ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Soapbox 7.0

Deadline: April 30, 2025

To feel like we belong is one of our most common desires. Our bodily relation to home is not a simple one: it is marked by hostile power structures. These structures plunge the body into an interconnected web of demarcations, mediations, and hierarchisation, which determine one’s ability or failure to feel at home. Race, gender, ability, and class are factors that designate one’s sense of home. Labels further differentiate between bodies, some rendered political (“immigrant,” “refugee”), while others insidiously a-political (“expat”). How do we think with the body in ways that address its complicated relationship to home? What are the ways to engage with our bodily positionalities that may allow for a more equitable habitation?

Thinking with aestheSis that privileges sensing over totalising reasoning of aestheTics, María Lugones sees the body through its permeability, which “allows us to reconceive about the world we live in.” Turning towards the sensorial relationality, we discover that the fixed, man-made, ‘rational’ lines that demarcate home and body as separate, contain leaks. Leaks that bring the body home. For its eighth issue, Soapbox: Journal for Cultural Analysis invites (young) researchers, (established) scholars, and creatives alike to submit works that consider practices, experiences, and methodologies that uncover punctures and cavities of structures, lines, boundaries, and borders. What seeps, spills, or flows through these holes? What exists in between home and body that informs who and where we are? What are the moments when the body and home are torn apart? And when do they collapse into one?

Decolonial theory offers one perspective from which we can explore the leaks between homes and bodies. For non-Western subjects, when one has seen oneself as the Other through Western eyes, the decolonial journey begins to return to one’s bodies and homes. Quijano teaches us that the relationship between European and other cultures is one of “subject” and “object,” while Tlostanova, in her seminal paper “Can the Post-Soviet Think?,” reminds us that inventing theory “remains a privilege of the West.” Nevertheless, these man-made divisions only appear as stable and can be questioned through embodied relationality that allows “communities and social movements to defend their territories and worlds against the ravages of neoliberal globalization” (Escobar). Lugones calls for “a resistant permeable sensing” (Calderon). Vasquez speaks of worldhood and earth-hood, the possibility of being at home in and with others and with Earth that stands in opposition to the homelessness of modernity’s artifice. Taking a decolonial lens on Merleau-Ponty’s flesh and Barthes’s notion of punctum, Ortega argues that Latinx art carnally pierces with love that frees from dominant knowledges. Finally, Anzaldúa asks us to stay with the border and perceive it as a wound that offers hybridity.

other possible access points:‍

affective leaks

Sarah Ahmed writes that “being-at-home suggests that the subject and space leak into each other”: home becomes a second skin that allows for a receptive touch. What does it mean to feel at home, and how does the body sense home? Rather than spatiotemporal, can home become an emotion?

phenomenological leaks

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological attention to the in-between of the body and the world that gives form to a chiasmatic flesh has long entertained cultural scholars, with Baker and Sobchak contributing to understanding cinema as tactile. How can the phenomenological attention to bodies and the world inform our understanding of home?

architectural leaks

Architecture architectures—or builds—a predetermined relationship between subject and structure. Dwellings provide shelter just as much as they violently enclose. Ingold advocates a dwelling perspective that argues it is the surroundings that shape the mind and not the opposite. Where does the body stop and the city start?

posthuman leaks

In Tuana’s concept of viscous porosity, it is the membrane that facilitates the interactions. In what way do the permeable borders mimic membranes when choosing who to accept and who to refuse? Re-thinking the neoliberal ideal, can a better future exist within the membrane?

leaks and memory studies

How do forms of violence pertain to what Ann Laura Stoler theorizes as ‘disabled’ and ‘dissociated’ histories? What does it mean to be-long in that what no-longer exists or never existed? How does nostalgia entail a violent form of be-longing that implicates the present? (Boym).

leaks in everyday life

Marxist sociologist-philosopher Henri Lefebvre tells us that “a revolution will come about when, and only when, people can no longer live their everyday lives.” A leakage, a failure of infrastructure, may precisely set such a process in motion. At what point—while cooking, walking the dog, showering, seeing friends—do we notice the droplets dripping from the ceiling, forming a deep puddle in the centre of the living room?

the details:

We are inviting extended proposals in MLA formatting and referencing style to be submitted to submissions@soapboxjournal.net by April 30th, 2025. Each proposal must include an abstract of 300-500 words and a brief outline of the content and its order (up to 200 words, can be in bullet points!). The outline is meant to indicate the intended structuring and weighing of the various elements of your text; we understand and expect that this will change again during drafting and editing. Submissions should be sent as a file attachment to the email, and the file's content should be anonymised.

Guidelines for creative submissions are more flexible. They can be finished works, word-based or otherwise, but please keep in mind our spatial limitations: we publish and print in book format, and we have a limited number of pages to give to each submission. This year, we are also open to visual submissions (excluding moving image), provided they are accompanied by an artistic statement and an explanation of how the work connects to the theme. A sense of the formatting possibilities can be garnered from previous issues and our Instagram (open-access PDF versions are available on our website).

