Society members might be interested in the following Call for Papers for an interdisciplinary conference “Textual Embodiments: Remediating Meaning Across the Disciplines”, taking place at Rome Link Campus University on September 11-12, 2026.
The conference will examine how the medium of texts and other artistic works shapes communication and culture transfer. The organizers welcome proposals on a broad range of topics on this theme.
Please send a 250 word abstract to Alberto Gabriele a.gabriele@unilink.it and Carlo M. Bajetta c.bajetta@univda.it by 1st June.
The full text of the Call for Papers is as follows…
Textual Embodiments: Remediating Meaning Across the Disciplines
Rome Link Campus University, September 11-12, 2026
Eighteenth-century philology, as the science of editing and interpreting texts, while evolving in compartmentalised disciplines within the modern university curricula, formalised the analysis of written and visual works according to a shared methodology. Throughout its long history, philology has gone through important changes in the understanding of each component of the hermeneutic circle: author, text and reader. All periods in which philology was formalised as a discipline, i.e. the Hellenistic period, the Renaissance, and the second half of the eighteenth-century in Göttingen have elaborated a methodology in response to important changes in the material production and dissemination of texts. A focus on the technology of writing, the critical evaluation of the manuscript tradition, and the manufacturing of printed books and critical editions have all accompanied its evolution in response to the ground-breaking technological innovations of the time mediating culture transfer. As we are undergoing a new technological revolution with the production and dissemination of digital texts, this conference shall focus on the question of mediality in the production and circulation of texts, artistic works and performances from all periods. What is the role of each medium (writing, printing, digital textuality, artistic practice, embodied performance) in shaping communication strategies, literary and journalistic genres, as well as interactions and synergies with other media accompanying the written text? Which communities are involved in these exchanges? The topics proposed shall ideally contribute to a transhistorical, intermedial and interdisciplinary reflection.
Among the possible topics:
– the circulation of manuscript texts (including collections of poems, libri amicorum, albums, diaries, etc.).
– text/image dynamics from antiquity to the contemporary period.
– genres of periodical fiction and non-fiction.
– digital editions of manuscript texts.
– the evolving structures of the English language in relation to specific media.
– the history of reading, writing and publishing.
– the mediators of culture-transfer (printers, booksellers, illustrators, colonial agents).
– serialization (of printed texts and visual narratives).
– the evolving media landscape through the lens of aesthetics.
– performativity in conceptual art, experimental theatre, modern dance.
– literary narratives foregrounding specific media.
– self-reflexive transmedial adaptation studies.
Please send a 250 word abstract to Alberto Gabriele a.gabriele@unilink.it and Carlo M. Bajetta at c.bajetta@univda.it by June 1 2026.
