[Commlist] CfP: NECS graduate workshop: Silence(d) and silencing

*CfP: NECS GRADUATE WORKSHOP: SILENCE(D) AND SILENCING: (UN)HEARD SOUNDS 
AND VOICES IN AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA*

/17 June 2026, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, France/


In echo to Gayatri Spivak and her seminal essay “Can the Subaltern 
Speak?” (1999), this Graduate Workshop would like to explore the 
question: Can the silenced be heard and made audible? More precisely, to 
what extent can cinema and audiovisual media be used to counter various 
processes of silencing that have led to the erasure of certain peoples 
and communities, notably to reconfigure what Jacques Rancière (2000) 
calls the “distribution of the sensible”, allowing another politics of 
aesthetics to emerge? Or, on the contrary, to redouble efforts to 
silence by claiming that it is the norm that is currently being 
silenced? This Graduate Workshop is an invitation to approach the 
question of silence and silencing in terms of both aesthetics (including 
the distribution and organization of sounds and the underlying hierarchy 
they imply) and politics (the distribution of speech, the processes of 
silencing, or the foregrounding of previously unheard, discarded 
voices), and their intricate ethical relationships.

What cannot be heard is often what is silenced. How do cinema and 
audiovisual media in general work to reinforce or, on the contrary, to 
counter the inaudibility and invisibility of some people or topics? To 
what extent can the use of sounds and silences be reconfigured to create 
a space of emergence for the voices of those who are not heard or whom 
we refuse to hear? In short, who gets to occupy the auditive spaces? 
While silence can operate as an instrument of oppression, it can also be 
considered as a site of political resistance against rational speech and 
should not be equated  with the absence of sound. Can films, TV series 
and other audiovisual productions make the unspeakable and inaudible heard?

Find the full call for papers here: 
https://necs.org/conference/2026/university-of-montpellier-paul-valery 
<https://necs.org/conference/2026/university-of-montpellier-paul-valery> Early-career 
researchers from cinema, visual and media studies are invited to submit 
proposals for contributions by *28 January 2026* (tograduates /at/ necs.org) 
<mailto:(graduates /at/ necs.org)>. The submission should include the name of 
the speaker, an email address, the title of the paper, an abstract (max. 
300 words) and a short bio (max. 150 words). In addition to articles, 
scholarly film submissions are also welcome (max. length 15 minutes). 
Université de Montpellier 3 Paul-Valéry will not provide funding: 
participants are required to cover their own travel and accommodation 
expenses. Travel information, as well as a list of affordable hotels and 
other accommodation, will be provided on the conference website and 
program. The Workshop attendance is free, but valid membership in the 
European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) is required to 
participate.

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