CFP - Young Researchers' Study Day: 'Sociability and the Travelling Letter: Message, Medium, Mobility in Europe and the Colonies in the Long Eighteenth Century (1650-1850)'

CFP - Young Researchers' Study Day

'Sociability and the Travelling Letter: Message, Medium, Mobility 
in Europe and the Colonies in the Long Eighteenth Century (1650-1850)'

Study Day for PhD Students and Early-Career Researchers

Friday 13 March 2026

University of Western Brittany (Brest)

Download the full CFP in French and English

The long eighteenth century is widely recognised by scholars as a golden age of letter writing, characterised by the expansion of transnational and transatlantic correspondence networks among the elites. Particularly in Britain, this period witnessed an unprecedented enthusiasm for epistolary exchange, which led to a proliferation of publications—ranging from scholarly productions such as theoretical treatises and letter-writing manuals, to literary works, whether fictional, sentimental, general, or biographical. These developments contributed to a redefinition of epistolary conventions, narrative models, and often gendered representations of letter writing. At the same time, advances in transportation, infrastructure, and especially postal systems reshaped the practice of correspondence, a social activity subjected to material conditions that constrain the writing, circulation, and preservation of the letter.

            While scholarship over the past decades has developed critical tools for analysing the letter as a “form in transit” (Diaz, 2002:8), a hybrid and multivocal text-object (Diaz, 2002:68), the systematic mapping of epistolary networks remains relatively recent. Similarly, new approaches have emerged from studies focusing on the social dimensions of correspondence and on the various sub-genres of epistolary writing. These approaches often take the form of transdisciplinary inquiries, examining the relationship between letter writing and other cultural practices—foremost among them, travel. Pierre-Jean Dufief’s formulation captures well this dynamic: “The letter travels—naturally, necessarily” (Dufief, 2007:5). Whether considering the conditions of writing, the contexts of its “nomadism,” or the diverse forms of interaction it enables—with others, with distant places, or with the self—the letter serves to expand, extend, and reconfigure the space of dialogue. In this sense, it constitutes a space of sociability in its own right, where multiple elements intersect—voices, commonplaces, imaginaries—bringing together senders, recipients, and readers who all share in the imperative of movement imposed by the text that connects them. The focus is no longer solely on what the letter communicates, but on what it embodies.

This study day aims to explore the dynamics of intermediation and interdependence that emerge between the letter and its various forms of circulation—whether material or symbolic—by focusing on three main thematic axes:

• Message (the meaning of the letter, what it conveys);
• Medium (the materiality of the letter and its potential—as a medium, a vehicle for ideas, knowledge, emotions, or forms of sociability);
• Mobility (logistical considerations, the physical or symbolic, real or imagined journey it entails, and the movements of the letter itself).

Proposals that engage with two of these three axes, as well as comparative approaches, are particularly encouraged. In this perspective, presentations may consider the following directions:

• The materiality of the letter and the logistical infrastructures that shape epistolary exchange. This includes questions about how the physical journey—whether through postal services, maritime routes, or other channels of circulation—and the constraints inherent in this mobility may have affected the reception (or misdelivery) of letters, and, by extension, the quality and nature of the relationships between senders and recipients.
• The materiality of the letter, handwritten or otherwise, and the meaning it reveals—or conceals. Papers may examine the paratextual elements of letters, as well as the traces of time—drawings, tears, markings, signs—that transform both the message and the value attributed to the letter.
• The letter as a medium not limited to the transmission or exchange of information, but also as a vehicle for establishing and maintaining social bonds, articulating both a discursive and a tangible dimension.
• The narrative dimension of the letter, understood through its capacity to extend the journey of the sender or the recipient by means of description or sensory evocation. In this way, the letter may function as a site of figurative travel, transferring the experience of “elsewhere” onto the page.

Submission guidelines:

This study day is primarily aimed at PhD candidates, early-career researchers, and recent doctoral graduates. Proposals from Master’s students are also warmly welcomed.

Individual proposals, in English or French, should include:

• Your full name, academic status, institutional affiliation, and discipline,
• The paper title and a short abstract (300 words),
• A brief biographical and bibliographical note.

Please send proposals by Monday December 15, 2025 to je.travellingletter@gmail.com.

Presentations (English preferred) should not exceed 20 minutes.

Notification of acceptance will be sent during the first week of January 2026.

The study day will take place in person at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Brest, 20 rue Duquesne, Brest, on Friday March 13, 2026.

