Anglistiktag 2025

Anglophone Studies and the Public: Past, Present and Future Debates and Interventions

 University of Duisburg-Essen, 21-24 September 2025

Call for Proposals “Anglistiktag 2025”

As discussed during the General Assembly in Siegen in 2023, the Anglistiktag 2025, rather than working in separate thematic sections, will have one overarching topic. The local organisers have specified the more general topic agreed upon in Siegen as follows:
Anglophone Studies and the Public: Past, Present and Future Debates and Interventions

Through research, teaching and transfer, Anglophone Studies contributes to understanding key current debates and their dynamics, online and offline, and to education in the subject of “English” as well as, more widely, to education addressing a variety of topics and values that are key to our societies, from sustainability to democracy.
In all these fields, it is not the sub-disciplines individually – literary and cultural studies, linguistics and English language education –, but our discipline as a whole that can have an impact.
Thus, one central goal of the new format and the topic of the Anglistiktag 2025 is to underscore the coherence of our discipline: Instead of neatly separating literary and cultural studies, linguistics and English language education from one another, we are explicitly calling for joint formats, panels, discussions and insights, from both contemporary and historical perspectives. We are inviting submissions for contributions engaging with the following questions and related topics:

Debates and Public Interest: Insights from Anglophone Studies

  • What insights does research in Anglophone Studies contribute to current and historical debates about issues such as migration, war, pandemics, plurality, political polarisation, education, integration, etc.?
  • How does research in Anglophone Studies contribute to our understanding of public debates about these as well as other issues in general?
  • How can our research on current and past debates help contextualise and rationalise present-day controversies as they unfold in various literary, cultural, linguistic and educational arenas?
  • How can increased collaboration between our sub-disciplines – literary and cultural studies, linguistics, English language education – help to understand the dynamics of societal debates, offline as well as online?
  • How can the various sub-disciplines of Anglophone Studies collaborate to jointly construct a practice of teacher education that can moderate current societal controversies and challenges while fostering a culture of respectful exchange and dialogue?

Visibility and Intervention: Anglophone Studies and the Public

  • How publicly visible has our discipline been? How public can or should it be? Can (or should) we be playing a different role to harness the potential of our discipline for public interventions? If so, how?
  • What are the connections between scholarship and activism? How much activism has there been or can/should there be in scholarship? What are the benefits as well as the pitfalls of seeking to combine the two?
  • Which media and media activities play a role in making our discipline visible and public? What are the opportunities and pitfalls of engaging with these media and their publics?
  • To what extent and how has “going public” been institutionalised in our discipline and our institutions in comparison with other countries and other disciplines?
  • How do we conceptualise and practice transfer, outreach or third-mission activities, again also in comparison with other countries and other disciplines? Are these even the appropriate terms? To what extent can or should communication with the public be part of what we do anyway?

Anglophone Studies: Past, Present and Future

  • Where do we come from, where do we stand, and where are we headed?
  • How do we understand the unity and diversity of our discipline? Do we need to rethink the relations between our sub-fields?
  • How do we envision the relations between English Studies, American Studies and Anglophone Studies?
  • How do we intellectually and institutionally respond to major societal developments?

Possible formats might include (but are not limited to):

  • Individual presentations (20 minutes + Q/A)
  • Short pitches (5 minutes + Q/A)
  • Thematic panels already including suggested speakers and topics (please indicate proposed length of the panel, number of presentations and suggested speakers; please note: speakers might also include practitioners or other external stakeholders)
  • Round tables, discussion groups and other formats for debate
  • Workshop formats
  • Posters (in A1 print format) or multi-modal digital presentations (there will be poster sessions with brief presentations)
  • Networking events to initiate projects or publications
  • Best-practice ideas for public-facing events and the communication of research results
  • Reports of failure and defeat: What has not worked and what can others learn from this?
  • Book talks (presentations of recent or forthcoming publications)

There will also be a thematically open “work in progress” section (please note: This is not exclusively for early career researchers; more “senior” researchers might also want to pitch work in progress for discussion).

We explicitly encourage the submission of abstracts for formats in which the coherence of and collaboration between our various sub-disciplines and the co-construction of our discipline at large become visible.
In addition to potential book display tables by publishers, attendees will have the opportunity to display recent publications on guarded tables near the conference office.
Please send proposals to anglistiktag@uni-due.de by 22 January 2025 (For proposal submission we kindly ask you to make use of the following PDF). Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 28 February 2025.