Dear colleagues,

You are hereby invited to submit to a symposium on the circulation and reprinting of texts and images in the periodical press with the aim of producing an open-access edited volume by an esteemed publisher. We the organisers/editors form the ongoing research project ‘Information highways of the 19th century: The public sphere as newspaper infrastructure and shared content’, focusing on Swedish-language newspapers and working with both digital methods and close reading. Submissions may encompass periodicals from any nation and any time period. We seek submissions contributing to the historical knowledge on scissors-and-paste editing, including all types of content and interrelations with other media forms, using quantitative and/or qualitative methods.

Please forward the invitation to those you think might be interested.

Call for papers: Histories of content reuse in the periodical press

From a historical perspective, the alleged predicament of today’s digital sharing culture evokes at least two impulses: First, the need arises to address problems with history-less conceptions of the unicity of our time. Second, the transformations in the present – real or imagined – trigger the research imagination regarding relations between dissemination, accessibility, content and information technologies in the past. As it happens, digitisation also means that such new queries, as well as some old but hitherto impossible to answer, can now be explored.

We are pleased to announce a symposium aiming at an open-access edited volume focusing on issues of content reuse in the periodical press. We invite submissions providing scholars room for nuanced arguments and aim for a volume that will showcase state-of-the-art historical research. Contributions may encompass periodicals from any nation(s) and any time period(s). They can engage in anything from local editorial principles and reading practices to overall systemic or infrastructural aspects – as well as in how these levels were interrelated and changed over time. They can concentrate on verbatim reprints or more creative forms of reuse. They can focus on newspapers or journals exclusively or on their relations with other media forms. And they can indeed include illustrations and other non-textual media. We seek submissions that contribute to the historical knowledge on these issues, using quantitative and/or qualitative methods.

Topics of contributions can include but are not limited to:

• empirical studies exploring historical questions on, e.g, content flows and circulation in time and space; adaptations and recontextualisation; the role of individual agents in the larger networks;
• empirical studies demonstrating the possibilities of close reading and/or digital methods (e.g., overcoming subjective sampling, expanding temporal scope or making systematic cross-national comparisons).

Submission guidelines

• Abstracts should be approximately 500 words, describing the proposed paper’s focus, methodology and relevance to the volume’s theme.
• Include a brief bio with your submission.
• Submissions should be sent to patrik.lundell@oru.se by 1 April 2024.
• Notification of decisions by 31 April.

Tentative timeline: Chapter drafts (6,000–11,000 words) by mid-January 2025. Symposium in Lund, Sweden, early February 2025. Full chapters by early May 2025. Comments from the editors in June 2025. Revision period. Submission to the publisher autumn 2025.

In May this year, we will apply for funding of the symposium, and we expect to be able to subsidise the costs associated with it. Of course, the economic feasibility and environmental acceptability of on-site participation depends on the nature and scope of travels; online participation will be possible. By mid-June a more precise timeline will be communicated and first contacts with a publisher will have been made.

We look forward to receiving your contributions to this vibrant field!

Jimmy Engren (Örebro University), Johan Jarlbrink (Umeå University) & Patrik Lundell (Örebro University)