Current Postings

The postings below are all still active, and organized by deadline. Once the deadline has passed, they will be moved to the IABA Posting Archive, on the CBR Website

Call for Papers
Global Indigeneities and Life Narratives: Special Issue of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly

A Special Issue of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly

Guest Editor: J. Kēhaulani Kauanui,
Eric and Wendy Schmidt Professor of Indigenous Studies and Anthropology, Princeton University

Submit: 400-word abstracts to kauanui@princeton.edu by December 1, 2025

https://manoa.hawaii.edu/cbr/publications-productions/biography/calls-for-papers/call-for-papers/

Biography will arrange (with logistical and funding support) for those selected to contribute to the volume to present drafts of their papers for a workshop in Honolulu, from August 19-21, 2026, at the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa. As such, for those with accepted proposals there will be a set of deadlines that contributors will be expected to meet.
Life Narratives—which can include biographies, autobiographies, social media posts, legal testimonials, personal essays, memoirs, blogs, confessional poetry, and more—are an important site to explore the concept of and identification with indigeneity. This special issue of the journal Biography explores the substance of indigeneity and significance of Indigenous identities across global geographies and representations of embodied, lived experiences.

What makes Indigenous life narrative distinct from other life narratives? What are the cultural contours of claiming indigeneity in relation to land-based cultures? How do life writings of indigeneity account for violent structural realities while also highlighting Indigenous agency? How do the political valences of Indigenous autonomy and/or nationhood shape life writing focused on sovereignty and self-determination? How do life writings that focus on Individual subjectivity also speak to the collectivity of distinct peoplehood? How might we think about Indigenous flourishing and revitalization in everyday lived experience, and how is that represented in life writing? How can life writing studies enable us to contend with (different) understandings of indigeneity?

The keyword “Indigenous” has varied genealogies across global geographies. For example, in the parts of Abya Yala—how the Kuna people of Panama and Colombia refer to North and South America—that have Spanish colonial histories, the concept of indigena offers a sharp departure from the derogative “Indio.” In North America, the terms “Indian” (American Indian) and “Native” (Native American) are most often used to refer to Indigenous peoples subject to U.S. authority, yet the term “Indian” is not apt in the U.S. occupied Pacific. In other settler colonial societies with English (and British) colonial legacies—including Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa/New Zealand—the term “Native” is often still considered degrading. And, although “Aboriginal” is sometimes used as an alternative, “First Nations” is now more commonplace. Throughout many parts of Africa and Asia, the term “Indigenous” is contentious due to distinct histories of colonialism and complex notions of ethnicity, as well as (postcolonial) government pushback, such as claims that all people from those continents can arguably be considered Indigenous to them, which makes for fraught political struggles for Indigenous minorities therein to secure social and legal recognition and protection. Comparable dynamics also play out in Northern European contexts, particularly for Indigenous peoples encompassed by the Nordic states. Then, there are diverse iterations of indigeneity across Eastern Europe and North Asia with the relatively new states formed after the fall of the Soviet Union. One can also see the challenges to Indigenous status in disputed geopolitical contexts, including West Asia, such as the case for Palestinians.

Yet, the terrain of indigeneity goes far beyond the (often colonial) baggage of nomenclature; there is the substance of what counts as Indigenous, especially in the face of erasure and denial as part of ongoing violent dispossession. And still, indigeneity itself is enduring; Indigenous peoples exist, resist, and persist, even as they endure multifaceted forms of social domination.

This special issue aims to get at the materiality of that endurance through a focus on life writing and iterations of Indigenous identity and lived realities. ‘Indigenous’ (whether as adjective or noun) and ‘indigeneity’ (as a category of analysis) are socially constructed concepts often associated with an underlying and unchanging ‘essence.’ But for Indigenous peoples and individuals, indigeneity is more commonly understood as rooted in land and the rest of the natural world. Sometimes referred to as radical relationality, Indigenous worldviews that center kinship obligations to all living entities—as engaged practices of caretaking/caregiving—shape an ethics of responsibility and accountability. In turn, these commitments can serve as forms of Indigenous resurgence—a crucial component of resistance.

We invite work that explores representations of indigeneity in life narratives from across the globe, including comparative studies. Accordingly, the special issue sets out to offer theoretical and critical examinations of a variety of narrations of lives lived under structures of settler colonial and other forms of encroachment and domination. Some sample questions (to suggest the breadth of possible topics and approaches):

How do life narratives reveal or veil the interrelations of indigeneity and other social categories such as race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality?
How and to what ends do diasporic life narratives represent or efface indigeneity or vice versa?
Can one discern shifts or divergent strands in life narratives about indigeneity that envision Indigenous futures?
What do some genres allow for in thinking about indigeneity or Indigenous lives that others do not? What do different life writing genres make possible in understandings of indigeneity or Indigenous lives?
How can life writing contribute to the creation of coalitions or solidarity or alliances among Indigenous people?
How do life writing texts allow for understandings of indigeneity that cross time and place while leaving room for specificity, and/or illuminating tensions among competing understandings of indigeneity that are context specific?

This issue aims to demonstrate the heterogeneity of Indigenous identities and the varying concepts of indigeneity—while grounded in common precepts based on deep connections between land, water, people and cultures—in a way that illuminates definitional challenges and the ways Indigenous lives are narrated.

Historicizing Experiences

7th Annual HEX Conference 2025

March 10–12, 2025

Deadline for Submissions Nov. 29, 2024

Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences (HEX), Tampere University, Finland

The history of experiences is a burgeoning, interdisciplinary field of study that sets out to comprehend the manifold roles and meanings of experience in history. It charts the dynamic interplay between the individual, community, and society at large. The history of experiences reconsiders how experience is defined and used as a key element of historiographical practice. Historians of experience highlight the generative role of experience in shaping history and its vital importance to any comprehensive historical analysis. Rather than as an isolated, extraneous facet of historical study, experience is most fruitfully studied as situated within social structures and institutions, with which it is in constant interaction. Experience is deeply intertwined with the fabric of culture, and understanding cultural change requires examining experience within its context.Historians of experience constantly develop the approaches and concepts central to their field. They interrogate the specificities of their domain and self-reflectively ask how it is situated in the wider historiographical context. New sources help unravel the multilayered historicity of experience.

