The Journal of European Periodical Studies (JEPS) is a bi-annual, peer-reviewed online journal devoted to the study of periodicals and newspapers in Europe from the seventeenth century to the present. It publishes research from a broad range of critical, theoretical and methodological perspectives, including, but not limited to, cultural history, literary studies, art history, gender studies, media studies, history of science and digital humanities.

As the official journal of ESPRit, JEPS offers scholars a forum for sharing their research and exchanging ideas across disciplinary borders. Although the journal welcomes articles on any aspect of the European periodical press, it particularly encourages comparative contributions that take the study of periodical publication beyond linguistic, cultural and historical boundaries, explore new theoretical and methodological paths, and thereby open up new lines of scholarly inquiry. JEPS is published in Open Access at Ghent University. Its editor-in-chief is Prof. Marianne Van Remoortel.

Recent issues of JEPS include:

JEPS 4.1 (2019): Digital Approaches Towards Serial Publications
JEPS 4.1 (2019): Periodicals In-Between/Les Périodiques comme médiateurs
JEPS 5.1 (2020): What is Popular? Studies on the Press in Inter-War Europe
JEPS 5.2 (2020): Independent Magazines Today
JEPS 6.1 (2021): Women Editors in Europe
JEPS 6.2 (2021): Modernity and National Identity in Popular Magazines
JEPS 7.1 (2022): Miscellaneous issue
JEPS 7.2 (2022): Periodical Formats in the Market
JEPS 8.1 (2023): The Matter of Europe
JEPS 8.2 (2023): Miscellaneous issueJEPS 8.2 (2023): Miscellaneous issue

For more information, please go to openjournals.ugent.be/jeps.

Book Reviews and Beyond. The Transformations of Literature and Art Criticism in Periodicals Between the 18th and the 21st Century

Milan, 3-5 juin 2020

Although unquestionably all-pervasive within the history of modern and contemporary press, the ‘review form’ has been to present an understudied practice. In fact, this multi-faceted, cross-disciplinary form that has persistently accompanied the different phases in the evolution of “print-capitalism” has hardly been analysed from a theoretical perspective. This dismissal by the academic world is certainly peculiar, if not manifestly contradictory; however, it significantly testifies of the difficulty of investigating such a slippery object of study critically.

The very ‘physiognomy’ of the book or film review, inherently wavering between the duty to inform and the needs of the market, influenced as it is by the definition of ‘taste’, makes this form difficult to tackle with a sound methodological approach. Since the beginning of the XVIII century, the book and film review has proved to be an essential interface between cultural supply and demand, and it has always been something more than a weapon to reach fame and recognition. Depending of the position gained in the literary or film fields, the review has often determined the success or failure of a creative enterprise, of a name or reputation. This particular device has been the yardstick of the most diverse sensibilities and tempers, from the learned expert to the passionate amateur. In this, its proliferation has foreshadowed the changes in the reception processes of works no longer provided with an ‘aura’ and therefore prone to the whims of a mass audience, whose judgments ultimately assessed their value.

For these reasons, it is hard to trace the evolution of the ‘review form’ from a single point of view while focusing on the mechanisms that have triggered its fortune. As a crucial touchstone of intellectual production, the review still performs its essential normative function, contributing to outlining the ever-evolving “horizon of expectations” of its audiences, often identified with an ideal corpus which should epitomise a shared canon. On the other hand, as a social process, the review tends to keep track of the continuing dialectics between mainstream aesthetic values and their renegotiation in distinct contexts and/or communities of consumption.

In the light of the rapidly-changing scenario of media and technologies, the conference “Book Reviews and Beyond” aims at exploring this compelling area of research in accordance with the interdisciplinary perspective of periodical studies, with particular focus on the period from the eighteenth century to the turn of the new millennium.

Scientific Committee:
Paolo Giovannetti
Andrea Chiurato
Mara Logaldo

Organizing Committee:
Dario Boemia
Stefano Locati
Laura Sica

Website
The website for the conference is now online at beyondbookreview.iulm.it. It contains all the links to follow the event in streaming on YouTube day by day. Simultaneous translation into English will be available for all presentations or sessions held in Italian by clicking on the “English” button. 

