ESPRit is pleased to share details of a new funded PhD studentship based at Northumbria University, in partnership with the British Library.

The project

This project — The Northern Echo and the Politics of Place (here's the link to the project description)—offers a unique opportunity for doctoral research that aims to challenge conventional understandings of nineteenth-century press history. Through a detailed case study of The Northern Echo, first published in 1870 and once described as “the best newspaper in Europe”, the successful candidate will investigate how this title reshapes our conception of the so-called ‘provincial’ press and its role in shaping national discourse.

Using innovative methodologies and drawing on digitised collections at the British Library, the project will re-examine the significance of regional newspapers within the broader British media landscape of the late Victorian period.

The doctoral researcher will be based at Northumbria University, with additional skills development placements at both the British Library and The Northern Echo itself.

Key Dates & Information

 🗓️ Application deadline: 31 May 2025

🎤 Interviews scheduled: June 2025

🎓 Project start date: October 2025

📍 Location: Northumbria University, with placements at the British Library and The Northern Echo

How to Apply

We strongly encourage potential applicants to contact the project supervisor, Dr Helena Goodwyn, to discuss the opportunity at an early stage.

🔗 For full details and to apply, please visit:
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/postgraduate-research-degrees/studentships/nbc-dtp/

 We are pleased to announce the upcoming ESPRit online seminars on the topic of "Periodicals and the Law". You are invited to submit proposals for presentations that will explore the intersection of law and media in diverse contexts. These seminars provide a platform for engaging with contemporary issues in media law and the various legal frameworks shaping press practices globally.

Seminar Focus: The subject matter of the seminars will be shaped by the participants' proposals. Suggested topics for consideration include, but are not limited to:

• Press Regulation and Practices: Examining how press regulation varies across national contexts and the legal implications.
• Legal Professions in the Media: Exploring the roles of journalists, lawyers, and lawmakers in shaping press regulation and practices.
• Intellectual Property and Copyright: Delving into issues related to protected works (printed and visual materials), moral rights (appropriation art, remixes), ownership (authors, editors, photographers), exceptions (fair use), infringements, and licensing (Creative Commons).
• Civil Law Protection: Discussing privacy rights, personal data protection, and right of publicity.
• AI and Copyright Law: Investigating the intersection of artificial intelligence and copyright laws in print and visual media (a new and evolving subject).
• Fiscal Policies: Understanding the fiscal implications of media laws and regulations.
• Libel Legislation: Examining defamation laws and their impact on media.
• Obscenity Laws: Analyzing legal frameworks around obscenity and media content.
• State Censorship and Restrictions: Considering the role of state censorship, court injunctions, and security restrictions, including the persecution of media professionals.
• Ownership and Antitrust Laws: Discussing restrictions on media ownership, such as anti-trust and anti-monopoly regulations.
• Media Advertising Laws: Reviewing the legal landscape for advertising within the media.
• Reporter Access Laws: Investigating legal barriers to reporter access, including geographic restrictions and military zones.

Seminar Format: Each seminar will be conducted via Zoom and will last for one hour. Presentations will include either a 20-30 minute keynote paper or two 15-minute papers followed by an interactive discussion. With the consent of both speakers and participants, seminars will be recorded and made available on ESPRit's YouTube channel for wider accessibility.

Call for Participation: We would be delighted if you could join us as a speaker in these seminars. If you have expertise in one of the listed topics or are engaged in relevant research, we encourage you to submit a proposal.

How to Participate: To submit your proposal or express interest, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Monday, 3 March 2025. Additionally, please indicate your availability to participate, as exact seminar dates are yet to be determined.

ESPRIT is pleased to announce the launch of the fourth series of ESPRit Online Seminars on Periodicals and the Law. This series will feature two presentations examining the legal and cultural dimensions of periodical publishing, with a particular focus on image rights, censorship, and transnational media flows.

23 May 2025, 14:00 CEST

Chair: Gábor Dobó

Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel
Professor at the University of Geneva, Chair of Digital Humanities
‘The Legal Labyrinth of Image-Based Research: Insights from the Visual Contagions Project’

Copyright law remains one of the most frustrating obstacles for art historians—especially for those working with illustrations from periodicals, and even more so when dealing with large-scale digitized corpora. At the heart of the issue lies a challenge: identifying, dating, and locating the publication of images. Drawing on the Visual Contagions project—a research initiative on globalization through images in the 19th and 20th centuries—this presentation will highlight key moments where legal considerations around copyright (including reproduction, dissemination, and data mining) must be taken into account. It will also outline some of the strategies developed to navigate these constraints.

Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel is a full professor at the University of Geneva, Chair of Digital Humanities. She leads the Visual Contagions project, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, which focuses on the global circulation of images in the 20th century. A specialist in artistic and cultural globalization, she is widely recognized for her trilogy on the global and social history of avant-gardes, published by Gallimard (paperback: volumes 1 and 2) and CNRS Editions (volume 3) (English translation in progress for Brill publishings). Last publication: L'Art contemporain. Une infographie, with Guillemette Crozet (Paris:CNRS Editions, 2024).

23 June 2025, 15:00 CEST

Chair: Andrew Hobbes

Céline Mansanti
University of Picardie-Jules Verne, France
‘La Vie Parisienne in the 1920s US: “New Puritanism”, Censorship and Self-Censorship’

This presentation is based on a work in progress on the cultural transfer of La Vie parisienne and other humorous French magazines (such as Le Rire, Le Sourire, Le Journal amusant, etc.) to the US between 1913 and 1939. Cumulatively attracting millions of French readers during the Belle Époque (roughly between the 1870s and 1914), these French light, comic, risqué, satirical illustrated magazines had a rich, second, later life in the US where they contributed to massive reactions against the “new Puritanism” (Mencken) prevailing in the American society. In particular, they helped reshape the magazine landscape when “sex o’clock” (Current Opinion, vol. 55, n°2, August 1913) started to chime around 1913, contributing, in the 1910s, to the modernization of the triad of classic humor magazines (Puck, Judge, Life) and helping a “smart” magazine such as Vanity Fair find its distinctive, sophisticated voice; encouraging the creation of a set of small humorous magazines in the 1920s (such as French Frolics La Vie Parisienne, French Humor, Joe Burten’s magazines); and taking part in the birth of a whole line of French-themed spicy pulps (such as Parisienne Monthly, Gay Parisienne, Paris Nights, and La Paree Stories), mostly in the 1930s. In this talk, I will focus on La Vie parisienne and show how, in the 1920s, this magazine inspired several American publications (fully-fledged magazines or “Vie parisienne” issues of existing magazines) committed to fighting “new Puritanism”. A good number of these publications printed approximate copies of La Vie parisienne’s risqué illustrations, triggering censorship actions reported in the press. Censorship in turn generated self-censorship phenomena. Studying how censorship operations were reported in the press of the time and comparing some of the original illustrations published in La Vie parisienne with those copied in these American publications should help us highlight some of the censorship and self-censorship mechanisms in the “new Puritan” America of the 1920s and see that the “Roaring Twenties” did not roar for everyone everywhere.

Céline Mansanti is an associate professor in American history at the University of Picardie-Jules Verne in France. She wrote her PhD thesis on transition magazine (La revue transition, 1927-1938, le modernisme historique en devenir, Rennes, PUR, 2009). Her field of interest is the cultural history of the United States and its relationships with Europe in the first half of the 20^th century, with a special focus on periodicals. She is currently writing a manuscript entitled “‘Sex O’Clock in America’: The cultural transfer of La Vie parisienne, Le Rire, and other French humorous magazines to the US, 1913-1939”.

Registration

The seminar is free, and all are welcome to attend.
➡️ To receive the Zoom link for the seminar by Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel please fill in the Registration Form by clicking here.

➡️To receive the Zoom link for the seminar by Céline Mansanti please fill in the Registration Form by clicking here.

ESPRit Postgraduate Workshop on Periodical Studies

Call for Papers

13^th International ESPRit Conference (Málaga, 2025)

3 September 2025

Universidad de Málaga

Deadline for applications: 17 February 2025

We are pleased to announce that a postgraduate workshop will be held on 3 September 2025 alongside the 13^th ESPRit Conference “Periodicals as Cultural Assemblages”.

The workshop is open to all postgraduate students working on any topic related to periodicals from any historical, geographical or cultural perspective.

Candidates should provide the following documents:

1. An academic CV showing your studies, scholarly interests, and any other important merits/publications.

2. A 500-word formal abstract for the Workshop. Please avoid case studies. Focus instead on specific methodological approaches pertaining to periodical studies. Workshops presentations should last 10 minutes.

3. A statement specifying how your proposal relates to periodical studies. Please indicate if this area of study is not familiar to you.

4. A one-page outline of your on-going research or PhD thesis (in the latter case specify: title, supervisor, affiliation, and approximate date of completion).

If you want to submit a proposal, please send these documents to the organisers (Subject: “ESPRit Postgraduate Workshop on Periodical Studies”) at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 17 February 2025. The main working language of the conference is English, but proposals for papers in other languages will be taken into consideration as long as they are presented according to specific instructions agreed upon with the organizers.

We hope to see you in Málaga!

Selecting Committee:

Rosario Arias, University of Málaga
Sara Robles Ávila, University of Málaga
Evanghelia Stead, UVSQ Paris-Saclay
Gábor Dobó, Kassák Museum (PIM–MNMKK)
Laurel Brake, Birkbeck, University of London
Sophie van den Elzen, Utrecht University