We will try to send out conditional acceptance emails by May 23rd. Upon acceptance, the authors of the academic essays will be asked to submit a 4000-6000-word full draft by August 25th. The editing and publishing process will span the next academic year (September 2025 - February 2026).

It would be very helpful if you could let us know in your email where you saw our CFP. If you have any questions regarding your submission, do not hesitate to contact us at submissions@soapboxjournal.net.

works referenced

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Aunt Lute Books, 1987.

Escobar, Arturo. Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke University Press, 2018.

Meda Calderon, Denise. “Decolonial Movidas: María Lugones’s Notion of Decolonial Aesthesis through Cosmologies.” The Pluralist, vol. 18, no. 1, 2023, pp. 22–31, https://doi.org/10.5406/19446489.18.1.03.

Ortega, Mariana. Carnalities. Duke University Press, 2024.

Quijano, Aníbal. “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality.” Cultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 2-3, 2007, pp. 168–178, https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601164353.

Tlostanova, Madina. “Can the Post-Soviet Think? On Coloniality of Knowledge, External Imperial and Double Colonial Difference.” Intersections, vol. 1, no. 2, 2015, pp. 38-58, https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v1i2.38.

Vazquez, Rolando. “Precedence, Earth and the Anthropocene: Decolonizing Design.” Design Philosophy Papers, vol. 15, no. 1, 2017, pp. 77-91, https://doi.org/10.1080/14487136.2017.1303130.

further suggestions

Ahmed, Sara. “Home and Away: Narratives of Migration and Estrangement.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, 1999, pp. 329–347, https://doi.org/10.1177/136787799900200303.

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

Barker, Jennifer M. The Tactile Eye: Touch and the Cinematic Experience. University Of California Press, 2009.

Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. Basic Books, 2001.

Deleuze, Gilles and Tom Conley. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. University Of Minnesota Press, 2012.

Fisher, Mark. “What Is Hauntology?” Film Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 1,2012, pp. 16–24, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2012.66.1.16.

Ingold, Tim. The Perception of the Environment. Routledge, 2000.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible. Translated by Alphonso Lingis, edited by Claude Lefort, Northwestern University Press, 1968.

Mogoș, Petrică and Laura Naum. “On Easternfuturism: Imagining Multiple Futures.” Kajet Journal, no. 05, 2022.

Lefebvre, Henri. Everyday Life in the Modern World. Translated by Sacha Rabinovitch, Harper & Row, 1971.

Parvulescu, Anca. “Eastern Europe as Method.” The Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 63, no. 4, 2019, pp. 470-481, https://doi.org/10.30851/634002.

Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics. Edited by Gabriel Rockhill, Bloomsbury Academic, 2004.

Rigney, Ann. “Remaking Memory and the Agency of the Aesthetic.” Memory Studies, vol. 14, no. 1, 2021, pp. 10–23, https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698020976456.

Sobchack, Vivian. Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture. University Of California Press, 2004.

Stoler, A. L. “Colonial Aphasia: Race and Disabled Histories in France.” Public Culture, vol. 23, no. 1, 2011, pp. 121–156, https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2010-018.

Toop, David. Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds. Serpent’s Tail, 2001.

Tuana, Nancy. “Viscous Porosity: Witnessing Katrina.” Material Feminisms, edited by Susan Hekman and Stacy Alaimo, Indiana University Press, 2008.

August 13-15, 2025

University of Helsinki, Finland

Deadline: April 10, 2025

The 31st Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication Conference will be arranged in Helsinki on 13–15 August 2025. The NIC 2025 conference theme is "Evolutions in intercultural communication: New concepts and methodologies". With this theme, we wish to encourage discussion of conceptual and methodological development in the field of intercultural communication, drawing connections between research, teaching and practice. 

In addition to those addressing the theme, we also welcome proposals that explore related aspects of intercultural communication. These are, for example, 

• Critical evaluations of theories of intercultural communication, education, or management  
  
• Migration and new or alternative forms of language, interaction, and communication 
  
• Challenges of trans/poly/cross/intercultural encounters and relationships 
  
• Decolonization and the knowledge on culture and communication 
  
• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in different spaces and settings 
  
• New questions on education and learning in multicultural societies 
  

Intercultural communication is an interest to and researched by scholars in a wide variety of fields and disciplines such as language, media and communication, multilingual and/or multicultural education, sociolinguistics, social interaction, international management, discourse studies, cultural studies, ethnic relations, and cross-cultural psychology. We welcome submissions from all.  

Abstract submission

Please submit your max 250-word abstract using the abstract form below. The abstracts will be anonymously peer reviewed. Note that all submissions should be in English and those submitting the abstract should be prepared to attend the conference in person. The deadline for submitting your abstract is April 10th, 2025. 

SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT HERE

If the abstract includes citations, please provide the appropriate references (the list of references is not included in the word count).  