This scientific event is supported by the GIS Sociability (https://gis-sociabilites.org/). It falls within the 2022-2026 scientific program, under the following categories:

*Sociability of Things: Sociability and objects (The circulation of commodities: from local to global perspective)

*Sociability and Travel: The Traveller’s Sociability (Means of transportation, The logistics of hospitality: planning, letters of introduction)

Organisation committee: Marilou Guen (HCTI, UBO), Diana Rodová (CRBC & HCTI, UBO), Adnana Sava (HCTI, UBO)

Scientific committee: Valérie Capdeville (ACE, Rennes 2), Alain Kerhervé (HCTI, UBO), Kimberley Page-Jones (HCTI, UBO)

Selected bibliography:

• Bourguinat, Nicolas, et Dziub, Nikol (dir.). L’amitié dans la littérature de voyage. Usages et représentations (XVIIIe-XXe siècle). Strasbourg, Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, coll. « Configurations littéraires », 2024.
• Casanova, Pascale. La République mondiale des lettres. Paris, Éditions du Seuil, coll. « Points », 2008.
• Cossic-Péricarpin, Annick, et Ingram, Allan. La Sociabilité en France et en Grande-Bretagne au Siècle des Lumières. L’Émergence d’un nouveau modèle de société. Tome I : Les vecteurs d'une nouvelle sociabilité – entre ludique et politique. Paris, Transversales. Éditions Le Manuscrit, 2012.
• Diaz, Brigitte. L’Épistolaire ou la pensée nomade. Paris, PUF, 2002.
• Diaz, Brigitte, et Siess, Jürgen (dir.). L’épistolaire au féminin. Correspondances de femmes (XVIIIe-XXe siècles). Caen, Presses universitaires de Caen, 2006.
• DIGITENS. Digital Encyclopedia of European Sociability (1650-1850). URL : https://www.digitens.org/en (consulté le 15 septembre 2025).
• Dufief, Pierre-Jean (dir.), La Lettre de voyage, textes réunis et présentés par Pierre-Jean Dufief. Actes du Colloque de Brest, 18-20 novembre 2004. Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, coll. « Interférences », 2007.
• Fumaroli, Marc. The Republic of Letters, trad. Lara Vergnaud. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2018.
• Hoock-Demarle, Marie-Claire. L’Europe des Lettres. Réseaux épistolaires et construction de l’espace européen. Paris, Albin Michel, 2008.
• Hulme, Tim, et Youngs, Tim (dir.). The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Keller-Privat, Isabelle, et Schwerdtner, Karin (dir.). La lettre trace du voyage à l’époque moderne et contemporaine. Paris, Presses universitaires de Paris-Nanterre, coll. « Chemins croisés », 2019.
• Kerhervé, Alain, et Léonard-Roques, Véronique (dir.). Amitiés épistolaires en France et au Royaume-Uni. Des Lumières à l’aube de la Grande Guerre. Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, coll. « Interférences », 2025.
• Kerhervé, Alain. De la théorie à la pratique : le rôle des manuels épistolaires anglais du XVIIIe siècle. Paris, Honoré Champion, 2025.
• Kerhervé, Alain, et Thomas-Ripault, Catherine (dir.). First Letters in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
• Kerhervé, Alain, et Capdeville, Valérie. British Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century. Challenging the Anglo-French Connection. 2019.
• Kerhervé, Alain. « Matérialité de l’écriture épistolaire au XVIIIe siècle ». Motifs, 2, 2018.
• Müller, Jürgen E. « Vers l’intermédialité. Histoires, positions et options d’un axe de pertinence ». MédiaMorphoses, vol. 16, n° 1, 2006, p. 99-110. URL : https://www.persee.
  fr/doc/memor_1626-1429_2006_num_16_1_1138 (consulté le 15 septembre 2025).
• Orrje, Jacob. « The Logistics of the Republic of Letters: Mercantile Undercurrents of Early Modern Scholarly Knowledge Circulation ». The British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 53, n° 3, 2020, p. 351–369.
• Page-Jones, Kimberley, et Léonard-Roques, Véronique. « Festive Spaces and Patriotic Sociabilities in the Letters of Rachel Charlotte Biggs and Helen Maria Williams », dans Valérie Capdeville et Pierre Labrune (dir.), Sociable Spaces in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Material and Visual Experience. Études anglaises, vol. 74, n° 3, 2021.
• Planté, Christine (dir.). L’Épistolaire, un genre féminin ? Paris, Champion, 1998.
• Roche, Daniel. Humeurs vagabondes : de la circulation des hommes et de l’utilité des voyages. Paris, Fayard, 2003.
• Sapiro, Gisèle. « Réseaux, institutions et champs », dans Daphné de Marneffe et Benoît Denis (dir.), Les Réseaux littéraires. Bruxelles, LE CRI/CIEL-ULB-Ug, 2006.
• Schobesberger, Nikolaus, Arblaster, Paul, Infelise, Mario, Belo, André, Moxham, Noah, et al. (dir.). European Postal Networks. News Networks in Early Modern Europe. Leiden, BRILL, 2016, p. 17-63.
• Thompson, Carl. Travel Writing. London / New York, Routledge, 2011.
• Venayre, Sylvain. Panorama du voyage, 1780-1920 : mots, figures, pratiques. Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2012.
• Viviès, Jean. Le récit de voyage en Angleterre au XVIIIe siècle : de l'inventaire à l'invention. Toulouse, Presses universitaires du Mirail, 1999.