The deadlines have passed for the following listings, or they are notices of new issues of life writing journals. We provide this information here for points of reference for scholars interested in trends in the field.

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The Diary: A Life Page by Page— BBC The Forum Broadcast, now available

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people found that keeping a diary was one way of reducing stress during uncertain times. They also felt that it was important to chart their day to day experience of a historic moment in world history. Such diaries will be valuable sources in years to come for historians, providing future scholars with a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people. These diaries form part of a long tradition of people chronicling their own stories, whether intended for publication or purely to put thoughts down on paper. One of the earliest texts we could describe as a diary was written by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose musings were influenced by Stoic philosophy. Later diaries, such as those by or the African American naval yard worker Michael Shiner or the teenage Anne Frank, have been important in helping us understand society and events from ‘the bottom up’ during a given period. Iszi Lawrence explores what motivates people to keep diaries. She’s joined by a panel of experts including Dr Polly North, Founding Director of the Great Diary Project at Bishopsgate Institute in the UK; Julie Rak, the Henry Marshall Tory Chair in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta who’s an expert on what’s known as life writing; and Sergio da Silva Barcellos who’s published widely on diary keeping in Brazil, including a chapter in The Diary: The Epic of Everyday Life. Produced by Fiona Clampin for BBC World Service https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5n0c *

Call for Entries–Seeking new scientific biographies for an online educational resource with the Science History Institute

Do you know of a scientist in need of a biography? Or perhaps you know of a surprising story about someone who is already well known, one that can help students understand how science works? Do you enjoy writing for broad audiences, or want to gain more experience in such writing? If so, we would love to hear from you. We are seeking new entries for an online collection of scientific biographies. These are short (ca. 1,000 words), authoritative profiles of figures in the history of science that are used primarily by students and teachers. We are currently inviting new biographies that will help us better represent the true diversity of scientific practice and practitioners. Our goal is to offer an accessible digital resource that supports the curricular needs of educators and the learning styles of students at all levels. We are eager to field your proposals, but are also specifically looking to add biographies of the following individuals: Alice Ball, Theo Colborn, Marie Farnsworth, Eizi Matuda, Thomas W. Talley, Bettye Washington Greene, and William Knox. Please note that we are not collecting biographies of living individuals at this time. Your contribution will be read by a wide range of audiences, so the writing should avoid technical jargon and insider references. We encourage you to think of yourself as a storyteller: we are more interested in your take on the significance of a life than we are in recording every minute detail. That said, significance need not be limited to patents and prizes; it also involves stories, e.g., of personal struggle, community service, research infrastructure, and family life. You can submit your pitch using this form. We will be in touch to discuss compensation if we decide to move forward on a proposed submission. Contact Information Judith (Judy) Kaplan Cain Curatorial Fellow Science History Institute 315 Chestnut St. Philadelphia, PA 19106 Contact Email biographies@sciencehistory.org URL https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/about-scientific-biographies/ * * ORAL HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF CHILDHOOD: A ONE-DAY WORKSHOP Friday 4 April 2025, University of Sheffield Deadline for Submissions–September 20, 2024 This one-day workshop at the University of Sheffield seeks to explore the scholarly landscape where the history of childhood meets oral history across different chronological periods and in different parts of the world. By bringing together historians of childhood with an interest in oral history and oral historians working in childhood studies we aim to explore the meanings and significance of childhood as well as the lived experiences of being a child in the past through oral history methods. All historians of childhood, especially those working in countries with limited literacy and written cultures, have struggled to find documents and written records that can shed light on the perceptions and practices of children in the past. Oral history is often seen to hold out the promise of accessing the world of past childhoods through the eyes of today’s adults and in some way to compensate for the lack of written documents. Even in cases where text-based sources exist,  the holdings of national archives regarding children are often limited to documents that focus on the ideals and campaigns of governments in the form of policy drafts, surveying reports, consultations with charity organisations, debates on the state of primary education etc. which largely fail to convey the social fabric of childhood from the child’s perspective. We are keen to explore the potential for oral history methods to enable historians to recover experiences of childhood as lived by people who were born as early as the first couple of decades of the twentieth century. In this workshop, we are keen to hear from researchers who have explored connections between oral history and histories of childhood. Possible topics include but are not limited to

• The methodological possibilities offered by combining oral history and the history of childhood
• How oral history can help historians of childhood to overcome the danger of losing invaluable data regarding past childhoods
• Examples of oral history work that give insights into the lived experience of childhoods in the past.
• Examples of histories of childhood that employ the oral history method
• The advantages and disadvantages of using oral history methodology when researching the history of childhood
• Conducting oral history projects in order to explore the gendered practices of being a child in the past
• Exploring the past practices of childhood, motherhood, fatherhood and sibling relationships through oral history
• Collecting historical data on any aspects of childhood such as illness, disability, schooling, employment, entertainment, games, toys, clothing, literature, architecture etc through oral history methods

Please send proposals of no more than 250 words together with a short bio to Dr Heather Ellis (University of Sheffield) at h.l.ellis@sheffield.ac.uk by Friday 20 September 2024 Dr Heather Ellis (University of Sheffield) and Prof Dr Nazan Çiçek (Ankara University) https://royalhistsoc.org/calendar/oral-history-and-the-history-of-childhood-a-o… * CFP–GIRL, INTERRUPTED. Testimonies, Silences and Self-Censorship in Eastern European Women’s Life Writing. September 20, 2024, Venue: “Babeș-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Send your title, abstract and bionote to the organiser, Dr. Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu at andrada.pintilescu@ubbcluj.ro andrada.pintilescu@gmail.com You can also consult our recent publication on the topic, Récit de vie féminin dans l’Europe de l’Est et du Sud-Est/ Women’s Life Writing in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe here https://dacoromanialitteraria.inst-puscariu.ro/ro/nr10.php Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu, PhD Lecturer Faculty of Letters “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Horea 7, Room 10 400174 Cluj-Napoca http://ubbcluj.academia.edu/AndradaFatuTutoveanu Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, France Deadline for Submissions: 16 September 2024 https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20041646/individual-and-collective-experiences-place-attachment-belonging-and This conference aims to explore individual and collective experiences of attachment, belonging and participation in society by bringing together reflections on the notion of place as a geographical, social, cultural and political construct that may refer to either the situation or the process of finding one’s place in society. Place is a social construct (Åkerlund and Sandberg 2015), experienced by individuals and reflecting social relations and interactions. Fundamentally, places are defined spaces that encompass material settings and provide a context for social relations to unfold. As individuals experience these places, they become imbued with emotions and meanings derived from their social interactions. Thus, places are socially constructed through the meanings ascribed to them. The meanings attributed to places are shaped by specific social positions. In the process of imagining places, they become intertwined with the broader global power dynamics inherent in society. The meanings and identities of places and regions are shaped through discourses and narratives, sometimes dominated by more powerful voices that enforce particular interpretations (Åkerlund and Sandberg 2015; Croucher 2018). The meaning that places hold for individuals fosters connections through lived experiences and emotional bonds. These are shaped by both cognition—thoughts, knowledge, and beliefs—and practice—behaviours and actions. The ties linking people to places are often described as moorings: “like boats to a mooring, people are tied to their environments by investments in their property, by the many community contexts in which they find meaning, by friends and family whose proximity they value, by the experiences of the past, by lifestyles that weave these strands together into patterns of satisfying activity” (Åkerlund and Sandberg, 2015). This concept of mooring encompasses both the emotional and material ties to significant places, reflecting feelings, identity, and social relations. Attachment Place attachment (Giuliani 2003; Hidalgo and Hernandez 2001; Manzo 2003) is not only the bond that people develop with places, the locus of human experiences, but also the particular context of the period of time (Tuan 1977).  Those people are affected by the social shared memories of those places (Connerton 1989; Fentress and Wickham 1992), despite the fact that they tend to be biased memories (Liu and Hilton 2005). These social memories usually also take place before the birth of the individual, and they are embedded in questions of national identity, history, and ethnicity (Halbwachs 1925; Zerubavel 2003). The conference organisers are interested in exploring areas related to what modifies place affectivity, and how it relates to history and memory. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to dissociate people from places, whether they be places from where one might have come, or where one has settled after migration. Regardless of mobility in one’s lifetime, there is some form of attachment to (a) place(s) that is always present (Cuba and Hummon 1993; Gustafson 2001). That attachment to place provides stability (Hay 1998), and capacity of adjustability and psychological balance (Rowles 1990). Individuals develop special and unique forms of bonding with places, so much so that place identity becomes part of the individual’s own identity (Proshansky 1978). The conference organisers wish to examine how it can be used as a means to distinguish oneself from others (Twigger-Ross and Uzzell 1996), or conversely as a means to create sameness and similarity, or connectivity with others (Jacobson-Widding 1983). The more complex situation brought about by human resettlement is of particular interest since it is driven by various motivations and yields diverse outcomes, necessitating an examination of individuals, their families, and communities. The primary reason for relocation is the pursuit of improved personal circumstances, escaping social or economic hardships, or seeking higher status. People may also move to benefit their families by acquiring resources or skills, or to provide resources and spread new ideas. Some are motivated by the pleasure of experiencing new places and cultures (Gungwu 2018; Manning 2013). Relocating necessitates learning new languages and customs, a significant driver of cultural change throughout history and prevalence of multilingualism today highlights its historical importance in human development. To fully understand these dynamics, the conference would welcome proposals related to key elements such as conceptions of place and notions of attachment, for example through nationhood and citizenship, but also cultural and linguistic aspects. Belonging This sense of belonging to place seems to be developed through various stages of transition, particularly in the case of migrants, for whom place is often a ‘liminal’, or ‘in-between’ space and identity is expressed in hyphenated terms (Bhabha 2004), in other words, it is hybrid. The in-between can be described as a position that a subject occupies while attached to two worlds. One is the original home, and the other is the foster home. The conference organisers would like to explore the way in which people particularly from diasporic communities identify with these worlds, what affective experiences they associate with them, including a sense of confusion, assimilation, inferiority, and also detachment. Other areas of interest could include creativity and civil communication. Conventional ideas of home and belonging are generally static and refer to the individual as firmly tied to a community in a specific geographic location. The conference would like to evoke new models of identity that can be developed so that the fluid and agonizing position of ‘in-between’ may be seen as a site of new possibilities, as opposed to failed discourses on nationalism, ethnicity or ‘race’. Contemporary migration has changed people’s relationships to places and therefore the way they define themselves (Croucher 2015). From the decision to leave to the arrival and adaptation in the host society, immigrants, but also their descendants, embody a real or imagined in-between (Bruneau 2004). Their physical, political and symbolic comings and goings between ‘here’ and ‘there’ create territorial transformations, social spaces, hybrid identities; they revisit languages, literatures and the arts (Alexandre-Garner and Keller-Privat 2014). They maintain transnational social and professional networks, giving rise to innovative repertoires of mobilization both in the host country and in the country of origin (Waldinger 2015). The conference would like to examine the ‘in-between’ as a liminal space or state that involves dynamics of continuity, separation, transition, and mobility. Participation One’s place in society may be defined by the broad concept of citizenship, which is a dynamic notion that encompasses the multiple conditions that allow one’s inclusion and participation in society. Historical shifts and circumstances have led peoples, countries and nations to renegotiate the place of the citizen (Juteau 2002). Jane Jenson stressed that the definition of the various rights and responsibilities for the citizen are being constantly renegotiated, as are the conditions of effective access to participation and representation. New arrangements may be introduced to grant specific powers of representation and decision-making to some groups (Jenson 1997; 1998; Jenson and Papillon 2001; Traisnel 2012). Accordingly, Jenson argued that “the tensions that run through citizenship strongly suggest dividing lines between citizens of the same country”, which she called “edges” (Jenson 2007, 23–30). If citizenship ought to represent equality between members of the national community, aspirations to ‘fuller’ participation, representation and inclusion have been formulated for several decades in various places. The conference organisers are interested in investigatingexamples of such phenomena from a cross-disciplinary perspective, particularly through the lens of the affective experiences which may surface in personal accounts, and which are generated by, or revelatory of, such “tensions” and “edges”. It is also pertinent to include the relevant categories of residents, migrants and transnationals who acquire rights partially and/or progressively only. Finally, the conference organisers wish to analyse the dialogical relation between these experiences on the one hand, and the manners in which policy-makers define, extend or restrict the notions of personal and collective attachment, belonging and participation on the other (Jenson, Marques-Pereira, and Remacle 2007; Fortier 2010). The handling of such issues in public policy raises a number of questions on the collective narratives that may circulate on the accepted feelings and experiences related to these notions. In terms of methodology, the conference is interested in bringing together specialists who investigate the dialogical interaction between memory and history. On the basis of Joanna Bourke’s suggestion that “[p]rivate memory not only contributes to history, but also takes some of its knowledges from history”(Bourke 2004, 484–85), personal accounts may shed a different light on events and phenomena that have been either exaggerated, distorted, disregarded or forgotten in collectively shared narratives. But they also draw from historical accounts in ways that need further exploration. Therefore, this conference will explore the mechanisms of interaction and inter-dependence between personal and collective accounts, by focusing on the meaning of individual and collective experiences in various situations evoking the challenge of finding one’s place, be it in the context of migration or in relation to the conditions permitting attachment, belonging and participation in society in the 20th and 21st centuries in multiple geographical and historical situations. The organisers wish to draw on a range of disciplines, including history, oral history, civilisation studies, geography, anthropology, political science, sociology, law, literature, arts, or philosophy. The following themes could be developed:

• Experiences of attachment, belonging, participation in
  • Interactions between both
• Personal accounts and oral history accounts
• Collective accounts
• Memory of places
• History of places
• Place and migration
• Place and freedom
• Migration and attachment, belonging or participation
• The challenge of finding one’s place in society from historical and geographical perspectives
• Attachment, belonging or participation as rights, and as affective experiences
• Adverse experiences of alienation, exclusion, marginality, or hostility
• Feelings and experiences associated with the “edges” of citizenship (full citizen, second-class citizen)
• Interaction between policy definitions and personal and collective experiences of attachment, belonging or participation

Proposals seeking to explore methodological issues will be welcome, such as:

• Reflecting on the method of cross-examination between personal accounts and collective narratives
• Cross-examining public policy and personal accounts
• Identifying and analysing experiences of attachment, belonging or participation in personal accounts, in collective accounts and in public policy:  possibilities, difficulties/pitfalls
• The contribution of personal accounts to historical analysis, including oral history accounts, and elite oral history

The geographical scope will include – but will not be limited to – the Americas, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and proposals taking a comparative and interdisciplinary approach will be particularly welcome. The proposals should preferably focus on the 20th and 21st centuries. This international, cross-disciplinary conference will be held in English and French. Please send a 300-word abstract in English or in French to Joana Etchart, Andrew Milne and Simona Tobia: joana.etchart@univ-pau.fr milne.andrew@orange.fr s.tobia@univ-pau.fr by 16th September 2024. The acceptance or rejection of proposals will be announced in December 2024 Organisers: Joana Etchart, Andrew Milne and Simona Tobia, University of Pau (UPPA – ALTER Research Group). Contact Information Joana Etchart joana.etchart@univ-pau.fr Andrew Milne milne.andrew@orange.fr Simona Tobia s.tobia@univ-pau.fr Contact Email s.tobia@univ-pau.fr Rethinking ‘self’ and ‘community’: Early Modern Identities in Times of Changes (9/15/2024; 7/2-5/2025) Renaissance Studies Conf. Bristol, UK The early modern period marked a dynamic moment in history when changes, such as social and political shifts, religious reforms, and cultural encounters, prompted a rethinking of collective identities. In Europe, for example, the French Huguenots sought to reestablish their religious identity after fleeing from Catholic persecution during the Counter-Reformation, while Spanish colonisation in the Americas reshaped the cultural identity of the indigenous peoples. How were the identities of communities constructed and transformed? Who and what shaped those identities? How did individuals make sense of who they were? For the Society for Renaissance Studies Biennial Conference 2025 in Bristol, we are seeking papers for a panel, which centres on the dynamic identities of individuals and communities during upheavals and moments of change in the early modern period. Aiming to engender an interdisciplinary dialogue with case studies drawn from various global contexts, the panel will examine how the cultural exchanges and mobility of individuals challenged, reinforced and redefined identities and the way they connected with their communities. Potential topics may include:

•      Formation, destruction, and transformation of political, religious, familial, racial, and gender identities
•      Challenging definitions and classifications of identities and communities
•      Role of the community in shaping individual identity
•      Transregional circulation and trade of artworks, objects and materials
•      Identities of travellers, artisans and others involved in transcultural exchanges
•      Migrants, refugees, and individuals under colonisation
•      Social hierarchies
•      Conflict and cohesion between different communities
•      Ideas of ‘self’ and ‘otherness’

Please submit an abstract (150-200 words) for papers of 15-20 minutes and a short bio (100 words) to Fiona Sit (F.Sit@leeds.ac.uk) and Giulia Zanon (giulia.zanon@unive.it) by 15th September 2024. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 23rd September. *

CFP “Bridging Cultures: Translational Travel Writing to, from (and in) the Americas.” (9/15/2024) Edited Collection

Travel is an intimate part of human existence, involving cultural exchange through observation and interaction. It requires us to recognize that, beyond our allegiance to our own nation, we are also bound together by our shared humanity and the global community. To truly understand ourselves, we must adopt an inclusive perspective towards life, where cultures merge and combine to form a constructive relationship. In today’s globalized world, the practice of travel, mobility, and cross-cultural contact challenges the politics of difference and the homogenizing perspectives of the world. This “openness to the world”[1] enables us to appreciate the diverse cultures around us and discover our own identities in relation to others and their ethnolinguistic backgrounds. By engaging with difference, we can forge cultural connections that transcend time and space, and bring subjectivity into dialogue. International travelers have been drawn to the Americas for centuries, captivated by its diverse cultures, natural beauty, and rich history. From the ancient Incan ruins of Machu Picchu to the bustling streets of New York City, the Americas offer a wide range of experiences for travelers. The United States, with its vast size and cultural diversity, offers something for everyone—from the beaches of California to the forests of Maine. Visitors can experience the excitement of Times Square in New York City, the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, or the historical significance of Washington, D.C. Canada also boasts stunning natural landscapes, from the Rocky Mountains to the vast expanses of the Canadian Shield. Central and South America offer a wealth of experiences, from exploring the ancient ruins of Tikal in Guatemala and relaxing on the beaches of Costa Rica to experiencing the vibrant culture of Mexico City. South America is home to iconic destinations such as the Amazon rainforest, the Galapagos Islands, and the Andes Mountains. The Americas are rich in symbols appreciated by international travelers, including the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, the Mayan pyramids, Niagara Falls, the Hollywood Sign, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Rio Carnival. We invite scholars and researchers to submit papers exploring the theme of transnational travel writing to (and in) the Americas for publication by a reputable publishing house. This interdisciplinary panel aims to examine how international travel writers from around the world have represented and engaged with the Americas as a destination of travel and a place of longing. We encourage papers that explore the diverse and complex intersections of travel writing with issues such as race, gender, class, imperialism, globalization, and transnationalism. Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Travel writing as a site of cultural exchange and encounter
• Representations of the self and the other in American travel writing
• Travel writing as a form of political and social critique
• Travel writing and imperialism
• Gendered perspectives on American travel writing
• The role of technology and transportation in shaping American travel writing
• The impact of globalization on American travel writing
• The ethics of representing other cultures in American travel writing
• The role of translation and multilingualism in transnational American travel writing

We welcome submissions from scholars across disciplines, including literary studies, cultural studies, history, geography, anthropology, and beyond. Please submit abstracts of 500 words to Stefan Brandt (stefan.brandt@uni-graz.at) and Saptarshi Mallick (saptarshieng@gmail.com) by September 15, 2024. After reviewing the abstracts, contributors will be informed and requested to submit their complete papers by May 15, 2025. [1] Kwame Anthony Appiah. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York/London: Norton, 2006, 5. Contact Information Stefan Brandt, University of Graz (stefan.brandt@uni-graz.at) Saptarshi Mallick, University of Graz (saptarshieng@gmail.com) URL https://amerikanistik.uni-graz.at/en/research/transnationality-and-space * CfP: International Conference on The Role of Auschwitz in Holocaust Narratives Toronto, ON, Canada – Conference Date: May 5, 2025 Deadline for Submissions – September 15, 2024 The Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program invites proposals that interpret the place of Auschwitz in shaping Holocaust survivor narratives and contribute to the interdisciplinary discussion on the role of Auschwitz in influencing collective memory of the Holocaust. The conference marks the 80th year since the liberation of Auschwitz and coincides with the Toronto run of the travelling exhibition Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). A private pre-program event focusing on the exhibit will be held on Sunday May 4, 2025, featuring Dr. Naomi Azrieli, CEO and Publisher, and Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, curator of the exhibit and keynote speaker. Conference Overview: Inspired by the memoirs program’s nearly two decades of dedicated work on survivor memoirs, this conference aims to critically examine the impact of Auschwitz on the narratives of Holocaust survivor experiences. This international conference, serving as both a commemoration and reflection, will provide a platform for interdisciplinary discussions that plumb the complexities surrounding Auschwitz as a place of atrocities, its symbolism and the narratives surrounding it. Conference Themes: Auschwitz occupies a unique place in history as the most infamous concentration camp and death camp within the Nazi camp system. The conference aims to explore and grapple with aspects of Auschwitz that have influenced survivor memoirs, short stories and poetry. These aspects include but are not limited to: •the role of Auschwitz as the most authentic representation of Holocaust experiences in the Nazi camp system •survivor memoirs and storytelling; what is recounted or omitted, and how we reconcile memories that may conflict with the historical record •memoir descriptions of ritual and Jewish agency; that is, how Jews responded to the conditions and treatment they endured •collective memory, vocabulary, language and imagery surrounding Auschwitz the narrative significance of Auschwitz as the symbol of the Holocaust and its impact on shaping collective memory •the voices of women, sexuality studies and the gendered lens •the representation of a diverse range of experiences including those of non-Jews, Polish political prisoners, Roma, Catholic clergy and others •representation of Auschwitz and survivors in works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and/or cultural productions •the role of survivors of Auschwitz in remembering the atrocities in contrast to other camps and experiences Submission Guidelines: We invite submissions that contribute to the interdisciplinary discourse on the role of Auschwitz in Holocaust narratives. This conference is primarily aimed at literary, Jewish studies, humanities, cultural, and gender studies scholars as well as historians. Early career researchers/academics and PhD candidates are also encouraged to apply. Submissions must demonstrate that at least one of the Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs will be integrated into their final presentation. For a complete listing of memoirs please see https://memoirs.azrielifoundation.org/the-auschwitz-collection Abstracts (max. 500 words) and a short CV must be submitted by September 15, 2024. Please submit as one combined PDF file including the presenter’s familial name in the following format: LASTNAME.AzrieliSem2025. All applicants will be notified by December 18, 2024. For inquiries and submissions, contact Carson Phillips, carson@azrielifoundation.org Conference Details: The conference will convene in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 5, 2025, with a pre-conference event on the evening of May 4, 2025. The program will include a keynote address and approximately twelve, 20-minute presentations. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered for successful applicants. Should a proposal be submitted jointly for co-authors to present, funding will be offered for one presenter only. Proposal Review Committee: Debórah Dwork, The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity, The Graduate Center – CUNY Sara Horowitz, Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies, York University Carson Phillips, Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program, The Azrieli Foundation Join us in Toronto for a thought-provoking exploration of the significance of Auschwitz in Holocaust narratives. Together, let us unravel the complexities of this landmark and contribute to a deeper understanding of its importance as part of the collective narrative of the Holocaust. Contact Information Carson Phillips, PhD Manager of Academic Initiatives Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program The Azrieli Foundation Contact Email carson@azrielifoundation.org URL https://memoirs.azrielifoundation.org/the-auschwitz-collection * Individual and Collective Experiences of Place: Attachment, Belonging and Participation 10th-11th April 2025 Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, France Deadline for Submissions: 16 September 2024 https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20041646/individual-and-collective-experiences-place-attachment-belonging-and This conference aims to explore individual and collective experiences of attachment, belonging and participation in society by bringing together reflections on the notion of place as a geographical, social, cultural and political construct that may refer to either the situation or the process of finding one’s place in society. Place is a social construct (Åkerlund and Sandberg 2015), experienced by individuals and reflecting social relations and interactions. Fundamentally, places are defined spaces that encompass material settings and provide a context for social relations to unfold. As individuals experience these places, they become imbued with emotions and meanings derived from their social interactions. Thus, places are socially constructed through the meanings ascribed to them. The meanings attributed to places are shaped by specific social positions. In the process of imagining places, they become intertwined with the broader global power dynamics inherent in society. The meanings and identities of places and regions are shaped through discourses and narratives, sometimes dominated by more powerful voices that enforce particular interpretations (Åkerlund and Sandberg 2015; Croucher 2018). The meaning that places hold for individuals fosters connections through lived experiences and emotional bonds. These are shaped by both cognition—thoughts, knowledge, and beliefs—and practice—behaviours and actions. The ties linking people to places are often described as moorings: “like boats to a mooring, people are tied to their environments by investments in their property, by the many community contexts in which they find meaning, by friends and family whose proximity they value, by the experiences of the past, by lifestyles that weave these strands together into patterns of satisfying activity” (Åkerlund and Sandberg, 2015). This concept of mooring encompasses both the emotional and material ties to significant places, reflecting feelings, identity, and social relations. Attachment Place attachment (Giuliani 2003; Hidalgo and Hernandez 2001; Manzo 2003) is not only the bond that people develop with places, the locus of human experiences, but also the particular context of the period of time (Tuan 1977).  Those people are affected by the social shared memories of those places (Connerton 1989; Fentress and Wickham 1992), despite the fact that they tend to be biased memories (Liu and Hilton 2005). These social memories usually also take place before the birth of the individual, and they are embedded in questions of national identity, history, and ethnicity (Halbwachs 1925; Zerubavel 2003). The conference organisers are interested in exploring areas related to what modifies place affectivity, and how it relates to history and memory. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to dissociate people from places, whether they be places from where one might have come, or where one has settled after migration. Regardless of mobility in one’s lifetime, there is some form of attachment to (a) place(s) that is always present (Cuba and Hummon 1993; Gustafson 2001). That attachment to place provides stability (Hay 1998), and capacity of adjustability and psychological balance (Rowles 1990). Individuals develop special and unique forms of bonding with places, so much so that place identity becomes part of the individual’s own identity (Proshansky 1978). The conference organisers wish to examine how it can be used as a means to distinguish oneself from others (Twigger-Ross and Uzzell 1996), or conversely as a means to create sameness and similarity, or connectivity with others (Jacobson-Widding 1983). The more complex situation brought about by human resettlement is of particular interest since it is driven by various motivations and yields diverse outcomes, necessitating an examination of individuals, their families, and communities. The primary reason for relocation is the pursuit of improved personal circumstances, escaping social or economic hardships, or seeking higher status. People may also move to benefit their families by acquiring resources or skills, or to provide resources and spread new ideas. Some are motivated by the pleasure of experiencing new places and cultures (Gungwu 2018; Manning 2013). Relocating necessitates learning new languages and customs, a significant driver of cultural change throughout history and prevalence of multilingualism today highlights its historical importance in human development. To fully understand these dynamics, the conference would welcome proposals related to key elements such as conceptions of place and notions of attachment, for example through nationhood and citizenship, but also cultural and linguistic aspects. Belonging This sense of belonging to place seems to be developed through various stages of transition, particularly in the case of migrants, for whom place is often a ‘liminal’, or ‘in-between’ space and identity is expressed in hyphenated terms (Bhabha 2004), in other words, it is hybrid. The in-between can be described as a position that a subject occupies while attached to two worlds. One is the original home, and the other is the foster home. The conference organisers would like to explore the way in which people particularly from diasporic communities identify with these worlds, what affective experiences they associate with them, including a sense of confusion, assimilation, inferiority, and also detachment. Other areas of interest could include creativity and civil communication. Conventional ideas of home and belonging are generally static and refer to the individual as firmly tied to a community in a specific geographic location. The conference would like to evoke new models of identity that can be developed so that the fluid and agonizing position of ‘in-between’ may be seen as a site of new possibilities, as opposed to failed discourses on nationalism, ethnicity or ‘race’. Contemporary migration has changed people’s relationships to places and therefore the way they define themselves (Croucher 2015). From the decision to leave to the arrival and adaptation in the host society, immigrants, but also their descendants, embody a real or imagined in-between (Bruneau 2004). Their physical, political and symbolic comings and goings between ‘here’ and ‘there’ create territorial transformations, social spaces, hybrid identities; they revisit languages, literatures and the arts (Alexandre-Garner and Keller-Privat 2014). They maintain transnational social and professional networks, giving rise to innovative repertoires of mobilization both in the host country and in the country of origin (Waldinger 2015). The conference would like to examine the ‘in-between’ as a liminal space or state that involves dynamics of continuity, separation, transition, and mobility. Participation One’s place in society may be defined by the broad concept of citizenship, which is a dynamic notion that encompasses the multiple conditions that allow one’s inclusion and participation in society. Historical shifts and circumstances have led peoples, countries and nations to renegotiate the place of the citizen (Juteau 2002). Jane Jenson stressed that the definition of the various rights and responsibilities for the citizen are being constantly renegotiated, as are the conditions of effective access to participation and representation. New arrangements may be introduced to grant specific powers of representation and decision-making to some groups (Jenson 1997; 1998; Jenson and Papillon 2001; Traisnel 2012). Accordingly, Jenson argued that “the tensions that run through citizenship strongly suggest dividing lines between citizens of the same country”, which she called “edges” (Jenson 2007, 23–30). If citizenship ought to represent equality between members of the national community, aspirations to ‘fuller’ participation, representation and inclusion have been formulated for several decades in various places. The conference organisers are interested in investigatingexamples of such phenomena from a cross-disciplinary perspective, particularly through the lens of the affective experiences which may surface in personal accounts, and which are generated by, or revelatory of, such “tensions” and “edges”. It is also pertinent to include the relevant categories of residents, migrants and transnationals who acquire rights partially and/or progressively only. Finally, the conference organisers wish to analyse the dialogical relation between these experiences on the one hand, and the manners in which policy-makers define, extend or restrict the notions of personal and collective attachment, belonging and participation on the other (Jenson, Marques-Pereira, and Remacle 2007; Fortier 2010). The handling of such issues in public policy raises a number of questions on the collective narratives that may circulate on the accepted feelings and experiences related to these notions. In terms of methodology, the conference is interested in bringing together specialists who investigate the dialogical interaction between memory and history. On the basis of Joanna Bourke’s suggestion that “[p]rivate memory not only contributes to history, but also takes some of its knowledges from history”(Bourke 2004, 484–85), personal accounts may shed a different light on events and phenomena that have been either exaggerated, distorted, disregarded or forgotten in collectively shared narratives. But they also draw from historical accounts in ways that need further exploration. Therefore, this conference will explore the mechanisms of interaction and inter-dependence between personal and collective accounts, by focusing on the meaning of individual and collective experiences in various situations evoking the challenge of finding one’s place, be it in the context of migration or in relation to the conditions permitting attachment, belonging and participation in society in the 20th and 21st centuries in multiple geographical and historical situations. The organisers wish to draw on a range of disciplines, including history, oral history, civilisation studies, geography, anthropology, political science, sociology, law, literature, arts, or philosophy. The following themes could be developed:

• Experiences of attachment, belonging, participation in
  • Interactions between both
• Personal accounts and oral history accounts
• Collective accounts
• Memory of places
• History of places
• Place and migration
• Place and freedom
• Migration and attachment, belonging or participation
• The challenge of finding one’s place in society from historical and geographical perspectives
• Attachment, belonging or participation as rights, and as affective experiences
• Adverse experiences of alienation, exclusion, marginality, or hostility
• Feelings and experiences associated with the “edges” of citizenship (full citizen, second-class citizen)
• Interaction between policy definitions and personal and collective experiences of attachment, belonging or participation

Proposals seeking to explore methodological issues will be welcome, such as:

• Reflecting on the method of cross-examination between personal accounts and collective narratives
• Cross-examining public policy and personal accounts
• Identifying and analysing experiences of attachment, belonging or participation in personal accounts, in collective accounts and in public policy:  possibilities, difficulties/pitfalls
• The contribution of personal accounts to historical analysis, including oral history accounts, and elite oral history

The geographical scope will include – but will not be limited to – the Americas, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and proposals taking a comparative and interdisciplinary approach will be particularly welcome. The proposals should preferably focus on the 20th and 21st centuries. This international, cross-disciplinary conference will be held in English and French. Please send a 300-word abstract in English or in French to Joana Etchart, Andrew Milne and Simona Tobia: joana.etchart@univ-pau.fr milne.andrew@orange.fr s.tobia@univ-pau.fr by 16th September 2024. The acceptance or rejection of proposals will be announced in December 2024 Organisers: Joana Etchart, Andrew Milne and Simona Tobia, University of Pau (UPPA – ALTER Research Group). Contact Information Joana Etchart joana.etchart@univ-pau.fr Andrew Milne milne.andrew@orange.fr Simona Tobia s.tobia@univ-pau.fr Contact Email s.tobia@univ-pau.fr Health Humanities and Narrative Medicine Approaches to Perinatal Loss (9/2/2024) Special Issue–Survive and Thrive deadline for submissions: September 2, 2024 A forthcoming special issue of Survive and Thrive will feature stories written by survivors of perinatal loss, their loved ones, their healthcare providers and other support workers, and scholars from interdisciplinary fields. Perinatal loss is commonly defined as loss of an infant through death via unintended or involuntary loss of pregnancy by miscarriage, early loss (less than 20 weeks), stillbirth (> 20 weeks gestation), or neonatal loss (newborn through 28 days of life).  According to Kimberly Fenstermacher and Judith E. Hupcey, “Prior to the 1970s, the death of a baby, whether by miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death, was not viewed by the medical community as a meaningful loss; thus there was little acknowledgment of the phenomenon of perinatal bereavement.” (Fenstermacher, Kimberly, and Judith E. Hupcey. “Perinatal bereavement: a principle‐based concept analysis.” Journal of advanced nursing 69.11 (2013): 2389-2400.) In the decades since, social scientific and psychological researchers have identified multiple ways to describe and quantify perinatal grief, including the Perinatal Grief Intensity Scale, the Perinatal Bereavement Grief Scale (PBGS), the Perinatal Bereavement Scale (PBS), and the Perinatal Grief Scale (PGS).  Less space has been made in the literature for the place of story in communicating what perinatal loss is and feels like, for surviving parents, their family and community. This issue of Survive and Thrive, then, invites contributions on the experience of perinatal loss from health care providers, caregivers, families, scholars, and activists, whose lives have been touched by perinatal loss.  We welcome writing in genres from poem to scholarly treatise to video. We seek a diversity of voices of every background. Medical humanities, as we have defined it in Survive and Thrive, insists on integration.  We hope to bring that spirit of integration into this special issue by inviting submissions that consider questions like the following:

• What has helped you survive the experience of perinatal loss?
• How have you helped others survive the experience of perinatal loss?
• How have the institutions and communities that support birthing people supported those who suffer perinatal loss?
• What more can be done to help address perinatal loss as a part of the human experience?

We value the integration of story and art into medical practice and the integration of medical insights into the creation of art and literature.  We include, too, the integration of all parts of the human health experience (medical education, clinical practice, caregiving relationships in the home, public health, public policy, and more). SUBMISSION DEADLINES September 2 (Labor Day) 2024:  Deadline for Abstracts.  Authors who submit abstracts will receive early feedback and encouragement, if their work fits within the scope.  Submit to: David Beard, DBeard@d.umn.edu – November 28 (Thanksgiving 2024):  Deadline for Completed Work.  You do not need to have submitted an abstract by September 2 to submit a full manuscript. Submit to: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/ Summer 2025:  Projected Publication SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS “Submissions” may include text, video, audio, or image files that express the aims and scope of the journal. Submissions cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in a journal or book (print or electronic). Please note that “publication” in a working-paper series does not constitute prior publication. If you have concerns about the submission terms for Survive & Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine, please contact the editors. <https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/policies.html> ABOUT SURVIVE AND THRIVE: A JOURNAL FOR MEDICAL HUMANITIES AND NARRATIVE AS MEDICINE Survive Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine aims to provide opportunities for sharing research, artistic work, poetry, pedagogical dialogue, and the practice of Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine. The journal serves its mission in education and the practice of Humanities as they relate to illness, injury, and trauma. This opens the journal to submissions across the diversity of human experience. One of the primary aims of the journal is to bring Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine to patients, survivors, and caregivers. While aware of and supporting professional medical education, the journal is most concerned with an audience broader than a medical or academic audience. We encourage physicians and others in the Medical Profession to practice Narrative as Medicine by submitting their work, especially when it encourages them to be artists – visual, performance, and literary. We encourage survivors, their caregivers, and those working in advocacy to share their experiences. This act of sharing can foster the healing of others through the power of poetry and story. The scope of the journal is eclectic. Submissions undergo double-blind peer review, often both by scholars and by those who have experienced or worked with the topic of the submission. This process ensures both literary and scholarly quality and a kind of truth to the human experience. Also see: <http://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/aimsandscope.html> Also see:  <https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/policies.html> Survive and Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/ David Beard, DBeard@d.umn.edu * Abortion Narratives and Reproductive Justice Post-Dobbs Deadline for Submissions, September 2, 2024 Survive and Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine  In the wake of the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, individual abortion narratives have proliferated, both in the mass media and in groups advocating for reproductive rights and reproductive justice. For example, in a June 24, 2024, New York Times article, Kate Zernike cites a dramatic rise in the number of voters who have heard stories of pregnant people needing to cross state lines for abortion care. Many of these stories focus on wanted pregnancies gone tragically awry; as a result, Zernike argues that “The public conversation about abortion has grown into one about the complexities of pregnancy and reproduction.” In the words of a fellow at the Brookings Institution, one legacy of the Dobbs decision has been that Americans are being “exposed to a lengthy seminar on obstetrics” (qtd in Zernicke). For this special issue of Survive and Thrive, we invite reflections on and studies of the changing status of abortion stories in the wake of Dobbs, as well as their potential to add to better understandings of reproduction, reproductive rights, and reproductive justice (including issues like menstrual equity, contraceptive equity, fertility equity—such as access to assisted reproductive technology–, and birth and postpartum equity). Medical humanities, as we have defined it in Survive and Thrive, insists on the integration of story and art into medical practice, the integration of medical insights into the creation of art and literature, and the integration of all parts of the human health experience (medical education, clinical practice, caregiving relationships in the home, public health, public policy, and more).  We hope to bring that spirit of integration into this special issue by inviting submissions that consider questions like the following:

• How have abortion narratives and stories of reproductive rights changed in the wake of the Dobbs decision? Whose stories have become central in medical, activist, or popular narratives and whose stories are being silenced?
• To what extent has the Dobbs decision impinged on the freedoms of health care professionals to advise patients of their options, to practice in safe spaces, and to share their own stories?
• How might the post-Dobbs landscape contribute to better public understanding of contraception, ART, pregnancy, labor and delivery, and postpartum care?
• How will efforts to queer reproductive justice fare post-Dobbs?
• What forms of activism are emerging in response to the Dobbs decision? Which are encouraging and which may be more troublesome?
• What effects might the decision have on access to fertility care and contraceptive access?
• To what extent is the Dobbs decision, like challenges to gender-affirming care, simply the logical culmination of a longer “reproductive politics” (Briggs) and of conservative activism?
• How have the Dobbs decision and attacks on transgender health clinics affected the well-being and safety of patients and practitioners?

Looking Forward (and perhaps beyond) Dobbs

• How might reproductive justice be institutionalized in academia and health care?
• How have new technologies for visualizing pregnancy and the fetus affected birth equity?
• How might literary and artistic works, whether contemporary or classic, give voice to a vision of reproductive justice?

