Interfaces, Special Issue: Narratives of Resistance in U.S. Cultural History
This special issue for the journal Interfaces builds upon the theme of the 2025 AFEA Congress, “Resistance”, and brings together a selection of papers that engage with film and media analysis, cultural studies, and history. The issue seeks to explore how narratives of resistance, whether emerging from political struggles or creative expressions, have opposed the dominant ideologies, state policies, and cultural paradigms that have shaped U.S. society across centuries.
We invite contributions that are grounded in the exploration of the text–image relationship and interrogate portrayals of resistance to entrenched structures of power, including those related to race, slavery, territorial expansion, and imperialism. Of particular interest are works examining how marginalised, and colonised communities have challenged dominant historical narratives. By resisting conquest and the erasure of cultural identity, these communities have articulated counter-histories that illuminate the enduring effects of U.S. policies both nationally and globally.
The special issue welcomes analyses addressing a wide range of contexts and media: from Native American resistance to westward expansion and Indigenous land dispossession, to political and cultural opposition to the annexation of the Philippines or the occupation of Cuba. We are equally interested in how such narratives of resistance circulate through cinema, television, and visual arts in its broad sense, shaping historical memory and collective identity while revealing tensions between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic accounts of the past.
In addition, the issue seeks to address questions of representation and omission:
How have key historical episodes been reframed, romanticised, or erased in visual media?
What roles do revisionist works, documentaries, and Indigenous filmmaking play in restoring complexity to these narratives?
How do these portrayals influence contemporary understandings of U.S. history, particularly in relation to sectional, racial, or imperial divides?
We aim to provide an interdisciplinary forum for scholars to engage with the diversity of resistance narratives and the ethical responsibilities involved in representing them. Contributions may focus on cultural and historical accuracy, political implications, or the evolving reception of these portrayals, with the goal of deepening our understanding of how resistance—past and present—continues to shape the cultural imagination of the United States.
Authors are invited to submit a proposal of approximately 500 words, along with a short biography and a selected bibliography related to the proposed article, by Saturday, December 6. Selected contributors will then be asked to submit their full article (between 30,000 and 45,000 characters) before 1 May 2026. It is important that articles are anchored in the text/image relationship that lies at the heart of Interfaces.
Send your proposal to the following email addresses: