Tag: outside the profession

CFP: Text, Space, Memory: Italians Rewriting the Global and U.S. Souths

CfP for the panel ‘Text, Space, Memory: Italians Rewriting the Global and U.S. Souths’ at the Biennial Conference of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature ‘Building Spaces of Freedom’ (March 28-31, 2026 – Fisk University, Nashville, TN)

This panel investigates how Italian transnational communities, across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, have produced, negotiated and monumentalized cultural identity through literary texts, material practices and spatial imaginaries. Bringing together approaches from Italian studies, ethnic studies, literary analysis, spatial theory and material culture, the panel considers how Italian migrants in the Global and U.S. Souths used both texts and objects to articulate belonging, negotiate racial hierarchies and inscribe themselves into local landscapes.

We invite papers that explore how identity is shaped, contested, and remembered through:

1. Literature, Journalism, and Migrant Voices

  • narrative and poetic representations of Italian migration and settlement;
  • ethnic print cultures (e.g., community newspapers, serialized fiction, civic writing, public rhetoric);
  • writers, editors, grassroots intellectuals and cultural mediators who shaped local identities

2. Spatiality, Modernity and the Italian Imagination

  • spatial representations of modernity in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian literature or visual culture;
  • literary constructions of southern geographies (Mediterranean, Latin American and U.S. Souths);
  • the role of space in negotiating whiteness, marginality, or social mobility.

3. Material Culture, Craft, and Memorial Practices

  • Italian American memorialization practices (monuments, plaques, markers, commemorative objects);
  • Italian craft, artistic labor, and material expertise in the creation of southern monuments:
  • intersections between artisanal traditions, racial identity, and cultural memory.

4. Archives, Public History and Digital Humanities

  • community archives, material or textual;
  • digital approaches to migrant storytelling, spatial mapping or narrative circulation;
  • public-facing practices that connect literature, objects and community memory.

We welcome contributions from literary studies, Italian studies, ethnic studies, art history, spatial humanities, history and digital humanities. Papers addressing understudied archives, multilingual sources, or intersectional methodologies are especially encouraged.

Please submit a 250–300 word abstract and a brief bio (50–75 words) to the panel organizers, Matteo Brera (University of Padova / Seton Hall University) and Alessia Martini (Sewanee – The University of the South) at matteo.brera@unipd.it and almartin@sewanee.edu by December 12, 2025.

Contact Information

Dr Matteo Brera
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Research Fellow
Università degli Studi di Padova / Seton Hall University
✉️ matteo.brera@unipd.it | matteo.brera@shu.edu
📞 +1 (934) 500-3088
🌐 http://www.msca-dashow.com

Contact Email

matteo.brera@unipd.it

URL

https://www.msca-dashow.com/news/sssl2026

CFP: “An International Workshop on Films and Ethnography”

An International Workshop on  Films and Ethnography

January 7-10, 2026

Films and ethnography go back a long way. Ethnographers of the past to the visual anthropologists of the present have turned to film and video as both research tools and presentation medium. They have used the camera to capture fieldwork, deployed cinematic techniques to convey ethnographic insights, and made films and documentaries to challenge the mainstream textual dominance in the dissemination of their research in form of journal articles and monographs. Similarly, many feature films adopt ethnographic traits. This includes immersive attention to everyday life, long observational takes, reflexive narration, or even hybridity between fiction and documentary. Such films become sites for contemplating the human condition much like ethnographic research. 

The coming together of film and ethnography throws up a number of theoretical and epistemological challenges as well and the relationship between the two, although productive, is not without some tension. Issues of representation (who speaks, whose voice is heard, or who holds the camera), authorship and power, aesthetic values versus analytic rigor, the ethnographic gaze on “the Other” and the cinematic gaze on ethnography, the question of objectivity vs subjectivity, the boundary between documentary and fiction, the sensory turn and the limits of textuality are only some examples of this rich and overdetermined relationship. Neither ethnography nor filmmaking can claim neutrality and therefore ‘film in and as ethnography’ and ‘ethnography in and as films’ are also shot through by the dialectics of subjectivities of the researcher-filmmaker. In other words, the point of intersection of film and ethnography is also the site of production of subjectivities which can have radical (or its opposite) consequences politically and culturally. 

