Call for Papers: \;The Cinema of Democracy &ndash\; Event and Reinvention of the Mass
\nDeadline: June 30th 2026 \;
\nSubmit here: https://revistas.ucp.pt/index.php/jsta/about/submissions
Guest Editors: Diogo Nó\;brega (School of Arts\, Research Center for Science and Technology of the Arts\; Nova Institute of Philosophy)\, Hugo Monteiro (Institute of Philosophy - University of Porto\; Centre for Research and Innovation in Education)\, Lucas Ferraç\;o Nassif (Nova Institute of Philosophy)
Abstract: \;In the essay Cinema as a Democratic Emblem\, Alain Badiou proposes that we understand cinema as a space for the irruption of a &ldquo\;purely democratic element&rdquo\;: the &ldquo\;mass&rdquo\;\, whose manifestation entails\, each time\, the undoing of any pre-existing model of itself. It is an intense &ldquo\;evental energy&rdquo\; that cannot be stabilised into a definitive form (2005\, p. 6). \;
\nBadiou&rsquo\;s concept of the emblem no longer functions to preserve symbolic or identitarian stability\; instead\, it serves as an imperative of movement\, exposing democracy to its own continual differentiation. Under these conditions\, democracy designates less a constituted political form than an openness that finds in cinema a privileged operator &mdash\; a regime of emergence that resists the crystallisation of the political. As Nicole Brenez observes\, the mass that manifests within cinema &ldquo\;creates itself in the name of a lack&rdquo\;\, finding in this original absence the catalyst of its figural metamorphosis (2023\, p. 85). \;
\nThe present call for papers operates within this problematic horizon\, encouraging research proposals that explore\, as cinema&rsquo\;s own generative force\, the emergence of a mass in flight\, continually exposed to its own reinvention. \;
\nGilles Deleuze&rsquo\;s thought constitutes a decisive precedent\, pointing out that cinema addresses a &ldquo\;people who are missing\,&rdquo\; making this absence the &ldquo\;new foundation&rdquo\; upon which modern political cinema is built\, dedicated to dissolving any entrenched framework at the heart of democracy (1989\, p. 216). \;
\nDeparting from approaches that reduce cinema to the construction of identifiable political subjects\, that is\, to a representational structure\, this proposal instead foregrounds cinema as an index of the &ldquo\;post-foundational&rdquo\; character of the demos of democracy\, whose manifestation never converges into a totalising figure\, remaining beyond any form of political capture (Marchart\, 2007). \;
\nRecent work\, such as that of Jun Fujita Hirose\, explores this perspective by highlighting the revolutionary becoming of images\, whose potentia does not lie in the actualisation of an idea of the nation\, but in the continuous production of the nation&rsquo\;s non-coincidence with itself: the people become &ldquo\;phantasmatic\,&rdquo\; finding in this spectral condition their &ldquo\;line of flight&rdquo\; (Hirose\, 2020\, p. 59). We find the same intuition in Jean-Luc Godard: &ldquo\;the voice of Mozambique. From what mouth does this voice emerge? What is its face?&rdquo\; (Godard\, 1979\, p. 93). The crucial point is to preserve a deserted\, problematic image\, akin to Hitchcock&rsquo\;s &ldquo\;emptied subjects&rdquo\;\; that is\, figures which\, while structuring and influencing the action\, remain a presence without content\, exposing not exactly an individual &ldquo\;I&rdquo\; but an anonymous\, always-to-be-formed &ldquo\;we&rdquo\; (Ling\, 2011\, p. 177). In this sense\, it becomes a question of &ldquo\;making of the image a common place (un lieu du commun) where the commonplace of images of the people used to reign&rdquo\; (Didi-Huberman\, 2012\, p. 159). \;
\nFor Claude Lefort\, democracy is bound up with this formless\, &ldquo\;empty&rdquo\; we (Lefort\, 1991). Rather than a lack to be remedied\, this emptiness functions as a positive criterion for cinema&rsquo\;s creative act and vision. From within this theoretical constellation\, the JSTA &ndash\; Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts invites researchers to submit original articles for the thematic dossier The Cinema of Democracy: Event and Reinvention of the Mass\, devoted to the study of cinema as a space through which democracy &ldquo\;can be thought\, experienced and enacted&rdquo\; beyond any normative framework (Kim\, 2023). \;
\nPossible research paths include: \;
\n- Cinema and the limits of the representational model
- Cinema and the deconstruction of sovereignty
- Cinema and Post-Foundational Political Thought
\n- Cinema and perspectives on democratic universalism
\n- Minor cinema and democracy \;
\n- Cinema as collective construction
\n- Cinema as the anarchic principle of democracy
\n- Cinema and Radical Democracy Theory \;
\n- Cinema and the meanings of being-in-common \;
\n- Cinema and the different figures of the demos: plurality (Aristotle\, Arendt)\, mass (Badiou)\, missing people (Deleuze)\, multitude (Negri\, Hardt)\, scatter (G. Bennington) \;
\n- Cinema and the tension between instituting and instituted demos
\n- Democracy and cinematic time
References \;
\nBadiou\, A. (2005). Du ciné\;ma comme emblè\;me dé\;mocratique. Critique\, 692-693\, 4-13. \;
\nBrenez\, N. (2023). É\;crits politiques sur le cinema et autres arts filmiques\, Tome 2 &ndash\; Jean-Luc Godard. de l&rsquo\;incidence é\;diteur. \;
\nDeleuze\, G. (1989). Cinema 2 &ndash\; The Time-Image. Athlone Press. \;
\nDidi-Huberman\, G. (2012). Peuples Exposé\;s\, Peuples Figurants &ndash\; L&rsquo\;oeil de l&rsquo\;Histoire\, 4. Minuit. \;
\nGodard\, J-L. (1979). Nord contre Sud ou Naissance de l&rsquo\;image d&rsquo\;une nation. Cahiers du ciné\;ma\, 300\, mai 1979\, 69-129. \;
\nHirose\, J. F. (2020). Il cine-capitale &ndash\; Il Cinema di Gilles Deleuze e il divenire rivoluzionario delle immagini. Ombre corte. \;
\nKim\, H. (2023). Celluloid Democracy: Cinema and Politics in Cold War South Korea. University of California Press. \;
\nLefort\, C. (1991). Democracy and Political Theory. Polity Press \;
\nLing\, A. (2011). Badiou and Cinema. Edinburgh University Press. \;
\nMarchart\, O. (2007). Post-Foundational Political Thought &ndash\; Political Difference in Nancy\, Lefort\, Badiou and Laclau. Edinburgh University Press. \;
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