Within this framework, the seventh annual HEX Conference will reassess the premises on which this field rests and consider what historicizing experience entails. How is experience produced, and why is it crucial to understand it as a historical process?

We invite proposals for papers and panels that span a range of periods, methodologies, and disciplines with only one, all-encompassing methodical goal in mind: historicizing experiences. By encouraging diverse contributions, we aim to create a forum that engages in discussion about the state of the field through conceptual case studies and more theoretically oriented reflections.

Possible themes include but are not limited to:

The contributions of the history of experiences to the discipline of history and other scientific fields.
Historiography of the history of experiences.
Problematizing the history of experiences.
Novel theoretical and conceptual approaches to the history of experiences.
Methodologies in the history of experiences.
New sources for the history of experiences.
Institutionalization of experiences.
Intersectional perspectives on historical experience.
Temporality and memory in experience.
Collective experiences in history.
Longue durée studies, case studies, and comparative studies.
Lived experiences of religion, nations and nationalism, and the welfare state.

Panel Proposals and Individual Paper Proposals

We encourage proposals for coherent panels and individual papers from all scholars who examine historical experiences in any time period or geographical context. Panel proposals should consist of 3 to 4 papers. The conference broadly considers the history of experiences, but the organizers encourage scholars to focus rigorously on the central questions, theoretically oriented approaches, and novel methods and sources pertaining to the history of experiences. As a tribute to the three thematic teams at HEX, we also encourage scholars with an interest in the history of experiences of religion, nations and nationalism, and the welfare state to submit proposals.

Please submit your proposal by 29 November 2024 (via this link: https://www.lyyti.in/hex2025callforpapers) according to the following instructions. All proposals MUST address the concept of experience. The conference will take place in person only.

For complete panels, send a joint 400-word abstract, together with brief bios and paper titles for each proposed speaker.
For individual papers, send a 250-word abstract together with a brief bio.

Keynotes

Professor Stefan Berger, Institute for Social Movements, University of Bochum: “Experiences of deindustrialization and the role of memory in forging futures for places undergoing structural economic change: global perspectives”

Dr Ville Kivimäki, The Finnish Literature Society: “Experiences in history: some risky roads that could lead to interesting places but could also turn out to be dead-ends or even dangerous alleys where you are robbed of your academic credibility and laughed at”

Dr Karen McCluskey, The University of Notre Dame Australia: “Art and experience: aesthesis, intellect and the question of relationality”

Links and information

Further information on HEX Conference, please see the conference website: https://events.tuni.fi/historyofexperience/

More information on HEX, see: https://research.tuni.fi/hex/

Digital Handbook of the History of Experience: https://sites.tuni.fi/hexhandbook/

Contact Information

Conference Coordinator: PhD Mikko Kemppainen

Contact Email

hexconference@tuni.fi

URL

https://events.tuni.fi/historyofexperience

PCA True Crime CFP – Special Topics 2025

Abstract Submission Deadline: November 30th, 2023

PCA/ACA will be held from April 16-19th, 2025 in New Orleans, LA

True Crime typically focuses on investigative journalism used to present a mystery or attempt to understand the psychology of a crime/perpetrator. It may include narratives of a case, victimology, forensics, or analysis of evidence, although each case is different. Much of True Crime focuses on serial killers/killings, although subsets of the genre may delve into topics such as kidnappings, cults, wrongful convictions, advocacy, white-collar crimes, trial proceedings, prevention of crime, survivor stories, or sensationalism/entertainment.

Covering a vast expanse of time and an array of potential topics, True Crime offers countless opportunities for academic study and debate. While opponents of the genre often critique crime stories as being exploitative and potentially traumatic for victims, society’s perennial fascination with stories of crime, murder, and mayhem also provide insight into our collective interests, motivations, and prejudices. Significantly, the presentation of crime stories provides insight into our changing perspectives on criminality, deviant behavior, and the treatment of victims over time. In his Introduction to True Crime: An American Anthology, Harold Schechter writes: “What differs strikingly from era to era is the way such transgressions are interpreted. Acts otherwise analogous have been seen at different times as arising from sin, or irrational thinking, or mental disease, or inarticulate protest against abuse or oppression” (xix). In other words, the study of True Crime is also the study of our culture and its behaviors and beliefs.

The True Crime area co-chairs invite papers and presentations on all aspects of True Crime, including but not limited to analysis and interpretations across a range of media such as podcasts, film/documentaries, and television. Papers may deal with particular case narratives, psychology of a crime, or investigative journalism.

We recognize the interdisciplinarity of the True Crime genre, and also welcome submissions that explore topics such as gender/demographics of audiences, perpetrators, or victims; sensationalizing high profile cases; criminology, victimology, and forensics; wrongful convictions and advocacy; prevention of crime and survivor stories; crimes against POC, indigenous groups, or marginalized peoples; and more. Presentations should be aware of and respectful to victims and their families as applicable to the specific topic being explored.

This year, we also would like to solicit proposals for a special joint panel with Mystery and Detective Fiction:

Fictional Truths and Truthful Fictions

Co-hosted by the True Crime and Mystery & Detective Fiction Areas, this special session will feature papers analyzing the mutual influence and generic exchange between true crime and crime fiction texts (e.g., televisual or literary adaptions of real-life crimes or the use of mystery archetypes and tropes in true crime texts etc.).

Please indicate in your proposal if you would like your paper to be considered for this panel. Papers that are not accepted for this special session will still be considered for regular panels.

Submission Requirements: Proposals for single papers and panels should be 150 to 300 words and must include the following:

1) a title reflecting your argument (or framing concept in case of a panel or roundtable)

2) a clear statement of your argument/thesis and/or key research questions

3) an identification of the corpus that will be the focus of your study

All paper proposals should be submitted directly through the PCA website. If you are organizing a panel of 3-4 speakers, or a roundtable discussion panel of 4-6 participants, please have your panelists submit proposals directly to the PCA website and contact the True Crime co-chairs with a panel proposal identifying your presenters. Otherwise, proposals will be arranged into panel sessions based on critical, disciplinary, or thematic connectivity.

