CfP: Audiovisual representations of gender – between aestheticization and politicization (18.-20.06.2026, Universität Marburg) Deadline: 28.02.2026

Call for papers
Audiovisual representations of gender – between aestheticization and politicization
20th Symposium of the Kiel Society for Film Music Research
University of Marburg, June 18–20, 2026

Gender manifests in film on multiple levels: narrative, visual, and auditory—through behavioral norms, body images, vocal characteristics, and musical expression. In particular, gendered topoi and motifs such as quotations, allusions, and archetypes can be traced across sound, music, and visual design. These elements interact intermedially, constructing and deconstructing one another. Interdisciplinary perspectives are therefore essential for linking the historical and subject-specific discourses that shape these phenomena.
This thematic framework forms the starting point for the 20th Symposium of the Kiel Society for Film Music Research, to be held June 18–20, 2026, at Philipps University Marburg, in cooperation with the university’s Institute of Art History and the Research Center for Music and Gender (Hanover). The symposium approaches gender as an aesthetic construct emerging from the interplay of image and sound—yet also as a medium of political expression with the power to influence social developments. Cinematic aestheticization may thus contribute to the normalization or romanticization of problematic role models and behaviors, but it can equally serve to question and subvert them.
We invite scholars and filmmakers to expand their current or new research interests and projects to include (intersectional) gender perspectives, while also considering the (historical) frames of reference within their respective fields. Tandem presentations and work-in-progress contributions are explicitly encouraged. Students and early-career researchers are warmly invited to submit proposals.
Contributions focusing on the role of sound and music in the following areas are particularly welcome:

  *   ”Traditional” and ”non-normative” gender roles in film from art-historical and musicological perspectives
  *   Visual and auditory devices in film (e.g., male vs. female gaze and their subversions)
  *   Voice and identity construction
  *   Performativity and physicality (e.g., in dance films, music videos, or musicals)
  *   Gender and role models in animated and children’s films
  *   Historicizations of gender in period dramas, historical films, or biopics
  *   Activist and politically engaged film productions

Besides themed proposals, free papers outside the conference theme are also welcome, including proposals that identify desiderata or ideas for new research projects and collaborations. Following the symposium, speakers are encouraged to submit their contributions for a thematic issue of Kieler Beiträge zur Filmmusikforschung (Kiel Contributions to Film Music Research). The journal is open access, and all submissions will undergo double-blind peer review.

Submission deadline: January 31, 2026 (lisa.hecht[at]uni-marburg[dot]de)
Please prepare your abstract for anonymous review (no self-references). Applicants will be notified of the selection results by February 28, 2026.

In addition to 20-minute papers (each followed by a 10-minute discussion), proposals for alternative presentation formats are encouraged.

The symposium will take place in person, and the conference languages are German and English.
Maria Behrendt (University of Music, Drama and Media Hanover, Research Center for Music and Gender) and Lisa Hecht (Philipps University Marburg, Institute of Art History) in cooperation with the Kiel Society for Film Music Research.