IGEL conference

IGEL conference
  • Date

    28-30 September 2023

  • Fee

    € 30-210

Online attendance is free for IGEL members. Go to Concordance and request to be added to the IGEl2023_participants group.


The 19th IGEL conference will be held in Monopoli, Italy, on 28-30 September 2023. Please address any questions to the main organizer, Federico Pianzola: igel2023conference[at]gmail.com

Keynote Speakers

Anežka Kuzmičová – Charles University, Prague
Neil Cohn – Tilburg University

Program

IGEL 2023 is co-located with the 7th conference of the European Narratology Network (ENN), and the final event of ELIT, the Empirical Study of Literature Training Network.

We encourage participants to also consider attending the ELIT and ENN events. Here is an overview of the whole week. A more detailed program will be published later on. At this link you can find the full program.

Day Morning Afternoon Evening
Tue 26 ELIT + ENN doctoral seminar ELIT + ENN conference welcome reception
Wed 27 ENN ENN social event
Thu 28 ENN IGEL conference dinner
Fri 29 IGEL IGEL
Sat 30 IGEL

The cost of the conference dinner will be € 50, to be paid during registration. Vegetarian and vegan options will be available in all occasions.

Registration

Registration will open on 1st May. Registration is now open.

Early bird rates are available until 15th June.

You can renew your IGEL membership now using the button at the top right of the page. If you prefer to pay membership and conference fee together, we will provide a link for that once registration opens.

Type of fee Until 15th June After 15th June
Regular IGEL member € 120 € 150
Discounted IGEL member € 70 € 100
Non-member € 180 € 210
IGEL+ENN (regular member) (save € 40!) € 200 € 230
IGEL+ENN (discounted member) (save € 40!) € 100 € 130
Online (IGEL member) free free
Online (non-member) € 30 € 50

Please note that only the IGEL conference will be hybrid, ENN will not have online discussions.

Attendance to the ELIT event is free of charge.

IGEL is an inclusive society, which means that fees are lowered for early career researchers and researchers from economically-disadvantaged countries. We also provide bursaries of maximum € 400 each for Master and PhD students with no travel funds. There is a limited number of bursaries available. Priority will be given to presenters who have a paper accepted. Decisions about the bursaries will be communicated on 15th May.

If you are eligible and would like to request a bursary, please write to the IGEL treasurer, Marloes Mak: marloes.mak[at]ru.nl before 10th May. Requests for a lower registration fee will be considered also after this date.

Venue

Monopoli is a little town near Bari in Puglia, a region in Southern Italy. Its characteristic historical centre of early medieval origin overlooks the sea and it’s surrounded by high walls facing the Adriatic Sea. During the free time, it will be possible for you to admire churches, noble palaces, squares, ancient alleys, the harbour, and even a few beaches.

The conference will be held in Monopoli’s Diocesan Museum, located in the town’s historic center, next to the Basilica of the Madonna della Madia.

Plenary sessions will take place in the great hall on the ground floor, whereas parallel sessions will be held in other rooms upstairs, between the first and the second floor. Reception stand and coffee breaks will be in the building across the square, in front of the Basilica.

Map of venue

Address: Via Cattedrale, 26, Monopoli (BA), Italy

Tel.: +39 (0)80 748002

Website: https://museodiocesanomonopoli.com/en/

Monopoli’s Diocesan Museum was established in 2002, in the venues of the ancient Episcopal Seminary, founded originally in 1668. The Museum architecture and its collection testify Monopoli’s transculturality: the town has always been a meeting-port between the West and the East, having been under the influence of the Byzantines, the Angevins, the Aragones and the Venetians. The rooms of the Museum display paintings, icons, manuscripts, and various manufactures of great artistic value. The atmosphere is particularly linked to the religious and cultural history of the area, which has been a centre of pilgrimage for several centuries. The conference is obviously a secular event, but we’d like to mention that religious elements will be visible at the venue.

