120 BPM: A Symposium

Call for Articles for Journal Special Issue on 120 BPM

‘Robin Campillo’s 120 BPM (2017): Screening AIDS, Activism, and Queer Identity in Contemporary France’

Chief Editors: Alice Pember and Benjamin Dalton

 

120 BPM follows the HIV and AIDS activist group ACT UP in early 1990s Paris during the AIDS crisis. As spectators of the film we sit through intense ACT UP meetings, watch as the activists throw themselves into the disco, and witness them falling in love. 120 BPM also at times leaves its human narratives behind, the camera instead zooming in on microbiological mutations in cells or focusing on the architectural forms of the city of Paris itself. 120 BPM’s multi-faceted approach to the AIDS crisis across political, personal, and biological levels calls for interdisciplinary engagement and analysis. An international conference on 120 BPM hosted by Alice Pember and Benjamin Dalton (10^-th – 11^th May 2019) brought together a wide array of interdisciplinary perspectives on the film. You can read more about the conference at www.120BPMsymposium.wordpress.com and on twitter @120BPMsymposium.

In light of the breakaway success of 120 BPM, and the growing critical attention growing around the film demonstrated by the 2019 conference, this Special Issue will ask: what does it mean to make a film about the AIDS crisis in 2017? What relationship do contemporary queer communities have with the trauma of the 80s and 90s? How do we process the political, bodily and affective traumas of the crisis today in a time of PEP and PrEP? What responsibility do various artistic forms carry with them in regards to HIV and AIDS representation? We particularly encourage interdisciplinary approaches which span film and art criticism as well as cultural history, biology, clinical practice, politics, activism, musicology and dance.

Articles should focus predominantly on 120 BPM itself. Approaches to the film might include, but are not limited to:

• Film studies approaches, including film-philosophy
• Dance and music studies
• Medical Humanities engagement with HIV/AIDS representation and activism
• Recent developments in queer and feminist theory
• AIDS activism in relation to urban space and architecture
• Cultural histories of AIDS
• Activism in a digital age
• 120 in relation to contemporary AIDS activism and representation
• The body and the body politic
• 120 BPM in relation other mediums of AIDS representation, such as theatre, writing, comics, etc.

Notes for Authors:

Articles should be between 5,000-7,000 words (including footnotes, but excluding bibliography).

Proposal abstracts should be no more than 300 words and must be accompanied by an indicative bibliography. A brief biography of approx. 150 words should be provided along with the abstract.

Timetable

• Abstract proposal deadline: Valentine’s Day 2020
• Abstract decisions communicated to authors: early March 2020
• Full article deadline:  August 2020
• Revised article deadline:  December 2020
• Expected publication date: Early 2021

Abstracts are to be submitted no later than 24^th February 2020, Valentine’s Day, as they will not be considered after this date.

Please send abstracts to 120BPMsymposium@gmail.com. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with editors Benjamin Dalton (Benjamin.dalton@kcl.ac.uk) or Alice Pember (a.pember@qmul.ac.uk).