[Commlist] Call for Papers for edited collection on silent antiquity films

*Call for Papers for edited collection on silent antiquity films*

**

*/Museum of Dreamworlds: Silent Cinema, Classical Antiquity & the 
Politics of Representation/*

Editors Maria Wyke (UCL) and Ivo Blom (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Around 23,000 people gathered in London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1913 
during the May Bank Holiday to watch the landmark film /Quo vadis?/, an 
Italian feature-length adaptation of an acclaimed Polish novel about 
religious persecution in the reign of the emperor Nero. They were drawn 
by advertisements that proclaimed it ‘A story of Ancient Rome before 
your eyes. 5,000 actors. Real lions. Real chariot races. Real combats in 
the Circus. The Burning of Rome in its most vivid colours.’ (/The 
Times/, 7 May 1913). The film achieved an extraordinary run of four 
weeks at the prestigious venue in addition to its wide-spread exhibition 
in metropolitan and provincial cinemas across the UK. A ‘private’ visit 
to see it by King George V and Queen Mary was widely reported, and their 
patronage subsequently used to attract audiences when the film toured 
the empire. A few months earlier, struck with admiration for the 
historical realism of this new release, the British trade magazine /The 
Bioscope/ (20 February 1913) claimed ‘its value, educationally, is thus 
of paramount importance; indeed, it probably presents a clearer and 
truer portrait of a vanished age than has ever yet been presented by 
other means whatsoever’.  The AHRC-funded research project /Museum of 
Dreamworlds: Silent Antiquity Films in the BFI National 
Archive/ (2023–27) is investigating this sort of phenomenon - how silent 
cinema rendered Greco-Roman antiquity a powerfully immersive dreamworld 
and, conversely, how antiquity helped cinema claim status as an 
educative artform. The project is systematically investigating all the 
BFI prints concerning Greco-Roman antiquity, including the archival, 
historical, and contemporary contexts in which these moving images 
circulate and are interpreted

Even though we are working with archival material, the project is called 
/Museum of Dreamworlds/ to emphasize our desire to lift these films off 
the shelves, breathe new life into them, and make them visible—much as a 
museum works to animate its treasures. In this spirit, we aim to put 
together an edited volume that gathers a selection of expanded papers 
from our project events, alongside fresh scholarly contributions that 
critically engage with the encounter of silent cinema with classical 
antiquity and the reverberations of that encounter across film history, 
media theory, and related fields. Through the edited collection, we seek 
to construct a museum of dreamworlds, offering a space for authors to 
explore and give voice to these moving image versions of antiquity, even 
amidst a culture defined by the paradox of rapid consumption and 
ever-shifting visual landscapes. In line with our project aims, we ask 
that contributions engage with at least one or two silent antiquity 
films for which the BFI National Archive has prints but contributions 
can certainly range beyond them. A list of those prints (and details of 
those to which we might be able to provide digital access if needed) is 
available on our project website: 
_https://www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanities/classics/research/research-projects/museum-dream-worlds 
<https://www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanities/classics/research/research-projects/museum-dream-worlds>_.

We invite contributions that reflect on the modern reception of 
classical antiquity, the transnational history of silent cinema, and the 
evolving politics of representation in both historical and contemporary 
visual culture. We welcome essays that examine how silent antiquity 
films construct and reconstruct archives, how they provoke discussion 
and debate, and how shifting social, political, and digital landscapes 
shape the ways their images are seen and understood.We especially 
encourage submissions from early career researchers, from diverse 
disciplinary perspectives, and ones that push boundaries—rethinking 
silent cinema, classical reception, and the politics of visual archives 
for the twenty-first century. Contributions may embrace new ways of 
looking, new digital methodologies, and experimental formats, reflecting 
the changing worlds of moving images and their ongoing cultural, 
political, and pedagogical relevance.

                   Suggested topics for contributions include, but are 
not limited to:

  * The relationship between antiquity films and their points of origin
    (whether in primary texts, material artefacts, scholarship,
    literature, performance or the visual arts).
  * Theatricality, realism, and expressionism.
  * Representations of romance and affective relationships.
  * Space and time, how silent cinema constructs, manipulates, or
    disrupts temporal and spatial frameworks in narrative and visual form.
  * Filmic architecture and representation, including set design,
    mise-en-scène, and the spatial logic of silent cinema.
  * Education and entertainment, including how antiquity films balanced
    didactic and pleasurable modes of viewing.
  * Colonialism and how it intersects with cinematic form and cultural
    ideology.
  * Nationalism and transnationalism, examining how silent antiquity
    films circulated, claimed identity, or engaged audiences across 
borders.
  * Comparative studies across countries, cinematic genres, antiquities
    represented, or periods of production within the silent era,
    considering stylistic and ideological differences.
  * Comparative studies that consider relationships and differences
    between the antiquity films of the silent era and those that have
    come thereafter in diverse screen media.
  * Publicity, related to image building, past/present, star
    construction, design history, gender, clichés,
    national/transnational identity, the ‘glocal’.
  * Heritage, both as represented within the films (e.g., classical
    antiquity, historical monuments) and as embodied in the films
    themselves as archival or cultural objects.
  * Archival recovery and the status of lost, fragmented or restored
    films, including the ethical and methodological challenges of
    reconstruction, the digital turn and online curation.
  * Exhibitions concerning antiquity that utilise cinematic structures
    or interlock moving images with material culture.
  * Pedagogical approaches and teaching strategies using silent films
    concerned with Greco-Roman antiquity.

*Submission Guidelines:*

We invite proposals for chapters of c. 6,000–8,000 words (including 
footnotes and bibliography). Proposals should be sent to Maria Wyke 
(_m.wyke /at/ ucl.ac.uk) <mailto:(m.wyke /at/ ucl.ac.uk)>_ by *9 February 2026 *and 
include:

  * Title of the proposed book chapter
  * Abstract of approx. 300-500 words
  * Up to five bibliographic references
  * A short biography (max. 150 words), including institutional affiliation
  * Contact details

Applicants will be informed of the outcome by 9 March 2026. If accepted, 
a first draft of the chapter will be expected by October 2026.

If you have any questions concerning this call, do contact Maria Wyke.

(m.wyke /at/ ucl.ac.uk)



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