SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED

For the sake of argument, let’s just say that these two films denote the warped edges of contemporary blockbuster filmmaking, and let’s just say that as different as they are, something might be gained from smashing them into one another for a day.

The format we have envisioned is nearly as bonkers and topsy-turvy as the films. We’ll begin the day with a screening of Mad Max: Fury Road; we’ll end with a screening of Interstellar; and we’ll squeeze 4 panels in between. How? Each panel will be 4 10-minute presentations and 20 minutes of Q&A. No need for setup, no time to marshal evidence. Just give us the argument. Or, as they used to say in the radio business: All Killer, No Filler. We’ll put all the slides online so everyone in the audience can download and follow along.

The conference will be open to the public, but we plan to restrict the presenters to Yale students and faculty—albeit from a wide range of schools and disciplines. If you’d like to present, send your argument in less than 75 words to interstellarmax@gmail.com. If you know someone with a brilliant take, pass the word along. Presentations can focus on either film or attempt to treat both.

So what do you want to talk about?

Farming (for corn or bullets or both), driving all night, Locke, Charlize Theron, wormholes, Iowa, books, Valhalla, tattooing, fluids, slingshots, lances, things that are furious, Gravity, warboys, Kubrick, Babe, oil, Warner Bros., Tomorrowland, humor settings, Elysium, pacing, masks, exoplanetary life, tankers, Matt Damon, weaponized supermodels, the Dust Bowl, Fear and Loathing, commercials for pickup trucks, drones, breast-milk, prosthetics, IMAX, time-travel, famine, The McConnaisance, deserts (ice, sand or otherwise), binary code, Waterworld, pregnancy, drought, time and narrative are flat circles, models and miniatures, ozploitation, costume, feminist visions of apocalypse, Demolition Man, phenomenology, road-movies, suspended-animation.