ZMJ Call For Papers: Conventions of the Gaze. Clichés and Stereotypes between Art, Fashion, and Visual Culture

2026-07-06

 

Visual representation plays a decisive role in the processes of production, circulation, and consumption of images and meanings in contemporary society. Images, however, are never neutral: they reflect interpretative frameworks, cultural categories, habits, norms, and conventions that often crystallize into stereotypes. The term stereotype — from the Greek stereós, meaning “hard, solid,” and týpos, meaning “imprint, image” — was introduced at the end of the eighteenth century by Firmin Didot in the field of typography to designate a method for duplicating printing clichés. Today, the terms cliché and stereotype are also used to denote mechanically repeated ideas or simplified and preconceived visions concerning objects, places, people, roles, social groups, and entire cultures. According to Henri Tajfel, stereotypes arise from the more or less intentional limitation of the amount of information related to phenomena to be categorized, in order to facilitate engagement with reality. Clichés and stereotypes thus function as cognitive shortcuts for interpreting the world, but at the cost of misleading, unfounded, and prejudicial outcomes: they stem from the exaggeration or reversal of positive characteristics and become rigid through their transmission.

Mass media and all their visual manifestations are grounded in what Lamberto Pignotti has termed “packaged discourse” — a discourse designed to meet the needs of the system. Constructed by the cultural industry, the art market, or the fashion industry, this discourse is made up of tailor-made words, serial images, false myths, and prescribed behaviors: an imposed script that compromises the possibility of authentic choices, experiences, and reflections. The stereotypes involved in today’s “packaged discourse” concern genders, bodies, races, social classes, ages, sexual identities, and power relations, and they are produced, reinforced, or contested by images circulating within art, fashion, and visual culture at large. This issue of ZoneModa Journal therefore aims to critically investigate how stereotypes are constructed, negotiated, and deconstructed through visual representations and aesthetic practices characteristic of contemporaneity.

By way of indication, contributors are invited to submit papers that explore, though are not limited to, the following topics:

  • stereotypes in fashion imagery and in the representation of bodies in the media;
  • the codification of conventions related to gender identities, ethnicities, social classes, age, and ability in fashion imagery and visual culture;
  • the construction and deconstruction of stereotypes in contemporary visual arts;
  • processes of contesting visual stereotypes in performative and relational practices;
  • stereotypical representations of top models and fashion designers in the media;
  • stereotypical representations of the artist across media;
  • stereotyped iconographies and narratives in digital media and on social platforms;
  • debates on the concept of stereotype within visual theory and gender studies;
  • the role of stereotyped images within cultural systems.

Submissions

Abstracts of no more than 600 words, excluding bibliographical references (word*.docx format), written either in Italian or English, are required to illustrate the objectives of the paper, the research question(s) and the methodology adopted. They must be sent, together with a short biographical note, to: pasquale.fameli@unibo.it; irene.calvi2@unibo.it; zmj@unibo.it (with object: Abstract submission for ZMJ – Conventions of the Gaze).

Abstract acceptance does not guarantee publication of the article, which will be submitted to a double-blind peer-review process.

Key Deadlines:

  • Abstract submission: September 28, 2026
  • Notification of acceptance/rejection: October 30, 2026  (notice of acceptance might include comments and requests for explanations).
  • Full-length paper (6000/7000 words) submission: January 11, 2027
  • Comments of the reviewers will be conveyed together with the editor’s decision (approval with no changes, approval with major/minor changes and/or rejection): February 15, 2027
  • Authors shall send the reviewed article to the editorial staff by March 9, 2027

 

ZMJ Vol. 17 N.1 is scheduled to be published by July 2027.

 

References

Arcuri, Luciano e Mara Cadinu. Gli stereotipi. Dinamiche psicologiche e contesto delle relazioni sociali. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2011.

Baker Kimmons, Leslie (edited by). Representations of Stereotypical Images in Popular Culture. A Critical Approach. San Diego: Cognella Academic Publishing, 2022.

Billings, Andrew C., and Scott Parrott (edited by). Media Stereotypes: From Ageism to Xenophobia. New York: Peter Lang, 2020.

Grechi, Giulia. La rappresentazione incorporata. Una etnografia del corpo tra stereotipi coloniali e arte contemporanea. Milano-Udine: Mimesis, 2016.

Jobling, Paul, Philippa Nesbitt, and Angelene Wong. Fashion, Identity, Image. London: Bloomsbury, 2022.

Laing, Morna, and Jacki Willson (edited by). Revisiting the Gaze: The Fashioned Body and the Politics of Looking. London: Bloomsbury, 2022.

Lester, Paul Martin. Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. London: Bloomsbury, 2011.

McGarty, Craig, and Vincent Y. Yzerbyt. Stereotypes as Explanations: The Formation of Meaningful Beliefs about Social Groups. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Pignotti, Lamberto. Il discorso confezionato. Informazione arte cultura nella società dei consumi. Firenze: Vallecchi, 1979.

Temporary Services (Brett Bloom and Marc Fischer). Framing the Artists: Artists & Art in Film & Television (Vol. 1). Chicago: Half Letter Press, 2005.