Co-chairs for True Crime: Dr. Lauren Kuryloski, (lkurylos@buffalo.edu) and Dr. Samantha Przybylowicz Axtell, (samantha.przybylowicz@gmail.com).

Contact Information

Samantha Przybylowicz Axtell (samantha.przybylowicz@gmail.com) or Lauren Kuryloski (lkurylos@buffalo.edu)

Contact Email

samantha.przybylowicz@gmail.com

URL

https://pcaaca.org/page/submissionguidelines

Call for paper for a special issue: “Medical Objects in Illness Narratives”

Volume 30 of the European Journal of English Studies (2026)

Deadline for abstracts: 30 November 2024

This special issue will explore the depiction of medical objects (speculum, needles, scan machines, surgical instruments, wheelchairs, ventilators, hospital beds, etc.) in pathographies, that is illness narratives from patients’ perspectives. We will consider both life writing and fictional pathographies in this investigation, and will seek to include essays on literature, art and film. The special issue’s main aim will be to investigate the ways in which encounters with medical objects disrupt the narrative, and how they become a useful focal point through which authors negotiate issues such as the self as a subject and/or object, embodied experience in unfamiliar medical environments, or the patient’s confrontation with new technologies.

We anticipate three major areas of interest within this overarching focus. The first of these is the encounter narrative, in which patients are confronted by, build relationships with, incorporate, or otherwise portray medical objects in their stories. The second will emphasize object theory, looking at the objectification of the patient’s body, as the process of illness and treatment moves it from the category of subject to being a part of the hospital apparatus. The third strand will focus on the disruption of narrative caused by medical objects, thinking through a narratological lens.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

The affective potential of encounters with medical objects
Re-imagined/re-purposed medical objects (e.g. as artefacts)
What is gained/lost in the encounter with medical objects
The patient’s body as a medical object
Re-imagining the relationship of the doctor to the medical object
Medical objects and femininity/masculinity
Medical objects in the European context vs in other environments
The historical circumstances medical objects invoke and how they are negotiated/challenged (e.g. the medical object as a symbol of colonialism in (post)colonial spaces)
The medical object as a symbol of knowledge/power
Material encounters with medical objects focusing on physical contact
Analysis of patients’ attachments or sense of dependency on medical objects
Medical objects as symbols of transience
How futuristic medical objects are imagined in science fiction or narratives focused on AI

Submission Instructions

Full manuscript deadline: May 30, 2025.

Detailed proposals (up to 1,000 words) for full essays (7,500 or more words), or 500 words for shorter pieces (ca. 2-3,000 words) discussing a specific position as well as a short biography (max.100 words) should be sent to all of the editors by 30 November 2024:

Polina Mackay: mackay.p@unic.ac.cy

Cristina Hurtado-Botella: cristina.hurtado1@um.es

Joanne ‘Bob’ Whalley: b.whalley@arts.ac.uk

This issue will be part of volume 30 (2026). All inquiries regarding this issue can be sent to the three guest editors.

Warm regards,

The editors

France’s #MeToo in Film and Media:

Establishing an academic research subject

December 10, 2024 deadline for submissions

International conference celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Genre en séries, November 2025

https://journals.openedition.org/ges

Created in 2015, the Genre en séries journal has set itself the goal of exploring the way gender operates at the crossroads of media cultures. From the onset, its ambition was to participate in the late assimilation of these approaches and tools of analysis by film and media studies within the French academic context by collectively paying attention to issues of power dynamics, social structures and norms at work in media cultures.

Two years later, the rise of the #MeToo movement and its various avatars – like #MeToo Incest[1] or #MeToo Gay – within and beyond Hollywood, on an international scale (Chandra and al., 2021; Cavalin and al., 2022), only confirmed the urgent need to bring to light and establish as a real research subject the dynamics and mechanisms of domination, of harassment, of aggression, of control and of violence long prevalent in the cinema industry – and, more broadly, in all media.

This need was partly addressed in the English-speaking world. In the film industry, a healthy awareness resulted in new professional regulations. Within academic research, long-term research projects had already been initiated before #MeToo in order to look objectively at the working conditions of women by combining the methodologies of statistical analysis and oral history[2].

It is however obvious that much remains to do in France, whether in the field of film-making and distribution or in the field of academic research. The status of cinema as ‘Art’ within French culture still has discernible consequences on discourses and portrayals onscreen, as well as on practices and mindsets: the French #MeToo needs to be understood within these contexts of hierarchy and cultural legitimacy.

At this very moment, Judith Godrèche and many other workers in the French artistic and cultural fields, but also anonymous victims, or women perceived as less ‘legitimate’ and therefore less listened to (Souffrant, 2022), such as reality-TV personalities (Villanova, 2024), struggle to be heard and to participate in effective changes in modes of production, cooperation and work practices. Other testimonies have preceded Godrèche’s, whose autobiographical novel published in 1995 already referred to the abuse she was subjected to, and the “Depardieu affair” was not the first scandal to expose the French cinema industry[3]. The media coverage surrounding those two cases marked a turning point in the sense that they widened the small opening made by the ‘Polanski case’.

This opening happened when Roman Polanski gave up on presiding the Cesar in 2017 following a petition asking for his destitution. For the first time, a French film institution had to acknowledge feminist activism that resulted in a strong reaction within public opinion. But no real reassessment of the profession followed. What’s new about the Godrèche and Depardieu cases is therefore that they have helped to publicize (before justice takes its course) the omerta and impunity by bringing unprecedented attention to the public denunciation of systemic trends that have a lot to do with French cultural mechanisms of bourdieusian distinction that exclude women from the position of subjects (Coquillat, 1982; Burch & Sellier, 1998; Krakovitch & Sellier, 2001).

Those specificities of French cinema must therefore be questioned, documented, historicized in relation to other arts and media (television, journalism, literature, theater, etc.) and to other national contexts, such as the United States’. With this in mind, it matters that the academic world in general – our field is not devoid of sexual and gender-based abuse, that several recent scandals have exposed – and the social sciences and humanities in particular, make a contribution to public debate and collective examination of those – gendered, artistic, cultural, media, institutional – practices perpetrated in complicit silence up to now. Revisiting films henceforth perceived as questionable by replacing them into context seems to be a necessity if we are to build and pass on a watchful, sharp memory.