This workshop invites contributions from postgraduate students, doctoral scholars, and early career researchers who either want to include films as a method in their research or are already doing it to share their proposals and experiences. We also invite filmmakers who have framed their filmmaking ethnographically to share their work at the workshop. We aim to open a space for reflection on the potentials and tensions of the “ethnographic gaze” in film, as well as the capacity of film to interrogate, complicate or even invert that gaze. Some of the indicative but not exhaustive sub‑themes of the workshop are listed below: 

  1. Ethnographic sensibility in feature film.
  2. Ethnographers as filmmakers. 
  3. Documentary vs textual dissemination of ethnographic research. 
  4. Sensory ethnography and the audiovisual turn.
  5. Film, ethnography, and Disability Studies.
  6. Ethics, reflexivity and collaboration.
  7. Film as critique of ethnographic knowledge.
  8. Ethnography as critique of cinema.
  9. Decolonial, Indigenous and diasporic contexts.
  10. New media, digital, VR and film‑ethnographic futures.
  11. Epistemological and theoretical reflections.
  12. Questions of method. 

This workshop will also have two Masterclass by documentary filmmakers and a space for screening films based on ethnographic research of the participants. 

Confirmed Speakers:

Rashmi Devi Sawhney, Associate Program Head of Film and New Media; Associate Arts Professor of Film and New Media, New York University Abu Dhabi

Sreemoyee Singh, Documentary Filmmaker (And, Towards Happy Alleys 2023)

Submission Guidelines:

  1. Abstract of around 500-1000 words (with title and keywords) for original and unpublished papers, research proposals, work-in-progress (articles, essays, etc.). These will be workshopped with experts at the event to make it publishable. Please include a short bio-note of around 200 words.
  2. For documentary based on ethnographic research, a synopsis of around 500-1000 words. Please include a short bio-note of around 200 words.

Note: Selected papers will be published in Peter Lang’s CUECS Series on Interdisciplinary Humanities in the 21st Century 

Please send your abstract/synopsis to csc@christuniversity.in

Important Dates and Registration Fee:

Registration fee: INR 3000 (for Indian and non-OECD countries’ participants)/USD 70 (for OECD countries’ participants)

Last date to submit abstract/synopsis: December 10, 2025

Intimation of Selection: December 15, 2025

Payment of Registration Fee: December 20, 2025

Submission of draft (3000-5000 words): January 05, 2026

Conveners:

Mithilesh Kumar, Assistant Professor, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) Bangalore

V. Nishant, Assistant Professor, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) Bangalore

Kailash Koushik, Assistant Professor, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) Bangalore

Prachi Pinglay, Professor of Practice, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) Bangalore

Contact Information

csc@christuniversity.in 

Contact Email

csc@christuniversity.in

CFP: Ozarks Studies Association Meeting

The Ozarks Studies Association (OSA) invites presentations, papers, and posters for its fifth annual meeting in Springfield, Missouri on April 3, 2026. Presentations from across the disciplines on broad array of issues related to any aspect of Ozarks life throughout Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas are invited. 

We invite proposals 

  • of complete panels (with or without a chair) or individual papers
  • by scholars, archivists, museum staff, independent scholars, and graduate students
  • in the fields of anthropology, archelogy, biology, environmental studies, engineering, geography, geology, history, literature, museum design, pedagogy, preservation, urban studies, zoology, etc.

To be considered, submit

  • an abstract 
  • a two-page CV
  • label it as paper or poster

To Dr. Jared Phillips at jmp006@uark.edu. 

All materials must be received by January 16th, 2026. Notifications will be made by February 6th, 2026. 

