[Commlist] CFP - Deciphering censorship. From regulation to the production of invisibilities, from the archive to the Internet: an interdisciplinary approach

Call for Papers: Deciphering censorship. From regulation to the 
production of invisibilities, from the archive to the Internet: an 
interdisciplinary approach

*Lisbon, National Library of Portugal, September 7th and 8th, 2023. *

According to search trends on Google, the Portuguese/Spanish word 
“censura” and “censorship” in English portray the importance of their 
correlation with social media platforms,  (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, 
etc.) and famous young women in Latin languages (Miley Cyrus, Megan Fox, 
Emma Watson and Lindsay Lohan are on Top 20 correlated searches, between 
2004-2022). These two major themes, the economy and moral norms, show 
how censorship remains a question to be dealt in the present.

Nevertheless, such phenomena are hardly new. These phenomena, both 
economic and moral in nature, have accompanied the public and private 
sphere institutional regulation process, ever since, following the 
invention of the press, intermittent persecution of heretics was 
replaced by systematic control of printed material. Indeed, historical 
perspective enables observing censorship methodologies’ reorganisation 
in step with media technological development: cinema drove the age 
rating system (Robertson 2005), telegrams and, subsequently, telephone 
calls entailed flexibility in the controls exercised by institutions and 
agents of censorship.

Despite censorship depicting a quintessential display of the exercising 
of power, which is historically wielded by influential subjects, 
managers of public space, economic processes, and political institutions 
(Martin 2016), consensus around the meaning of the word censorship has 
crumbled in recent decades (Müller 2004; Moore 2013; Darnton 2014). 
This collapse first came to the fore in the context of the ‘Culture 
Wars’ of the 1980s and 1990s when American liberal academics, anchored 
in theoretical approaches stemming from the works of Michel Foucault 
(1978) and Pierre Bourdieu (1991), demonstrated the existence of 
censorial phenomena within democratic contexts (cf. Burt 1994; Post 1998).

The new approaches to censorship continue to accept that States may 
exercise direct control (repression) while also beginning to identify 
censorial dimensions of indirect control that may be deployed (through 
financing, education, public history, etc.) and, above all, starting to 
demand direct state intervention in the regulation of private powers 
exercising constraints on the freedom of expression (Post 1998). This 
includes the forms of “market censorship” that induce selfcensorship 
(Jansen 1988) or policies of “don’t ask, don’t tell” imposed on gay 
members of the U.S. Army between 1994-2011, enveloping them in a type of 
annulment embedded into the structure of societies (Butler 1998). This 
embedded character of censorship in society has been labeled 
“constitutive” or “structural” censorship in opposition to that wielded 
by institutions such as the state or the church, i.e., regulatory 
censorship. Within this scope, the recent issues surrounding “cancel 
culture”, the “woke” approaches to culture, and the biases of algorithms 
demonstrate how this phenomenon is socially structural.

Hence the need to scrutinize such phenomena in order to scientifically 
distinguish between, on the one hand, censorial processes and, on the 
other hand, conservative discourses that – faced with the emergence of 
voices legitimately demanding new spaces for communication -, 
instrumentally deploy allegations of some claimed censorship to conserve 
privileges and monopolies. Therefore, we need to differentiate between 
boycotts and censorship, because they do not emerge from the same places 
in the power system.

We are aware that participation in a conference that seeks to foster a 
global/international approach to studying censorship not only has 
inherent implications for the study of this specific field, but also 
constitutes a challenge to academia that, by thinking globally, runs 
into the material limitations imposed by the present moment 
contingencies of the academic system, with all of its peripheries, and 
the social and political pressures that shape intellectual production 
and dissemination.

Communication proposals We would invite all parties interested in this 
theme to participate in the conference across any of the four axes 
detailed below. Nevertheless, there is an openness to other proposals 
that set out new paths and, hence, the framework below is in no way 
exhaustive.

*Axis 1 – Analytical models and methodologies *
How to approach the interferences of the different codes inherent to 
censorship? On the one hand, the society idealised by the institution, 
the one hypothetically resulting from strict compliance with the 
regulatory norms and, on the other hand, the actually existing society, 
with its references, prohibitions, plural resistances and creativity in 
answer to the invisibility of censorship? We are especially interested 
in models that explore the diversity of actors, contexts, and 
implications of censorship in interpersonal relationships (family, 
intimate, labour and social interactions).

*Axis 2 – Framework for the factor of international circulation *
The introduction of the circulation variable enables a questioning of 
national boundaries in the study of censorship. This axis prioritises 
those approaches that focus on the transnational and comparative 
aspects, whether introducing the notion of flow or focusing on the 
circulation of censorship, the censored and their forms of resistance.

*Axis 3 - Meta-analysis *
  With censorship constituting a dimension that challenges the 
interpretative capacities of different actors, it would be remiss of 
researchers not to question their own respective subjectivity and 
capacity for analysis. What role does interpretative error occupy in the 
studies on censorship? How to navigate among the intentions of actors, 
producers, the censor's interpretative skills, and the diverse 
subsequent interpretative layers?