For those reasons, for the 10 year anniversary of Genre en series, we wish, as other fields before us[4], to make inroads into this investigation in cooperation with academic societies in film and media studies, but also with collectives, professional organizations and civil society. In line with several other research projects begun recently[5], we invite the research community in human and social sciences to explore the numerous issues, questions and challenges raised by the French #MeToo in the context of an international conference set to take place in Paris in November 2025.

All talk proposals and suggestions for special contributions (roundtable, workshop, testimony, etc.) will be reviewed in a serious and watchful way by the science committee, formed by editors of the journal and specialists of gender studies applied to film and media. We nevertheless suggest four topics of discussion that seem especially relevant in order to understand the mechanisms and grey areas of the French #MeToo:

– History

Cultural and oral history of the modes of domination induced by working conditions.
The evolution of reception of cases and media discourse over time.
Writing French film history before and after #MeToo.
Reinterpretations and contemporary transmissions of films through the prism of #MeToo.
Examination of the links between portrayals on screen and power relationships (and abuse) off screen; matters of intersectionality.

– Media

Similarities and differences between media environments.
Testimonies and public debates related to sexual and gender-based violence.
Media coverage of cases, scandals and controversies.
Media legitimacy and cultural hierarchy.
Film criticism in the face of #MeToo.

– Transnational perspectives

The fluctuating importance of values that structure ‘legitimate’ taste in different media industries and/or cultural contexts.
Historical, cultural, legal, socioeconomic and industrial differences and specificities.
Differences and evolution in the reception of certain international scandals (Allen, Kinski, Polanski, Weinstein, Last Tango in Paris, etc.).

– Institutions and audiences

Controversies that have plagued the history of French institutions (CNC, Film Archives, César, Festivals, etc.).
Which values should the institutions stand for?
Action/reaction/inaction of institutions in the face of sexual and gender-based violence.
Mobilization of citizens, activists and public organizations.
Industry/ audiences dialectics.

Proposals in English or French (a 500 word abstract and a short biography) should be sent before December 10 2024 to genreenseries@gmail.com, with the heads of the journal in cc (thomas.pillard@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr and gwenaelle.le-gras@u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr). An answer will be sent on February 1st 2025 by the planning committee. The conference is expected to last two days and to take place in November 2025 at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris. It will lead to the publication of a special issue of the Genre en séries journal.

[1] A study day on this topic was organized by the French research lab IRCAV in 2022 : https://ircav.fr/event/metooinceste-regards-pluriels-sur-une-campagne-de-mobilisation/

[2] We can refer, for instance, to the project « Calling the Shot: Women and Contemporary Film Culture in the UK », whose goal was to study women’s labour and the obstacles to which they are confronted to within the UK film industry,through a detailed statistical analysis of British films from 2000 to 2015. Sexual harassment emerged as a constant thread in the interviews led with 50 women working in six key professions of film production : https://callingtheshots138740090.wordpress.com.

[3] Let’s not forget the support given to Jean-Claude Brisseau by a large section of the auteur film industry in the early 2000s.

[4] Several theses have initiated this investment:

– in Literary Studies: Mathilde Hinault, “L’écriture du viol de 1945 aux années #MeToo : une histoire de luttes” (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, since 2022); Pauline Schwaller, “Réécrire les mythes grecs à l’ère #MeToo : entre phénomène littéraire et phénomène de société” (Université de Lorraine, since 2023).

– in Information and Communication Sciences: Laure Beaulieu, “Une rédaction face à #Metoo. Appropriations des idées féministes et évolutions des normes et pratiques journalistiques” (Sorbonne Paris Nord University, since 2018); Warda Khemilat, “De #Metoo au Plan d’action national contre les violences sexuelles et sexistes. Analyse localisée d’un phénomène médiatique transnational” (Université Côte d’Azur, since 2018).

– in English Studies: Mariette Lalire, “Representations et sexualités féminines: comprendre l’impact du mouvement #MeToo sur les séries télévisées britanniques et américaines” (Université Paul Valéry-Montpellier, since 2020).

– in Legal Sciences: Martin Paumelle, “Contribution à l’analyse du traitement pénal des auteurs d’infractions à caractère sexuel : réflexion au regard du principe d’utilité” (Université de Caen Normandie, defended in 2022); Lucie Longuet, “Les réceptions des politiques de lutte contre les violences sexistes et sexuelles dans l’enseignement supérieur : une étude comparée” (Université Côte d’Azur, since 2021).

We should also mention, in Information and Communication Sciences, the symposium “Media and VSS. Informing, denouncing, raising awareness” organized in April 2023: https://www.sfsic.org/wp-inside/uploads/2023/03/colloque-medias-violences-sexistes-et-sexuelles_programme_fr_num.pdf

[5] We are thinking in particular of the ANR project “Female Filmmakers and Feminism in the Media (FEMME)”: https://anr-femme.univ-lemans.fr and the AVISA project “Historicizing sexual harassment”: https://avisa.huma-num.fr/

Planning Committee:

Fanny Beuré (Université de Lorraine)

Mélanie Boissonneau (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Gwénaëlle Le Gras (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)

Maureen Lepers (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Alexandre Moussa (Université de Poitiers)

Thomas Pillard (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Jules Sandeau (Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier 3)

Célia Sauvage (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Science committee:

Olivier Alexandre (CNRS/Centre Internet et Société)

Laurence Allard (Université de Lille)

Bérénice Bonhomme (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)

Teresa Castro (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Hélène Fleckinger (Université Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis)

Réjane Hamus-Vallée (Université d’Évry Paris-Saclay)

Mary Harrod (University of Warwick)

Pierre Katuszewski (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)

Kira Kitsopanidou (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Mélanie Lallet (Université Catholique de l’Ouest)

Delphine Letort (Université du Mans, head of the ANR FEMME project)

Marie-Christine Lipani (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)

Cristelle Maury (Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès)

Raphaëlle Moine (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Aurélie Pinto (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Aurore Renaut (Université de Lorraine)

David Roche (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, co-head of the ANR FEMME project)

Giuseppina Sapio (Université Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis)

Geneviève Sellier (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)

Salima Tenfiche (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Clémentine Tholas (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Ginette Vincendeau (King’s College London)

Partners:

AFECCAV, Association Française des Enseignants et Chercheurs en Cinéma et Audiovisuel, https://www.afeccav.org

AFRHC, Association Française de Recherche sur l’Histoire du Cinéma, https://afrhc.fr

ANR Femme, “Female Filmmakers and Feminism in the Media”, https://anr-femme.univ-lemans.fr

AVISA, “Historicizing sexual harassment”, https://avisa.huma-num.fr

BAFTSS, British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies, https://www.baftss.org

French Screen Studies, https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rsfc21

Hystérique*, Association féministe queer intersectionnelle de l’Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, https://www.instagram.com/associationhysterique/?hl=fr

#MeTooMédia, https://www.metoomedia.org

Bibliography

ANGOT Christine, L’Inceste, Stock, 1999.

