[Commlist] CfP The Exotic in Cinema

International Taur Conference 2026

“The Exotic in Cinema”

Université Jean Jaurès, Toulouse, ENSAV école publique de cinéma

April 1–2, 2026

*Keynote lecture by*
/Professor Daniela Berghahn/ (Royal Holloway, University of London)

/This conference is part of the “Eccentric Cinemas” research group at 
the Lara-Seppia laboratory (Lara team), which focuses on both a poetic 
approach to works (from a creative-research perspective) and an 
aesthetic approach that aims to highlight productions outside the 
mainstream standardized production channels or to reconsider prevalent 
theoretical approaches to mainstream creations. As part of this event, 
which will take place from April 1 to 2, 2026, contributions may take 
the form of presentations by researchers or film productions submitted 
by filmmakers or creative researchers/practitioners. /

*Submission deadline: January 6^th , 2026*

*
Submissions to be sent to: (samiacharkioui /at/ univ-tlse2.fr); 
(isabelle.labrouillere /at/ univ-tlse2.fr)*


    The Exotic as a Prism of Representation

This event aims to examine the specific and ambivalent encounter between 
the Other and the Elsewhere that defines exoticism in cinema. While the 
term “exotic” is commonly used to describe distant lands and peoples, it 
fundamentally refers to a type of gaze and a point of view that emanate 
from a place and a subject situated in a referential, if not dominant, 
position. We thus understand the word “exotic” in all its conceptual 
dynamism, which includes the different meanings that exoticism has taken 
on over time.

Exoticism cannot be conceived in monolithic terms. As Daniela Berghahn 
masterfully analyzes in /Exotic Cinema, Encounters with Cultural 
Difference in Contemporary Transnational Film/ (2023), exoticism should 
be seen less as a fixed category than as a spectrum—ranging from 
assimilation and domestication of difference to its radical opacity. We 
would like the various contributions to this symposium to cover this 
spectrum as broadly as possible, both thematically and temporally.




    Paradoxes of Exoticism: From Praise to Stereotype

Our approach is informed by the paradox inherent in exoticism pointed 
out by Tzvetan Todorov, exoticism often aspiring to be “a form of praise 
within ignorance.” Exoticism celebrates what is most unknown, yet in 
doing so it paradoxically prevents genuine knowledge. In cinema, this 
ambivalence emerges both as an aesthetic feeling and as a site of 
pleasure. ‘Exoticism is everything that is Other. To enjoy it is to 
learn to savour Diversity,’ wrote Segalen, who, at the beginning of the 
20th century, attempted a universal theorisation of authentic exoticism, 
denouncing clichés and seduction. Those he called ‘the pimps of the 
sensation of diversity’ took over the cinema as soon as it was created. 
This is because exoticism is eminently visual, and the spectacle of 
difference has played a significant role in the history of cinema.

This “spectacle of difference” fuelled the fascination of European 
audiences with colonial and former colonial territories. At the same 
time, as Edward Said argued in /Orientalism/, it contributed to systems 
of domination by constructing the Other as object of representation. It 
should be noted that cinema has long failed to adequately capture 
‘non-white’ skin, an issue analysed by Richard Dyer in /White: Essays on 
Race and Culture /(1997) and questioned by Diarra Souran from a 
technical point of view. Exoticism fascinates and, thereby, has the 
capacity to conceal, empty and recolour the world, as if to shrink it 
down to the size of a postcard. ‘Colouring the world is always a way of 
denying it (and perhaps we should start a trial against cinema here),’ 
wrote Roland Barthes in /Mythologies/ (1957) about /Continent Perdu/. 
How, then, does this “operation of erasure” proceed in cinematic 
discourse and aesthetics, where exoticism purports to celebrate 
difference? We hope to shed light on these mechanisms, particularly in 
more contemporary works rather than only in the already widely-studied 
corpus of colonial and ethnographic cinema.


    Decentered Exoticism

The second part of our approach will concern what we call, with Daniela 
Berghahn, ‘decentred exoticism’. It explores the role of cultural 
translation and decentred exoticism in transnational and world cinema. 
How and in what forms is exoticism reinterpreted and repurposed in world 
cinema? The representation of ‘Self as Other’ for a dominant ‘third 
eye,’ as theorised by Fatimah Tobing Rony in /The Third Eye: Race,/ 
/Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle/ (1996), essentially alienates 
non-Western filmmakers, who are perceived as guarantors of 
‘authenticity’, thereby conforming to Western expectations. But 
conversely, strategies of self-exoticization or self-ethnicization offer 
an opportunity for radical reversals of ethnic and racial stereotypes.

In a hybrid world where cinema is becoming increasingly transnational, 
thus blurring boundaries between Self and Other, European and world 
cinema, what becomes of exoticism? What aesthetic and political 
strategies do filmmakers invent today to resist, subvert, or reconfigure 
past exoticisms?