*Axis 4 – Implications of censorship*	
  Censorial practices represent a point of entry into the analysis of 
power, culture, and political, religious, and artistic constructions. We 
seek to introduce this variable into the production of political, 
economic, social and cultural history.

*Keynote speaker*: Prof. Nicole Moore, University of New South Wales 
(UNSW) Canberra

Nicole Moore is Professor in English and Media Studies at UNSW Canberra. 
From September 2022 to July 2023, she is the Visiting Professor of 
Australian Studies in the Centre for American and Pacific Studies at the 
University of Tokyo. Her main research interest is Australian 
literature, combined with interdisciplinary and comparative research in 
cultural history, gender and sexuality studies, and book history, with a 
special interest in censorship. Her 2012 book The Censor's Library: 
Uncovering the Lost History of Australia's Banned Books won the Walter 
McCrae Russell award from the Association for the Study of Australian 
Literature. Recent Edited collections pursue the topics of global 
literary censorship or Australian Literature in the German Democratic 
Republic. Her research pursues issues at stake in the political cultures 
of writing and reading, and the complex relations of literature, 
governance and history within and across national boundaries. Prof. 
Moore has held visiting fellowships at the Menzies Centre, Kings College 
London; the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge; the National 
Archives of Australia, and the Humanities Research Centre, Australian 
National University. From 2018 to 2022, she was Associate Dean for UNSW 
Canberra's Special Collections, fostering research, curation and 
partnerships utilising the rich manuscript materials and rare books in 
UNSW Canberra's world class collections.

*Submission of proposals *

Proposals should be no longer than 400 words, include a title and be 
accompanied by a short biography (max. of 100 words).
The working languages are Portuguese, Spanish, French and English.
E-mail for submissions: (decifrandocensuras /at/ fcsh.unl.pt) 
<mailto:(decifrandocensuras /at/ fcsh.unl.pt)>
*Submission deadline: April 30th, 2023 *
No payment from the authors will be required

Organising committee Adalberto Fernandes (IHC/IN2PAST, NOVA-FCSH), Andru 
Chiorean (National University of Political Science and Public 
Administration, Romania), Daniel Melo (CHAM, NOVA-FCSH), Mélanie 
Toulhoat (IHC/IN2PAST, NOVA-FCSH), Rita Luís (IHC/IN2PAST, NOVA-FCSH) 
and Rui Lopes (IHC/IN2PAST, NOVA-FCSH)

*References*
Bourdieu, Pierre (1991). Language and Symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity 
Press.
Burt, Richard (ed.) (1994). The Administration of Aesthetics: 
Censorship, Political Criticism and the Public Sphere, Minnesota: 
University of Minnesota Press.
Butler, Judith (1998). “Ruled out: vocabularies of the censor”. In: R. 
Post (ed.), Censorship and silencing: practices of cultural regulation, 
(247-259) LA: Getty research institute for the history of art.
Foucault, Michel (1978). The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. New 
York: Pantheon Books.
Darnton, Robert (2014). Censors at work. How States Shaped Literature. 
NY: WW Norton. Jansen, Sue. (1988). Censorship: The Knot that Binds 
Power and Knowledge, New York: Oxford University Press.
Moore, Nicole (2013). “Censorship Is”. Australian Humanities Review, 
54:45–65.
Müller, Beate (ed.) (2004). Censorship and Cultural Regulation in Modern 
Age, Amesterdam/NY: Brill/Rodopi.
Martin, Laurent (ed.) (2016). Les Censures dans le Monde. XIXe-XXIe 
siècle. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
Post, Robert (ed.) (1998). Censorship and Silencing: Practices of 
Cultural Regulation. LA: Getty research institute for the history of Art 
and the Humanities.
Robertson, Jim (2005). The Hidden Cinema British film censorship in 
action, 1913–1975 (e-library). Routledge.

Conference organised as part of the research project CEMA - 
Censorship(s):an analytic model of censorial processes 
(EXPL/COM-OUT/0831/2021) funded by National funds through FCT — Fundação 
para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. The IHC is funded by National funds 
through FCT — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the 
projects UIDB/04209/2020, UIDP/04209/2020, and LA/P/0132/2020. Rita 
Luís, Mélanie Toulhoat and Rui Lopes are funded by National funds 
through FCT — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the 
projects CEECIND/02813/2017, 2021.03948.CEECIND, and 2021.04264.CEECIND, 
respectively

*Links to the CFP:*
https://ihc.fcsh.unl.pt/en/events/deciphering-censorship/ 
<https://ihc.fcsh.unl.pt/en/events/deciphering-censorship/>
https://ihc.fcsh.unl.pt/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2023-09-07_Decifrando-Censuras_CFP-EN_web.pdf 
<https://ihc.fcsh.unl.pt/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2023-09-07_Decifrando-Censuras_CFP-EN_web.pdf>
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