Circulation, Anthologisation And Canon Formation In Comparative Perspective

Deadline for submissions: November 30, 2025
Date: May 12-13, 2026
Location: Brussels
Language: English and French
Contact email: clement.dessy@ulb.be

Organizers
Mateusz CHMURSKI, CEFRES/Sorbonne Université
Clément DESSY, FNRS/Université libre de Bruxelles
Ana I. SIMÓN-ALEGRE, Adelphi University, NYC

Debates surrounding the labelling of texts as queer or LGBTQI+ are both numerous and complex. The formation of literary collections and canons often prompts critical questions about their underlying purposes and criteria. These discussions frequently reach an impasse by centring either on the sexual identity of authors — risking the essentialization of identity and its conflation with aesthetic value — or on thematic content that may neither portray LGBTQI+ communities in a positive light nor place LGBTQI+ characters at the centre of the narrative.

Emerging in the United States in the 1980s, Gay and Lesbian Studies aimed to highlight a body of literature that had long been marginalized in canonical literary histories. Since then, numerous anthologies have brought together texts considered to be gay and/or lesbian, spanning national and transnational traditions. Sometimes these anthologies focus on particular sexual identities (e.g. The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature [1998], ed. by Byrne R.S. Fone or The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall [2003], ed. by Terry Castle), time periods or literary genres (such as fiction or poetry). These anthologies have, on the one hand, contributed to the canonisation of a body of work that has played a role in shaping identities across Western literatures. However, their selections often reflect the tastes and reading habits of LGBTQI+ readers who circulated these works through informal or private networks long before they were recognised by institutions.

From the late 19th to the early 20th century, classified advertisements in English, French, and Spanish literary magazines included requests for specific books, offering a glimpse into a shared and transnational queer literary culture. Pioneering sexological studies sometimes enlisted fictional and poetic works that resonated with queer readers. Havelock Ellis’s Studies in the Psychology of Sex (vol. 2, 1900) enlisted works altogether from English, French and German literatures, many of which remain foundational in queer literary collections today (in this case, mostly male writers, such as A.W. Clarke, Forrest Reid, Xavier Mayne [Edward Prime-Stevenson], André Gide, Rachilde, Georges Eekhoud, Narkissos, Numa Praetorius [Eugen Wilhelm]). Ellis’s work circulated widely across Europe, contributing to emerging discourses on sexuality and influencing the reception and classification of queer literature in various national contexts, including Spain, where it was both read and contested by intellectual and medical communities. Early queer periodicals played a crucial role in canonising LGBTQI+ literatures by curating authors, texts, and themes that circulated within emerging international networks. Der Eigene (Germany), Akademos (France), and Urania (UK) not only offered rare platforms for explicitly queer or gender-nonconforming expression but also contributed to the formation of transnational reading communities. Through their editorial choices and modes of distribution, these publications helped establish a shared repertoire of queer references that would inform later anthologies and literary histories.

Despite the instability of definitions, there are texts that remain widely recognised as part of queer literature by both LGBTQI+ readers and the general public. These canons emerged from a counterculture that was formed in opposition to the prevailing literary canon. They are in a constant state of evolution, which serves to reveal the inherently unstable nature of the term itself, as well as the perpetual need to challenge the conventional definition of literature. As evidenced in the case of other historically minorised narratives (from women’s writing to indigenous literatures), they may also “contest or confirm a history of more or less general consensus” (Krupat 1994) by exposing previously marginalised life and work trajectories “in the dark ages of nationalism and periodization” (Stelzig 1992). Anthologies prepared in hostile (conservative to homophobic) sociopolitical environments appear as a tool of resistance (as in Poland e.g. Amenta, Kaliściak, Warkocki 2021), or even as a direct reaction to political circumstances (as in Hungary, where the authors of a recent LGBTQI+ anthology consider it a direct response to a new anti-LGBTQ law, Kőrössi 2021).

This call for papers forms part of a CHLEL (Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages) project focusing on the comparative history of queer writing and LGBTQI+ representation. From the outset, international circulation has been central to these dynamics. Just as emancipation movements have long depended on transnational networks to thrive, LGBTQI+ readers and communities have benefited from the global movement of texts, whether because they were published in less restrictive contexts or because their distribution relied on circulation across borders. We argue that the development of queer literary canons was fundamentally shaped by interdependent connections across multiple literary traditions, and that a comparative, international perspective is crucial to fully grasp their formation and evolution.

We invite proposals that explore the following lines of inquiry:

• Analyses of the historical processes that have shaped the emergence and recognition of LGBTQI+ literatures from a comparative perspective — tracing how such anthologies have evolved over time and across different cultural and geographical contexts.
• Investigations into the role of publishing houses, literary and cultural magazines, and reader communities in shaping literary taste and representation across linguistic and cultural boundaries.
• Studies on the interactions between personal queer libraries, private collections and public institutions at an international level.
• Examinations of the types of representation that are most readily appropriated in certain cultural or historical contexts, and conversely, the strategies used by authors to introduce new forms of representation.
• Considerations on how writers, translators or readers, especially those from postcolonial or transnational perspectives, promote more inclusive queer representations and building alternative sets of references.
• Comparisons of the origins and agendas of different LGBTQI+ canon formations across languages and countries, exploring how they were shaped by political, educational, cultural, or artistic goals.
• Analyses of queer collections or anthologies produced in restrictive or challenging sociopolitical contexts, and their contribution to the development of alternative literary canons or narratives.

Please send proposals (300 words max, in English or French), along with a brief biographical note, on this link: https://forms.gle/LaSBAocZkNx47NM88 by November 30, 2025.

If you have any question contact: clement.dessy@ulb.be