For information about the event, and other questions about the conference program, please contact the Organizing Committee (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Bild-Sequenzierung im Journal: Comic, Fotoreportage, Cinéroman und illustrierte Filmzeitschrift

12–13 June 2020, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

Organised by the DFG Research Unit 2288 Journal Literature, the Committee for Comics Studies and the Committee for Photography Studies at the German Society for Media Studies (GfM)

Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Jan Baetens (Leuven) and Marina Ortrud M. Hertrampf (Regensburg)

The premise of the workshop is that periodicals, as soon as they are capable of incorporating pictures, are prone to display not only single isolated, but most often multiple pictures and, moreover, arrange them in typical, possibly media-specific ways. The object of the workshop is to explore page layout strategies used in periodicals from the 19th to the 21st century in order to identify their manifestations, historical modifications and adaptations to different visual media.

From the late 19th century onwards photographic images have been published frequently in periodicals. As the 19th century drew to a close, photo-reproduction processes quickly supplanted wood-engraving. Photo-mechanical technologies such as the half-tone screen enabled mass reproduction of photographs. The importance of photojournalism and, accordingly, of photographic magazines such as the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung was increasing, leading to the formation of the influential journalistic genre of the ‘photo reportage’. American comic strips explored novel ways of “juxtapos[ing] pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer”, as Scott McCloud famously defined. Serial novels such as Georges Rodenbach’s Bruges-la-Morte (1892) were published AG Fotografieforschung accompanied by numerous photographs. After the turn of the century, the ever more popular medium of film found in the pages of the periodicals an ideal partner to transform its moving pictures into a fixed printed form. Throughout the 20th century these forms continued to flourish and develop, introducing new modes of serial picture display like the photonovel or the cinéroman up to current projects such as the Revue dessiné, offering a news magazine relying solely on comics. All of these forms raise the question how sequencing pictures on a page—and on ensuing pages—does produce meaning: How do still pictures narrate and produce visual discourse?

The workshop seeks to advance the study of image sequences from a transmedial perspective. The focus lies hereby on the way in which the medial format of the periodical operates with image sequences: How are images arranged and connected to each other, how do they produce coherence, the impression of a succession and very often even narrative cohesion? We welcome theoretical approaches as well as studies that work with historical or contemporary material.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent to the conference organisers Christian A. Bachmann, Vincent Fröhlich, Iris Haist, Jens Ruchatz, and Monika Schmitz-Emans (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) no later than 31 January 2020. Please include name, institutional affiliation, email address, and a short CV (150 words). This workshop seeks to advance transdisciplinary discussion and exchange. In line with this goal and the fact that the workshop encourages interaction, participants are required to submit preliminary papers of approximately 8 pages no later than 24 May 2020. Presentations should not exceed 10 minutes and should primarily serve to kick off discussions of 30 minutes. The papers will be sent to the attendees prior to the workshop and participants should read them in preparation of the discussions. The languages used during the workshop will be English and German. We will provide accommodation in Bochum and reimburse travel expenses up to €250 in total. Please add a short note to the abstract if you need us to refund costs up to €250. Please contact us no later than 24 May 2020 if you would like to participate in the discussion without presenting a paper.

Possible topics and case studies include but are not limited to:

• the formation of image sequences as part of an emerging practice of text production for periodicals from the late 19th century onwards;
• comic strips as image sequences and series of image sequences;
• image sequences as a mean of producing visual news in the ‘photo reportage’;
• the representation of film in periodicals using sequences of pictures;
• image sequences in periodicals as forms of remediation and/or negotiations of mediality;
• the intermedial structure of image sequences in photo comics, photonovels and film photonovels;
• mediations of and reflections on movement and time in image sequences published in periodicals.

This interactive map shows geographical locations of ESPRit committee members, past and future conferences, partner organisations and important resources for periodical research.