Call for submissions: “Phenomenology and Media: Mapping the Structures of Post-Cinematic Experience”
Annual conference of the Romanian Society for Phenomenology
Venue: National University for Theatre and Film, Bucharest [map]
Date: 19-21 November 2026
Deadline for submissions: 31 May 2026
In the wake of profound technological and cultural transformations, cinema no longer names a stable medium but rather a shifting constellation of practices, dispositifs, and experiential forms. The proliferation of streaming platforms, algorithmically curated feeds, immersive installations, AI-generated imagery, VR and AR environments, conversational agents, and multi-screen ecologies compels us to rethink the very structures of our lived experience. Under the still-contested but heuristically productive concept of “post-cinema,” recent scholarship in film and media studies has sought to come to grips with this transformed media landscape in ways that are still waiting to be fully appropriated by phenomenological reflection.
The present conference invites contributions that bring phenomenology into sustained dialogue with contemporary media theory in order to interrogate the manifold facets of our current post-cinematic situation and map the experiential, affective, embodied, and critical structures that characterize our current media ecology.
Building primarily on traditions of film phenomenology associated with Vivian Sobchack and Jean-Pierre Meunier, and drawing on the philosophical resources of, among others, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics of the Other, Hermann Schmitz’s New Phenomenology, Don Ihde’s post-phenomenology of technology, or Mark Coeckelbergh’s phenomenologically informed ethics of human-robot interaction, we aim to extend phenomenological inquiry beyond the classical cinematic dispositif toward emerging “families of images”: algorithmic visuals, deepfakes, TikTok feeds, immersive environments, AI image synthesis, and hybrid human-machine interfaces.
By bringing together philosophers, film and media scholars, as well as artists, we aim to foster a rigorous interdisciplinary conversation about how phenomenology can illuminate, and be transformed by, the evolving media landscape.
Confirmed keynote speakers:
- Anna Caterina Dalmasso (Università degli Studi di Milano)
- Shane Denson (Stanford University)
We welcome submissions that engage (but are not limited to) the following themes:
1. Embodiment and Mediation
- Post-cinematic bodies and artificial tactility
- Intercorporeality in immersive and interactive media
- Gesture, interface, and motor intentionality
- VR/AR, spatialized sound, and multisensory environments
- Expanded cinema and installation art
2. Affect and Atmosphere
- Affective ecologies of algorithmic media
- Mood, attunement, and digital atmospheres
- Emotional attachment to bots, avatars, and AI agents
- Collective affect in networked spectatorship
- Aesthetic experience beyond representation
3. Temporality and Attention
- Fragmented, looped, and accelerated temporalities
- Binge-watching, scrolling, and platform temporality
- Post-cinematic memory and archival transformations
- Time-consciousness in interactive and immersive works
4. Image Ontology and the “Family of Images”
- AI-generated and synthetic imagery
- Deepfakes and the transformation of indexicality
- The fate of imagination in digital environments
- Reconfigurations of fiction, documentary, and the home movie
5. Critical Phenomenology and Media
- Media infrastructures and lived experience
- Platform capitalism and embodied subjectivity
- Cyberbullying, online violence, and mediated vulnerability
- Maker culture, participation, and technological agency
- Media phenomenology in dialogue with critical theory, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, or cognitive theory
6. Methodological Reflections
- Micro-phenomenology and media research
- Second-person methods and audience studies
- Phenomenology beyond “ideological neutrality”
- The future of phenomenology in the post-digital world
Selected contributions will be considered for inclusion in a peer-reviewed special journal issue.
Submission Guidelines
Proposals for individual papers (30 minutes) should include:
- An abstract of 300–500 words
- A short bio (100–150 words)
Practice-based research presentations are strongly encouraged.
Proposals for pre-constituted panels (3-4 speakers) should include a panel description (300-500 words), as well as abstracts (300-500 words) and short bio (100-150 words) for all speakers.
Submissions should be sent to: conference2026@phenomenology.ro
Deadline for submissions: 31 May 2026
Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2026
Conference dates: 19-21 November 2026
Location: National University for Theatre and Film, Bucharest
Participation fee: 60 EUR
Organizers: Christian Ferencz-Flatz, Alexandru Bejinariu, Remus Breazu