IGEL conference

From July 18 to 20, 2024, the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature (IGEL) will hold its 20th international conference in Aachen, Germany, 170 km away from Siegen, where the society’s inaugural conference took place in 1987. The broad theme of the conference will be “perspectivity.” Submissions related to this theme will be given priority, but proposals from all areas of the empirical study of literature and media are welcome.

The deadline for submission is 15 January 2024 31 January 2024.

Keynote Speakers

Venue

Aachen is a fantastic little city of 250,000 inhabitants. Its history dates back 5000 years and involves having been a Roman spa town and later the seat of Charlemagne in the 8th century. The University and conference venue is a five-minute walk from Aachen’s historic city centre with its famed cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site. (E-)bike trips of 15 minutes will take you into Belgium and the Netherlands, and a 3-hour train ride will get you to Paris. You can find more information here.

How to reach Aachen

Aachen is easy to reach by train and airplane, with numerous international hub airports 1-3 hours away, such as Frankfurt (1.5 hrs), Düsseldorf (2 hrs), Brussels (2 hrs), Amsterdam & Paris (3 hrs), etc.

Call for Papers

All spoken presentations will be pre-recorded videos of approximately 20 minutes to be submitted by July 5th, 2024. During the conference sessions, presenters will give a 5-minute summary of their work and 15-20 minutes will be dedicated to Q&A. The Concordance platform will be used for hosting the program, videos, abstracts, posters and online discussions and networking. You can read more about it here.

Proposals for paper and poster presentations must contain a short introduction, a description of the methods as appropriate, and a brief conclusion.

Paper and Poster Submission Requirements

Submit your proposal via the registration form here. You will be asked to provide the following information:

• Name of first author (First, Last and Title) and affiliation
• Email of corresponding author
• List co-authors (names and affiliations)
• Title of presentation
• Three to five relevant keywords
• Short description (100 words max; anonymized to allow for blind review)
• Long abstract (800 words max, references excluded; anonymized to allow for blind review)

We also welcome theoretical papers (as long as they are focused on the field of empirical literary studies) and works in progress. For works in progress, we particularly recommend the poster format.

Symposia Proposals

Besides paper and poster proposals, we are again actively encouraging submissions of symposia proposals.

Format: A symposium includes a minimum of three and a maximum of four speakers. To submit for a symposium, use the following guidelines:

• Title of symposium
• Short description of symposium (100 words max)
• Name (first, last and title) and email address of symposium organizer
• Three to five relevant keywords
• A list of speakers (including affiliations)
• Titles and summaries of each speaker’s contribution (200-300 words, references excluded; anonymized to allow for blind review)

All symposia presentations follow the same format as other paper presentations (pre-recorded presentations on Concordance with synchronous Q&A sessions during the conference).

Acceptance Policies

• Proposal needs to be relevant to our society’s mandate and members
• Proposal needs to be of high quality (therefore paper proposals need to be anonymized, so authors cannot be accepted or rejected on name alone)
• Proposal can be empirical (naturalistic, experimental or computational) or theoretical (but pertaining to the field of empirical literary studies) in nature
• We will not accept more than one proposal from the same author (the only exception being authors who can clearly show that they are working in two different research areas) → this policy is to prevent senior researchers from dominating the conference
• We are an inclusive society, which means early career researchers or researchers from economically-disadvantaged countries will not be discriminated against
• The review process is blind

Submission form

Please send all submissions via this link. Acceptance decisions will be communicated to the authors by 30 March 2024.

Outstanding Student Paper Award

IGEL will continue its tradition of recognizing outstanding student presentations. In order to be considered for the Outstanding Student Paper Award, the first author must be a graduate student, and the student’s supervisor must send a recommendation to igel2024conference [at] proton [dot] me describing the student’s contribution to the research project. First authors should indicate the eligibility of their submission using the provided checkbox during the submission process.

Bursaries

IGEL will provide bursaries of maximum 400 euro for early career researchers with no travel funds. There is a limited number of bursaries available. If you want to know whether you are eligible, please contact Marloes Mak (email: board [at] igelsociety [dot] org). If you are eligible and would like to request a bursary, please write to Marloes Mak (email: board [at] igelsociety [dot] org) before 25 April. Decisions about the bursaries will be communicated on 30 April.

Important Dates

• Symposium proposals and abstracts submission deadline: 15 January 2024 30 January 2024
• Acceptances will be sent out on: 30 March 2024
• Early-bird registration deadline: 30 May 2024
• Registration deadline: 30 une 2024

Organisation

The 2024 IGEL conference is organized by the Aachen Center for Cognitive and Empirical Literary Studies (ACCELS) at RWTH Aachen University.

Contact

Inquiries concerning the conference can be sent to Paul Sopcak at igel2024conference [at] proton [dot] me