[Commlist] Call for Papers: Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies (Special Issue: ‘Italian Ecomedia: Archaeologies, Theories, Perspectives’)

CFP: Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-italian-cinema-media-studies>


Special Issue: ‘Italian Ecomedia: Archaeologies, Theories, Perspectives’


Please, submit a 500-word proposal in English of original and 
unpublished research outlining the topic, approach and theoretical 
bases, together with a filmography and bibliography, and a bio-note of 
about 150 words with a detailed list of publications to Prof. Alessia 
Cervini (alessia.cerviniATunipa.it <http://alessia.cerviniATunipa.it>) 
and Prof. Giacomo Tagliani (giacomo.taglianiATunipa.it 
<http://giacomo.taglianiATunipa.it>), by 5 September 2022. The outcome 
of the selection process will be communicated by 15 September 2022. 
Authors of the selected proposals will be invited to submit full-length 
articles by 8 January 2023for doubleblind peer-review. Authors will be 
notified of the results of the peer-review by 15 March 2023.


Click here to view the full call>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/67599/1/JICMS_Call_for_Papers_Italian_Ecomedia.pdf 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/67599/1/JICMS_Call_for_Papers_Italian_Ecomedia.pdf>


In the last 25 years, the environmental humanities have gained a 
prominent position in academic research. Their core consists in 
providing historical, political and critical perspectives on topics 
traditionally pertaining to the STEM disciplines, such as extinction, 
species resurrection, biodiversity, rewilding, urban-wildland 
interfaces, land development and resource use (Hubbel and Ryan 2022), as 
specific questions emerging from the Anthropocene (Iovino and Opperman 
2016; Emmet and Nye 2017). Reflecting on such topics from a humanities 
point of view means investigating their social and cultural implications 
(Morton 2010; Malm 2021), the narratives behind them, their political 
and semiotic effects and the imaginaries they elicit. It also creates 
beneficial interactions between established disciplinary domains such as 
philosophy, geography, history, literary and visual studies. Cinema and 
media studies are profoundly affected by this environmental turn, mainly 
from a thematic or a production studies perspective (Ingram 2000; 
Ivakhiv 2013). However, reflecting on the potentialities of images to 
create, broaden and develop specific aesthetic trajectories is a 
compelling task in understanding how the environmental question is 
transforming present audio-visual language and, in turn, how this very 
language could influence the environmental debate (Cubitt, Monani and 
Rust 2013).


This Special Issue of the Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studiesaims 
to foster a transdisciplinary dialogue about the different forms through 
which the vast domain of ‘green discourse’ has been tackled by Italian 
cinema and media from a critical–aesthetic perspective. Despite its 
alternate fortunes, the environmental question has a long history in 
national audio-visual production, beginning with the ‘miracolo 
economico’ (‘economic miracle’, 1958–63) as evidenced for instance by 
Ivens’s TV film L’Italia non è un paese povero (‘Italy is not a poor 
country’) (1960). It was developed in subsequent decades in both fiction 
and non-fiction productions, such as Ferreri’s Il seme dell’uomo (The 
Seed of Man) (1973), De Seta’s In Calabria (1993), and Vicari’s 
documentary Il mio paese (My Country) (2006). Recently, some important 
scholarly contributions have started to consistently investigate this 
history (Past 2019), which, however, remains to be fully explored in 
terms of its aesthetic, political, theoretical and critical implications.


 From this point of view, the Italian case can be considered exemplary 
for several reasons (Iovino, Cesaretti and Past 2018). First, Italian 
cinema has developed a long and original tradition in the depiction of 
and reflection on landscape, at least since neorealism (Bernardi 2002), 
as evidenced by films such as Rossellini’s Paisà (Paisan) (1946), 
Antonioni’s Il deserto rosso (Red Desert) (1964), and Frammartino’s Il 
buco (The Hole) (2021). Second, from at least the 1960s, Italy has 
conferred great yet ambivalent relevance to the environment, something 
that is both praised as a key asset due to its unique conditions and 
irremediably wasted, making it a place generating categories for 
investigating other experiences in other places (Iovino 2016). Media 
have widely contributed to this relevance, as testified by Ghirri’s 
Paesaggio italiano (‘Italian landscape’) (1980–89), Quilici’s L’Italia 
vista dal cielo (‘Italy seen from the sky’) (1966–78) or TV programmes 
such as Geo (1984–present). Third, as a result of specific historical, 
geographical and cultural conditions (e.g. ‘failed modernity’ or the 
north–south divide), Italy has developed an inner diversity that has 
shaped the relationship between subjects and environment in ways that 
are different from other countries (Armiero 2021). This diversity has 
been a recurrent issue for audio-visual objects dealing with the Italian 
landscape, as demonstrated for instance by the TV programme Meraviglie: 
La penisola dei tesori (‘Wonders: Treasure peninsula’) (2018–22) or by 
the recent editorial project Paesaggio Italia (‘Landscape Italy’) (2022) 
by National Geographic and la Repubblica.


