[Commlist] CFP Precarity and the Moving Image Online Conference

*CFP Online Conference:*

*The Many Faces and Spaces of Precarity in the Moving Image*

**

*/“Another world is not only possible; she is on her way. On a quiet 
day, I can hear her breathing.”/*

*/Arundhati Roy/*

**

*We are happy to announce the organisation of a one day online 
conference for the Cinematic Precarity Research Network, to be held 
Online (Oxford Brookes University, University of Exeter)*

Aim of this conference is to bring together academics working upon the 
issue of precarity and its relationship with “the moving image”. 
Definitions of precarity are multiple and, at times, conflicting. Many 
of them share the intention to capture the dynamics and social 
transformations associated with the neoliberal turn, and with the 
mechanisms of gig-economy.

However, this term has assumed the most various significance and seems 
to capture a broader social and affective predicament. Ecological crises 
point at a precarisation of existence and of “the human” as such, 
whereas the sense of individualisation and fragmentation produced by an 
economy based on debt/credit connect with new worrying authoritarian 
trends. A sense of political impotence is often associated with these 
social forces that enact and reproduce processes of marginalisation, 
which, in turn, favours always more violent mechanisms of exploitation. 
However, mapping the various faces and spaces of precarity is also an 
occasion to, at once, recognise, the multiplicity of a vulnerable world 
and of its inhabitants, while, at the same time, highlighting new modes 
of political subjectivation.

This call for papers, therefore, is intended to take into account the 
polysemic and always renewing uses of the notion of precarity, while 
also describing strategies to address the deadlocks it defines. 
Precarity can refer to issues and problems of representation, analysing 
the ways in which subjectivities on the screen are configured and how 
their definitions intersect on the line of class, race, gender, 
ability/disability. Precarity may consider new problems in film and 
media production and distribution, helping in effectively assessing new 
tensions between mainstream and ‘niche’ screen culture and/or strategies 
to challenge such divisions. Understanding these mechanisms is also 
connected with the possibility of tracing genealogies of precarity in 
the multiple histories of cinema and audiovisual productions examining 
hegemonic and counter-hegemonic trends in their developments. In this 
sense, the discussion and critical evaluation of political and social 
strategies aiming to address (or, on the contrary, standardise) the 
precarious status of the industry are also of great interest. On a more 
philosophical level, the precarious status of moving images in 
contemporary artistic and affective infrastructure is also a theme to be 
addressed and carefully assessed.

The hopeful tension inscribed in this call for papers is that studying 
and analysing the many faces of precarity (from the climate crisis to 
new forms of exploitation and marginalisation) is not limited to 
sophisticated identification of the cracks and contradictions defining 
our age; the work of analysis that we humbly hope to carry out together 
is to use the power of moving images in order to ignite the critical and 
passionate imagination of a new world responding to the alleged 
inevitability of the current state of affairs.

*We welcome abstracts (max 300 words and bios of max 150 words/expected 
length of 20 minutes) dealing with this list of topics:*

  * *Precarity as a Strategy: The Neoliberal Governance*
  * *Ecological Precarity and the Precarious State of the Human;
    Eco-Fears and Necropolitics*
  * *Precarious Subjectivities and Spaces on Screen at the Intersection
    of Class, Gender, Race, Sexuality, Ability/Disability *
  * *Precarious Citizenship: Border as Method*
  * *Precarity and the Digital Economy; Digital Exhaustion*
  * *Precarity, Class, and Identity (and its problems?)*
  * *Discourses on Precarity, Social Activism, and New Unionism*
  * *Precarity in Production, Circulation, and Participation in Media
    Culture*
  * *Political and Productive Strategies Responding/Resisting Dynamics of
    Precarisation*
  * *Genealogies of Precarity Beyond the Limits of Contemporaneity*
  * *Precarious Narratives and Counter-Subjectivation*
  * *The Precarious Status of Moving Images; New Forms of Circulation
    and Spectatorship*
  * *Precarity and the Affective Labour in Relation to Transfeminist
    Thought*
  * *Ways to Address Precarity in Terms of Public Policies*

*Deadline for abstracts 15^th  of September 2023. Send abstracts and bio 
at this email address:*

*(cinematicprecaritynet /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(cinematicprecaritynet /at/ gmail.com)> (organised by Dr Maria Elena 
Alampi and Dr Francesco Sticchi)*

*
*

*Keynote Speakers: Prof. Guy Standing*


*
*

*Bibliographical References*

Burucúa, C. Sitnisky, C. (2018) “Introduction: Forms of the Precarious 
in the Cinemas of the Americas” In /The Precarious in the Cinema of 
Americas/. Burucúa, C. Sitnisky, C. (eds.). New York: Palgrave 
Macmillan: pp. 1-15.

Ciccarelli, R. (2021), /Labour Power: Virtual and Actual in Digital 
Production/, translated by E. C. Gainsforth. Cham: Springer Nature.

Federici, S. (2009) 2009. /Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and 
Primitive Accumulation/, 3rd ed. New York: Autonomedia

Fisher, M. (2009) /Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?/. 
London: Zer0 Books.

Fraser, N. (2022) /Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System is Devouring 
Democracy, Care, and the Planet-and What We Can Do about it/. London: Verso.

Gago V. (2017) /Neoliberalism from Below: Popular Pragmatics and Baroque 
Economies/, trans. Mason-Deese L. London: Duke University Press.

Guattari, F. (1995) /Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm/. trans. 
P. Bayns and J. Pefanis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Jaffe, S. (2021) /Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs 
Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone/. New York: Bold Type Books.

Kirsten, G. (2022) “Studying the Cinema of Precarity” In /Precarity in 
European Film/, E. Cuter, Kirsten G. Prenzel, H. (eds.). Berlin: De 
Gruyter: pp. 1-30.

Lorey, I. (2015)/ State of Insecurity: Government of the 
Precarious/ fore. by Butler, J. London: Verso.

Marx, K. (1993) /Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political 
Economy/, trans. and fore. by M. Nicolaus. London: Penguin Books.

Mbembe, A. (2019) /Necropolitics/, translation by S. Corcoran. London: 
Duke University Press.

Mezzadra, S. Nielson, B. (2019) /The Politics of Operations: Excavating 
Contemporary Capitalism/. London: Duke University Press.

Morini, C. (2010) /Per amore o per forza. Femminilizzazione del lavoro e 
biopolitiche del lavoro/ fore. by Judith Revel. Ombre Corte: Verona.

O’Shaughnessy, M. (2022) /Looking Beyond Neoliberalism: French and 
Francophone/

/Belgian Cinema and the Crisis/. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University press.

Piketty, T. (2014) /Capital in the Twenty-First Century/ trans. By 
A. Goldhammer 
<https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_2?ie=UTF8&field-author=Arthur+Goldhammer&text=Arthur+Goldhammer&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books-uk>. 
London: Harvard University Press.

Robinson, C. J. (2021) /Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical 
Tradition/ fore. By R. D. G. Kelley and preface by C. J. Robinson, D. 
Sojoyner, and T. Willoughby-Herard. London: Penguin.

Sassen, S. (2014) /Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global 
Economy/. London: Harvard University Press.

Standing, G. (2011) /The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class/. London: 
Bloomsbury.

Stimilli, E. (2019) /Debt and Guilt: A Political Philosophy/. London: 
Bloomsbury


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ commlist.org)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------