The End Of…? An Interdisciplinary Conference on the Study of Motion Pictures, University of Kent, Canterbury, 21–22 January 2012

Anyone who has attempted to construct a narrative, or indeed a coherent argument, will be familiar with the troubling nature of endings to which James refers. The challenge of where to stop a story, an investigation, or simply one’s view of a particular subject is certainly an “exquisite problem”. The call for papers issued in advance of this two-day conference made two related, but at first seemingly incompatible, assertions: that endings appear to be one of mankind’s “fundamental obsessions”, and yet that “our concern and anxiety with closures remain within the margins of academic attention”. In fact, the issues apparently posed by endings and closure have been granted considerable attention by numerous disciplines, not least film studies’ forerunner, literary scholarship.