[Commlist] Call for Papers: 'Dress Against: Aesthetics of Power and Normativity in Contemporary Cinema'

Call for Papers: Film, Fashion & Consumption

Special Issue: 'Dress Against: Aesthetics of Power and Normativity in 
Contemporary Cinema'

Guest Editor : Danae Ioannou

Submission deadline: 31 August 2026

View the full call here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/film-fashion-consumption#call-for-papers 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/film-fashion-consumption#call-for-papers>

The year 2026 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Theodor 
W. Adorno's Negative Dialectics, in which the concept of ‘negative 
aesthetics’ appears for the first time – a critical aesthetic that does 
not give the viewer ‘pleasure’, but provokes instead a close examination 
of social norms, especially those concerning power. In this perspective, 
art is meant to provoke, not comfort, exposing social and normative 
contradictions. Adorno provides a tool for analysing form, aesthetics 
and discomfort, provoking critical thinking. Yuriko Saito has 
systematized Everyday Aesthetics, and contemporary Negative Aesthetics 
is considered a sub-field of it, because everyday life is not 
predominantly beautiful, harmonious or pleasurable. Ordinary experience 
is saturated with authentic discomfort, irritation, boredom, ugliness, 
excess and disgust – and yet these experiences are still aesthetic, 
meaning they are sensorially perceived, judged and affectively processed.

In opposition to Adorno's negative aesthetics and Foucault's critical 
perspective, the New Sincerity movement emphasizes authenticity, 
emotional honesty and a conscious rejection of irony. In 2006, Emery C. 
Martin published A Manifesto for the New Sincerity, suggesting that the 
ironic paradigm so characteristic of the 1990s had ended its dominance 
at the beginning of the 21st century. Martin does not link this to the 
events of September 11, 2001, but points out that irony in culture had 
gradually lost its status as the dominant discourse. The adjective 
‘new’, added to the concept of ‘sincerity’, shows the separation of 
sincerity from earlier interpretations associated with irony. In the 
Aesthetics of New Sincerity, art not only provokes reflection on norms 
and mechanisms of power but also encourages the sincere emotional 
engagement of the viewer, celebrating personal experience and moral 
integrity. In the context of contemporary cinema, this can mean forms of 
expression that combine aesthetics with sensitivity to social and 
normative expectations, while offering an alternative to cynical social 
criticism.

2026 also marks the 50th anniversary of Michel Foucault's first lecture 
at the Collège de France, during which he introduced the concept of 
biopolitics, analysing the ways in which modern forms of power began to 
manage the ‘life’ of people and populations, focusing on the biological 
nature of humans (Collège de France, March 17, 1976; a series of 
lectures later published in Il faut défendre la société). Foucault 
points to what aesthetics can provoke criticism of – namely, norms, 
discipline, power and biopolitical mechanisms.

This Special Issue will explore the points of intersection between 
Philosophy, Aesthetics and Performativity. It is inspired by the 
theoretical concepts of Theodor W. Adorno, who pointed to the power of 
Negative Aesthetics, as a tool of social criticism, Negative 
Aestheticsas part of Everyday Aesthetics, as it was introduced by Yuriko 
Saito, Emery C. Martin’s New Sincerityand the rejection of irony and the 
honest engagement with art and Michel Foucault, who examined how power 
manages life and normalizes bodies. Together, they form a framework for 
analysing contemporary cinema, performativity and fashion, where 
aesthetic form provokes reflection on power and normativity.

On this anniversary, Film, Fashion & Consumptioninvites submissions for 
a Special Issue devoted to the relationships between biopolitics, 
negative aesthetics, fashion, performativity and contemporary cinema. 
The Special Issue is inspired by analyses of contemporary filmmakers 
such as Yorgos Lanthimos (Greek Weird Wave), whose films reveal complex 
mechanisms of power, normativity, emotion and the body, often expressed 
through costume, gesture and style.

Suggested Topics:

 1.

    Costume and Power:How do costume and styling in contemporary films
    reflect or critique biopolitical mechanisms and normative
    constraints on the body?

 2.

    Performativity and the Body:How do gesture, movement, choreography
    and the attire of film characters create performative strategies of
    control or resistance to social norms?

 3.

    Negative Aesthetics in Practice:In what ways do minimalism,
    grotesque elements, absurdity or deadpan dialogue in set design and
    costume provoke viewers to critically engage with power and social
    norms?

 4.

    ‘New Sincerity’ versus Irony in Costume:How are emotional sincerity
    and irony in character behavior ‘dressed’ in costume and cinematic
    space, entering into tension with social norms, power structures and
    aesthetic discomfort?

 5.

    Cinema, Fashion and Consumption:How do rituals of dressing and
    consumption in contemporary films reflect social hierarchies,
    normative regulations or mechanisms of bodily control?

 6.

    Trans- and Cross-Cultural Costume Strategies:How do different film
    traditions employ costume and styling to express social norms,
    bodily regulation and performativity in global contexts?

 7.

    Discomfort and Grotesque in Costume Narratives:How do absurd or
    grotesque costumes and set design generate tension, distance, and
    reflection on power, the body and social norms?

 8.

    Interdisciplinary Approaches to Film and Fashion Analysis: How can
    methods combining film studies, fashion studies, body studies and
    gesture choreography expand our understanding of the relationships
    between costume, performativity and biopolitical mechanisms in cinema?

We welcome contributions not only from early-career researchers but from 
all scholars and practitioners, recognizing that we ourselves, as 
audiences and participants, are often enmeshed in the biopolitical 
mechanisms and normative structures our analyses seek to examine. We are 
particularly interested in approaches that rethink classical 
methodologies and develop new languages for discussing contemporary 
post-postmodern cultural shifts in film, fashion and the arts. This 
Special Issue aims to explore collectively how aesthetic form, costume 
and performativity provoke reflection on power, norms and the regulation 
of bodies, while also experimenting with new ways of thinking and 
writing about these intersections

Please submit abstracts to Danae Ioannou ((danaeioan2496 /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(danaeioan2496 /at/ gmail.com)>).


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