How to reach Monopoli

Location of Monopoli in Italy

By plane

Monopoli is about 45 km from Bari Karol Wojtyla International Airport (BRI) and about 70 km from Brindisi-Papola Casale Airport (BDS). For information on Bari and Brindisi airports: https://bari.airports.aeroportidipuglia.it/en/

How to reach Monopoli Railway Station from the airport:

From Bari Airport (BRI)

  1. Get a bus to Bari Central Railway Station. https://bari.airports.aeroportidipuglia.it/en/da-e-per-gli-aeroporti/type/bus/

or

Get a train to Bari Centrale FNB. https://ferrovienordbarese.it/

There is a two-minutes walking route inside the station that connects Bari Central FNB to Bari Central Railway Station.

  1. Then get a train from Bari Central Railway Station to Monopoli Railway Station (lines to Lecce or to Fasano). https://trenitalia.com/en.html

or

Taxi and Rental car services are available to get to Bari Central Railway Station or Monopoli directly.

From Brindisi Airport (BDS)

  1. You can get a bus From Brindisi Airport to Brindisi Railway Station.

https://brindisi.airports.aeroportidipuglia.it/en/da-e-per-gli-aeroporti/type/bus/

  1. From Brindisi Railway Station you can get the train to Monopoli Railway Station (line Lecce-Bari Centrale).

For more information: https://trenitalia.com/en.html

or

Taxi and Rental car services are available to get to Brindisi Railway Station or to Monopoli directly:

By train

High-speed train arrive until Bari Centrale Railway Station. See the recommendations above for the last part of your trip.

Local transport

We recommend seeking accommodation not too far from the conference venue, between Monopoli Station and the historical centre. From Monopoli Railway Station to the Museo Diocesano is a fifteen-minute walk.

Please note that the Museo Diocesano is located in a ZTL (restricted traffic zone: only authorized residents can access by car). If you are coming by car, parkings are available in Piazza Alessandro Manzoni a few steps away from the conference venue.

Map of Monopoli center

Bus lines connect the entire city. For more information: https://www.busmiccolis.it/tipologia-fermata/linee-urbane/#Monopoli

In Monopoli there are some taxi companies and bicycle rental businesses. A public bicycle rental service is provided by the Monopoli tourist Info Point, which is situated in the town’s historic center, not far from the conference venue.

For further information about the bicycle rental service, or for special questions in general, you can contact the Monopoli tourist office directly.

INFO-POINT PIAZZA GARIBALDI

Address: Piazza Garibaldi, 24

Telephone: +39 (0)80 414 0264

Email: info.monopoli@viaggiareinpuglia.it

INFO-POINT TRAIN STATION

Address: Largo Stazione

Email: info.monopoli@viaggiareinpuglia.it

Some local shops also rent bikes: https://noleggiobicimonopoli.com/?lang=en

Accomodation

We recommend seeking accommodation not too far from the conference venue, between Monopoli Station and the historical centre. From Monopoli Railway Station to the Museo Diocesano is a fifteen-minute walk.

In Monopoli’s historical center there are no hotels, only B&Bs and holiday homes, very often hosted in historical buildings. We suggest you to book this types of accomodation to make your stay even more in tune with the Southern Italian atmosphere. Please book your accomodation and travel as soon as possible because Monopoli is a popular touristic destination even at the end of September.

Call for Papers

The International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature (IGEL) invites submissions to the 2023 conference across all areas of the empirical study of literature and media, including but not limited to, cognitive processing of literature, literature/media and culture, aesthetics, neuroscience and literature, literary reception, reading and emotion, historical study of literature, and corpus analysis of literature.

This year’s conference is co-located with ENN 2023, the conference of the European Narratology Network, and the common theme is Rhythm, Speed, Path: Spatiotemporal Experiences in Narrative, Poetry, and Drama. Submissions related to this topic will be given priority but contributions on other topics are also welcome. The deadline for submission is 24 February 2023 10 March 2023.