BACQUE Raphaëlle & BLUMENFELD Samuel, Une affaire très française. Depardieu, l’enquête inédite, Albin Michel, 2024.

BUISSON Charlotte & WETZELS Jeanne, Les Violences sexistes et sexuelles, Que sais-je ?, 2022.

BURCH Noël & SELLIER Geneviève, « Cinéphilie et masculinité I./ Cinéphilieet masculinité II », Iris, n° 26, 1998, p. 191-206.

CAVALIN Catherine et al (dir.), Les Violences sexistes après #MeToo, École des mines, 2022.

CHANDRA Giti & ERLINGSDOTTIR Irma (dir.), The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of the #MeToo Movement, Routledge, 2020.

COQUILLAT Michèle, La Poétique du mâle, Gallimard, 1982.

DEVYNCK Hélène, Impunité, Seuil, 2022.

FILEBORN Bianca & LONELY-HOWES Rachel (dir.), #MeToo and the Politics of Social Change, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

FRAPPAT Hélène, Le Gaslighting ou l’art de faire taire les femmes, Éditions de l’observatoire, 2023.

GODRÈCHE Judith, Point de côté, Flammarion, 2015.

KOUCHNER Camille, La Familia Grande, Seuil, 2021.

KRAKOVITCH Odile & SELLIER Geneviève, L’Exclusion des femmes. Masculinité et politique dans la culture au XXe siècle, Éditions Complexe, 2001.

LE BESCO Isild, Dire vrai, Denoël, 2024.

MELLUL Yaël & BOUVET Lise, Intouchables ? People, justice et impunité, Balland, 2018.

MERLIN-KAJMAN Hélène, La Littérature à l’heure de #MeToo, Ithaque, 2000.

MURAT Laure, Une révolution sexuelle ? Réflexions sur l’après-Weinstein, Stock, 2018.

SOUFFRANT Kharoll-Ann, Le Privilège de dénoncer, Éditions du Remue-Ménage, 2023.

SPRINGORA Vanessa, Le Consentement, Grasset, 2019.

VILLANOVA Constance, Vivre pour les caméras, JC Lattès, 2024.

VINCENDEAU Ginette, ‘Daddy’s Girls, Oedipal narratives in 1930s French Films’, Iris, n° 8, 1989, p. 70-81.

VINCENDEAU Ginette, ‘Fathers and daughters in French cinema’, in Pam Cook and Philip Dodd (eds.), Women and Film: A Sight and Sound Reader, London: Scarlet Press, 1993, p. 156-163. [reprint of ‘Family Plots: The Fathers and Daughters of French Cinema’, Sight and Sound, vol. 1, n°11, 1992, p. 14-17]

Special Issue — Bio-adaptations (Adaptation, Oxford University Press)

deadline for submissions:

January 30, 2025

Deborah Cartmell, De Montfort University

contact email:

djc@dmu.ac.uk

This special issue will consider the features, issues, and the recent increase in the bio-adaptation which includes, bioplays, biopics, bionovels, and other forms of biographical adaptation. This special issue aims to introduce and interrogate the rise in the bio-adaptation, including but not limited to adaptations of forgotten lives, lives of fictional/mythological figures, the quest for authenticity, and the current trend, from Napoleon to Michael Jackson, for celebrities to be recreated. Submissions should be 4,000-8,000 words with a deadline of 30 January 2025. If accepted, articles will be published online in advance of the publication of the issue, so it’s advisable to submit before the final deadline. Submissions should be made to https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/adapt

CFP Victorians and Victorian Literature Abroad (2/25/2025) Special Issue of Sun Yat-sen Journal of Humanities

Victorian globetrotters were of different shapes and types, be they men or women of letters, scientists (such as geologists and plant collectors), artists, photographers, diplomats, military officers or soldiers, merchants or traders, medics, missionaries, or simply leisure tourists. Diverse as they were, they crossed national boundaries and travelled to far-off places worldwide. Victorian writings recorded their footprints and grasp of the world outside their homeland also break the geographical and cultural barriers. Among the best-known are Charles Dickens’s American Notes and Pictures of Italy, John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice, Charles Darwin’s Voyages, R. L. Stevenson’s In the South Seas, Harriet Martineau’s Retrospect of Western Travel, Isabella L. Bird’s Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, just to name a few. Publishers such as John Murray, renowned for travel books, and periodicals such as Punch produced a prodigious amount of works related to other countries. Significantly, the many fictional narratives, personal diaries, travelogues, and journalistic publications have been inscribed with rich biographical and historical contexts, vigorous imaginativeness, and opportunities for cultural exchanges past and present. Readers are lured to travel to the “Victorian” world and to consider the numerous encounters with “abroad.” Meanwhile, Victorian Literature’s rich spatial and temporal distinctions also allow for extensions and afterlives in forms such as translation, adaptation and recreation in other countries or foreign languages. Victorian scholarship has thus attracted new critical focus in recent years. This special issue seeks contributions relating to the history and depictions of Victorian authors regarding travel, appraisals and revisiting from global perspectives, including how they are being received or taught outside the UK.

