Liberas, Ghent Univ., the Laboratoire des pratiques et des identités journalistiques (ReSIC-Univ. Libre de Bruxelles) and CAMille (ULB/KBR); Christoph De Spiegeleer (Web)
Time: 05.-07.06.2025
Venue: Ghent
Programme (PDF)
Panels: Journalism and other -isms | Women journalists (I) – individual experiences | Women journalists (II) – Collective experiences | Journalists at war | In the margins of journalism | Colonialism & postcolonialism | Women journalists (III) – Crossing borders
The history of journalism has often focused on a limited number of famous individuals. Behind these big names are many journalists whose names and work have not made it into the canon. But to capture the full diversity of the journalistic field, these careers and lives need to be recovered. Three particular groups of forgotten media professionals stand out: women journalists, journalists who made an important mark on the media landscape of their colonial and post-colonial societies during periods of (de)colonization, and those who worked in sectors and areas of journalism that are often considered less prestigious. The third category includes forgotten war photographers, for example, as well as invisible news workers such as telegraph and linotype operators.
Both young researchers and established scholars, including several authors with extensive experience in professional journalism, will present new research on the experiences of forgotten journalists in very different geographical and historical contexts from biographical or prosopographical perspectives. Three panels will focus on the individual and collective experiences of women journalists and the international reporting of French journalist Élisabeth Sauvy and American journalist Charlotte Ebener. Several papers will also highlight the activities of women war correspondents during World War I.
The program includes three keynote lectures from Marie-Eve Thérenty (Univ. de Montpellier III), Will Mary (Louisiana State Univ.), and Noah Amir Arjomand (Univ. of California): A French-language lecture by Marie-Eve Thérenty (Univ. de Montpellier III) on women who wrote for the film sections of French newspapers in the interwar period, a lecture by Will Mary (Louisiana State Univ.) on the importance of the workplaces and technical resources available to large groups of news workers, and a lecture by Noah Amir Arjomand (Univ. of California) on the professional particularities and importance of „fixers“ in making sense of current-day crises in the Middle East. The colloquium can take place thanks to the support of the Research Foundation Flanders-FWO and the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS. The colloquium will take place in the conference room of Liberas in the center of Ghent.
The full program, with all up-to-date details and information on the speakers and the abstracts of their papers, can be accessed at the website. Please check this website for updates as the program can be subject to changes (Web).
If you wish to attend, please register by sending an email to: inschrijven@liberas.eu. Please specify which day(s) of the conference you’d wish to attend. The registration fee for the full conference is 50 euro (sandwich lunches included). The registration fee for one full conference day (Thursday, Friday) is 25 euro. The registration for Saturday is 10 euro.
Contact Information: Christoph De Spiegeleer, Research Fellow Liberas, Contact Email: christoph.despiegeleer@liberas.eu; URL: (Web)
Source: H-Net Notifications