CFP: Conference – ‘BEAUTIFUL SCREENS’. 19-20 June 2025 @ University of Westminster, UK. Deadline – 28 April 2025.

A CREAM, University of Westminster Conference

June 19th and 20th 2025, University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus, LONDON, NW1 5LS

Organisers

Dr. Christopher Hogg – C.Hogg@westminster.ac.uk (University of Westminster)

Dr. Kate McNicholas Smith – K.McNicholassmith@westminster.ac.uk (University of Westminster)

Dr. Douglas McNaughton – D.Mcnaughton@brighton.ac.uk (University of Brighton)

Overview

Screen media are inextricably linked to notions of beauty, and never more so than in a contemporary age of technological expansions and transformations, and heavily mediated identities and social interactions. In everything from ‘Instagram face’, to the rapidly evolving aesthetics of screen storytelling and television design, to YouTube makeup tutorials, to the politics of screen casting and inclusion – what constitutes beauty, how we define it, and its effects (or 'affects'), are continually pressing debates and concerns.  

‘Beauty’ emerges, of course, through complex convergences of socio-historical contexts and nms and has often boreen utilised to (violently) normative effect. Its 

functions are multiple, however, utilised on screen also to move us, for pleasure, possibility and subversion. Recognising this, our two-day conference seeks to examine the relationship(s) between screen media and ‘beauty’ in the broadest sense and from the widest range of possible perspectives. 

The conference aims to bring together an international mix of screen academics and practitioners to discuss the complexities, rewards, challenges and limitations of screen ‘beauty’ in 2025. From considerations of cinematic spectacle to scrolling on our phones, ‘beautiful screens’ of all kinds have a home at our conference. We are also committed to facilitating meaningful interactions between academics, educators and screen-industry creatives/professionals, realised through a combination of traditional academic panels, screenings, industry and educator roundtables, and mixer sessions in which those vantage points can be productively brought together. We invite proposals for academic papers, as well as short films, posters and other creative responses to the theme.   

We welcome proposals on topics including but not limited to: 

- Histories, contexts and traditions of screen beauty 

- National and global trends and flows in screen beauty 

- Screen design, screen art and screen aesthetics 

- Visual spectacle on screen 

- Makeup and costume design for the screen 

- Social media and notions of beauty 

- The beauty industry on screen 

- Screen representation and equality, diversity and inclusion 

- The politics of screen casting 

- Ageing and the screen 

- The gaze(s), pleasure, desire and the screen 

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words, a title for your paper, a short biography (written in the third person) with ‘Beautiful Screens’ in the email subject line to the organisers listed above. We welcome papers from students studying towards a PhD as well as from established academics.