The conference will be conducted in a hybrid format. All spoken presentations will be pre-recorded videos of approximately 20 minutes to be delivered about 1 month before the conference. During the conference sessions, presenters will give a 5 minutes summary of their work and 15 minutes will be dedicated to Q&A. The platform used for the conference is called Concordance. Poster presentations will be available on Concordance but presenters can choose to display them at the conference venue as well.

The review committee requires a summary of the presentation. The summary should be 600-800 words and contain a short introduction, a description of the methods as appropriate, and a brief conclusion. We also welcome theoretical papers (as long as they are focused on the field of empirical literary studies) and works in progress. For works in progress, we particularly recommend the poster format.

Acceptance decisions will be communicated to the authors by 15 April 2023.

Submission Requirements

Send submissions via the submission form, including the following information:

  • Name of first author (First, Last and Title) and affiliation
  • Email of corresponding author
  • List co-authors (names and affiliations)
  • Title of presentation
  • Three to five relevant keywords
  • Short description (100 words max)
  • Long abstract (800 words max, references excluded)

Please indicate the format (poster, paper, symposium paper) by ticking the appropriate box.

Important dates

Symposium proposals and abstracts submission deadline: 24 February 2023 10 March 2023

Acceptances will be sent out on: 15 April 2023

Conference begins: 28 September 2023

Conference ends: 30 September 2023

More Information

Symposia

Format: A symposium includes a minimum of three and a maximum of four speakers. To submit for a symposium, use the following guidelines:

  • Name of Contact author (First, Last and Title)
  • Email of the contact person
  • List all presenters
  • Title of Symposium
  • Three to five relevant keywords
  • Short Description of Symposium (100 words max)
  • A List of Speakers (Including Affiliations)
  • Titles and summaries (200-300 words, references excluded) of each speaker’s contribution

Please indicate the format as symposium paper by ticking the appropriate box.

Just like the spoken presentation, all symposia presentations will be pre-recorded with synchronous Q&A sessions during the conference.

Chair/discussant may also serve as speaker, i.e. fill one of the maximum of four slots in a symposium. Accepted symposium proposals will then have to be submitted following the same guidelines as regular proposals by using the online registration described above.

Outstanding Student Paper Award

IGEL will give an Outstanding Student Paper Award. In order to be considered for this award, the first author must be a graduate student, and the student’s supervisor must send a recommendation to igel2023conference[at]gmail.com describing the student’s contribution to the research project. First authors should indicate the eligibility of their submission using the provided checkbox during the submission process.

Acceptance Policies

  • Proposal needs to be relevant to our society’s mandate and members
  • Proposal needs to be of high quality (therefore paper proposals need to be anonymized, so authors cannot be accepted or rejected on name alone)
  • Proposal can be empirical (naturalistic, experimental or computational) or theoretical (but pertaining to the field of empirical literary studies) in nature
  • We will not accept more than one proposal from the same author (the only exception being authors who can clearly show that they are working in two different research areas) → this policy is to prevent senior researchers from dominating the conference

We are an inclusive society, which means early career researchers or researchers from economically-disadvantaged countries will not be discriminated against:

  • The review process is blind
  • Comments may be made by reviewers to authors about the need to improve English use, but a bad command of the English language is not a reason to reject a proposal
  • Registration fees are lowered
  • We provide bursaries of maximum 400 euro each for Master and PhD students with no travel funds. There is a limited number of bursaries available.

If you are eligible and would like to request a lower fee or a bursary, please write to the IGEL treasurer, Marloes Mak: marloes.mak[at]ru.nl

Organisation

The 2023 IGEL conference is organized by the University of Groningen, Netherlands, in cooperation with Enthymema, International Journal of Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, and Philosophy of Literature, and the University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy.

Conference convenor: Federico Pianzola (University of Groningen, Netherlands)

Contact

Inquiries concerning the conference can be sent to igel2023conference[at]gmail.com