Cinephile 18.1 – (Un)recovering Lost Futures

The late cultural theorist Mark Fisher asks, “how long can a culture persist without the new?” For Fisher, the postmodern future under capitalist realism, “harbours only reiteration and re-permutation” (6-7). In capitalism’s inability to look beyond itself, media culture has become excessively nostalgic and “incapable of generating any authentic novelty” (63). Accordingly, one can observe a certain malaise surrounding media’s inability to imagine new and alternative futures.

Music, fashion, film, T.V., and digital media have all primarily engaged in nostalgia rather than an imagination of the future. What’s more, this nostalgia has been formalized through an aestheticization of the past — fashion and style trends mimic 70s, 80s, and 90s culture, while the emulation of film grain in digital cinema is more common. One need not look further than recent cultural touchstones such as eighties exploitation in Stranger Things (2016) and Joker (2019), greatest hits soundtracks in Baby Driver (2017) and Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), and contemporary sampling practices evident in Jack Harlowe’s “First Class” to find that innovation in form and material is no longer embraced by the mainstream. Instead, these media foreground the past such that nostalgic pastiche and aesthetic remediation is the text.

We thus echo the statement that opened this call for papers: How long can a culture persist without the new? We call for research that queries the new. Where is it, what is it, for whom does it exist, and when will it come? We call for papers across various disciplines that consider the political, theoretical, and philosophical implications of this cultural malaise – and its potentially opposing forces – as they interface with changing digital media and technology, minor and major cinema, postcolonialism and marginalized identities, algorithms and artificial intelligence, and other cultural phenomena. Papers that are submitted to issue 18.2 of Cinephile may consider but are not limited to the following questions:

1. How might novel forms like social media or artificial intelligence help imagine novel futures? While emulating the past has become a cultural obsession, how does the shift from analogue to digital media enable or disable our capacity to imagine the new?

2. If there is a ‘new’ to imagine, for whom does it exist?

3. Where might we find the new?

4. Is it more apparent in certain parts of the world and, if so, what are the ethical implications of making such a claim?

5. What new forms of pedagogical approaches can we use while teaching with new media?

We encourage submissions from graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and established scholars. Papers should be between 2,000-3,500 words, follow MLA guidelines, and include a detailed works cited page, as well as a short biography of the author. Submissions should be directed toward SUBMISSIONS@CINEPHILE.CA indicating the intended issue and general inquiries toward INFO@CINEPHILE.CA.