Periodicals Across Europe

9-10 December 2011

The Burgess Foundation, Manchester.

Keynote speakers

Professor Sophie Levie (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)

Professor Barbara Mittler (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg)

Dr Sascha Bru (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

To mark the foundation of the European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit), the Centre for Periodicals Research at the University of Salford is hosting the Periodicals Across Europe Conference on 9-10 December 2011. The theme of the conference is the comparative study of European periodicals and periodical cultures, and the conference organizers now welcome proposals for contributions. We take ‘periodical’ in its widest sense to mean magazines, journals, newspapers and any other form of serial publication. ‘Comparative study’ is equally broadly defined. The conference aims to consider the differences or similarities in periodical cultures between European nations and languages; between historical periods; and between European and non-European periodical cultures. The organizers anticipate that this comparison will arise from the juxtaposition of papers, so individual papers need not be explicitly comparative.

Topics for proposals may include, but are by no means limited to:

• Periodicals and national culture
• Internationalization of and in periodicals
• Trans-European periodical culture
• Europe seen from abroad in periodicals
• The language of periodicals
• Cultural exchanges between periodicals
• Periodical genres (such as the illustrated newspaper; satiric, fiction or poetry magazines; the review; the woman’s magazine; little magazines; trade journals)
• Imitation/Influence/Borrowing in periodical culture
• Periodicals and print and image technologies

While we welcome proposals in any of these areas, we seek especially work on non-Anglophone and/or post-1900 periodicals. While the study of nineteenth-century Anglophone periodicals is well-established, part of ESPRit’s mission is to open up periodical research beyond this field. In line with ESPRit’s stated aims, the organizers hope to bring together some of the ‘many European scholars in different disciplines—historians, sociologists, literary scholars, media studies scholars—who use periodicals in their work’. Ideally, the conference will put experienced researchers from the established field in dialogue with more recent arrivals. Accordingly, we also welcome contributions which are focused on questions of theories and methodologies of periodical research, as well as proposals dealing with teaching periodicals, and the impact of digitization on periodical research.