[Commlist] Conference CFP: Ethics and Spectatorship in Film and Screen Media

*
**International Conference
/Ethics and Spectatorship in Film and Screen Media/
University College Cork, Ireland
29–30 November 2025*


The *International Conference “Ethics and Spectatorship in Film and 
Screen Media”* will take place on 29–30 November 2025 at University 
College Cork (UCC), Ireland.


We are pleased to announce that our *keynote speakers *will be:

·_Sarah Cooper_, Professor of Film Studies at King’s College, London and 
author, among others, of /Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French 
Documentary /(Legenda, 2006). Her research interests range from critical 
theory, through documentary, arthouse, and experimental film, to film 
theory and philosophy.

·_David Sorfa_, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of 
Edinburgh and editor-in-chief of the journal/ Film-Philosophy/. He has 
particular interests in film-philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, 
the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida and the presentation of 
thought and thinking in cinema*.*

The conference is organised by Dr. Giacomo Leoni at the Department of 
Film and Screen Media, UCC, with support from the European Union’s 
Horizon 2020 research and innovation funding programme under the Marie 
Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101106754.

Selected papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of 
the diamond-open-access, peer-reviewed journal 
/Alphaville/ (http://www.alphavillejournal.com 
<http://www.alphavillejournal.com/>).

*Call for papers*

*Submissions are invited for papers and/or panels* dealing

with the titular topic of *Ethics and Spectatorship in Film and Screen 
Media*

Both ethics and spectatorship are broad and multifaceted concepts that 
have gained significant attention within Film Studies over the past two 
to four decades, respectively. Until recently, the intersection between 
the two has been underexplored, and primarily approached through the 
application of various categories of spectatorship to the theoretical 
frameworks used to discuss the ethics of film. Yet, the ethics of 
spectatorship raises complex and compelling questions about the roles 
and responsibilities of audiences in engaging with visual media. This 
conference seeks to explore the ethical dimensions of the spectator's 
role, the way in which individual spectatorship is experienced, and our 
understanding of the scope and practice of spectatorship in action.

What are the ethical responsibilities of the viewer? What ethical 
questions arise in the act of watching, interpreting, and responding to 
films and audiovisual productions, both fictional and documentary, as 
opposed to ethical questions embedded in the text itself? How do we 
conceive of ourselves as spectators, and do we have agency about what 
kind of spectators we are?

We welcome submissions that engage with questions surrounding ethics and 
spectatorship, ethical spectatorship, and ethical issues in addressing 
spectatorship in film and screen media, whether fictional or 
documentary, including, but not limited to, the following topics:

-*_Spectatorship and agency_*: What does it mean for a spectator, or an 
audience of spectators, to engage ethically? Are there ethical 
responsibilities or expectations placed upon us as we participate in the 
act of spectating?

-*_Ethics and aesthetics_*: How do the ethics of spectatorship intersect 
with and depend upon the ethical dimensions of a film's artistic 
creation? Is an ethical approach to spectatorship compatible with an 
aesthetic-driven understanding of it?

-*_Practices of spectatorship_*: What are the implications for viewing 
practices when spectatorship is understood as an ethically infused process?

-*_Theorising spectators_*: Are certain ethical models or theories more 
suitable than others for evaluating the ethics of spectatorship?

-*_Individual experience and positionality_*: Do our personal 
identities, past experiences and traumas, and sense of belonging and 
affiliations shape our activity as aware spectators?

-*_Feminist and gendered ethics of spectatorship_*: How do gendered 
representations in film influence ethical engagement? What ethical 
responses are elicited by different depictions of gendered subjects and 
bodies?

-*_Individual spectatorship and the neoliberal media_*_:_ Does 
globalized and immediate access to film allow individual agency in 
spectatorship to thrive? Can ethical spectatorship survive in the age of 
global distribution and algorithmic promotion?

-*_Streaming in the Anthropocene_*_:_ How should we think ethically 
about spectatorship and access to content in the age of resource 
depletion and climate change?

-*_Empathy and voyeurism_*: Is our interest in /the pain of others/ born 
of compassion or of morbid curiosity? And what is the relation between 
our viewing pleasure and the autonomy of bodies and persons displayed on 
screen?  Does the difference lie in the artistic production or in the 
framing of the spectatorial act?

-*_Generative AI and ethical spectatorship_*: What new questions arise 
today about the ethical implications of synthetic media? What 
implications can technological development in AI have for our role as 
spectators?

*Submission of Abstracts*


Proposals should be sent to Dr. Giacomo Leoni at (gleoni /at/ ucc.ie) 
<mailto:(gleoni /at/ ucc.ie)>, by the *deadline of 31 July 2025*; please 
include in the subject line [Proposal for Ethics and Spectatorship 
Conference].

To propose a paper: Include name and academic affiliation in the body of 
the email and attach a file with the proposed abstract (300 words 
maximum) and a separate author biography (100 words).

To propose a panel: Include name and academic affiliation of all 
intended participants (up to four presenters and one chair) and attach a 
short description of the panel overall (max 300 words) and of each of 
the intended presentations (300 words each), plus author biographies 
(100 words each).

Proposers will be notified of the selection outcome by 1 September 2025.

We welcome diverse perspectives and look forward to a thought-provoking 
and intellectually stimulating exploration of the ethics of 
spectatorship in film and media.

*Contact Information*


For further information and any questions, please write to (gleoni /at/ ucc.ie) 
<mailto:(gleoni /at/ ucc.ie)>.

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