Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings; Vrije Univ. Brussel (Web)
Time: 29.-30.01.2026
Venue: Vrije Univ. Brussel
Proposals by: 20.03.2025
This conference aims to expand the boundaries of life writing studies by focusing on the often overlooked domain of audio life narratives. As Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson highlight in the preface of Reading Autobiography, “[l]ife narrative studies has become an expansive, transnational, multimedia field” (xi), going far beyond the written word. In the latest edition of this seminal work, they touch upon the concept of mediated voice and the aural qualities of social media messages, indicating the varied manifestations of auto/biographical acts (129).
Building on the exciting new work being done in studies of life writing, auto/biography, literary studies, sound studies, and media studies, this conference seeks to explore the multifaceted realm of sonic life narratives, with a particular emphasis on their literary and artistic features, as well as listeners’ individual and collective experiences. More specifically, it seeks to examine how audio life writing represents, mediates, and (re)constitutes lives; what aesthetic strategies are used and what effects they generate; how audio life narratives are received and remediated; as well as their inherent politics.
The following keynote speakers have confirmed: Julia Lajta-Novak (Univ. of Vienna), Jarmila Mildorf (Univ. of Paderborn), Matthew Rubery (Queen Mary Univ. of London).
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
– Theoretical/methodological reflections on audio life writing
– Audio life writing in specific genres and media (radio drama, podcasts, rap and spoken word poetry, …)
– Voice, sound and music in audio life writing
– Audio life writing and cultural memory
– Audio life writing and identity (individual and collective)
– Audio life writing and politics– Audio life writing and intermediality
– Adaptations of life stories to audio media
– Audio archives and life narratives
– Fact and fiction in audio life writing
– Listening to audio life writing
– …
The conference will be held in English, but research on non-Anglophone contexts is strongly encouraged. Please be aware that the conference is scheduled to take place in person. Regrettably, we are unable to provide travel grants.
Please submit your abstract (250–300 words) as a PDF or Word document, including your name, affiliation, and contact details, along with a brief biography (100 words) via email to soundsofalifetime@vub.be by February 15, 2025. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by March 20, 2025. Selected papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of an international peer-reviewed journal or an edited volume.
Source: biographieforschung@lists.univie.ac.at