IALJS-21: 21st Annual Conference of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies Cape Town, South Africa, May 19-21, 2027

The International Association for Literary Journalism Studies invites submissions of original research papers, abstracts for research in progress and proposals for panels on Literary Journalism for the IALJS annual convention on 19-21 May 2027. The conference will be held at the Breakwater Campus of the UCT Graduate School for Business in Cape Town, South Africa and is hosted by the Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies, the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town and the Wits University Centre for Journalism.

The IALJS intends the conference to be a forum for scholarly work of both breadth and depth in the field of literary journalism, and all research methodologies are welcome, as is research on all aspects of literary journalism and/or literary reportage. For the purpose of scholarly delineation, our definition of literary journalism is “journalism as literature” rather than “journalism about literature.”

The conference theme this year is “Cross Currents and Critical Encounters.”

Cape Town sits at the meeting of two oceans, at the southern tip of a continent that has long been a site of crossing – of trade routes and colonial incursions, of displacement and return, of ideas travelling in multiple directions. It is an apt location for a conference that asks literary journalism to reflect on its own crossings: between disciplines and genres, between the global North and South, between established traditions and emergent practices, between the writer's subjectivity and the world they seek to render.

“Cross Currents and Critical Encounters” invites participants to think about literary journalism as a form defined by encounter: with subjects, with places, with histories, with other ways of telling. It asks what happens when literary journalism crosses borders, whether geographical, cultural, linguistic or in medium, genre or form. And it asks what it means to hold this conference for the first time on African soil, in a city whose very geography speaks of convergence and turbulence, of routes that brought people here not always by choice, and of the stories that have waited to be told in forms capacious enough to hold them.

We welcome papers, panels and conversations that engage with these crossings in any dimension – theoretical, historical, practical or political.

Possible topics on this theme:

Southern perspectives: Literary journalism has a canon that is heavily weighted toward the global North. What does the field look like from the South? What traditions of narrative nonfiction, reportage and public writing exist on the African continent and in the Global South more broadly that have not been fully recognised within dominant accounts of the form? How does placing the conference in Africa change the questions we ask?

The writer and the encounter: Literary journalism is built on the encounter between a writer and a world, a person, a community, a crisis, a place. What are the ethics and politics of that encounter? Questions of access, representation, voice, privilege and harm all surface here, as do questions about what the encounter does to the writer as well as the subject.

Currents of history: journalism, memory and the archive: How does literary journalism engage with history, with events that have already happened, with silenced or suppressed pasts, with the archival traces and absences that shape what can be known and told? The Cape Town setting invites particular attention to the long work of reckoning with the past in narrative form.

Crossing forms: literary journalism at the generic boundaries: Literary journalism has always defined itself at the intersection of literature and journalism, but its borders are porous and contested. How does the form cross into memoir, essay, fiction, documentary, photography, film and digital storytelling? What is gained and what is lost at these crossings?

Currents of change: digital platforms and new practices: How is literary journalism being transformed by digital environments, social media, multimedia storytelling and new funding models? What opportunities and what threats does the current media landscape present to long-form narrative nonfiction?

The International Association for Literary Journalism Studies is a multi-disciplinary learned society whose essential purpose is the encouragement and improvement of scholarly research and education in Literary Journalism. As an association in a relatively recently defined field of academic study, it is our agreed intent to be both explicitly inclusive and warmly supportive of a variety of scholarly approaches.

I. GUIDELINES FOR RESEARCH PAPERS

Submissions for Research Papers follow a two-step procedure: First, extended abstracts of 600-700 words, demonstrating significant progress toward a completed Research Paper (including research methodology and preliminary conclusions), must be submitted by 1 December 2026. Second, if accepted for presentation, the full paper must be submitted by 15 March 2027. Submitted research papers should not exceed 7,500 words, or about 25 double-spaced pages, plus endnotes. Please regard this as an upper limit; shorter papers are certainly welcome. Endnotes and bibliographic citations should follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Papers may not be simultaneously submitted to any other conferences. Papers previously published, presented, accepted or under review are ineligible. Only one paper per author will be accepted for presentation in the conference’s research sessions, and at least one author for each paper must be at the convention (live or virtually) in order to present the paper. If accepted, each paper presenter at a conference Research Session may be allotted no more than 15 minutes. If the full paper is not received on time, the proposal will automatically revert to being accepted as a Work-in-Progress submission (see below).

To be considered, please observe the following guidelines:

1. Submission via EasyChair is required: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ialjs21. Please create an account and follow the instructions.
2. Necessary data include: author/s, affiliation/s, contact details of the lead author, title of submission, keywords (5 max.), abstract summary (50 words), an extended abstract of 600-700 words, and author bio/s.
3. Your name and affiliation should not appear anywhere in the abstract.

Full Research Papers are eligible for the Susan Greenberg Prize for Best Research Paper, and papers that win this award are given priority consideration to be published in the IALJS journal, Literary Journalism Studies.

II. GUIDELINES FOR WORK-IN-PROGRESS PRESENTATIONS (ABSTRACTS)

Submitted abstracts for Work-in-Progress Sessions should not exceed 250 words. If accepted, each presenter at a conference Work-in-Progress session may be allotted no more than 10 minutes. To be considered, please observe the following guidelines:

1. Submission via EasyChair is required: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ialjs21. Please create an account and follow the instructions.
2. Necessary data include: author/s, affiliation/s, contact details of the lead author, title of submission, keywords (5 max.), abstract summary (50 words), an extended abstract of approximately 250 words, and author bio/s.
3. Your name and affiliation should not appear anywhere in the abstract.

III. GUIDELINES FOR PROPOSALS FOR PANELS

1. Submission via EasyChair is required: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ialjs21. Please create an account and follow the instructions.
2. Necessary data include: author/s, affiliation/s, contact details of the panel organizer/s, title of panel, keywords (5 max.), type of panel, description of panel (150-250 words), titles and summaries for all papers included in the panel (up to 100 words each), and panelist bios.
3. Panels are encouraged on any topic related to the study, teaching, or practice of literary journalism.

Details of the programs of previous annual meetings can be found at: https://ialjs.org/past-ialjs-conferences/.

IV. EVALUATION CRITERIA, DEADLINES AND CONTACT INFORMATION

All research paper submissions will be evaluated on originality and importance of topic; literature review; clarity of research purpose; focus; use of original and primary sources and how they support the paper’s purpose and conclusions; writing quality and organization; and the degree to which the paper contributes to the study of literary journalism. Similarly, abstracts of works-in-progress and panel proposals will be evaluated on the degree to which they contribute to the study of literary journalism. All research paper and abstract submissions will be blind-juried, and submissions from students as well as faculty are encouraged.

Deadline for all submissions: No later than 1 December 2026

Important note: Please be advised that it is a matter of IALJS policy that conference participants will be limited to presenting in no more than two conference sessions.

NOTE: Submissions from students are encouraged, and a Student Travel Fund is established to assist in funding student travel. Applications can be made upon acceptance of submission; the form is available on our website.

Contact

For more information regarding the conference or the association, please go to https://www.ialjs.org or contact:

• Prof. Willa McDonald, Macquarie University (Australia), IALJS President; e-mail: willa.mcdonald@mq.edu.au
• Prof. Lisa Phillips, State University of New York New Paltz (U.S.A.), IALJS Treasurer; e-mail: phillipl@newpaltz.edu
• Prof. Kevin Lerner, Montclair State University (U.S.A.), IALJS Secretary; e-mail: lernerk@montclair.edu
• Prof. Anthea Garman, Rhodes University (South Africa) Conference Host; e-mail: a.garman@ru.ac.za