Call for Papers: ENSFR Annual Conference, Artois 2026
January 31, 2026
In Different Shapes: The Short Story and Its Modes of Circulation in Magazines and Newspapers
10–12 June 2026 / 10-12 juin 2026/ 10–12 de junio de 2026
Laboratoire Textes et Cultures (UR4058), Université d’Artois
Invités d’honneur / Invited Speakers / Invitados de honor
Elizabeth Baines
Paul Delaney, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin
Numerous studies link the birth of the short story to the most primitive myths (see, among others, Delaney, May). As a literary genre, the first examples appeared in the 19th century, although it must be acknowledged that the first buds were already visible in Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353), Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387), and Cervantes’s Exemplary Novels (1613). In the 19th century, it seems that practitioners of this emerging genre moved away from Voltaire-style philosophical tales and fables, turning their attention to inner worlds and characters. The ordinary they are interested in mainly has two faces: one realistic, the other darker, often associated with the fantastic, the gothic, even horror. As Jonathan Daniel Wells explains, magazines in the United States were “modeled . . . after European journals like Graham’s Magazine and the Edinburgh review” (3). They were often meant to reflect life in specific region and, when circulated largely, to promote tourism. Some publications, such as Le Chat noir in France or the illustrated Madrid-based magazine Blanco y Negro in Spain, were intended, like the New Yorker some years later, to advertise cultural events and venues while publishing renowned artists and offering a platform for those trying to make themselves known.
Following the ideas initiated at the Leuven conference in 2017 on the short story, its contexts and co-texts, the 2026 ENSFR conference will be devoted to short forms appearing in magazines and newspapers. We will consider any story printed in such media but also stories that were solely published in magazines and newspapers (as opposed to stories that were later collected in book form), adapted into film or into longer works of fiction (as is often the case with “stories” that appear in the fiction section of The New Yorker, in Granta or in academic journals such as TriQuarterly). Panelists may also work on any short form to be found in magazines (commercials, letters to the editor, notes…) as well as illustrated stories—the illustrations providing yet another story to explore, as Stuart Sillars demonstrates and as suggested by the success in Spain of publications such as La Ilustración Española y Americana or, later, El Cuento Semanal. Writers often admit that some of their stories were inspired from actual events that they read about in the press, heard about on the radio… How are such news items turned into fiction? Are they made more sensational, more topical? How do readers respond to them? In the Spanish context, contributors may also examine how writers managed to adapt under Francoism to a constrained context marked by strong ideological control, as the magazine Ínsula did. Certain magazines target a specific audience, and it could be stimulating to reflect upon writers’ ability to please (at least on the surface) literary editors. What role do academic journals or journals closely connected to academic circles play as laboratories of the genre? Such publications also examine the dynamics of consolidation or emancipation of the tropes of the genre, while posing the eternal question of the tumultuous relationship between short stories and the publishing industry that differs from their relationship with the press. In the nineteenth century, stories were often referred to as “articles,” “tales” or “sketches” (see Goyet, and, among others, Monfort)—how does this influence our understanding of the texts? What are the differences between stories printed in magazines and those printed in newspapers? The conference will give us an opportunity to discuss magazine publication with several authors and critics (Elizabeth Baines, and Paul Delaney have confirmed their presence) and see how magazine and newspaper publication has evolved since its earliest forms.
Deadline for submissions (200 words and a bio statement): January 31, 2026. Send your proposal to caroline.lyvet@univ-artois.fr and gerald.preher@univ-artois.fr
Languages: French, English, Spanish
Conference fees: 80 euros (60 for doctoral students).
Bibliographie sélective/ Select Bibliography/Bibliografía selectiva
Aji, Hélène ; Céline Mansanti and Benoît Tadié. Revues modernistes, revues engagées. Rennes: PU Rennes, 2011.
Baquero Goyanes, Mariano, El cuento español en el siglo XIX, Madrid, CSIC, Instituto Miguel de Cervantes, 1949
Boddy, Kasia. The American Short Story since 1950. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2010.
Casas, Ana, El cuento español en la posguerra. Presencia del relato breve en las revistas literarias (1948–1969), Madrid, Marenostrum, 2007.
Colin, Claire. L’Événement dans la nouvelle contemporaine. Paris : Garnier, 2018.
Corey, Mary F. The World Through a Monocle: The New Yorker at Midcentury. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999.