We welcome contributions from patients, health care providers, caregivers, parents, scholars, and activists, writing in genres from poem to scholarly treatise to video. We seek a diversity of voices:  urban, suburban, and rural; liberal and conservative; cis-gender, trans-gendered, gender-queer and non-conforming. SUBMISSION DEADLINES -September 2 (Labor Day) 2024:  Deadline for Abstracts.  Authors who submit abstracts will receive early feedback and encouragement, if their work fits within the scope. Submit to: Suzanne Black, Suzanne.Black@oneonta.edu & David Beard, DBeard@d.umn.edu – November 28 (Thanksgiving 2024):  Deadline for Completed Work.  You do not need to have submitted an abstract by September 2 to submit a full manuscript. Submit to: <https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/cgi/submit.cgi?context=survive_thrive> Summer 2025:  Projected Publication SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS “Submissions” may include text, video, audio, or image files that express the aims and scope of the journal. Submissions cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in a journal or book (print or electronic). Please note that “publication” in a working-paper series does not constitute prior publication. If you have concerns about the submission terms for Survive & Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine, please contact the editors. <https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/policies.html> A FEW SUGGESTED READINGS, in alphabetical order: Briggs, Laura. (2018). How all politics became reproductive politics: From welfare reform to foreclosure to Trump. University of California Press. Frost, Erin, & Haas, Angela. (2017). Seeing and knowing the womb: A technofeminist reframing of fetal ultrasound toward a decolonization of our bodies. Computers and Composition, 43, 88–105. Johnson, Bethany L, Quinlan, Margaret M., & Pope, Nathan. (2020). “Sticky Baby Dust” and emoji social support on Instagram during in vitro fertilization. Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, 3(3), 320–349. Kemball, Anna. “Biocolonial pregnancies: Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017).” Medical Humanities 48.2 (2022): 159-168. Mamo, Laura. “Queering the fertility clinic.” Journal of Medical Humanities 34.2 (2013): 227-239. Molloy, Cathryn, Melonçon, Lisa, & Scott, J. Blake. (2020, June 17). Response to racial injustice. Rhetoricians of Health & Medicine. http://medicalrhetoric .com/rhms-racial-injustice-response Novotny, Maria, et al. “Amplifying rhetorics of reproductive justice within rhetorics of health and medicine.” Rhetoric of Health & Medicine 5.4 (2022): 374-402. Novotny, Maria, De Hertogh, Lori Beth, & Frost, Erin. (2020). Rhetorics of reproductive justice in civic and public contexts. Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric, 20(2). Novotny, Maria & De Hertogh, Lori Beth. (2020). Rhetorics of self-disclosure: A feminist framework for infertility activism. In Jamie White-Farnham, Bryna Siegel Finer, & Cathryn Molloy (Eds.), Women’s health advocacy: Rhetorical ingenuity for the 21st  century (pp.  59–72). Philadelphia, PA: Routledge Press. Owens, Kimberly H. (2015). Writing childbirth: Women’s rhetorical agency in labor and online. Southern Illinois University Press. Ramirez, K.S. Reproductive justice must be considered in the scientific community. Nature Microbiology 7, 352–353 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01077-0 Ross, Loretta, and Rickie Solinger. Reproductive justice: An introduction. Vol. 1. Univ of California Press, 2017. Seigel, Marika. (2013). The rhetoric of pregnancy. University of Chicago Press. SisterSong. (n.d.). Reproductive Justice. https://www.sistersong.net  Stobie, Caitlin E. “‘Creative Ferment’: abortion and reproductive agency in Bessie Head’s Personal Choices trilogy.” Medical Humanities (2021). T’Sjoen, G., Arcelus, J., Gooren, L., Klink, D. T., & Tangpricha, V. (2019). Endocrinology of transgender medicine. Endocrine Reviews, 40(1), 97–117. Turner, Jasmine. (2020, March 26). “What if you’re not there?”: Doulas advocate for parents during COVID-19 concerns. NBC12. https://www.nbc12.com /2020/03/26/what-if-youre-not-there-doulas-advocate-parents-during -covid-concerns/ White-Farnham, Jamie, Bryna Siegel Finer, and Cathryn Molloy, eds. Women’s health advocacy: Rhetorical ingenuity for the 21st century. Routledge, 2019. Yam, Sharon. Visualizing birth stories from the margin: Toward a reproductive justice model of rhetorical analysis. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 50(1), 19–34. Zernike, Kate. Abortion Debate Shifts as Election Nears: “Now It’s About Pregnancy.” The New York Times, 24 June 2024. <https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/us/politics/abortion-roe-wade-pregnancy.html>. ABOUT SURVIVE AND THRIVE: A JOURNAL FOR MEDICAL HUMANITIES AND NARRATIVE AS MEDICINE Survive & Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine aims to provide opportunities for sharing research, artistic work, pedagogical dialogue, and the practices of medical humanities and narrative as medicine. One of the primary aims of the journal is to bring medical humanities and narrative medicine to patients, survivors, and caregivers. Its emphasis, therefore, is on patients and survivors and their needs, and while aware of and supporting professional medical education, the journal is most concerned with an audience broader than an academic audience. We encourage physicians and others in the medical profession to practice Narrative as Medicine by submitting their work, especially when it encourages them to be artists – visual, performance, and literary. The scope of the journal is eclectic in that it considers all the disciplines of medicine and the humanities while focusing on their relationship and the needs of survivors and patients. Also see: <http://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/aimsandscope.html> Also see:  <https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/policies.html> Project co-edited by: Suzanne Black, Suzanne.Black@oneonta.edu David Beard, DBeard@d.umn.edu * Deadline for full submissions: 31 August 2024 Potential publication date: late 2024 or early 2025. For full submissions information, please go to https://www.comicsgrid.com/about/submissions/. Though the journal cannot provide informal pre-submission advice, authors with questions about this Special Collection’s scope can contact the collection’s editors directly: Nancy Pedri npedri@mun.ca and Maria Juko mariajuko@gmail.com. References Franssen, P. and Hoenselaars T. 1999. “Introduction: The Author as Character. Defining a Genre.” In Granssen, P and Hoenselaars, T. editors. The Author as Character Representing History Writers in Western Literature. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, pp. 11-38. Lackey, M. 2016. “Locating and Defining the Bio in Biofiction!, a/b: Auto/ Biography Studies 31:1, 3-10. Lackey, M. 2022.  Biofiction. An Introduction. Routledge. Latham, M. 2012. “Serv[Ing] Under Two Masters!, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 27:2, 354-373. Layne, B.  2022.  Biofiction and Writers’ Afterlives. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Lodge, D. 2007. The Year of Henry James: The Story of a Novel: With other Essays on the Genesis, Composition, and Reception of Literary Fiction. London: Penguin. * Slow Memory: The Transformative Promptings of Literature in Post-conflict Societies Special Issue of Memory Studies Review (2026) edited by Patrick Crowley and Gunnþórunn Guðmundsdóttir Deadline for Abstract Submissions September 1, 2024 ‘I feel something quiver in me, shift, try to rise, something that seems to have been unanchored at a great depth; I do not know what it is, but it comes up slowly; I feel the resistance and I hear the murmur of the distances traversed.’ M. Proust, The Way by Swann’s, trans. By Lydia Davis (2002) In À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, Proust’s narrator forensically describes the key moment of anamnesis that brings the past of his childhood fully into the light of memory. Much of that past lay within a darkness beyond voluntary memory but the taste of the madeleine cake soaked in tea triggers a slow vibration, an unmooring of images that slowly rise into consciousness. Images lost reappear. The house in Combray recovers its full form and the experience, for the narrator, results in a powerful, existential affect. This celebrated passage is an exemplary description of involuntary memory, of a reunion between a subject and their past and of writing’s slow probing of that essential trait of being: memory. It is this scene that prompts us to ask how literature serves to absorb, to work through, to transform the past in ways that are deeply meaningful. It can contest official narratives, it can counter reductive narratives, it can instantiate a fiction that captures the truth of memory. Literature resists time, re-fashions it, deflects it in a ‘recovery’ of memory. Literature, in so many ways, is resistance. Where Ann Rigney ‘highlighted the role of the creative arts, and particularly the role of aesthetic form in helping to remake memory within changing social frameworks’ (Rigney: 2021, 19), this special issue asks contributors to pursue literature’s specificity as an aesthetic form that works on the memory of conflict whether in the Balkans or South Sudan, Colombia or Gaza. We invite proposals that consider narrative form’s engagement with, and construction of, memory.

• How is the work of memory described in relation to the event
• How does literature slow and distill the memory of an event

We welcome proposals that attend to narratological craftings, to the patterns of detail, to reflections on literature’s role in societies that are in that fraught, fragile, uncertain moment of transitioning away from violence, negotiating constantly that slow dynamic of memory and forgetting. Please send abstracts of 400-500 words along with a short biographical note to the editors by 1 September 2024 to gunnth@hi.is and patrick.crowley@universityofgalway.ie. Submission of full articles of 6000-8000 words by 1 February 2025. * The Journal of Popular Culture Special Issue Call for Papers The Coming Freedom: Censoring Queer Lives, Bodies, and Books Deadline for Abstracts: September 1, 2024 As attacks on LGBTQIA+ people, medical care, and books proliferate in the United States and beyond, this special issue of The Journal of Popular Culture explores the tragically many and varied ways in which queer lives, bodies, and books have been censored by law, policy, society, and the family through the lens of popular culture. We seek to both understand these challenges and memorialize those who have confronted and overcome them. As Foucault (1990) puts it in the History of Sexuality,“If sex is repressed … condemned to prohibition, nonexistence, and silence, then the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of deliberate transgression. A person who holds forth in such language places themselves to a certain extent outside the reach of power; he upsets established law; he somehow anticipates the coming freedom” (6). This issue of The Journal of Popular Culture dedicated to the coming freedom will focus on LGBTQIA+ censorship in terms of its impact on writers, artists, directors, musicians, fans, and other creators who have fought, struggled, and otherwise reckoned with their identity through popular culture. The essays will go beyond traditional conceptions of censorship with the goal of drawing attention to those who have been overlooked, ignored, or otherwise left out of the scholarly conversation. Essays might also consider:

• Representation in literature, film, television, streaming, and other media
• Intersections of identity, class, race, disability, and other factors
• Relationships between culture and regulation, law, or policy
• The role of nature, environment, or space in the regulation of rhetoric, bodies, etc.
• The Hays Code, the Comstock Act, library book bans, and anti-ALA bills
• How resistance to censorship encourages audiences and culture to create change
• How audiences, cultures, and others react to or critique boundary crossing
• Rhetorical or stylistic responses (e.g., queer coding) to censorship
• Dog whistles, violence, policing, and other anti-queer rhetoric or activity

We seek manuscripts fitting this issue’s theme from a broad array of disciplinary orientations, including (but not limited to) film and television studies, new media studies, the humanities, political economy, communication, cultural studies, sociology, and marketing. We are especially interested in the work of diverse and early career scholars and graduate students. Submissions Information Please send abstracts (500 words) to kmilberg(at)kennesaw.edu and hsheare1(at)kenneasw.edu by September 1. Completed articles will be due January 15. Articles should be between 5,000 and 7,500 words in length and conform to The Journal of Popular Culture’s “Submission Guidelines” in terms of format and citation style. Articles will be vetted by the issue editors before completing the journal’s regular peer review process. Publication is expected in late 2025. Foucault, Michel. 1990. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books. Contact Information Kurt Milberger and Hannah Shearer Contact Email kmilberg@kennesaw.edu URL https://shorturl.at/ea1TQ * CALL FOR PAPERS- SPECIAL ISSUE OF ASIAN DIASPORIC VISUAL CULTURES AND THE AMERICAS Portrait of the Contemporary Artist: Process, Identity, and Social Construction in the Asian Diaspora Deadline for Drafts August 31, 2024 The genre of self-portraiture can be practiced and interpreted in a myriad of ways. From the more traditional format of a figural painting of the artist to installations presenting indexical marks of an artist’s experiences, contemporary diaspora artists use self-portraiture to process different aspects of their diasporic experience. Tibetan artist Gonkar Gyatso created several sketches of himself in his Daily Doodle series (2018-present). For decades, Gyatso’s work in exile grappled with buddha images and pop-culture references, but few self-portraits. The more recent presence of these intimate images seemingly marks a shift to interior spaces and selfreflection. The installations of contemporary Tibetan artist Sonam Dolma Brauen that address the passing of her parents–My Father’s Death and Sehnsucht–activate materials as a means to not only collapse time but to include stories of her community that seem to belie the confines of language. As a record of her family’s past and her own life, the installations present the rarelyacknowledged tactile, object-based experience of displaced people forced to choose what can be taken and what must be left behind. This special issue of Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, scheduled to be published in Spring 2025, asks the following questions: in what ways do Asian diaspora artists grapple with issues of process, identity, or social construction through self-portraiture? How does technology and social media factor into these images? What can we gain by examining and re-examining self-portraiture through the lens of the diaspora experience? We welcome papers which examine conventional notions of selfportraiture as well as those that expand the boundaries of what might be considered a selfportrait. We welcome submissions for consideration in the format of scholarly articles, artist pages or curated artist pages, or artist statements. For more information on author guidelines, see: https://brill.com/view/journals/adva/adva-overview.xml?language=en&contents=artsub Please submit a draft by August 30, 2024. We will inform you within 1-2 weeks of our tentative issue contributors. Full submissions are expected by September 20, 2024. Please submit to the guest editors. All submissions should be addressed to Sarah Magnatta (sarahmagnatta@gmail.com) and Yi Yi Mon (Rosaline) Kyo (yiyimon.kyo@gmail.com). Please also direct any questions to these email addresses. Contact Information Yi Yi Mon (Rosaline) Kyo ykyo@ucsc.edu Sarah Magnatta sarahmagnatta@gmail.com Contact Email ykyo@ucsc.edu URL https://brill.com/view/journals/adva/adva-overview.xml?language=en * Deadline for Submissions 31 August 2024 Call for Submissions The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship Call for papers: Special Collection—Graphic Biographical Fiction Special Collection Editors: Nancy Pedri (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada) and Maria Juko (Independent Researcher) Potential publication date: late 2024 or early 2025. Scholars have only recently turned a critical eye towards the fictionalization of real people despite biofiction’s popularity on the literary market since the 1980s. Unlike autobiographies or biographies, rather than a truthful account of the person’s life story, biofiction centres on a creative interpretation of a real person’s life in which they become a character. Following David Lodge, who emphasized that the biographical novel “takes a real person and their real history as the subject matter for imaginative exploration” (Lodge, 2007:8), Michael Lackey emphasizes that “the biographical novel is, first and foremost, fiction” (Lackey, 2016: 5). Further refining his definition of this literary form, Lackey explains how “the author of biofiction fictionalizes a historical person’s life in order to project into existence his or her own vision of life and the world” (Lackey, 2022: 13). Despite its growing popularity in life writing studies (Lackey, Latham, Layne), there has been a lack of research in graphic narratives that dramatize the lives of real people across words and images. In calling for submissions for this Special Collection, we take our cue from Paul Franssen and Ton Hoenselaars, who wished to “locate this genre in the field of literary production” (1999:18), to locate it in the field of comics studies. As such, this Special Collection seeks to fill an important gap in exploring the tensions and productive relationships between biofiction and the graphic medium. Graphic biographical fiction asks us to reflect on several questions about storytelling, reading, and consumption and marketing patterns. These include, but are not limited to: – What is the relationship between graphic biographical fiction from graphic biography, historical fiction, or portraiture? – How does graphic biographical fiction impact our understanding of biographical fiction? – How does graphic biographical fiction address identity or the fact/fiction divide? – What questions about authorship does graphic biographical fiction raise? – What implications for character does graphic biographical fiction’s fictionalized treatment of a real person have? – How do graphic biographical fictions navigate the dangers of imposture, falsification, or sensationalism? – How does the visual aspect of graphic biographical fiction contribute to the dramatization of a real person and a real life? – To what extent are readers encouraged to merge the real-life person with their work/ creative output? – Which real-life people are represented in graphic biographic fiction, and what makes them a suitable choice for authors? – Why do graphic biographical novels from European countries often focus on British or American subjects? – How is this genre promoted and why? – What readership does this genre attract and why? In accordance with the journal’s scope, we call for submissions that are professionally written and presented, incorporating high-quality images that authors discuss directly and in detail. We will consider submissions from affiliated senior or early career scholars, practitioners and independent researchers, as long as they fit the journal’s call for papers, scope and editorial guidelines. We do not consider submissions on the basis of abstracts only; we only receive and consider full versions of submissions via our journal management system We invite energetic writing that is theoretically and interpretively bold. While academic rigour, the inclusion and close discussion of images and citational correctness are important to us as a precondition, a key feature our editors and reviewers will consider is the argument, the discovery, the evidence-based eureka moments conveyed in economical, precise, and, ideally, subtle prose. We believe academic writing about comics should be as striking and immediate as the medium itself. The Comics Grid encourages open science methods and advocates the value of reproducibility. Authors using datasets or code in their submissions are encouraged to cite and share them in their submissions using appropriate open-access repositories such as CORE, figshare or Zenodo. In order to be considered for peer review all submissions require image files that should be directly referred to and discussed in the body of the submission and must closely follow our submission guidelines. * CFP Safundi Special Issue Proposals August 31, 2024 Safundi is currently accepting proposals for thematic special issues. Founded 25 years ago in 1999 as a journal of comparative studies of the United States and South Africa, Safundi is today a quarterly journal of history, literature, politics, and ideas with attention to southern Africa and its transnational connections to the wider world. The name Safundi draws from the isiXhosa and Nguni verb – funda, which translates as “to read” and “to learn,” with fundi referring to someone who is an expert and passionate about a subject.  Past contributors to Safundi include noted writers and intellectuals like Chris Abani, Pumla Dineo Gqola, Ato Quayson, Bhekizizwe Peterson, Nadia Davids, Ntongela Masilela, Terence Ranger, Emily Apter, Noam Chomsky, and Abdulrazak Gurnah, recipient of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. Themes for special issues should be in keeping with the mission of the journal. We are especially interested in special issues that address the following approaches and themes:

• Individual writers, intellectuals, artists, and/or activists, living or deceased, who have had distinguished careers and merit attention through a special issue
• The question of national and post-national literatures in Africa
• Present-day social justice movements, their historical origins, and their transnational connections between the Global North and the Global South. Such movements can include labor activism, First Peoples/Indigenous struggles, feminist movements, student activism, and LGBTQ+ histories and perspectives.
• African and/or Global South environmental humanities
• Settler colonialism and its legacies in Africa – South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Algeria – and their connections with other parts of the world, especially in the southern hemisphere, like Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina
• Indian Ocean histories and humanities
• Interdisciplinary Indigenous knowledge systems in Africa
• Southern African, African, and/or the Global South concepts and methodologies
• Literary genres – speculative fiction, crime fiction, autofiction, et cetera – and their re/invention in Africa and the Global South
• Visual histories and cinema cultures in southern Africa, Africa, and the African Diaspora
• Formations of race and racial capitalism in Africa, the African Diaspora, and the Global South
• Archival questions and subjugated knowledges in southern Africa, Africa, and the African Diaspora
• Pan-Africanism, Afro-Asianism, Third Worldism, and transnational histories of global liberation struggles
• Social and cultural histories of Africa-China and Africa-Asia connections
• New approaches to urban cultures/studies in southern Africa, Africa, and the Global South

Other themes and approaches are also possible and welcome. Special issues are anticipated to be at least 60,000 to 80,000 words in length – 6 to 10 research articles, plus an introduction by the guest editor/s. Other submissions like interviews, visual essays, and review essays are also welcome in consultation with Safundi’s editorial team. Proposals for special issues will be peer reviewed by the Safundi editorial team. Proposals should consist of a single document, no more than 3 pages in length, and include the following:

• Name/s, institutional affiliation/s, contact detail/s, and publication record/s (brief c.v.) of the issue editor/s.
• A two-paragraph description of the special issue, the importance of its topic, and how the topic relates to the mission of Safundi.
• A tentative table of contents including the titles of the submissions, names of contributors, institutional affiliations, contact details, and a 100-word abstract for each submission.
• A proposed deadline for submission of all completed materials.

Special issue editors are responsible for soliciting articles, corresponding with authors, editing submissions, and meeting deadlines. All contributions will undergo thorough peer review. Funding for publication is not available. Timing of publication is dependent on the submission of materials. The earliest publication date would be the second half of 2025, though 2026 and beyond is more likely. Please send proposals with the email subject heading “Safundi Special Issue Proposal” to: safundi.journal@gmail.com Submission deadline: August 31, 2024. * CFP: People’s Histories of Material Culture in the United States (8/29/2024; 2/12-15/2025) New York City College Art Association Conference in New York City, February 12-15, 2025 Session Chair: Joseph H. Larnerd, Drexel University (JHL73@drexel.edu) (note: this is an in-person session) “What can everyday objects that belonged to everyday people tell us about their lives?” This question, posed by historian Laura Isabel Serna in her 2020 essay, “Material Culture and the Affective Dimensions of Chicano/a History,” frames this session. This session welcomes papers committed to more inclusive accounts of design and national history that explore how the decorative arts, adornments, and other everyday objects have empowered or encumbered the people’s pursuits of self-knowledge, community, and equality. The session understands “the people” as “the ordinary people in a country who do not have special power or privileges” (Merriam-Webster). Potential paper topics include objects intentionally designed to support social movements or reimagined by users for the same; the role of objects in the “affective or emotional lives” of those “whose class status and marginal political position means that their archival record may resist conventional historical approaches” (Serna); and/or objects that did not belong to everyday people but, nonetheless, impacted their lived experiences. Regarding the latter, a paper might engage objects as maintained by domestic servants, for example. Papers that ground their meditation in close formal and contextual analyses of a single object are especially encouraged. The deadline for presentation proposals is August 29, 2024. Proposals must be submitted via the College Art Association website: https://caa.confex.com/caa/2025/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html Contact Email JHL73@drexel.edu URL https://caa.confex.com/caa/2025/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html * CFP: The Posthuman Personhood of the Dead in the Ancient Mediterranean College Art Association Annual Conference New York, February 12-15, 2025 Deadline for Submissions: August 29, 2024 On a krater interred in a grave in Southern Italy, mourners are depicted gathered around a funerary stele transformed into the composite body of a warrior. A shield rests against its base, a fillet encircles its middle, and, crowning the rectangular prism, empty eyes stare out from a peculiarly positioned bronze helmet — or is that a skull? Not content with merely standing in for or commemorating the absent deceased, this monument positions the dead between the human and the non-human, insisting upon the material reality of the corpse as it remains present in the ground, transformed by the processes of decay. This panel seeks to push beyond the traditional dichotomy that funerary art is limited to anticipating an inevitable afterlife or commemorating an absent deceased. Instead, we ask how ancient Mediterranean funerary art socio-materially transformed the dead into something “significantly other.” The corpse presents a particular challenge to capacious notions of personhood and to distinctions between bodies and objects. Recently, the materiality of the corpse has emerged as a prime animating principle in treatments of Greek and Roman funerary art; in this panel we seek to further explore the corpse’s apparently paradoxical dual status as both object of care and social agent, as dead yet vibrant matter. How can recognizing art’s ability to construct non-human personhoods across the geographic, temporal, and cultural range of the ancient Mediterranean open new modes of understanding both broader artistic trends and the contingent, intertwined relationships between the human and the more-than-human world? Contact Information Savannah Sather Marquardt, History of Art, Yale University Nathanial Barrett Jones, Art History and Archaeology, Washington University in St. Louis Contact Email posthumanpersonhood2025@gmail.com URL https://caa.confex.com/caa/2025/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html * *

Hot Wings & Closet Picks: Celebrity, Promotion, & The New Internet Press Tour (8/16/2024; 4/3-6/2025) SCMS 2025, Chicago USA

Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference As audience interest in late-night talk shows and glossy print magazines dwindles, a group of internet-based series now provides celebrities the platform to promote their newest project and allegedly “reveal” more of themselves. These series use different techniques to produce revelatory moments tailor-made for social media circulation. First We Feast/Complex’s Hot Ones and Amelia Dimoldenberg’s Chicken Shop Date maximize cringe, whether by the guest’s physical pain generated by spicy wings or their interpersonal torment produced by Dimoldenberg’s awkward questioning. Criterion’s Closet Picks and Letterboxd’s Four Favorites underline a celebrity’s taste as they select and defend their favorite films for the respective brands’ cinephilic audiences. Condé Nast’s multiple series (Vanity Fair’s Lie Detector Test, Cast Game Show, and Scene Selection and Vogue’s 73 Questions) adapt magazine feature formats for the short-form video era. Celebrity appearances on these internet series have not necessarily replaced participation in a Tonight Show bit or a Q&A with The New York Times Magazine. However, the popularity of the series that constitute the new internet press tour reveals an evolving picture of stardom, promotional culture, and audience management, wherein the perceived authenticity of digital creators and influencers is now required of conventional Hollywood celebrities. While many of these web series have been creating viral moments and racking up views for years, they remain an underexplored topic among scholars. This panel seeks to clarify the series’ position within the media industries (including Hollywood, publishing, and digital creation) and interrogate the series’ role in defining celebrity in the modern attention economy. Possible approaches/topics might include but are not limited to:

• • Comparative analyses of segments within the internet talk series ecosystem or a star’s navigation across multiple series

• • Surveys of the construction of star personas within the internet talk series format

• • Considerations of the internet talk series’ position as social media “content” to be circulated and meme-ified

• • Historical perspectives on parallels to internet talk series, from late-night and morning TV to localized press junkets and radio interviews

• • Investigations of certain internet series hosts as emergent celebrities with their own personas, audiences, and career trajectories

• • Media industries-based explorations of internet talk series as innovations of editorial publishing companies like Complex and Condé Nast

• • Examinations of audience and taste related to one or more internet talk series

Please email proposals, including a title, abstract (200-300 words), 3-5 sources, and a short bio to Cory Barker (barkerc65@gmail.com) by Friday, August 16. Potential panelists will be informed of decisions by Wednesday, August 21. * * Real-Time History: Engaging with Living Archives and Temporal Multiplicities March 19-21, 2025, German Historical Institute Washington, DC, USA Deadline for submissions is August 15, 2024. Institute Washington (GHI) in collaboration with the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH), the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM), Chair for Digital History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, NFDI4Memory, and Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe. The conference will focus on the theme of “living archives” and their significance in contemporary history. Submissions are encouraged to address the value of living archives for real-time history, reflect on access and stewardship issues, provide examples for analyzing living archives, and explore the history and technology behind them. Conference Theme The Seventh Conference on Digital Humanities and Digital History will revolve around the concept of living archives and its relevance for contemporary history. The digital transformation has challenged scholars and memory workers to define their engagement with historical temporalities, with the past, present and future, in new ways. Digital technologies can be used effectively to support the development, analysis, and preservation of collections, projects, and tools that feature diverse temporal perspectives, including multifaceted, dynamic, relational, and cyclical conceptions of time. Such approaches can challenge, or even disrupt, prevalent linear conceptions of the progression of historical time. While this opens many possibilities for historical projects, it also presents new challenges. For example, historians and memory workers who have used digital technologies to document history in (almost) real time must now address new, unfamiliar, and often uncomfortable ethical and legal questions associated with “documenting the now.” Similarly, while taking advantage of the ability of new methodologies to collect large sets of data in a short period of time, we are repeatedly confronted with the fragility of digital objects and systems, and the challenges and costs of digital preservation, with the futures of the past in a digital era ranging between abundance and scarcity as astutely predicted by Roy Rosenzweig over two decades ago. Our conference will provide a forum to discuss these and other questions related to making history in real time. A particular focus will be on the increasing number of initiatives designed to capture history by creating “living archives” supported by digital technology. Originally, the concept of “living archives” goes back to the oral history movement during the 1970s and 1980s, when historians set out to capture people’s life experiences and memories while facilitating the transmission of generational memories embodied by living individuals. With the evolution of digital technologies, conceptions have broadened in recent decades to include a variety of collections and archives capturing events as they occur and in their immediate aftermath. This includes pioneering rapid response digital collecting projects like the September 11 Digital Archive and the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, as well as the countless recent projects documenting people’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic such as A Journal of the Plague Year in the United States or Covidmemory in Europe. It also includes collections and archives utilizing social media to document the Black Lives Matter movement, the Arab Spring, the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, and archives and art installations created as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, to mention a few. Participatory documentation and archiving projects have also empowered migrants of all ages to document and preserve their migration experiences. Most recently, several projects and collections are documenting wartime experiences such as in Ukraine through social media. These approaches conceive of archives and collections as discursive, dynamic, and open-ended processes that actively contribute to present events and developments, which, in turn, shape the development of living archives and public history. Submission Guidelines For this three-day conference, we invite colleagues to submit proposals by August 15, 2024, for: (a) workshops for (hands-on) presentations of projects, tools, or skills (90 minutes), (b) or individual presentations (20 minutes) that: (1) Discuss the value of living archives for doing real-time history. By emphasizing the contingency and open-ended character of historical developments, “living archives” confront scholars and memory workers with fundamental questions regarding their roles and responsibilities in the present. How can living archives support ongoing dialogues about cycles of violence and oppression in the past, present, and future? What are the epistemological implications for the thinking, doing, and narrating of history when scholars are actively engaged in the creation, stewardship, and analysis of sources through living archives? Do living archives contribute to the democratization of historical storytelling by promoting multi-vocality and “shared authority” in digital public history? (2) Reflect on access to and stewardship of living archives. What are some of the ethical and technical implications of “documenting the now,” including documenting the experiences of historically marginalized people and communities? How can individuals and groups be empowered to manage digital collections and archives outside of established repositories and in the post-custodial tradition throughout the life cycle of projects and records? How can living archives be maintained in an environment that is dominated by large for-profit companies driving rapid technical developments and media obsolescence? How can living archives balance the epistemological virtues of open access and respect for informational self-determination and privacy? What might ethical and professional long-term stewardship and research data management of these projects look like? (3) Provide examples for analyzing living archives. What methodological strategies and frameworks exist to analyze collections of data that continue to evolve over time? What does it mean if archival responsibility shifts from preserving the past for the future to documenting a multiplicity of pasts, presents, and futures? Are there best practices for the documentation of the building, managing, and maintaining of living archives aiming at promoting transparency and traceability of data? What practices can avoid creating indexical regimes that (re)produce biases or representational inequalities? (4) Explore the history and technology of living archives. What insights can the long history of living archives offer for scholars and memory workers creating and maintaining such archives today? What are the origins of the idea of living archives? What is the specific “archival performativity” of living archives and memory banks, and do they activate historical records in a different way than other forms of archives? How have advancements in technology influenced the development, design, and public use of living archives? How did new “mnemotechnologies” shape the documentary impulses of people and how did this affect historical imagination? Has the digital era paved the way for a new “snapshot culture” making “everyone their own historian”? The conference will offer a dynamic, inclusive international forum to discuss these and other questions. Building on the established format of past GHI conferences on Digital History and Digital Humanities, we invite submissions of traditional analytical papers, reports reflecting on past and present projects, and workshops. We specifically encourage archivists to apply. While reflections about “living archives” will be an important component of the conference, we also invite presentations drawing on other experiences and analyses of time – and temporal multiplicities – in the digital environment. Registration and Contact Information Although we favor in-person attendance of participants and presenters, facilities for hybrid participation will be provided with the aim of making the event as inclusive as possible. Please submit a short CV and paper abstract of no more than 500 words to our conference platform by August 15, 2024. Accommodations will be arranged and paid for by the conference organizers. Participants will make their own travel arrangements; funding subsidies for travel is available upon request (for one presenter per paper or workshop) for selected scholars, especially those who might not otherwise be able to attend the workshop, including junior scholars and scholars from universities with limited resources. For further information regarding the event’s format and conceptualization, please contact Jana Keck, keck@ghi-dc.org. For questions about logistics (travel and accommodation), please contact our event coordinator Nicola Hofstetter, hofstetter-phelps@ghi-dc.org. Group Bibliography

• • https://www.zotero.org/groups/5420323/living-archives-dh-conference-2025/library

Conference Committee

• • Daniel Burckhardt, GHI Washington

• • Andreas Fickers, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH)

• • Peter Haslinger, Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe

• • Katharina Hering, GHI Washington

• • Torsten Hiltmann, Chair for Digital History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

• • Jana Keck, GHI Washington

• • Simone Lässig, GHI Washington

• • Lincoln Mullen, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM)

• • Atiba Pertilla, GHI Washington

Contact Information For further information regarding the event’s format and conceptualization, please contact Jana Keck, keck@ghi-dc.org. For questions about logistics (travel and accommodation), please contact our event coordinator Nicola Hofstetter, hofstetter-phelps@ghi-dc.org. URL https://www.ghi-dc.org/events/event/date/real-time-history-engaging-with-living… * CFP 2025 International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative (8/15/2024; 2/28-3/2/2025) 2025 International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative (ISAN) The 2025 ISAN (February 28-March 2, 2025) will provide scholars and practitioners of all experience levels an opportunity to present their autoethnographic and personal narrative projects and to participate in dialogue and sociability with scholars across a variety of disciplines. The format will be similar to the past ISANs (see “Past Symposia and Events” page). The symposium will occur via Zoom. February 28 will feature sessions in Polish, Spanish, and Japanese; March 1-2 will feature sessions in English. Eastern Standard Time (EST) will be used for all symposium activities. We invite proposals for INDIVIDUAL/CO-AUTHORED PROJECTS to be considered for presentation. Creative and innovative approaches to autoethnography and personal narrative are encouraged. Submissions should: a) use autoethnography and/or narrative to engage social, political, cultural, and personal issues; b) address theoretical or methodological aspects of autoethnography and narrative; and/or c) interrogate or advance autoethnographic and narrative practices. Proposals should take the form of an extended abstract (250-500 words). If a proposal is accepted for presentation, submitters must create a 5-8 minute audio/video recording of their project and submit a link of the recording by January 10, 2025. The link will be included in the 2025 ISAN program. We also invite proposals for LIVE DISCUSSION PANELS about a particular topic/theme related to autoethnography and narrative inquiry. If you would like to propose a discussion panel, submit an extended abstract (500+ words) with the following information: a) title and description of the panel and b) a brief biography of at least 4 panelists who have agreed to participate. At the live Symposium, panelists should prepare brief (2-3 minute) introductory remarks about the panel topic/theme and then moderate a conversation among panelists and attendees about the topic/theme. Even though the symposium is online, we still have restrictions on time and (Zoom) space. As such, for the 2025 ISAN, we are limiting participants to ONE SUBMISSION (includes co-authored submissions and/or serving on a discussion panel). The deadline to submit a proposal is AUGUST 15, 2024. Click here to submit a proposal inENGLISH. Haga clic aquí para enviar una propuesta en ESPAÑOL. Kliknij tutaj, aby złożyć wniosek w języku POLSKIM 日本語で提案を提出するには、ここをクリックしてください * * * * * * * * Additional details * * * * * * * * • All proposals will be peer reviewed. • Registration will open November 1, 2024. To be included in the final program, all participants must register for the Symposium. Early registration (November 1, 2024-January 15, 2025) is $60 (USD) for students, part-time faculty, guests, and independent scholars and $80 (USD) for full-time faculty and professionals. After January 15, registration is $80 (USD) for students, part-time faculty, guests, and independent scholars and $100 (USD) for full-time faculty and professionals. All paid registrants will receive a one-year subscription to the Journal of Autoethnography. • Proposal acceptances will be sent by November 1, 2024. • After a proposal is accepted, submitters will have until January 10, 2025 to create a 5-8 minute audio/video recording of their presentation. Submitters should upload the video to YouTube (preferred) or Vimeo, OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive and then submit a link of the recording for symposium attendees to view. More information about creating and submitting the video will be included with proposal acceptances (November 2024). • The actual symposium (February 28-March 2, 2025) will consist of sessions devoted to the pre-recorded presentations. Each session will have a moderator who will keep time, start and end the session, and monitor that each panelist has an opportunity to talk briefly about their presentation. Participants will NOT present during the live symposium session; they will have already presented via the prerecorded presentation. Instead, the live sessions will be interactive, providing a space for panelists to meet and talk to other panelists, for audience members to ask questions and make comments, and for the moderator to offer brief comments, if desired. To encourage participation and stimulate discussion, we suggest that each panelist provide a brief (2-3 minute) summary of their presentation at the start of the (live) session at the symposium. • By February 1, 2025, the first draft of the symposium program will be available to all registrants. Registrants will have at least one month to view the prerecorded presentations. If a registrant is interested in a particular presentation, they should watch the video before the (live) symposium begins. We look forward to working with everyone virtually! Please direct all inquiries to Tony Adams at tony.e.adams@gmail.com

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Call for Nominations 2025 IAANI Awards We invite nominations for the following 2025 awards:

• • Outstanding Article

• • Outstanding Book Chapter

• • Early Career Award

• • Bochner and Ellis Resonance Award

• • Goodall and Trujillo “It’s a Way of Life” Award in Narrative Ethnography

For more information about these awards, including how to submit a nomination, visit www.iaani.org/awards. Award submissions are due August 15, 2024. We will honor award recipients at the 2025 ISAN. * Call For Interviews World Biofictionalists in Translation: Literature as Existential Map Bloomsbury’s Biofiction Studies series Michael Lackey Deadline for Submissions: August 15, 2024 There have been two volumes of interviews with prominent biofictionalists, and while they have proven to be immensely valuable to scholars, they are limited in that they focus primarily on writers from English-speaking countries. In short, there is a need for a volume of interviews with famous biofictionalists who write in a language other than English. To address this need, we are soliciting interviews with famous biofictionalists from 20 to 25 countries. Those interviews should be conducted in the author’s native language but then translated into English. The interviews should be between 5000 and 7500 words. They are due by August 15, 2025. All submissions should be sent to Michael Lackey (lacke010@morris.umn.edu). Criteria for Acceptance and Instructions 1) Biofiction Focus: Biofiction is literature that names its protagonist after a real person. Only interviews that are explicitly about biofiction will be considered. 2) Error Free: When interviewers and authors engage in a conversation, errors of all kinds inevitably occur. Interviews should be recorded and then transcribed. But after the work has been transcribed, the interviewer and the author should edit the work. Eliminating needless comments and errors is crucial. 3) Smooth Flowing: In addition to eliminating all kinds of errors, the work should be organized in such a way that it flows smoothly and has a maximum impact on readers. Here it is important to keep your audience in mind. All questions and answers should be comprehensible to everyday readers, so make sure that readers are given sufficient information to understand and appreciate the conversation. 4) Substantive Contribution: The interview needs to contain something that makes it a worthwhile contribution to biofiction studies. Therefore, the interviewer must have a commanding grasp of biofiction scholarship and be able to clarify how the interview contributes to the existing scholarship. 5) High-Profile Authors: We are specifically looking for prominent writers from countries where English is not the primary language. If the biofictionalist is unknown, the odds of acceptance will decline considerably. My Role as Editor I will be available to work with scholars throughout the whole process. If you would like help becoming conversant in biofiction scholarship or generating interview questions, please feel free to contact me. A team of biofiction scholars will help me determine which interviews to include. After the interviews are selected, I will work with the interviewers on editing them, which will consist mainly of correcting grammar, eliminating errors, cutting fluff, organizing the conversation, sharpening the focus, and polishing the English. I will also write the introduction to the volume. My Method To date, I have interviewed more than 30 biofictionalists. For your benefit, here is a description of my method. After reading all the author’s biofictions a couple times and doing research about the actual historical figures, I start composing a list of approximately ten questions. One week before the interview, I send the questions to the author. I give the author the freedom to reject or revise any question. I then meet the author in order to conduct a one-hour interview, which I record. Immediately after the interview, I send the recording to my research assistant, who transcribes it. It is best to have a full transcription within a couple weeks, so that the interview is still fresh in the minds of the interviewer and the author as the two edit the work. After receiving the transcription, I then edit the document by eliminating garbled sentences and incoherent thoughts, correcting errors of fact, polishing the language, and reorganizing the interview into a coherent narrative. Then I send it to the author, who is given carte blanche freedom to edit as he/she/they will. Sometimes there is only one exchange, and then the interview is ready to go. Other times there are multiple exchanges, which can last for a week or more. The most important thing is that the author has the freedom to express his/her/their ideas exactly as he/she/they wants. This is my method, and it has worked. But you might have a different or better method, so you should do what works best for you. * CFP–Non-Cloistered Religious Women: Self Definition and self-representation (8/10/2024; 3/20-22/2025) Renaissance Society of America Conference Beguines are trendy: many websites and novels are dedicated to them. But who were they? Their rediscovery created an upheaval in the long-accepted binary scheme of the female condition in the past: the convent or the house, aut virum aut murum. The beguines were, in fact, only the tip of the iceberg of non-cloistered female religious life. The works of Gabriella Zarri about the “terzo stato” in the 1990s demonstrated the importance of this third way of religious celibacy outside religious enclosure. The non-cloistered sisters represented a perpetually changing reality throughout Western Christendom, and the multiplication of female congregations in the nineteenth century was based in large part on this phenomenon, long ignored by historiography. In fact, these sisters were probably much more numerous than cloistered nuns, but they have been the subject of very few studies. The research project Sorores, supported by the École française de Rome and the Casa de Velazquez of Madrid, is planning a series of panels for the upcoming RSA conference in Boston (20-22 March 2025) about women who publicly lived non-cloistered religious lives in Europe and the colonies between 1400 and 1750. This year, we are focusing on the self-definition and self-representation of non-cloistered religious women. While the ecclesiastical and normative texts were claiming that they were a marginal group of women and the travelers of the Grand Tour passing through Naples were, instead, denouncing the quantity of bizzocche and other non-cloistered religious women wandering the street of the city, it could be complicated to see the daily life of these women in the midst of these rhetorical constructions. Which sources could be exploited to hear the voices of non-cloistered religious women? How they define their peculiar lifestyle, and how did they represent themselves? We are looking to case study that will explore these questions through the following topics:

• Autobiography, ego-documents and writing of the self
• Self-definition, self-representation and strategies of self-defense
• Non-cloistered religious women and the authorities, secular and ecclesiastic
• Local context: connections and exchanges with the social and urban fabric
• The social role and presence of non-cloistered religious women in cities
• The influence of natural environment on non-cloistered religious women
• Roman Church and its norms
• Community (Societies, Third Order, Dimesse…) vs individual (bizzoche, monache di casa…) experiences
• Permanency and mutation throughout long time periods
• Relations with ecclesiastical and secular authorities
• Sources and methodology

We specifically invite papers that will present either a new case study of non-cloistered religious women or revisit an already-known group in the light of their immediate context. Papers should be 15-20 minutes. Please email your abstract by August 10, 2024, to Isabel Harvey (harvey.isabel@uqam.ca), with your full name, current affiliation, and email address; a paper title (15-word maximum), and an abstract (150-word maximum). *  CFP: Materiality of Migration in the Indian & Global Asia: Artifacts, Self-Fashioning, Belonging (8/10; 9/18-19; 12/16/2024) Qatar and California Deadline for submissions: August 10, 2024 This conference aims to uncover the unwritten histories of migration through the material culture that people most valued and brought with them as they traversed the space of the Indian Ocean world and beyond. Scholars have written extensively about the histories of trade, migration, and the circulation of objects in Asia and the Indian Ocean rim since ancient times. We build on this to foreground the critical importance of material belongings for migrants as they traveled beyond their homelands. As they detached themselves from their homelands, their attachments to portable objects helped their material and emotional survival on the move, and their anchorage in new places. We invite papers about the flow of peoples in relation to their belongings across the Indian Ocean and Asiatic geographies addressing these inquiries:

• How do the objects that migrants carry with them on their journeys connect them to multiple elsewheres, to the places and peoples they’ve left behind. And how do the objects help ease the feelings of unease, unfamiliarity, and otherness, thus creating new meanings and ways of being in new places?
• How did migrants use clothing, crafts, and home decorations as critical forms of self-fashioning, identity, and heritage that acquired new meanings as they traversed diverse communities and spaces?
• What stories of migration are made possible by tracing the histories of unwritten things that carry great meaning, value, and security for migrants? What tales do these objects tell about migrants’ dynamic relationships to multiple elsewheres?
• How do artifacts (contemporary art, trade objects, gifts, and mnemonic objects) that people use reveal about the unwritten histories of migration, the intermediary networks, places of transit, detention and waiting, and deferred destinations?
• How do objects of the diaspora (e.g., decorative arts, musical instruments, ritual objects, family memorabilia/heirlooms, moveable treasures) connect migrants to their homelands, as well as mediate their complex interactions with cultures beyond their homelands (cultural transmission, adaptation, and hybridity)?
• What role does gender play in the materiality and journeys of the artifacts carried by migrants and diasporic communities? How do women in diasporic/migrant communities specifically contribute to the making and preservation of practices related to objects which carry memorial and familial values?
• What role do objects play in the globalization of kinship ties and affinities, and in the formation of new diasporic communities?
• How are contemporary flows of migration and the inflow of global capital leading to novel forms of material expression in architecture and built landscapes?
• What are the artifacts of diasporic political associations, particularly expressions of dissent and aspiration given voice in diverse forms, such as labor songbooks, printing presses, and pamphlets that could connect dispersed peoples, and vast spaces to homelands?

