For the 41st Issue, the graduate-run peer-reviewed journal Invisible Culture, housed within the Visual & Cultural Studies Program at the University of Rochester, the journal is calling for articles on the theme of labor.


More information is available below and on our website.


Issue 41 - (Un)Doing Labor

Deadline: Submissions due October 1, 2025 to invisible.culture@ur.rochester.edu.



It feels only appropriate, given the recent UR graduate worker strike, that Issue 41 of InVisible Culture focus on the problem of labor. Amid the erosion of labor protections in academia, increasing challenges faced by immigrant workers in the US, and global labor conflicts in fields like healthcare and agriculture, this moment calls for a reconsideration of what labor is and how its value is structured.



For Issue 41, InVisible Culture invites articles and artworks that engage with labor as manifested in visual culture, from embodied processes (factory assembly, caregiving, artisanal crafts, reproductive work) to posthuman, data-driven labor performances. In an era of immaterial labor, where work increasingly escapes both physical and visual legibility, we must ask: What and whom do we work for today?



What defines labor, or its undoing, in the context of digital capitalism? As platformization erodes traditional workplaces, how is the value of material production reshaped? At the same time, which laboring bodies—such as caregivers, gig workers, or content moderators—remain illegible within these emerging systems, and by what mechanisms?



We invite works from the disciplines of film studies, media studies, art history, anthropology, visual studies, and sound studies on topics that are not limited to but include:



Emotional labor
Gendered labor
Sex labor
Creative/artistic labor
Labors of Performance Art
Sonic labor (music’s work)
Reproductive labor
Housework
Free labor
Invisibility & Abstraction
The body (as labor site)
Labor and Risk
Working hard/hardly working
Digital and Analog Labor
Interface labor (STS)
Labor in film, media, and television production
Value theory (Marxism, etc.)
Extraction (resource/data)
Work vs. Labor
Labor and Identity (race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, age)
Global Labor
Theories and Philosophies on Labor



Articles

Please send completed papers (with references following the guidelines from the Chicago Manual of Style) of between 4,000 and 10,000 words to invisible.culture@ur.rochester.edu by October 1, 2025. Inquiries should be sent to the same address.



Creative/Artistic Works

In addition to written materials, InVisible Culture accepts works in other media (video, photography, drawing, code). Please submit creative or artistic works along with an artist statement of no more than two pages to invisible.culture@ur.rochester.edu. For questions or more details concerning acceptable formats, go to or contact the same address.



Reviews

InVisible Culture is also currently seeking submissions for book, exhibition, and film reviews (600-1,000 words). To submit a review proposal, go to https://www.invisibleculturejournal.com/contribute or contact invisible.culture@ur.rochester.edu.



About the Journal

InVisible Culture: A Journal for Visual Culture (IVC) is a student-run interdisciplinary journal published online twice a year in an open access format. Through double-blind peer-reviewed articles, creative works, and reviews of books, films, and exhibitions, our issues explore changing themes in visual culture. Fostering a global and current dialogue across fields, IVC investigates the power and limits of vision.

Each issue includes peer-reviewed articles, as well as artworks, reviews, and special contributions. The Dialogues section offers timely commentary from an academic visual culture perspective and announcements from the editorial board.