Call for submissions on Cavell and film

OLP & Literary Studies Online announces a call for submissions for a special issue on Cavell and film. The project will bring together scholarship on Stanley Cavell’s philosophy of film, his engagement with ordinary language, and the ways cinema shapes ethical, aesthetic, and intellectual experience.

The issue is intended for researchers, postgraduate students, teachers, and independent scholars working across philosophy, film studies, literary studies, and related fields. It welcomes careful readings of Cavell’s published work alongside new approaches to spectatorship, cinematic form, moral perception, and the shared life represented on screen.

Cavell’s philosophy of film

Cavell’s writing on film treats cinema as a form of philosophical expression rather than a subject that philosophy simply explains from outside. His discussions of remarriage comedies, melodrama, Shakespeare, scepticism, and the ordinary provide a rich vocabulary for thinking about how films register changes in human attachment and self-understanding.

Submissions may examine key works such as The World Viewed, Pursuits of Happiness, and Contesting Tears. They may also consider Cavell’s wider philosophical writings, including his reflections on criteria, acknowledgement, conversation, education, and the problem of knowing other minds.

Film, scepticism, and the ordinary

A central concern for the special issue is the connection between cinematic experience and scepticism. Film places viewers before people and worlds they cannot directly encounter, yet it can produce powerful forms of recognition, intimacy, estrangement, and doubt. This tension offers an important route into Cavell’s account of the human wish to avoid, control, or overcome the fact of separation.

Contributors might explore how particular films make ordinary life philosophically visible. Domestic spaces, family arguments, workplaces, streets, and social rituals can become sites where questions of responsibility and acknowledgement emerge. Close analysis of a scene, performance, camera movement, or recurring image would be especially welcome.

Literary studies and cinematic form

The project also invites work on the relationship between Cavell’s film criticism and literary interpretation. His readings frequently move between film, poetry, drama, and philosophy, treating these forms as participants in a continuing conversation about human possibility. Essays may ask what this interdisciplinary method contributes to current approaches in literary and screen studies.

Possible subjects include adaptation, genre, narrative voice, dramatic dialogue, authorship, and the place of quotation in criticism. Scholars may also investigate how Cavell’s attention to language can illuminate films that resist conventional plot structures or use silence, gesture, and repetition as expressive resources.

New directions in Cavell scholarship

The special issue will make room for both established and emerging interpretations of Cavell. Submissions could revisit his treatment of directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, George Cukor, Howard Hawks, or Ingmar Bergman, while also bringing his concepts into conversation with contemporary cinema and television.

Work on filmmakers outside Cavell’s usual canon is particularly valuable. Australian, Indigenous, Asian, African, and diasporic cinemas may test the reach of his categories and prompt productive revisions. Films by directors such as Jane Campion, Rolf de Heer, Warwick Thornton, or Peter Weir could support discussions of place, belonging, colonial history, and the limits of a largely Euro-American film canon.

Australian perspectives and scholarly communities

For readers in Australia, the call has relevance to a lively network of film societies, university departments, cinematheques, and festivals. Researchers in Melbourne might connect Cavell’s ideas with the programming culture of ACMI or the Melbourne International Film Festival, while scholars in Sydney may find points of contact with the city’s film archives, cinemas, and Screen and Sound programs.

The Australian context also raises distinctive questions about national cinema, cultural memory, and the representation of landscape. A submission might consider how regional distance, suburban life, or the language of everyday Australian conversation affects cinematic ideas of the ordinary. Attention to Indigenous sovereignty and the responsibilities involved in interpreting stories of Country would offer an important ethical dimension.

Formats and possible approaches

The special issue can accommodate traditional scholarly essays, review essays, and intellectually engaged reflections on film and philosophy. Comparative pieces may place Cavell alongside Wittgenstein, Iris Murdoch, Stanley Rosen, Simone Weil, or contemporary ordinary language philosophers. Other contributions might assess his influence on film theory, pedagogy, or criticism.

Clear engagement with primary texts and precise analysis of films will be important. Authors should explain the relevance of Cavell’s concepts rather than treating them as terminology to be applied mechanically. Work that combines philosophical argument with attentive description of scenes, dialogue, editing, sound, and performance will suit the interdisciplinary character of the issue.

Submission information and readership

Prospective contributors should consult the official call for the submission deadline, word limit, referencing style, and method of delivery. The editorial notice will also clarify whether abstracts are requested before full manuscripts and whether submissions will undergo editorial or peer review. Following those requirements will help the issue maintain a consistent scholarly standard.

The finished collection is intended for a broad academic readership. It should be useful to specialists in Cavell and Wittgenstein, students encountering ordinary language philosophy for the first time, and readers of film criticism who want to explore its philosophical implications. Accessible prose, strong contextualisation, and careful citation will make the work valuable across disciplines.

Researchers working on Cavell, film, literary studies, or related areas are invited to develop proposals and full submissions in response to the official announcement. Share the call with postgraduate networks, reading groups, departments, and Australian film and philosophy communities, and follow OLP & Literary Studies Online for updates, related publications, and further resources.