiana University)
3:00-4:30 Panel 3: John Wick, Hybridity, and Liminal Spaces (President’s Room, IMU) Moderator: Scot Barnett (Indiana University)
Caitlin G. Watt (Clemson University), “’The One You Send to Kill the Boogeyman’: Folklore and Identity in John Wick”
Mi Jeong Lee (Indiana University), “The World-System of John Wick and John Wick’s Blank Cosmopolitanism”
Vivian Halloran (Indiana University), “The Continental’s Role as Purgatory in the John Wick Film Franchise”
8:00 Screening: John Wick 3: Parabellum (Whittenberger Auditorium, IMU) with post-screening discussion (in partnership with Union Board)
Moderator: Alaina Patterson (Union Board)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9
9:00-9:30 Coffee and Pastries (President’s Room, IMU)
9:30-11:00 Panel 4: John Wick and Keanu Reeves: Mourning and Masculinity (President’s Room, IMU)
Moderator: Derek diMatteo (Indiana University)
Kara Kendall-Morwick (Washburn University), “John Wick’s Multiply Signifying Dogs”
Owen R. Horton (Indiana University), “John Wick and the Limits of Revenge”
Mary (Molly) Nestor (Clemson University), “Captain Dead Wick: Grief and the Monstrous in the John Wick and Deadpool Films”
11:00-12:45 Lunch
1:00-2:15 Panel 5: John Wick and Action (Moving Image Archive)
Moderator: Jon Vickers (Director, IU Cinema)
Wayne Wong (CPCE, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University), “Killing in Equanimity: Theorizing John Wick’s Action Aesthetics”
Mary Borgo Ton (Indiana University), “Caches, Displays, and Mêlées”
Edward Comentale (Indiana University), “’Fortune Favors the Bold’: The State of Games and Play in the John Wick Films”
2:30-3:00 Human Performance Analysis (Moving Image Archive)
Jack Raglin (Indiana University), “Human or Superhuman? The Bioenergetics of John Wick”
3:15-4:30 Plenary Lecture: Lauren Steimer (University of South Carolina), “Hidden in Plain Sight: John Wick and the Networked Worlds of 87Eleven Action Design”
Introduction: Caitlin G. Watt (Clemson University)
4:30-5:00 Concluding session on the preparation of a volume of conference essays (Moving Image Archive) Caitlin G. Watt, Stephen Watt, and Gary Dunham, director, Indiana University Press
The World(s) of John Wick 