The Special Issue No. 59 of Sun Yat-Sen Journal of Humanities, to be published July 2025

(Submission deadline 28 February 2025), invites scholarly essays to explore Victorians

and Victorian Literature Abroad. Topics may include but are not limited to:

Victorian Literary Writers who Travelled Abroad and their Writings

Victorians Abroad and their Writings (Travelogues, Tales, Correspondences, Diaries, Memoirs)

Travels and Travellers in the Victorian Novel

Travel Writings and Illustrations in Victorian Periodicals

Victorian Women’s Travel Writings

Scientists, Medics, Missionaries, their Works, Reflections, and Impacts

Reception of Victorian Literature by Other Countries or Cultures Then/ After

Imperial Gaze, Cultural Interventions, Conflicts and Assimilations

Time Traveller, Armchair Traveller, Imaginative Traveller

Literary or Commercial Travel Writings

Teaching Victorian Literature Outside British Isles

Translations, Adaptations, Recreations in Other Countries or Foreign Languages.

New Critical or Theoretical Focus, Pedagogical Approaches, Virtual Reality

Manuscripts should be between 7500—10,000 words and follow The MLA Manual of Style.

Please submit one electronic copy, a 500-word abstract (as an attachment in Word), a

short biography and contact information to sysjoh@mail.nsysu.edu.tw and cc to the guest editors:

Professor Shu-Fang Lai,

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan;

sflai@mail.nsysu.edu.tw

Professor Fumie Tamai,

Faculty of Global Communications, Doshisha University, Japan; ftamai@mail.doshisha.ac.jp

For more details about the journal, see https://sysjoh-la.nsysu.edu.tw/

Life writing, democracy, and conceivable futures
RESIST TO EXIST:

International Auto/Biography Association
XIV Global IABA Conference 2026

Deadline for Submissions–January 30, 2026

Call for papers

The XIV Global Conference of the International Auto/Biography Association (IABA) will take place from July 21 to 24, 2026, in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, in partnership with the State University of Bahia (UNEB). Under the theme “RESIST TO EXIST: life writing, democracy, and conceivable futures”, the event invites researchers to problematize the presence of bodies—racialized, epistemological, political bodies—in contexts of survival and resistance, especially in settings marked by structural oppression, persistent inequalities, exclusionary regimes, crises of democracy, and global reconfigurations. By examining auto/biographical production as a field of dispute and symbolic engagement, the Conference highlights its potential in constituting subjects who, in narrating themselves, develop forms of insurgency against historical processes of silencing and disengagement.

Historically, life writing narratives—in their multiple forms, including diaries, memoirs, correspondence, testimonies, oral histories, and, more recently, digital expressions and performances—have mobilized discursive hegemonies, affirmed subalternized presences, and demanded social and political recognition. In contexts where democracies grow increasingly fragile, these narratives take on the character of insurgent political acts, capable of challenging epistemic violence, rebuilding community ties, and expanding the bounds of visibility and existence.

In this regard, this IABA meeting proposes a debate attentive to insurgent voices that refuse marginalization and mobilize narrative practices—written, oral, digital, corporeal—to rewrite democratic horizons. In other words, it seeks to examine the ways in which auto/biographical materials operate as technologies of resistance against social inequalities; how memories and dissident voices can reopen, displace, or reinvent democracies; and how new expressive ecologies—digital, multimodal, performative—drive expanded forms of political participation and democratic imagination.
The Conference will welcome individual paper proposals, panel proposals consisting of three to four papers, and roundtable suggestions that engage with its thematic focus and align with the specific axes that structure the program. It is expected, therefore, to foster a space for critical reflection—transdisciplinary and internationally connected—capable of deepening the debate on the political, epistemological, and aesthetic potentials of life writing.

Thematic Axes

1. Life writing as technologies of resistance

Explores intimate writings—such as diaries, memoirs, letters, testimonies—as technologies of subjectivation and political resistance in contexts of surveillance, repression, and state or epistemic violence, as well as struggles for survival, disobedience, and repositioning of the subject in relation to practices of appeasement. Includes reflections on the body as a sensitive archive: inscriptions of pain, desire, precariousness, and struggle.

2. Life writing, citizenship, and the right to speak

Explores the relationship between autobiography, citizenship, and the right to narrate, considering inequalities of enunciation and disputes over ethical-political recognition. Examines the ways in which life narratives expand public space, challenge the limits of liberal citizenship, and introduce alternative regimes of listening. Addresses collective memories, community testimonies, and the inclusion of subjects historically silenced in public debate.

3. Insurgent memories and emancipatory auto/biographical practices

Investigates narratives produced by subjects situated in contexts of coloniality—women, Black populations, Indigenous peoples, LGBTQIA+ communities, people with disabilities—discussing cultures and geopolitics of decolonial storytelling. Proposes discussions of materials and new practices (notebooks, agendas, letters, blogs, digital networks) and practices of narrative disobedience capable of reconfiguring what can be remembered, said, or forgotten.

4. Between fiction, testimony, and truth: poetics of auto-insurgency

Examines the boundaries between autobiography, autofiction, biofiction, and testimony, problematizing the statutes of truth, verisimilitude, and invention in life writing. Explores the fictionalization of the self and resistance as aesthetic and political forms, enabling the narration of the unspeakable, the protection of the vulnerable, or the reinvention of modes of existence. Discusses the role of imagination as claim and resistance.

5. Technopolitics of resistance: digital writings and networks

Examines digital writing—posts, videos, podcasts, threads, platforms, collaborative environments—as new auto/biographical ecologies and fields of dispute over visibility, memory, and affective mobilization. Analyzes new narratives, critiques of testimony, and forms of collective action mediated by technologies. Considers the ambivalences of digital environments: surveillance, algorithms, colonialities, and the opening of counter-hegemonic spaces.

6. Archives, memory, and the politics of forgetting

Discusses the construction of control, legitimacy, and silencing around life-writing archives, interrogating preservation, destruction, and curation as political acts. Examines struggles over Truth Commissions, transitional justice, community archives, domestic collections, and digital repositories. Analyzes institutional erasure, structural invisibility, and the insurgent power of re-membering as a form of rewriting the past.

7. Innovative aesthetics: poetics, performativities, and modes of existence

Addresses experimental, hybrid, multimodal, corporeal, or otherwise innovative aesthetics that challenge traditional forms of life writing. Analyzes diaries, letters, performances, videos, and other genres and the forms of objection that displace norms of gender, race, and subjectivity. Reflects on the performative nature of life writing and its political potentials in creating habitable worlds.