The geographical scope of the conference is expansive, focusing on mobility and displacement within and across the western Indian Ocean, Arabian Gulf, South and Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Africa, as well as their secondary global diasporas. We invite papers focusing on historical and contemporary research projects. This is a two-part in-person conference to be held in Doha, Qatar, and Davis, California, in the fall 2024, organized by the GA:MA Lab (Global Asia: Mobilities and Arts) based at the Institute for Creative Research (VCUarts Qatar). The Qatar conference will be held on September 18 and 19, 2024, and the UC Davis conference will take place on December 16, 2024. Participants need to specify whether they prefer to present at the Doha, Qatar or the UC Davis conference. The Conference Call for Papers requires a brief abstract (maximum of 500 words) that should include a brief description of the topic and research questions, including the historical period and geographical scope; and a short biography of the author (100-150 words). Select papers will be published in the Monsoon: Journal of the Indian Ocean Rim, a journal published by the Africa Institute and Duke University Press. Please send all the requested materials and details (including your participation venue) to globalasiamobilitiesarts@gmail.com. Some funding for travel may be available for the selected presenters * Deadline for Abstracts: August 01, 2024 Birth and Death: Writing the Edges of Life CALL FOR PAPERS- SPECIAL ISSUE OF LIFE WRITING Birth and death may be the only certainties in life. Yet in life writing, the task of representing birth and death is an uncertain one. They are fundamental events but are also, in many ways, quite untellable. This is no less true of the mid-life event of giving birth. In their own way, each of these stations in the life-course happens outside of language. The world of the newborn is pre-verbal, with all the conceptual unknowns this implies. For those giving birth, language and attendant frameworks of logical thought are often felt to fall away when labour peaks, so that birth itself may proceed without or beyond words. First-person ‘birth stories’ may have at their core the curious absence of the protagonist, depending upon third person accounts, fragmentary impressions, metaphor and imagery to fill gaps in the evidence. Of course, individuals cannot tell the tale of their own birth or death (although the author’s mortality—or hopes of immortality—may shadow an autobiography). On their death bed, a subject may not speak at all. If they do, the weight of their last words may present a challenge all its own. And because these are often intimate events with few witnesses, there may be few accounts beyond the obligatory recording of time and place. But even if accounts are plentiful, for the biographer, the strange presence-but-absence of the protagonist in birth, death and giving birth sit uneasily with other events that tell the story of a life. Might these moments of extremis offer premonition or confirmation of a subject’s character, in the way of a hagiography? As Berman asked, did they die ‘in character’, their last words a summation of their life’s meaning? (To borrow from Winnicott, were they alive when they died?) Or is the detail of these events quite irrelevant to the narrative under construction in the writing of a biography; necessary but incidental prefaces or interruptions from the thrust of a life and a life’s work? If life writing is a field preoccupied by limits, where are the limits of a subject’s life? Finally, the beginnings and ends of life are profoundly unknowable, and bring with them the weight of spiritual, religious or other symbolic beliefs about their meaning. In the moment of death, the subject becomes ontologically new, turning from somebody who can speak into somebody who can only be spoken about. How can the craft of life writing offer forms adequate to rendering these moments on the cusp of change, which are both incidental and momentous? Thus birth, death and giving birth present unique practical, formal and symbolic challenges for the auto/biographer. As individual phenomena, scholarship across fields as diverse as theology, reproductive ethics and disability studies attests to how intimately our beliefs around these events mirror and reveal the concerns of the social worlds of which they are part. But when considered together—as three instances of life slipping away from language when at its most poignant—they can reveal new insight into how life writing can address evidence gaps big or small, epistemic uncertainty, and ontological change. At this time, as tragic international events make death ever-present, as choices in pregnancy, birth and dying share ever-more contested ground, as reproduction studies takes a critical turn, and as illness and disability literature foreground the body in biography, we are looking for papers on how life writing attends to the challenges presented by writing the edges of life. Themes and issues include, but are not limited to:

• The absence or un/reliability of language around birth, birthing and death
• The ir/relevance birth, birthing and death to the life story
• Writing at the edges of life in healthcare, hospice and bereavement care
• Parallels between birth, birthing and death
• The problem or opportunity of evidence gaps at the edges of life
• The concept of ‘dying in character’ or being born in character
• Language and the body during birth, birthing and death
• Voicing, othering or silencing the body at the edges of life
• Ethical dimensions of telling the untellable
• Speaking through death: last words, resistance and activism
• Figuring birth or death as the beginning or end of the text
• Birth, birthing and death as narrative devices
• Life before birth, life after death

Abstracts should be submitted by 01 August 2024 via the following form: https://forms.office.com/e/cc5KriFd7k All abstracts will receive a response by 01 September 2024. Full manuscripts are expected by 02 February 2025. This issue is guest edited by Dr Tamarin Norwood (t.g.norwood@lboro.ac.uk). The issue welcomes both research articles (analysing works of auto/biography)  and autoethnography (making links between experience and theoretical analysis), but Life Writing does not publish purely creative essays, ficto-criticism, or memoir. More about Life Writing’s policy can be found here: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=rlwr20 To view or share this CFP online: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/birth-and-death-writing-the-edges-of-life/   * Religious Encounters: Tradition, Text, and Travel (Edited Volume, proposed to be published by Bloomsbury) deadline for submissions: July 31, 2024 As Michael Pasquier rightly suggests, the concept of ‘religion’ is relatively modern, emerging predominantly through political and scientific innovations. However, this does not imply that notions of the ‘sacred’ or ‘spiritual’ were absent in earlier times. From the dawn of human existence, individuals have sought to create meaning around themselves and their place in the world. This quest to explain the origin of life and the universe has led to the creation of sacred histories, narratives, oral mythological traditions, texts, symbols, and sites. Travel—whether physical, astral, or spiritual—has often been a central theme in human religious and spiritual encounters. Astral and spiritual travel have found expression in various forms and genres of literature. Meanwhile, physical journeys undertaken by significant figures, such as the Exodus in Judaism, the Hijra in Islam, the Udasian journeys in Sikhism, and the travels of Buddha, have established sacred and religious sites. The journeys to these sites have given rise to a vast literature of pilgrimage. While pilgrimage has been extensively analysed as travel writing, the value of interactions and intersections that occur due to the  other forms of travel, such as sightseeing, cultural tourism, secular pilgrimage and grey tourism, to religious sites remains understudied. This edited volume, titled “Religious Encounters: Text, Travel, and Tradition,” seeks to provide a comprehensive and multidisciplinary examination of how religious encounters shape, and are shaped by, textual narratives, travel experiences, and traditions. It focuses on the dynamic interaction between sacred texts, transformative travel experiences, and the preservation of cultural traditions. The volume aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the complex relationships that unfold in the realm of religious diversity. It intends to explore religious journeys as sites of encounters where identities are constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed. The objective is to examine not only pilgrimages but also various other settings where religious interactions occur, such as places of worship, community gatherings, personal reflections, and ethnographic studies. Call for Papers: We invite scholars to contribute to this volume, which will be proposed to Bloomsbury Publishing, by submitting papers that explore the following themes:

1. Sacred Texts and Travel:

• How do sacred texts influence religious journeys?
• The role of pilgrimage in the interpretation and dissemination of sacred texts.
• Transformative Travel Experiences:

• Personal narratives of religious journeys.
• The impact of travel on individual and collective religious identities.
• Preservation and Transformation of Traditions:

• The role of travel in preserving and transforming religious traditions.
• Case studies of religious sites as cultural heritage.
• Religious Encounters Beyond Pilgrimage:

• Interactions in places of worship and community gatherings.
• Personal reflections and ethnographic studies on religious experiences.
• Diverse Motivations for Religious Travel:

• Revisiting historical and cultural sites.
• Religious journalism and its impact on public perception of religious sites.
• Verification of cultural beliefs and identities through travel.

If you are interested in contributing, please submit an abstract of 300 words and a 200-word biographical note addressed to Kiranpreet Kaur Baath (k.kaur198@wlv.ac.uk). Call for abstracts (deadline): 31 July 2024 Notification of acceptance: 30 August 2024 The final submission will be in the form of a chapter of 6,000 to 8,000 words, including references. * “Re-thinking Oral History” – 23rd International Oral History Association Conference, Kraków, Poland, September 16-19, 2025 Deadling for Submissions: July 31, 2024 We are happy to remind that the call for the 23rd International Oral History Association Conference “Re-Thinking Oral History” has already been opened! The event will be held in Kraków, Poland, on 16-19 September 2025. Oral history practitioners: scholars and activists are kindly invited to submit their abstracts via on-line form on the conference website: https://ioha2025.conference.pl There you can also learn more about all invited guests: masterclasses lecturers including Michael Frisch, Alessandro Portelli and Anna Wylegała, keynote speakers including Mary Marshall Clark and Rib Davis and ten distinguished plenary discussants! (https://ioha2025.conference.pl/en/invited-guests) The organizers call on oral historians worldwide to consciously rethink the idea and practice of their discipline. It became particularly important in the face of old and new challenges with long-lasting and unpredictable consequences: the crisis of liberal democracy, growing tensions in international politics, climate change with its devastating outcomes on human life, increasing inequalities, wars, and mass migrations. Participants are encouraged to address one or more of the following questions in their proposals: – Political involvement or independence: is ethical neutrality achievable and morally correct in a polarized world? – Methodological standards: how much does the technological development of AI challenge them? – Healing the wounds: how far can the therapeutic role of oral history go? – Oral history responses to human crises: what methodological and ethical problems of emergency documenting and archiving may we use? – “Lending our ears” (Portelli): how can we provide silenced and marginalized voices access to the public discourse? – Oral history and environmental history: what are the areas of cooperation? – Empowering community archives: how to teach them to create their own oral histories? – How do we balance the dominance of Western academia with the voices of the non-Western world? – agency and resources. – Globality versus locality of oral history: how to translate local practices into internationally recognized scholarship? – Post-coloniality: how does oral history help societies reckon with colonial pasts and assist in building post-colonial futures? – Disseminating oral history: what new methods can we use to present interviews to our audiences? – Multilingualism as a challenge to global oral history: how to record stories in mother tongues? Proposals for individual papers, session panels (5 papers each), or audiovisual presentations (film/play screenings followed by round table discussions) are to be submitted by July 31, 2024, via the online form. Members of national oral history associations are encouraged to check the appropriate box and provide the name of the relevant organization. Individual paper proposals (up to 300 words) must contain the title of the paper, an abstract, and a short bio-note of its author(s). Panel proposals (up to 600 words) must include the title and a description of the session, the titles of all papers, and short bio-notes for all participants. Panel proposals must be international in membership (representing at least two countries). Please indicate the language of your paper/panel (English or Spanish). Audio-visual presentation proposals, in addition to including a description of the film/play (up to 300 words), must provide the names and bios of all discussants. If the film/play is not in English, please make sure that it is subtitled. Plenary events will be translated into Spanish. Decisions on the acceptance or rejection of proposals will be announced by the end of September 2024. Registration will be open between October 2024 and January 2025. The conference’s program will be ready by February 2025. The organizers will not cover travel and accommodation costs; however, IOHA may provide a limited number of travel grants (more information on how to apply can be found on the IOHA website: https://www.ioha.org). In case of any questions, do not hesitate to contact organizers via email: ioha.krakow@gmail.com Organizer: Polish Oral History Association Co-organizers: Centre of Community Archives in Warsaw, European Network Remembrance and Solidarity in Warsaw (ENRS), Faculty of History, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, International Oral History Association (IOHA), The Remembrance and Future Centre in Wrocław Contact Email ioha.krakow@gmail.com URL https://ioha2025.conference.pl * Call for contributions: Proposal for a symposium at the 11th ESHS Conference, Barcelona 4-7 September 2024. Science, Technology, Humanity and the Earth. Symposium: The “Other” Genius: A Historical Approach to Genius, Giftedness, and Gender The figure of “the genius” has been traditionally defined in terms of the masculine Romantic ideal – a heroic individual who battles against all odds to achieve significant artistic, political, and scientific accomplishments. Historically, however, what constituted “genius” and who was labelled as such was (and remains) a question with multiple answers that did not always align with the traditional Romantic ideal. Be it a question of gender, age, race, or even madness and disability, different categories have been mobilized over time to understand exceptional talent and define genius and similar concepts (e.g. giftedness) in the history of science and medicine. In this panel, we wish to explore alternative representations of genius throughout modernity and reflect on the multiple social, cultural, scientific, and political contexts that inform this phenomenon beyond its present ideal. We welcome presentations from the fields of the history of psychology, medicine, psychiatry, anthropology, and pedagogy dealing with topics such as (but not limited to): – Genius and madness – Genius and gender in medicine and psychology – Genius and politics – Hermaphroditism, androgyny, and genius – Child genius: child prodigies and gifted children – Genius, talent, and disability – Savant syndrome – Literary, visual and scientific representations of genius – Genius and emotions Contact Information Dr. Victoria Molinari Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Researcher History of Science Group Spanish National Research Council – Institut Milà i Fontanals Carrer Egipcíaques 15 08001-Barcelona Spain Contact Email victoria.molinari16@gmail.com * CFP–“Travelers of the Early Modern Era (16th-18th centuries) on European Routes. (7/31/2024; 10/17-18/2024) Wroclaw Poland              We are pleased to announce that on October 17-18, 2024, the Historical Institute of the University of Wrocław will hold the Conference “Travelers of the Early Modern Era (16th-18th centuries) on European Routes”.  The travels of the social elites were an important part of the cultural practice from the mid-16th century to the end of the 18th century. The development of this activity was encouraged by several reasons. Above all, there were favorable circumstances that allowed for greater mobility, such as the improvement of roads or thedevelopment of the postal service, and a constant thirst for knowledge about the world. The subject of early modern travel has drawn the attention of scholars for a long time. They pointed out the various social and cultural implications of this phenomenon. Nevertheless, there are still great opportunities related to this aspect of historical reflection. Hence, during the Conference, we would like to focus on the analysis of individual experiences, traces of which are preserved in reports about journey, which we recommend to consider as a kind of egodocument. As a historical source, the egodocuments provide insight into the experiences of individuals. Therefore, this research enables a deeper understanding of the daily life, mentality and personal experiences of people of the past. Owing to the analysis of the egodocuments, researchers can gain an insight into the subjective aspects of history.The study of egodocuments were initiated by historians working on microhistory and social history,and one of the pioneers in this field was Dutch historian Jacob Presser. Nowadays, the study of egodocuments is an indispensable part of many branches of the humanities, including history, sociology, anthropology and literary studies. Topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

• documents produced by travelers as a kind of egodocuments,
• the new methodological approach to travel diariesand travel letters as an egodocumentary source,
• personal travel experiences,
• travelers’ subjective opinions about the space they saw, the cultures and people they met,
• daily life on the road,
• motivations for travel.

Submission Please send an abstract of up to 1000 characters in Polish or English to aleksandra.ziober@uwr.edu.pl by 31 July 2024. The organizers reserve the right to reject proposals. The conference fee is 100 EUR. The conference organizers will provide participants with accommodation (2 nights), refreshments (lunch, coffee breaks) and an opportunity of publication (like Brill etc.).Preferred language for papers is English. Detailed organizational information about the accommodation and the bank account number to which the fee should be paid will be available at a later date. Organizing committee: Dr hab. Filip Wolański prof. UWr Dr Aleksandra Ziober (Secretary of the conference) Mgr Emilia Hruszowiec Contact Information Dr Aleksandra Ziober (Secretary of the conference): aleksandra.ziober@uwr.edu.pl Contact Email aleksandra.ziober@uwr.edu.pl https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20036652/conference-travelers-early-modern-era-16th-18th-centuries-european * Deadline for Submissions: July 30, 2024 The melancholy of knowing Autobiography under the sign of Saturn XXIII International Symposium of the Scientific Observatory for Written, Oral and Iconographic Autobiographical Memory   ROME (It) 3-4-5, December, 2024 Palazzo Mattei di Giove Via Caetani 32-00186 Promoted and organized by: Mediapolis.Europa ass. cult. http://mediapoliseuropa.com/ and by Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea Mnemosyne o la costruzione del senso Presses universitaires de Louvain-Université catholique de Louvain https://ojs.uclouvain.be/index.php/Mnemosyne A journal devoted to the study of autobiography Scientific Committee Beatrice Barbalato (Mediapolis.europa – Mnemosyne PUL) Fabio Caffarena (Università di Genova) Antonio Castillo Gómez (Universidad de Alcalá) May Chehab (University of Chypre) Fabio Cismondi (Fusion for Energy,  European Commission) Nathalie Frogneux (UCLouvain) Laurence Pieropan (Université di Mons) Edgar Radtke (Universität Heidelberg) Organisation Irene Meliciani (managing director Mediapolis.Europa) Melancholy, exacerbated self-awareness Peu de gens devineront combien il a fallu être triste pour entreprendre de ressusciter Carthage. Gustave Flaubert Letter to Ernest Feydeau, 28 November 1859 This call for papers invites one to reflect upon melancholy, particularly the melancholy of knowing.  This is a feeling that, as we will see, emerges after the Renaissance, a period in which, with reference to classical antiquity, melancholy is not seen as a pathology but as an extreme and exacerbated self-perception. The main figures of reference are two: Democritus and Heraclitus. The former embodied melancholy with laughing, the latter with crying. Hippocrates, who, according to tradition, had paid a visit to Democritus bringing hellebore (the herb that was administered to people with mental ailments), ultimately acknowledges him as the wisest of all for being able to impart an ironic judgment on the world, his contemporaries, and himself. Melancholy as profound awareness, the meaning and hallmark of existence itself. The Renaissance abandons the equation sloth = sin postulated in the Middle Ages. Dante places the slothful in Hell, in ice. Petrarch’s Secretum (1342-1343) marks a moment of passage between the Middle Ages and Humanism. Despite the apparent contradiction of feeling himself a sinner before Truth, Petrarch maintains that he can handle the melancholy of knowing with full awareness, and it is not by chance that he turns to Saint Augustine, his phantom confessor, citing himself. Thus, he makes use of accusation to achieve self-praise (Barbalato. B. 2006). To essentialize the argumentation on this theme, we can say that, on one side we find Aristotle, Ficino, Milton, and Kant, and on the other side, Freud, Binswanger, Lacan, Tellenbach, and other professionals of the psyche. Melancholy has been studied from different angles and with interpretations that have varied over time. In the psychoanalytic and psychiatric fields, melancholy has been observed and treated primarily as a pathology, omitting its creative components. It is regarded by Freud as a bereavement without object, which is expressed through forms of self-denigration and lack of self-esteem. Freud (1917), Lacan (1966), Binswanger (1960), Tellenbach (1961-1983) identify in melancholy the pain caused by an unidentifiable loss. Binswanger explains melancholy with the passage of the subject from the primordial status, in which the being was indistinct, an unus, to the act of expulsion or acceptance of elements that led him/her to recognize a reality external to him/herself. The question is whether melancholy is an ordinary psychosis (which can therefore be analysed in itself) or it is the background to any psychosis (Lacan J. 2005: 149-150). Binswanger talks about the style of our own mode of experience (style is a word that he repeats several times), thus indicating the melancholic person’s particular propensity to forge, globally absorb every act of living (Binswanger L. 1987 French edition: 51-54 [1960]). The locution is important because, beyond the fact that Binswanger, a psychiatrist, studies and treats melancholy, he acknowledges how it is not a trauma that can be isolated, nor an intermittent pathological manifestation, but a hallmark of some individuals and their Weltanschauung. Having here touched on the types of intellectual commitment of different natures, that is, philosophy and history of literature and art on one side, and psychiatry/psychoanalysis on the other, the conclusions are not consequently associable. However, some pathways can be established. Marsilio Ficino and Jean Starobinski, men of letters and physicians, place themselves in this entre-deux. Jean Starobinski, a physician and a man of letters, investigated the various facets of this theme through a vast study. L’encre de la mélancolie. La mélancolie, un mal nécessaire? Paris, Seuil, 2012 (in this book, Starobinski brings together reflections preceding 2012) is a title that leads one to reflect upon the pairing writing/melancholy, and, as the subheading suggests, melancholy seems to be indispensable to giving consistency to thought. Praise of melancholy On this theme, Aristotle had followers especially during the Renaissance. In Problemata XXX, I, he regarded melancholy as a natural mood whose excess was not necessarily harmful but could rather be the condition of poetic or philosophic genius. Following ancient thought, and Aristotle’s, Marsilio Ficino, a physician and a humanist, in the first of his three books on life (De vita libri tres, published in 1489) devotes several reflections to melancholy. Illa heroica, Melancholia generosa, is defined by men of letters, by Musarum sacerdotes, that is, an intellectual force, a sign of man’s dignity, to refer to the title of a work by Pico della Mirandola (1485-1486). (See the chapter “Melancholia generosa”, Klibansky, R.; Panofsky E.; Saxl, F. 1989 French edition: 389-432-chapter II, II [1964]). Ficino suggests treatments, places body and soul in constant relation, so that the disquiet and the tension of a melancholic conscience can be lightened. He himself is under the sign of Saturn. For Ficino, the soul of the melancholic person withdraws from outside inwards as though converging to the central point of a circumference, and while it is thus concentrated upon speculation, it remains firmly there, and, to say it more exactly, at the very centre of man. (Ch. IV, book I. Ficino 2000: 29, French edition). Finally, melancholy is a centripetal force that leads everything to be led towards a centre, to strengthen the perception of one’s self. For Ficino, melancholy is emblem and firm pact of man with himself. It is said that he had had the figures of Democritus and Heraclitus painted on a wall. In his pastoral poems (1645-1646) L’Allegro and Il Pensieroso, he gives a positive and spiritual value to the melancholic mood: “which essentially corresponds to an exacerbation of self-awareness”, write Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl about Milton (1989: 375 [1964]). Almost with the same words, about two centuries after Ficino and a century after Milton, Kant, in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (Ch. II, 40-41 [1764]), will once again underscore the convergence, in the melancholic person, of every perception and experience towards a central nucleus of the self. Kant maintains that the melancholic person does not care about other people’s opinions but depends exclusively on his/her own judgment. In other words, melancholy constitutes an act of concentration on one’s own conscience. As several scholars have observed (including Ágnes Heller and Eugenio Garin, the authors of works on the Renaissance man: Heller 1967, Garin 1998, and much earlier Jacob Burckhardt, 1860), the Renaissance is “the epoch of great autobiographies, actually, the era of autobiographies”, Garin affirms (Garin  E. 1998: 11), because, he maintains, modern man was a man in the making, was aware of this, and recounted it. It is possible to underline how this period saw a flourishing of apologies, of autobiographical narrations that justify their own actions and intend to explain them (compare various self-apologies: Ficino, Lorenzaccio, Cardano). In this great Promethean forge, melancholy, as Ficino’s book well illustrates, is recognized as a factor intrinsic to genius, and as man’s great leap towards knowledge of himself and the means he constructed for knowledge. The pessimistic vision of melancholy continues to exist, but in a position of very little dominance in this period of the Renaissance. The melancholy of knowing The theme that we are proposing refers to a post-medieval, post-Renaissance conception of melancholy that also invests our contemporary culture: the melancholy of knowing regarded as one of the expressions of the Baroque, and that should perhaps be framed more within Mannerism. As Daniel Arasse explains, Mannerism is introspective, it is the involution of movement, while the Baroque opens towards the outside (Arasse D. 2004: 202). The melancholy of knowing takes shape in written and figurative works from an autobiographical perspective, especially beginning from Mannerism, and the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. In the period following the Renaissance, the era called modern, man develops a vision of himself that has much to do with the material instruments and the techniques with which he has been equipping himself. Dürer’s angel – a figure regarded by many scholars as the artist’s self-representation – is doubtful of the thousand instruments available to him. Astronomy and astrology are already seen as chimeras. Even though the interpretations of a work do not all converge, there is no doubt that Dürer stages the reflection upon the importance of the knowledge of not knowing and non-accessibility to metaphysics. He does so by putting at the top all the symbols that in the past had designated melancholy, observes them with perplexity, but does not look away from the future. “This limit is not a source of despair for the artist, while knowledge of not knowing is for him supreme knowledge” (Schuster P.-K. 2005: 94). Schuster reminds us that this etching has been regarded as Dürer’s spiritual self-portrait, and the representation of the melancholic angel as a personification of the artist (Ibid.: 101). The Renaissance artist, a demiurge, extremely confident in his own faculties, begins to critically reflect upon the instruments he has created and to challenge Humanism’s optimistic vision that placed man at the centre of the cosmos. Talking about melancholy means involving a very vast bibliography. The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) by Robert Burton constitutes a summation of what had been written up to 1600. Burton has his own portrait represented on the cover under the name Democritus Junior. He writes in the first person and explains that he made use of other people’s thoughts one step at a time, in a vertigo of references. The Baroque multiplies the reflections/mirror images on melancholy (see, amongst others, the recent Aurelio Musi, Malinconia barocca, 2023). After the demiurge-man of the Renaissance, the following period plunges into experimentation, in the investigation of matter and of forms. Man reckons with extraordinary scientific and artistic achievements – Galileo, Copernicus, Bernini, and many other thinkers – and also with his own ghosts (see the work of Athanasius Kircher 1602-1680); taking all Renaissance knowledge to extremes, he begins to perceive the gap between his aspirations, the ever-advanced means available to him, and the results, which, albeit extraordinary, do not fully harmonize with his own self. Already a century earlier, (Ch. 2, book I) Ficino had warned against excessive abstraction: when man no longer directly takes care of the instruments he uses, but only theorizes, melancholy becomes a discomfort of knowing. Thus, we witness the passage from the idea of melancholy as a deficit in acting, to the melancholy of knowing, that is, to suffering due to excess of activism. The relationship with instruments and techniques is crucial. Already the Prince at his apogee had felt the need to make his public life coexist with his private life, finding shelter and meditating in his study, a small, windowless space in which he preserved what was subjectively closest to his heart, ancient works and finds (see Arasse D. 2004: 133). That is, objects become increasingly important, intended as external supports to the indefatigable search for dialogue with the world of experience (Meliciani A., television programme in 25 episodes, Rai-Radiotelevisione italiana, 1995). A Faustian theme? A Faustian discomfort? Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl also refer to Faust and the melancholy of knowing in several passages in their extraordinary work Saturn and Melancholy mentioned earlier (see Part 3, Ch. 1. French edition: 384). Faust, a son of the Reformation, of the ethics of capitalism, strives to obtain every instrument of knowledge, selling his soul to the devil.  “[…] when [Faust] – writes Jean Clair – in Marlowe’s text, to increase his wealth, orders Satan to search the oceans to find the pearls of the East or to scour every corner of the New World or to fly to India to look for gold, he does no other than prolonging the accumulating frenzy of the Princes of this world. But when he begins to want to experiment with and transform the materials he has gathered, the study of the man of letters turns into a forge in which a Promethean fire burns. The metamorphosis of the theme is decisive, making us move from a theological era to a technological one” (Clair J. 2005: 2004. Italics is mine). The inauguration of the technological era would produce a melancholy that is due to the perception of the disproportion between man and the means that make him fall behind, and to the abandonment of theology. The second aspect of melancholy is connected to Cronus, which is identified with Saturn, the planet of melancholic people. The pressure of time, intensive exploitation of knowledge generates discomfort and leads man to question his own efficiency. This is a theme that becomes dominant with the Reformation, the Protestant ethic, capitalism. Saturn-Cronus has always been represented as the protector of riches (and of avarice). Dürer himself explains, in his etching Melencolia I, that the key means power, the bag wealth (Klibansky R.; Panofsky E.; Saxl F.: Ch. II 1: 447 of the French edition). These are symbologies that derive from antiquity, which nonetheless Dürer recontextualizes in the atmosphere of dawning Protestant reformism. In the seventeenth letter on modern literature (1759), Lessing refers to a German Faust that has come into his hands. The speed race that takes place between seven devils is won by the two who proclaim, one to have the speed of human thought, and the other man’s speed to pass from good to evil. (Lessing G. E. 1876: 35 French edition [1759-1765]). Speed, duration, thus time. The great chimera of which Faust becomes the interpreter is that, by advancing, time corresponds to progress. But he himself will be crushed by it and will need external aid. The extreme activism postulated by Protestantism/capitalism also brings about awareness of limits. The Protestant Reformation of 1517 and Dürer’s Melencolia I of 1514: the reformist spirit was spreading. Dürer’s Angel is depicted amidst many instruments but, as Walter Benjamin observes, seems to no longer know how to use them! On Dürer’s Melencolia I, on the autobiographical aspect, we once again refer to the previously mentioned text by Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl. Already from the dawn of capitalism, a willingness to act, to collect, to exceed takes hold, and at the same time the discomfort of accumulation is perceived. “Melencolia I – writes Jean Clair – marks this very brief and singular moment of Western thought when the artist, the homo artifex, believes to have become a multi-mathematician, mathematician, engineer, surveyor, botanist and physician, capable of acquiring the knowledge and measure of all things, numero et pondere, while he discovers, captured, that no mathesis universalis is capable of reorganizing and bringing together the desjecta membra of the real” (Clair J. 2005: 206). Dürer’s Angel (1514) is surrounded by instruments that could be those in the Prince’s study: ink, compass, sphere, scale, bell, athanor – the alchemic furnace; he is sombre, irked, but not depressed, he rather has a gaze that would like to see far away. On the left is the word ‘Melencolia’ held by a bat, the mammal that appears at dusk, the moment in which this feeling comes forth. The dog, endowed with perseverance and a fine sense of smell, symbolizes the indefatigable researcher, Benjamin points out (Benjamin W. 1985: 166 French edition [1925]). However, the angel is clearly in the grip of much perplexity. Jean Clair contrasts this image, which is not defeatist but troubled, with the image of a pensive, melancholic old man by Leonardo, (pen drawing, London, Windsor Castle, ca. 1513): “Where Dürer’s angel, with his gaze lost into nothingness, seems to have relinquished the hard work of geometry and architecture, Leonardo’s old man seems to be absorbed by a precise observation. It is the nature of physical phenomena that he questions, and not the metaphysical sense of an infinite universe. Where Dürer’s angel is a disciple of Plato, who practises an ideal geometry by means of instruments ‒ rulers and compass ‒ that do not demonstrate it, Leonardo’s old man establishes himself as a disciple of Aristotle, who investigates a scientia experimentalis. He observes rather than contemplates. Even though Leonardo is fully aware of death and of transformation. Dürer and Leonardo were fascinated by deluges, by catastrophes. Leonardo’s old man blends into a wisdom made of resignation and respect” (Ibid.: 207). Leonardo’s old man, like Dürer’s angel, rests his head on a hand, an icon that we find in many figurative works. More precisely, on a fist in Dürer. This is an ancient motif that is present in Egyptian sarcophagi, a sign of sorrow that could indicate tiredness or creative reflection, as it is suggested in the work Saturn and Melancholy (Ch. I, b: 450, French edition). Incidentally, it should be noted: the oscillating state between a creative vision and a destructive one accompanies many paintings. Amongst them, the one by De Chirico, Mistero e malinconia di una strada (1914, private collection). A girl playing with the hoop heads towards a shaded area. De Chirico adopts a perspective for the right-hand side of the painting, the one in darkness, which moves downwards, and another one for the bright left-hand side, which moves upwards, perhaps proposing once again the dual vision of the melancholic person’s possible moods. Without proposing forced parallels, we can nonetheless affirm that some elements of discomfort which emerged from the post-Renaissance period that inaugurates the modern era can today be tracked down in various autobiographies by men of science: the pressure of time, the handling of instruments, accumulation, the relationship with the object, the techniques that can operate outside their creator’s control. What is of interest to this call for papers is to investigate how the subject recognises itself in the melancholy of knowledge, in a relationship with science, which is certainly complex and discontinuous, as Foucault illustrates in the text Archéologie du savoir (1969). Charles Darwin, Enrico Fermi, Ettore Majorana, Nikola Tesla, Robert Oppenheimer, Rita Levi Montalcini, in their autobiographical writings have expressed the melancholy of knowing, and in our contemporaneity more than ever has the relationship between man and the object of his creations proved to be fatal. Darwin regrets to have atrophied the brain towards the perception of aesthetics by continuing to work like a machine for grinding (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1887). This call for papers invites one to consider works of self-reflection on this topic, particularly by scholars of the mathematical and natural sciences, without excluding a priori those by ordinary people, men of letters, and artists. We will accept proposals that aim to illustrate in what way a style, a semantic modality marks a life narration informed by the melancholy of knowing. Bibliography Daniel, Arasse, “Pour une brève histoire du maniérisme”, 188-202, “La règle du jeu”, 125-138, in id., Histoires de peintures, Paris, Editions Denoël, 2004. Beatrice Barbalato, “Il pirronismo del Petrarca, ovvero il Secretum come aporia”, 99-115, in Mariapia Lamberti (ed.), Atti del convegno: Petrarca y el petrarquismo en Europa y América, UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autónoma  de Mexico (18-23 Octobere 2004), Mexico City, UNAM, 2006. Walter Benjamin, Origine du dramme baroque allemand, transl. by Sybille Muller with André Hirt, Paris, Flammarion, 1985 [1925]. Ludwig Binswanger, Mélancolie et manie, transl. from the German by Jean-Michel Azorin and Yves Totoyan, revised by Arthur Tatossian, PUF, 1987 [1960]. Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621. Jean-Marc Chatelain (ed.), Baudelaire. La modernité mélancolique, BnF Éditions, 2021. Jean Clair, “La mélancolie du savoir”, 220-208, ed. by Id., Mélancolie, génie et folie en Occident, Paris, Gallimard, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2005. Marsilio Ficino (French edition): Marsile Ficin, Les trois livres de la vie, transl. by Guy Le Fevre de la Boderie, Paris, Fayard, 2000, [new edition of the 1582 text. Original in Latin De vita libri tres, 1489]. Jon Fosse, Melancholia, transl. by Cristina Falcinella from nynorsk, new Norwegian, Roma, Fandango, 2009 [1995]. Michel Foucault, L’Archéologie du savoir, Paris, Gallimard, “Bibliothèque des sciences humaines”, 1969. Sigmund Freud, Trauer und Melancholie, 1917. Eugenio Garin, L’uomo nel Rinascimento, Bari-Roma, Laterza, 1998. Immanuel Kant, Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen, 1764, [Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime]. Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky, Fritz Saxl, Saturne et la Mélancolie, transl. from the English and other languages by Fabienne Durand-Bogaert and Louis Évrand, Paris, Gallimard, 1989 [1964]. The French edition is referred to in this call for papers. Jacques Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre xxiii, Le symptôme, Paris, Seuil, 2005. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, “Dix-septième lettre. Gottsched considéré comme réformateur du théatre allemande”, 31-37, in Id., Lettres sur la littérature moderne, et sur l’art ancien. Estratti tradotti da G. Cottler, Paris, Librairie Hachette, 1876. [Literaturbriefe, 1759-1765]. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k28071t/f46.image.r=lessing%20lettres Alessandro Meliciani, La Stanza del Principe, 25 TV episodes, RAI-RadioTelevisione Italiana, 1995. Aurelio Musi, Malinconia Barocca, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2023. Peter-Klaus Schuster, “Melencolia I. Durer et sa postérité”, 90-110, trnsl. from the German by Jeanne Étoré-Lortholary, in Jean Clair, Mélancolie, génie et folie en Occident, Paris, Gallimard, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2005. Jean Starobinski, L’encre de la mélancolie. La mélancolie, un mal nécessaire?, Paris, Seuil, 2012. Hubertus Tellenbach, Melancolia: storia del problema, endogenicità, tipologia, patogenesi, clinica, edited by Giovanni Stanghellini, intr. by Viktor Emil von Gebsattel, translation and translations of supplementary texts edited by Lorenzo Ciavatta, Roma, Il pensiero scientifico, 2015 [1961]. * Suggestions for sending proposals The languages admitted for submission are: Italian, Spanish, French, English. Everyone is allowed to write in one of these languages. There will be no simultaneous translation. A passive understanding of these languages is desirable. A) Deadline for submission: 30 July 2024. The abstract will be composed of 250 words (max), with citation of two reference sources, and a brief CV (max: 100 words), with possible mention of two of one’s own publications, be they articles, books, or videos. The judging panel will read and select every proposal, which is to be sent to beatrice.barbalato@gmail.com, irenemeliciani@gmail.com The authors of the accepted proposals will be notified by 31 August  2024. B) Regarding enrolment in the colloquium, once the proposals are accepted the fees are: Before 30 September 2024: 160.00€ From 1 to 30 October 2024:  190.00€ Enrolment fee cannot be accepted in loco For graduate students: Before 30 September 2024:  100.00€ From 1to 30 October 2024:   110.00€ Enrolment fee cannot be accepted in loco Once the programme is established, no change is allowed. For information on the symposia organized in previous years by the Osservatorio della memoria autobiografica  scritta, orale e iconografica, visit the site: http://mediapoliseuropa.com * CFP: “Asianist Life Writing” Roundtable (7/29/2024; 3/3-16/2025) Asian American Studies, Columbus, Ohio, USA What happens when scholars of (global) Asia write in the first person? In this roundtable, participants and audience members will reflect on the intertwined practices of knowledge production and life writing. While we define life writing broadly (e.g., notes from the field, career retrospectives, prefaces, acknowledgments, blogs, memoir), our discussants have all written about self and family in ways that blur the boundary between the personal and the professional, while also challenging the divide between Asian studies and Asian diaspora studies. We currently have three discussants and, given the roundtable format, we are seeking one to three additional participants. If you already have AAS plans, remember that you can serve as a roundtable discussant/chair in addition to presenting a paper! Discussants include: A specialist in East Asian religion; he is currently writing about his father, who is a religious healer for an immigrant community in the New York City-area. A PhD student in Religious studies, whose scholarship contributes to American studies and Korean studies, and whose creative writing and poetic autoethnography draws on her experiences growing up as a US military dependent in the US and South Korea. A historian of modern China, who recently authored a family history-inspired book on transpacific militarism, Asian American Native Hawaiian histories, and transnational adoption. We are looking for: Scholars of Asia or Asian diaspora who can interestingly contribute to our discussion, particularly scholars who have publications or works-in-progress that relate to autoethnography, memoir, or family history / ethnography. Please email statements of interest to Liza Lawrence (elizabethlawrence@augustana.edu) by Monday, July 29, for full consideration. As this is a roundtable, you needn’t send an abstract. Just introduce yourself, your affiliation, and your potential contribution. Contact Information Elizabeth Lawrence, Augustana College Contact Email elizabethlawrence@augustana.edu * ‘Making the Subject of Portraiture in a Trans-Asian Context ca. 1000-Present Day’ A two-day international conference at SOAS University of London and via Zoom 5-6 December 2024 Deadline for Submissions: 29 July 2024 | Portraits have commonly been understood as naturalistic likenesses of human beings, centred on the face. The work of scholars such as Jean Borgatti, Richard Brilliant (1990) and Joanna Woodall (1997) opened the field in conceptualising portraiture as a truly multi-local genre, foregrounding relational and performative processes. Following their research, this symposium defines portraiture as a process where subjectivities are constructed as a result of the collaboration between artists, patrons, subjects, and viewers living in a specific time and space, This call for papers therefore is addressed to scholars of art, cultural, visual and material culture but also anthropology and literature at any career level who explore how notions of subjectivity are constructed in text and images created roughly between the fifteen century and the present day in Asia and its diasporas. The symposium organisers will consider papers analysing literary and pictorial processes of embodiment through the production of objects and artefacts such as paintings, photographs, prints, sculptures, ceramics, jewellery, and currency; and of designed spaces including gardens and architecture. Portraits have long been studied as documents or biographies of a person that once existed. Without denying the capacity of a portrait to index a living person, the symposium wishes to address the varied performative elements that portraits display in the Asian context. These performances reveal the enactment of class, gender and race of specific societies and cultures of Asia and its diasporas. The performative function of portraiture in Asia, we argue, reveals important cultural, social, religious, and philosophical ideas to understand the region. The symposium focuses on the portraiture of Asia with two specific purposes in mind. First, to decentre studies of Asian portraiture from Eurocentric conceptions of subjecthood and thus to expand the field of portraiture studies; second, to foreground the connections, transfers and tensions articulated by portraiture within the trans-Asian context. The focus on Asia should not be read as exclusionary, but rather as the intent to initiate a dialogue with existing research on the portraiture of other regions such as Africa and Europe. Thirty-five years after Borgatti, Brilliant and Woodall’s contributions to the field of portraiture studies, the symposium ‘Making the Subject of Portraiture in a Trans-Asian Context ca. 1000-Present Day’ proposes to take stock of a changing field by contributing the scholarship of art, cultural and literary historians, anthropologists and specialists in gender and critical race theory whose research interests focus on the embodiment of selfhood in portraiture from Asia. We therefore invite papers which develop our core concern with ‘Making the Subject’ and with the performative dimensions of portraiture in Asia. Suggested topics (but not limited to):

• Dimensions of reality in portraiture
• Issues of re-/presentation
• Issues of materiality, style and making
• Portraiture and authority: imperial, monastic, patriarchal or cultural
• Cults of personality
• Portraiture and changing notions of beauty
• Religious and philosophical dimensions of portraiture, including rituals and ceremonies
• Issues of display and viewing – notions of theatricality and performance
• Gendered dimensions of portraiture, including theorisations of gender performance
• Self-portraiture of female and male artists
• Race and ethnicity in portraiture
• Portraiture as currency and commodities
• Fashion and material culture in embodied images
• Non-anthropomorphic portraiture, such as sacred geographies, depictions of nature, non-human subjects, and gardens
• Cross cultural exchange – i.e. portraits of Asians by non-Asians and vice versa, and similarly within the Asian region.

