Call for Papers: Film, Fashion & Consumption

Special Issue: 'Dress Against: Aesthetics of Power and Normativity in Contemporary Cinema'

Guest Editor : Danae Ioannou

Submission deadline: 31 August 2026

View the full call here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/film-fashion-consumption#call-for-papers

The year 2026 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Theodor W. Adorno's Negative Dialectics, in which the concept of ‘negative aesthetics’ appears for the first time – a critical aesthetic that does not give the viewer ‘pleasure’, but provokes instead a close examination of social norms, especially those concerning power. In this perspective, art is meant to provoke, not comfort, exposing social and normative contradictions. Adorno provides a tool for analysing form, aesthetics and discomfort, provoking critical thinking. Yuriko Saito has systematized Everyday Aesthetics, and contemporary Negative Aesthetics is considered a sub-field of it, because everyday life is not predominantly beautiful, harmonious or pleasurable. Ordinary experience is saturated with authentic discomfort, irritation, boredom, ugliness, excess and disgust – and yet these experiences are still aesthetic, meaning they are sensorially perceived, judged and affectively processed.

In opposition to Adorno's negative aesthetics and Foucault's critical perspective, the New Sincerity movement emphasizes authenticity, emotional honesty and a conscious rejection of irony. In 2006, Emery C. Martin published A Manifesto for the New Sincerity, suggesting that the ironic paradigm so characteristic of the 1990s had ended its dominance at the beginning of the 21st century. Martin does not link this to the events of September 11, 2001, but points out that irony in culture had gradually lost its status as the dominant discourse. The adjective ‘new’, added to the concept of ‘sincerity’, shows the separation of sincerity from earlier interpretations associated with irony. In the Aesthetics of New Sincerity, art not only provokes reflection on norms and mechanisms of power but also encourages the sincere emotional engagement of the viewer, celebrating personal experience and moral integrity. In the context of contemporary cinema, this can mean forms of expression that combine aesthetics with sensitivity to social and normative expectations, while offering an alternative to cynical social criticism.

2026 also marks the 50th anniversary of Michel Foucault's first lecture at the Collège de France, during which he introduced the concept of biopolitics, analysing the ways in which modern forms of power began to manage the ‘life’ of people and populations, focusing on the biological nature of humans (Collège de France, March 17, 1976; a series of lectures later published in Il faut défendre la société). Foucault points to what aesthetics can provoke criticism of – namely, norms, discipline, power and biopolitical mechanisms.

This Special Issue will explore the points of intersection between Philosophy, Aesthetics and Performativity. It is inspired by the theoretical concepts of Theodor W. Adorno, who pointed to the power of Negative Aesthetics, as a tool of social criticism, Negative Aesthetics as part of Everyday Aesthetics, as it was introduced by Yuriko Saito, Emery C. Martin’s New Sincerity and the rejection of irony and the honest engagement with art and Michel Foucault, who examined how power manages life and normalizes bodies. Together, they form a framework for analysing contemporary cinema, performativity and fashion, where aesthetic form provokes reflection on power and normativity.

On this anniversary, Film, Fashion & Consumption invites submissions for a Special Issue devoted to the relationships between biopolitics, negative aesthetics, fashion, performativity and contemporary cinema. The Special Issue is inspired by analyses of contemporary filmmakers such as Yorgos Lanthimos (Greek Weird Wave), whose films reveal complex mechanisms of power, normativity, emotion and the body, often expressed through costume, gesture and style.

Suggested Topics:

1. Costume and Power: How do costume and styling in contemporary films reflect or critique biopolitical mechanisms and normative constraints on the body?

2. Performativity and the Body: How do gesture, movement, choreography and the attire of film characters create performative strategies of control or resistance to social norms?

3. Negative Aesthetics in Practice: In what ways do minimalism, grotesque elements, absurdity or deadpan dialogue in set design and costume provoke viewers to critically engage with power and social norms?

4. ‘New Sincerity’ versus Irony in Costume: How are emotional sincerity and irony in character behavior ‘dressed’ in costume and cinematic space, entering into tension with social norms, power structures and aesthetic discomfort? 

5. Cinema, Fashion and Consumption: How do rituals of dressing and consumption in contemporary films reflect social hierarchies, normative regulations or mechanisms of bodily control?

6. Trans- and Cross-Cultural Costume Strategies: How do different film traditions employ costume and styling to express social norms, bodily regulation and performativity in global contexts? 

7. Discomfort and Grotesque in Costume Narratives: How do absurd or grotesque costumes and set design generate tension, distance, and reflection on power, the body and social norms?

8. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Film and Fashion Analysis: How can methods combining film studies, fashion studies, body studies and gesture choreography expand our understanding of the relationships between costume, performativity and biopolitical mechanisms in cinema?

We welcome contributions not only from early-career researchers but from all scholars and practitioners, recognizing that we ourselves, as audiences and participants, are often enmeshed in the biopolitical mechanisms and normative structures our analyses seek to examine. We are particularly interested in approaches that rethink classical methodologies and develop new languages for discussing contemporary post-postmodern cultural shifts in film, fashion and the arts. This Special Issue aims to explore collectively how aesthetic form, costume and performativity provoke reflection on power, norms and the regulation of bodies, while also experimenting with new ways of thinking and writing about these intersections

Please submit abstracts to Danae Ioannou (danaeioan2496@gmail.com).