CFP: Periodical (Counter)Cultures. Panel Submission for LASA2026: Republic and Revolution

In the last two decades, increasing efforts towards preservation and digitization have guided the recovery and investigation of other than English-language periodicals, unearthing a rich archive of cultural production, political and literary exchange, and communities of readers across the Americas (e.g. AHIRA, dLOC, AméricaLEE, the Cultural Magazines of Latin America (IAI)). Enriching these archival endeavors are computational approaches to the study of periodicals, inviting new lines of research on a grand scale.

Construing “periodicals” broadly to include magazines and newspapers of all specialties and genres (e.g. popular, intellectual, literary), this panel hones in on periodical cultures of 1800-1930, a period in which the massification of media and print culture coincided with technological innovation and expanding notions of community, belonging, and profound social change energized by revolutions and budding republics. We ask, how did periodical culture generate or invite readers to become citizen-thinkers and expand notions of public intellectualism? What kind of new literacies and modes of participation did periodicals encourage of their readers? In addition to entertaining, how did periodicals generate (counter)cultures, socializing readers, shaping alternative subjects and counter-discourses, and interfacing with other institutions whose aim was not primarily entertainment?

This panel seeks reflections, case studies, comparative analyses, and digital projects that propose new approaches to well-known materials or draw on underutilized archives and overlooked geographies, subjects, voices, and/or modes of reading and seeing. We invite proposals on any aspects of these, including but not limited to:
• Black, Latino/a, Native/Indigenous, bilingual/multilingual, immigrant, or other minoritized periodical cultures;
• Women’s periodical work (as writers, editors, staff, illustrators, or readers);
• Adolescent periodical work (as cultural producers or readers);
• Periodicals as spaces of dialogue, belonging, and/or dissent;
• Periodicals as sites of assemblage, bringing together disparate voices, formats, genres, readers, and networks;
• The role of new technologies in the printing industry, including photography, in shaping new classes of citizens;
• Reception/circulation histories and reading communities;
• Inter- and cross-disciplinary approaches to periodical studies;
• The affordances and/or challenges of computational tools to preserve, study, and make visible periodicals.

Papers may be in English or Spanish. Please submit an abstract of 250 words or fewer.

Abstract submission deadline: August 27, 2025
Notification of acceptance: August 29, 2025
Panel submission: by Sept. 8

Contact and Abstract Submission: Anna Torres-Cacoullos (ait5095@illinois.edu) and Adriana Rodríguez-Alfonso (adriana.rodriguez-alfonso@uni-tuebingen.de)