Visual Culture and Violence (special issue - Brazilian Journal Esferas)
Organization: Brazilian Journal Esferas
The global rise in authoritarianism and the spread of necropower further complicate the relationships between media, imagery, and violence. In societies of enmity (Mbembe, 2017), the political and economic uses of terror become progressively normalized. Governance tactics that blend physical violence with a culture of fear permeate state institutions, criminal organizations, private security entities, and even family circles. These forms of violence—rooted in racism, misogyny, LGBTphobia, and classism—are directed primarily at vulnerable groups. Historically, the exercise of power has required both spectacles of violence and the invisibilization of the other (Mondzain, 2015). In the context of "capitalism gore" (Valencia, 2010), cruelty serves not only to control and discard populations but also as a source of profit. The destruction of bodies, and the subsequent dissemination of brutal news and imagery, create an endless cycle of capitalizing on torture and death—whether in sensationalist journalism, true crime series, or social media profiles.
Conversely, witnesses' photos and videos disrupt the “dominant fiction” (Silverman, 1996), bringing visibility and amplifying the agency of the oppressed, thus serving as powerful tools to denounce violence inflicted by the state, private militias, neo-fascist groups, and others. In cinema and the visual arts, numerous works express the complex sensitivities and “structures of feeling” (Williams, 2011) that emerge amid the brutalization of social relations. This field also reflects an effort to represent horror while avoiding the risk, in Saidiya Hartman’s words, of "replicating the grammar of violence" by "reiterating violent discourses and rituals of torture" (2020, p. 18). This dossier aims to publish works that critically analyze and discuss violence through the lens of visual culture. Suggested (though not exclusive) areas of focus include:
- The politics of representation and the spectacle of cruelty in audiovisual media;
- Connections between media, the penal state, and criminal organizations in necropolitical capitalism;
- The culture of fear and social control in mainstream media and digital networks;
- Emerging aesthetics and performances of violence in cinema, the arts, and other visual forms;
- Images and narratives that depict social violence within fictional frameworks;
- The use of visual media to combat racist violence, misogyny, and violence against LGBTQIAPN+ communities;
- War imagery in the era of social networks;
- Audiovisual representations of trauma and catastrophe;
- Counter-discourses in visual media and narratives of subalternity;
- Relationships between physical and symbolic violence in an era of hate speech;
- The history and historiography of violent imagery;
- Visual narratives as resistance to extractivist capitalism in rural and forested areas.
Submission Deadline: February 28, 2025
Review Period: February 28 to June 15, 2025
Expected Publication Date: August 31, 2025
Submissions should be completed via the journal's website:
https://portalrevistas.ucb.br/ index.php/esf/about/ submissions
The journal publishes articles in Portuguese, English, Spanish and French.
https://portalrevistas.ucb.br/index.php/esf/announcement/view/118
João Vitor Leal
