Call for papers for theme issue of Shima on: “Audiovisual representations of islands”

Islands have been extensively represented in cinema, television and various forms of video. Many fictional and documentary productions have utilised familiar tropes of island paradises and their opposite, island ‘hells’ – places of confinement, menace and despair. Island paradises have been the subject of comedy (e.g. 50 first dates, 2004) and romance (Blue Lagoon, 1980), whereas hellish islands have been featured in genres such as horror (e.g. The Resort, 2021), action (The Guns of Navarone, 1981) and SciFi (The Island, 2005). Reality television has also drawn on these paradigms. Another group of films has represented the complexities of living on islands – including Secret Nation (1992) and Tanna (2015). Some filmmakers, such as Ingmar Bergman, are also notable for addressing islands in various of their films. There is also the expedition genre, representing the journey to islands, with the outsider’s impressions as the key topic, such as Edge of the World (1937) or, in a different vein, Svalbard Unplugged (2019). A number of music videos also represent islands and YouTube has many examples of personal travel videos.

This theme issue of Shima invites proposals from researchers from film and media studies, cultural studies, island studies, cultural geography or any other related Humanities field that address one or more of the following topics:

  • The representation of actual islands in one or multiple audiovisual texts
  • The representation of fictional islands in one or multiple audiovisual texts
  • The re-representation of islands in literary fiction in one or multiple audiovisual texts
  • The representation of islands in particular genres and/or national cinemas
  • The relationship of island themed audiovisual productions to broader social political factors and histories
  • Gender issues in island themed audiovisual productions
  • Colonial and postcolonial discourses in island themed audiovisual productions
  • Ethnographic approaches to island themed audiovisual productions
  • Reconstructions of historical island life in audiovisual productions
  • Issues of film/video style with regard to representations of islands

Proposals (300-400 words long) should be sent to:

Dr Panayiota Mini pamini@otenet.gr  and Dr Philip Hayward prhshima@gmail.com as soon as possible and by October 10th 2023 at latest.

Authors whose proposals have been accepted will be notified promptly and their manuscripts can be submitted at any time. Any articles accepted well in advance of publication date can be published online ahead of the special issue being released.