CFP: 7.11. Interdisciplinary Autumn Seminar for PhD Researchers

CFP: NARRARE INTERDISCIPLINARY AUTUMN SEMINAR FOR PhD RESEARCHERS November 7, 2025, Tampere University, Finland

Deadline for proposals: September 12.

Deadline for final seminar papers October 24.

If your PhD project involves studying narrative or if you make use of narrative methods, this announcement is for you. On Friday November 7, 2025, Narrare: Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies at Tampere University hosts its ninth annual seminar for PhD students. The seminar provides a chance to meet PhD researchers from diverse backgrounds who work on or with narrative, but also to participate in Narrare’s ongoing endeavor of developing theories, methods, and analytical tools for the field of interdisciplinary narrative studies.

The seminar papers will be commented on by the senior researchers and professors of the Centre. Additionally, our confirmed visiting scholars commenting on the workshop papers this year are Professor Brian Schiff and Associate Professor Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen.

Proposals: We ask prospective participants to submit a proposal for a paper to be presented at the seminar. The one-page proposal should include: title, research question, target material, method and theoretical framework plus a short description of the issues the author would like the seminar to address when discussing their paper. The language of the proposals and the seminar is English.

Seminar papers & presentations: Those selected to present at the seminar are expected to send in written papers to be discussed. Papers should include an extended version (2 to 3 pages) of the proposal and a representative excerpt (2 to 3 pages) of their target material. In case the original target material is in any other language than English, we ask for you to provide a short sample (for example half-a-page) of the material translated to English. On the day of the seminar, participants are expected to present their papers briefly (max. 5 minutes) before comments and discussion.

The seminar will be held on site at Tampere University in Finland. If there is room in the program, a hybrid panel with some of the PhD participants online can be organized. Please indicate clearly in your application if you can only participate online.

Apply by sending your proposal to Markus Laukkanen (markus.laukkanen@tuni.fi) by September 12. The deadline for the final seminar papers is October 24.

Visiting scholars:

Brian Schiff is the Esmond Nissim Professor of Psychology at The American University of Paris, and Director of the George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights, and Conflict Prevention.

Schiff is author of A New Narrative for Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2017) and co-edited Life and Narrative: The Risks and Responsibilities of Storying Experience (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is also editor of a special issue of New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, Rereading Personal Narrative and Life Course (Jossey-Bass, 2014), and Situating Qualitative Methods in Psychological Science (Routledge, 2018). He is the 2016 recipient of the Theodore Sarbin Award from the American Psychological Association’s Division 24 (Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology).

Schiff’s current research examines the motivations of perpetrators of mass crimes, the concept of collective memory, and the social impact of atrocity education.

Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen is Associate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the Faculty of Arts, at Aarhus University, Denmark. She leads a research group on fiction and science in the 18th century, which is based at Aarhus University.

Zetterberg-Nielsen is an editor of the journals 1700-tal and Passage, where she has contributed to publishing a large number of issues. She has published articles about the 18th century novel and fictionality in a historical perspective in journals such as Narrative, Style, Poetics Today, The Living Handbook of Narratology, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory. She has also written or edited books such as Fiktion, Fiktionalitet – i sprog, litteratur og kultur, Fictionality and Literature: Core Concepts Revisited, Middelalderisme i dansk romantisk litteratur, and Litteratur og idéhistorie. She is the recipient of the 2023 Nils Klim Prize from the Holberg Prize secretariat at the University of Bergen.

Much of Zetterberg-Nielsen’s scholarly work has centred around the concept of ‘fictionality’ and its various implications and manifestations.

 

For further information contact: markus.laukkanen@tuni.fi

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