[Rielle Navitski]

Modernism/Modernity Print Plus Cluster on Global South Cinephilias

(With apologies for any cross-posting – wanted to cast a broad net!)

While the term cinephilia simply refers to a love of cinema, conventionally it has been understood as a rarified appreciation of film, rooted in the imperative to legitimate the medium as a quintessentially modern art and reliant on sophisticated knowledge of its history and its unique aesthetic qualities. As such, it has often reinforced cultural hierarchies, but also opened up new possibilities in its foregrounding of the encounter between spectator and screen. Cinephilia is embodied not only by individual viewers’ passionate investment in the moving image, but by a set of social practices: seeking out hard-to-find films at cineclubs, arthouses, archives, and festivals; publicly debating their merits in post-screening discussions; and reading and writing film criticism. Over the past decade and a half, critics like Marijke de Valck and Girish Shambu have reimagined cinephilia’s functioning in a digital age while expanding its geographic horizons beyond Euro-American contexts. Yet historical reflection on non-Western cinephilias has remained limited.

We invite essays of approximately 3,000 words that explore cinephilic practices, institutions, writings, and film texts—that is, works that self-consciously delve into film history and aesthetics in ways that could be considered cinephilic—of the Global South. Contributions should examine how these cultural formations have engaged with local understandings of modernism and/or experiences of modernity. We are primarily seeking studies that deal in some fashion with material from the first half of the twentieth century; however, we recognize that Global South modernisms and modernities have their own temporalities which may not conform to Euro-American timelines, and will also consider studies of later periods.

Print Plus is Modernism/Modernity’s open-access digital platform; clusters are groups of thematically linked essays written in an accessible style. Submissions to Print Plus clusters are peer-reviewed and indexed by the Modern Language Association. Authors are encouraged to submit full-color images and multimedia elements to accompany their essays.

Please submit abstracts of 150-300 words to Rielle Navitski (rnavitsk@uga.edu) by May 1. Completed pieces will be due September 15, with publication of the cluster tentatively slated for Spring 2022.

This topic was also posted in: CLCS Caribbean, CLCS Global Anglophone, CLCS Global Hispanophone, CLCS Global South, LLC 20th- and 21st-Century Latin American, LLC African to 1990, LLC Cuban and Cuban Diasporic, LLC East Asian, LLC Francophone, LLC Luso-Brazilian, LLC Mexican, LLC Modern and Contemporary Chinese, LLC Puerto Rican, LLC South Asian and South Asian Diasporic, LLC West Asian, TC Postcolonial Studies, LLC Global Portuguese.

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