Please send a 300-word abstract plus a short bio (150 words max) for 20-minute presentations to the organisers: Mariana Zegianini – mz15@soas.ac.uk and Conan Cheong – 656531@soas.ac.uk, by Monday 29 July 2024. Limited funds are available to sponsor train and bus journeys within the UK and they will be allocated on a first come first serve basis after the CfP deadline. A selection of the conference papers will be included in a proposal for a peer-reviewed edited volume. Further details will be announced at the conference. https://royalhistsoc.org/calendar/making-the-subject-of-portraiture-in-a-trans-asian-context-ca-1000-present-day-call-for-papers/ * * Call for Applications – “Imperial Biographies – Individuals in Empires and Postimperial Spaces” (Freiburg, Germany) Deadline for Submissions: July 15, 2024 The interdisciplinary autumn school of the RTG 2571 Empires at the University of Freiburg will explore Imperial and Postimperial biographies through different disciplines and is now open for applications by graduate students. The autumn school will feature a diverse set of workshops moderated by supervisors and professors of the University of Freiburg and other universities. As of now this includes Sitta von Reden (Ancient History, Freiburg), Jürgen Osterhammel (Global History, Konstanz), Manuela Boatcă (Sociology, Freiburg), Andreas Mehler (Political Science, Freiburg), Barbara Korte (English Literature, Freiburg) and Benjamin Schenk (Eastern European History, Basel). The school will also provide participants with opportunities to discuss their own project in regards to the opportunities and pitfalls of (post)imperial biographies and biographic approaches. The autumn school is targeted towards graduate students from the Humanities and Social Sciences who either already work with (post)imperial biographies or are interested to include biographical approaches in their project in the field of Empire studies. Please consult the Call for Applications for further informations: https://www.grk2571.uni-freiburg.de/events/summer-schools/autumn-school-2024/autumn-school-2024 Applicants are invited to send a letter of motivation and a short CV to simon.suttmann@grk2571.uni-freiburg.de by 15/07/2024. Invitations will be sent out in August and the selected participants will be asked to provide an abstract of their project. Travel expenses, accomodation and meals will be covered by the RTG. Contact Information Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg DFG Graduiertenkolleg 2571 „Imperien” Platz der Universität 3 79085 Freiburg im Breisgau Contact Email simon.suttmann@grk2571.uni-freiburg.de URL https://www.grk2571.uni-freiburg.de/events/summer-schools/autumn-school-2024?se… *

The Textual Self: Aesthetics and Politics of Contemporary Self-Narration

*21st-22nd November, 2024* deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2024 English Department / LMU Munich contact email:  textualselfconference@gmail.com *Keynotes*

• • Kirsty Bell (Author of The Undercurrents, Berlin)

• • Claire Squires (Stirling)

• • Corinna Norrick-Rühl (Münster)

• • Alexandra Effe (Oslo)

• • Julia  Lajta-Novak (Vienna)

• • Sabine Erbrich (Editor, Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin)

Over ten years have passed since Oasis front man Noel Gallagher wrote fiction off as a “waste of time” and his then provocative opinion seems only to have grown in popularity. As the display tables of any major British bookstore will confirm, the book market has since been flooded by texts dealing, to borrow Gallagher’s words again, with “things that have actually happened” – in most cases to their author (see Bury 2013). Already in 2001, in their manual on Reading Autobiography, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson offered an open-ended list of circa sixty genres within the permeable boundaries of life writing alone. The list has only grown, culminating recently in the Nobel Prize being awarded, two years in a row, to writers of autofiction, widely regarded as “the hottest literary trend of the last decade” (Folarin 2020). Many see these modes as responding to a dissatisfaction with the conventions of novel writing, newly perceived – as per Rachel Cusk’s much-cited dismissal – as “fake and embarrassing”, or radically mismatched with the complexity and crises of the contemporary world (see Kellaway 2014). While much life writing presupposes the authenticity and sincerity of the text, along the lines of Philippe Lejeune’s “autobiographical pact” (1975), autofiction is based on a freer understanding of the truthfulness of the narrated events. The autofictional author replaces honesty with sincerity: they may well lie, “but in an attempt to reflect the world with justice” (Ferreira-Meyers in Dix 2018). Leaving the reader unsure of the confines between truth and fiction, thus stoking their curiosity, autofiction eschews at once prurient promises of authenticity and the phoniness of novel-writing decried by Cusk and Shields alike. Taking literally that venerable mantra of creative writing workshops, ‘write what you know’, writers of life writing and autofiction produce – in their mode-specific ways – allegedly ‘immediate’ (see Kornbluh 2023) records of personal experience. The concurrent de-aestheticisation of literature – whose value is increasingly located more in the what of the story than the how of its telling – can be framed as a form of artistic renewal and expression of a cultural ideal of sincerity (see Voelz 2016), particularly in response to the ‘post-truth’ political climate. Autofictional representations of the world are frequently centred around the Romantic image of the singular (traumatised/suffering) author as a creative subject; yet in contrast to the Romantic notion of the solitary genius, these subjects are now intended as ‘relatable’ to ordinary readers (see Reckwitz 2012; Mead 2014). Stylistic simplicity and essayistic forms of writing are hallmarks of a new cultural ideal of witnessing, of telling stories that are anchored in authentic experience. In these new forms and formats of writing, authors regain primary importance as a key link between their stories and their lives, as well as the lives of their readers. As witnesses to their own experiences (e.g., of social marginalisation), authors can testify to the singularity or universality of these experiences, just as they can – quite literally – embody particular identities. At the same time, the burden of representation, proportionate to the degree of intersectional marginalisation of the speaking voice, is not negotiated in a vacuum. On the contrary, works included in the commodification processes of cultural industry production reckon with, and often thematise, the imperative to speak from the core of one’s lived experience. This serves to at once legitimise the author’s right to speak – about certain experiences and themes – and to maximise the commercial appeal (the ‘marketability’) of the works themselves (see Brouillette 2020). Complicity with, and/or critique of, these broader cultural industry dynamics and their calls for authentic material are another crucial aspect of contemporary life writing, particularly in Anglophone contexts (see Nicol 2018). Despite these works’ refusal of fiction-making, their narrative artistry is based on strategies of authentication, which in turn draw on established patterns and tropes of literary fiction, on creative forms of citation and world-representation developed in the history of the novel (hence: auto-fiction). In the book market, autofiction and its aesthetics of relatability are one example of the persistence of “subject-centric authorship models” (Maitra 2020, 116). However, these dominant practices of personal, or personalised, literary authorship are being challenged by the digital revolution, making technological innovation powered by vast resources, including the spread of generative AI, an important context to reckon with. This conference explores trends in contemporary Anglophone life writing and autofiction against the background of the social, institutional, and political conditions of making selves and others. With a focus on the aesthetics and politics of textual self-formation, as well as their interaction, we invite papers addressing a range of topics including but not limited to:

• • new forms and formats of (literary) subjectivity and self-formation

• • connections between publishing and writing, access to writing/publishing

• • autotheory and the essay

• • long-form novel vs. shorter vignettes

• • life writing/autofiction across media (graphic novels, film, drama, TV series, etc.)

• • new realism(s)

• • genre and privilege: the ‘right to fiction’, and racialised, gendered, classed biases in critical reception

• • life writing as feminist/intersectional adaption/adoption

• • life writing and cultural industries

• • style and politics

• • postcolonial/global-majority autofiction and life writing

*Please send 300 words abstract and 150 words bio by 1st July 2024, to textualselfconference@gmail.com* Notification of selection will be no later than 1st August. *Conference Organization* Prof. Dr. Ingo Berensmeyer (LMU Munich) Dr. Lianna Mark (LMU Munich) Sonja Trurnit (LMU Munich) Works Cited Brouillette, Sarah. 2020. “Sally Rooney’s Couple Form.” Post 45. Bury, Liz. 2013. “Noel Gallagher Says Reading Fiction ‘A Waste of Fucking Time'”. The Guardian, 18 Oct. 18. Dix, Hywel, Hg.2018. Autofiction in English. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Kellaway, Kate. 2014. “Rachel Cusk: ‘Aftermath was Creative Death. I Was Heading into Total Silence.” The Guardian, Aug. 24. Kornbluh, Anna. 2023. Immediacy or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism. London: Verso. Lejeune, Philippe. 1975. Le pacte autobiographique. Paris: Seuil. —. 2009. On Diary. Hg. Jeremy D. Popkin, Julie Rak. Übers. Katherine Durnin. Manoa: University of Hawai’i Press. Maitra, Julian. 2020. “Shakespeare’s Verified Facebook Page: How Authorship Patterns Survive and Thrive in the Digital Sphere”. Kodex. Jahrbuch der Internationalen Buchwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft. Vol. 10. Im digitalen Jenseits der Literatur. Towards the Digital Beyond of Literature.Ed. Vincent Kaufmann. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 111–128. Mead, Rebecca. 2014. “The Scourge of Relatability”. The New Yorker, August 1. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/scourge-relatability. Nicol, Bran. 2018. “Eye to I: American Autofiction and Its Contexts from Jerzy Kosinski to Dave Eggers.” In H. Dix, ed., Autofiction in English. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 255–274. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2012. Die Erfindung der Kreativität. Zum Prozess gesellschaftlicher Ästhetisierung. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Voelz, Johannes. 2016. “The New Sincerity as Literary Hospitality”. Security and Hospitality in Literature and Culture: Modern and Contemporary Perspectives. Ed. Jeffrey Clapp and Emily Ridge. New York: Routledge. 209–226. * 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: https://www.intellectbooks.com/fashion-style-popular-culture#call-for-papers Please submit full manuscripts for double blind peer-review to Dirk Reynders at dirk_reynders@hotmail.com. Questions regarding journal standards and submissions should be sent to Hilde Van den Buck at hdv26@drexel.edu. General questions regarding the journal can be sent to Joseph H. Hancock, II at joseph.hancockii@gmail.com. *

Travel and Tourism (Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Assn)

Conference will be held November 7-9, 2024, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA Deadline for Submissions June 30, 2024 Travel and Tourism Studies as a discipline continues to gain popularity in academia, in part because of its inter-disciplinary nature. The Travel and Tourism area seeks papers that discuss and explore any aspect of travel and/or tourism. Topics for this area include, but are not limited to, the following:- – travel and gender/race/class – travel and religion – travel and war – personal travel narratives – heritage tourism – material culture and tourism – virtual travel and tourism: How has COVID affected travel around the globe? Please feel free to consider a wide range of materials, texts and experiences. Applicants are encouraged to consider multi-media (or other alternative format) presentations if those formats would better suit their topics, and may also propose 3- or 4-person panels and roundtables. Submit a brief (300 words) abstract at mapaca.net by JUNE 30, 2024. Students (both undergraduate and graduate) and independent scholars are encouraged to apply. Please feel free to send questions to Chair Jennifer Erica Sweda traveltourismmapaca@ymail.com https://mapaca.net/help/conference/submitting-abstracts-conference For general information: mapaca.net * Autobiography within the Paratext: Fiction and Nonfiction Challenged by Autobiographical Paratexts 7 & 8 November 2024 (University of Pau) Organizers : Pr. Sophie Vallas (Aix-Marseille Université, LERMA), Pr. Arnaud Schmitt (University of Pau, ALTER) Deadline for Submissions: June 30, 2024 Definition First defined by Gérard Genette in Seuils (1987), and divided by him into epitext and peritext, the paratext designates an eminently liminal space: it is perhaps in the peritext, “around the text, in the space of the same volume, like the title or preface, and sometimes inserted in the interstices of the text, like the chapter headings or certain notes” (Genette, 11, our translation) that the paratext is the most fixed, but it can nevertheless evolve, for example, in the case of a reprint or a generic switch ; in the epitext, that unstable, public zone outside the author’s purview, where the expression is often beyond authorial control, the paratext is deployed in “all messages that are, at least initially, outside the book: generally on a media support (interviews, talks…), or under the cover of private communication (correspondence, diaries…)” (10-11). According to Genette, therefore, the paratext is a “fringe” (“une frange”, 8) which, in the words of Philippe Gasparini, “frequently exerts a prior influence on the reader’s horizon of expectation, or a posteriori influence on their understanding of the work” (Est-il je?, 62). Playing with the paratext Numerous authors have taken advantage of this singular space to guide the reading of their texts, or simply for the pleasure of playing in the margins or with their readers. For Philip Roth, paratextual games were confined to the peritextual space: in the epitextual space, the author adopted a much wiser, official posture, granting interviews only to serious newspapers, and renouncing his extratextual persona, which he reserved for his writings. In his strange autofiction entitled Operation Shylock (1993), Roth indeed included a notorious palinody: while the book features the subtitle “A Confession” on its cover, a term the preface goes on to justify, Roth then retracts this in the final note to the reader, stating bluntly “This book is a work of fiction.” Bret Easton Ellis is another case in point: ahead of the release of Lunar Park (2005), he went so far as to set up a website to corroborate the existence of his ultimately fictional characters and events. In the paperback edition of his autobiographical text, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), Dave Eggers inserted peritextual fantasies which were not present in the first hardback edition. The paperback features numerous changes and, above all, a much more substantial body of paratext: the reader need only turn the book over to discover an extension of the text, a new section soberly entitled “Mistakes We Knew We Were Making – Notes, Corrections, Clarifications, Apologies, Addenda,” in which Eggers quotes readers’ comments on several occasions, thus integrating into the work material that is usually excluded from it. A Publishing Adventure If autofiction is, according to Philippe Gasparini, a “linguistic adventure,” the paratext clearly is a publishing adventure involving the multiple possibilities of actual publication. The primary function of the paratext is to specify the genre of the text, an essential operation in the case of autobiographical or semi-autobiographical texts. Dorrit Cohn points out two different ways of distinguishing a memoir from a novel: “One is to give explicit notice, paratextually (by way of title, subtitle, or prefatory statement) or textually. The other is to provide the narrator’s name: its distinction from the author’s name conveys fictional intentionality, its identity with the author’s name autobiographical intentionality” (The Distinction of Fiction, 59). But the paratext also represents for the author an opportunity to introduce autobiographical elements in a text, or more precisely around a text in which there are none, for example by mentioning, in a preface or during an interview, the context of the work’s creation. A TV interview will be considered as a “performance,” requiring the author to embody their work, which will make body language an integral part of the paratext. We should bear in mind that for Genette, the paratext is both a “zone of transition” and of “transaction” (8). Despite the fact that Genette was reluctant to explore this “zone of transition,” eminently more phenomenological than narratological, narrative elements of the author’s life are to be found in this paratextual space as Georg Stanitzek (2005) or Dorothee Birke et Birte Christ (2013) have demonstrated. The Flesh-and-blood Author In “The Other Kind of Film Frames: A Research Report on Paratexts in Film” (2015), Cornelia Klecker describes the paratext as a “place to influence reception” (402). But how fascinating it is to watch authors on TV, on the Internet or their Instagram accounts trying to exert this influence through word and manner and, more often than not failing, or at least struggling, to do so. Autobiography is there, in the paratext, with or without the author’s knowledge, between the lines of a literally ill-intentioned preface, or between the words of an awkward audio-visual performance. The autobiography is the paratextual clumsiness. On the subject of authors promoting their books on TV, one is reminded of Philippe Lejeune’s famous analysis of the French literary show “Apostrophes” in Moi aussi (1986): “It is on TV that this impression is the strongest, we think we are watching the author behaving naturally and tend to forget that speaking on TV or on the radio implies a form of role-playing dictated by circumstance […]. Any author invited to ‘Apostrophes’ must simultaneously present their book (summarizing content, stating intentions) and physically represent it. This inevitably wrenches a novelist in two opposite directions” (91-93). It is in the representation, designated by Alain Brunn as “the authorial ethos,” that autobiography intrudes. Thus, autobiography is everywhere, and, more particularly, everywhere in the paratext. In this symposium, our aim is to study its multiple manifestations: “In our current culture autobiography appears all about us. It surfaces in books (whether formally autobiographies or not), on television talk shows, in interviews and therapeutic sessions, and in our daily conversation. In these and myriad other instances persons seize the chance to tell their personal histories and hence to present themselves as they would like to be or to be seen” (Rockwell Gray, “Autobiography Now,” 31). Proposals can focus indiscriminately on works of fiction or non-fiction as long as the paratext involved is autobiographical.

• • Please submit an abstract of approx. 400 words and a short bionote to sophie.vallas@univ-amu.fr and (arnaud.schmitt@univ-pauf.fr)  by 30 June, 2024 at the latest.

* CFP Life Writing (6/30/2024; 11/15-17/2024) South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference, Jacksonville, Florida USA Studies of life writing attend to how we read and engage self-representationality, the capaciousness of lives and literatures turned textual, while demanding that readers attend to histories, languages, and experiences that are unfamiliar or different from their own. This panel welcomes presentations on any aspect of life writing; projects related to the conference theme, “Seen/Unseen,” are especially welcome. The production of identities and subjectivities across histories, from genres like narratives of enslavement and captivity, auto/biographies, cookbooks, and commonplace books, to contemporary iterations in memoir, social media, and documentaries, challenge expectations for how lives can be documented and shared. In the SAMLA Newsletter, SAMLA 96 President Lisa Nalbone asks: “How often do we ‘witness,’ ‘observe,’ ‘contextualize,’ ‘seek to,’ name that which ‘illuminates’ or ‘illustrates,’ discuss what’s in our ‘view’: in essence, claiming that space or confronting that periphery?” The focus of this panel–life writing–centers Nalbone’s questions as writers of self-representational texts routinely confront and work to narrativize or textualize that which is often invisibilized and rendered peripheral. As we read and analyze life writing, we bear witness to the witness; we examine how life writers understand and represent selfhood; we consider the types of boundaries or barriers these life writers encounter–including those that are cultural, temporal, linguistic, spatial, geographic, political, and sexual; and we negotiate the ethics of life writing, in particular, as we address inherent implications of reading stories of others’ lives. Because self-representational texts arguably move beyond the representation of an autonomous autobiographical self to the relational subject as they consider historical events and people that construct and contextualize identity, a panel focused on life writing studies pays particular attention to how authors (re)present themselves, their worlds, and their lives, in ways seen and unseen. By June 30, please submit an abstract of 250 words, along with presenter’s academic affiliation, contact information, and A/V requirements, to Nicole Stamant, Agnes Scott College, at nstamant@agnesscott.edu. https://samla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19139 * Call for Papers Hybridity and Women’s Writing in Eighteenth-century Britain Guest Editors: Francesca Blanch-Serrat and Paula Yurss Lasanta (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) deadline for submissions: June 30, 2024 In the last four decades, hybridity has become an umbrella term encompassing a variety of disciplines, including biology, linguistics, postcolonial studies, media studies, and cultural studies. Particularly within literary studies, genre hybridity refers to the blending of themes, forms, and other elements from different genres—a practice with a long and fruitful history as old as literature itself. As a hybrid field itself, literature cannot be extricated from “extraneous elements”1 such as the sociopolitical context, class, age, or gender. According to Behling’s formulation2, the hybrid genre exists as a site for identity negotiation and resistance. In this sense, the hybrid genre allows for the assertion, reconsideration, and articulation of women’s identities. In women’s writing, it becomes a strategy and a vehicle for intellectual contemplation and expression. Indebted to the hybridity of genre in the early modern period, the eighteenth century saw a blossoming of hybrid texts fostered by new forms of circulation and the growing literary market. Authors “experimented with hybrid combinations to a degree previously unrecognized”3, and women writers in particular, often excluded from intellectual debates because of their gender, not only experimented with blending different genres but also challenged conventional notions of authorship and literary authority to navigate the constraints imposed on them. Examples of hybridity can be found in the blending of biography and fiction in Romantic novels by Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, Mary Robinson, and Mary Shelley4, as well as in genres such as the travelogue, the sentimental periodical, the agricultural tour, the cookery book, or the memoir, and other examples of life writing. By examining eighteenth-century women’s writing through the lens of hybridity, Hybridity and Women’s Writing in Eighteenth-Century Britain seeks to illuminate new pathways for understanding and appreciating the complexities of women’s literary production during this era. Located in the intersections of gender, genre, and hybridity, the editors of this volume seek contributions that explore the various ways in which women writers asserted, reconsidered, and articulated their literary identities within the socio-cultural milieu of the eighteenth century through hybrid texts. Special attention will be given to lesser-known case studies and we extend our invitation to submissions that engage with a wide range of hybrid genres, including but not limited to the novel, autobiography, periodical essay, travelogue and poetic forms. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches that enrich our understanding of literary studies, such as history, philosophy and other relevant disciplines. Topics of interest may include, but are not limited to: ➢ Life writing across genres. ➢ Hybrid identities: queer identities, ethnicity, interfaith relations, women and the empire, etc. ➢ Hybrid genres: the agricultural tour, the travelogue, etc. ➢ Women’s literary authority and the hybrid form. ➢ Genre hybridity in women’s scientific writing: botany, astronomy… ➢ Memory and narrative truth (Intersection between fact and fiction). ➢ Genre and political discourse (The political function of literary genres). ➢ Cultural purity and hybridity in historical contexts. Proposals for articles (in the form of an abstract of about 250 words) must be submitted before 30 June 2024. The selected proposals will be announced by late July. Please submit your proposals to: Francesca.Blanch@uab.cat and Paula.Yurss@uab.cat. Completed articles with a maximum length of 8,000 words, including footnotes, must be submitted by November 31, 2024. Articles will include a short biography, an abstract (80-130 words) and 5–10 keywords. Contributors should follow the Brepol Guidelines for Authors. Papers will be published in Hybridity and Women’s Writing i Eighteenth-century Britain (Autumn 2025), as part of the book series Early Modern Women Writers in Europe: Texts, Debates, and Genealogies of Knowledge, published by Brepols Publishers. Please note that the essay submission date and publication schedule are tentative and subject to change, depending on the peer reviewing progress. 4 Cook, Daniel, and Amy Culley. Women’s Life Writing, 1700-1850: Gender, Genre and Authorship. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016: 5. 3 Ingrassia, Catherine. “Introduction.” The Cambridge Companion to Women’s Writing in Britain, 1660–1789. Ed. Catherine Ingrassia. Cambridge University Press, 2015: 12. 2 Behling, Laura L. “‘Generic’ Multiculturalism: Hybrid Texts, Cultural Contexts.” College English, vol. 65, no. 4, 2003: 415. 1 Saïd, Edward. “Figures, Configurations, Transfigurations.” From Commonwealth to Post-C * * Whether you have been involved in oral history for a month, a year, a decade or more, the Oral History Society in partnership with National Life Stories at the British Library extends a warm invitation to join us for a day of reflection, listening, conversation and networking being held on Saturday 6 July 2024 from 09.30-18.00 in the Knowledge Centre, British Library, London NW1 2DB This exciting new approach is taking the OHS back to its roots and trialling different ways of bringing people together to participate and collaborate with other oral historians.  The programme and abstracts are here for your information and really hope you can join us.  Attendees at the Festival will have a rare chance to spend a day exploring a diverse range of ideas and experiences within oral history and memory work. Everyone will have the opportunity to reflect on their own practice in discussion with others, to network and – hopefully – to gain new perspectives and insights into oral history that they can apply to their work. Festival Fees (including lunch and refreshments):

• • £75 Standard

• • £50 Oral History Society and British Library Members

• • £50 Concessions

To book your place please visit https://www.ohs.org.uk/events/oral-history-festival/.  Advance booking is recommended to secure your place and booking by Friday 28th June is appreciated, although bookings will remain open until Friday 5th July. I hope you are able to join us next weekend and we encourage you to circulate the details to your networks, colleagues and friends. If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to get in touch and do keep an eye out for other Oral History Festival events running online throughout 2024. Visit https://www.ohs.org.uk/upcoming-events/ for more information. Best wishes Polly On behalf of the festival organising group —

Polly Owen

Events & Finance Manager, Oral History Society

polly.owen@ohs.org.uk * CALL FOR PAPERS Proposed Title of the book:  Nonfiction in Indian Languages deadline for submissions:  June 18, 2024 Concept Note Nonfiction, a genre of writing that comprises of a very wide variety of writings, has not received in India the kind of critical attention it deserves. Nonfiction writing includes narrative nonfiction, biography/autobiography, travel writing, self-help writing, writing on photography, gardening, health and fitness, music and much more. In case of India, all these sub-genres have seen extensive output not just in English but also in all the regional languages of the country. Secondly, it is not a product only of recent times, but has been trickling from pre-Independence era to the present. As such, the non-fiction produced in India is quite comprehensive both in the terms of quality and quantity. In spite of this variety and quantum of nonfictional works produced in India, there are very few critical studies discussing this particular genre. There are a few books which review a particular sub-genre, for example, autobiography, in a particular language like Bengali or Oriya. However, a comprehensive collection of scholarly articles that presents the state of the art of non-fiction across the sub-genres and regional languages is still awaited. The proposed edited volume will explore the rich and relatively ignored tradition of Indian Nonfiction.  It aims to rope in scholars from different regional languages who would write a state-of-the-art review of non-fiction or a sub-genre of it in one particular Indian language. The editors believe that this kind of work where information of different writers and their writing from different literatures of India available at one place will be of great help to researchers not just from India but also from outside  and will turn out to be an important reference book. We wish to invite scholarly papers from scholars interested in Nonfictional writing from the following sub-genres (but not limited to) written in English and all regional Indian languages:

1. 1. Essays

1. 1. Life-narratives, Self-narratives, Memoirs, Biographies and Autobiographies

1. 1. Food and Culinary studies, Cookbooks

1. 1. Children’s Nonfiction

1. 1. Narrative Nonfiction

1. 1. Historical Nonfiction

1. 1. Philosophy, Religion and Spirituality

1. 1. Self-Help and Parenting Guides

1. 1. Science Fiction

1. 1. Business and Economics

1. 1. Education- Early Childhood, Young Adult and Tertiary

1. 1. Fine-Arts: Music, Painting, Architecture, Crafts, Photography Sculpture

1. 1. Ecology and Environment Studies, Gardening and Nature Care studies.

1. 1. Healthcare and Fitness

There are a multitude of genres in the nonfiction category. Many of them overlap, and some of them cover very niche subject matters. We hope that the assemblage of different papers will add something important to the discourses and contemporaneity of Indian Nonfiction. The collection of papers may give rise to some new and neglected themes, unheard voices, and perspectives. Submissions could address the suggested areas but may not necessarily be limited to these. You are welcome to address some related relevant area too. Submission Guidelines It is proposed to publish the edited volume in association with Manipal Universal Press (MUP), Karnataka. Paper submissions should be about 5,000 to 7,000 words in length and prepared in accordance with the  recent MLA style manual.  Submissions should be in Times New Roman, 12-point font, with 1-inch margins, and single-spaced. The last date to submit the completed papers and a short biography (200 words) is 18 June 2024.  Double-blind review process will be employed for the selection of the papers. Contributors will be notified of acceptance status via email after the completion of the review process. The copy editors may suggest certain revisions. In the Subject line, please indicate “Proposal for …..(Type of Nonfiction) …………(the particular language in which the selected Non-fiction is written) Contact email: dr.langare@gmail.com, triptikarekatti@gmail.com Editors: Dr. Tripti Karekatti and Dr. Chandrakant Langare Department of English, Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Maharashtra. 416004. * 9th International Symposium of the Finnish Oral History Network FOHN Memory in Movement: Pace, Connection & Introspection 28th–29th November 2024, University of Jyväskylä, Finland (CFP DL 1.6.2024) Deadline for Submissions: June 1, 2024 The ninth international symposium of the Finnish Oral History Network (FOHN) critically explores the concept of ‘movement’ in relation to oral history and memory studies. ‘Movement’ is defined broadly and inclusively: it can refer to social movements, physical movement, or movement across concrete or conceptual borders. It can be interpreted as the movements that have shaped oral history as a discipline, from its inception to today. Moreover, the memories oral historians study are constantly in motion, with the present framing people’s recollection and understanding of the past. In this conference ‘movement’ is therefore paired with the notion of ‘pace’, accentuating the importance of temporality for the study of oral history. We invite researchers and practitioners to approach their work from an introspective angle, examining how subjective experiences and social factors impact the speed at which oral history is conducted. We wish to invite contributions involving methodological, analytical, and ethical questions, as well as case studies. Proposals may be submitted for individual papers or panels and can address, but are not limited to, the following themes and topics: • Social movements and oral history. Does conceptualising researchers as activists challenge established oral history practices? • The ways in which emotions can move the interviewer and/or responder. What ethical considerations must we account for, when incorporating the study of emotions into oral history and memory studies? How does speed and timing influence how emotions are recorded, analysed, or internalized in our research processes? • Physical movement, the body and oral history interviewing. For example, how might moving through memorable spaces evoke visceral reminiscences? • Digital humanities and changes to how we collect, process, and analyse memories. Technology and how it shapes oral history into a reproducible, codable, and ‘fast’ process. How much time do we need to meaningfully connect with our research subjects? • The pace at which change within oral history has occurred. What connects/distinguishes oral historians working across the decades? Has oral history ‘matured’ into a stable and agreed upon methodology? The conference offers researchers an interdisciplinary setting in which to connect and present cutting-edge ideas. The conference language will be English. Important Dates Proposals for symposium: deadline 1.6.2024 Acceptance of abstract: notice will be sent by 24.6.2024 Speaker registration: no later than 6.9.2024 Audience registration: no later than 22.11.2024 Conference Fees Standard fee: 40 euro Fee for FOHN-members: 20 euro Concession fee (students, unwaged participants): free https://www.jyu.fi/en/events/fohn-2024-memory-in-movement-pace-connection-introspection * CLERICAL LIVES IN BRITAIN, C. 1600–1800 The University of Manchester, 17 September 2024 Deadline for Submissions: June 1, 2024 ** Keynote speakers: Professor Jacqueline Eales (Canterbury Christ Church University) and Professor Jon Stobart (Manchester Metropolitan University) The Anglican clergy had a ubiquitous presence in early modern Britain and played a significant role in shaping its religious, cultural, social, and political landscape. We now know a considerable amount about the social background, education, recruitment, training, professionalisation, and responsibilities of the post-Reformation clergy. In recent years, the social lives of the early modern Protestant clergy have come into sharper focus with historians seeking to better understand this demographically diverse social cohort beyond the focus of ecclesiastical history. This conference, held at the University of Manchester on 17 September 2024, joins this renewed historiographical focus on the clergy’s social lives and aims to broaden our purview of clerical experiences in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Whereas a wealth of research has examined the clergy and its changing social functions and roles during the tumult of the English Reformation, this conference seeks to investigate clerical experience and behaviours in the later part of the early modern period. This conference therefore asks the following questions: how can we define the clergyman in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain? While scholars have explored their public lives as political agents and figureheads of the English Church in great detail, what can we discover about their private lives away from the pulpits and the press? And how were these myriad lives represented in manuscript, print, and visual culture? We are particularly keen to receive proposals which focus on a greater range of historical actors in discussions of the clergy. We would also be interested in proposals from scholars who approach the clergy from a range of methodological and disciplinary approaches. We invite papers on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• • Clerical autobiography and life-writing

• • Biographies of clergymen

• • Clerical wives, families, and dynasties

• • Clergymen’s domestic lives

• • Clergymen’s social lives

• • Clergymen’s political lives

• • Clergymen’s emotional lives

• • Clergymen’s material lives

• • Clergymen’s gendered lives

• • Clergymen’s recreational lives

• • Clergymen’s scientific lives

• • Clergymen’s cultural and artistic lives

• • Clergymen’s musical lives

• • Clergymen’s literary lives

• • Clergymen’s mobile lives

• • Clergymen’s precarious lives

• • Marginalised voices, e.g. curates and unbeneficed priests

• • Comparative lives, e.g. clergymen in Europe and America

• • Clergymen’s misdemeanours, e.g. intoxication

• • Digital histories of the clergy, e.g. the Clergy of the Church of England database

We welcome contributions from independent scholars, ECRs, and PhD students. Please send a 250-word abstract for papers of no more than 20 minutes and a short biography (max. 100 words) to Hannah Yip and Ben Jackson via clericallives@gmail.com no later than 1 June 2024. Alternatively, we would also welcome proposals for ‘lightning talks’ (10 minutes) to be incorporated into roundtable discussions. Please indicate your preferred format within your proposal. NB. This conference will be held in person. Please get in touch if you need any particular arrangements to be made, or support provided, if you are interested in attending. Contact Information Dr Hannah Yip Dr Benjamin Jackson Contact Email clericallives@gmail.com * *

Writing the Self in Pain: Historical Perspectives

24–25 October 2024, University of Helsinki https://blogs.helsinki.fi/experiencingagony/writing-the-self-in-pain/ We are delighted to invite papers for our international conference Writing the Self in Pain: Historical Perspectives, to be held at the University of Helsinki on 24–25 October 2024. The deadline for proposals is 31 May 2024. Check out for the criteria for proposals below.

About the conference

Pain as an affective, simultaneously sensory and emotional experience has made a prominent entrance into historical inquiries during the past two decades. Inquiries into what caused pain, how it was managed and endured, and how pain was constructed through the interaction of language, culture, society, body, and mind, have broadened our view of the experiential and mental landscapes of the past. This international conference explores the manifold ways in which pain was described and made sense of by the sufferers of the past. Its focus will thus not be the medical experts or authorities, but the ‘self’ who suffered and described their pain as a sensory, emotional, and embodied experience. We hope to shed light on the individual who tried to make sense of their own pain in different contexts and with the help of varying cultural resources, while remaining conscious of the construction of identities that went hand in hand in describing their own individual experiences of pain.

The goals of the conference

The goal of the conference is to access embodied experiences of pain through an analysis of descriptions of and allusions to pain in a great variety of self-writing (including but not limited to, for example, letters, diaries, autobiographies, spiritual writings, and travel journals and colonial texts). We encourage researchers in historical and related fields to inquire how sufferers conceptualised and understood their pain. How did the intersectional categories and identities they inhabited influence the cultural resources available to them to make sense of their pain? Did the form and function of their writings shape the representation of their experience in crucial ways? How may we widen the lens of context and the genre expectations of our source material so as to catch in our net historical experiences of pain that have not been in focus before? What changes and/or continuities were there in embodied experiences of pain from the classical to the medieval period, or from the early modern to the modern period? The conference is organised by the Research Council of Finland-funded research project, Experiencing Agony: Pain and Embodiment in the British Atlantic World, 1600–1900. The project analyses descriptions of emotional and sensory pain, tracing historical breaks and continuities in how pain was experienced and expressed in the British Atlantic world and how social, cultural, and temporal change affected its embodiment on both an individual and social level. The conference organisers are planning to edit and publish a collection of articles/a theme issue on an international journal based on selected papers from the conference.

Keynote speakers

The confirmed keynote speakers for the conference are Joanna Bourke, Katie Barclay, and Jan van Dijkhuizen, all internationally renowned experts on the cultural and social histories of experiences of pain. Joanna Bourke is Professor Emerita of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Fellow of the British Academy. She is the prize-winning author of fifteen books, as well as over 120 articles in academic journals. In 2014, she was the author of The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers. In 2022, she published Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual Violence. Among others, she is the author of Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain, and the Great War, An Intimate History of Killing (which won the Wolfson Prize and the Fraenkel Prize) and Fear: A Cultural History, What it Means To Be Human. She is currently writing a book entitled Evil Women. Her books have been translated into Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Turkish, and Greek. Katie Barclay is Future Fellow and Professor at the University of Macquarie, Sydney. She writes widely on the history of emotions, gender, and family life. Her publications include, among others, Caritas: Neighbourly Love and the Early Modern Self (2021) and Men on Trial: Performing Emotion, Embodiment and Identity, 1800-1845 (2019). She is currently working on a short monograph on the production of the self in the contemporary university. Jan van Dijkhuizen is Reader in English Literature at Leiden University. His research focuses on early modern literature, with a special interest in the interactions between literature and religion, the cultural history of the body and the senses, manuscript culture, and the afterlives of early modern literary works. He is the author of Devil Theatre: Demonic Possession and Exorcism in English Renaissance Drama, 1558–1642 (2007), Pain and Compassion in Early Modern English Literature and Culture (2012), and A Literary History of Reconciliation: Power, Remorse and the Limits of Forgiveness (2018). He currently leads a research project on the ‘Poetics of Olfaction in Early Modernity’ (poem), funded by the Dutch Research Council.

Submitting a proposal

Individual paper proposals should consist of an abstract (c. 300) words), a brief biography (up to 200 words) and full contact information. Papers should be 20 minutes in duration. We also invite proposals for full panels of 3-4 papers, with same details and a brief outline of the scope of the panel (150-250 words). We especially welcome ideas and explorations of sources that have thus far not been extensively examined from this perspective. Presentations may address any time period or geographical location. Suggested topics for papers include, but are not limited to:

• • Methods and concepts of examining pain

• • Ontologies and epistemologies of pain

• • Colonial and cross-cultural negotiations of pain

• • Pain and the history of emotions and experiences

• • Senses, emotions, and the body

• • Vocabularies, metaphors and narrativity of pain

• • Practices and performativity of suffering

• • Religious suffering and supernatural pain

• • Alleviating and medicating pain

• • Changes and continuities in the embodied experiences of pain

• • Pain experiences and (intersecting) categories of gender, race, class, age, ability

• • Sympathy, empathy and pain

• • Reading pain from marginalised communities

• • Temporality and memory in writing about pain

• • Individuals and pain communities

• • Interdisciplinary approaches to reading pain

The deadline for proposals is 31 May 2024. Proposals, as well as any inquiries and questions, should be sent to the project email: (experiencing.agony@helsinki.fi) *

National Portrait Gallery Director’s Essay Prize

Deadline for nominations: May 24, 2024  USA Founded in 2019, the Director’s Essay Prize celebrates leading research in the field of United States portraiture and visual biography. The award includes a cash prize of $3,000 for the author of a published essay that explores and enriches the interdisciplinary nature of American art, biography, history, and cultural identity. The recipient will present on their essay topic at the National Portrait Gallery during an award ceremony in fall 2024. The Director’s Essay Prize complements the Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, a triennial juried contemporary art exhibition established in 2006, and is specifically dedicated to supporting the next wave of written scholarship on portraiture. To qualify, scholarly essays of minimum 4,000 words must have been published in print or online within the past three years (details below). Scholars may self-nominate or nominate the work of their peers. Through its competitive nomination and selection process, the Director’s Essay Prize recognizes outstanding scholars whose work explores the interdisciplinary nature of American portraiture. Eligibility

• • Jurors will consider single-author scholarly essays that have either appeared in an academic journal or in a university press and/or museum publication between January 2022 and March 2024.

• • The author must hold a Ph.D. or other terminal degree (such as an MFA) or be enrolled in such a program at the time of submission.

• • The essay must explore U.S. portraiture through an interdisciplinary lens.

• • The author must be available to present a 35-minute lecture on their essay topic at the National Portrait Gallery’s award ceremony, which will take place in the fall of 2024.

• • The essay must be in written in English or translated to English before submission for review.

• • Nominations must be received by May 24, 2024, at 5 p.m. ET.

Please note that no work written by an employee of the Smithsonian Institution or produced by a Smithsonian museum’s publications office is eligible.  To Nominate an Essay Please send a brief letter that explains the work’s significance to the field of portraiture and a copy of the nominated essay. More than one person may nominate the same essay. Send letters of nomination and a copy of the essay to NPGPortal@si.edu with the subject line “Director’s Essay Prize Nomination.” Please send your nomination in PDF format. Contact Please reach out to depabloc@s*i.edu with questions *

Call for Papers: Journal of Greek Media and Culture

Edited by Dr Olga Kourelou and Dr Lydia Papadimitriou Special Issue: ‘Greek Stardom and Celebrity: Histories and Methods’ Deadline for Abstracts: May 15, 2024 View the full call here>> https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-greek-media-culture#call-for-papers Since the publication of Richard Dyer’s Stars (1979), which initiated the beginning of a scholarly enquiry into film stardom, star studies have been constantly evolving and expanding. While most early work on stardom focused on issues of representation and the ideological significance of film stars, or their role in the industrialisation of Hollywood cinema, the field has expanded across film, TV and media studies; adopting new areas of investigation and methodological approaches, including work on the nature of fame and celebrity (Holmes and Redmond 2007; Holmes and Negra 2011), empirical audience research (Herzog and Gaines 1991; Stacey 1994), acting and performance (Naremore 1988; Hollinger 2006; Baron 2018), as well as national and transnational stars and stardoms (Vincendeau 2000; Landy 2010; Meeuf and Raphael 2013; Yu and Austin 2017; Lawrence 2020). Meanwhile, Greek film studies have been experiencing an exponential growth in both the Greek- and English-language academe. However, while popular Greek cinema has been reclaimed as a serious object of academic study for some time now, the phenomenon of stardom in Greece has not enjoyed a similar academic reappraisal, despite its acknowledged centrality in Greek cinema and beyond. It is primarily in connection with Old Greek Cinema (Kourelou 2020; Karalis 2015; Potamitis 2013; Kartalou 2011; Kyriacos 2009), genre (Papadimitriou 2009, 2004; Eleftheriotis 1995) and, to a lesser extent, acting (Lykourgioti 2017; Dimitriadis 2008; Kourelou 2008) that Greek film criticism has recognised the role of stardom. Beyond these contexts, there has been a considerable lack of critical engagement with the diachronic manifestation and development not only of stardom but also of celebrity. This issue aims to lay the groundwork for a wide-ranging debate on the subject that will improve our understanding of stardom in Greece. The issue, however, does not seek to simply celebrate individual stars, unearth their biographies or elaborate on the types they embody. Rather, our concern is with exploring theoretical issues individual or groups of stars raise, the kinds of identities and meanings they personify, as well as the ways in which they negotiate the values and contradictions of their era. At the same time, we are not only interested in revealing the textual significance of stars in specific historical contexts, but also their political economy and discursive construction. Some of the lines of enquiry we would particularly like to pursue revolve around the following questions: how has stardom evolved historically in Greece? Does cinema still provide the ultimate confirmation of stardom, as Christine Gledhill (1991) claimed in relation to Hollywood stars more than three decades ago? How have media technologies (from TV and VHS to social media) impacted not only the way stars emerge, but also the way their fame has been conceptualised and their fans engage with them? How can we understand Greek stardom in nationally and culturally specific terms as well as through the way it intersects with other – dominant or peripheral – transnational contexts? What ideas about personhood do stars articulate, how do these change over time and how do they help audiences make sense of themselves and the (Greek) world? In order to reveal the multitude of stardoms in Greek film, TV and media, we invite (but do not limit) proposals on the following topics:

• • Histories of stardom and celebrity

• • Stars and genre

• • Stars and film style

• • Stars, gender and sexuality

• • Stars, ethnicity and race

• • Stars and the nation

• • Star labour

• • Ageing

• • Acting and performance

• • The relationship between studios and stars, auteurs and stars

• • The interconnectivity between theatrical, film and/or TV stardom

• • Non-film stardom

• • Cult stardom

• • Reception and spectatorship: stardom and film criticism, the role of the audience (and different types of audiences) and how they make use of star images

Please send a title, 300 word abstract and a short biography to Dr Olga Kourelou (kourelou.o@unic.ac.cy) and Dr Lydia Papadimitriou (L.Papadimitriou@ljmu.ac.uk) by 15 May 2024. The final articles should be around 6000-8000 words, and submitted to the editors by 1 November 2024. * CFP–Witnessing the War in Ukraine: Testimony in the Pursuit of Justice Summer Institute

August 27-30, 2024

Wroclaw, Poland

Deadline for Submissions: May 15, 2024

As an urgent response to the Russian military aggression against sovereign Ukraine, several partner institutions launched the Summer Institute Witnessing the War in Ukraine in July 2022 and then hosted the Second Institute in June 2023. Over the two years, the circumstances of the war led to the rapid growth of grassroot activism and formation of new research communities both in Ukraine and beyond. As academic researchers, we consider it as our professional and ethical obligation to continue the initiative we introduced two years ago to further disseminate our academic expertise in oral history, ethnography, memory studies, interview research and research of witness literature, as well as to share this knowledge with a broad and evolving community of practitioners working in various local settings. The third Summer Institute in 2024 will focus on testimony research in the pursuit of justice, with an ambition to chart novel disciplinary approaches for oral history, memory studies and anthropology, while affording victims of the war a space of trust, empowerment and dignity. We invite the prospective WWSI 2024 participants to bring to the limelight, contextualize and interrogate injustice as it has been witnessed, observed and experienced, from a variety of conceptual and disciplinary perspectives, across diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural groups of Ukraine. Testimonies provided by eyewitnesses play a pivotal role in uncovering crimes, establishing culpability of war criminals, and securing redress for victims. The first-hand testimonies serve not only as crucial components in legal proceedings but also as a solid basis for upholding human rights and international law during armed conflicts. Moreover, such juridical work with witnesses lays the groundwork for restoring trust in the legal system and fostering peace in post-conflict societies. The concept of genocide is of special interest within the framework of WWSI 2024. Since 2014 the rhetoric of genocide has been tested to provide a juridical qualification of the crimes of the Russian Federation committed in Ukraine. We will discuss existing scholarly approaches and gauge the possibility of qualifying assaults against one’s life, one’s group identity, one’s cultural heritage and one’s natural habitat as crimes of genocide in a comparative perspective. Another focus of WWSI 2024 is proposed to be on experiences of occupation and pursuit of justice in the formerly occupied territories. Among the confirmed invited speakers are: Oksana Dovgopolova, Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University Gabriele Rosenthal, University of Göttingen Kristina Hook, Kennesaw State University’s School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding, and Development Dirk Moses,  City College of New York Hasan Hasanović, Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Centre Claudia Seymour, Geneva Graduate Institute Yevheniia Podobna, Journalist & documentarian Nataliya Zubar, Maidan Monitoring Information Centre Józef Markiewicz, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews What to expect Over the course of four days, the institute will offer a series of presentations, workshops, and mentorship opportunities examining current trends in scholarly and creative reflections on witnessing the war in Ukraine. Invited speakers and faculty will lead such discussions and invited participants will be offered opportunities to discuss their work with other members of the Institute. Testimonials to the work of the previous Summer Institute can be found here. The Summer Institute will be held in person in Wrocław, Poland. The working language of the Institute is English. The registration fee for the Summer Institute is 200 EURO. In support of accepted participants residing in Ukraine, the travel grant (covering travel, accommodation and registration fee) will be announced.