    Suggested Topics

/The themes below are neither exhaustive nor exclusive: they may 
overlap. Proposals may address several themes or suggest others, as long 
as they explicitly engage with the argument./

  * - Histories of exoticism and stereotyping in cinema
  * - Aesthetics of stereotype and the Other
  * - Politics of the gaze and the erasure of the Other
  * - Self-exoticism, self-ethnicization, and reversals
  * - Translations and mediations of diversity
  * - Reception and social uses of exoticism


    Practical Information

Accepted languages: French and English
Submission guidelines: Abstract (300 words) + short bio-bibliography

*Submission deadline: January 6^th , 2026
*Notification of acceptance: January 30, 2026
Conference: 1 and 2 April, 2026
Venue: ENSAV, Toulouse, France
*Submissions to be sent to the following addresses: 
(samiacharkioui /at/ univ-tlse2.fr); (isabelle.labrouillere /at/ univ-tlse2.fr)
*Publication: A selection of papers will be published by SHS.
Registration fee: €40 (waived for students, unemployed persons, 
retirees, and social welfare recipients)


    Committees

Scientific Committee:
- Emmanuel Cano (Doctor, 18^th  Section, LARA-Seppia)
- Maud Cazaux (Doctor, 18^th  Section, LARA-Seppia)
- Samia Charkioui (Associate Professor, 14^th  Section, LARA-Seppia)
- Jean-Louis Dufour (Emeritus Associate Professor,18^th 
 Section,  LARA-Seppia)
- Frédéric Gimello (Professor, 71^st  Section, LARA-Seppia)
- Isabelle Labrouillère (Associate Professor, 18^th  Section, LARA-Seppia)
- Amanda Robles (Associate Professor, 18^th  Section, LARA-Seppia)

Organizing Committee:
- Samia Charkioui (Associate Professor, LARA-Seppia)
- Isabelle Labrouillère (Associate Professor, LARA-Seppia)
- Maud Cazaux (Doctor, LARA-Seppia)
- Frédéric Gimello (Professor,LARA-Seppia)


    Indicative Bibliography

AGZENAY, Asma, /Returning the Gaze: The Manichean Drama of Postcolonial 
Exoticism/, Oxford and Bern, Peter Lang, 2015.
BARTHES, Roland, Mythologies, Paris, Éd. du Seuil, 1957.
BERGHAHN, Daniela, /Exotic Cinema: Encounters with Cultural Difference 
in Contemporary Transnational Film, /Edinburgh, Edinburgh University 
Press, 2024.
BENALI, Abdelkader, /Le cinéma colonial au Maghreb : L’imaginaire en 
trompe-l’œil/, Paris, Cerf, 1998.
D’AZEVEDO, Amandine (dir.), /Les sons de l’exotisme/, Sesto San 
Giovanni, Mimesis, 2022.
DYER Richard. White. Essays on Race and Culture. London: Routledge, 1997.
DOANE, Mary Ann, The Desire to Desire, Bloomington, Indiana University 
Press, 1987.
EZRA, Elizabeth, « Empire on film: from exoticism to ‘cinéma colonial’ 
», in FORSDICK, Charles ; MURPHY, David, et al. (dir.), /Francophone 
Postcolonial Studies: A Critical Introduction,/ New York, Oxford 
University Press, 2003.
FASSIN, Didier, /Ni race, ni racisme, ce que racialiser veut dire/, 
Paris, La Découverte, 2012.
FOSTER, Gwendolyn Audrey,/ Performing Whiteness: Postmodern 
Re/Constructions in the Cinema/, Albany, State University of New York 
Press, 2003.
GRIFFITHS, Alison, /Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology and 
Turn-of-the-Century Visual Culture/, New York, Columbia University 
Press, 2002.
HALL, Stuart, /Identités et cultures : politiques des cultural studies/, 
Paris, Éditions Amsterdam/Multitudes, 2017.
HILL COLLINS, Patricia,/ Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, 
Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment/, New York, Routledge, 2014.
hooks, bell, Black Looks: Race and Representation, Boston, South End 
Press, 1992.
DE LAURETIS, Teresa, « Eccentric Subjects: Feminist Theory and 
Historical Consciousness », /Feminist Studies/, vol. 16, n° 1, 1990.
LEHMANS, Anne ; VALADE, Bernard, /Les stéréotypes, encore et toujours/, 
/Revue Hermès – Cognition – Communication – Politique/, n°83, 29 mai 
2019. DOI : 10.58079/piep.
LEPROHON, Pierre, /L’exotisme et le cinéma : Les « chasseurs d’images » 
à la conquête du monde, /Paris, Éditions J. Susse, 1945.
MACÉ, Éric, « Des “minorités visibles” aux néostéréotypes : Les enjeux 
des régimes de monstration télévisuelle des différences ethnoraciales », 
/Journal des anthropologues/, 1er juin 2007.
MOURA, Jean-Marc,/ La littérature des lointains : histoire de l’exotisme 
européen au XXe siècle/, Paris, Éditions Honoré Champion, 1998.
RICHARDSON, Michael, /Otherness in Hollywood Cinema/, New York & London, 
Continuum, 2010.
SAÏD, Edward, L’orientalisme : l’Orient créé par l’Occident, Paris, 
Éditions du Seuil, 1997.
SEGALEN, Victor, /Essai sur l’exotisme : une esthétique du Divers/, 
Montpellier, Éditions Fata Morgana, 1978.
STASZAK, Jean-François, « Exotisation et érotisation d’un haut-lieu et 
bas-fond touristique : la Casbah d’Alger », /Téoros/, vol. 37, n°2, 2018.
SANTAOLALLA, Isabel, /“New” Exoticism: Changing Patterns in the 
Construction of Otherness/, Leiden, Brill Rodopi, 2000.
SOURANG Diarra. Filmer les peaux foncées. Réflexions plurielles. Paris : 
L’Harmattan, 2019.
TOBING RONY, Fatimah, The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic 
Spectacle, 1996.
TODOROV, Tzvetan, /Nous et les autres. La réflexion française sur la 
diversité humaine/, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1989.
VANCHERI, Luc, /Figuration de l’inhumain : essai sur le 
devenir-accessoire de l’homme filmique/, Paris, Presses universitaires 
de Vincennes, 1993.


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