8. Life writing, health, and vulnerability: narrating the body as political act

Explores poetics of illness, pain, aging, clinical contexts, mental health, and institutional care as forms of trauma elaboration, confrontation with suffering, and reclamation of subjective and collective agency as acts of resistance to pathologization and dehumanization. Discusses the lived body as territory of memory, pain, healing, and identity.

9. Insurgent methodologies of auto/biographical research

Discusses interdisciplinary approaches that articulate literature, cinema, history, anthropology, psychology, arts, and cultural studies in life writing research. Addresses these issues through methodological considerations: challenges of working with diaries, letters, testimonies, and sensitive archives. Highlights creative and shared methodologies—workshops, collective writing practices, performative devices, autoethnography, and collaborative approaches that blur boundaries between researcher and narrator.

10. Ancestrality, territorialities, and climate crises: insubordinate auto/biographies

Analyzes oral and written life narratives as practices of decolonizing knowledge, articulating politics of affirmation of knowledges situated in territories of origin, traditional communities, migrant populations, and subjects in transit, relating climate crises, territorialities, ancestralities, and the defense of life. Investigates relationships between autobiography, race, gender, ethnicity, and coloniality, emphasizing the emergence of peripheral and counter-hegemonic epistemologies.

Schedule

Submission period: 12/15/2025 to 01/30/2026
Evaluation: 02/04/2026 to 02/24/2026
Results announcement: 02/26/2026
Registration and payment: 03/01/2026 to 04/15/2026

Abstracts will be submitted through the Even3 platform – https://www.even3.com.br/iaba-global-667562 – starting on 12/15/2025.

In a follow up Conference Information Notice, we will provide information about the program, keynote speakers, registration fees, and guidelines on submission standards and access to the Registration System (Even3).
Information and further questions via email:

iababrasil2026@gmail.com

Primeira Circular

XIV Conferência Mundial 2026

Associação Internacional da Auto/biografia (IABA)

RESISTIR PARA EXISTIR:

escrita da vida, democracia e futuros possíveis

Período de inscrição: 15/12 a 30/01/2026

A XIV Conferência Mundial da Associação Internacional da Auto/biografia (IABA) será realizada de 21 a 24 de julho de 2026, em Salvador, Bahia, em parceria com a Universidade do Estado da Bahia (UNEB). Com o tema “RESISTIR PARA EXISTIR: escrita da vida, democracia e futuros possíveis”, o evento convoca pesquisadores e pesquisadoras a problematizarem a escrita da vida como dispositivo epistemológico e político de sobrevivência e resistência, sobretudo em contextos marcados por opressões estruturais, desigualdades persistentes, regimes de exclusão, crises da democracia e reconfigurações da geopolítica mundial. Ao interrogar a produção auto/biográfica como campo de disputa simbólica, a Conferência destaca sua potência na constituição de sujeitos que, ao narrar a si, elaboram formas de insurgência contra processos históricos de silenciamento e apagamento.

Historicamente, narrativas da experiência vivida – em suas múltiplas modalidades, como diários, memórias, correspondências, testemunhos, relatos orais e, mais recentemente, expressões digitais e performativas — têm sido mobilizadas para desestabilizar hegemonias discursivas, afirmar presenças subalternizadas e reivindicar reconhecimento social e político. Em contextos nos quais as democracias se fragilizam, tais narrativas adquirem o estatuto de atos políticos insubmissos, capazes de tensionar formas de violência epistêmica, reconstituir vínculos comunitários e ampliar regimes de visibilidade e de existência.

Nesse horizonte, a IABA propõe um debate atento às vozes insurgentes que recusam a marginalização e mobilizam práticas narrativas — escritas, orais, digitais, corporais — para reconfigurar horizontes democráticos. Interroga-se, assim, de que maneira textos auto/biográficos operam como tecnologias de resistência frente às desigualdades sociais; como memórias e vozes dissidentes podem reabrir, deslocar ou reinventar arquivos; e em que medida novas ecologias expressivas — digitais, multimodais, performativas — impulsionam formas ampliadas de participação política e de imaginação democrática.

A Conferência acolherá propostas de comunicação individuais, painéis compostos por três a quatro trabalhos e sugestões de mesas-redondas que dialoguem com seu eixo temático central e com os eixos específicos que estruturam a programação. Espera-se, dessa forma, fomentar um espaço de reflexão crítica, transdisciplinar e internacionalmente conectado, capaz de aprofundar o debate sobre as potências políticas, epistemológicas e estéticas da escrita da vida.

Eixos temáticos

1. Escritas de si e dispositivos de resistência

Explora as escritas íntimas — diários, memórias, cartas, testemunhos — como tecnologias de subjetivação e resistência política em contextos de vigilância, repressão, violência de Estado e regimes autoritários. Analisa o gesto auto/biográfico como exercício de sobrevivência, desobediência e reposicionamento do sujeito frente a práticas de apagamento. Inclui reflexões sobre o corpo como arquivo sensível: inscrições da dor, do desejo, da precariedade e da luta.

2. Democracia, direito à palavra e regimes de reconhecimento

Interroga a relação entre auto/biografia, cidadania e o direito à fala, considerando desigualdades de enunciação e disputas por reconhecimento ético-político. Examina modos pelos quais narrativas de si ampliam o espaço público, tensionam limites da democracia liberal e introduzem regimes alternativos de escuta. Debruça-se sobre memórias coletivas, testemunhos comunitários e a inscrição de sujeitos historicamente silenciados no debate público.

3. Memórias insurgentes e práticas auto/biográficas emancipatórias

Investiga narrativas produzidas por sujeitos e coletivos marginalizados — mulheres, populações negras, povos indígenas, comunidades LGBTQIA+, pessoas com deficiência — como contra-arquivos que desestabilizam hegemonias epistemológicas e historiográficas. Discute materiais insurgentes (cadernos, agendas, cartas, blogs, redes digitais) e práticas de desobediência narrativa capazes de reconfigurar o que pode ser lembrado, dito e preservado.

