Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies

Moving Images/Moving Geographies: Video Essays in ‘Spanish’ Visual Cultures

This is a Call for Papers for our special issue dedicated to ‘Moving Images/Moving Geographies: Video Essays in “Spanish” Visual Cultures’.

The Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies invites practitioners of videographic criticism to submit work that (as video essays, audiovisual essays, etc.) represents, examines and develops this innovative mode of presenting film, television, screen, media, and moving image research in the area of Hispanic visual studies. The works of videographic criticism should advance an idea and/or argument relating to Hispanic visual studies in a way that prioritizes the medium and exploits its potential.

 Topics may include, but are not limited to: 

•         De-westernizing/decolonizing world/’Spanish’ cinema
•         ‘Simultaneous multiplicity’ in video essays: to allow for the assemblage and viewing of different—and similar—films at the same time
•         Cross-disciplinary approaches are welcomed
•         Experimentation in form

Celebrating our Centenary in 2023, our journal reflected on what the ‘Spanish’ in our name has come to mean. At its most basic level it covers the cultural, artistic and literary output from Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Beyond that it can mean recognition of Spain’s colonial past and the violent histories of Spain or Latin America. It can mean the flows of migration or the hybridity of diaspora. It may also encompass Latinx studies, or Chicano studies or see Indigeneity as part of an inclusive ‘Spanishness’. More than one hundred years on, the journal approaches the commitment to the promotion of ‘Spanish’ studies with an openness to the need for flexibility and diversity. 

It was during an online symposium that same year entitled, 'Moving Geographies: 100 Years of “Spanish” Visual Studies’ which celebrated the many and various visual aspects of the Bulletin’s history. One intervention saw Professor Rob Stone and Professor Catherine Grant engaged in a conversation on the evolution of the scholarly video-essay. The logical next step was for Rob Stone to present his video essay, ‘The Hunt for The Wild Bunch: Simultaneous Multiplicity and Alternative Genealogies in World Cinema’ at our Centenary celebrations in Queen’s University Belfast. Such was its reception, that we took the decision to publish it as our inaugural video essay for the Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies. Now we underscore our commitment to innovative research within Hispanism through the medium of videographic criticism, and celebrate the contribution that video scholarship is making to our field. 

To be considered for publication, submissions need to be original scholarly works not previously published elsewhere. Peer assessors involved in the evaluation process include members of the Bulletin’s Executive Editorial Board and/or international Editorial Advisory Committee and also external assessors world-wide, selected for their expertise and standing in the field of videographic criticism. Rigorous peer assessment procedures ensure that all studies published in the BSVS meet the highest standards of scholarship and make an enduring and influential contribution to items of videographic criticism on Spain, Portugal and Latin America.