Delaney, Paul, and Adrian Hunter, eds. Edinburgh Companion to the Short Story in English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2019. [chapter on ‘little magazines’]
D’hoker, Elke, and Chris Mourant, eds. The Modern Short Story and the Magazines, 1880-1950. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2022.
Dietz, Laura. “Online versus Print: The Reputation of Literary Fiction Magazine.” Short Fiction in Theory and Practice 4.1 (2014): 7-21.
Ezama Gil, Ángeles, El cuento de la prensa y otros cuentos. Aproximación al estudio del relato breve entre 1890 y 1900, Zaragoza, Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 1992.
Godenne, René. Études sur la nouvelle de langue française. 1985. Genève : Slatkine, 2005.
Godenne, René. La Nouvelle française. Paris : PUF, 1974.
Goyet, Florence. La Nouvelle, 1870-1925 : Description d’un genre et son apogée. Paris: PUF, 1993.
Green, Fiona, ed. Writing for The New Yorker. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2015.
Jacquelin, Evelyne, and Béatrice Ferrier, eds. Voix et voies du conte : Les mutations d’un genre. Arras: APU, 2019.
March-Russell, Paul. The Short Story: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009.
May, Charles E. The Short Story: The Reality of Artifice. New York: Twayne, 1995.
May, Charles E., ed. The New Short Story Theories. Athens: Ohio UP, 1994.
Monfort, Bruno. “La nouvelle et son mode de publication: Le cas américain.” Poétique 90 (Avril 1992) : 153-71.
Morris, Ian; Joanne Diaz and Jeffrey Lependorf, eds. The Little Magazine in Contemporary America. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2015
Sillars, Stuart. “The Illustrated Short Story: Toward a Typology.” The Art of Brevity: Excursions in Short Fiction Theory and Analysis. Eds. Per Winther, Jakob Lothe, and Hans Skei. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 2004. 70-80.
Reynès-Delobel, Anne; Cécile Cottenet and Benoît Tadié, eds. Investigating Big Magazines, 1860-1960. Spec. issue of Journal of Modernist Periodical Studies, 10-2, 2020.
Stein, Lorin and Sadie Stein, eds. Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story. London: William Heinemann, 2012.
Tadié, Benoît, ed. Revues modernistes anglo-américaines : Lieux d’échanges, lieux d’exil. Paris: Ent’revues, 2006.
Valls, Fernando, Sombras del tiempo. Estudios sobre el cuento español contemporáneo (1944–2015), Madrid / Frankfurt, Iberoamericana – Vervuert, 2016.
Viegnes, Michel. L’Esthétique de la nouvelle française au XXe siècle. Berne : Peter Lang, 1989.
Viegnes, Michel. L’œuvre au bref, la nouvelle de langue française depuis 1900. Genève : Éditions La Baconnière, 2014.
Wells, Jonathan Daniel. Women Writers and Journalists in the Nineteenth-Century South. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011.
Whitehead, Sarah. “Reader as Consumer: The Magazine Short Story.” Short Fiction in Theory and Practice 1.1 (2011): 71-84.
Comité d’organisation/Organizing Committee
Caroline Lyvet, Université d’Artois
Gerald Preher, Université d’Artois
Comité scientifique/Scientific Commitee
Jochen Achilles, University of Würzburg
Charlotte Arnautou, Université d’Artois
Michael Basseler, Justus Liebig University Giessen
Colette Colligan, Université d’Angers
Ailsa Cox, Edge Hill University
Elke D’hoker, KU Leuven
Solveig Dunkel, Université de Lille
Xavier Escudero, Université d’Artois
Xavier Lachazette, Le Mans Université
Xavier Le Brun, Université d’Angers
Laura Ma Lojo-Rodríguez, University of Santiago de Compostela
Caroline Lyvet, Université d’Artois
Cécile Meynard, Université d’Angers
Céline Pegorari, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier
Virginie Roche Tiengo, Université d’Artois
Gerald Preher, Université d’Artois
Patricia Rochwert-Zuili, Université d’Artois
Michelle Ryan, Université d’Angers
Jorge Sacido-Romero, University of Santiago de Compostela
Oliver Scheiding, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Catherine Seltzer, Virginia Commonwealth University
Frédérique Spill, Université de Picardie Jules Verne
Peter Templeton, The Open University
Mikael Toulza, Université de Lille