CFP: Intermedial Studies and New Materialisms

In light of challenges posed by the rapidly changing world, including the environmental crisis, accelerated digitalization, and the implementation of AI technologies, media researchers and intermedial scholars have increasingly turned their attention to questions of ecology, material processes, and nonhuman agency. This shift reflects a growing recognition of the need to reconsider and expand media-centred approaches and to engage critically with broader questions that extend beyond mediation itself.

Responding to this need, we propose a special issue that brings together the broad field of intermediality and intermedial studies (Rajewsky 2002; Wolf 1999; Rippl 2015; Elleström 2021; Larrue 2008; Bruhn et al. 2024) with a set of critical frameworks known as “new materialisms” (Barad 2007; Alaimo 2010; Bennett 2010). New materialist theories emerged partly in response to the linguistic and cultural turns, emphasizing the inseparability of the discursive and the material, what Karen Barad (2007) describes as the entanglement of matter and meaning. New materialisms also challenge anthropocentric worldviews by foregrounding nonhuman agencies and questioning assumptions of human dominance that can justify environmental exploitation. The emphasis on material-discursive entanglements, material agency, and the ecological implications of new materialist approaches invites a rethinking of media and intermedial relations in non-anthropocentric terms. It also opens up broader discussions about agency, intermedial practices, and their environmental dimensions. Following new materialist thought, media are not mere tools for communicating ideas or representing the world; rather, they are material-discursive practices that entangle humans, nonhuman technologies, and environments in the ongoing becoming of the world. New materialist approaches shift the focus from fixed entities and categories to processes, relationality, and the agency of matter.

We invite contributions that examine the points of connection and tension between new materialist and intermedial frameworks. Articles may be theory-oriented or may combine theoretical discussion with analyses of specific case studies. This call for papers emerges from international workshops held at the Linnaeus University Centre for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies, which brought together scholars working across intermedial studies, comparative literature, science and technology studies, film studies, visual culture, theatre studies, and philosophy. The group is now working towards a joint publication. We invite contributions to expand the collection and bring further perspectives into the conversation. We are currently considering two possible publication venues. We are in discussion with established journals in the field regarding a special issue. Alternatively, the contributions maybe developed into an edited collection in the Palgrave Studies in Intermediality series.

If you are interested in contributing to this project, please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words to jorgen.bruhn@lnu.se.

Important Dates:
Abstract deadline: 15 October 2026

Full article manuscript deadline: 15 March 2027

Editors:
Professor Jørgen Bruhn, Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Linnaeus University Centre for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies and Silvia Kurr, Postdoctoral Researcher (University of Tartu and Linnaeus University).

References:

Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Indiana University Press, 2010.

Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007.

Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durhan and London: Duke University Press, 2010.

Bruhn, Jørgen et al. (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Intermediality. Palgrave, 2024.

Elleström, Lars. Beyond Media Borders, Vol. 1: Intermedial Relations among Multimodal Media. Palgrave, 2021.

Larrue, Jean-Marc. “Théâtre et intermédialité: une rencontre tardive.” Intermédialités 12, 2008.

Rajewsky, Irina O. Intermedialität. UTB/Franke, 2002.

Rippl, Gabriele (ed.). Handbook of Intermediality: Literature – Image – Sound – Music. De Gruyter, 2015.

Wolf, Werner. The Musicalization of Fiction: A Study in the Theory and History of Intermediality. Rodopi, 1999.