If you would be willing to chair a panel, submit a two-page CV Dr. Jared Phillips by March 6th, 2026.

All inquiries should be sent to Dr. Jared Phillips at jmp006@uark.edu. 

Contact Information

Jared Phillips

President, Ozarks Studies Association

Department of History

University of Arkansas

Contact Email

jmp006@uark.edu

URL

https://www.ozarks-studies-assoc.com/about-6

CFP: Istanbul: Cultural Pasts – Urban Futures

Full call and more information here. Abstracts due Dec. 15, 2025.

Definitions of heritages, cultural pasts and urban futures are intrinsically linked. They cross disciplines, geographies and times. They can be complex, contradictory and often contested. As a result, when we think about heritage we must think holistically. UNESCO is explicit about this. Heritage is related to place and the traditions of its peoples. The future of a city is connected to the history on which it was built. Questions of contemporary culture are always aligned with their past, and their future. In this context, heritage, culture and place are all entwined.

To understand this interconnection requires historical knowledge, social context and an awareness of art and design, whether that be related to a community narrative or a global movement. It needs to be viewed through artworks, buildings, cities and objects, both ‘universal’ examples of architecture and sculpture, and more understated design vernaculars and local crafts. It needs to be seen as something ‘intangible’ – a sense of place and identity or the meaning ascribed to a city, neighborhood or local artwork. In short, it needs to be examined across disciplinary boundaries and scales.

Seeking to engage with the varied ways in which we understand heritage, cultural pasts and urban futures then, this conference asks how we interpret these themes locally, regionally and internationally. It does so while seeing the host city, Istanbul, as a place that typifies the varied questions at play.

Historically seen as the meeting point of Europe and Asia, Istanbul was an imperial capital for the Byzantine, Roman and Ottoman Empires. One of the most visited cities in the world, it was European Capital of Culture in 2010. With the centre of the city classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site in its own right, it boasts iconic examples of both art and architecture, the Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar being just two of the most famous examples. Home to cutting edge design, digital art, modern architecture and music, it is seen as a centre of contemporary culture.

Located in this iconic setting, the Cultural Pasts – Urban Futures conference is expressly international and welcomes perspectives from across a range of fields: the humanities and the social sciences; architecture, urban planning and landscapes; heritage studies and design, and more. As such, it is open to local, regional and international discussions of art historical research, building renovation projects, digital art and heritage, anthropological study and socio-cultural critiques – past, present and future….

Reflecting the interests of Işık University and AMPS, presentations will be loosely organized around several strands, including but not limited to:

Architecture & Design – papers on the diversity of research in the fields of architectural, landscape, urban planning and design theory | Digital Heritage – questions and cases studies of technologies and medias such as film, laser scanning, VR and data mapping in the heritage sector | Socio-Cultural Studies – critiques of the socio-cultural issues that comes into play when thinking about culture, place and heritage | Art History – discussions on art historical projects, theories and practices internationally | Historical Conservation– considerations on sites of heritage, whether from the fields of archaeology, museology & conservation, or social questions of heritage led gentrification or regeneration | Art & Design – examinations of how contemporary artists, architects, and designers engage with context and heritage.

CFP: Librarians to Write About Digital Tools for IT (Information Today) Magazine

Information Today (IT) magazine (https://www.infotoday.com/it/) is seeking feature article writers for its Insights on Content: Making Sense of the Digital Maze section. If you’re a library worker who engages with digital tools and/or e-resources and you have knowledge you’d like to share, please reach out to editor in chief Brandi Scardilli (bscardilli@infotoday.com) with your topic idea(s). You can propose one article or multiple. Articles will appear in the quarterly issues of 2026, and they should be a maximum of 800 words. IT pays $200 per article.

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Brandi Scardilli
she/her | Muck Rack
Editor in Chief, Computers in Libraries
Editor in Chief, Information Today
Editor in Chief, ITI NewsBreaks, ITI NewsLink
Contributor, Streaming Media
Ebook Coordinator, ITI/Plexus