To participate in the Institute, apply here.

Your application should include a personal statement in English explaining how this Summer Institute will benefit your scholarly and/or creative work and ongoing or planned projects, a brief bio, and contact information. Important Deadlines and Dates: Application Deadline — 15 May, 2024 Notifications of Acceptance — 1 June, 2024 Summer Institute — 27-30 August, 2024 Organizers Lund University, Sweden Huculak Chair in Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography, University of Alberta, Canada Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Canada Ukrainian Oral History Association, Ukraine Polish Oral History Association, Poland Dobra Wola Foundation, Poland Centrum Historii Zajezdnia Ukrainian-German Historical Commission Organizing Committee

• • Natalia Khanenko-Friesen — Oral historian and cultural anthropologist, Director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and Huculak Chair in Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography, both at University of Alberta; Co-Head of Ukrainian Oral History Association.

• • Eleonora Narvselius — Anthropologist from Lund University, currently leading the research project Ukrainians in Poland: Making Home in Times of Peace and War, in collaboration with Wrocław University.

• • Gelinada Grinchenko — Oral historian, Philipp Schwartz Fellow at the University of Wuppertal (Germany); Co-Head of Ukrainian Oral History Association.

• • Alina Doboszewska — Researcher at the Institute of Sociology of Jagiellonian University, NGO activist, founder and president of the Dobra Wola Foundation in Krakow.

https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20030136/cfp-witnessing-war-ukraine-testimony-pursuit-justice-summer-institute *

CFP: Articles About Mental Illnesses in Reality Television for Book Project

deadline for submissions:  May 15, 2024 The pandemic brought a lot of changes to the structure of American society. COVID-19 was a disabling pandemic, leaving many people with severe health issues that they didn’t have pre-pandemic and which now affect their daily life. And when it comes to mental illness, the pandemic threw some of us into the realization that loneliness, depression, anxiety, etc. are more prevalent than we thought. This issue was so prominent in the minds of health officials, that the Surgeon General released a report on this new loneliness epidemic. Reality television has not typically been a place for nuanced discussions about anything, but the representation we’ve seen has improved a lot in the past decade, from a “finalist” talking about his depression on The Bachelorette to differently abled contestants on a variety of shows. And, it’s worth noting, that with the popularity and large audience of the genre, sometimes these shows can be the first time someone sees themselves represented or learns about a different type of person. I am seeking abstracts for potential articles for a book project that will be themed around representations of mental illnesses/disorders/disabilities in reality television. Some potential topics are listed below to help spur ideas! Please submit a 300 word abstract and 100 word bio by May 15, 2024 to acabral@sfsu.edu. Once abstracts have been received, a full proposal will be submitted to the interested publisher (McFarland & Company) by June 15, 2024 and if accepted, essays/papers will be due by the end of August 2024. Possible areas for discussion include:

• • How men with disabilities are depicted versus women with disabilities

• • Desirability politics in relation to dating shows and the typical uplifting of one specific body type (white, straight, skinny, able bodied).

• • Less sanitized depictions of mental illness, such a portrayals of what could probably be labeled Obsessive Compulsive Disorder on shows like My Strange Addiction

• • Shows that focus on a specific disorder, like The OCD project

• • How reality television portrayals of mental illness fit into the larger conversation about mental health, especially post-COVID and acknowledging the push by many for society to be more accepting

• • How representation of mental illnesses on reality television shows and how that may affect public perception

• • Mental illness “influencers” and/or how reality television contestants have used a newfound platform to discuss their mental health

• • How appearing on reality television can cause or worsen mental illness, such as on camera emotional breakdowns on Love Is Blind

• • How certain shows, especially marriage oriented ones like The Bachelor, force contestants to reveal their trauma (notably a contestant on Tayshia’s season of The Bachelorette told her about his suicide attempt)

Special issue editor: Angelica Cabral, Women and Gender Studies MA student at San Francisco State University. Editor Bio: Angelica Cabral is in her first year of the Women and Gender Studies Master’s program at San Francisco State University, with a focus on studying internet culture and social media as they intersect with gender and sexuality. Alongside being a student, she is the Development and Communications Manager for a youth focused nonprofit. In February she presented at the 2024 Southwest Popular/American Culture Association. Her paper was titled “Hot Girls Have IBS: An analysis of the use of meme culture to cope with an illness primarily affecting women.” Her writing has appeared in Mother Jones, Slate, The Objective, and more. * Call for Papers Women’s Autobiographical Filmmaking  Special issue of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, Summer 2026 Deadline for Abstracts: May 15, 2024 Guest editors: Dr Felicia Chan (University of Manchester) and Dr Monika Kukolova (University of Salford) Autobiographical filmmaking refers to films created by filmmakers that tell stories about their lives, experiences and memories. These may be truthful or partially fictionalised, remembered clearly or misremembered, or a combination of these, usually in ways that also explore how film as a medium itself can do this — a form of practice-as-research, if you like. We are interested in exploring with potential contributors whether there might be a gendered nature to this mode of filmmaking / life-remembering / self-narrating? Do filmmakers who identify as women tell different stories about themselves and their lives from those who identify as men, or do they do so in a different way? How do women filmmakers navigate their simultaneous objecthood and subjecthood in the eye of the camera (Everett, 2007)? Much of the canon in film studies is constituted by works of male auteurs, all in one form or another said to be exploring their lives, their pasts and their selves on screen: think of figures like Federico Fellini, Woody Allen, François Truffaut, Shane Meadows, the list goes on. This structural domination is being continually challenged (Gledhill and Knight, 2015) and moves to rehistoricise women’s filmmaking have seen increased attention on figures from Agnès Varda through to Greta Gerwig though much more remains to be done on women filmmakers in the global majority. There has been a longer history of scholarship on women’s literary life-writing (Smith and Watson, 1998; Neuman, 2016; Brodzki and Schenck, 2019) but less so on women’s life-writing on/through film as a mode of self-narration. How have women filmmakers had to navigate the industrial structures of filmmaking with all its gatekeeping mechanisms, including access to capital? To what extent are these gatekeeping mechanisms disproportionately discriminatory towards women? We are inviting proposals to explore any area of the subject, although we are especially keen to receive proposals from scholars studying the ways women in the global majority use cinema to write themselves and their memories into post/colonial histories. We would also like to invite proposals on alternative publication formats such as the video essay, and shorter provocations, interviews or reports. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• • Filmmaker case studies

• • Close readings of individual films

• • Industry analysis

• • Autobiographical film as method

• • Challenges to theoretical orthodoxies, e.g. auteur theory, canon-making, etc.

• • Decolonial approaches to gender studies and women’s filmmaking

Full-length articles: 5,500-7,000 words, including notes but excluding references Video essay: Approx. 3-15 mins, plus accompanying text 500-1000 words Short reports, provocations, reviews, interviews, reflections: 1,500-2,500 words Full-length articles and video essays will be subject to full peer review. Guidelines here: https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Guidelines.html Publication Timeline 15 May 2024, abstract due 31 May 2024, notification of editors’ decision 15 January 2025, full video essay / manuscript due Publication: Summer 2026 If you are interested in contributing to this issue, please send a 300-word abstract along with a brief biography, in the same file, to Dr Monika Kukolova (M.Kukolova@salford.ac.uk) Feel free to contact us with any questions. Alphaville is a diamond open-access journal, and it requests no fee from authors or readers. Visit us at https://www.alphavillejournal.com Contact Information Dr Felicia Chan, University of Manchester, UK: Felicia.Chan@manchester.ac.uk Dr Monika Kukolova, University of Salford, UK: M.Kukolova@salford.ac.uk Contact Email Felicia.Chan@manchester.ac.uk URL https://www.alphavillejournal.com * Call-for-Papers Cultural Depictions of the Stepmother: Literature, Stage, and Screen. An Edited Collection Deadline for Abstract Submissions–30 April, 2024 This call is for abstracts for a scholarly, international edited collection entitled, Cultural Depictions of the Stepmother: Literature, Stage, and Screen. Currently I am seeking a number of academics and professionals in the field who might like to send me an abstract for consideration for inclusion in the book. Deadline for abstract submissions:  30 April, 2024 The aim of this scholarly edited collection is to reveal how, in any society, the personal expectations and actual experiences of the stepmother may differ from the societal and cultural expectations and realities of the role. The further aim is to show how the stepmother is perceived in the popular views of a particular society, as demonstrated in the literature, stage, screen, and pop culture narratives, of that society. To whatever degree, every culture in the world is different to all others. Yet, in any culture, religious and cultural beliefs are inseparable, intrinsic one to the other, and are important to the traditions, customs, practices and laws of any particular culture or society. One figure that remains consistent in almost every culture, and that attracts the attention, is the stepmother. Regardless of whether a culture is mainly monogamous or polygamous, the stepmother is one of the female figures that are central to the family, the community and hence the society and the culture. Various sources define the stepmother as: a woman who is married to one’s father after the divorce or separation of one’s parents or the death of one’s natural mother; a non-biological female parent who is married to a child’s biological male parent. An added complexity exists: statistics indicate that globally, there has been an increase of children born outside of marriage and who are raised by their cohabiting or non-cohabiting parents. Thus, a stepmother can be a woman who either marries or is the female partner of a man who has biological children resulting from a former marriage, or a previous union with some other woman.  A woman may also become a stepmother by default as in the case of, say, raising the children of a deceased (or otherwise absent) relative, or an orphan or an abandoned child as if her own offspring. Thus, given that cultural and religious, and social traditions, and laws vary widely across the globe, a woman may become the stepmother either by fact or by custom, or by religious or civil law, or by de facto relationship, or by guardianship. In most though not necessarily all cultures, and according to the religious and cultural beliefs and laws of a culture, as well as the civil laws of that country, a man who has been but is no longer married may remarry; and in some other cultures also, a man who is currently married may marry or take a second wife who may be expected to act as stepmother to his biological children by another previous marriage or union that has ended, or by agreement between the child’s/children’s biological parents. It is generally understood that whether she is welcomed by her new family or not, a man’s first wife or female partner brings with her some baggage into the life of the man she either weds or cohabits or has a relationship with, and hence into the family into which she marries or enters in some way.  Perhaps this may be more so in the case of the stepmother—a second (or further) wife or female partner of a man who already has a biological child/or children from a former relationship. Sometimes, too, a woman who becomes a stepmother will bring her own biological offspring into the union. It is well documented that parenting can be a difficult task at times. For a stepmother, the challenges, problems, and the difficulties in raising some other woman’s biological children may differ to those experienced by the biological mother. Questions arise: within any culture, what are the implications for a woman who weds or become the female partner of a widower or a divorced or separated man who is actively involved with, or is responsible for, his biological child/children from a previous union? Likewise, what are the implications for a stepmother in a) a polygamous arrangement, and b) for a stepmother in a monogamous relationship? Some suggestions for potential contributors to consider, and that could be addressed, may include but not limited to, are:

• • What are the cultural and social duties and expectations of the stepmother; and what are her personal realities and expectations, as depicted in the popular culture of a particular culture/society? Is it possible to detect differences or sameness between the fictionalized portrayals and the realities and social dictates of that culture?

• • How do class, ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and possibly history, shape depictions of the stepmother, as indicated in the popular screen, stage, and literary productions of any one particular culture?

• • What is the range of ways in which the stepmother is represented in the popular/social culture of the various societies?

• • Are there any powerful cultural or socially historical antecedents for the representations of the stepmother in popular/social culture, as screen, stage, and literary productions?

• • What are the creators’ and/or the producers’ intentions behind their portrayals of the stepmother; what are their messages for their audiences?

• • How would we establish the underlying cultural, historical, or production motivations for particular depictions of the stepmother?

How often, if at all, are these representations told from the point-of-view of the stepmother herself? Alternatively, how often, if at all, are these representations told from the point-of-view of the stepchild/stepchildren, or the husband or partner of that woman herself?

• • Is there a difference between the ways in which the stepmother is depicted in film for small and large screen, and between those mediums to the depictions in drama, and to literature? Or in these depictions, is there a reasonably broad consensus between these genres?

This collection of scholarly essays will make an intervention in the field: it will be the first of its kind to make a comprehensive study of what being a stepmother means to and for the woman, to the family, the community, the culture, and the society to which she belongs. This to investigate whether or not there are characteristic features of the stepmother between cultures that may have either some similarity, or that are totally dissimilar; explore the popular beliefs and popular culture in relation to stepmother-hood in any one or more society/ies; document and record how various eastern and western societies perceive and represent the socially and culturally important figure of the stepmother in screen, stage, and literary works, including folk tales and pop culture narratives; indicate if there is agreement or difference between the various cultures on how the figure of the stepmother is depicted in popular culture to the viewing/reading audiences; establish a new and dynamic area of theoretical research crossing family studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, social history, gender studies, social studies, and the humanities in general; point the way to possible future cross-disciplinary work through examining various peoples and societies by way of cultural depictions of the stepmother; and permit scholarly consideration of the extent to which the creators and producers of narratives about the stepmother place this figure on the perimeter of society or at its center. Submission instructions: At this initial stage, in lieu of “chapters,” this proposed work, Cultural Depictions of the Stepmother, calls for extended abstracts for consideration for inclusion in the book.

1. 1. The extended abstracts must be more than 1,500 words and less than 2,000 words.

Full-length chapters of not less than, say, 7,000 words, and no more than 8,500 words each (including notes but excluding references lists, title of work, and key words), will be solicited from these abstracts.

1. 1. Please keep in mind that your essay-chapter will be written from your extended abstract. Your abstract will carry the same title as your essay-chapter.

1. 1. To be considered, an abstract must be written in English, and submitted as a Word document.

1. 1. When writing your abstract use Times New Roman point 12, and 1.15 spacing.

1. 1. At the beginning of your extended abstract, immediately after the title of your work and your name, add 5 to 8 keywords that best relate to your work.

1. 1. Use the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition.

1. 1. Since this work is intended for Lexington Books, USA, please use American (US) spelling not English (UK) spelling, and not Australian English spelling;

1. 1. Use the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary;

1. 1. For this project it is most important to use an impersonal academic voice when writing your abstract, and possibly your chapter later. That is, do not use the teacherly voice (“as we will see…”; “here we see…”; “as it will become clear”; …); and do not use 1st person or the personal voice (I; We will find; We find; You; Us; …)

1. 1. Use endnotes not footnotes, use counting numbers not Roman numerals, and keep the endnotes to a bare minimum, working the information into the text where possible;

1. 1. Do cite all your work in your extended abstract as you would in a full chapter:

a) In the body of the abstract, add parenthetical in-text citations (family name of author and year, and page number/s) (e.g. Smith 2019, 230); b) And fully reference all in-text citations in detail and in alphabetical order, in the References list at the end of your abstract;

1. 1. Please send your completed abstract as a Word document attached to an email, by the date given in this call for papers;

1. 1. To this same email please also attach, as separate Word documents, the following:

• • Your covering letter, giving your academic title/s, affiliation, your position, and your home and telephone numbers, your home address, and your email contact details;

• • A short bio of no more than 250 words;

• • Your C.V., including a full list of your publications and giving the publishing details and dates, and including those in press.

Editor: Dr Jo Parnell, PhD| Researcher, and Honorary Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, College of Human and Social Futures, University of Newcastle, Australia. Papers should be forwarded to: Jo.Parnell@newcastle.edu.au  or annette.parnell@newcastle.edu.au or joandbobparnell@bigpond.com  * Call for Presentations Auto / Bio / Fictional Graphic Narratives: A Online Symposium Thursday 27 June 2024 Deadline for Submissions: April 19, 2024 Life-writing in its many forms, including autofiction and biofiction, has grown exponentially in recent decades. Comics and graphic narratives have similarly become widespread and respected literary genres that feature many biographical, autobiographical, autofictional or biofictional texts. Completing the 2023-24 Auto / Bio / Fiction series at the Goldsmiths’ Centre for Comparative Literature, this online symposium will reflect on the combination of these two forms in order to explore how auto / bio / fictional graphic narratives and comics mobilise – and may put in tension – the visual and the verbal, the individual and the collective, the historical and the fictional, the documentary and the imagined, as well as popular culture and ‘serious’ literary fiction in constructing historical lives with varying degrees of fictionality and purposes. We invite proposals for varied forms of contributions, which can include:

• • –  20-minute formal papers

• • –  10-minute flash contributions

• • –  digital posters (i.e., as in a conference poster session: the poster can be shown

through screen share, with a 5-6 minute explanation)

• • –  roundtable proposals (3-4 contributions in which each speaker presents their

position in no more than 5 minutes, followed by a discussion / conversation)

• • –  led practical exercises or workshops

• • –  presentation of work in progress by practitioners

• • –  other formats not listed above

Topics may address (but are not limited to):

• • –  the representation and development of auto/biographical and auto/biofictional

identity

• • –  the representation of self and other

• • –  constructions and explorations of gender, sexual orientation, religion, race,

ethnicity…

• • –  experiences of displacement, migration, illness, war

• • –  the relationships or tensions between the factual and the fictional, the documentary

and the imagined, the visual and the verbal in the representation of the life

• • –  the literariness of graphic life narratives

• • –  wordless narratives (e.g. George A. Walker’s The Life and Times of Conrad Black: AWordless Biography)

• • –  chronotopes of life-writing; the temporal and spatial dimensions of life narratives

• • –  the relationship between author/narrator/illustrator and the character whose life is re-told –  how forms of reading experience, in hard copy or digital formats, affect the sense of the life conveyed in the narrative

• • –  tone in graphic life narratives: the dramatic, traumatic, melodramatic; the comedic, the ironic, the satirical…

• • –  effects and function of humour, pathos, surprise…

• • –  translations of graphic life narratives

• • –  adaptation of traditional written biographies into graphic narratives

• • –  historical and geographical developments of the genre

Comparisons across languages, cultures and traditions are most welcome. Proposals are welcome from academics and practitioners at any stage of their career. Please send your proposals by 19 April 2024 to: CCL@gold.ac.uk (please include the words “Auto-Bio-Fictional Graphic Narratives” in the subject line). Proposals should include: 1) a summary of up to 250 words of the proposed contribution, and 3-5 keywords; 2) the type of contribution proposed (formal paper, digital poster, etc.: see the list above); 3) a short biography of up to 150 words. For more information visit: https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/auto-bio- fictional-graphic-narratives-a-symposium/. * PhD Studentship in UK – Oral History and Provenance (4/8/2024) British Library and University College London Colleagues from the Oral History Team at the British Library write: We are excited to announce the details of a collaborative AHRC-funded PhD entitled ‘Exploring the Importance of Provenance in Oral History Collections’. The project will be jointly supervised by the British Library Oral History team and the Department of Information Studies at UCL. Applications are now open and close on the 8^th April 2024. Please share with your networks! More information below, full details including application instructions is available on the UCL website. Please read the application information carefully – do not use the ‘apply now’ button on the listing. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/search-ucl-jobs/details?nPostingId=9173&nPostingTargetId=21440&id=Q1KFK026203F3VBQBLO8M8M07&LG=UK&languageSelect=UK&mask=ext University College London (UCL) and the British Library are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from 1 October 2024 under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme. This research will examine the importance of documenting provenance for archived oral history collections by exploring the value of records of provenance to archivists and oral history researchers, and how making such records available to researchers could enhance understanding of oral history interviews and the historiography of the discipline. This project will be jointly supervised by Dr Andrew Flinn (Reader in Archive Studies and Oral History) and Dr Hannah Smyth (Lecturer in Archives and Records Management) in the Department of Information Studies at UCL (UCL:DIS) and by Dr Madeline White (Curator Oral History) and Mary Stewart (Lead Curator Oral History) at the British Library. The student will spend time with both UCL and the British Library and will become part of the wider cohort of AHRC CDP funded PhD students across the UK. UCL and the British Library are keen to encourage applications from a wide range of students and particularly welcome those currently underrepresented in doctoral student cohorts. * Call for Papers Stardom & Fandom Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA) 2024 SWPACA Summer Salon June 20-22, 2024 Virtual Conference Submissions open on March 25, 2024 Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2024 Proposals for papers are now being accepted for the SWPACA Summer Salon. SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas in a variety of categories encompassing the following: Film, Television, Music, & Visual Media; Historic & Contemporary Cultures; Identities & Cultures; Language & Literature; Science Fiction & Fantasy; and Pedagogy & Popular Culture. For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit https://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/ The Area Chair for Stardom and Fandom invites paper or panel proposals on any aspect of stardom or fandom. The list of ideas below is limited, so if you have an idea that is not listed, please suggest the new topic. We are an interdisciplinary area and encourage submissions from multiple perspectives and disciplines. Topics might include:

• • Studies of individual celebrities and their fans

• • Studies focused on specific fandoms

• • The reciprocal relationship between stars and fans

• • Impact of celebrity and fame on identity construction, reconstruction and sense of self

• • Reality television, TikTok, YouTube and the changing definition of ‘stardom’

• • The impact of social media on celebrity/fan interaction

• • Celebrity/fame addiction as cultural change

• • The intersection of stars and fans in virtual and physical spaces

• • Celebrity and the construction of persona

• • Pedagogical approaches to teaching stardom and fandom

• • Anti-fans and ‘haters’

• • Fan shame, wank, purity culture and fandom policing

• • Gendered constructions of stars and fans

• • Shipping, anti-shipping and representation

• • Historical studies of fandom and fan/celebrity interaction

All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database at https://register.southwestpca.org/southwestpca For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general, please see the Proposal Submission FAQs and Tips page at https://southwestpca.org/conference/faqs-and-tips/ Registration information for the conference will be available at https://southwestpca.org/conference/conference-registration-information/ Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words. Only one proposal per person, please; no roundtables. If you have any questions about the Stardom and Fandom area, please contact its Area Chair, Dr. Lynn Zubernis, Professor, West Chester University, lzubernis@wcupa.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@southwestpca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you. We look forward to receiving your submissions! * Call for Papers for a Special Issue (2025) Letters in/as Pedagogy Journal of Epistolary Studies Deadline for Submissions: April 15, 2024 Letters and letter writing have captivated scholars across diverse fields, including life writing, cultural studies, history, and literary studies. In the digital age, there is a renewed interest in studying letters within the ever-evolving landscape of digital communication technologies and platforms. Digital tools have revolutionized the examination of historical letters, enabling the archiving, analysis, and presentation of these artefacts. Interpersonal communication has undergone a transformation with the prevalence of email and social media. Additionally, the emergence of large language models like ChatGPT has added new dimensions to the discourse on interpersonal communication, as the chatbots promise seamless and rapid generation of personalized letters. The transformative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has underscored the relevance of letters and letter writing in education. As teachers and students abruptly transitioned to online learning during the pandemic, some educators explored the potential of letters as a means to establish meaningful connections during a period of social distancing and isolation. Already before the pandemic letters were employed as interventions in individual classes. For instance, teachers asked students to write letters to future students of the same course, encouraging the students to share their experiences and advice (inspired by James M. Lang Small Teaching). Letters have also served as the foundation for entire courses, as exemplified by Toni Bower’s “Epistolary Fiction before 1800” course, where students were introduced to contemporary epistolary novels that use multimodality or digital communication technologies to better appreciate the form’s “long and vibrant history.” Moreover, letters have been used to communicate educational theory, as seen in Paulo Freire’s Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those who Dare Teach (2005). Letter writing can offer a unique possibility to create and explore relationships in writing where shared knowing is made possible despite geographical, temporal, cultural and other distances between the addresser and the addressee.  As the editors of We Saved the Best for You: Letters of Hope, Imagination and Wisdom for 21^st Century Educators (2013) note, epistolary genre has the potential to “illuminate experiential connections and continuity across space and time” (xiv). This call for papers invites scholars to contribute their insights, research findings, and perspectives on the multifaceted relationship between letters, real-life and fictional, and pedagogy. Letters, with their malleable form, can serve a multitude of purposes. We invite contributions that explore the diverse ways in which letters may be used in and as pedagogical practices: the cultural and societal significance of letters as means of imparting knowledge and values; historical and contemporary examples of letters used for didactic purposes; and the evolution of letter writing manuals and their future in the digital age. We encourage discussions on how letters can be used to create a supportive and empathetic learning environment, connect students across geographical, temporal, and cultural boundaries, and how educators use letter writing as reflective practice. To explores these questions, we invite contributions on a range of topics, including but not limited to:

• • Didactic purpose/ potential of letters

• • Letter writing manuals: past, present, and future

• • Letter writing as pedagogy of care

• • Public pedagogy through letters

• • Letters and global education

• • Autoethnographic letter writing

• • Letters in language learning

• • Electronic correspondence

• • Multimodal epistolarity

Sindija Franzetti has proposed this special issue on “Letters in/as Pedagogy” and will serve as guest editor. If you are interested in having a peer-reviewed article published in this special issue of the Journal of Epistolary Studies, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, the article title, 3-5 key words, a short biographical note, and your email address to lettersinpedagogy@gmail.com no later than April 15, 2024. You will be notified by May 1, 2024, whether your proposed paper has been accepted. The final date for full article submission is pending. The aim is to publish the issue in 2025. *

CFP Translation, Transposition, and Travel in the Global Nineteenth Century

16-19 January 2025 Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies World Congress Global Studies Center, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait deadline for submissions: March 25, 2024 Keynote speakers: Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter Marwan Kraidy, Northwestern University QatarArthur Asseraf, University of Cambridge Sarga Moussa, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle The period between 1750 and 1914 was marked by change, motion, and mobility. Advances in transport and the expansion of imperial powers brought together an array of peoples and facilitated contact between different cultures. These cultural encounters spurred the discovery of new information and of efforts to transmit, mask, or contain it. Translation played a seminal role in informing the public about the changing world and its interconnections. Imaginative writings and scientific concepts were subject to transposition and adaptation across languages and cultures. Indeed, global modernizing processes were due, to some extent, to travel, translation, and transposition. For its second world congress to be held in Kuwait from 16 to 19 January 2025, the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies is pleased to invite proposals on the theme of “Translation, Transposition, and Travel in the Global Nineteenth Century.” We welcome proposals for papers and panels that explore transits between places, languages, cultures, and ideas. Topics may include (but are not limited to): ·       Travel and adventure ·       Initiatic journeys ·       Travel narratives and nautical fiction ·       Pilgrimage ·       Slave trade and the forced movement of peoples ·       Circulations, transfers, and migrations ·       Nomadism ·       Problems in translation (e.g., political humour, the absurd, nonsense, etc.) ·       Exile and displacement ·       Explorers and expeditions ·       Science fiction ·       Intermedial translation ·       Steamers and trains ·       Colonization ·       Translation and life writing ·       Transfer of knowledge ·       Cultural transposition ·       Adaptation across cultures ·       Transmediality and transnationalism ·       Transfer and transmission ·       Texts and their contexts ·       Transposition in music ·       Transposition and translation ·       Travel maps and cartographies of navigation ·       Books as travelling objects ·       Photography, painting, and travel ·       Tourism and visual culture ·       Nomadic narratives ·       Translation and the discovery of new cultures ·       The re/discovery of ancient civilizations/Egyptomania ·       Translation and the discovery of European modernity In addition to paper and panel proposals related to the conference theme, we also welcome proposals for prearranged special panels on topics in global nineteenth-century studies more broadly: Methodology OR Pedagogy Roundtables: Sessions focused on methodological approaches to studying and practical strategies for teaching the nineteenth century in a global context. Big Ideas: Sessions focused on a single thought-provoking topic related to the global nineteenth century. The format may vary from standard panels (three presenters and a moderator) to lightning roundtables (five to eight presenters delivering short, provocative position papers) to others that may be proposed. Proposals (extended deadline of 25 March) Individual paper proposals should consist of an abstract (200-250 words), brief biography (80- 100 words), and full contact information in a single pdf document or Word file. Panel proposals should include abstracts for 3-4 papers, a brief rationale that connects the papers (100-200 words), and biographies of each participant (80-100 words) in a single pdf or Word file. All proposals should include 3 to 5 keywords.  Successful panel proposals will include participants from more than one institution, and, ideally, represent a mix of disciplines/fields and career stages. Panel proposals should also indicate the category for evaluation: general conference program or special session; Methodology or Pedagogy Roundtable; or Big Ideas. Although the working language of the conference is English, a limited number of slots will be available for presentations in Arabic. Location and requirements The congress will be held at the Global Studies Center, Gulf University for Science and Technology, in Kuwait. Modern, prosperous, and safe, Kuwait boasts a unique cultural mix, a longstanding tradition of the theatrical arts, diverse cuisine, and some of the best beaches in the region. Presenters, panel chairs, and workshop participants must be current members of the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies at the time of the World Congress. For more information on membership, visit www.global19c.com. Proposals and questions should be directed to the Program Committee: societygncs@gmail.com. Please visit the 2025 Congress website for the most up-to-date information: https://www.sgncscongress.com. *

Un-Bioed: Radically Reimagining Black Women’s Lives (3/28-29/2024)

University of Kentucky USA This 2-day conference is an opportunity to celebrate and expand the community of Black women’s life writers. Black women’s life writing has been among the fastest-growing literary subgenres in the past several years. Long before this explosion of memoirs and biographies on and by Black women, scholars such as Nell Painter, Farah Jasmine Griffin, and Barbara Ransby led the way in the 1990s and early 2000s, writing path-breaking biographies and establishing the methodologies that other scholars would build upon. And while Black women’s biography has remained a vital form of writing and research for academics at various career stages, only a few have managed to secure contracts with commercial publishers and garner wider audience reach. Join us on Thursday, March 28, 2024, from 4 – 6 pm at the William T. Young Library Auditorium for an inspiring keynote from Salamishah Tillet (Baruch College), followed by a reception at the Alumni Gallery. The next day Friday, March 29, 2024, join us at the Alumni Gallery from 9 am – 3 pm for a day of panels and workshops dedicated to community, craft, and marketing. The schedule of events with speakers can be found here. Register here for free! Please share widely—we look forward to seeing you in March! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/un-bioed-radically-reimagining-black-womens-lives-tickets-761393888617?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl Shanna G. Benjamin, Ph.D. Professor of African American Studies, Wake Forest she/her My book, Half in Shadow, is available for purchase! Read my interview with the AAIHS to learn more about the book and why I wrote it. Visit my Linktree for videos of past events and notice of upcoming talks. Here’s how you pronounce my name. *

2024 Conference: Call for Papers

Defining the Letter– The Epistolary Research Network (TERN) will hold its fifth conference 4-5 October 2024. Deadline for Abstracts: March 29

1. 1. On February 28, 1943, someone found scraps of paper in their garden, thrown from the window of a train going to Auschwitz-Birkenau. This person delivered these scribbled messages from resistance fighter Simone Alizon to her father. [Arch. Nat. 72A fonds Alizon.]

1. 1. James Lee Byars wrote more than 100 letters, using a variety of materials, forms, and ideas, to artist Joseph Beuys over a period of 16 years. Received but never replied to, they explore the day-to-day of his artistic practice.

Whether composed under difficult circumstances or elaborated as part of a creative experiment, these examples share one feature. They raise the question: What is or should be considered a letter? Must it be written on socially recognized media, be it papyrus sheets, potsherds, or vellum, to qualify? Must it have a date, greetings, closing, and include epistolary conventions, like asking after someone’s health? Must it have a specific addressee, or be delivered via a postal institution? TERN2024 will serve as a forum to discuss and elaborate a definition of ‘letter.’ Is one definition even possible for this form of communication that has been adapted in many ways by many people over millennia and across the globe? We are interested in bringing together examples that challenge in some way current thinking or current definitions of ‘letter.’ Topics might include:

• • epistolary communications on atypical materials (pages torn from books, fabric, handmade ink)

• • written under duress or difficult situations (war, exile, prison, refugee camps, censorship, travel)

• • examine conventions specific to one group of people (secret societies, coded letters, academic or philosophical letters)

• • letters written by those unfamiliar with letter conventions and formats (children, those with limited literacy, or those writing letters for the first time)

• • hybrid forms (poem letters, essay letters, petitions, literary letters, etc.)

​ Proposals (maximum 250 words) and a brief biography (CV) should be sent to ternetwork@hotmail.com. The deadline is 29 March 2023. The conference will be virtual and the language will be English. As always, we will try to accommodate all times zones. Publication of selected papers will be arranged following the conference. *

Deadline for Submissions, March 31, 2024

CFP: Oral History and Disability The Oral History Review is happy to announce a call for papers for a special issue dedicated to Oral History and Disability. It is currently slated for the Spring 2025 issue of the OHR. Oral historians often write and talk about inclusion, even radical inclusion. What does this mean in practice? What contributions have oral historians made – or can they make – to Disability Studies? What are the cultural representations of disability and how can oral historians add to a view of disability beyond the traditional, mostly medical, and socially constructed ones? What do the practices of oral historians with disabilities look or sound like? What can oral historians learn about communication from people with disabilities? And how do such themes as embodiment, trauma, and identity, topics oral historians often discuss, apply to disability? For this issue, we especially want to encourage multimedia submissions and to push thinking around new technologies for both interviewing and oral history project outcomes. This might include, for example, for the blind and seeing impaired, not only audio but perhaps screen reader (or text-toaudio) software. For people who are deaf or hearing impaired, the use of signed interviews with video online (ASL), closed captioning, and downloadable transcripts. Or for people with neurocognitive differences, intellectual disabilities, and other conditions, anything from assistive devices to language cues within an interview to the use of photos to aid in story capture. This special issue thus asks oral historians to explore:

• • Multimedia projects and the use of audio/video/photography

• • New technologies for both interviewing and oral history project outcomes

• • Access and accessibility

• • Visibility and its meanings

• • Stories before and after the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act

• • The second wave of the disability rights movement, also called Disability Justice (DJ)

• • The role of oral history in Disability Studies and history

• • How disability is framed today and at different times and places

• • Disability and advocacy, family, and religious belief

• • Stories from the field of narrative medicine, which seeks to bridge clinical practice and patients’ emotional health and well being

• • What oral historians can learn about communication from people with disabilities, and/or from artists with disabilities who address the labor of care in their work

• • How oral history can be used to investigate the structural ableism that people with disabilities confront daily (spatial equity)

• • Disability and poverty, gender, or race

• • COVID-19 stories

• • And other themes that oral historians often address – embodiment, trauma, community, labor, inclusion/exclusion, identity – as applied to disability

It is estimated that one in four people in the U.S. alone live with a disability. If you have questions, book and media review ideas, or would like to discuss your proposal in advance, please contact the OHR editor, Holly Werner-Thomas, at holly@hollythomasoralhistory.com by December 31, 2023. To submit your articles, use the OHR submission portal, https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ohr. The deadline for submissions is March 31, 2024. Contact Email holly@hollythomasoralhistory.com URLhttps://oralhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/OHR-Spring-2025-Call-for-Papers.pdf *

The Expatriate Archive Centre (EAC) invites master’s students around the world to participate in the EAC Master’s Thesis Award and submit theses that contribute to the scholarship of expatriation studies.

Prize: €500 and promotion of the executive summary of the winning thesis by the EAC and partner organisations. Application deadline: 31 March 2024. Master thesis requirements: •             The thesis should relate to the EAC’s mission and objectives; •             The thesis is written in English; •             The thesis is from the 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22, or 2022–23 academic year; •             The thesis has been awarded a mark of 8/10 or more (or equivalent, e.g., 16/20 or more, or an ‘A’).

In 2019, we created this award to celebrate and reward talents who produce outstanding master’s theses that help to further understand the impact of expatriation on people’s lives. Five jurors evaluate the submissions. They use the following criteria: originality and innovation (20%); technical quality (30%); composition (10%); potential for contributing to the stimulation of scholarly (e.g. theoretical, methodological, etc.) perspectives regarding the award theme (20%); potential for contributing to the stimulation of practical engagement by policy, industry and/or civil society actors with the award theme (20%). More information about how to apply can be found here.

Partner organisations: Families in Global Transition, The International Metropolis Project, International Centre for Archival Research, TheHagueOnLine, ACCESS Netherlands and DutchNews.nl.

For more information about the EAC and this initiative, please visit our website or email welcome@xpatarchive.com.

Have a nice day, Kristine Director Expatriate Archive Centre Paramaribostraat 20 2585 GN  The Hague (the Netherlands) T. +31 (0)70 427 2014 F. +31 (0)70 427 2016 director@xpatarchive.com www.xpatarchive.com Follow us on: Facebook  Twitter  Instagram *

Close Encounters in War and Personal Narratives: Experience, Memory, and Storytelling Special issue of CEIWJ [Close Encounters in War Journal]

Deadline for Submissions: March 31, 2024

War has been the object of narration and storytelling since ancient times. Epics, myths, and legends transmitted the memory of heroes’ deeds, thus shaping and consolidating the cultural identities of local communities and ethnic enclaves and later nation-states and empires. Mythical storytelling evolved into historical narration as wars began to be recorded and accounted for systematically by early historians like Herodotus, Thucydides, or in Rome’s Annales. The public narration of war was an effective instrument of political and ideological cohesion as it displayed power and fuelled patriotic sentiments. However, the narration of war remained confined to the domain of public discourse despite armies consisting of individuals who contributed to the war directly and with personal sacrifice. The first personal account of war in the Western cultural tradition is Odysseus’s tale of the fall of Troy, which he shares with the Phaeaces. Thucydides referred to singular episodes involving specific individuals in his narration of the Peloponnesian Wars, though his discourse excludes any form of direct and personal narration. The first case of an extensive autobiographical war narrative is Julius Caesar’s De bello gallico. Despite being narrated in the third person, this work provides an individual-centred perspective about the military campaigns led by Caesar between 58 and 50 BC, culminating with the conquest of Gallia and Britannia. For the first time, the historian, the storyteller, and the protagonist of the tale coexist in the figure of the anonymous narrator/chronicler who accounts for Caesar’s deeds in the third person.

Personal narratives about war have seldom reached the public before the nineteenth century. This caused scholars to believe that anonymous soldiers, who constituted the core of all armies in any historical period, never wrote about their experiences. Writing, on the other hand, was a skill far from being achieved by everyone in the pre-modern era. Only a few combatants could account for their war experiences in writing, for example, through letters, diaries and memoirs, a small number of which has reached the public as books. Furthermore, while personal accounts of war mostly remained confined to military, political, and intelligence communication – and are therefore stored in archives and mostly accessible as historical sources – the first testimonies of war that became works of public interest did not appear in the form of autobiographies or memoirs. An author like Tobias Smollett transfigured his war experiences as a navy surgeon in his novel The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748). Something similar did Herman Melville in White Jacket (1850), an autobiographical work inspired by the author’s experience as a sailor on the frigate USS United States. In general, it can be stated that the Napoleonic wars (1800-1815) triggered an incredible proliferation of autobiographical personal accounts since the 1820s.[1] This is not surprising, if one thinks that modern autobiography – as a genre and as a philosophical form of reflection on the “self” – begins in the seventeenth century with Rousseau’s Confessions (1782),[2] whose “revolution” transformed the subject into a “unique and unrepeatable psychical interiority, which was accessible only through introspective writing.”[3]

If the nineteenth century was characterised by an increasing interest in war personal narratives, the phenomenon assumed a mass scale with the outbreak of the Great War, mainly for two reasons: the enormous mass of soldiers involved in the conflict on a global scale for over four years; and the diffusion of literacy among the mass of enlisted soldiers. Scholars claim that between 1914 and 1918, over 65 billion letters circulated between the frontlines and Italy, France, Germany, and Great Britain.[4] If personal narratives from the nineteenth-century wars amount to hundreds, above all distributed in Western countries, autobiographical accounts of the Great War amount to many thousands, spread all over the world. New groups of authors appear in this recent tradition, such as prisoners of war (POWs), women, and members of colonial troops. One striking phenomenon that characterised the response of some combatants to the Great War was the blooming of poetry in all countries, with remarkable achievements in the UK with the so-called “war poets” Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, and Siegfried Sassoon, in Austria with Georg Trakl, and in Italy with the Futurists, Gabriele D’annunzio, and Giuseppe Ungaretti, only to mention a few examples. Moreover, the technological nature of the war caused all armies to create specialised corps such as pilots, tankers, submarine crews, drivers, and chemical companies, whose members published several personal narratives that enlightened the aspects of the “new” warfare. During and after the Second World War, further groups of witnesses appeared, such as the victims of political and racial persecution and deportation and the members of armed resistance (partisans) against the Nazi and the Fascist authorities in several European countries.

