Call for Programming for Barricades: A Les Mis Convention – Academic Track
Barricades invites fans and scholars to submit proposals for the convention’s academic track, which will form the programming of the con.
Submissions for the fan and academic programming tracks open: December 4, 2023
Submissions close: March 15, 2024
Notification of proposal acceptance: by April 15, 2024.
Contact: programming@barricadescon.com
Topic examples
We are interested in submissions that address any aspect of Les Mis, its adaptations, its context, its authorship, its production, and its reception, including topics such as:
- Analyses of Les Mis in all its forms from different sociocultural and political perspectives and approaches, such as through feminist, postcolonial, and queer lenses.
- Gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability in Les Mis, its adaptations, and fanwork.
- Social justice and protest from the nineteenth century to the present day, including organising, prison abolition, and sex work politics.
- Religion in Les Mis and its adaptations.
- The contextualisation of Les Mis within Romanticism as a genre.
- Textual analyses of Les Mis and its adaptations.
- Victor Hugo and authorship.
- The production, promotion, and distribution of Les Mis and its adaptations, including translations and subtitles, different performers and performances, and behind-the-scenes footage and paratextual spin-offs.
- Critical and popular receptions of Les Mis around the world, in different cultures and subcultures.
- Les Mis fan and participatory cultures, fan activities, and transformative work.
- Collaborative writing.
- Canon Era 101: Intro to the contextual history surrounding Les Mis; intro to French Romanticism, famous Romantics, Hugo’s circles; intro to historical fashion in the early nineteenth century, etc., etc., etc.
- The architectural history of barricades.
- Costume design and other areas of design; historical costuming resources; historical menswear and tailoring.
- Recommendations/explorations of other stories and fandoms for fans of Les Mis (both historical and totally unexpected!).
- Comparative visual media.
- Les Mis in the context of the history of theatre.
This is not by any means an exhaustive list; we welcome and encourage submissions that address topics beyond those listed here.
Programming examples
Proposals could be for programming taking the form of:
- Lectures or paper presentations of varying lengths, with or without visual accompaniment, and with or without Q&As at the end of the presentations.
- Presentations of creative or critical work.
- Discussions (informal or seminar-style and moderated) on fandom and/or scholarly topics.
- Panels or roundtables on fan-centred and/or scholarly topics.
- Meetups (e.g., for academics or for fans and academics in general, for attendees interested in specific topics, for specific demographics of attendees such as fans of colour).
- Workshops (e.g., how to research the nineteenth century).
- Interviews.
- Special events.
- Pre-created videos (there’s no need to present live!).
Again, this is not an exhaustive list and we welcome and encourage submissions for programming taking forms beyond those listed here. Please see our Fan Track or Academic Track? page for guidelines on how to choose which track your work is best suited to, as well as for further information about run times.
Please use our submissions form to submit your proposal by March 15, 2024. We also welcome enquiries and questions before this date at programming@barricadescon.com.
Acceptances will be sent by April 15, 2024.