Within such a methodological framework, this call for papers invites 
contributions that can address this topic through two different 
approaches. First, we welcome examples that can contribute to starting 
an ‘archaeology’ of environmentalism and sustainability in Italian film 
and media of the twentieth century. Contributors are invited to submit 
proposals about specific case studies seeking to identify topics linked 
to ecocriticism across Italian visual culture. The aim is to start 
creating an atlas that critically collects the visual signs of the 
Anthropocene, highlighting the role of these objects in the narratives 
and society of the period or their relevance for the present collective 
imaginary. Second, contributors are encouraged to propose broader 
reflections about the theoretical specificity of Italian film and media 
for the field of the environmental humanities. In this case, proposals 
should deal with theoretical and methodological questions addressing the 
role of Italian visual studies in contributing to a more accurate 
definition of this new interdisciplinary field of research, as well as 
the importance of the environmental humanities in redesigning the 
trajectories, objects and priorities of Italian studies.


The Special Issue is conceived as a first survey of investigations 
concerning the particular aesthetics of sustainability as developed by 
audio-visual objects and practices. Given the heterogeneous set of 
questions and perspectives arising from this topic, the call welcomes 
proposals from different disciplinary approaches (such as film and media 
studies, environmental studies, critical theory, postcolonial studies, 
semiotics, aesthetics), including analyses of different media formats 
(such as cinema, television, new and digital media, videoart). The guest 
editors welcome submissions that cover, but are not limited to, the 
following media, subjects and topics:


• Documentaries dealing with climate change or sustainable practices. 
How have climate  struggles been depicted in non-fiction production? 
What forms, genres, tropes and narratives have been employed? How have 
documentary films narrated sustainability and its broader environmental, 
economic, social, political implications?

• Feature films narrating particular relationships between subjects and 
environment. What has been the role of the landscape in shaping the 
Italian audio-visual narratives? Is it possible to detect the signs of a 
concern for the irreversible transformation of the landscape during and 
after the economic miracle in Italian cinema?

• TV programmes about nature and the environment. How is nature depicted 
in television? What rhetoric is employed in conveying a particular image 
of the environment and the landscape?

• New media and video activist practices representing and disseminating 
exemplary experiences of resistance and resilience. Can video be a 
fundamental instrument for climate struggles? Is it something only 
belonging to the present, or is it possible to trace a history of this 
relationship? Are forms and formats somehow connected with the topic 
addressed?

• Ecology and sustainability. Are there specific relationships between 
media ecology (Postman 1985) and media sustainability (Starosielski and 
Walker 2016)? To what extent do media help us in connecting the 
theoretical and political meanings of these two terms?

• Topics of denunciation. Are there recurrent narrative and visual 
strategies to expose the damage to the environment caused by 
industrialization or criminality?

• Topics of magnification. How have the beauty of nature and the 
landscape been portrayed by Italian audio-visual media?

• Imagining of the future. Are there examples within the history of 
Italian visual culture that attempt to ‘premediate’ (Grusin 2011) future 
relationship between humans and the environment? What are the most 
important concerns emerging in these images?

• Authors. Have there been authors in the audio-visual field whose work 
consistently engages with environmental issues? What are the distinctive 
aesthetic features of their approach that make them exemplary from any 
perspective?

• Periods and movements. Are there periods or movements within film and 
TV history that have specifically dealt with environmental issues? What 
is their most important heritage for other periods or experiences, in 
Italy or abroad?

• Genres. Are there privileged genres in the audio-visual field dealing 
with environmental issues? Is ecocriticism a genre per se?

• Practices. How do media practices affect material conditions of living 
in terms of social, economic and cultural sustainability within given 
communities? What is the role of film festivals and exhibitions in 
spreading a particular idea of sustainability in practical and aesthetic 
terms?


Guest-editors:


Alessia Cervini

University of Palermo, Italy

alessia.cerviniATunipa.it <http://alessia.cerviniATunipa.it>


Giacomo Tagliani

University of Palermo, Italy

giacomo.taglianiATunipa.it <http://giacomo.taglianiATunipa.it>


Principal Editor:


Flavia Laviosa

Wellesley College, USA

(flaviosa /at/ wellesley.edu) <mailto:(flaviosa /at/ wellesley.edu)>

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