From June 23rd until June 26th 2027, the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature (IGEL) will hold its 22nd international conference in Basel, Switzerland. The conference will be co-organized with the end-of-project conference for the SHARD project (Shared Reading in the Age of Digitalization). The broad overarching theme of the conference will be “Shifting Attention”. The deadline for submissions of panel/paper/poster presentations is December 18th 2026.
Keynote Speakers
Beth Driscoll – University of Melbourne
Professor in Publishing and Communications and Deputy Dean Academic of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. She investigates reading cultures and emotion, publishing communities and systems of taste, and arts-inspired methods for researching book cultures.
Sarah McGeown – University of Edinburgh
Professor of Literacy (Psychology & Education) at the University of Edinburgh. She is Co-Director of the Literacy Lab, an interdisciplinary research hub focused on supporting reading motivation and engagement, and enriching lives through positive literacy experiences and outcomes.
Lovro Škopljanac – University of Zagreb
is Associate Professor at the Department of Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb. He is the PI on the research project Remembering Literature in Everyday Life that focuses on the memory of literature in the everyday life of non-professional readers.
Inge van de Ven – Tilburg University
Associate Professor of Culture Studies at Tilburg University’s School of Humanities & Digital Sciences. Together with Anna-Lena Eick and Astrid Ensslin, she also co-chairs the Postdigital Narratives Network. Her research focuses on various types of reading in the post-digital age.
Important Dates
- Opening of submission portal: September 7th 2026
- Deadline for panel/paper/poster submissions: December 18th 2026
- Date by which acceptance is communicated: March 19th 2027
- Opening of registration: March 22nd 2027
- End of Early Bird registration: May 1st 2027
- End of Registration: June 11th 2027
Call for Papers
The full call for papers is available under this link.
The broad overarching theme of the conference will be “Shifting Attention”. This theme can be, purposefully, understood in different ways. First, it can be understood as shifts in attention during reading, inviting proposals about topics that have a longstanding history within the IGEL community, such as narrative absorption, foregrounding or narrative persuasion. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it can be understood as shifts in what we as researchers pay attention to within our research. With this we hope to invite proposals that critically address the key pillars of our community’s focus: Literature and Science. What do we mean with “literary reading”, what falls under the concept of “literature”? Which approaches do we use to capture effects of reading? In all of this, we hope to see shifts towards reader-centered research, the use of qualitative and ethnographic methods, and broadening, more inclusive conceptualizations of literature and literary reading.
Topics that papers might explore include, but are not limited to, the following:
- What is literature or literary reading according to readers?
- How are reading activities influenced by digitalization and AI?
- How can reading help people in unstable times? How is reading itself transformed by unstable times?
- How could literature be made more accessible, in classrooms or outside of them?
- What kind of methodological approaches could we borrow from related fields to expand our knowledge of literary reading and its effects?
Throughout the conference there will also be a special focus on Shared Reading research, because of the SHARD project’s focus on this form of reading together. This will be in the shape of a series of panels dedicated to different aspects of this topic. If you are interested in putting together such a panel, please let us know. We are open towards panel proposals that focus on face-to-face Shared Reading and those focused on Digital Social Reading. We are also open to receiving panel proposals in different formats: round table discussions, workshops, or a series of thematically linked lectures, for example. We welcome and prioritize paper proposals (or panel proposals) that explore all of the issues mentioned above, as well as those which address the general concerns of IGEL, namely empirical studies of literature and other narrative media and their reception. We also welcome theoretical papers, but they would have to be related to the field of empirical literary studies.
Works in progress are also very welcome, but for those, we recommend sending in a poster presentation proposal.
Submission requirements
More details about the formal requirements for submission will be communicated in September once the submission portal is opened up. The submission portal will open on September 7th 2026.
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
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 igel2027conference@gmail.com 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.
Accommodation
Switzerland is known as an expensive country and we understand that this may make some people hesitant to submit a proposal. However, Basel is located almost on top of the border with France and Germany, meaning that you could travel to and find accommodation in places just across the border and take a tram or bus into the city center for the conference. As conference organizers we will be sure to provide affordable options for accommodation in Basel, as well as just across the border. This information will be available in September 2026, once the submission portal opens. In addition, we will compile a list of affordable dinner options and other cost-cutting tips in our city that will be published here soon.
Registration fees
You can renew your IGEL membership now using the button at the top right of the page.
| Type of fee | Before May 1st | After May 1st |
|---|---|---|
| Regular IGEL member | € 245 (225 CHF) | € 275 (255 CHF) |
| Discounted IGEL member | € 135 (125 CHF) | € 165 (155 CHF) |
| Non-member | € 335 (310 CHF) | € 370 (340 CHF) |
| Online (IGEL member) | free | free |
| Online (non-member) | € 30 | € 50 |
IGEL is an inclusive society, which means that fees are lowered for early career researchers and for scholars from economically-disadvantaged countries. If you are eligible and would like to request a lower registration fee, please write to the IGEL treasurer, Marloes Mak: h.m.l.mak@tilburguniversity.edu
Donations are welcome from IGEL members who can afford to pay a bit more to support these travel bursaries. If you’d like to donate a sum as part of your registration or membership fee, you can write to the IGEL treasurer and request a receipt.
Bursaries
IGEL will provide bursaries of maximum 400 CHF for early career researchers with no travel funds.
Amounts:
- max 200 CHF for continental applications / 400 CHF for intercontinental applications, plus:
- Waived conference fee
- Waived conference dinner fee
- Waived 1 year IGEL membership fee
Requirements:
- Paper or poster accepted for presentation
- CV (including current position and affiliation)
- 300 words introduction letter, stating your position (MA student, PhD student or post doc), your country of residence, your motivation for visiting the conference in person and whether or not you were able to secure any other financial support.
There is a limited number of bursaries available. If you want to know whether you are eligible and you would like to request a bursary, please contact Marloes Mak (board@igelsociety.org) before April 2nd. Decisions about the bursaries will be communicated on April 23rd.
Donations
Donations are welcome from IGEL members who can afford to pay a bit more to support these travel bursaries, so that IGEL can continue to support early career researchers with no travel funds in future conferences.
Organisation
The 2027 IGEL conference is organized by:
- Moniek Kuijpers, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Basel’s Digital Humanities Lab.
- Antonia Vogler, PhD candidate at the University of Basel’s Digital Humanities Lab.
- Tina Ternes, PhD candidate at the University of Basel’s Digital Humanities Lab.
Contact
Inquiries concerning the conference can be sent to the organizing committee at: igel2027conference@gmail.com