CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Deadline: December 1, 2025
Poetics and Politics is a practice-led research symposium to be held at the University of California Santa Cruz May 14-17, 2026.
The Poetics and Politics symposium represents an unusual opportunity for media makers and artists working within the broad ambit of documentary who critically reflect on their own work to come together in order to think out loud about what it is we do and why it matters. We seek proposals that explore documentary media in its current state of production, exhibition, context, culture, significance, and possibility. We especially seek proposals from documentary practitioners who conceive of their ‘practice’ most broadly to include—without being limited to—moving image media, digital media, sound, writing, programming, photography, performance, archiving and installation among other forms, either as individual or hybrid practices in which more than a single medium are in dialogue. We accept proposals on completed research projects, but we are particularly welcoming of work-in-progress presentations.
After a hiatus, we’re bringing the symposium back to life because we feel a need to gather, to share work and perspectives, and to collectively feel into and grapple with the possibilities of documentary practice(s) in this moment.
The theme for this year’s symposium is: Poetics in the Politics of Now.
We’ve chosen an intentionally broad theme as we’re hoping to engender a space of open dialogue about the interplay of aesthetics, politics, and history as they emerge in our various and discrete practices, commitments, regions and contexts. What are ‘poetics’ in the politics of now? Or, what are the ‘politics’ of the poetics of now? What is ‘now’? How are the pervasive topics that tend to cluster around documentary (realism, fidelity, responsibility, ethics, representation) animated or challenged or changed by this contemporary moment? What work does documentary do, and what can it do, in a media space increasingly dominated by altered images and facts? In a world increasingly shaped by the forces of financialization and nationalism? What could investing in form and poetics do in a moment like this? These are just some questions on our mind, but we welcome any and all entries into the theme.
This will be the 5th iteration of Poetics and Politics. The inaugural symposium, held at Aalto University (2013) in Helsinki, Finland was designed to both showcase and theorize non-fiction work that exists at the nexus of theory and practice; image, sound and word. With Brian Winston and Trinh T Minh-ha serving that year as keynote speakers, the conference provided an invaluable context for, what was then, an accelerating trend in media studies—research that is constituted by documentary media production in conversation with theoretical scholarship. Or, better yet, research that embodies modes of both practice and theory and, by virtue of being so constituted, troubles and reinvigorates both. The second iteration of Poetics and Politics took place in Santa Cruz (2015) with Kevin Jerome Everson as keynote. The third iteration took place at Sussex (2017) with John Greyson as keynote. The fourth took place in Santa Cruz (2019) with Kirsten Johnson and Lana Lin as keynotes.
The 2026 symposium will be an in-person gathering: we are committed to the community-building work of physical presence and to creating an intentional space for shared and durational conversation across our time together. We do not have the capabilities to support a hybrid symposium with remote participation. However, we recognize the accessibility issues this creates, particularly in the current political climate, and we are open to making exceptions for a limited number of remote presentations. If you need a remote exception, based on capacity to travel (broadly defined), please email us after submitting your proposal with some context about your situation. Short presentations (20 minutes) will be prioritized, and we may be able to accept a very limited number of screening submissions and space intensive projects like installations. For more information or inquiries, email: poeticsandpolitics@ucsc.edu.
Please submit a presentation proposal via this form: https://forms.gle/jwCGtQrRW96TPXDz8.
With care,
Co-organizers Irene Lusztig, Irene Gustafson, and Hannah Jayanti
