Call for Papers: Media Theory at “L’Orientale”

Media Theory Conference: Naples 2027

June 23-25, 2027

Università Degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Naples, Italy

Organised by: Simon Dawes & Tiziana Terranova

Organising Committee: Gennaro Ascione, Edoardo Biscossi, Simon Dawes, Immacolata Egizio, M. Beatrice Fazi, Tiziana Terranova, Gioacchino Orsenigo, Stamatia Portanova, Luca Recano, Antonio Ricciardi.

Keynote Speakers Media Theory: M. Beatrice Fazi, Yuk Hui, Luciana Parisi and Tiziana Terranova

Keynote Speakers ‘Mediterranean Technocultures’: Iain Chambers, Donatella della Ratta (plus more to be confirmed)

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

Following on from the first Media Theory Conference in Toronto in 2025, our second instalment will take place in Naples in 2027. Held at the Università Degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, the 2-day Media Theory conference (23-24 June) is being organised to coincide with a 1-day event on Mediterranean Technocultures (25 June).

At a time where all that we have understood as media is undergoing profound change – “in terms of scale, integration with everyday life, transformation of the archive, and the growing convergence of media platforms with other domains such as transport, logistics, finance, health, and e-commerce” (McQuire, 2017) – new terms and concepts, and radical rethinking of assumptions, are required. Emphasising the importance of abstraction, conceptualisation and problematisation (Fazi, 2017) and recognising the need to self-critically geopoliticise knowledge production (Shome, 2017), contributions to the Media Theory Conference are particularly encouraged that focus on problematising the concepts of ‘media’, ‘theory’ and ‘media theory’, deprovincialising (e.g. media theory from the global south; queering media theory), or radicalising open access publishing (remixing; rethinking peer-review; theorising ‘openness’ and ‘access’), or that seek to bring into dialogue diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, so as to develop a transnational and transdisciplinary forum in which to collectively enable media theory and generate debate on academic publishing (Dawes, 2017).

We therefore invite proposals for papers for the conference on any aspect of media theory, including the following:

– Rethinking definitions of ‘media([tiza]tion)’, and ‘communication/s’;

– Rethinking distinctions between ‘theory/ies’ and ‘philosophy/ies’;

– Transcending disciplinary boundaries and deprovincializing theoretical debate;

– Readdressing neglected theorists and proposing alternative histories of media theory;

– Critiquing blindspots in dominant approaches and critically engaging with alternative or marginalised perspectives;

– Debating openness, independence, open access, peer-review and the role of an academic journal;

–  As well as critical perspectives and alternative visions of Mediterranean technocultures.

Proposals of up to 500 words, accompanied by an indicative bibliography and a short biographical note, for 15-minute papers should be sent to the organisers of the conference, Simon Dawes (UVSQ-Paris Saclay, France) and Tiziana Terranova (Università Degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Italy), at editors@mediatheoryjournal.org by Friday 30 October 2026. Emails should be sent with the subject line “Naples Conference: Abstract”. Decisions will be confirmed by Friday 27 November 2026. Registration fees and other details will follow closer to the time of the conference, and registration will be for both Media Theory and ‘Mediterranean Technocultures’ events. Participants will also be encouraged to submit full article-length versions of their conference papers to the journal by December 1^st 2027. Following the usual peer-review process, accepted articles will be published in a special section of Media Theory in 2028.

ABOUT THE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

M. Beatrice Fazi is a philosopher working on the philosophies of computation, technology and media. Her research focuses on the ontologies and epistemologies produced by contemporary technoscience. She has published extensively on the limits and potentialities of the computational method, on digital aesthetics and on the automation of thought. She is Associate Professor at the University of Sussex (United Kingdom), the author of Contingent Computation: Abstraction, Experience, and Indeterminacy in Computational Aesthetics (2018), and co-author of Digital Theory (2025).

Yuk Hui is Full Professor of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he holds the Chair of Human Conditions and serves as the director of the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Technology. He is author of several monographs including On the Existence of Digital Objects (prefaced by Bernard Stiegler, University of Minnesota Press, 2016), The Question Concerning Technology in China-An Essay in Cosmotechnics (Urbanomic, 2016), Recursivity and Contingency (R&LI, 2019), Art and Cosmotechnics (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), Post-Europe (Sequence/Urbanomic, 2024), Machine and Sovereignty (University of Minnesota Press, 2024) and Kant Machine (Bloomsbury, 2026). He is also the founding editor of Technophany- A Journal for Philosophy and Technology (Radboud University Press).

