[Commlist] CFP - Eurovision

*Call for Abstracts / Papers for the TFMJ*

*The Last Great Television Show – The Eurovision Song Contest and the 
Dissolution of Boundaries (Working Title)*

Editors: Christine Ehardt, Georg Vogt, and Florian Wagner

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2025 marks the third consecutive year in which acts identifying as queer 
have won the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). Austria has secured two out 
of three victories with queer artists. In 2026, the Song Contest will be 
hosted in Vienna for the third time. On this occasion, we aim once again 
to present a publication reflecting the current state of Eurovision Song 
Contest research. The volume will examine aesthetic, historical, and 
political dimensions of the ESC.

Our starting point is the thesis that the ESC’s 70‑year history has been 
shaped in manifold ways by social and political processes that become 
visible through the intersection of aesthetic and cultural‑historical 
questions. The overlaps between the ESC and other forms of music 
theatre, for instance, did not only become apparent with JJ’s victory.

We propose to conceptualize the competition as a fragmentary “small” – 
perhaps even the smallest – form of competitive music theatre, organized 
in three‑minute units. At the same time, attention should also be paid 
to non‑competitive elements, such as the country‑specific introductory 
clips between the competing entries (“postcards”), as well as the 
interval acts – ranging from the invention of /Riverdance/ to inventions 
from Switzerland.

When the Song Contest is questioned about its “coming out,” scholars 
often refer to entries from the second half of the 1990s. Yet as early 
as the 1986 Song Contest, an entry featuring drag elements was 
presented. In fact, “in the closet”, the Song Contest has been a queer 
event from the very beginning, since the basic setup of the competition 
produces precisely what can be considered a core principle of camp 
aesthetics: grand gestures within confined space.

Against this backdrop, it becomes possible to ask how the processes of 
creating the entries and staging the competition itself are structured.

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*From Concert Format to Scenic Performance*

Similarities between the Song Contest and the history of opera are 
immediately striking. Concert formats increasingly developed into scenic 
arrangements – a process that culminated in the emergence of opera in 
the early seventeenth century. Scenic elements were already present in 
the Song Contest as early as 1957 (“Telefon, Telefon”), from the 1970s 
on they became more frequent (“Boom Boom Boomerang”), and from the early 
21st century onward they became common.

Since the publication of our previous edited volume, another parallel 
between opera and the ESC has become increasingly evident: virulent 
antisemitism. In the history of music theatre, the Song Contest finds 
its counterpart here in Romanticism, whose subject matter often operates 
according to nationalist and, at times, antisemitic logics. 
Transgression and expansion were preferred aesthetic strategies for 
managing crisis – opera houses, orchestras, and affective intensity 
continued to grow. Works emerged that remain part of the repertoire of 
major opera houses today and that, from their inception through to the 
recent past – from Hitler to Prigozhin – have unfolded their potential 
for political radicalization.

Antisemitic incidents at the ESC raise questions about the relational 
structures among participating artists, producers, and organizers. What 
Europe‑wide production cultures underpin the competition, and how do the 
various media involved – television, music, social media, advertising 
media, agencies, and public service broadcasters – interlock?

Is the ESC the last major live Saturday‑night television event? And does 
the collision of a media landscape otherwise organized into isolated 
bubbles contribute to the toxicity of recent editions of the ESC? Is the 
Song Contest – similar to /The Magic Flute/ – a final attempt to bring 
together what can hardly be held together anymore?

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*Queer Operas and Scandals*

Looking back to the eighteenth century reveals further parallels between 
opera and the ESC, particularly in concepts of gender that differ 
markedly from the heteronormative binary model dominant in the twentieth 
century. A prominent example is Cherubino in Mozart’s/Da Ponte’s /Le 
nozze di Figaro/, a character who traverses gender boundaries in 
multiple ways. The overture to this opera opened the ESC in Vienna in 2015.

No Song Contest has ever been free of scandals – whether it was Sandie 
Shaw’s bare feet in 1967, only partially concealed by a hastily procured 
bouquet of flowers on the stage of Vienna’s Hofburg, or the performance 
by Finnish singer Erika Vikman with “Ich komme” in 2025.

Alongside sexuality and the gossip mill surrounding songs and artists – 
further amplified by social media – politics in particular has proven 
polarizing within a music competition repeatedly proclaimed to be 
“apolitical,” repeatedly generating headlines. Not only the competition 
itself, but also its reception, has become increasingly unbounded in 
multiple respects.

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*Antisemitism and the Song Contest*

Many motifs that were central to Christian anti‑Judaism as well as to 
modern antisemitism in the nineteenth century are today mobilized 
against Israel as a Jewish state. The 3D model (double standards, 
demonization, delegitimization), developed to distinguish antisemitism 
from legitimate political criticism, can be recommended for the study of 
the ESC.

The “criticism of Israel” articulated around the ESC is characterized by 
multiple double standards. Israel – as the only liberal democracy in the 
Middle East, a state with a pluralistic media landscape and politically 
achieved LGBTIQ rights – is often criticized more harshly than 
dictatorially governed states that also send entries to the ESC. In 
2025, artists who themselves had represented fascist states at the Song 
Contest signed a petition calling for Israel’s exclusion.

At the same time, Israeli participants are held personally responsible 
for the policies of the Israeli government, and harassment directed at 
them is, in some cases, even actively framed as justified.

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*Organizational Framework*

The contributions are planned to be published after the ESC 2026 in a 
double issue of /TFMJ – Journal for Theater‑, Film‑ and Media Studies/. 
The volume will be divided into a scholarly section and an 
essayistic/artistic section. All methodological approaches are welcome! 
There are no costs for the authors.

Deadline for abstracts (one A4 page) or – if already available – 
completed contributions (10,000 characters) is April 30 2026. Upon 
acceptance, final texts must be submitted by 8 July 2026. Texts can be 
submitted in English or German.

Submissions should be sent to: (georg.vogt /at/ univie.ac.at)



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