[Commlist] cfp: The Essay Film as a Self-Representational Mode / Ekphrasis - Images, Cinema, Theory, Media

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Date: 	Wed, 6 Jan 2021 16:46:17 +0000
From: 	Fatima Chinita <(chinita.fatima /at/ gmail.com)>
To: 	(nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)



Dear Nico Carpentier,

I would be very grateful if you could *post *the following e-mail 
(cf.bellow) containing a CFP for an *academic journal issue *(journal 
/Ekphrasis - Images, Cinema, Theory, Media/), vol, 26, issue 2/2021 
entitled "The Essay Film as a Self-Representational Mode" and of which I 
am the guest editor.
Submissions from authors are free of charge in all stages of the process.
My contact email: (chinita.fatima /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(chinita.fatima /at/ gmail.com)>

I wish you a good, healthy and productive 2021,
Fátima Chinita

********

CFP

*The Essay Film as a Self-Representational Mode **/
/*
/Ekphrasis /- /I//mages, Cinema, Theory, Media,/Vol. 26, Issue 2/2021
Issue editor: Fátima Chinita

In cultural anthropology, subjectivity is an inherent part of the human 
condition; our perception, affects and sense-making stem directly from 
it. It exists at an individual level because human beings are sentient 
and thinking subjects reflecting upon themselves and upon the context in 
which they are inserted. At a social level, subjectivity depends on 
large scale cultural formations which predetermine choices and 
behavioural patterns imbuing them with political overtones. In cinema, 
these two components of subjectivity may be expressed through what Lisa 
Lebow calls first person documentary films, which designate a /mode of 
address/ and not a filmic genre: “[…] these films ‘speak’ from the 
articulated point of view of the filmmaker who readily acknowledges her 
subjective position” (2012, 1).

These films include a broad range of practices: the essay film, the 
self-portrait and the video diary, among others. Historically, essay 
films have been directed at least since the 1920s and the cinematic 
masterpiece /Man with a Movie Camera/ (Dziga Vertov, 1929) is actually 
placed in this category by many film theoreticians. From the 1970s 
onwards it proliferated across different geographies and cultures, 
spreading in the world cinema landscape. Generally considered a hybrid 
and creative form of cinematic expression, the essay film eludes a 
single and irrefutable definition, which makes it an interesting topic 
for research and ever more so nowadays that film is mixing with other 
sculptural art forms and invading the gallery and the museum. 
Commentators’ positions on the essay film vary in relation to its form 
as well as its contents and mission, but it seems relatively safe to 
perceive it as being located in a universal in-betweenness having to do 
with typology, artistic or ideological goal, documental or critical 
stance, narrative or factual condition, interstitial framing, and so on.

Essay films, as a type of first person cinema (although Laura Rascaroli 
in 2009 distinguished between these two film varieties), may be poetical 
or accented, artistic or political, personal (literally about a person 
or self) or collective (about a community of whatever sort), covertly or 
assumedly autobiographical, descriptive or reflexive. More than other 
films − which are per se authorial statements inasmuch as all works 
reflect their authors − these films are made to be explicitly about the 
filmmakers. “The matter of knowing ourselves or coming to consciousness 
about ourselves is not only a central ontological question […] but is 
also at the centre of the project of self-representation” (Lebow 2012, 4).

These films may range from the self-presentation of the author and/or 
their artistic praxis to the questioning of social realities 
subjectively perceived from the author’s perspective. In fact, for the 
purposes of this publication both are considered self-representation. 
Therefore, this journal issue will focus on essay films with a twofold 
perspective, simultaneously artistic and political/sociological. Using 
the concept of self-representation as ideology and dealing with 
/authorial self-representation/ (a specific person/people, lives, 
family, internal experiences, artists’ professional engagement) and 
authorial /ideological engagement/ (which corresponds to one's world 
vision through an ideological choice of form and contents), we are 
opening this call for papers as a way of writing about /oneself in the 
world/ and writing about the world /through oneself./ Both perspectives 
can be made to coalesce, the essay film as an art form being the uniting 
factor, independently of the author's films main goal(s).

We are aiming at a heterogeneous collection of transnational articles 
and accept both theoretical and/or practical study cases. We strongly 
encourage articles about world cinema and lesser known filmic works, as 
well as articles with novel approaches.**

*Possible topics of interest include, but are not limited, to the 
following: *

(a) Artistic Films: the art, the medium.

Self-reflexive forms and practices of the essay film.

Poetics and personal methodologies of the essay as pedagogic strategies.

Essay film as an in-between cinematic /position/.

Self-representation in contemporary audiovisual art/culture.

Essay films about film/art and authorial creativity.

Reception and relationship with film viewers.

Essay films for gallery and museums.

The essay film across disciplinary borders.

(b) Subject Films: the personal, the familiar, the cultural.

Autobiographical representations and self-examination.

Affinities/divergences with the self-portrait.

The self in memories or the archive.

Branding: self-representation and authorship.

Female, queer and minorities’ creative gestures.

Self-consciousness and the body.

First person cinema and video confessions.

(c) Accented films: ideology and politics.

Gendered, postcolonial, diasporic, political cinema.

Contesting/interrogating the world /through/ the self.

Relationship with other branches of knowledge.

A world phenomenon dealing with local or transnational themes.

Dialectic arguments: thesis and antithesis.

The essay film as an instrument of change.

Socio-political interests of the author.

*Guide for authors:*

**

The language for this issue of the journal is English.

All articles need to be proofread by a native English speaker before 
being sent to the journal

Articles: 5,000-9,000 words, including a 300-word abstract, 5-7 
keywords, a list of references, plus footnotes. Notes should be used 
with frugality; if something is worth saying, it usually is worth saying 
in the text.

Book reviews 2,000-3,000 words. The books you propose must be recent.

Both the proposal and the final text should observe the submission 
guidelines to be found on the journal’s website: 
https://www.ekphrasisjournal.ro/index.php?p=subm 
<https://www.ekphrasisjournal.ro/index.php?p=subm>. You will find 
suggested readings for this issue there as well.

Deadline proposals (250 - 300 words): April 5.^_

Acceptance notice: April 20.

Final submission deadline: July 30. We recommend that articles be sent 
before this date. Authors must be prepared for quick rewrites in 
September and October.

Publication date: December 2.

Submissions from authors are free of charge in all stages of the process.

Send your submissions to: Fátima Chinita
<(chinita.estc /at/ gmail.com)>


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