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<p class="MsoNormal">Hello all,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m circulating the call for papers for <em><span style="font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Spectator</span></em> 46.2,
<strong><span style="font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif;font-weight:normal">“The Amateur Reconsidered: Media, Labor, Publics.”</span></strong> If this topic is of interest, please see the description below for details on scope, submission guidelines, and timeline.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kind regards,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Wakae<o:p></o:p></p>
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<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ligatures:none">-- <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:#595959;mso-ligatures:none">Wakae Nakane (she/her)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#595959;mso-ligatures:none">Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#595959;mso-ligatures:none">Division of Cinema & Media Studies<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#595959;mso-ligatures:none">University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#595959;mso-ligatures:none"><a href="mailto:wnakane@usc.edu"><span style="color:#595959">wnakane@usc.edu</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="border:none;padding:0in"><span style="color:#595959;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Call for Papers<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Spectator</span></i></b><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Special Issue: The Amateur Reconsidered: Media, Labor, Publics<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Volume 46.2 Fall 2026<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The category of the “amateur” has long been marked by instability. Etymologically linked to love (<i>amator</i>), the amateur historically signified passion and connoisseurship, yet in modern usage it has oscillated
between devotion and dilettantism. This semantic tension has shaped how amateur practice has been positioned within aesthetic discourse, labor history, and the formation of the public sphere.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;background:white;mso-highlight:white">Cinema and media studies has repeatedly returned to amateurism to both dismiss it and laud its critical and creative possibilities.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">
Accounts of home movies and small-gauge film cultures once considered them part of the marginalia of personal or domestic life, but scholarship has since demonstrated their aesthetic, social, and historical significance. Scholarship, including Patricia Zimmermann’s
foundational work, has situated amateur media within broader institutional and discursive frameworks, from the formation of aesthetic norms in clubs and contests to the intersections of labor history, expertise, and the public/private divide. Simultaneously,
amateur practice has been examined as a counter-aesthetic and an alternative mode of production, as in Maya Deren’s “Amateur Versus Professional” (1959), which framed amateur film as resistant to the industrial logics of Hollywood. Yet amateurism has also
been understood as politically mobilized: Soviet avant-garde circles and interwar Japanese movements such as
<i>Prokino</i> envisioned the amateur as a figure of collectivism, workers’ culture, and social transformation. These diverse trajectories indicate that amateurism has never been a singular phenomenon, but rather a contested and heterogeneous category that
both reflects and unsettles the boundaries of cultural production and consumption.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">At a moment when digital platforms both amplify non-professional production and intensify regimes of credentialization, amateurism demands renewed critical scrutiny. How might the consideration of amateur practice
illuminate shifting conceptions of authorship, expertise, and creativity? In what ways does amateurism negotiate or contest the professionalization of cultural life? And how might the figure of the amateur reframe our understandings of mediation, publicness,
and the politics of work and play? This special issue of <i>Spectator</i> seeks contributions that interrogate amateurism as a theoretical and historical category across media forms and cultural contexts. We welcome essays that draw from diverse archives and
methodologies, including studies of amateur film and video, domestic and vernacular media, digital platforms, and transnational amateur practices.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Possible topics include, but are not limited to:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Histories and theories of amateur media<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Digital platforms and amateur media<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Amateur media in a transnational/global context<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The politics of amateurism<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The aesthetics of amateur media<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Leisure, hobb</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:windowtext">ies</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">,
audienceship</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:windowtext">,
</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">and labor<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Home movies<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Fandom<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Preservation and archival practices regarding amateur media<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Pedagogical approaches to amateur media<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Book reviews of recent scholarship examining amateur media<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Deadline for Submission: December 1, 2025</span></b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<i><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Spectator</span></i><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> is a biannual publication by the University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, Division of Cinema & Media Studies. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Manuscripts to be considered for publication should be sent to:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Issue Editor: Wakae Nakane<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">USC School of Cinematic Arts<br>
900 W. 34th St. Suite 320<br>
Los Angeles, CA-90089<br>
</span><a href="mailto:wnakane@usc.edu"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">wnakane@usc.edu</span></a><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Submissions should be e-mailed directly to the issue editor. Manuscripts should include the title of the contribution, name of author(s), postal address, e-mail address, and a phone number for the author who
will work with the editor on revisions. Contributions should not exceed 5,000 words. Please include a brief abstract and author bio for publicity purposes.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Articles submitted should not be under consideration by any other journals.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Book Reviews may vary in length from 300 to 1,000 words. Please include title of book, retail price and ISBN at the beginning of the review.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Additional section contributions can include interviews, works about new archival or research facilities as well as newly developed methods related to the field.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Authors should send copies of their work via e-mail as electronic attachments. Files should be formatted in the latest version of Microsoft Word and endnotes should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Upon acceptance, a detailed format/style sheet will be forwarded to all contributors as to the requirements for the submission of images and text.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in">
<b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Current Board for Spectator<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Founding Editor: Marsha Kinder<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Managing Editor: TBD<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Issue Editor: Wakae Nakane<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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