Call for Papers
Global Aesthetics
Confirmed keynote speaker: Lúcia Nagib
This conference focuses on the dynamic and evolving interrelations between audio-visual media’s aesthetic forms and global cultures, taking in the multifarious ways that these terms can be understood both on and off screen. While cinema has been an international medium since its inception, since the 1990s film and screen studies more generally have seen renewed interest in transnational and, increasingly, postnational approaches, as well as a desire to widen and decolonise canons and geo-cultural fields of study. The advent of a new era of distribution and exhibition, in which the majority of viewers consume content through websites and streaming platforms, has encouraged and accelerated this globalization of production and consumption. Such changes invite on-going and evolving critical engagement with the ever-expanding repertoire of global aesthetics available to practitioners and users of audio-visual media and scholars of the production process, economics, work cultures, policy frameworks, artefacts and discourses that arise from them.
We are seeking abstracts for individual papers or pre-constituted panels of three or four participants that expand our understanding of global aesthetics across film, practice-based research, television, and other screen media. Individuals may not submit more than one proposal of any kind. We also welcome papers presented in non-traditional formats, including contextualised video essays (as individual contributions or as part of panels – see relevant forms). If you have other suggestions (e.g. including a respondent in your panel), please email us. Please note that it is possible to present papers either in-person or remotely. Certain panels and events, but not the whole conference, will be accessible remotely. For pre-constituted panels, at minimum the panel chair needs to present in-person.
We also invite each BAFTSS SIG to offer one official SIG Panel. All attendees must be BAFTSS Members at the time of the conference. You can join here.
Abstracts should be no more than 250 words. Please also provide a short biography, including institutional affiliation (university, college, archive, independent researcher) of up to 100 words.
This information should be sent by completing the relevant form, downloadable from the following links:
Please email your completed form to Baftssconference2025@warwick.ac.uk
Deadline: 16 December 2024
You will be notified whether your proposal has been accepted by the end of January 2025.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
Representations of globality (broadly defined) in screen media
Global capitalism, power, and conformity in screen media
Global megalopolises, non-places and geo-culturally hybrid spaces in screen media
The impact of new modes of production, distribution and exhibition on inter-, trans- and sub-national screen media forms
The explosion of networked createch: AR, VR and XR and new aesthetic possibilities
AI aesthetics
The role of VoD/user-based screen media (ie. Tik Tok/Douyin/Youtube, social media) in the emergence of new aesthetic forms
The Global Archive: rethinking archival practices and cultural/geographic location
The relationship between accelerated globalisation and post- or trans-human aesthetics
Environmentalism in international screen media
Intersectionality and aesthetic hybridity (gender, race, class, disability, indigeneity, etc.) in international screen media
Global political awareness and activism/protest on screen
Representations of global migration and migrants on screen
Aesthetic strategies adopted by major screen producers (Hollywood studios, streaming companies, etc.) in pursuit of a global audience
Please send any enquiries to Baftssconference2025@warwick.ac.uk
Details of the PGR Poster Showcase to follow soon.
BAFTSS Inclusivity Statement: BAFTSS is committed to helping our communities to develop strong, positive action around issues of equality, diversity and inclusivity. These values are displayed in the Inclusivity Statement displayed on the BAFTSS Homepage and are embedded in all that we do. Members of BAFTSS are encouraged to be mindful of issues of race, gender, LGBTQI+ status and disability when planning their events, putting panels together, considering access issues and inviting participants.
The organisers would also like to thank the University of Warwick’s Humanities Research Centre for their generous sponsorship of the conference.