4. Entre ficção, testemunho e verdade: poéticas de autoinsurgência

Analisa as fronteiras porosas entre autobiografia, autoficção, bioficção e testemunho, problematizando os estatutos de verdade, verossimilhança e invenção na escrita da vida. Interroga como a ficcionalização do eu institui novas formas de resistência estética e política, permitindo narrar o indizível, proteger o vulnerável ou reinventar modos de existência. Discute o papel da imaginação como gesto insurgente e de resistência.

5. Tecnopolíticas da resistência: escritas digitais e redes insurgentes

Examina as escritas digitais — posts, vídeos, podcasts, threads, plataformas colaborativas — como novas ecologias auto/biográficas e campos de disputa por visibilidade, memória e pertencimento. Analisa insurgências em rede, práticas de “hackear narrativas”, modos de circulação de testemunhos e formas de ação coletiva mediadas por tecnologias. Considera as ambivalências dos ambientes digitais: vigilância, algoritmos, colonialidades e abertura de novos espaços democráticos.

6. Arquivos, memória e políticas do esquecimento

Discute quem controla, legitima ou silencia arquivos da escrita de si, interrogando práticas de preservação, destruição e curadoria como operações políticas. Examina disputas memoriais em Comissões da Verdade, processos de justiça de transição, acervos comunitários, coleções domésticas e arquivos digitais. Analisa apagamentos institucionais, invisibilidades estruturais e a potência insurgente da recordação como reescrita do passado.

7. Estéticas insurgentes: poéticas, performatividades e modos de existir

Aborda experimentações estéticas — fragmentárias, híbridas, multimodais, corporais — que tensionam formas tradicionais da escrita de si. Analisa diários, cartas, performances, vídeos ou obras literárias como gestos de insurgência que deslocam normas de gênero, raça, corpo e subjetividade. Reflete sobre o caráter performativo da escrita da vida e suas potências políticas na criação de mundos habitáveis.

8. Escritas da vida, saúde e vulnerabilidade: narrar o corpo como ato político

Explora práticas auto/biográficas em contextos clínicos, comunitários e institucionais como formas de elaboração do trauma, enfrentamento do adoecimento e reivindicação de dignidade. Analisa narrativas de hospitalizações, deficiência, saúde mental, cuidados coletivos e sofrimento social como atos de resistência à patologização e à desumanização. Debruça-se sobre o corpo vivido como território de memória, dor, cura e identidade.

9. Metodologias insurgentes da pesquisa auto/biográfica

Examinar abordagens interdisciplinares que articulam literatura, cinema, história, antropologia, psicologia, artes e estudos culturais na investigação da escrita da vida. Discute éticas da pesquisa — consentimento, exposição, vulnerabilidade, autoria — e os desafios do trabalho com diários, cartas, testemunhos e arquivos sensíveis. Destaca metodologias criativas e partilhadas: oficinas, escritas coletivas, dispositivos performativos, autoetnografia e práticas colaborativas que borram limites entre pesquisador e narrador.

10. Ancestralidade, territorialidades e crises climáticas: insubordinações auto/biográficas

Analisa narrativas orais e escritas de si como práticas de descolonização do conhecimento, insurgência política e afirmação de saberes situados. Aborda narrativas de povos originários, comunidades tradicionais, populações migrantes e sujeitos em trânsito, articulando crises climáticas, territorialidades, ancestralidades e defesa da vida. Investiga relações entre autobiografia, raça, gênero, etnia e colonialidade, ressaltando a emergência de epistemologias periféricas e contra-hegemônicas.

Cronograma

Período de inscrição: 15/12 a 30/01/2026

Avaliação: 04/02 a 24/02/2026

Divulgação dos resultados: 26/02/2026

Pagamento: 01/03 a 15/04/2026

As inscrições serão realizadas a partir do dia 15/12/2025, através do link: https://www.even3.com.br/iaba-global-667562

Na segunda circular informaremos sobre o programa, conferências principais, valores de inscrições e orientações sobre normas de submissões e acesso ao Sistema de Inscrição (EVEN3).

Informações e esclarecimentos através do e-mail:iababrasil2026@gmail.com

Comissão Organizadora

XIV Conferência Global IABA

Call for Papers: Fashion, Style & Popular Culture

Special Issue: ‘Queer Celebrities: Fashion, Style and Influence in Popular Culture’

Deadline for Submissions: July 1, 2025

View the full call here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/fashion-style-popular-culture#call-for-papers

Fashion, Style & Popular Culture invites scholars, critics and artists to submit papers for a Special Issue exploring the intersection of queerness, celebrity culture, fashion and style. How are queer celebrities influencing, shaping and transforming popular culture through their fashion and stylistic choices? We are interested in contributions that critically engage with the roles of queer celebrities in fashion as agents of change, as symbols of resistance, and as architects of a more inclusive and diverse cultural landscape.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Iconography and Symbolism: Symbols, motifs in queer celebrities’ fashion choices.

Fashion and Activism: Queer celebrities using fashion for activism, advocacy, social change.

Queer Aesthetics and Design: Queer aesthetics in celebrity fashion designers and stylists.

Media Representation: Queer celebrity portrayals in film, tv, music videos, digital media.

Queer Influencers: Tension between self-commodification and contributing to queer culture.

Fan Culture and Imitation: Queer celebrity fashion in imitation, cosplay, fan communities.

Queer Celebrity Fashion Brand Collaborations: Impact on brand and consumer behaviour.

Body Politics and Gender Fluidity: How queer celebrities challenge conventional body. norms and gender binaries through fashion, including impact on societal norms.

Queer Celebrities and the Fashion Industry: Impact on fashion industry’s sizing, fit, gender neutrality.

Identity: Queer celebrity fashion and identity formation, self-expression.

Intersectionality and Global Perspectives: Global influence of queer celebrities on fashion and diverse expressions of queerness in different cultural contexts.

Queer or Queer baiting? Exploitation of the queer market through queer fashion and style.

Each topic invites contributors to delve into the multifaceted relationship between queer celebrities and the world of fashion. We encourage submissions that offer unique, including non-western, perspectives, interdisciplinary approaches and innovative methodologies.

The deadline for manuscripts of 5000–7000 words (using Intellect House Style) is 1 July 2025.

Please visit the journal website for Notes for Contributors: