Category Archives: Category_Calls for Papers

CfP: Historical Perspectives on Infant Care and Child Education. Emmi Pikler, Infant Homes, and the Politics of Child Welfare in 20th Century Hungary (10/2025, Budapest); by: 01.05.2025

CEU Democracy Institut, Budapest (Web) und Österreichisches Kulturforum Budapest (Web)

Time: 06.-08.10.2025
Venue: Budapest
Proposals by: 01.05.2025

This conference aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue on the historical and political dimensions of infant care, child welfare, and family policies in 20th-century Hungary. The conference will examine the political, social, cultural, and gender dynamics that shaped child-rearing practices and state interventions in family life. Understanding the professionalization of childcare requires examining developments from WWI to the present day. This allows for an examination of the diverse political and ideological regimes that have shaped the childcare field, as well as the memory politics that continue to influence its trajectory. In this way, particular emphasis is placed on the life and work of Emmi Pikler (1902–1984), a doctor and childcare specialist who influenced the evolution of infant care in post-WWII Hungary and established a highly successful international organization. Although Pikler was one of the most influential childcare experts in socialist Hungary, her life and work remain largely unexplored from an interdisciplinary perspective.
The organisers invite researchers, historians, sociologists, psychologists, child welfare and care professionals to examine the historical development of infant and child care in Hungary, with a particular focus on Emmi Pikler’s work and the role of infant homes (csecsemőotthonok) in shaping child protection policies and the care of young children by families. The objective is to illuminate how child protection systems were shaped by social necessities and political aspirations, offering invaluable insights into the contemporary challenges in child welfare policy. Presentations that explore the political implications of child welfare policies, the interplay between government and society in child welfare, care, and protection, and the impact of ideologies on childcare systems are highly encouraged. Read more and source … (Web)

Proposals can address, but are not limited to, the following topics: Emmi Pikler’s Contributions and Political Context | The Functioning of Infant Homes and State Intervention | Child-Rearing Ideologies | Health and Welfare Policies in a Political Lens | Nation-Building and Childcare | Women’s Roles and Gender Politics | The Politics of Poverty and Child Neglect | Comparative Political Perspectives

CfP: Wenn der Tag zu Ende geht. Nachtarbeit seit dem 19. Jahrhundert (11/2025, Bielefeld); bis: 01.05.2025

Anna Horstmann und Martin Lutz, Univ. Bielefeld (Web); Marcel Bois, Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg (Web) in Koop. mit der German Labour History Association (Web)

Zeit: 24.-25.11.2025
Ort: Univ. Bielefeld
Einreichfrist: 01.05.2025

Ob Pflegerin im Krankenhaus, Portier im Hotel, Stahlarbeiter am Abstich oder Ingenieurin im Kraftwerk: Sie alle vereint die Notwendigkeit, nachts arbeiten zu müssen. Nachtarbeit gilt als eine Form atypischer Arbeitszeiten. Die Gründe für diese Form des Arbeitens sind vielfältig und basieren auf technischen, wirtschaftlichen, sozialen oder kulturellen Anforderungen. Letztere betreffen meist Berufe, die mit dem großstädtischen „Nachtleben“ verbunden sind wie Barkeeper:innen, Türsteher:innen oder auch Sexarbeiter:innen. Technisch bedingt ist kontinuierliche Schichtarbeit dann, wenn Produktions- oder Arbeitsprozesse nicht unterbrochen werden können, wie etwa in der Chemieindustrie. Sozial notwendig ist Nachtarbeit etwa in Krankenhäusern und anderen Einrichtungen der öffentlichen Versorgung. Wirtschaftliche Ursachen finden sich in der Gewinnmaximierung, etwa durch längere Maschinenlaufzeiten.
Nachtarbeit tritt also in den unterschiedlichsten Branchen auf, dementsprechend viele Menschen müssen in den Abendstunden ihrem Beruf nachgehen. Betroffen sind nicht nur die Nachtarbeitenden selbst, auch das Umfeld ist gezwungen, sich dem Arbeitsrhythmus anzupassen. Gleichzeitig ist unser Zusammenleben auf diese Nacharbeit angewiesen. Trotzdem ist sie nach wie vor ein wenig erforschtes Feld der Labour History. Ob und in welcher Weise die Arbeit „gegen die Uhr“ thematisiert wird, hängt stark von Faktoren wie Branche, gewerkschaftlicher Repräsentation, politischem System und sozioökonomischen Status der Betroffenen ab. So war es etwa in der Bundesrepublik gesellschaftlich akzeptiert, dass Kellnerinnen bis spät in die Nacht arbeiteten. Industriearbeiterinnen war genau dieses hingegen bis 1992 verboten. In der DDR war zeitgleich die Nacharbeit von Frauen politisch wie wirtschaftlich erwünscht.

Die Veranstalter:innen laden dazu ein, Beitragsvorschläge zu sozialen, kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Aspekten der Nachtarbeit einzusenden. Es bieten sich eine ganze Reihe von Komplexen an, die auf der Tagung behandelt werden können:
– Fallbeispiele für unterschiedliche Formen von Nachtarbeit
– Organisation und Regulierung von Nachtarbeit in unterschiedlichen Staaten und/oder Branchen Continue reading →

CfP: Queer Histories of East Central Europe in the 20th Century (08/2025, Marburg); by: 30.04.2025

Herder-Institut Marburg: Jaromír Mrňka and Denisa Nešťáková (Web)

Time: 26.-27.08-2025
Venue: Herder-Institut Marburg
Proposals by: 30.04.2025

The Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Institute of the Leibniz Association, in collaboration with the Max Weber Foundation, the German Historical Institute (GHI) Warsaw with its Prague Branch, and the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague, warmly invites scholars, including early-career researchers such as PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows, to contribute to the starting-point conference “Queer Histories of East Central Europe in the 20th Century.”
This meeting will serve as an initial platform for participants to conceptualize their research papers. A follow-up event, organized in partnership with the Herder Institute, the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University, and GHI in Prague or Warsaw, will provide an opportunity to present developed papers and contextualize them alongside additional contributions. The outcome of these two events will be a special issue edited by Jaromír Mrňka and Denisa Nešťáková.

Scope and Objectives
While queer histories have been increasingly studied in Western contexts, gender and sexual diversity in East Central Europe remain underexplored, often marginalized by dominant national narratives and shaped by intersecting forces of ideology, repression, and resistance. This event aims to amplify research on the experiences, identities, and activism of LGBTQ+ individuals and communities within the historical and political landscapes of East Central Europe. We wish to examine queer lives and identities in relation to broader socio-political transformations in East Central Europe:
– The late Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Empires: The regulation of gender and sexuality in imperial legal and medical discourses, and the lived experiences of queer individuals in multi-ethnic imperial societies.
– Interwar sexual modernity and nationalisms: The interplay between legal reforms, sexology, and the growth of urban queer subcultures alongside the rise of authoritarian nationalisms and eugenic discourses. Read more … (Web)

CfP: (Queere) Erinnerungskultur: Jahrestagung 2025 des Fachverbandes Homosexualität und Geschichte (FHG) (10/2025, Graz); bis: 30.04.2025

Vorstand Fachverband Homosexualität und Geschichte e.V., Elena Barta, Michael Schön, Martin Sölle, Karl-Heinz Steinle (Web)

Zeit: 11.10.2025
Ort: Pavillon der Sozialdemokrat*innen im Grazer Volksgarten, Graz
Einreichfrist: 30.04.2025

Zur Jahrestagung des Fachverbands Homosexualität und Geschichte (FHG) laden die Veranstalter:innen in diesem Jahr nach Graz/Österreich ein und freuen sich sehr, dass sie dabei von der Stadt Graz unterstützt werden. Der öffentliche Teil der Jahrestagung wird als ganztägige Fachtagung stattfinden. Die Veranstalter:innen möchten die diesjährige Jahrestagung erneut dem Themenfeld der (queeren) Erinnerungskultur widmen. Als Vortragsdauer sind 30 Minuten mit anschließender Diskussion vorgesehen. Für die Vortragenden sind Honorarzahlungen und die Erstattung von Hotel- und Fahrkosten vorgesehen. Die Vortragstexte werden als Beiträge für die vereinseigene Fachzeitschrift „invertito. Jahrbuch für die Geschichte der Homosexualitäten“ angefragt werden.

Aufruf zur Einreichung von Beiträgen (PDF)
Gedenken hat einen hohen Stellenwert im öffentlichen Diskurs und Handeln. Erst in den letzten Jahrzehnten haben sexuelle und geschlechtliche Identitäten jenseits der Heterosexualität einen Raum und festen Ort in der Gedenkkultur gefunden. Oft wurden diese angeregt und/oder erstritten von lokalen Geschichts-Initiativen und häufig erst nach langen Diskussionen umgesetzt.
Für die Vortragsthemen der Jahrestagung können konkrete Gedenk-Projekte in den Blick genommen werden: Solche, die umgesetzt wurden wie z.B. 1994 der „Frankfurter Engel“ in Frankfurt/Main, 1995 das „Mahnmal für die lesbischen und schwulen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus“ in Köln, 2008 das „Mahnmal für die im Nationalsozialismus verfolgten Homosexuellen“ in Berlin oder die „Gedenkkugel“ der Initiative „Autonome feministische Frauen und Lesben aus Deutschland und Österreich“ als Gedenkzeichen an lesbische Frauen im KZ Ravensbrück im Jahr 2022 oder das jüngste „Denkmal für Männer und Frauen, die Opfer der Homosexuellen-Verfolgung in der NS-Zeit wurden“ 2023 in Wien. Insbesondere interessiert auch die Auseinandersetzung mit Projekten in Planung wie das „Projekt Gedenkzeichen in Graz“. Continue reading →

CfP: Always Here: Non-Binary Gender, Trans Identities, and Queerness in the Global Middle Ages (c. 250–1650) (10/2025, New York); by: 15.04.2025

Binghamton University’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CEMERS) (Web)

Time: 24.-25.10.2025
Venue: Binghamton Univ.
Proposals by: 15.04.2025

Queer, trans, intersex, non-binary, genderfluid, and gender-nonconforming people and sources are abundant in the premodern textual, artistic, and artifactual record, and studies of gender and sexuality in the medieval period are flourishing as never before. Yet, work on the LGBTQIA+ Middle Ages remains limited—especially in our classrooms and in sharing our work with nonacademic queer and trans communities. Many important sources remain out of reach for students, and an alarming amount of queer and trans medieval and early-modern history is not available—and its existence routinely denied—to LGBTQIA+ people beyond academia. Even researchers and teachers dedicated to pre- and early-modern gender and sexuality frequently remain siloed according to language and region: Latinists speak primarily to Latinists, Arabists to Arabists, and so on, while scholars of the Americas are often absent from conversations among scholars of premodern Africa and Eurasia. Thus, despite recent growth and successes, the study of the queer and trans pre- and early modern remains disturbingly fragmented and vital sources inaccessible to many.
In our own historical moment, members of the LGBTQIA+ community face frightening and rising levels of violence and oppression. So what are we, as scholars of the medieval and earlymodern periods, to do? CEMERS seeks to bring together researchers dedicated to the study of non-binary gender, trans identities, and queerness during the premodern period broadly defined, to share research and discuss the challenges of LGBTQIA+ scholarship. The organisers invite proposals for papers and panels for CEMERS’ 2025 conference. The conference will include plenary lectures by Leah DeVun (Rutgers Univ.) and Pernilla Myrne (Univ. of Gothenburg), as well as plenary roundtables dedicated to translation and pedagogy. The organiseres hope to facilitate conversations between scholars across disciplines and geographic and linguistic boundaries, with the purpose of moving beyond academic silos to build a broad, truly global, and ideally collaborative textual and theoretical basis for future research. They are particularly eager for papers that examine regions beyond Western Europe, but Europeanists are welcome and encouraged to submit proposals. Read more … (Web)

Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte in Österreich – Newsletter #01 für 2024

Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte in Österreich – Newsletter #01 für 2024

Soeben wurde der erste Newsletter Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte in Österreich (2024) zusammengestellt und als PDF verfügbar gemacht: (PDF).

Enthalten sind darin:
– Berichte
– Ankündigungen und Calls for Papers
– Forschungsprojekte
– Angaben von Publikationen und abgeschlossenen Dissertationen

Zumeldungen zum Newsletter wurden von Birgitta Bader-Zaar (Institut für Geschichte der Univ. Wien) auf der Basis von Aussendungen über einschlägige Verteiler an den Universitäten Graz, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Linz, Salzburg und Wien sowie der Central European University zusammengestellt. Der Newsletter Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte in Österreich ergänzt in erweiterter und lockererer Form den Bericht für den Newsletter der International Federation of Research in Women’s History (IFRWH) (Web), der neuerdings nur noch in komprimierter Form veröffentlicht wird.

Wer gerne den nächsten Call für Zumeldungen zum Newsletter erhalten möchte und bisher nicht von bestehenden Verteilern erfasst wurde, melde sich bitte (bis auf Weiteres) bei birgitta.bader-zaar@univie.ac.at.

CfP: Wartime work (19th-20th century): Working in war and post-war context (11/2025, Tours), by: 31.03.2025

Damien Accoulon, CeTHiS, Univ. de Tours; Clément Collard, CHSP, Sciences Po Paris; Candice Grelaud, LER, Univ. Lumière Lyon 2; Gwendal Piégais, CWS, Univ. College Dublin

Time: 27.-28.11.2025
Venue: Univ. de Tours
Proposals by: 31.03.2025

The industrialization has profoundly transformed the world of labor and the nature of war. Wars themselves have become industrialized and have gradually increased in scale since the mid-nineteenth century. The Crimean War (1853-1856) and the American Civil War (1861-1865) were the first conflicts involving mechanized armies: more powerful gunboats, larger caliber artillery pieces and more efficient locomotives were all industrial products that made this change in scale possible.
Against this backdrop of industrialization of societies, economies and conflicts, we need to understand how wars disrupted the world of labor. The workers’ mobilization has always been central in the historiography of contemporary conflicts, especially of the First and the Second World War. Over the last few decades, the historiography has moved away from the simple story of mobilization of the industry for the war effort, and since the 1980s and 1990s has given way to a social and political history that pays more attention to trade union movements, work in the rear or in occupied territories, and the societal transformations that followed the conflict.
Under the influence of transnational histories, works on colonial empires and gender studies, new perspectives opened in this field of study. New attention has been paid to actors (female labor, but also racialized workers on the European fronts, the contribution of colonial workers to the global war economy, etc.) and their agency, exploring both individual and collective strategies of behavior and survival. While the study of forced labor has been central to the approach to Nazi and Soviet regimes at war (Bonwetsch, 1993; Plato, Leh & Thonfeld, 2010; Westerhoff, 2012), highlights of forced labor in colonial empires have effectively demonstrated links between European front and the French and British colonial empires, thus moving beyond the Western framework (Tiquet, 2019; Stanziani, 2020). This approach could be applied to other spaces and conflicts, as outlined out by work on the American Civil War (Lause, 2015; Zonderman, 2021) or the Vietnam War (Foner, 1989; Sears, 2010). Read more and source … (Web)

Four questions will be explored during this symposium: Optimizing manpower in wartime | Work in transitions from peace to war and from war to peace | Social mobilization, work and conflict | Gender and work during conflict

CfP: Queer Journeys in North American Literature and Culture (11/2025, Innsbruck); by: 16.05.2025

Department of American Studies at the Univ. of Innsbruck; Ben Robbins, Devon Anderson, and Matthias Klestil (Web)

Time: 14.-15.11.2025
Venue: Univ. of Innsbruck
Proposals by: 16.05.2025

This conference will consider the diverse ways in which journeys undertaken by queer people have been represented in North American literature and culture, as well as how queer journeys more broadly interact with social structures, transnational relations, and cultural forms. LGBTQ+ people in North America and beyond continue to experience forms of mobility characterized by complex and often fraught economic, cultural, and affective dynamics. The conference topic is especially politically urgent as transphobic legislation recently enacted in a number of US states and provinces across Canada has forced many transgender people to migrate in order to access gender-affirming care (Phares), severely impacting the mobilities and freedoms of trans individuals.
Discussions of queer mobility draw on a growing field of scholarship across the research areas of globalization and diaspora (Aizura), Indigenous studies (Driskill et al.), ecocriticism (Cram), and regional studies (Tongson), among others. Such research has shown that the contested mobilities of LGBTQ+ people have deep historical roots. Many queer communities within North America have been shaped by internal migration from rural environments to more anonymous, heterogeneous urban centers, which has led to the growth of LGBTQ+ populations in large metropolises such as San Francisco, Toronto, and New York (Chauncey; D’Emilio; Kaiser). Yet scholarship has demonstrated that there are also forms of queer migration from urban to rural environments and within rural spaces that may be obscured by the privileging of the metropolitan in queer culture and discourse (Halberstam; Herring; Thomsen). More widely, a focus on queer journeys in transnational contexts sheds light on additional obstacles to movement and rigid hierarchical structures. During periods of particularly intense legal and social oppression of queer people, such as the “Lavender Scare” of the Cold War era in the US (Johnson), many LGBTQ+ citizens were forced into exile to foreign countries, where they could enjoy relative freedom … read more (Web).

