[Commlist] CFP: Still Madonna Symposium

Still Madonna Symposium

University of Amsterdam

April 16, 2027

Call for Papers


Pre-emptively marked with the trace of the divine by name, Madonna is 
diva, legend, motha – still and always the icon who invented a grammar 
of wanting, crafted the scaffolding of pop stardom, and perverted the 
interview as a genre with unabashed audacity and wit. In fact, 
interviewed during the shooting of Desperately Seeking Susan—a film 
about sartorial fantasies, uncanny doubles, and the elusiveness of our 
objects of desire— Madonna described her character in a way that 
functions as the simple formula of her own fascination: “It’s just a 
girl; a girl followed by everyone” (Ribeton 2026).


The girl became a mega-star, who has endured the ravages of time, 
sexism, agism, bigotry, and the most doggedly Anglo-American of all 
backbones: prudishness. As Madonna has gained mythic proportions, 
academia has oddly taken a backseat, content to remain quiet after an 
early, queer love affair with her ambition. The Still Madonna symposium, 
organized by the Queer Analysis research group at the Amsterdam School 
for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), aims to repair such nonchalance, thinking 
through the many un(der)theorized dimensions of her oeuvre with 
interdisciplinary rigor, taking the pulse of her most recent 
tour-de-force, Confessions II, and imagining the eras, and aftereffects, 
that are yet to come.

We welcome submissions that read Madonna’s works critically (music 
videos, lyrics, interviews, performances, films, fashion, choreography, 
etc.), tracing their foundation and the affective communities they have 
spun (queer and otherwise), along with the resilience of their 
intertextual circulation amid the threats that target Madonna’s 
relevance in a contemporary context of mediatic fragmentation and misogyny.


Presentations are in-person only.


Submit your paper or 3-person panel abstract  [250-300 words] by Dec. 18 
at 11:59p.m. Central European Time (CET) via the 
link:https://tinyurl.com/r2w6vums <https://tinyurl.com/r2w6vums>


Keynote: Patricia Pisters (University of Amsterdam)

Patricia Pisters is professor of film at the Department of Media Studies 
of the University of Amsterdam. Her book on Madonna’s many faces 
(Madonna: De vele gezichten van een popster; with Hannah Bosma) received 
a lot of public attention in the 1990s. More recently she published on 
women directors and the poetics of horror (New Blood in Contemporary 
Cinema, 2020); and on film and the psychedelic revival (Cosmic Camera, 
2027). As film-philosopher, she writes about the role of film and 
popular culture in respect to (collective) consciousness and 
ecological/elemental approaches to media. See for articles, her blog, 
audio-visual material and other cv information www.patriciapisters.com 
<http://www.patriciapisters.com>.


Organized by Misha Kavka and Diego Semerene

Contact info: (queer.analysis.uva /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(queer.analysis.uva /at/ gmail.com)>

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