CFP: Psyches, Personae, & Characters: Human Selves in Film

Film offers a rich medium for exploring psychological aspects of human experience. Movie watchers can observe how characters emerge from the crucible of situation and action as they do in written fiction, but the audiovisual medium adds additional dimensions for displaying and revealing complexities of personality. And while written fiction facilitates narrators or characters themselves telling us about characters’ inner lives, film has the power to depict inner lives not only indirectly through social interaction, facial expression, body language, and dialogue, but also directly through voiceovers, flashbacks, and visual representation of inner experience.

Examples of films that explore the multiple dimensions of selfhood are classic and recent character studies like The Great Gatsby (multiple versions) and A Hidden Life. Characters that have lives outside of film in are realized in intriguing ways in historical, literary, or biblical epics such as The Passion of the Christ, The Lord of the Rings, and Oppenheimer. Mysterious selves appear enigmatically and remain just out of focus in films like Pale Rider, Se7en, or Shutter Island. Shattered, broken, and self-divided psyches stumble through chronicles of addiction and abuse like Requiem for a Dream, Traffic, or Notorious or thrillers like Taxi Driver, Memento or the recent series Severance. Mask-wearing personae conceal themselves in The Usual Suspects, The Dark Knight, or Mother, while heroic characters emerge in films like Saving Private Ryan.

What possibilities for examining selfhood do films offer? What films are particularly successful in revealing aspects of human psychology or psychological development? What can we learn about human selves from particular films? What films or directors develop promising analyses of human selfhood?

You are invited to take part in an engaging interactive conversation on “Psyches, Personae, and Characters: Human Selves in Film” with a group of 12-15 film scholars and fans over the weekend from Thursday evening, October 9, to Saturday evening, October 11, 2025 on the campus of Gonzaga University, in Spokane, WA. The Seminar employs a unique approach in which scholars read and discuss one another’s papers in a collegial setting over a weekend. Participants of the Seminar have in past years found the conversations that take place very helpful for polishing work in progress to move it closer to publication.

More information and Call for Proposals available at Seminar website: https://www.gonzaga.edu/ffp2025seminar