Calls for papers for conferences taking place in November 2026

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International conference: Writing about 19th Century Mid-Size Cities.
Location and dates: University of Tours, France. 19-20 November 2026.
Extended deadline for proposal submissions: 17 February 2025.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the growth of cities led to irreversible changes in the  balance of populations and power, particularly in relation to the emergence of the modern  industrial state. These cities were dynamic places, structured by the social uses and practices of  space, which in turn shaped the configurations of the groups that occupied them. The cities of  Europe, with their own municipal governments, could operate as autonomous entities separate  from central government (Weber, 1921). 

The wide variety of ways in which writings on the city have been produced and used reflects  various administrative, social, scientific and cultural practices. These have long been used  and/or reinvented to assert the identities of mid-size towns in changing urban networks at  various scales. 

The production of administrative, antiquarian, archaeological, sociological, cultural and  ordinary knowledges about the 19th-century city bears witness to the material forms, social  organisation, cultural life and governance of these cities. It also indicates their role in the  construction of the state and of memory. On a global scale, the richness and variety of national  cultures in the 19th century were partly due to the tremendous growth of these mid-size towns,  which had multiple facets: they were both laboratories for a municipalism that responded to  economic, social and health problems, but also places conducive to the development of  knowledge, political activism and the emergence of new cultural forms, (literary and artistic).  The latter trend reveals new cultural practices that produced social identity: in a landscape that  was radically altered by the political and civic consecration of the individual, the  democratisation of new writing enabled new discursive procedures to justify speaking out –no  longer in terms of predefined social groups, but in terms of an identity to be constructed and in  relation to a changing community. The modern novel, for example, was above all a privileged  place for the representation of individuality, which resulted from the emergence of the middle  classes, economic individualism, and philosophical and technical innovations. 

The aim of this conference is to focus on writings that take intermediate cities, which have been  relatively less studied than the major capitals and the most dynamic metropolises, as their  subject. The project covers a long period of the nineteenth century (from the 1780s to the eve  of the First World War), with no exclusions as to geographical scope, so as to enable global and  comparative approaches.  

During this period, i.e., the long 19th century, these mid-size towns were multi-faceted: at once  breeding grounds for new intellectual and for political currents and new cultural, literary and  artistic forms, and producers of social identity. This urbanisation, which sometimes proceeded  at a different pace, also raises questions about the relationship between these areas and their  natural environments and the protection of their ancient architectural heritages (Geddes, 1915);  the social effects of their spatial and economic transformations (Harvey, 2003); and the cultural,  political and economic roles played by these intermediate towns in the national and global  changes of the long nineteenth century (Osterhammel, 2017). Mid-size towns were thus able to  nurture alternative projects and models to the ‘big city’ model. This conference will examine  their ecological, aesthetic, social, collectivist and reformist developments.

Taking note of a rich historiography on: the writing of the city in the modern age (Histoire  urbaine, 2023/1; Urban History, 2020/47, ‘Thinking spatially: new horizons for urban  history”); the crossroads of the action of writing (GRIHL, 2016); the history of science and  knowledge and urban history (Van Damme, 2012 ; Garnier, 2024); and cultural history (Revue  d’Histoire Culturelle, XVIIIe-XXIe siècles), this interdisciplinary conference on writings about  the city will endeavour to reveal the diversity of actors and modes of elaborating knowledge  about mid-size towns and their mobilisation (or performativity) in the processes of (re)forming  local, national, imperial and transnational identities on a global scale. The conference is open  to all continents, while paying attention to colonial and comparative dynamics, in order to grasp  this long 19th century in all its spatial and chronological extension.  

Among the types of writing that take the intermediary city as their object, and without  presupposing watertight boundaries between these different fields, proposals for papers may  cover: 

  • administrative writings, in the broadest sense of the term (administrators’ reports, grey  literature, cartographic documents, statistical tables, surveys, communal monographs, travel  accounts, etc.), whether produced by administrators, scholars, craftsmen, notables, teachers or  ecclesiastics, etc.; 
  • scholarly writings (antiquarian, archaeological, topographical, historical, etc.), at various  stages of formalisation and institutionalisation; 
  • the writing of myths and mysteries, aimed at exalting (or toning down) local particularities, in  a variety of media that were flourishing at the time (the press, travel guides, travel logs,  postcards and correspondence, literary and artistic productions, etc.); and 
  • written documents produced by city dwellers (requests, petitions, addresses, grievances, etc.),  more or less structured into groups (professional, religious, family, political, associative,  artistic, literary, etc.) focused on their dealings with urban authorities, on the everyday life of  the city, or as taken from the height of socio-political crises that challenged the harmony and  social conventions of the established order. 

Proposals of no more than 500 words, together with a one-page CV, should be sent to the  following two addresses by 17 February 2025: 

All proposals will receive a response from the organising committee by 15 March 2025.

CFP

For further details, please check the original call inserted below.

CFP 17-11-24Download

(Posted 6 January 2025. Updated 16 January 2025)

Conference: From Letters to E-mails: Epistolarity and Materiality (1500-2025)
Location and dates: Université Paris-Est Créteil, France. 26-27 November 2026.
Deadline for proposal submission: 6 January 2026.

Venue details
Université Paris-Est Créteil – Campus centre, 61 avenue du Général de Gaulle, 94000 Créteil, France

Event presentation 

E-mails and instant messaging have gradually made letter writing marginal, if not obsolete. This shift in epistolary modes invites scholars to consider letters and their electronic counterparts from the viewpoint of materiality. The interdisciplinary conference organized by IMAGER (Institut des Mondes Anglophone, Germanique et Roman), at Université Paris-Est Créteil, France, will examine the intersection of letter-writing and materiality in English-, French-, German-, Italian-, and Spanish-speaking linguistic and cultural contexts.

The conference will consider 4 main topics: “From paper and ink to keyboard and screen: tools and uses”; Materiality, publication, and archiving”; “Materiality: affects, power, secrecy, and knowledge”; and “Letters and digital exchanges in literature and the arts.” Please see the call for papers for details.

Contact details

Website and CFP

For further details, please check the event website and original call inserted below.

https://epistolarite.sciencesconf.org

CFP Epistolarity MaterialityDownload

(Posted 1 November 2025)