Luciana Parisi is Professor at Program in Literature and core faculty for the Graduate Program in Computational Media Art and Culture at Duke University.  She was a member of the CCRU (Cybernetic Culture Research Unit) and currently a co-founding member of CCB (Critical Computation Bureau). Her research is a philosophical investigation of technology in culture, aesthetics and politics. She is the author of Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire (2004, Continuum Press) and Contagious Architecture. Computation, Aesthetics and Space (2013, MIT Press). She is completing a monograph on Automation and Philosophy (MIT, forthcoming) and co-editor of the edited collection Colonial Fractals: The Racial Politics of Planetary Computation (Duke University Press, forthcoming).

Tiziana Terranova is Full Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and a Research Affiliate at Columbia University, Teachers College. Her research explores the intersections of digital media, technology, culture, and politics from the perspectives of critical theory and cultural studies. She is the author of Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age (Pluto Press, 2004) and After the Internet: Digital Networks between Capital and the Common (Semiotext(e)/MIT Press, 2022). She is also co-editor, with Luciana Parisi, Ezekiel Dixon-Román, and Oana Pârvan, of Colonial Fractals: The Racial Politics of Planetary Computation (Duke University Press, forthcoming 2027). She serves on the editorial boards of Theory, Culture & Society, Subjectivity, and Studi Culturali, is a member of the CCB (Critical Computation Bureau) and is Director of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Transnational Technocultures (CRiTT).

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Media Theory was established in 2017 as an independent (scholar-led), online and (libre) open access journal of peer-reviewed, theoretical interventions into all aspects of media and communications. Resolutely international and interdisciplinary in scope, the journal encourages submissions that critically engage with the theoretical frameworks and concepts that tend to be taken for granted in national or disciplinary perspectives. Following the inaugural issue of ‘Manifestos’ from the editorial collective, the journal has published special issues on ‘Geospatial Memory’, ‘Revolting Media, ‘Rethinking Affordance’, ‘Mediating Presents’, ‘Into the Air’, ‘Pharmacologies of Media’, ‘Critique, Postcritique and the Present Conjuncture’, ‘Seeing Photographically’, ‘Violent Labour’ and ‘Stimulating Media’, as well as special sections on Ed Herman, Paul Virilio, Michel Serres, Lauren Berlant and Charles W. Mills, with forthcoming issues on ‘Videogame Theory’, ‘Media Architectures’ and ‘Transnational Technocultures’. Although the journal privileges an emphasis on theory, the editors are not only concerned with theory for theory’s sake. Rather, we are interested in how theoretically-informed and -engaged interventions can contribute to the interpretation of empirical research and critique, as well as to the deprovincialization of theoretical debate – helping us understand, rather than dismiss or describe, objects of critique, and making us reconsider the validity, efficacy and legitimacy of our own particular methodological approaches.

ABOUT MEDITERRANEAN TECHNOCULTURES (MEDTECH): Critical and Alternative Technocultural Practices and Imaginaries in the Mediterranean Region

The project Mediterranean Technocultures (MedTech) aims to research the Mediterranean as a crucial domain wherefrom to critique the global technological monoculture (BigTech) that currently dominates the planet as well as to observe technodiversity through a specific focus on audiovisual media and computational technologies. The idea of a technological monoculture refers to the global hegemony exercised by BigTech or GAFAM (Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft). The notion of technodiversity refers to the possibility of imagining different cultural and epistemic models of technology (Hui, 2020). MedTech departs from the discourse according to which the Mediterranean should be seen as a marginal space with relation to the advanced technocultures of nations such as the United States, China, Japan, South Korea or Northern Europe. It instead considers the Mediterranean as a space of articulation of critical perspectives on technology, as well as a site of emergence of technodiversity (Hui, 2020; Chambers and Terranova, 2021). In so doing, the project also aims to contribute to the development of an interdisciplinary and transcultural approach to the mapping of “another Mediterranean” (Chambers and Cariello, 2019). The scientific approach is sensitive to the relation between the global and the local, control and appropriation, hegemonic and subaltern (Penley and Ross, 1991). MedTech investigates the distinctive characteristics of Mediterranean technocultures, connecting critical technocultural responses to BigTech’s hegemony (including technologies of surveillance, warfare and control) to the study of Mediterranean technodiversity in audiovisual and computational technologies. Examples include cultural and linguistic practices such as media an-archaeologies, audiovisual software and media, digital infrastructures, cryptocurrencies, hacklabs, social media cultures, etc.

ABOUT THE VENUE

Palazzo Dumesnil (Rooms: Sala Conference and Sala Archivio Storico) – University of Naples “L’Orientale”

Palazzo Dumesnil is one of the historic buildings of the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, a leading institution internationally recognized for its excellence in the study of languages, cultures, and societies. Situated within walking distance of the city’s renowned waterfront, including the majestic Castel dell’Ovo as well as Piazza dei Martiri, one of Naples’ most elegant historic squares, the palace combines the architectural grandeur of a nineteenth-century aristocratic residence with its present role as a vibrant academic venue. It is also the seat of the University’s Rectorate, housing the office of the Rector and the central administrative offices.