[Commlist] CFP: Melodramas of the Global South

Melodramas of the Global South
We are delighted to invite submissions for a special issue of ReOrient: 
The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies on the theme of Melodramas of the 
Global South.

Editor: Dr. Shvetal Vyas Pare

Please submit your abstracts (of 300 words or less) to: (reorient /at/ leeds.ac.uk)

– Abstract Submission Deadline: 30th November 2025
– Notification of Acceptance: 31st January 2026
– Working Paper Submission Deadline: 31st August 2026
– Online Presentation of Papers: 5th – 6th December 2026
– Manuscript Submission Deadline: 31st March 2027

Melodramas of the Global South
Melodrama is a popular genre in film and cinema, usually defined, 
somewhat pejoratively, in terms of a heightened focus on emotion, 
characters which are types and a Manichean battle between good and evil. 
It circulates widely in the Global South, be it Hindi films and soaps, 
the films and limited episode tv shows of Pakistan and Turkiye, the 
films and tv shows of South Korea and Nigeria, the nascent media 
industries of Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, the cultural 
behemoths of China and Japan and the Spanish language telenovelas of 
Latin American countries among others. The melodramas produced in these 
different spaces are not exactly similar, and not all of them are 
consistently melodramatic. What is common to them though is the identity 
of being alternative to the norm of Western cinema, and in being 
produced in locations enmeshed in the coloniality of power.
This special issue of ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies 
<https://www.plutojournals.com/reorient/> would like to consider these 
issues around melodrama: why does melodrama continue to be popular in 
large parts of the world, and where does global melodrama sit in an 
ostensibly postcolonial world? Melodrama in the global South shapes and 
is shaped by nationalist narratives, and regularly reworks ideas of 
emotion, selfhood, tradition and society. Arguably, it is influenced by 
both indigenous forms of storytelling and the colonial encounter.
Learning to watch these media texts on their own terms can offer us an 
entry point into different ways of being in the world, different 
aesthetics and different knowledge systems. It is in these interstices 
that the melodramas of the Global South offer decolonial possibilities. 
/ReOrient/ would like to invite articles that that extend our 
understanding of the melodramatic mode of storytelling and its 
relationship with coloniality and the global South.

Prospective themes that can be examined include:

  * The relationship between colonialism and melodrama or any of its 
aspects
  * The construction of tradition and emotion in melodrama
  * Indigenous forms of storytelling and their changing forms over time
  * Incorporation of indigenous modes of storytelling into nationalist
    narratives
  * Tracing patterns of similarity or dissimilarity among the medias of
    the global South.

Abstracts should be of 300 words or less. No payment of any sort is 
required from the authors.

You can also find the CFP here: 
https://criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk/announcements/ 
<https://criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk/announcements/>


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