Brussels 2026
Periodicals and the World
📅 Dates: 9–11 September 2026
đź“Ť Location: Royal Library of Belgium (KBR), Brussels
The 14th ESPRit Conference, Periodicals and the World, took place at the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels from 9 to 11 September 2026. It explored how periodicals have moved across borders, connected people and ideas, and shaped understandings of the world. The conference also considered magazines and newspapers as worlds in their own right, with distinctive editorial practices, communities and ways of seeing.
The programme brought together research on periodical cultures across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Sessions addressed translation and cultural mediation, colonial and postcolonial print cultures, transnational networks, visual and material forms, and the circulation of literature, images and knowledge. Other panels examined fashion and children’s magazines, political and commercial periodicals, and digital approaches to periodical research. A postgraduate workshop formed part of the opening day.
Three keynote lectures approached the conference theme from different perspectives:
- Stefano Evangelista, “At Home in the World: Translation and the Idea of World Literature in Esperanto Periodicals at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”
- Barbara Mittler, “Changing Worlds — Rethinking Histories and Herstories in Global China: A View from the Entertainment Press, 2000s–2010s”
- Christopher Ouma, “Black Possibility: Small Magazines and Pan-African Imagination”
Beyond the formal sessions, the conference offered many opportunities for conversation and exchange. Discussions continued during breaks, over the conference dinner, and in the time participants spent together in Brussels. The photographs below capture these moments alongside the keynote lectures and paper presentations, offering a record of both the research shared at KBR and the community that gathered around it.