Source: genus-request@listserv.gu.se

CfP: (En)gendering the Digital World (Publication); by: 15.03.2025

Journal „Kvinder, Køn & Forskning|Women, Gender & Research“; Univ. of Copenhagen (Web)

Proposals by: 15.03.2025

More than ever, our lives (and deaths) are entangled with the digitally-mediated world, and our virtual expressions are part of how we become recognisable subjects in the world. The hopes that groups like the cyber-feminists placed in the 1990s internet, as a gender-less space, appear massively compromised. Instead, many of the most powerful actors in the tech ecosystem appear to benefit from a kind of ‘digital patriarchy’ (Little and Winch 2021). Poor quality and exploitative forms of labour, required to support our platform economies, have blossomed, much of it being in the shadows (Murgia 2024), heavily gendered, and racialised (Van Doorn 2017). In this era that is marked by the birth of the iPhone in Jobs-ian legend, the Musk-y realms of X, and the Zucker-punch of the Meta-verse, rationality, quantification, and innovation appear to still be imagined as masculine qualities, while vulnerability, emotionality and qualitative knowledge remain associated with women and the private. Therefore, “(en)gendering” the digital world and including diverse gendered positions becomes crucial in understanding and interrogating the contemporary digital world.
As a result of platform cultures and the datification of society, bodies, lives and livelihoods are increasingly broken into data sets capable of being analysed, acted upon or optimised by ourselves and our institutions. Our capacities and futures are shaped by (predictive) algorithms which not only reinforce existing power relations but create new ones. Even with the sophistication of data classification systems, lived realities of gender, race and sexuality continue to be flattened, binarised and processed to be ‘tractable’ by powerful digital interests (D’Ignazio and Klein 2020). Modern algorithms are highly indebted to behavioural analytics, whose mechanisms were precisely tuned to predict the supposedly mysterious ‘behaviour of women, children, people of colour and the poor’ (Lepore 2020, p.325). How might these groups of people re-assert their influence on knowledge production, now that algorithms increasingly run the economic/”surveillance” model of the digital world (Zuboff 2015)? Can new technologies really produce forms of ‘non-gendered objectification’, beyond bodies and labels (McAdam and Marlow, 2010)? Read more … (Web)

Source: genus-request@listserv.gu.se

CfP: Connection: The Fifth Annual Critical Femininities Conference (08/2025, virtual space); by: 22.03.2025

The Critical Femininities Research Cluster at the Centre for Feminist Research at York Univ. (Web)

Time: 15.-17.08.2025
Venue: virtual space – via York
Proposals by: 22.03.2025

Connection: joining, uniting, fastening, bringing together. Audre Lorde highlighted how when we “make connection with our similarities and our differences” (53), we remind ourselves of our own and others’ affective capacity. Femininity can be a rich and creative site of connectivity that expands beyond colonial imaginaries of womanhood and gender. Critical femininities is a site where we can connect, disconnect, and reconnect with the world, each other, and our own gendered selves. Connections can be tangible and intangible, with these boundaries being increasingly blurred as technologically mediated communication methods saturate our lives.
Critical Femininities is a growing field that seeks to develop nuanced critiques of femininity in all its variations beyond its characterization as a patriarchal imposition and where femininity is not synonymous with ‘woman’ (Dahl 2012, Taylor & Hoskin 2023, 79). Rethinking femininity as a concept opens space for a dialogue on the complex, multidimensional feminine expressions beyond heteronormative relations. Additionally, the field of critical femininities offers alternative frameworks centering connection through community building and a love politics that emphasizes a praxis of care extending beyond the personal and into the building of political communities (Nash, 2019).
This conference marks half a decade of cultivating digital community dialogue around critical femininities, opening up intentional digital space for expanding normative definitions of connection. There are also possibilities in the ways we disconnect. As Alyson K. Spurgas (2021) writes, “there is promise in embracing a fracturing, in falling apart—as antidote to the normative and neoliberal logic of keeping it together.” There is value in interrogating the connective void left when white supremacy, colonization, ableism, transphobia, misogyny, and other violent structures disconnect us from our femininities. The potential inherent in diving into disconnection also leaves room for exploring unexpected or idiosyncratic instances of re-connection to femininity.
The organisers invite you to connect with us through submissions that reflect diverse critical connections for the fifth annual Critical Femininities Conference. Possible themes may include (but are not limited to): Read more … (Web)

Source: qstudy-l-request@mailman.rice.edu