Archiving and Curating Women’s Media Histories: Feminist Approaches, Practices, Possibilities
Weds 16th June – Friday 18th June, 2027
University of Exeter, UK
We are pleased to announce that the 8th iteration of the Women’s Film and Television History Network UK and Ireland conference will take place between the 16th and 18th June, 2027, at the University of Exeter, UK:
https://womensscreenwork.exeter.ac.uk/events/conference/
A key theme of the conference will be ‘Archiving and Curating Women’s Media Histories: Feminist Approaches, Practices and Possibilities’. The theme will foreground the importance of archivists and curators in the dynamic processes of doing women’s media histories. The archival turn in women’s media histories has produced a rich tradition of new work and has innovated enabling methodologies. This conference seeks to foster further dialogue among archival researchers, professional archivists, and curators in media heritage collections to better understand how the archival discovery and recovery of feminist historiography is always intertwined with archival and curatorial labour, practices, and processes. The conference aims to explore feminist approaches to archival and curatorial practice, and to acknowledge the importance of archivists and curators in the shared project of Doing Women’s Media Histories, but we will also welcome papers on feminist media histories outside of the key theme. Our definition of women is inclusive.
Building on the success of the 7th conference at the University of Lincoln in 2025, this three-day event will again be in person and welcome international scholars, archivists, curators, and practitioners to foster conversations and collaborations within and beyond the panels.
The conference is supported by the AHRC-funded Women’s Screen Work in Archives Made Visible project, hosted by the project team, and organised by Helen M Hanson, Shelley Cobb and Lisa Smithstead.
Confirmed Keynote: Professor Melanie Williams (University of East Anglia). Further confirmed keynote speakers will be announced in due course.
Call for Papers
We are calling for papers on all aspects of feminist media histories, but especially those that respond to the theme, on topics such as, but not limited to:
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Feminist archival ethics, care, and affective labour in media heritage work
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Community-led, activist, and grassroots feminist archiving practices
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Questions of preservation, access, and sustainability for archiving born-digital women’s screen work
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Curatorial storytelling, exhibition design, and feminist modes of interpretation
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Power, absence, and silence: confronting gaps and exclusions in women’s screen work archives
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Collaboration between scholars, archivists, and cultural institutions as feminist praxis
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Teaching women’s screen work histories through archives, collections, and/or curatorial projects
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
We welcome proposals in the following three formats:
1. Individual 15-minute presentations, including the following information:
- title
- 250-word abstract
- brief biography of the author(s)
2. Pre-constituted panels with a maximum of 4 speakers (panel length will be 90 minutes and should include at least 15 minutes for discussion). Pre-constituted panel proposals should include:
- short (250-word) rationale statement, explaining the constitution of the panel and types of contributions it will include
- individual abstracts (250 word)
- brief biography of all contributors
*Panels can also be constituted as roundtables, workshops or other non-standard forms. Please contact the organising team to discuss ideas.
3. Practice-led contributions which address women’s histories in film, television and audio/visual media are encouraged. Please submit:
- a 250-word description
- running time
- display requirements
- links to an excerpt and/or full work
- brief biography of creator(s)
Please submit proposals via this form.
Please send any enquiries to: WomensScreenWork@exeter.ac.uk