As wars became more and more global, during the twentieth century, so did the more and more established genre of war narratives, which eventually became a consistent section of contemporary literature (despite the debate that saw literary scholars question the literariness of personal narratives), or at least of the international book market. One can recall several personal narratives that have become classics of twentieth-century literature like Henri Barbusse’s Le feu (1916), Ernst Jünger’s In Stahlgewittern (1920), Thomas Edward Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), Anne Frank’s Diary (1947), Primo Levi’s Se questo è un uomo (1958), Elie Wiesel’s La Nuit (1958), Elechi Amadi’s Sunset in Biafra (1973), Eugene Sledge’s, With the Old Breed (1981), Eric Lomax’ The Railway Man (1995), Isaac Fadoyebo’s A Stroke of Unbelievable Luck (1999), Keiko Tamura’s Michi’s Memoirs (2001), and many more worldwide.

As a genre, personal narratives have evolved over two centuries, passing from being almost exclusively memoirs written by high-ranking officers (mostly noble) to consisting of a much more multifaceted variety of expressive forms including letters, diaries, autobiographical sketches, poems, published or unpublished memoirs, oral histories and autobiographical fiction. After a long-lasting prejudice that banned personal narratives from the history of war and conflict, which was relegated to the disciplinary field of Military History, since the 1960s historians have begun to look at these narrations as valid and valuable sources of historical knowledge, thus giving impulse, after the so-called “cultural” and “narrative” turns after the 1970s, to the birth of sub-disciplines such as Micro-History, History of Mentality, Cultural History, Oral History and more recently the History of the Emotions. Working with personal narratives is a challenging scholarly enterprise due to the flickering and multifaceted nature of this kind of written expression, which is transversal to literary genres while including forms, styles, and registers typical of the spoken language. Personal narratives can hardly provide an overall comprehension and depiction of war, as they can inform about events that occurred on a smaller scale and the perception that human beings have of the war as a direct experience. Therefore, working with personal narratives often requires intellectual flexibility and the ability to blend different disciplinary approaches by borrowing diverse methodological, critical and analytical tools.

Issue n. 7 of the CEIWJ aims to investigate the theme of the close encounters in war in connection with the universe of personal narratives to study how people have accounted for their personal experience of war in ancient, pre-modern, modern and contemporary periods. To do so, we invite the submission of articles focused on the investigation of testimonies from a broad spectrum of theoretical and critical perspectives in the fields of Aesthetics, Anthropology, Classics, Comparative Literature, Cultural History, Ethics, Epistemology, Ethnology, Gender Studies, History of Art, History of Ideas, Linguistics, Memory Studies, Modern Languages, Oral History, Philosophy of Language, Psychology, Religion, Social Sciences, and Trauma Studies.

We invite, per the scientific purpose of the journal, contributions that focus on human dimensions and perspectives on this topic. We, therefore, seek articles that analyse the close encounters in war in diaries, letters, autobiographies, memoirs, autobiographical fiction, oral histories and other egodocuments such as juridical testimonies and memoirs, bulletins and reports (military, medical, technical, and so on), photographic albums, drawings and paintings. The following aspects (among others) may be considered:

• Representation and perception of the “self” in the context of war;
• Language, public and private (e.g. the use of dialect or foreign languages; encrypted writing; metaphors, symbols and allegories; alternative forms of communication);
• Propaganda and ideology (e.g. political perspectives; racism; nationalism; religious fanaticism);
• Ethical and moral aspects (e.g. personal development; self-understanding; the relation with the others; justification of violence; acceptance of suffering and death);
• Censorship and self-censorship in personal narratives;
• Literary aspects of personal narratives (e.g. use of literary models and styles; editorial re-elaboration of personal narratives for publication; the relationship between fiction and autobiographical writing; personal narrative and the literary canon);
• Personal narratives as historical sources (e.g. methodological and deontological  issues; epistemological value of personal narratives; rhetoric and logic);
• Anti-war attitudes (e.g. pacifism; criticism of violence; desertion and conscience objection; sabotage);
• Feelings and emotions in personal narratives;
• Personal narratives and trauma;
• Identity and diversity (e.g. gender; ethnicity; cultural heritage);
• Personal narratives in pop culture (e.g. film; TV; journalism; cultural heritage);
• Personal narratives and the culture of memory (local and collective) (e.g. archives and repositories; Public History; sites of memory; public use of personal narratives through the Internet);

 CEIWJ encourages inter/multidisciplinary approaches and dialogue among different scientific fields to promote discussion and scholarly research. The blending of different approaches will be warmly welcomed. Contributions from established scholars, early-career researchers, doctoral students, witnesses of war (e.g. veterans, journalists, reporters, etc.) and practitioners who have dealt with or used personal narratives in the course of their activities will be considered. Case studies may include different historical periods and geographic areas.

The editors of the Close Encounters in War Journal invite the submission of abstracts of 250 words in English by 31 March 2024 to ceiwj@nutorevelli.org. The authors invited to submit their works will be required to send articles of 8,000-10,000 words (endnotes included, bibliographical references not included in word count), in English by 14 June 2024. All articles will undergo a process of double-blind peer review. We will notify the results of the review in September 2024. Final versions of revised articles will be submitted in November 2024. Please see the submission guidelines at: https://closeencountersinwar.org/instruction-for-authors-submissions/.

 [1]     See, for example, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc&key=Napoleonic%20Wars%2C%201800%2D1815%20%2D%2D%20Personal%20narratives%2C%20French (Napoleonic wars 1800-1815), http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book//browse?type=lcsubc&key=Crimean%20War%2C%201853%2D1856%20%2D%2D%20Personal%20narratives (Crimean war 1853-1856), and https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/166546.First_hand_accounts_of_the_Napoleonic_Wars. See also the repository of personal narratives from the American Civil War of the University of Maryland at https://lib.guides.umd.edu/c.php?g=326774&p=2197450 (all websites last accessed on 11^th January 2024).[2]     James Goodwin, in “Narcissus and Autobiography”, Genre, 12, 1 (1979): 69-92; Andrea Battistini, Lo specchio di Dedalo. Autobiografia e biografia, Bologna, il Mulino, 103-104.[3]     Gianluca Cinelli, Ermeneutica e scrittura autobiografica. Primo Levi, Nuto Revelli, Rosetta Loy, Mario Rigoni Stern, Milan, Unicopli, 2008, 12.[4]     Carlo Stiaccini, War Letters (Italy), in International Encyclopedia of the First World War (8 January 2017): 2. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_letters_italy.

Contact Information

Gianluca Cinelli giancin77@yahoo.it

Patrizia Piredda patrizia.piredda@oxfordalumni.org

Simona Tobia s.tobia@univ-pau.fr

Fabio Caffarena fabio.caffarena@unige.it

Contact Email

ceiwj@nutorevelli.org

URL

https://closeencountersinwar.org/2024/01/17/call-for-articles-for-issue-n-7-202…

*

Talking Back Interdisciplinary Conference

June 25, 2024 Nottingham, UK Deadline for Submissions: April 1, 2024

‘Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, and those who stand and struggle side by side, a gesture of defiance that heals, that makes new life, and new growth possible. It is that act of speech, of “talking back” that is no mere gesture of empty words, that is the expression of moving from object to subject, that is the liberated voice.’ bell hooks, “Talking Back.” Discourse (1986), p. 128. 

Talking Back interdisciplinary conference is an in-person conference that will be held in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It will bring together researchers, writers, poets, and activists in order to contribute to cross-cultural dialogue, collaborative thinking, and ongoing discussions on resistance and representation. Reflecting on speech as a radical force against the systemic silencing of marginalised voices (hooks, 1989), we would like to invite proposals from writers, academics, creatives, and activists alike who are interested in exploring critical and creative approaches to decolonial activism, reclamations of culture and identity, and the transformative power of voice. We invite contributions that explore marginalised voices, representations of dissent against western hegemony and rigid binaries, and resistance to silencing and structural oppression. We welcome critical and creative approaches to proposals from participants of all genders, racial groups, and faith groups. The conference is free to attend and will take place at Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England on Tuesday 25th June 2024. The conference will be followed by an open-mic poetry and networking event, centred on the theme of ‘talking back.’ Proposals Suggestions include and are not limited to:

1. 1. Solidarity in dialogue: The power of collaboration in amplifying silenced voices.

1. 1. Testimonial narratives of marginalisation and dissent – how can speech become an act and practice of resistance?

1. 1. Resisting marginalisation and challenging labels.

1. 1. ‘Talking back’ as a form of activism – in what ways does the idea of ‘talking back’ contribute to decolonial modes of thinking and understanding.

1. 1. Exposing injustice: Challenging on-going realities of colonialism

Submission Guidelines Please submit a 250-word abstract/proposal for a 20-minute paper or presentation along with a 100-word biographical statement to: talkingbackconference@gmail.com. Please title your email with the type of submission you are applying for:

• • 20-minute paper: Talking Back Conference 2024

• • 20-minute presentation: Talking Back Conference 2024

Funding The conference is free to attend. We are also able to offer 4 travel bursaries of up to £50 to support self-funded and disadvantaged students with travel costs. If you wish to apply for one of these bursaries, please express your interest at the bottom of your abstract, along with a brief summary explaining why you require the support. Key Dates

• • Deadline for all submissions: 1st April 2024

• • Conference date: 25th June 2024

Queries Email us at talkingbackconference@gmail.com if you have any questions. We look forward to receiving your submissions. This conference is made possible by generous funding and support provided by New Art Exchange, Bonington Gallery, and the NTU Postcolonial Research Group. Contact Email talkingbackconference@gmail.com URL https://talkingbackconference2024.wordpress.com * Call for Papers Voices of Resistance in and against Dutch Empire, 1600-2020s Thursday 12 and Friday 13 September 2024, at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, Deadline proposals: 1 April 2024. Throughout the long history of Dutch empire starting in the early seventeenth century and extending into the postcolonial present, various people both in imperial dependencies across the globe and the metropole have resisted the logics and realities of oppression and exploitation. While colonisers’ perspectives have received plentiful attention, this conference puts the often marginalized voices of resistance in and against Dutch empire front and centre. Drawing on recent trends in the intellectual history of anticolonialism, the conference will chart and discuss the intellectual interventions of actors who agitated against the Dutch empire and its legacies. We invite contributions on the ideas, practices and networks of anticolonial actors who navigated the Dutch empire from the seventeenth century up to today, including freedom fighters and poets, religious leaders and (formerly) enslaved rebels, artists and activists, musicians, political thinkers and intellectuals, journalists and writers. We thus interpret voices of resistance broadly, ranging from political protest to works of fiction and from artistic and literary forms of expression to philosophical tractates as well as pamphlets and other forms of ephemeral writing. We aim to take a long-term perspective from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century and combine East and West that have often been treated as separate sections of the historiography of Dutch empire. Anticolonial stories have long served as chronicles about heroic resistance such as that of the nineteenth-century Javanese Prince Diponegoro or have confirmed teleological narratives ‘from empire to nation state’. We aim to contextualize such narratives by looking into related memory practices in anticolonial and postcolonial settings and by examining the transnational and transimperial entanglements of anticolonial networks. Besides contributions focusing on better-known anticolonial agitators and their networks, we are also interested in bringing together more subtle stories of, for example, legal resistance and more local accounts of religious defiance or economic subversion. Furthermore, we are interested in exploring not only what voices of resistance were fighting against but also in analysing the constructive agendas they put forth. From histories of political thought to meaningful practices of artistic, religious, and literary resistance, the conference will examine how anticolonial actors in transimperial contexts criticized and shaped the (end of the) Dutch empire. The conference, which will be held on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 September 2024, at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, is a critical follow-up to the international conference “Visions of Empire in Dutch History”, organized in 2016 at Leiden University, and the resulting edited volume The Dutch Empire Between Ideas and Practice [Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies] (Palgrave, 2019). Call for papers We invite proposals for papers on the following range of topics: – languages, ideologies and conceptual histories of resistance – ideas articulated in the context of political protests, (labour) strikes, violent rebellions – anticolonial or decolonial scholarship, including history writing, social sciences, humanities – artistic and literary expressions of resistance, including fiction, poetry, songs, visual arts – memory and memorialization of acts of resistance – demands for symbolic and financial forms of reparations and/or restitution We furthermore encourage: – long-term and diachronic perspectives (1600-2020) – comparative and/or interconnected perspectives from East and West, including the Indian Ocean region, the Indonesian archipelago, Cape Good Hope/South Africa, the Dutch Atlantic and Dutch North America, the Caribbean, Surinam, Dutch Guyana and Brazil – transimperial perspectives of voices that operated within the Dutch empire but agitated against other empires or imperialism more broadly, and of those actors who operated in other imperial spheres, but whose efforts were aimed against the Dutch empire – paper proposals by junior researchers (at RMA or PhD level) as well as more senior scholars, from different backgrounds (also outside academia) Individual paper proposals should consist of an abstract (200-250 words), a brief biography (50-100 words), and contact information. Proposals should be directed to the organizational committee: dr. René Koekkoek, dr. Anne-Isabelle Richard, and dr. Arthur Weststeijn at a.v.weststeijn@uu.nl. https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20021539/voices-resistance-and-against-dutch-empire-1600-2020s Deadline proposals: 1 April 2024. Notification of selected proposals will be given by 1 May 2024. *

The 2024 Project Narrative Summer Institute: Rhetorical and Intersectional Narratologies in Dialogue

Co-Directors: Jim Phelan and Robyn Warhol Dates: June 17-28, 2024 (on Zoom) https://projectnarrative.osu.edu/2024-project-narrative-summer-institute-rhetorical-and-intersectional-narratologies-dialogue-online PNSI is a two-week workshop that offers faculty and advanced graduate students in any discipline the opportunity for an intensive study of core concepts and issues in narrative theory. The focus for summer 2024 will be Rhetorical and Intersectional Narratologies, and the co-directors will ground their approach in the principle of dialogue.  More specifically, we will explore the grounding principles of each approach by reading foundational and cutting-edge texts from each, and we will attend to the convergences and divergences between them.  Just as important, we will add a range of primary texts to the dialogue, including Jane Austen’s Emma, Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever,” Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif,” and Jesmyn Ward’s “On Witness and Respair.”  Sample questions:  How do rhetorical narratology’s roots in the Poetics of Aristotle and of the neo-Aristotelian Chicago Critics and intersectional narratology’s roots in structuralism and feminist theory influence the current theory and practice of each approach? How do the narrative texts prompt re-examination, revision, and/or extensions of the theories? More generally, what can rhetorical and intersectional narratologies do for each other?  We’ll take up these (and other) questions as we work through the syllabus, and in relation to the specific interests and projects of the participants.  At the end of the Institute, each participant will present and receive feedback on their individual project. Syllabus Before the Institute begins, everyone should (re)read Jane Austen’s Emma Part I: Rhetorical Narratology Monday, June 17 Poetics:  Theoretical Texts: Aristotle, Poetics; R.S. Crane, “The Concept of Plot and the Plot of Tom Jones”; Ralph W. Rader; “The Dramatic Monologue and Related Lyric Forms”; James Phelan, “The Chicago School: From Neo-Aristotelian Poetics to the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative” Narrative Texts (in addition to Emma): T.C. Boyle, “Chicxulub”; Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”; Alfred, Lord Tennyson “Tithonus” Tuesday, June 18: The Rhetorical and Ethical Turn Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction:  Excerpt about Unreliable Narration and “Control of Distance in Emma”; Booth, The Company We Keep, discussion of Emma; Peter J. Rabinowitz, “Truth in Fiction: A Re-Examination of Audiences”; Introduction to Before Reading; Nielsen, Phelan, and Walsh, “Ten Theses about Fictionality.” Narrative Texts: Emma; Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”; Toni Cade Bambara, “The Lesson”; Roddy Doyle, “Worms” Wednesday, June 19: Rhetorical Poetics Theoretical Texts: Phelan, Intro to Reading People, Reading Plots; Chapter One of Somebody Telling Somebody Else; Excerpts from Debating Rhetorical Narratology: definitions of mimetic, thematic, and synthetic; discussion of Emma; Phelan and Sarah Copland, “The Ideal Narratee and the Rhetorical Model of Audiences” Narrative Texts (in addition to Emma): Wharton, “Roman Fever”; Cisneros, “Barbie-Q”; John Donne, “The Flea,” Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl” Thursday, June 20: Applied Rhetorical Narratology: Rhetorical Narrative Medicine; Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism Phelan, Excerpts from Narrative Medicine, Chapter 1; “Narrative as Rhetoric and the Art of Medicine”; Chapter 11, Narrative Medicine Workshops: Understanding, Overstanding, Springboarding; Phelan, “Rhetorical Listening: Character, Progression and Fictionality in African American Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism” Narrative Texts: Jesmyn Ward, “On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic”; Joyce Carol Oates, “Hospice/Honeymoon”; Stories by Mary Bullock and Scotia Brown from Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism Part Two:  Intersectional Narratologies Friday, June 21: NARRATIVE DISRUPTED First, read: Toni Morrison, “Recitatif.” Plot, Genre, Ethnicity: Paula Gunn Allen, “Kochinnenako in Academe“(1986) Sexualities: Valerie Rohy, “Queer Narrative Theory” (2018) Race & Disability, Robyn Warhol & Amy Shuman, “The Unspeakable, the Unnarratable and the Repudiation of Epiphany in ‘Recitatif’” (2018); Monday, June 24: NARRATIVITY/TELLABILITY Ruth Page, “The Narrative Dimensions of Social Media Storytelling: Options for Linearity and Tellership” (2015) Susan Lanser & Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, “Narratology at the Checkpoint” (2019) David Herman, “Zoonarratology” (2012) Julio Cortázar, “Axolotl” Tuesday, June 25:  EMPATHY/SUBJECTIVITY First, read: Judith Butler, “Giving an Account of Oneself” (2009)—available on Project Muse Katherine Young, “Narratives of Indeterminacy: Breaking the Medical Body into its Discourses: Breaking the Discursive Body out of Postmodernism” (1999) Amy Shuman, “Entitlement and Empathy in Personal Narrative” (2006) Warhol, “She Was Not Heard: Personal Narratives that Tackle Structural Racism.” Additional narratives from Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism Wednesday, June 26: ALTERNATE PARADIGMS Susan Lanser, “Toward (a Queerer and) More (Feminist) Narratology” (2015) Claudia Breger, “Affects in Configuration: A New Approach to Narrative Worldmaking” (2017) Karin Kukkonen, “A moving target – cognitive narratology and feminism” (2018) Thursday, June 27 and Friday, June 28: Participant Presentations To Apply: Applicants should send a current CV, a short description of the proposed project (no longer than a single-spaced page), and one letter of recommendation to Project Narrative by April 1, 2024. Applications will be reviewed promptly after the deadline. If, in order to meet funding deadlines, applicants need an earlier decision, the co-directors will consider special requests for early action. Applications can be emailed to projectnarrative@osu.edu or sent by post to the following address: 421 Denney Hall Attn: James Phelan, Project Narrative 164 Annie and John Glenn Avenue Columbus, OH 43210 Please email projectnarrative@osu.edu with any questions about applying.

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Fees Tuition for the 2024 Project Narrative Summer Institute is $1900. The co-directors will gladly write in support of participants’ applications for funding from home institutions.

— Jim Phelan, Distinguished University Professor and Editor, Narrative Director, Project Narrative Department of English Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210-1370 614-292-6669 FAX 614-292-7816 phelan.1@osu.edu *

Slavery, Authorship and Literary Culture

Call for papers

April 1, 2024 Edited Collection This volume, the last in a three-volume series devoted to the comparative literary history of modern slavery, explores slavery, past and present, from the perspective of authorship, textuality and literary cultures. The editors invite abstracts for essays on all aspects of this question. Slavery is often portrayed as shrouded in silence due to the simple fact that the number of texts and accounts written by enslaved people is very limited, especially when compared to the vast amount of documentation produced by the colonial powers. As recent scholarship has shown, however, enslaved people were not silent — silence is rather an effect created by the privileging of some forms of writing and as a result certain voices and viewpoints over others. This volume aims to investigate writing about slavery in all its forms, from the written traces left by enslaved people to the archives of slaveholders and from the discourses of abolition to postcolonial narrative. While we acknowledge the problem of invisibility as a fundamental condition for the study of slavery, we also wish to highlight the ways in which discourses about slavery have found their way into print and other media as well as the ways in which these texts have circulated and been read. The volume will consider how enslaved people expressed themselves in writing, considering, among other genres, letters, legal and financial documents, as well as published texts of all kinds. We encourage contributions that explore how the formerly enslaved took up authorship as free colored people or, after emancipation, in newspapers, journals or in other contexts and venues. We will consider the literary cultures that took shape in colonies and countries in which texts on slavery were produced and disseminated. Finally, we wish to explore postcolonial writing about slavery as well as accounts of slavery in today’s world. An important question for the volume will be how and to what extent authorship corresponds to agency and political subjectivity. For vol. 3 we invite articles that address any of the many the ways in which literature relating to slavery has been written, disseminated, read and discussed. This includes, for example, the existence of libraries and literary and scientific circles in colonial settings, the ways in which colonial literature was read and discussed in Europe, international debates about abolition, the uses of literature in colonial schools and missions, and more broadly the use of text as documentation. Articles might also consider processes of translation between languages and cultures, e.g. from an African to a plantation context, when texts pass from one colonial system to another, or when accounts circulate between European audiences and readers in other parts of the world. We also invite articles that address the afterlives of colonial slavery in contemporary literatures worldwide and the recreation of lost authorship as authors engage with the memory of slavery and attempt to recover lost voices. The volume will have a broad historical and geographical scope. We encourage submissions on modern slavery from the 16^th century to the present. While the focus will be on the Atlantic world, we are also interested in the related systems of African, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean slavery. Comparative angles are especially welcome. Areas of particular interest include but are not limited to:

• • Questions of agency and political subjectivity in relation to authorship. How do we situate slave narratives and their impact both at the time of their publication and since? Where do we locate the voices of enslaved and formerly enslaved in different genres and forms of textual expression?

• • Literary cultures in the colonial world, e.g. the existence of libraries, bookstores, printing presses, scientific societies and the relationship between literature and literary institutions and the practices of slavery in the colonies and Europe.

• • The relationship between literary, performative, and visual forms of expression relating to slavery in the colonies and in Europe.

• • Gender in colonial literary culture, in relation to questions of subjectivity, and in later historical and literary reflections on the gender structures of slavery and post-slavery societies.

• • The relationship between slavery and colonialism and the development of African print culture and the traces and translation of oral slavery stories in printed texts.

• • The role of abolitionist movements in the disseminations of early texts on slavery and the establishment of African-American and African-European literary traditions.

• • The relationship between economy, capitalism and literature in the colonial Atlantic and its importance for the circulation, translation and commerce of texts across the Atlantic and between colonial spheres.

• • How to recognize processes of silencing. Which strategies of reading traces and absences must be employed in order to highlight and perhaps counteract silencing?

• • Post- and decolonial responses to slavery in 20^th-century art, film and literature especially in relationship to questions of voice and agency.

Please send a 300 words abstract to the volume editors Mads Anders Baggesgaard (madsbaggesgaard@cc.au.dk) and Helen Atawube Yitah (hyitah@ug.edu.gh) no later than April 1, 2024. If selected for further process, the final deadline for the article will be October 1, 2024. After that deadline there will be a peer review process. The volume will be published in the fall of 2025. This volume is the third and last in Comparative Literary Histories of Slavery, main eds. Mads Anders Baggesgaard, Madeleine Dobie and Karen-Margrethe Simonsen in the series of literary histories made by CHLEL (Coordinating Committee for Literatures in European Languages) under the ICLA (International Comparative Literature Association) Publishing House: John Benjamins Publishing. Please read the description of the book here: https://cc.au.dk/en/slaverystudies/projects/comparative-literary-history-of-modern-slavery. Kind regards from the editors Mads Anders Baggesgaard (Comparative Literature, Aarhus University) Helen Atawube Yitah (Department of English, University of Ghana) Contact Email madsbaggesgaard@cc.au.dk URLhttps://cc.au.dk/en/slaverystudies/show/artikel/call-for-papers-slavery-authorship-and-literary-culture * Podcast Launch–“Biographers in Conversation” (4/3/2024) Today I launched “Biographers in Conversation” a free weekly podcast of interviews with biographers from around the world about the choices they make while researching, writing and publishing life stories. It launches on 3 April 2024, however, here’s a sneak peek of the biographers I’ll chat with over the next few months. Please share the sneak peek far and wide within your networks to get the word out https://www.biographersinconversation.com/sneak-peek/ Warmest wishes Gabriella Gabriella Marie Kelly-Davies Doctoral candidate: Breaking through the pain barrier. The extraordinary life of Dr Michael J. Cousins  School of Literature, Arts and Media University of Sydney gkel6637@uni.sydney.edu.au 0408 256 381 * The Indigenous Nineteenth Century  4-5 June 2024, University of Kent Deadline for Submissions: March 15, 2024 Keynote: Professor Chris Andersen (Métis, University of Alberta), Professor David Stirrup (University of York) and Métis community members: ‘”On the trail of Alexander Isbister: 19th Century Métis Nationhood in Motion” The Victorian Diversities Research Network, in collaboration with the Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies (CISCS) are pleased to announce a two-day AHRC-funded symposium: ‘The Indigenous Nineteenth Century.’ With the aim of producing new, interdisciplinary scholarship, anti-colonial research methodologies and critical interventions that re-indigenise the nineteenth-century archive and scholarly approaches to it, this two-day, hybrid symposium is accompanied by two publication opportunities: a special issue of the journal Transmotion and an edited collection to be published by Palgrave. The work of indigenising the nineteenth-century colonial archive is well under way, and this symposium aims to bring together scholars, writers, artists, curators and educators in literary studies, Indigenous studies, museum studies, library studies, and historical research areas to discuss the pleasures and problematics of (re)indigenising the colonial archive. The historical archives of imperial and colonial settlement are founded on what Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson has theorised as a foundational mis-recognition, a philosophical refusal to see Indigenous peoples’ cultures and lifeways outside of pre-conceived Eurocentric frameworks. The violence these archives do to First Nations people is ongoing. Literature and the creative arts can offer a space to interrogate the racialised-archive and its role in forming national, colonial and imperial identities. However, as Narungga woman, poet and scholar Natalie Harkin has highlighted, the wounds created by the epistemic violence of the archive still bleed. It is this problematic that this symposium proposes to investigate. The organisers therefore welcome 20 minute research papers, position papers and creative/critical interventions on the following themes: 1) Alternative archives: nineteenth-century Indigenous cultural production including treaties, petitions, letters, life writing, travel writing, novels and poetry, song culture, storytelling, material culture. 2)Colonisation and knowledge production: colonial archives and the challenges of recovering Indigenous voices from within them. Decolonial approaches to colonial archives, methodologies for addressing gaps and absences in the archive, settler-Indigenous collaborations, Indigenous language loss and revitalisation. 3)Creative-critical forms of historical writing that unsettle linear narratives and disrupt hegemonic perspectives. These can include life writing; historical novels; ‘critical fabulation’ (Hartman) and speculative history; histories of Indigenous political formations and resistance movements. 4)Contemporary literary and artistic responses by Indigenous cultural producers that seek to remix, rewrite and reconstitute colonial history and artifacts. 5)Indigenising cultural institutions: curatorial practices, representation and decolonial museology. Abstracts of 300 words and bios of 150 words for 20 minute papers or panels of 3-4 speakers should be submitted to L.E.Atkin@kent.ac.uk . Creative and critical interventions that are outside the scope of the traditional research paper are very welcome. These might include ‘in conversation’ sessions, readings, performances and other types of practice-based intervention. If you can only attend online, please say so in your submission. Online sessions will be held on June 5^th.  All submissions should be made by 15 March 2024. Participants will be notified by the organisers of their acceptance and the outcome of any bursary applications by 28 March 2024. In order to facilitate scholarly collaboration and cross-disciplinary conversation, we would like to invite as many people as possible to join us in Kent. To this end, we can offer six travel grants to ECR, precarious and Indigenous scholars travelling from within the UK and outside of the UK. The three UK based grants are worth up to £200 each and the three international grants are worth up to £1000 each. If you would like to be considered for one of these, please include a short expression of interest with your abstract submission. Priority will be given to those without access to institutional funding or coming from outside Europe. * Call for papers: Essay Cluster on Political Biofictions (Biographical Fictions) a/b: Auto/Biography Studies  Contact: Jenny Rademacher: vrademacher@babson.edu Deadline for Submissions: March 15, 2024 Political Biofictions By openly playing in the space between the real and the speculative, biofictions constitute thresholds between the situated realities of actual, biographical subjects and the imaginative potential of fictional creation. Thus, while deriving from real sources, biofictions liberate fiction from interacting with only invented worlds. Instead, these works invite us to experiment with our biographical lives and to use invention to evaluate and reshape real-world concerns. Amid the threats posed by delimiting political realities (e.g. dictatorship, war, sectarian conflict, populism), biofictions offer potent outlets to protest powerlessness or the inevitability of such outcomes and to speculate on alternative pasts and futures. For example, they may invite us to revise and reimagine the lives of those who contributed and who were left out of official narratives. Emma Donoghue has referred to biofiction as “voicing the nobodies.” Colum McCann has emphasized the “contested realities” and obscured truths that many writers of biofiction explore—the effort to challenge and interrogate claims to truth and what we can trust. By imaginatively making visible voices and meanings that power has so often obscured, biofictions are inherently political spaces that have the potential to challenge dominant, authoritarian modes of determining the world. In this sense, biofictions are both an outgrowth of a dispersive, uncertain reality and a mode for navigating this context, modeling alternatives for how we manage and rethink its possibilities and pitfalls. The political uncertainties we face are not only the risks of physical dangers to ourselves and our planet—although those are very real—but also to the confidence and trust we have in sources and claims to veracity. The conflicts we are confronting across so many spheres are exacerbated by misleading fictions and conspiracy theories masquerading as fact. Because biofictions employ invention in reimagining biographical lives, they might be misunderstood as undermining the importance of truth, or even fostering the legitimacy of neologisms such as post-truth, truthiness, or “alternative” facts. Yet, it is exactly the opposite. By examining critically the connection to factual realities and the distinct but equally significant responsibility to how we use fiction, biofictions offer potential antidotes against post-truth contagions. Ultimately, post-truth narratives manipulate facts to support convenient fictions, whereas biofictions, when done well, strive to use fiction to better comprehend the real. Possible topics might include (but are not limited to) biofictional works that: (*Please note! Examples of texts are simply illustrative and not intended by any means to be exhaustive. The possibilities are far too many and varied!)

• • Imaginatively recreate the biography of a political figure in ways that undermine official or popular rhetoric and the imposition of false mythologies (Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat, Joyce Carol Oates’ Blonde, Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Like a Fading Shadow, Anchee Min’s Becoming Madame Mao e.g.)

• • Creatively give voice to overlooked, suppressed, silenced, or otherwise overlooked biographical figures (Colum McCann’s Transatlantic, Barbara Chase-Riboud’s Sally Hemings, J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait e.g.)

• • Invite and explore metaphoric linkages between creatively re-imagined past lives and contemporary politico-historical and sociological contexts and power dynamics (Lauren Groff’s Matrix, Rosa Montero’s The Ridiculous Idea of Never Seeing You Again, Colm Tóibín’s The Magician, David Ebershoff’s The Danish Girl, Colum McCann’s Transatlantic e.g.)

• • Explore subjective, private truths that challenge the treatment of national and political myths, offering more nuanced understandings to the experiences of complicated historical moments and traumas (e.g. Colum McCann’s Apeirogon, Javier Cercas’ Soldiers of Salamis e.g.)

• • Decolonialize a dominant history of subjection, engaging with universal questions of powerlessness (Chika Unigwe’s The Black Messiah, J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, Hassan Najmi’s Gertude, Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of the Celt e.g.)

• • Explore the susceptibility to invest in false and deceptive figures of power and belief (Javier Cercas’ The Imposter, Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob, J.M. Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg, e.g.)

• • Inventively explore how precursors of feminism speak critically to contemporary realities (Rosa Montero’s The Ridiculous Idea of Never Seeing You Again, Anna Banti’s Artemesia, Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, e.g.)

• • May include anti-biopics that use fiction to engage speculatively with uncertainties around popular and political representations of public figures and others (I, Tonya, Neruda, e.g.)

• • Include more theoretical explorations regarding the contemporary boom in biofiction and the relationship to questions of truth, trust, political uncertainties and risks to our shared humanity

Submission Guidelines Please send expressions of interest and a brief proposal/abstract of @50 words by March 15, 2024. All Inquiries and essays should be sent to Jenny Rademacher at vrademacher@babson.edu. All submitted essays should have a relevant theoretical framework and participate in contemporary conversations within the field of auto/biography studies. Potential contributors may find it helpful to refer to back issues of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies prior to submitting their work for consideration. Completed essays are due July 31, 2024. Essays should be between 7,000-9,000 words in length, including notes and Works Cited. All essays should follow the a/b instructions for authors and style sheet, which can be found at:  https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=raut20 About the Editor: Jenny Rademacher is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies and Chair of the Arts and Humanities Division at Babson College. She has published widely on genre, identity, and new narrative formats, including the contemporary surge in auto- and biofiction. Her book Derivative Lives: Biofiction, Uncertainty, and Speculative Riskin Contemporary Spanish Narrative (Bloomsbury, 2022) places the biographical novel within the wider context of contemporary thought, exploring the rich field of biofiction in relation to concepts of uncertainty, speculation, and risk in a post-truth age. She received her PhD in Spanish Literature from the University of Virginia, M.A. in International Affairs and Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and an A.B. from Harvard University. * American Women’s Mobility Narratives (proposed special session) Modern Language Association Convention, January 9-12 2025 New Orleans, USA deadline for submissions:  March 15, 2024 contact email: Nina.Bannett25@citytech.cuny.edu How is women’s mobility  exemplified through American women’s fiction, poetry, and memoir?  How do American women’s mobility narratives render women visible or invisible.  Please submit abstracts of approximately 250 words for this proposed special session of MLA 2025 in New Orleans. * CALL FOR PAPERS: LITERARY BIOGRAPHY DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: MARCH 15, 2024 I am pleased to share this call for papers for a guaranteed session of the European Regions Forum at the 2025 MLA Convention (New Orleans, 9-12 January 2025). Please submit proposals for papers that discuss either the practice of writing literary biography or current projects in literary biography in the context of Europe. Please send a 250-word abstract & brief biography by 15 March 2024 to Julia Elsky (jelsky@luc.edu). Julia Elsky, PhD Associate Professor of French Department of Modern Languages & Literatures Loyola University Chicago URL https://mla.confex.com/mla/2025/webprogrampreliminary/Paper26029.html *

Special Issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies Lives, Selves, Media and #MeToo: Anticipating Futures, Tracing Histories and Articulating the Present Call for Papers Abstracts due 4 March 2024 This issue explores #MeToo not as an isolated media flare, but as part of a wider social, cultural and historical matrix wherein auto/biographical modes and practices collide and connect with feminist resistance—as well as negotiate and impel its backlash. #MeToo crosses media borders, inviting scholars to consider how media shape and are shaped by political movements, and how transmedia forms a part of this story. Testimony is the dominant form of engagement with the #MeToo hashtag. Millions of tweets have offered testimony and asked for the public to bear witness as people who have long been silent about their experiences of sexual violence, most of them women, speak out on social media. That a feminist phenomenon occurring in the age of the selfie has been propelled by auto/biographical statements, is extremely online, and has “Me” at its centre is possibly unsurprising and legitimately—to scholars of life narrative, at least—fascinating. Me Too began in 2006 as a Black, feminist grassroots movement founded by activist Tarana Burke. The focus was local support for Black girls and women who had survived sexual violence, and Burke used Myspace to spread her message. The Twitter hashtag exploded in 2017 in social media ecosystem different from the 2006 Myspace era. The flood of mass digital testimony drew attention from news media, inspiring books, and breaking a long-held silence by exposing perpetrators of sexual violence, chiefly in the entertainment and media industry. Likewise, #MeToo spills over historical and national borders, and is embedded within broader discourses and histories of feminist activism and sexual violence. We want to explore what has alternately been called the ‘moment’ and the ‘movement’ of #MeToo/Me Too beyond the temporal location of the hashtag and phrase. What conditions, movements, stories, and texts came before #MeToo that benefit from re-examination (or refresh) in light of #MeToo? What conditions, movements, stories, and texts are emerging after #MeToo and might productively be linked to this significant phenomenon? And where might we imagine the future leads now? Have futures been opened up or closed off by #MeToo? What have we learned from the past that would benefit future feminist activism addressing sexual violence? This issue welcomes broad interpretations of “media” to think beyond the social media context and into print media, ephemera, sound and screen media, with a view to examining the significance of mediation (and media contexts) in testimony, auto/biographical practices, and feminist activism. Our suggestions for engaging with this theme include:

• • How media forms and networks (digital, print and beyond) have played a part in feminist resistance

• • Stories, reportage, memoir, and media before and/or after #MeToo

• • The violent rhythms of ‘progress’ and backlash, and how this pattern shapes the stories we tell about gender and violence

• • Backlash politics and social media

• • Hashtag activism

• • Testimony and media(tion)

• • The embeddedness of media in social and political life, relevant to gendered violence and feminist protest

• • Forms of protest and the evolution of protest in relation to gender and violence

• • Addressing the problems of #MeToo

• • Racism, sexism and other forms of ideological violence within activist movements

• • Testimony and feminist media history/feminist activism

• • Posthuman feminist pasts, presents and futures

• • Health humanities approaches to #MeToo

• • Mediating sexual trauma in the past and present

• • Mass testimony and collective trauma

• • Digital activism, policy, and structural change

• • Parallel phenomena (what is occurring parallel to #MeToo and how would we benefit from seeing ‘across’ media and political contexts?)

• • Memoir and other narratives of childhood trauma

• • Feminist resistance, gendered violence and celebrity culture

• • Teaching #MeToo

• • #MeToo futures

• • Memoir of the movement including Tarana Burke’s Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement

We are seeking 250-300 word abstracts for articles of up to 6000 words, and shorter creative or critical contributions of up to 1000 words. Please make clear in your abstract which format your proposal pertains to. Abstracts are due on 4 March 2024, and full papers will be due on 2 September 2024. Please submit abstracts via email to: kylie.cardell@flinders.edu.au and emma.maguire@jcu.edu.au We are also planning a collaborative workshop for potential contributors in July 2024, and details will follow for those whose full papers are requested. Editors The editorial team for this special issue is led by Kylie Cardell (Flinders University) and Emma Maguire (James Cook University). Please submit abstracts via email to: kylie.cardell@flinders.edu.au and emma.maguire@jcu.edu.au Emma Maguire BA(Hons), PhD Lecturer in English and Writing BA Coordinator BA First Year Coordinator College of Arts, Society & Education James Cook University, Australia Digital Content Editor, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies journal Steering Committee Member, International Auto/Biography Association Asia-Pacific Chapter (IABA-AP) Member: International Auto/Biography Association (IABA), Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP), The Life Narrative Lab, Writers SA New article in Life Writing journal:  Field Culture in Unprecedented Times: Writing the Unexpected, Narrating the Future at a Virtual Conference New article in Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly: Shame, Trauma, and the Body After #MeToo: The Year in Australia New book chapter in Career Narratives and Academic Womanhood (ed. Lisa Ortiz-Vilarelle, Routledge 2023): Docile Bodies (of Work): Coaxing the Neoliberal Academic via the Online Researcher Profile * SUMMER CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS: The Auto/Biography Study Group Summer Conference entitled ‘Disappointments and Dissonances’ will take place on 10th-12th July 2024 at Venue Reading, University of Reading. We are pleased to announce the call for papers/installations: https://britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/bsa-autobiography-summer-conference-2024-disappointments-and-dissonances/. The abstract submission deadline is 4th March 2024 at 5pm. We welcome papers and presentations that respond to the concept of disappointments and dissonances substantively, theoretically, methodologically and creatively. This year, as last, we also welcome ‘installation pieces’ which might include a poster, creative artefact(s), a short video or other. The keynote will be given by Dr Karin Bacon, Marino, Institute of Education, An Associated College of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin. Karin’s paper is entitled: ‘A Family Divided by Conflict Politics – disappointments and dissonances’. We invite abstract submissions (250 words) for 30/35-minute oral presentations followed by discussion and for installation pieces (there will be space in the programme for viewing and discussion of these). We are pleased to invite papers from across the broadest range of auto/biographical work, including ‘work-in-progress’ and those testing out innovative approaches, and welcome colleagues and friends from in and outside of the academy at all career stages. Please contact gayle.letherby@plymouth.ac.uk  and/or seerya@tcd.ie for further detail about the conference. The key dates leading up to the conference are as follows: •       Abstract submission deadline: 4th March at 5pm. •       Abstract notification and conference registration opens week beginning: 23rd March. •       Presenter booking deadline: 6th May. •       Delegate booking deadline: 3rd June. •       Conference: 10th-12th July. Registration includes ensuite accommodation and full board: BSA Member Registration: £450, Auto/Biography Study Group Member Registration: £460, Non-Member Registration: £490. SEMINARS: Registration is open for the final two seminars of this academic year. The links to join each event will be sent approximately 24 hours beforehand: Thursday 7th March 2024 at 1700-1800: Life as a fat female body: A feminist narrative inquiry with Iranian women by Somayeh McKian (Independent Academic): https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/life-as-a-fat-female-body-a-feminist-narrative-inquiry-with-iranian-women-by-somayeh-mckian-independent-academic/ Wednesday 1st May 2024 at 1700-1800: Women’s spaces of knowledge: Lady Mary’s contribution to the Covid vaccine by Mich Page: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/women-s-spaces-of-knowledge-lady-mary-s-contribution-to-the-covid-vaccine/ DENNIS SMITH: Michael Erben recently received words of thanks from Dennis’ family in response to the letter expressing our condolences. They were particularly touched to know that he was held in such high regard by the group. This is a tribute page for your information: https://dennis-smith-1945-2024.muchloved.com/.. The family are collecting for Cruse Bereavement Support. AUTO/BIOGRAPHY STUDY GROUP MEMBERSHIP: In advance of the conference registration opening we thought it would be valuable to remind everyone about the benefits of joining the group. ‘Join us’ information is available here: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/join-us/. As a paid member of the Auto/Biography Study Group you will benefit from reductions on conference costs and publications, free publication in the group’s open access online journal (non-members pay £30 per submission) and a free seminar series. You will also be registered on the JISCmail list: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=BSA-AUTO-BIOGRAPHY-GROUP. The annual payment categories for the 2024 calendar year are £30 for members of the BSA and £40 for non-members. Payment may be made via PayPal by logging in or by debit/credit card and choosing to pay as a guest: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/autobiography-membership/. We are a charity and non-profit group and all proceeds from group subscriptions help to fund our publications and group events. Have a good week. Best wishes Anne Chappell and Carly Stewart Auto/Biography Study Group Convenors Email: anne.chappell@brunel.ac.uk and cstewart@bournemouth.ac.uk Find the Auto/Biography Study Group: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/ Find the Auto/Biography Study Group on X: @AutoBiographySG Join the Auto/Biography Study Group: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/join-us/ *

CFP: Historiography and Hagiography in Buddhism and Beyond

July 8-10, 2024 Cambridge University, United Kingdom Deadline for Submissions: February 23, 2024 This international conference aims to bring together scholars working on practices of record-keeping, historiography, and hagiography in the Buddhist tradition and in related cultural fields. Recent years saw a steadily-growing interest in the impact of Buddhism on historiography and hagiography, in tandem with an unprecedented increase in the availability of textual and visual primary sources. Ambitious digitization projects (especially of premodern sources) and the changing landscape of the digital realm offer new opportunities to study premodern and contemporary practices of writing and narration. In this three-days conference, we seek to foster an interdisciplinary discussion on practices of textual and visual recording, storytelling, and memory in Chinese Buddhism and beyond – past, present, and future. This conference is generously sponsored by the Tzu Chi Foundation (慈濟) and hosted by the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. The conference will take place at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, United Kingdom, on 8-10 July 2024 (08/07/2024-10/07/2024). Accommodation and meals will be provided for the duration of the conference. Travel expenses to Cambridge will be covered for conference presenters (please contact organizers for further details). We welcome proposals for papers on topics relating to historiography, hagiography, and narration, including but not limited to:

• • Buddhist historiography and record-keeping

• • Historiography and record-keeping in other Chinese religious traditions

• • Narrating lives of extraordinary individuals (e.g. biographies, autobiographies, hagiographies) in textual, oral, visual, and material forms

• • The intersection of Buddhism and literature

• • Book culture and production of texts in the Buddhist tradition (e.g. in print culture, manuscript culture, publishing practices, patronage of textual production, production of temple gazetteers and mountain gazetteers etc.)

