INTERNATIONAL IAWIS/AIERTI CONFERENCES

CONFERENCES

14th International IAWIS/AIERTI Conference

Word, Image and Social Dynamics

Amsterdam, 24-28 August 2026

Convened by: Matthijs Engelberts, Erin LaCour, Louis Hartnell, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Emilie Sitzia, Rik Spanjers, Alice Twemlow, and Mia You

Call For Papers

Deadline 9 May 2025

We invite individual and group proposals for 20-minute papers. We also welcome artists’ contributions and non-standard presentations (subject to the facilities being available). Please note any intention for your contribution to be supported by or delivered through performance, artefacts, or ﬁlm-aided or -based presentation. Roundtables and sessions of 3-4 speakers are also welcome. We do, however, prefer encounters of speakers who don't yet know each other, as well as combinations of senior and more junior contributors and cross-disciplinary or otherwise diverse panels for the themed sessions. Proposals for already compiled sessions may, therefore, be modified.

Please send a 250-300-word abstract with a title and a 150-word (max) biographical note to iawis2026@zohomail.eu by 9 May 2025.

Please indicate if you require virtual attendance (and include a short sentence on why that is).

There will be a pre-selection of contributions by at least two of the conveners. Subsequently, a final selection will be made when compiling the programme, which we aim to have completed by mid-June 2025.

The draft programme will be uploaded on this website soon after the selection of contributors. It is vital that you let us know as soon as possible if there is any change, i.e. withdrawal or change from virtual to in-person attendance, or vice versa.

Junior Scholars’ Session / Roundtable

How does this session / roundtable differ from other panels?

It will focus on networking and feature introductions of participants, clustered around common interest topics.

Who can attend this session / roundtable?

This session is open to all ‘junior scholars’ (rMA students, phD candidates, early career researchers). Senior scholars who are interested in mentoring or discussing early-career problems and experience are welcomed as well.

Do I need to register separately for this session / roundtable?

You need to send only a short proposal by the CFP deadline, indicating that you are applying for the Junior Scholars’ Panel(s), and formulating a question (or two) that you would like to discuss. This should lie within the remit of the conference theme.

THE CONFERENCE

Word and Image relations and the institutions where these play out determine much of how societies (individuals and groups) define themselves. With this conference, we propose to explore how intermedial practices (inter- and/or transdisciplinary) impact on social dynamics, e.g. determine the ways in which art and activism operate and intersect, and how art, literature, comics, film, digital media, theatre etc. institute themselves in the public sphere or are entangled in power dynamics.

Word and image relations can take many forms and engage us to think about the significance of society’s connection with various semiotic signs and to study a variety of material that tends to fall outside traditional boundaries. Therefore, we welcome historical and contemporary case studies and methodological explorations from artistic research, art history and theory, creative writing, literary studies, cultural studies, cultural analysis, film, theatre, comic or digital media studies, political science, museum studies, art sociology etc.

Questions that this conference aims to address include:
- the dynamic (power) relationships between text and images and their social impact
- the creative, activist and / or transformative potential of this interdisciplinary dialogue
- the institutions of word and image (and experimental institutionalism)
- intermedial activist art and literature / digital subjectivities
- the impact of images / word on the situated reader / viewer
- historical perspectives on word and image and this history’s mediation today
- questions of (art) institutions, display and curating
- methodological questions arising from hybrid cultural material in the social domain
- indirect efficacies in / of word and image in repressive political contexts
- environmental activism in word and image
- critical fabulation in word and image
- word and image in counter-forensis
- word, image and the affordances of their infrastructures

Location
Amsterdam has a history of being at the forefront of interdisciplinary (scholarly) practices and engaged/activist art and vibrant publication scene. IAWIS originated here. There is potential for collaborations with network partners (below), which will give the conference a rich side- and social programme.