[Commlist] CFP Off the Radar: Periodical Print Media Outside Mainstream Culture, 1800 – Today

Off the Radar: Periodical Print Media Outside Mainstream Culture, 1800 – 
Today
Postgraduate Conference in Comparative Literature and Culture
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[Abseitiges: Magazine und Zeitungen außerhalb des Mainstreams, 1800 – heute
Komparatistische Nachwuchstagung]
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July 24-25, 2020 at Goettingen University, Germany
Conference languages: English, German

This interdisciplinary conference is dedicated to periodical print media 
(newspapers, magazines,
zines) that thrive(d) outside the ‘mainstream,’ i.e., that are not 
backed by big publishers and/or geared
towards a commercially defined majority in terms of taste, politics, and 
language. We invite advanced
graduate students, PhD students, and postdocs/ECRs to consider 
periodicals as ‘autonomous objects
of study’ and seek discussions of new aspects in well-researched genres 
like little
magazines together with papers on hitherto neglected titles.
Periodicals are low-threshold media that lend themselves to grass-roots 
activism and avant-garde
experimentation: from the lifting of stamp duties in 19th-century 
Britain to advances in printing
technology and the introduction of desktop publishing software in the 
20th century on a global scale,
they are widely available to communicate, experiment, agitate, and 
represent diverse voices and
communities. The conference considers periodicals that are, in one way 
or another, off the radar of a
widespread audience and cater to more select readerships as 
‘alternative,’ ‘underground,’ ‘radical,’
‘niche,’ ‘diasporic,’ ‘minority,’ ‘avant-garde,’ ‘pulp,’ ‘independent,’ 
or ‘subcultural’ media. We
expressly do not limit inquiries to North America and Europe.
To enable an understanding of these print media landscapes in specific 
historical moments in their
constellations of mainstream and periphery/avant-garde, we seek papers 
addressing not only single
issues, but also entire runs, contexts, networks, infrastructures, 
seriality, materiality, and other
aspects. The procedural development of print media and a changing 
understanding of what constitutes
the realm ‘outside the mainstream’ (and how these print media 
participate(d) in a broader, ongoing
cultural discussion) are aspects to consider: We are, for example, 
interested in 19th and early 20th
century developments of chartist, spiritualist, indigenous, 
revolutionary, suffragette, and abolitionist
periodicals, the little magazines of modernism, the first fanzines and 
pulp magazines of the 30s and
40s, the alternative and underground press of the (mid-)20th-century, 
the style press of the late 20th
century, and the current boom of indie magazines. In short: the 
constellation of newspapers and
magazines finding readers outside the mainstream, economically, 
aesthetically, or ideologically—
and depending on how the mainstream press is defined—from 1800 to today.
Topics may include but are not limited to

The politics of the (digital) archive
Histories of specific periodicals
Censorship
Questions of terminology: ‘alternative,’ ‘independent,’ ‘little,’ 
‘underground,’ ‘mainstream,’ ‘pulp’
as applicable to periodicals
The periodicals of subcultures/scenes/neo-tribes
(Fan)zines
Dissident periodicals
Scrapbooking/repurposing/recycling
Independent magazines today and authenticity
Feminist and gay periodicals
Ethnic and indigenous periodicals
Periodicals of diaspora communities
Avant-garde networks through and aesthetic experiments with periodicals
Periodicals in minority languages
Specialist periodicals with small readerships

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words and a short bio note in 
English or German to
(sabina.fazli /at/ phil.uni-goettingen.de)
and
(frnewton /at/ uni-mainz.de)
by January 31, 2020.

We especially encourage advanced graduate students, PhD students, and 
ECR to apply.
Pending approval, accommodation and travel expenses will be partly covered.
Please note that we will take until February 29, 2020 to review the 
proposals.

Organisers: Dr. Sabina Fazli, Seminar für Englische Philologie, 
Georg-August-Universität
Göttingen
Frank E. Newton, Obama Institute, Johannes-Gutenberg Universität Mainz


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