CfP: Popular Music and Identity in Cinema (Special Issue Film International) Deadline: 1.2.2026
Special Issue: ‘Popular Music and Identity in Cinema’
Popular music plays a variety of roles in the cinema, both on film itself and in the creative and technical processes taking place behind the camera and in post-production. As cinema studies and musicology recognize, music of all kinds is inextricably linked with the creation, communication and representation of identity. These connections might be especially immediate and powerful in relation to popular and vernacular musics, which are often positioned as the authentic music of ‘the people’ – a notion that can sit uneasily alongside the place of both film and music in commercial, industrial and increasingly internationalized contexts and marketplaces. Drawing on lyrical and sonic features, genre associations and socio-cultural context, cinematic popular music serves not only as a backdrop to narrative action, but can be a critical tool in characterization, cultural representation and marketing. Popular music not only helps to define who characters are but also allows filmmakers and audiences to engage with the construction, negotiation and resistance of identity on both local and global stages.
This themed issue of Film International welcomes submissions in the range of 6000–8000 words that explore the relationships between popular music – broadly conceived – and the representation and communication of identity in cinema. We are especially keen to receive comparative approaches that address diverse films, markets and/or communities of practice or reception. Essays should engage with recent scholarship in a way that contributes an original position within the discourse. Submissions should be received no later than 1 February 2026.
Initial inquiries about topic ideas can be made to this themed issue’s co-editors, Catherine Haworth at C.M.Haworth@hud.ac.uk and David Melbye at dwmelbye@gmail.com. Please note that encouraged topics and/or abstracts do not guarantee publication in the issue. This will also depend on a double-anonymized peer review of completed essays.
Topics that contributors may wish to address include, but are not limited to:
Popular music, film and categories of identity (gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, age etc.)
Popular music, difference and otherness in film
Popular music, film and counterculture
Queer, resistant and/or transformative approaches to commercial musics in cinema
Popular music and localisation practices
Popular music, economics and marketing in film
Popular music, identity and the broader soundtrack or soundscape (dialogue, SFX, mixing, music editing etc.)
Identity and popular musical performance on film (both within and outside the musical genre)
Reference to popular musical styles in pre-composed, original and/or library music
Identity and agency in popular music-related production processes and personnel
Cinematic identities and popular musical scenes, subcultures, genres or styles
Musical eclecticism and transnational approaches
Fan and/or star identities in relation to cinematic popular music.
For more information: Website Journal