• • Uses of visual arts and the performance arts in creating or supporting Buddhist historiography and hagiography

Proposals for papers should include the following information:

1. 1. Name, affiliation, and title of position at the affiliated institution (independent scholars are also welcome to apply; please note “independent scholar” in your proposal if relevant)

1. 1. 250 word abstract

1. 1. Contact information: email, address, and phone number(s)

The deadline for all proposals is Friday, February 23^rd, 2024 (23/02/2024). Proposals should be sent as either Word or PDF to the following email address: hist.hagio@gmail.com For general information and logistical questions, please email the organizing committee at: hist.hagio@gmail.com Regarding the conference, please contact the primary organizer, Dr Noga Ganany at ng462@cam.ac.uk. *Proposals must be submitted in English.

Contact Email hist.hagio@gmail.com * CALL FOR PAPERS Palgrave Handbook of Disability in Comics and Graphic Narratives deadline for submissions:  February 28, 2024 We invite abstracts for articles to be published in a collection showcasing scholarly research related to disability in comics and graphic narratives. This edited volume will highlight insights from both disability studies as well as comics studies. Centering a disability justice ethos, we especially welcome: submissions by disabled authors/creators; collaborative submissions; work that engages with disability life writing and/or disclosure; work that addresses accommodations and accessibility as they relate to comics pedagogy, form, and/or readership. The collection envisions a diverse selection of contributors (i.e. a mix of early, mid-, and established scholars from the humanities, comics studies, and disability studies; disability activists; comics creators; comics journalists; and so on) that represent a range of perspectives, methodologies, and communities across the globe. The contents of the collection may be likewise diverse, including essays by individual and collaborative authors, interviews, and/or creative work. Essays in all languages are welcome (to be published in translation). We encourage examinations of mainstream titles and characters, independent comics, as well as considerations of the ways disability shapes comics form in creative ways. We are especially interested in contributions that explore additional intersections of race, class, sexuality, and gender; and works that challenge ableism in comics theory and/or challenge comics’ ocularcentrism. We especially welcome essays on potential themes and keywords such as:

• • Accessibility

• • Activism

• • Archive

• • Autobiography

• • Coloniality

• • Disability Justice

• • Disability as Method

• • Genre(s)

• • Intersectionality

• • Mental Health/Illness

• • Monstrosity/grotesque

• • Multiculturalism

• • Neurodivergence

• • Pedagogy

• • Sexuality

• • Sound

• • Superheroes and supervillains

• • Touch

• • Transnationalism

• • Vision

We welcome inquiries by email. Please submit 250-300 word abstracts and 50-word bios by February 28th, 2024. After reviewing submissions, the editors will select contributors and then submit a proposal for publication by Palgrave. Final essays will be approximately 5,000-10,000 words depending on the topic. We also welcome submissions of scholarship in comics formats between 10 and 20 pages. For questions, or to submit a proposal, contact keyword.disability.comics@gmail.com * The Empire and I: Individuals in Empires and Postimperial Spaces – 3rd Annual Conference of the RTG 2571 Empires Freiberg, Germany November 28–30, 2024 Deadline for Submissions: February 29, 2024 Analysing the relations between individuals and empires has a long tradition in historiography: from the biographies of “great men” to more recent approaches such as “imperial biographies” and “imperial subjects”. And while the first has rightly been criticised in the past, the latter have shown that there is significant analytical value in studying individuals even when trying to understand macro-phenomena such as empires. As individuals can function as the smallest analytical units for exploring of broader historical developments, focusing on them can shed light on more general political, economic, and social dynamics. Retracing the activities of individuals, therefore, can be used to analyse the factors that shaped living conditions within imperial and postimperial spaces. This approach also opens up new perspectives on the agency of individuals and the strategies they could and did use to thrive and persist within or resist imperial environments. Focusing on individuals also offers possibilities to grasp their influence on empires. Individual actors impacted the way empires evolved, for instance by making use of imperial structures or policies for their own gains. Moreover, the ways individuals thought, spoke, and wrote about imperial environments illustrate how empires are perceived and conceptualised to this day. The relationships between empire and individual can therefore be approached not just through historiography but through a multitude of disciplines and for different time periods and regions. The third annual conference of the RTG 2571 “Empires” likewise aims to examine the relations between individuals and empires from different perspectives. We welcome contributions from all the humanities and social sciences as well as hybrid sciences. We especially encourage scholars in the early stages of their careers (PhD & Postdocs) to submit proposals. Interested applicants are invited to send a working title, an abstract (c. 400 words) for a presentation of 20 minutes and a short CV (no more than two pages) to the mentioned mail adress by February 29th 2024. Any further queries can be directed to the same address. Accommodation in Freiburg will be organised and covered by the RTG “Empires”. We will also reimburse presenters for their travel expenses. Contact Information Aaron Zidar Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg DFG Graduiertenkolleg 2571 „Imperien” Platz der Universität 3 79085 Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) Contact Email conference-empires@grk2571.uni-freiburg.de URL https://www.grk2571.uni-freiburg.de/events/conferences/annual-conference-2024?s… * CALL FOR PAPERS International Conference on “Diverse Lives: Narratives of Śākyamuni Buddha in Text and Image” October 16–19, 2024 Conference Location: Royal Museum of Mariemont, Belgium Deadline for Submissions: February 29, 2024 The founding figure of Buddhism, Śākyamuni Buddha, has played an enormously important role for South and East Asian – and more recently also Western – cultures and societies. However, there is no authoritative biographic account which would be accepted by the multitude of Buddhist traditions. On the contrary, the stories concerning Śākyamuni’s life are as diverse as the doctrinal and rituals systems found in the various regions and schools of Asian Buddhism. In this context of the lack of cross-regionally and inter-sectarian accepted textual and visual sources, even key events of Buddha’s life have undergone countless interpretations in textual and visual media in the course of Buddhism’s geographical spread and doctrinal diversification. Some of the influential hagiographical accounts of Buddha’s life, such as the Sanskrit Buddhacarita and the Lalitavistara and their renderings in other languages, have attracted the attention of numerous scholars, whereas many lesser-known narratives have remained understudied. The main goal of this conference is thus to gather scholars and discuss unusual variations and interpretations of Buddha’s life stories found in textual and visual materials. The narratives concerning Buddha’s life will be approached from an interdisciplinary perspective, including religious studies, philological and literary studies, archaeology, and art history, to name a few. We invite speakers to present studies which for example focus on geographically localized adaptations of Buddha’s life – both based on visual and textual sources; variations we find in the texts and manuscripts composed in the various languages along the Silk Road and beyond; hybrid accounts of Buddha’s life which incorporate elements drawn from other traditions or cultural contexts; the way Buddha’s life is interpreted in contemporary media; as well as Western interpretations of Buddha’s life stories. There are no limitations concerning the temporal or geographical framework. The International in-person conference is scheduled for 16-19 October 2024 at the Royal Museum of Mariemont, Belgium. This event is organised, in collaboration with the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies of Ghent University, at the occasion of the exhibition “Buddha. Experiencing the Sensible” (September 21st, 2024 – April 20th, 2025). Interested participants should submit a 300-word proposal and a short biography (maximum 200 words) as a single Word document to Buddha2024@musee-mariemont.be by February 29th, 2024. The language of presentation will be English. Selected speakers will be notified by the end of March 2024. Transport to and from hotels nearby the conference venue will be provided by the organising institutions. Keynote speaker:  Bernard Faure, Director of the Center for Buddhism and East Asian Religions, Columbia University, Kao Professor of Japanese Religion, Columbia University, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University Conference organisers: Ann Heirman, Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures, Professor of Chinese Language and Culture, Director of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies, Ghent University Christoph Anderl, Professor of Chinese Language and Culture, Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University Lyce Jankowski, Curator of extra-European Art, Domain & Royal Museum of Mariemont Max Deeg, Professor in Buddhist Studies, Cardiff University Neil Schmid, Research Professor, Dunhuang Research Academy * Storytelling as Pedagogy: Historical Biographies in STEM and Social Studies Cain Conference, Science History Institute 7/15-16/2024 Philadelphia USA Deadline for Submissions: February 29, 2024 This Cain Conference will bring together scholars and practitioners of science education and public communication to explore how sharing stories of diverse scientists can help young girls and people of color see themselves as valuable contributors to science, historically and in the future. Organized by Cain Conference Fellow Sibrina Collins, the conference will take place at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, PA on July 15 – July 16, 2024. Connecting with people is at the heart of storytelling. Studies have shown that sharing a compelling story about someone who has made a new contribution, tool, or discovery may inspire a student to pursue their own career in a STEM field.[i] We invite proposals for presentations or panels that focus on writing, adapting, and teaching with historical scientific biographies and narratives in the context of different formats including:

• • Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE)

• • Discussion and/or laboratory courses in K-12 and higher education

• • Large Lecture Courses (incl. flipped classroom formats)

• • Asynchronous online courses and multimedia production

• • Public Learning Environments (incl. churches, museums, and libraries)

We welcome proposals from educators, scholars, historians and biographers, editors and publishers, collections professionals, and others with a professional interest in the use of historical biographies in education. Interested applicants should submit an abstract of no more than 300 words and brief autobiographical sketch (50-100 words) by February 29, 2024. Questions and submissions should be sent to biographies@sciencehistory.org. For updates, please see our conference web page at https://www.sciencehistory.org/visit/events/gordon-cain-conference-2024/ [i] Collins, S.N. The importance of storytelling in chemical education. Nat. Chem. 13, 1–2 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-020-00617-7 * Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2024 CFP – Writers of Extreme Situations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective (3/1/2024; 4/16-18/2024) 58th Comp. World Lit. Conf., California USA Venue: California State University, Long Beach. Hybrid Dates: Tuesday and Wednesday, April 16-17 (in-person presentations only with Zoom projections), Thursday, April 18, 2024 (Zoom presentations only) Plenary Speaker: Christopher Goffard, author and senior staff writer, Los Angeles Times Family crises, exilic conditions, forced migrations, excessive poverty, armed conflicts, political warfare, environmental calamities, workers’ exploitation, pandemics, and all manner of natural or man-made disasters have been rising to unprecedented levels over the last decades. How are extreme situations or situations so extraordinary as to defy imagination represented? What are the poetics underlying them? We welcome conversations about how extreme conditions and situations, (individual, collective, or global) are expressed, analyzed, and engaged from a multidisciplinary perspective, including but not limited to:  Literature, Journalism, Geography, Anthropology, Political Science, Criminology, Linguistics, Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Disability Studies, Media Studies, Geology, Human Development, and more. This conference invites paper and panel proposals on all aspects of extreme situations. Possible topics can include but are not limited to: -Literature of extreme situations -Investigative Journalism -Trauma literature -Literatures of genocide -Holocaust memoirs -Feats of survival -Crime narratives -Narratives of addiction -Natural and man-made disasters -Innocent Project LA -Victims speak up: truth to power -The rise against femicide -Wars and exilic narratives -Refugee narratives -Pandemic narratives -Medical malpractice and botched surgeries -Ethics of survival and survivors’ guilt -The Family Secret and the wounded individual -Dementia and violence: nursing homes -Perpetrators and victims -Asylum seekers and their fate in the US -Ethical ordeals: surviving the unimaginable -Memory as a repository of horror -Collapse of ethical systems in a digital world -Institutional responses to catastrophes -Crossing the Mediterranean: the Syrian refugee crisis -Extreme geo-political conflicts -Journalism at work: covering extreme conditions -“The Banality of Evil” in urban settings. -State terrorism and extreme-isms -Millennial fatigue and extremist stances -Monuments of shame -The Kafkaesque in our daily lives -Systemic risks in the 21^st Century -Extreme environments -Soft White Underbelly: Mark Laita interviews –The Trials of Frank Carson Podcast (Christopher Goffard) -Deaths in the Grand Canyon and Other National Parks. We are thrilled to announce that the plenary talk will be delivered by Christopher Goffard, Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist for the LA Times, novelist and podcaster, on Wednesday, April 17^th, at 2PM (PDT). The title of his talk is: “Crossing the Impossible Bridge in a Dynamite Truck: Observations on Film, Friendship and Collaboration” In “Crossing the Impossible Bridge in a Dynamite Truck,” Goffard will reflect on his friendship and collaboration with one of cinema’s great poets of desperation and obsession, William Friedkin, and of their efforts to bring some of Goffard’s riskier stories to the screen. As a crystallization of Friedkin’s danger-courting artistry—and as a metaphor for their quest to get controversial projects made— Goffard invokes an image from the filmmaker’s 1977 masterpiece Sorcerer, in which a truck laden with nitroglycerin attempts to cross a crumbling suspension bridge in the South American jungle. Submissions for individual presentations and 90-minute sessions are welcome from all disciplines and global / historical contexts that engage with historical, personal, or social instances of extreme conditions and situations. Proposals for 15-20 minute presentations should clearly explain the relationship of the paper to the conference theme, describe the evidence to be examined, and offer tentative conclusions. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (not including optional bibliography) should be submitted by March 1, 2024. Please submit abstracts as a Word document in an email attachment to comparativeworldliterature@gmail.com NB: Please do not embed proposals in the text of the email. Make sure to indicate your mode of preference (Zoom on April 18 and in person only on April 16 and 17) for planning purposes While the conference will be hybrid, all Zoom presentations will take place only on Thursday, April 18, and in-person presentations will take place on Tuesday-Wednesday, April 16-17 (and will be Zoom-projected). We cannot accommodate pre-recorded presentations. The conference committee will review all proposals, with accepted papers receiving notification by March 15, 2024. Contact Information Dr. Kathryn Chew Contact Email comparativeworldliterature@gmail.com URL https://cla.csulb.edu/departments/complit/current-conference/ * Registration for IABA World 2024 is now open! The conference will run from 9 am 12 June to 3 pm 15 June 2024. A detailed programme will be available in due course. The fees are as follows: Early Bird (includes access to all sessions, conference materials, coffees, lunches, reception) to 1 March: 34.000 IKR (approx. 230 EUR/250 USD) Full Price after 1 March:  42.000 IKR (approx. 280 EUR/310 USD) PhD Students and PostDocs (includes access to all sessions, conference materials, coffees, lunches, reception, dinner) 27.000 IKR (approx. 180 EUR/200 USD) For more information see: https://iabaworld2024.hi.is/ Please direct all queries to iabaworld2024@gmail.com * Call for Papers—Edited Volume Mothers, Mothering and Trauma/Intergenerational Trauma Edited by Lamees Al Ethari, PhD and Maria D. Lombard, PhD Deadline for Submissions. March 1, 2024: 250–400-word abstract This edited volume on motherhood and trauma builds on Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, which states that the “generation after” [will] “grow up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose own belated stories are evacuated by the stories of the previous generation shaped by traumatic events that can neither be understood nor recreated” (Hirsch 22). This volume will attempt to capture some of those very narratives and belated stories that Hirsch refers to in her rendering of the concept of postmemory, especially within the context of displaced motherhood. The chapters that this volume seeks to collect can be scholarly, creative, or visual. In the narratives chosen for this study, relational ties and generational story-telling/story-building are crucial in the construction of self-identity as they establish a sense of history and belonging for the new(er) generations. On one hand they present a personal narrative, while on the other, a communal narrative in which the experiences of a people is brought to light. While historical frameworks or references may be useful as context, the collection aims to examine experiences shaped by contemporary concepts of motherhood and disconnected/de-fragmented motherhood impacted by displacement and trauma. Areas and stories examined can be from the perspective of the mother, the mother/child relationship, the mother/society dynamic, etc. The editors are particularly interested in submissions that contextualize how Hirsch’s concept of postmemory is reflected in their work. Possible topics might look critically at (but are not limited to) generational experiences of trauma and displacement in relation to:

• •  race, culture, class, and sexuality

• • narratives about or by migrant and/ or refugee mothers

• • rhetorics of refugee/displaced motherhood

• • politics and policy on the refugee family

• • family separation, family resettlement

• • refugee children’s literature and the mother figure

• • narratives or research on adoptive mothers, reproductive health care (access to ultrasounds, pre/post-natal care, family planning, etc.)

• • activism and community action/re-action

• • communication, social media, and telling motherhood stories online

Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997. Timeline for CFP March 1, 2024: Submission of 250-400 word abstract of your chapter and a 50-word bio. April 1, 2024: Acceptance notifications will be sent to contributors. 15 August 2024: Accepted and complete chapters due (6,000 words maximum with MLA format and references) Submissions and questions should be sent to: Dr. Lamees Al Ethari lalehari@uwaterloo.ca Dr. Maria Lombard maria.lombard@northwestern.edu Editor Bios Lamees Al Ethari, PhD Lamees Al Ethari holds a PhD from the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo, where she has been teaching creative writing and literature since 2015. She is a nonfiction editor with The New Quarterly and a co-founder for The X Page: AStorytelling Workshop for Immigrant Women. She is in the process of completing an autoethnographic monograph titled, Patterns of Telling: Women’s Autobiography in theDiaspora, which is a critical exploration of women’s narratives of displacement. She has published, From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris (2018) and Waiting for the Rain: An IraqiMemoir (2019), in which she reflects on her experiences of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, the violent aftermath, and her migration from home. Her poems have appeared in About PlaceJournal, The New Quarterly, The Malpais Review, and the anthology Al Mutanabbi Street StartsHere. Maria D. Lombard, PhD Maria Lombard is the assistant dean for academic affairs at Northwestern University in Qatar. Her research focuses on writing studies, with interests in second-language writing pedagogy, minority and gendered voices, and travel writing. Her scholarly publications include refereed articles and proceedings, as well as book chapters, on belonging, displacement, and motherhood. Her recent edited volume, Reclaiming Migrant Motherhood: Identity, Belonging, andDisplacement in a Global Context (Lexington Books, 2022) examines the representations and lived experiences of migrant, refugee, and otherwise displaced mothers in literature, film, and original ethnographic research. *

 W. G. Sebald at 80: A (Critical) Celebration of Life and Works

Conference Date: Saturday, May 18, 2024 (ON ZOOM) Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2024  This conference invites graduate students and beyond, including lecturers and independent scholars, to join in a critical celebration of the works of the unique Anglo-German author W. G. Sebald (1944-2001). Hailed by legendary critic Susan Sontag in a 2000 essay published in Times Literary Supplement, she asked whether “literary greatness [was] still possible” and concluded “one of the few answers available to English-language readers is the work of W. G. Sebald.” Several journal articles, book chapters, and collections have been published about this eccentric author (see the bibliography below), and yet, he remains largely unknown to Western audiences. This conference hopes to bring scholars out of the woodworks and contribute their thoughts and ideas about Sebald and any of his various works, including his essays, i.e., On the Natural History of Destruction, and literary prose, i.e., After Nature, Vertigo, The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, and Austerlitz. There is no one guiding theme under which to produce critical evaluations of Sebald’s texts. Instead, given the eclecticism of Sebald’s subject matter, diverse approaches are encouraged, including, but not limited to: Postcoloniality Orientalism Gender and Sexuality Bio- and necropolitics Trauma Archive Gothic Ecocriticism Spatiality Temporality Narratology Genre Animal Studies Historiography Religion Rhetoric Thing Theory Photography Frankfurt School Psychoanalysis Thanatourism Translation Please submit a 200-250 word abstract, along with a brief biographical statement and your time zone in order to best approximate appropriate times for presentations, to wgsebald80conference@gmail.com. Full papers should aim to be 10-15 minutes in length. The conference will be held online over Zoom at no charge and, depending on the amount of submissions, may roll over into two days – for now, it is tentatively scheduled on what would have been the author’s 80th birthday (May 18, 1944). (Zoom link will be sent out a week before the conference). Also, select papers will be solicited to be compiled in an edited collection on the works of W. G. Sebald. Details to come. Bibliography Angier, Carole. Speak, Silence: In Search of W. G. Sebald. Bloomsbury Circus, 2021. Burns, Rob, and Wilfried van der Will. “The calamitous perspective of modernity: Sebald’s negative ontology.” Journal of European Studies, vol. 41, no. ¾, 2011, pp. 341-358. DOI: 10.1177/0047244111413700 Fischer, Gerhard, editor. W.G. Sebald: Schreiben ex patria/ Expatriate Writing. Rodopi, 2009. Groves, Jason. “Writing after Nature: A Sebaldian Ecopoetics.” German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene, edited by Caroline Schaumann and Heather I. Sullivan, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 267-292. Johannsen, Anja K. “‘The contrarieties that are our yearnings’: Allegorical, nostalgic and transcendent spaces in the work of W. G. Sebald.” Journal of European Studies, vol. 41, no. ¾, 2011, pp. 377-393. DOI: 10.1177/0047244111413704 Long, J. J., and Anne Fuchs, editors. W. G. Sebald and the Writing of History. Königshausen & Neumann, 2007. Long, J. J., and Anne Whitehead, editors. W. G. Sebald – A Critical Companion. U of Washington P, 2004. McCulloh, Mark Richard. Understanding W. G. Sebald. University of South Carolina Press, 2003. McCulloch, Mark, and Scott Denham, editors. W. G. Sebald: History – Memory – Trauma. De Gruyter, Inc., 2006. Schwarz, Lyn Sharon, editor. the emergence of memory: Conversations with W. G. Sebald. Seven Stories Press, 2007. Silverblatt, Michael. “A Poem of an Invisible Subject.” the emergence of memory: Conversations with W. G. Sebald, edited by Lyn Sharon Schwarz, Seven Stories Press, 2007, pp. 76-86. Wolff, Lynn L. W. G. Sebald’s Hybrid Poetics: Literature as Historiography. De Gruyter, 2014. Zisselsberger, Markus, editor. The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the poetics of travel. Camden House, 2010. *

 “Narrating Lives” International Conference on Storytelling, (Auto)Biography and (Auto)Ethnography

Rome, Italy and Online, 5/31-6/2/2024

https://life-history.lcir.co.uk/

Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2024 London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research Life-history approach occupies the central place in conducting and producing  (auto)biographical and (auto)ethnographic studies through the understanding of self, other, and culture. We construct and develop conceptions and practices by engaging with memory through narrative, in order to negotiate ambivalences and uncertainties of the world and to represent (often traumatic) experiences. The “Narrating Lives” conference will focus on reading and interpreting (auto)biographical texts and methods across the humanities, social sciences, and visual and performing arts. It will analyse theoretical and practical approaches to life writing and the components of (auto)biographical acts, including memory, experience, identity, embodiment, space, and agency. We will attempt to identify key concerns and considerations that led to the development of the methods and to outline the purposes and ethics of (auto)biographical and (auto)ethnographic research. We aim to explore a variety of techniques for gathering data on the self-from diaries to interviews to social media and to promote understanding of multicultural others, qualitative inquiry, and narrative writing. Conference panels will be related, but not limited, to:

• • Life Narrative in Historical Perspective

• • Qualitative Research Methods

• • Oral History, Memory and Written Tradition

• • Journalism and Literary Studies

• • Creative Writing and Performing Arts

• • (Auto)Biographical Element in Film Studies, Media and Communication

• • Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

• • Narrative Medicine

• • Storytelling in Education

• • Ethics and Politics of Research

Submissions may be proposed in various formats, including:

• • Individually submitted papers (organised into panels by the committee)

• • Panels (3-4 individual papers)

• • Posters

Proposals should be sent to: life-history@lcir.co.uk. * BIO’s Hazel Rowley Prize for First-Time Biographers Sponsored by the Biographers International Organization (BIO), the Hazel Rowley Prize offers $5,000 for the best book proposal from a first-time biographer, plus a careful reading by an established agent. Submissions due March 1. Guidelines and entry forms are available on the BIO website: https://biographersinternational.org/award/hazel-rowley-prize/ Contact Information Michael Gately, Executive Director, BIO Contact Email execdirector@biographersinternational.org URL

rnational.org/award/hazel-rowley-prize/

* Call for Papers, Political Biofictions (2/18/2024; 1/9-12/2025) MLA New Orleans USA Alexandre Gefen (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CRNS) and Virginia Newhall Rademacher (Babson College) seek 1 to 2 additional panelists for the seminar, Political Biofictions at MLA 2025. MLA 2025 will be held January 9-12 in New Orleans, LA. Political Biofictions  Biofictions consciously reference historical subjects as their protagonists and then open those life narratives to imaginative possibility. By constituting thresholds between the situated realities of actual, biographical subjects and the imaginative potential of fictional creation, biofictions liberate fiction from interacting only with invented worlds. Instead, these works invite us to experiment with our biographical lives and to use fiction to evaluate and shape real-world concerns. The 2025 MLA Annual Convention theme of visibility is the perfect context for this session on Political Biofictions, especially in light of the crises and conflicts we face across the globe. Emma Donoghue has referred to biofiction as “voicing the nobodies.” Colum McCann has referred to the “contested realities” and obscured truths that writers of biofiction try to reveal – the effort to challenge and interrogate claims to truth and what we can trust. By imaginatively making visible voices and meanings that power has so often obscured, biofictions are inherently political spaces that defy dominant, authoritarian modes of determining the world. We invite diverse approaches, from more pointedly political critiques (Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat, Joyce Carol Oates’ Blonde, Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Like a Fading Shadow, Colum McCann’s Apeirogon, Anchee Min’sBecoming Madame Mao) to morewide-ranging cultural critiques (Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, Colm Toíbín’s  The Magician, Lauren Groff’s Matrix, Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, e.g.) as just a very few examples. If interested, please contact Professor Jenny Rademacher at vrademacher@babson.edu with a brief (one paragraph) proposal by Sunday February 18. Virginia Newhall Rademacher, PhD Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies Chair, Arts and Humanities Division Babson College Babson Park, MA 02457 vrademacher@babson.edu WebEx personal room: https://babson.webex.com/meet/vrademacher Author Page: Derivative Lives (Bloomsbury, 2022) *

4 PhD Positions “The Aggressor: Self-Perception and External Perception of an Actor Between Nations” (Heidelberg or Bochum, Germany)

Deadline for Applications: February 18, 2024 Heidelberg University (Department of History) and the Ruhr University Bochum (Faculty of History) invite applications for up to four PhD positions within the framework of the international research project “The Aggressor: Self-Perception and External Perception of an Actor Between Nations” (sponsored by the Daimler and Benz Foundation) to start in spring 2024 and to be hosted by either of the two institutions. The interdisciplinary project, headed by Prof. Dr. Thomas Maissen (Heidelberg University), investigates the identity-forming construction of national enemy images across Europe, which are shaped by aggressors from neighboring countries. The project examines the dynamics of personalization of such enemy imagery, with special attention to concrete historical figures. As ideal types or social figures, they represent hostile groups in collective memory. It comparatively researches and systematizes the perception and interpretation of concrete enemies as aggressors based on historical case studies, focusing on their discursive construction and changing significance in the politics of memory. A detailed description of the project can be found at: https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/fakultaeten/philosophie/zegk/histsem/forschung/project_aggressor_en.html Your tasks:

• • Conceptualization and execution of a doctoral project in German or English over the course of three years, pending an evaluation after the first year

• • Active participation in the further development of the broader project and in its events such as graduate seminars and workshops

Your profile:

• • Above-average degree (Master’s or equivalent) at the time of taking the position

• • Excellent doctoral project proposal

• • Good knowledge of German or English; other language skills are welcome

We offer:

• • A three-year (1+2) fixed-term contract at Heidelberg University or the Ruhr University Bochum

• • Coordinated supervision of the doctoral project by several members of the project team

• • Integration into an international interdisciplinary network of leading scholars from multiple established European research institutions

• • Highly motivating research environment in a strong academic team

• • Participation in international conferences and opportunities for publication of own research results

• • The chance to design exciting projects in the field of Public History

• • Salary based on the collective bargaining agreement of the German federal states (TV-L E13, 65%)

The doctoral project can be freely formulated within the framework of the above-mentioned description. For dissertations with a relevant topic that have already progressed, final funding with a shorter duration is conceivable. For questions regarding the content of the job profile, please contact Prof. Dr. Thomas Maissen (thomas.maissen@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de). Applications in German or English should include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, certificates, proof of language skills and professional experience (if applicable), two short academic letters of reference, and an outline of the doctoral project with details on the desired supervision and host university (max. 20,000 characters including spaces and bibliography) and should be sent as a single PDF file to:  aggressorprojekt@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de. The deadline is February 18, 2024. The interviews are expected to take place online on March 1, 2024. The participating institutions stand for equal opportunities and diversity. Qualified female candidates are especially invited to apply. Persons with severe disabilities will be given preference if they are equally qualified. Information on job advertisements and the collection of personal data is available at www.uni-heidelberg.de/en/job-market Contact Information Prof. Dr. Thomas Maissen, Department of History, Heidelberg University, Grabengasse 3-5, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany Contact Email thomas.maissen@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de URL e/fakultaeten/philosophie/zegk/histsem/forschung/pr… * Exploring Historical War Experiences through Digital Sources and Methodologies Workshop 23–24 May 2024 Tampere University, Finland Deadline for Applications: February 12, 20204 Historians have increasingly striven to understand war from the standpoint of human experience in recent decades. The emotional, psychological, and deeply traumatic experiences of people caught up in violence have become focal points of historical research, particularly concerning conflicts like the World Wars of the 20th century. This workshop discusses the study of war experiences through digital sources and methods. War experiences have been analyzed most often by closely examining the fates of individual people and their ego-documents like letters, diaries, and poems, but digitalization has opened possibilities to explore war from a broader perspective. The digitization of archives has made it easier to access millions of wartime publications, such as newspapers and parliamentary records, now only a few clicks away. Additionally, recent advancements in handwritten text recognition are making historical ego-documents, such as letters, digitally accessible. Transforming documents into data broadens the scope of research from traditional close reading to text-mining methods and creates new opportunities to present war on digital and visual platforms. What are the implications of digitalization for the study of war experiences? Are individual experiences at risk of being neglected in digital, data-driven research? Or can digitalization offer historians new ways to tell stories and convey experiences of war? It is important to emphasize that experiences should not be understood only as narratives of, or written by, individual people. Experience can also be understood more broadly as a mediating sphere between the macro and micro levels where different impulses (personal, social, cultural, and political) merge to form meanings, concepts, actions, and practices. We invite submissions of individual papers and panel discussions that present and analyze cases of historical study of war experiences through digital sources and methodologies. The topics can include, but are not limited to:

• • The concept of experience in digital history

• • Source critical reflection on ego-documents, testimonies, and narrative in the digital realm

• • The role of individual people in digital history

• • Mining war experiences and emotions

• • Silence and trauma in digital data

• • Representing war experiences through numerical data and visualizations

Submission guidelines Please send an abstract of 300 words and a short biography including your name and affiliation to ilari.taskinen@tuni.fi by Monday 12 February 2024. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 29 February 2024. The workshop takes place at Tampere University, Finland on 23–24 May 2024. The workshop is free for selected participants and provides lunch, coffee, and dinner. The organizers can help to cover travel and accommodation expenses for those without their own funding. Please indicate if you need assistance when submitting. Organizers Project: Digital History and Handwritten Sources (DIGIKÄKI) The Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences (HEX) Contact Information Ilari Taskinen (Tampere University) Contact Email ilari.taskinen@tuni.fi URL https://research.tuni.fi/hex/event/call-for-papers-exploring-historical-war-exp… * Call for Papers Janet Frame at 100, special issue of The Journal of Commonwealth Literature Deadline for abstracts: 15^th February 2024  The events of Janet Frame’s remarkable life – thanks in part to the success of her three-volume autobiography – have long overshadowed critical discussions and readings of her wider oeuvre, which includes a range of life narratives, novels, short stories, and poetry. On the hundredth anniversary of her birth, this special issue establishes new understandings of Frame’s work in and for the twenty-first century. Working to establish Frame as a key figure in modern Anglophone literature, this centenary issue scrutinises her experimental approach to literary forms, styles, genres, political orientations, and more. Co-edited by Andrew Dean (Deakin University, AUS), Emma Parker (University of Bristol, UK), and Nicholas Wright (University of Canterbury NZ) this issue solicits articles (7000-7500 words) which discuss Frame’s writing and themes such as:

• • Late modernist literature

• • Experimentations with literary form (metafiction; autofiction; satire; the bildungsroman)

• • Aotearoa New Zealand, postcolonial, or late colonial literatures

• • Records of violence/institutions/imperialism

• • Nationalism, both political and cultural

• • Disability and illness

• • The southern hemisphere

• • Eco-critical readings (oceanic imaginaries, environmental disasters)

• • Adaptations for the screen and stage

• • Translation and literary reception

• • Teaching: reflections on classroom experience and/or pedagogy

• • Posthumous publications and literary afterlives

Deadline for submission of abstracts, 15^th February 2024, to emma.parker@bristol.ac.uk, andrew.dean@deakin.edu.au and nicholas.wright@canterbury.ac.nz Full articles due 1^st August 2024 (for internal peer review) with final submissions and external peer review 1^st November 2024. For full submission guidelines please see: https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/JCL *

CFP: Writers of Extreme Situations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

deadline for submissions:  February 15, 2024 contact email:  comparativeworldliterature@gmail.com CFP: 58th Annual Comparative World Literature Conference Venue: California State University, Long Beach. Hybrid Dates: Tuesday, April 16 (Zoom presentations only), Wednesday and Thursday, April 17-18, 2024 (in person presentations only with Zoom projections) Plenary Speaker: Christopher Goffard, author and senior staff writer, Los Angeles Times Family crises, exilic conditions, forced migrations, excessive poverty, armed conflicts, political warfare, environmental calamities, workers’ exploitation, pandemics, and all manner of natural or man-made disasters have been rising to unprecedented levels over the last decades. How are extreme situations or situations so extraordinary as to defy imagination represented? What are the poetics underlying them? We welcome conversations about how extreme conditions and situations, (individual, collective, or global) are expressed, analyzed, and engaged from a multidisciplinary perspective, including but not limited to:  Literature, Journalism, Geography, Anthropology, Political Science, Criminology, Linguistics, Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Disability Studies, Media Studies, Geology, Human Development, and more. This conference invites paper and panel proposals on all aspects of extreme situations. Possible topics can include but are not limited to: -Literature of extreme situations -Investigative Journalism -Trauma literature -Literatures of genocide -Holocaust memoirs -Feats of survival -Crime narratives -Narratives of addiction -Natural and man-made disasters -Innocent Project LA -Victims speak up: truth to power -The rise against femicide -Wars and exilic narratives -Refugee narratives -Pandemic narratives -Medical malpractice and botched surgeries -Ethics of survival and survivors’ guilt -The Family Secret and the wounded individual -Dementia and violence: nursing homes -Perpetrators and victims -Asylum seekers and their fate in the US -Ethical ordeals: surviving the unimaginable -Memory as a repository of horror -Collapse of ethical systems in a digital world -Institutional responses to catastrophes -Crossing the Mediterranean: the Syrian refugee crisis -Extreme geo-political conflicts -Journalism at work: covering extreme conditions -“The Banality of Evil” in urban settings. -State terrorism and extreme-isms -Millennial fatigue and extremist stances -Monuments of shame -The Kafkaesque in our daily lives -Systemic risks in the 21st Century -Extreme environments -Soft White Underbelly: Mark Laita interviews –The Trials of Frank Carson Podcast (Christopher Goffard) -Deaths in the Grand Canyon and Other National Parks. We are thrilled to announce that the plenary talk will be delivered by Christopher Goffard, Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist for the LA Times, novelist and podcaster, on Thursday, April 19th, at 2PM (PDT). The title of his talk is: “Crossing the Impossible Bridge in a Dynamite Truck: Observations on Film, Friendship and Collaboration” In “Crossing the Impossible Bridge in a Dynamite Truck,” Goffard will reflect on his friendship and collaboration with one of cinema’s great poets of desperation and obsession, William Friedkin, and of their efforts to bring some of Goffard’s riskier stories to the screen. As a crystallization of Friedkin’s danger-courting artistry—and as a metaphor for their quest to get controversial projects made— Goffard invokes an image from the filmmaker’s 1977 masterpiece Sorcerer, in which a truck laden with nitroglycerin attempts to cross a crumbling suspension bridge in the South American jungle. Submissions for individual presentations and 90-minute sessions are welcome from all disciplines and global / historical contexts that engage with historical, personal, or social instances of extreme conditions and situations. Proposals for 15-20 minute presentations should clearly explain the relationship of the paper to the conference theme, describe the evidence to be examined, and offer tentative conclusions. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (not including optional bibliography) should be submitted by January15, 2024. Please submit abstracts as a Word document in an email attachment to comparativeworldliterature@gmail.com NB: Please do not embed proposals in the text of the email. Make sure to indicate your mode of preference (Zoom on April 16 and in person only on April 17 and 18) for planning purposes While the conference will be hybrid, all Zoom presentations will take place only on Tuesday, April 16, and in-person presentations will take place on Wednesday-Thursday, April 17-18 (and will be Zoom-projected). We cannot accommodate pre-recorded presentations. The conference committee will review all proposals, with accepted papers receiving notification by February 15, 2024. *

Call for papers – International Colloquium–Échappées belles – Correspondance of Surrealist Women

deadline for submissions: January 27, 2024 contact email:  lemieux-cloutier.eve@courrier.uqam.ca Organized by Andrea Oberhuber (Montreal University), Sylvano Santini (University of Quebec in Montreal) et Eve Lemieux-Cloutier (University of Quebec in Montreal) Montreal, October 23-25 2024 Where do we stand, almost 100 years after André Breton published the First Manifesto of Surrealism, in our understanding of what Georgiana Colvile and Kate Conley, in La femme s’entête (1998), have called “the feminine part” of the third historical avant-garde? Is it still necessary in 2023 to add a question mark, as the curators did in the case of the Surréalisme au féminin? exhibition at the Musée de Montmartre in summer 2023? Would this symbolize a doubt about the historical presence and aesthetic contribution of numerous female creators – writers and artists, often both at the same time – to the Surrealist movement? It’s true that, in the first pages of the manifesto, Breton evokes a castle in a “rustic setting, not far from Paris” where his “handsome and cordial” friends have taken up residence. He names them all, one by one, before concluding by imagining “and gorgeous women, I might add”, without bothering to specify their names. Over the past thirty years, a growing number of literary critics and art historians have put names and images to these “gorgeous women ” (Rubin Suleiman, 1990, Caws, Kuenzli and Raaberg, 1991, Conley, 1996, Rosemont, 1998, Colvile, 1999, among others). We now know that Simone Kahn and Mick Soupault were immortalized in Man Ray’s group photographs, that the young Gisèle Prassinos was the “femme-enfant” par excellence (Conley and Mahon, 2023) for quite some time, and that the group generally became more welcoming of creative women in the post-war period (Bonnet, 2006). Nor is there any need to revisit the triple role of muse-model-mistress in which young women authors and artists were mostly confined, and which for many was a means of drawing closer to Breton’s “group”, finding new ideas and values, while others have settled for a deliberately marginal position within the Surrealist nebula. Whether their relationship was one of proximity or distance, varying according to the key moments in their careers, their contribution to Surrealist aesthetics and ethics – since the two are intimately linked in the avant-garde movements of the first half of the 20th century – is no longer in doubt today. It seems to us that the centenary of the publication of the founding manifesto offers an opportunity to consider the past-present-future of Surrealism from a perspective that gives pride of place to the feminine. This bias in favor of women’s legacy, particularly in the field of correspondence, is intended to go beyond a binary vision of masculine and feminine, to breathe new life into movement studies and perpetuate creative practices to the present day. No progress, however radical, can be made without a return to the past. Surrealist women creators were witnessed to an era of upheaval that profoundly changed the conditions of art and forms of life. This was the desire of the avant-garde in general and Surrealism in particular, although it has been a long time coming. Women’s art made an original and integral contribution to the creation of these new conditions. And the reasons that explains the late realization of the will to change life are the same that might clarify the delay in the discovery of women’s work. We must avoid repeating this delay by hesitating to join their works to the forms of life that produced them. If the end of art’s autonomy is an essential contribution of the historical avant-gardes, despite their failure, as Peter Bürger (1984) demonstrated long ago, it goes beyond the question of gender. We must recognize, however, that its ultimate consequences affect women more intensely, whose subversive works have not been as decontextualized and neutralized by bourgeois recuperation and the art market as those of men. Besides, in his thesis on the historical failure of the avant-garde, Bürger never mentions the existence of women’s Surrealist works. Without wishing to deny their access to economic capital – they have the same right to it as men – their works still retain their subversive power. It’s this power that we need to bring to light, by revisiting and questioning the forms of life that gave rise to them. As part of the 100th anniversary of Surrealism in 2024, we propose to organize a colloquium on what we might be called a blind spot in surrealism studies to date, prompting us to reflect on it together: the correspondence of writers and artists whom we associate closely or remotely with the movement. They (hers) – Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Lise Deharme, Leonor Fini, Simone Kahn, Nelly Kaplan, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, Suzanne Muzard, Gisèle Prassinos, Dorothea Tanning and Unica Zürn, to name but a few – knew each other from close and far-flung Surrealist circles. Although they sometimes maintained an ongoing correspondence with one of the eminent representatives of Surrealism, there are few examples of letters they addressed to each other. Examples include the correspondence between Simone Kahn and her cousin Denise Lévy, or the few letters exchanged between Claude Cahun and Adrienne Monnier. In the majority of cases, female Surrealist artists corresponded with their male counterparts: Nelly Kaplan and Leonor Fini with André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Gisèle Prassinos with Henri Parisot, Lise Deharme with Pierre Reverdy, Unica Zürn with Henri Michaux and, of course, Jacqueline Lamba with André Breton. While it is generally believed that male writers and artists pursue their work by shaping and editing their correspondence – they somehow know that it will be read – we shouldn’t think that women don’t care. We need to get rid of all gendered stereotypes about epistolary writing, such as the one suggesting that women neglect the literary value of their letters in favor of spontaneity. As Brigitte Diaz (2006) rightly points out, the various gendered stereotypes associated with correspondence should no longer have a place in epistolary studies. This will be all the more true in our colloquium, which, rather than redoing the history of Surrealism, aims to extend and refine it by questioning the modes of sociability favored by women, their desire to collaborate, their friendships and loves, their criticisms, their ambitions, their moods – in short, their aesthetic, political and social sensibilities. In short, it will explore the multiple links – from everyday life to political reflections to questions of advice on a work in progress, for example – that several generations of Surrealist creators established between writing, creation and life in an era that, in more ways than one, can still inspire our own. Proposals for papers – whether for research or research/creation – which may concern published or archival correspondence by women, or, from a broader perspective, the question of epistolary writing by women, should be around 300 words long and accompanied by a brief bio-bibliographical note. Written in French or English, they should be sent simultaneously to Andrea Oberhuber (andrea.oberhuber@umontreal.ca), Sylvano Santini (santini.sylvano@uqam.ca) and Eve Lemieux-Cloutier (lemieux-cloutier.eve@courrier.uqam.ca) no later than January 27, 2024. In the subject line of your message, please indicate “Colloque. Échappées belles”. Please note that the colloquium organizers are planning to submit a funding application to cover part of the travel and subsistence expenses of colloquium participants. Further information will be sent to candidates whose proposals have been accepted by the scientific committee. Bibliography* Bonnet, Marie-Jo, Femmes artistes dans les avant-gardes, Paris,Odile Jacob, 2006. Bürger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde, trad. Michael Shaw, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1974. Caws, Mary Ann, Rudolf Kuenzli et Gwen Raaberg (dir.), Surrealism and Women, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1991. Colvile, Georgiana, et Katharine Conley (dir.), La femme s’entête. La part du féminin dans le surréalisme, Paris, Lachenal et Ritter, coll. « Pleine Marge », 1998. Colvile, Georgiana, Scandaleusement d’elles: trente-quatre femmes surréalistes, Paris, Jean Michel Place, 1999. Conley, Katharine, Automatic Woman, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1996. Conley, Kate, et Alyce Mahon, «The “Problem of Woman” in Surrealism », International Journal of Surrealism, vol. 1 n° 1, 2023, p. v-ix. Diaz, Brigitte, et Jürgen Siess (dir.), L’épistolaire au féminin : Correspondances de femmes (xviiie-xxe siècle),Caen, Presses universitaires de Caen, 2006. Oberhuber, Andrea, Faire œuvre à deux. Le livre surréaliste au féminin, Montréal, Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, coll. « Art + », 2023. Rosemont, Penelope (dir.), Surrealist Women, An International Anthology, Texas, University of Texas Press, coll. « Surrealist Revolution », 1998. Suleiman, Susan Rubin, Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics, and the Avant-Garde, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1990. * 2024 International PhD Conference “Lived Experiences”, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (hybrid format) June 6 and 7, 2024 Deadline for submissions: January 31, 2024 Call for Papers We are pleased to announce the call for papers for Lived Experiences, the international two- day PhD conference that takes place in Brussels, Belgium, on June 7th, and online on June 8th, 2024. This conference aims to create a platform for doctoral students specializing in literary studies, literary translation studies, and theatre studies to showcase their research and engage in discussions on the profound impact of personal narratives and lived experiences in shaping creative works. It provides an excellent opportunity for emerging scholars to actively participate in scholarly dialogues, share their findings, and contribute to the broader academic discourse. Theme and Scope Numerous scholars have explored how the book as a medium shapes the ways in which authors practice life writing. In “Putting Lives on the Record: The Book as Material and Symbol in Life Writing” (2017), Anna Poletti proposes an innovative approach to biography studies focusing on that centrality of “the book as both a medium and a symbol” to both “the practice and the scholarship of life writing” (Poletti, 460). However, a reading strategy, which emphasizes the relationship between a life writing practice and its medium/form, can be applied not only to book-based practices, but also to writing grounded in lived experience across various media, media combinations, and culturally defined forms of writing. Recently, life writing studies took an intermedial and transcultural turn (Rippl, 147), marked by publications such as the volume Intermediality, Life Writing, and American Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Nassim Winnie Balestrini and Ina Bergmann (2018), Experiments in Life-writing: Intersections of Auto/biography and Fiction, edited by Lucia Boldrini and Julia Novak (2017), and Anna Poletti’s (2020) monograph Stories of the self: Life writing after the book. Even more recently, Claudia Jünke and Désirée Schyns published Translating Memories of Violent Pasts: Memory Studies and Translation Studies in Dialogue (2023), a collection of essays from memory studies and translation studies investigating the exploration of memories of violence through the practices of interlingual and intercultural literary translation. As Jünke and Schyns highlight in their introduction to the last-mentioned work, cultural translation already implies a form of remembering: the target text always retains its dual context. It connects the past of the source to practices of rewriting and dynamics of cultural transmission in the present. Lived Experiences seeks to further our understanding of the ways different (combinations of) media, genres, and writing practices (e.g., literary translation) can allow for different expressions and explorations of personal experience. It aims to focus on lived experiences as a catalyst for (literary) creativity, with texts using the conventions and the material, modal, formal, and symbolic affordances of media, genres, and writing practices in creative ways to express specific forms of lived experiences (such as traumatic, formative, or shared cultural experiences). By bringing together scholars of life writing and other literary practices in which lived experience plays a central role, it invites participants to reflect both on how media and genres shape creative forms of life writing and how the need or desire to represent, analyze, or simulate lived experiences can inform practices of literary creation. We encourage participants to explore diverse aspects of lived experiences within the realm of literature and other media, including but not limited to:

1. 1. Autobiographical narratives and memoirs: Analyzing the ways in which personal stories intersect with creative expression and exploring the relationship between fact and fiction.

1. 1. Representations of marginalized and underrepresented voices: Investigating how literature becomes a platform for amplifying and centering marginalized experiences and challenging dominant narratives.

1. 1. Trauma, resilience, and healing: Examining the depiction of lived experiences of trauma in literature and other media and exploring the transformative power of storytelling in the process of healing and resilience.

1. 1. Cultural heritage and identity: Exploring how creative works reflect, preserve, and redefine cultural identity and heritage.

1. 1. Lived experiences in translation: Investigating the role of language mediation in shaping and representing diverse lived experiences across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Submission Guidelines We invite doctoral students to submit abstracts for a 20-minutes presentation, providing the following information:

1. 1. Title of the Paper

1. 1. Abstract (250–300 words)

1. 1. Brief Biography (100 words)

Please submit your abstracts via email to lived.experiences2024@gmail.com no later than January 31st, 2024. Please also indicate your affiliation and your preference for presenting your paper either in person or online. The conference will be held in English. Participation is free of charge. Important Dates

• • Submission Deadline: 31 January 2024

• • Notification of Acceptance: 21 February 2024

• • Conference Date: 7–8 June 2024

Selected papers presented at the conference may have the opportunity to be published in a special issue of the Journal for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (JLIC), based at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. For further inquiries, please contact us at lived.experiences2024 * Biography Lab 2024 (1/20/2024) Biographers International Organization (BIO). Held on ZOOM.   Biographers International Organization (BIO) is excited to announce Biography Lab 2024, which will be held via Zoom on Saturday, January 20, 2024, from 10:30 am – 5:00 pm Eastern (New York) time. BIO invites participants at all levels of interest and experience in the craft of biography to participate in three sequential 90-minute forums led by prize-winning biographers. A social hour concludes the day. The distinguished keynote speaker is Kai Bird, the author of five biographies, including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning and bestselling American Prometheus about Robert Oppenheimer. The three forum leaders are James McGrath Morris, author of multiple biographies about journalists and other writers; Janice P. Nimura, Pulitzer-Prize finalist for The Doctors Blackwell; and Ray A. Shepard, award-winning biographer of Black lives for young readers. Registration: Free to BIO members and students; $60 for nonmembers (fee includes a year’s BIO membership). Go here to register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/biography-lab-2024-tickets-742496776847 * Call for Applications — Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellowships (1/4/2024) CUNY NY USA

FEATURED JOB: The Graduate Center, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, Leon Levy Center for Biography – 5 $72 K Biography Fellowships

The Leon Levy Center for Biography invites applications for four 2024 – 2025 Biography Fellowships and one Leon Levy /Alfred P. Sloan Fellow in science biography. Each resident fellow receives a stipend of $72,000, research assistance, writing space and library privi- leges. They also participate in monthly seminars and the intellectual life of the Graduate Center, CUNY. Application deadline: Jan 4, 2024 Website: llcb.ws.gc.cuny.edu Contact Information Thad Ziolkowski, Deputy Director, the Leon Levy Center for Biography tziolkowski@gc.cuny.edu URL https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=66559 * Call for Papers “Through Their Eyes…” – Biographical Research in the Digital Age Deadline For Submissions: January 4, 2024 PaRDeS 30 (2024) Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies in Germany / Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e.V. Editor: Dr. Björn Siegel (Institute for the History of the German Jews, Germany) Guest-Editor: Prof. Dr. Andrea Sinn (Elon University, USA) Biographical studies have always been central to the historically working humanities, however, the relevance of biographical research seems to have gained importance throughout the last years, calling for a deeper analytical study as well as a critical re-evaluation of such a newly evolving “biographical turn”. Especially in an increasingly digitalized world, including academia, life stories seem to offer new and candid, but also personal and local lenses through which to examine, understand and present historical narratives, cultural phenomena, or literal productions. Different (auto)biographical sources offer the unique opportunity to see history “through their eyes” and provide authentic and insightful perspectives on the past and the present and can therefore, when viewed critically, serve as valuable historical records. Such personal insights into the past and present not only enable researchers to reconstruct and preserve different life stories, but offer a unique opportunity to study political, cultural and social networks and spaces, but also to analyze the interwoven feelings, thoughts and beliefs of people who experienced past realities. However, these sources also raise questions about the interests and perspectives of the writer(s), the reliability and subjectivity of the individual, as well as the constructiveness of the related texts and sources. Therefore, biographical research not only represents an interesting tool and promising methodology, but also poses considerable challenges to researchers in the humanities in general, and Jewish Studies in particular. The challenges are largely connected to phenomena such as (forced) migration, the evolution of diasporas and exiles, the consequences of multilingualism and transnational networks, questions of acculturation and representation, influences of religious principles, social habits or gender relations as well as the effects of changing moral concepts, philosophies, and identities. The worldwide spread of digitization seems to have solved some of these challenges, such as the issues of availability or legibility, but it also leads to new demands and difficulties, when studying biographies. While these phenomena might be universal, they seem to be inherent in Jewish history and culture, thus, making biographical research in Jewish Studies a complex, but also promising methodology. Therefore, the journal PaRDeS is seeking contributions that explore the potential of the “biographical turn in Jewish Studies” and aims to examine its impact on the study and representation, but also preservation of Jewish history, culture, and religion in the digital age. We welcome contributions from fields including but not limited to history and literature, political and cultural studies, sociology and anthropology, as well as contributions focusing on digital studies as well as archeology, archival studies etc. Potential contributions may focus on any character, locality or time period, related to Jewish life stories. Potential papers might focus on the following (not exhaustive) topics and questions, pose examples to illustrate the changing settings and/or

• • What are the specific challenges to write Jewish biographies/life stories in the digital age?

• • How important are biographies in Jewish history, religion and/or philosophy and has itchanged to write a biography in an ever more digitized world?

• • How can one life story influence the study of Jewish history, culture, and religion anddoes the function of the individual and/or collective transform in a digital world?

• • What kind of benefits does the digital age offer/suggest for the of study of Jewishhistory, language(s), religion, and/or culture? And, how does it influence the socialconstruction of a life story?

• • Is digitization expanding the source base of biographical research and does it change theavailability, readability and/or accessibility of sources (e.g. texts and multimedia sources)?

• • How does digitization change the materiality of the sources?

• • How are Jewish biographies used today, e.g. in academia, memory culture, educationalstrategies or public debates and did the representation of Jewish life changed by newlydeveloped digital tools?

• • How do museums and archives modify their strategies to preserve “Jewish life stories” inthe digital age?

• • Do digital biographical studies offer new insights and tools to decode and analyzeemotions or thoughts, but also trauma or violence?Proposals for papers (max. 500 words) and a short CV (max. 100 words) should be submitted to the editors, Björn Siegel (bjoern.siegel@igdj-hh.de) and Andrea Sinn (asinn@elon.edu), by January 5, 2024. The candidates will be notified on January 15, 2024. The submission of the finished papers is tentatively scheduled for May 2024. The full article should be 30.000 to 35.000 characters including spaces. All submissions will undergo a blind peer-review process.PaRDeS is an interdisciplinary journal that ensures its quality through a blind peer review; all articles published in PaRDeS are indexed in Rambi: Index of Articles on Jewish Studies. PaRDeS is published online in open access and in print. Previous issues are available at this link:Contact Information

Editors: Björn Siegel (bjoern.siegel@igdj-hh.de) and Andrea Sinn (asinn@elon.edu) Contact Email bjoern.siegel@igdj-hh.de URL https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/solrsearch/index/search/searchtype/series/id/37 * Call for Papers  Acts of Witnessing on Film American University of Paris July 17, 2024 – July 18, 2024 Deadline for Submissions: January 8, 2024 The definitions, uses, policies, and norms of testimony continue to be debated, with discussions fueled by a large scientific literature; works of philosophy and aesthetics (Frosch, & Pinchewski, 2009, Goutte, 2016, El Madawi, 2020, Détue, 2022) explore the relationship between filmed oral testimonies and historical facts, the narrative processes created by this medium in the Era of the Witness, the contours of truly cinematic testimonies, and even of testimony as a new documentary form (Leimbacher, 2014, Katz, 2018). At the intersection of Trauma Studies, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Memory and Media Studies, scholars have conducted research into audiovisual productions about the Holocaust as well as repressions in Latin America, the Middle-East, North Africa, and Asia (cf. the selected bibliography). These works are characterized by a constructivist perspective and an interest in the role of documentary filmmakers in the writing of history. This conference reflects through a historical perspective on the act of witnessing on film. Beyond “testimonial” cinema (Garibotto, 2019), we hope to approach testimonies as a practice, shaped by the specific environments of their national cinematographic cultures. How are enunciative devices reconfigured through the technical and institutional mediations inherent to the production of knowledge? How can we address the social and political stakes of archiving at the time of creation (omissions, negotiations, political pressures…)? Which epistemological approaches can be used to analyze testimonial functions assigned after the fact (such as previous footage reassigned for other purposes and uses, witness retractions regarding propaganda)? Studies on the historicity of individual accounts in documentaries (most often Anglophone and Francophone) situate their emergence in the 1960s (Leimbacher, 2014). This conference also proposes to account for prior decades and to introduce a global and comparative perspective. We wish to shed light on sensitivities to oral expression specific to various documentary traditions (Zéau, 2020), including those that developed under authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. These elements will be put in dialogue with various approaches to conceptualizing evidence, the document, and the audio trace. In so doing, we hope to pave the way for further research into the international circulation of ideas and expertise. In order to understand the listening conditions (Comolli, 1995) of a verbal testimony centered on personal experiences of violence, it is essential to recognize to what extent the topic is both political and conflictual. It is our wish to explore this dimension of communication in these societies that are torn apart, in particular in authoritarian regimes and police states. We also seek to question the pressures coming from institutions and social groups that lie behind the emergence of testimonies in cinema by comparing examples from various national cinemas. A part of the conference will be dedicated to the dissemination of filmed-based testimonies (their geographical circulation, infrastructure, breadth, and accompanying narratives). This conference is situated at the intersection of the history of cinema and a reflection on the act of witnessing that considers the social history of mass violence and the history of the end of dictatorships. We hope that it will be multidisciplinary and will foster connections between various cultural areas of research. We welcome proposals in French or English from a diversity of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. The conference will take place on June 17 and 18, 2024 at The American University of Paris. Submission criteria:  Please send your proposals in English or French before January 8, 2024. Please indicate the argument and issues raised by the topic of your communication and do not exceed 500 words. Submissions are to be sent to the organizing Committee (schaeffercenter@aup.edu). Authors will be responded to in February 2024. The presentation should be of 20 minutes. Organization Committee : Luba Jurgenson (Sorbonne Université), Constance Pâris de Bollardière (AUP), Brian Schiff (AUP), Irina Tcherneva (CNRS) Scientific Committee, in alphabetical order: Ruth Beckermann (filmmaker) Jennifer Cazenave (Boston University) Jochen Hellbeck (Rutgers University) Luba Jurgenson (Sorbonne) Sylvie Lindeperg (University Paris 1) Ania Szczepanska (University Paris 1) Irina Tcherneva (CNRS) Indicative bibliography 

• • Paul Bernard Nouraud and Luba Jurgenson (ed.), Témoigner par l’image, Paris, Petra, 2015.

• • Paul Bernard Nouraud, Luba Jurgenson, Irina Tcherneva (ed.), Témoigner par l’image II, Paris, Petra, forthcoming in 2023.

• • Véronique Campan, Marie Martin, Sylvie Rollet (ed.), Qu’est-ce qu’un geste politique au cinéma ? Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2019.

• • Catherine Coquio, La littérature en suspens. Écritures de la Shoah : le témoignage et les œuvres, Paris, L’Arachnéen, 2015.

• • Efren Cuevas, Filming History from Below: Microhistorical Documentaries, Columbia University Press, Wallflower Press, 2022.

• • Frédérik Détue, Témoigner au cinéma : une action dans l’histoire, Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2022.

• • Frédérik Détue & Charlotte Lacoste, Témoigner en littérature, Europe n° 1041-1042, janvier-février 2016).

• • Stefanie El Madawi, Approaching Contemporary Cinematic I-Witnessing, PhD thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2020.

• • Paul Frosh & Amit Pinchevski, Media Witnessing. Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication, Pallgrave Macmillan, 2009.

• • Verónica Garibotto, Rethinking testimonial cinema in postdictatorship Argentina: beyond memory fatigue, Indiana University Press, 2019.

• • Martin Goutte, « Le témoignage au rythme des images et des mots : accélération et accumulation », Écrire l’histoire [online], 16 | 2016, pp. 155-163.

• • Luba Jurgenson & Alexandre Prstojevic, Des Témoins aux héritiers, Paris, Petra, 2012.

• • Aurélia Kalisky, « Pour une histoire culturelle du testimonial. De la notion de “témoignage” à celle de “création testimoniale” », PHD thesis, 2013, Paris 3 University.

• • Rebecka Katz Thor, Beyond the Witness. Holocaust Representation and The Testimony Of Images. Three Films by Yael Hersonski, Harun Farocki And Eyal Sivan, Stockholm, Art and Theory Publishing, 2018.

• • Irina Leimbacher, More than Talking Heads: Non-fiction Testimony and Cinematic Form, PHD thesis, University of Berkley, 2014.

• • Sylvie Lindeperg & Annette Wieviorka, Univers concentrationnaire et génocide : voir, savoir, comprendre, Paris, Mille et une nuits, 2008.

• • Rory O’Bryen, Literature, Testimony and Cinema in Contemporary Colombian Culture : Spectres of la Violencia, Woodbridge, Rochester, NY, Tamesis, 2008.

• • Bhaskar Sarkar & Janet Walker (ed.), Documentary Testimonies: Global Archives of Suffering, New York, Routledge, 2010.

• • Annette Wiewiorka, The Era of the Witness, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2006.

• • Caroline Zéau, Le cinéma direct : un art de la mise en scène, l’Âge d’homme, 2020.

• • Revue Images Documentaires « La Parole Filmée », 1995, n° 22.

*

Call For Papers: Rasanblaj Fanm: Stories of Haitian Womanhood, Past, Present and Future, Institute for Black Atlantic Research, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom,

10-12 July 2024 Deadline for Submissions: January 13, 2024 Haitian women are regarded as the poto mitan (central pillar) of Haitian society. As caregivers, warriors, healers, artisans, traders, cultivators, manbos, storytellers, companions and agitators, they have been vital agents in shaping the fortunes of Haiti’s revolutionary anticolonial encounters and its quest for sovereignty and legitimation as an independent state. However, this term of veneration conceals diverse forms of political, social and discursive exclusion that women in Haiti and across the dyaspora confront in the present, and the myriad forms of silence and neglect to which they have been subjected in the historical record. The little that we know of the women whose courage, ferocity, resilience and generosity paved a course for independence, postcolonial statehood and the universal and permanent abolition of slavery in 1804 is often shrouded in mythology, which, as Colin Dayan has highlighted, “not only erases these women but forestalls our turning to [their] real lives.” Moreover, these legendary “sheroes” of Haiti’s past have often been exploited for the sake of political opportunity, symbolically deployed in the service of nationalist sleights of hand which obscure the precarity, insecurity, exploitation and vulnerability of Haitian women in the present. Piecing together the scattered fragments produced by the violence and ruptures of the colonialist archive and the continuing violence, neglect and co-optation of the dominant political oligarchy necessitates a form of rasanblaj, or (re)assembly, a practice advocated by Gina Athena Ulysse which “demands that we consider and confront the limited scope of segregated frameworks to explore what remains excluded in this landscape that is scorched yet full of life, riddled with inequities and dangerous and haunting memories.” Through rasanblaj, multiple modalities and disciplinary perspectives offer pathways of intersection. This conference invites opportunities to (re)assemble narratives, theorisations, performances, mobilisations and representations of Haitian womanhood, past, present and future. It welcomes proposals for 15-20-minute presentations from scholars, artists, activists, performers, creators and organisers that grapple with these diverse assemblages of Haitian womanhood. Potential topics of discussion include (but are not limited to):

• • (Under)representations of women in histories of the Haitian Revolution

• • Literary, artistic and filmic re-imaginings of Haiti’s revolutionary “sheroes” and women of Haiti’s pre- and post-revolutionary history

• • Haitian women as creators of art, literature, film, music and dance

• • Haitian women as subjects in art, literature, film and other media

• • The history of the feminist movement in Haiti

• • Haitian girlhood and education: where it’s been, where it is, where it’s going

• • The restavek system in Haiti and its particular impact on girls and young women

• • Land-tillers and Haiti’s moun andeyo

• • Makers, artisans and Madan Sara

• • Women and culinary traditions in Haiti

• • Cultural veneration of women icons and the notion of the poto mitan

• • Haitian women in the dyaspora

• • Manbos and the primacy of women in Vodou

• • Women elders, matriarchs and oral storytellers

• • Fashion icons and beauty queens from Haiti’s past and present

• • Women’s fashion in Haiti and the dyaspora

• • Women-led social justice organisations in Haiti and across the dyaspora

• • Stateswomen and women of the judiciary in Haiti

This event marks 220 years of Haitian independence, 200 years since Marie-Louise Christophe, first and only Queen of Haiti, departed Britain, and 90 years since the end of the U.S. Occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). It also celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Institute for Black Atlantic Research, whose record of hosting international events celebrating Haitian history and culture is established. As a radically transnational, interdisciplinary, collaborative, anticolonial and feminist endeavour, we aspire to create a conference that is inclusive in its structure and its mode of dissemination, and will make provisions for presenters in English, French and (where possible) in Kreyòl. Though we hope to assemble as many delegates in one common space as possible for this ambitious project, we recognise the challenges and potential barriers to travel (especially for our Haitian contingent). For this reason, and in order to promote inclusive discussions, there will be some opportunities for remote and hybrid participation.* A selection of the accepted papers may be invited to further develop their research for inclusion in an edited volume that may be produced after the conference. Confirmed keynote speakers include the Haitian-born artist Patricia Brintle, Ayitian Ourstorian and Vodouvi Professor Bayyinah Bello and filmmaker and journalist Etant Dupain.  Proposals for papers, panels, film/video presentations, workshops, and roundtables are due by 13 January 2024. Please submit an abstract of up to 300 words (these should be “blinded”, with names and affiliations removed, for peer review), along with a separate document containing a short biography of no more than 200 words (to include name and institutional/organisational affiliation if applicable). Proposals for complete panels of three speakers (or up to a maximum of four, keeping in mind that sessions will run for 90 minutes) are also welcomed. For full panel submissions, a designated group representative should collate abstracts and speaker biographies. All materials should be sent to the conference organisers, Dr M. Stephanie Chancy and Dr Nicole Willson at rasanblajfanm@gmail.com by the deadline date. * Proposals should indicate language requirements and any needs for remote participation.

Conference Committee

Dr M. Stephanie Chancy, Digital Library of the Caribbean, University of Florida Dr Nathan Dize, Washington University in St. Louis Dr Rachel Douglas, University of Glasgow Dr Raphael Hoermann, Institute for Black Atlantic Research, University of Central Lancashire Isabelle Dupuy, Writer and Trustee of the London Library Dr Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, California State University San Marcos Dr Nicole L. Willson, Institute for Black Atlantic Research, University of Central Lancashire Contact Email rasanblajfanm@gmail.com URL https://www.fanmrebel.com/media/cfp-rasanblaj-fanm-stories-of-haitian-womanhood-past-present-and-future * (Re)Tracing Self, World, and Agency in Narratives of Transformation Université Laval’s Graduate Conference for English Literature (ULGCEL) March 15, 2024 (Hybrid) Deadline for Submissions: January 14, 2024  “Writing and performing should deepen the meaning of words, should illuminate, transfix and transform.” –bell hooks In literary studies, scholars and writers such as bell hooks have highlighted the transformative potential of words, revealing that writing and artistic performance are not merely acts of creation but journeys toward self-discovery and social change. As we navigate the complexities of our contemporary society, marked by profound shifts and challenges, the need for narratives of transformation has become more urgent. In an era that grapples with social justice, environmental crises, and cultural transformation and revitalization, we invite scholars from various fields to engage with the theme of “Narratives of Transformation.” This call for papers seeks to reflect on writing and artistic performance as vehicles for personal and collective healing and empowerment. We invite papers on all narrative forms and genres that inspire change, challenge the status quo, and bring forth stories that (re)trace and weave together individual and collective pasts, presents, and futures. Université Laval’s 2024 Graduate Conference for English Literature proposes to engage narratives of transformation to consider questions such as:

• • In what ways can narratives of transformation serve as a catalyst for personal growth, social change, or healing in our contemporary society?

• • How do authors explore the intersectionality of identities, such as race, gender, or class, in the context of narratives of transformation?

• • What are the roles of storytelling and writing in challenging the status quo and inspiring change in today’s world?

• • What ethical and social responsibilities should writers and scholars consider when engaging with narratives of transformation?

• • How can narrative (re)imagine and bridge past, present, and future, and to what effect?

• • How does literature employ narrative techniques to depict transitions and convey the aesthetics of change and transformation?

ULGCEL 2024 invites graduate student presentations that explore such questions as they relate to literature, film, graphic novels, television, video games, or wherever narrative is found. We welcome a variety of theoretical and critical approaches and encourage presentations of 15-20 minutes. Topics for consideration encompass, but are not confined to:

• • Intersectionality

• • Multiculturalism

• • Identity and Representation

• • Gender and Sexuality

• • Postcolonial Narratives

• • Environmental Narratives

• • Dystopian and Utopian Narratives

• • Transcultural Narratives

• • Narrative and Ethics

• • Narrative and Memory

The conference will be held in a hybrid format on March 15, 2024. Speakers can present in person on the UL campus or via Zoom. We invite graduate students (MA, PhD, as well as advanced undergraduates) from various disciplines (Literature, Translation Studies, Film Studies, Cultural Studies, Indigenous Studies, History, etc.) to submit proposals. Visit the website for information on post-conference publishing opportunities. Please submit an abstract of 250 words and a biography of 50 words to: aeglea@asso.ulaval.ca. Include your name, affiliation, degree program, e-mail address, equipment needs, as well as the title of your presentation, and upload the document as both PDF and Word attachments. UPDATE: The deadline for proposals is now January 14, 2024. You will be informed of our decision by January 21, 2024. Website: https://aegleaulaval.wixsite.com/home/about-9 *

(Para-)Military Violence, War Crimes in Post-Soviet Conflicts and Narratives of the Russo-Ukrainian War: New Avenues of Methodology and Research

May 21-23, 28-29, 2024 Application deadline: January 15, 2024. Potsdam and Jerusalem Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in cooperation with the Pilecki Institute, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and the University of New Europe (UNE) organize a joint international workshop that will take place in two locations: The Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam (ZZF) (May 21-23, 2024) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (May 28-29, 2024). The first part of the workshop at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam will take place within the research framework KonKoop (Conflict and Cooperation in Eastern Europe: The Consequences of the Reconfiguration of Political, Economic, and Social Spaces since the End of the Cold War). It will primarily focus on the topic of (para-)military violence over a period of time starting with the collapse of the USSR till present. The Mutiny of the Wagner group in summer 2023 has highlighted the significance of armed militias for understanding conflict, violence and war in the post-Soviet space. The dissolution of the USSR was preceded by the disintegration of the Soviet Army and the rise of armed groups, local strongmen and warlords in parts of the Caucasus, in Central Asia and in Moldova. From the 1990s onwards irregular formations of armed men played a significant role in various conflicts from Chechnya to the Donbas. These men, as well as the regular armed units of Russia used violence and committed war crimes in the conflicts following the dissolution of the USSR. The workshop will assemble both those who have contributed to the ongoing discussion on methodological approaches in the study of violent groups, including ethical questions, as well as researchers who have already studied sources and collected data in the field. Presentations will include work on the conflicts of the late USSR and the 1990s as well as more recent studies about the Russian war against Ukraine (starting in 2014). The goal of the workshop is to gain a better understanding of the origins, the actors as well as the forms and consequences of irregular military violence from perestroika to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The workshop language is English. Submissions should include a one-page abstract and a short CV. Please send all materials by 15 January 2024 to alyona.bidenko@zzf-potsdam.de Applications are welcome from scholars and nonacademic research professionals such as journalists and activists. Some of the participants’ travel costs will be reimbursed upon request. In cooperation with the University of New Europe network a publication of some of the contributions is planned with a transcript in the “New Europes” book series. Organizing committee: Alyona Bidenko (ZZF/ KonKoop), Jan Claas Behrends (ZZF/ Viadrina U) Contact email: alyona.bidenko@zzf-potsdam.de For more information see. www.zzf-potsdam.de www.konkoop.de neweurope.university The Potsdam Workshop is supported by funds from the Federal Ministry of Research (BMBF) The second part of the workshop at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem will concentrate on the Russo-Ukrainian war and explore a range of topics related to how the war is narrated, constructed and interpreted by its immediate witnesses: refugees from Ukraine who left the country to various destinations, primarily to Europe and Israel. Topics that we intend to discuss include but are not limited to the following: I. History of the war seen from “within” We look forward to discussing the major narrative strands in the stories about living in Ukraine during the war (possibly, under the Russian occupation), of flight/evacuation to other countries and of current refugeehood in the country of destination. We aim here at enhancing our understanding of the social reality, micropolitics of everyday life and larger social processes as all these were altered by the war. Some of the foci in this discussion may include: 1) grass-root agency in the situation of war: where and how it is produced and sustained, how it facilitates micro-level social practices, how it shapes interaction in larger social networks and how it is inscribed in the workings of formal institutions or organizations; 2) various choices (practical, moral, political, linguistic, etc.) involved in people’s war-time experience contexts and how these choices reflect people’s individual and group-based political allegiances and humanitarian commitments; 3) individual and collective identity(ies) and their role in shaping people’s vision of the broader context of Russo-Ukrainian war, of their war-time experiences in Ukraine and later in their new host countries, as well as of the broader political agendas on the international level against which these identities are negotiated. II. Methodology We are also looking forward to discussing methodologies underlying our oral history research with particular regard to the nature of our interviews and to some extent participant observation. First, here we may focus on the ontologies of the texts produced in our work with particular regard to the following aspects: a) “translatability” of the war experience, particularly of the trauma experience, and “conditions of felicity” under which communication of this experience becomes possible; b) the role of individual and collective subjectivities invoked in people’s stories as categories of the scholarly analysis; c) critique of the nature of oral narratives produced in a multiple-stage process of immediate perception and postponed reflection of the witnesses, as well as the interpretation on the part of researchers and their resulting value for the academic discourse; d) crystallization of earlier “raw” testimonies into structured narratives with specific civil agendas, as well as various social, political and cultural factors that impact this process; e) possible theoretical framings that allow oral narratives to become part of the academic discourse. Second, we may discuss the place of our findings within the existing discourses in social sciences and humanities, such as “anthropology of emergency,” identity-and-agency theory, actor-network theory, anthropology of everyday life, genocide studies, Ukrainian studies, European studies, Israel studies, studies of colonialism and post-colonialism, diaspora and nationalism studies, aliyah studies, etc. Third, we might give thought to how ethnographic and anthropological perspectives on the one hand provide the possibility of different framings of historical events and processes as compared to official documentary sources, but on the other, how they may complement each other to expand our perspective on the object of our study. In other words, how oral history may be integrated into the larger historical canon and how this synthesis may provide a more human-oriented perspective upon the war. III. Further collaborative efforts Last but not least, we are planning to discuss our further research around the theme of the Russo-Ukrainian war, including development of joint projects, creation of cross-referenced archival depositories and establishing research networks with other academic institutions. Applications are welcome from scholars and nonacademic research professionals. We particularly welcome researchers who have been doing oral history research with war-time Ukrainian refugees, as well as scholars in social sciences more broadly. Application deadline: January 15, 2024. Accommodation costs in Israel will be covered. Organizing committee: Semion Goldin (Hebrew U of Jerusalem), semyon.goldin@mail.huji.ac.il, Anna Kushkova (Hebrew U of Jerusalem), anna.kushkova@mail.huji.ac.il Contact email: anna.kushkova@mail.huji.ac.il (Anna Kushkova) Contact Information The Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam (ZZF): Alyona Bidenko (ZZF/ KonKoop), Jan Claas Behrends (ZZF/ Viadrina U). Contact email: alyona.bidenko@zzf-potsdam.de. Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Semion Goldin (Hebrew U of Jerusalem), semyon.goldin@mail.huji.ac.il, Anna Kushkova (Hebrew U of Jerusalem), anna.kushkova@mail.huji.ac.il. Contact email: anna.kushkova@mail.huji.ac.il (Anna Kushkova). Contact Email alyona.bidenko@zzf-potsdam.de * Deadline for proposals: January 11, 2024 CFP – Genres in Transit: The Novel of Memory as World Literature Eighth Annual Conference of the Memory Studies Association (MSA) — “Memories in Transit” Lima, Peru, 18 to 20 July 2024  https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/call-for-papers-msa-annual-conference-2024-lima-peru/ This panel is rooted in the research done on the novel of memory in Romania, in the frame of the project The Novel of Memory in Postcommunism: Subgenres, Generations, Transnational Networks and it aims at a wider, transnational and trans-continental mapping of the genre and its local/ global embodiments and traditions. In the last four decades, the novel of memory emerged in various parts of the world, spanning spaces and experiences, most notably in postcolonial, posttotalitarian and posttraumatic situations, in such a proportion that it can be argued it now reaches the scale of a world genre. Counting among its representatives such authors as Salman Rushdie (with Midnight’s Children, 1981), Toni Morrison (with Beloved, 1987), Herta Muller (with The Hunger Angel, 2009), Mircea Cartarescu (with Blinding, 1996), Laura Alcoba (with The Rabbit House, 2007), Gilbert Gatore (with The Past Ahead, 2012) the novel of memory took on challenges of postmodern form vs. political responsibility, but mostly that of memory, often in the form of autofiction, challenging history. However this world genre is discussed, whether in terms of multidirectionality (Michael Rothberg), generationality (Astrid Erll), or postmemory (Marianne Hirsch), the debate is still open on how it came about globally, what subgenres and formulas it favored, if and how it traveled from one author or culture to another. As Wai Chee Dimock puts it in „Genre as World System: Epic and Novel on Four Continents” (2006), literary genres enter a network of interconnection, not of genealogical relations, highlighting „a remote spectrum of affinities, interesting when seen in conjunction, but not themselves organically linked”. Likeliness, Dimock emphasizes, issues “from environments roughly similar but widely dispersed”. Situated at the intersection of memory studies and literary studies, the panel invites papers on the various national embodiments of the novel of memory from Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific, addressing, but not limited to, the following topics:

• • how memory and literary formulas are intertwining in various political contexts

• • how multidirectionality manifests itself (or not) in the forms of this genre

• • how the different geocultural embodiments of the novel of memory deal with variation and resemblance

• • to what extent the novel of memory contributes to the decolonizing of memory being done now in multiple memory cultures and academic contexts.Wider surveys of the genre in national/ transnational frames, as well as individual case studies of authors and literary works are welcome. Scholars from literary, memory, and lifewriting studies interested in these topics may send a brief proposal (200-300 words) to andreea.mironescu@uaic.ro, if possible, no later than January 11, 2024. The deadline for panel submissions to the MSA conference is January 15, 2024.Many thanks and best wishes for 2024,Andreea Mironescu Senior Researcher, Institute of Interdisciplinary Research – Department of Social Sciences and Humanities Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreea-Mirones

* Call for Panel Participants: Memories and Legacies of the World War II Nikkei Incarceration “Memories in Transit,” Memory Studies Association Conference July 18–20, 2024 Lima Peru https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/call-for-papers-msa-annual-conference-2024-lima-peru/ Deadline for Submissions January 9, 2024 This proposed panel explores personal and public remembrance of the North American incarceration of persons of Japanese descent throughout the Second World War (1941–1945), particularly how memories of the event are evoked and mobilized in different historical contexts and conversations. Engaging with key concepts of memory activism (Gutman, Rigney, Wüstenberg), postmemory (Hirsch), and multidirectional memory (Rothberg), among others, we examine how several present-day social movements and political initiatives draw on memories of Nikkei wartime exclusion to challenge contemporary forms of political violence and to fight for more just, equitable, and secure futures. We address the following questions: How can memories of the past be used to combat violence and to motivate political action and solidarity in the present? How do memories of the Japanese diaspora and western exclusion move across and between multiple generations, geographies, populations, and cultures? Further, how can practices of remembrance build community between different groups and draw connections between diverse social movements and political struggles? Spanning the disciplines of history, literature, and media studies, this panel addresses these questions and others by exploring how memories and remembrance of the Nikkei wartime incarceration influences our society today—including ongoing discussions about racial repair, environmental destruction, and coloniality. Ultimately, the panel seeks to offer new and critical insights into the political, activist, environmental, and embodied legacies of the Japanese American incarceration. We invite scholars interested in participating to send a short paper abstract to Kelsey Moore (kelseymoore@ucsb.edu) and Jen Noji (jnoji@g.ucla.edu)as soon as possible, but ideally no later than January 9. NB: All panel materials will be submitted by January 15, 2024. Call for Panel Participants – MSA 2024 (Lima, Peru, July 18-20) [Announcement] * Call for Panel Participants: Memories and Legacies of the World War II Nikkei Incarceration “Memories in Transit,” Memory Studies Association Conference July 18–20, 2024 Lima Peru https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/call-for-papers-msa-annual-conference-2024-lima-peru/ Deadline for Submissions January 9, 2024 This proposed panel explores personal and public remembrance of the North American incarceration of persons of Japanese descent throughout the Second World War (1941–1945), particularly how memories of the event are evoked and mobilized in different historical contexts and conversations. Engaging with key concepts of memory activism (Gutman, Rigney, Wüstenberg), postmemory (Hirsch), and multidirectional memory (Rothberg), among others, we examine how several present-day social movements and political initiatives draw on memories of Nikkei wartime exclusion to challenge contemporary forms of political violence and to fight for more just, equitable, and secure futures. We address the following questions: How can memories of the past be used to combat violence and to motivate political action and solidarity in the present? How do memories of the Japanese diaspora and western exclusion move across and between multiple generations, geographies, populations, and cultures? Further, how can practices of remembrance build community between different groups and draw connections between diverse social movements and political struggles? Spanning the disciplines of history, literature, and media studies, this panel addresses these questions and others by exploring how memories and remembrance of the Nikkei wartime incarceration influences our society today—including ongoing discussions about racial repair, environmental destruction, and coloniality. Ultimately, the panel seeks to offer new and critical insights into the political, activist, environmental, and embodied legacies of the Japanese American incarceration. We invite scholars interested in participating to send a short paper abstract to Kelsey Moore (kelseymoore@ucsb.edu) and Jen Noji (jnoji@g.ucla.edu)as soon as possible, but ideally no later than January 9. NB: All panel materials will be submitted by January 15, 2024. Call for Panel Participants – MSA 2024 (Lima, Peru, July 18-20) [Announcement] *