Welcome to Helsinki in August!

For further details and up-to-date information, see the NIC Helsinki 2025 Conference website.

Organizing committee: Saila Poutiainen (Chair), Mélanie Buchart, Yoonjoo Cho, Niina Hynninen, Janne Niinivaara 

August 28-30, 2025

Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Deadline: April 15, 2025

Co-organised by the Slovene Communications Association 

Mid-term conference of the European Sociological Association, Research Network 18 – The Sociology of Communications and Media Research 

The small-scale and focused mid-term conferences of the European Sociological Association's Research Network 18 seek to ensure that the sociological investigation of media and communications is given full focus, distinguishing its work from that of large international associations, which provide important forums for communications and media research but do not have especially sociological concerns. 

The challenges facing societies today seem daunting even by the most volatile historical standards. These include deepening economic inequalities, class antagonisms, the rise of radical right-wing authoritarianism around the world and violent wars that may soon erupt into even wider international conflicts. Generative AI is increasingly reshaping virtually all relations, and digital tech giants are running amok along with their increasingly unhinged owners. Somewhere behind all this, looming on the horizon, is an ecological crisis. While many of these issues are intricately interlinked and, among other things, speak volumes about the deepening power imbalances and crises of liberal institutions, their causes and trajectories may be divergent and contradictory, with outcomes that seem difficult to predict. 

As the conference title suggests, no social issues can be addressed without recourse to communication or capitalism. For Hanno Hardt, critical scholar and former professor in Ljubljana, communication could be considered "the sine qua non of human existence" (1979, 1). In this sense, the study of communication must always be the first stepping stone, but one that is now influenced and shaped in various ways by digital giants and media-as-industries. Similarly, critical authors have historically regarded capitalism as a system that cannot be ignored in a holistic social analysis. Sociologist Wolfgang Streeck has, for instance, asserted "that contemporary society cannot really be understood by a sociology that makes no reference to its capitalist economy" (2012, 1). In other words, the sociology of communications and media must inevitably include or address these two of the most fundamental social relations in its research. 

In line with these premises, the conference will feature a plenary round table on digital platforms and labour and plenary talks by critical scholars who have addressed the dynamic between communication and capitalism throughout their careers: 

Kylie Jarrett (University College Dublin, Ireland) 

Graham Murdock (Loughborough University, UK) 

and Slavko Splichal (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia). 

The Communication and Capital(ism) conference aims to bring together contributions that explore the unpredictable and unstable social terrain in the era of digital capitalism. It seeks to critically engage with these issues and their consequences by focusing on the role of social communication, media, and journalism. We are looking for theoretical and empirical submissions that may include, but are not limited to, the following topics: 

• Theoretical reflections on political economy and cultural studies; 
  
• The role of critique and criticality for the sociology of media; 
  
• Digital capitalism, imperialism and colonialism; 
  
• Digital platforms and tech giants; 
  
• Labour and platformisation of working conditions; 
  
• Capital, class, gender, and race; 
  
• Global media corporations and media-as-industries; 
  
• Capitalism and journalism; 
  
• Sociology of news; 
  
• The material and ideological impact of advertising; 
  
• Transformations in political communication; 
  
• Democracy and democratic transformations; 
  
• The public sphere; 
  
• (Re-)presentations in journalism and the media; 
  
• Possible alternatives to the existing political/economic malaise and digital capitalism. 

Abstract submission: 

Abstract submission deadline: extended until 15 April 2025 

Notification of selected abstracts: 15 May 2025 

Conference dates: 28-30 August 2025 

Abstracts should be sent to: Conference Organising Committee, 

rn18esasubmission@gmail.com 

Abstracts should be sent as an e-mail attachment (400-600 words including title, author name(s), email address(es), and institutional affiliation(s)). Please insert the words "ESA RN18 Submission" in the subject. Although we do not provide a template for the abstract submission, we expect abstracts that include a rationale, research question(s), theoretical and/or empirical methods applied, and potential results and implications. Each abstract will be independently reviewed by two members of the ESA RN18 Board based on the call for papers.

Limerick, Ireland

We are happy to announce that we have a permanent position on staff here in the Department of Media and Communication Studies in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland.

The title may be confusing “Assistant Professor” but  the grade is that of “Lecturer”.  This is a higher level than the title used in the advertisement may show, it is not a junior position. The salary scale reflects that. It is €63,309 to €101,462.

The job specification and application form are available here: https://www.mic.ul.ie/about-mic/vacancies

The closing date is 22nd April.

September 29-October 2, 2024

Puchberg, Austria

Deadline: April 30, 2025

Join us at the first DCLead Salzburg School taking place from 29 September to 2 October 2025 in Puchberg, Austria!

This four-day PhD School invites early-stage researchers (PhDs and advanced MA students) to explore global perspectives on communication, sustainability, and social good. The programme includes workshops & academic feedback,  keynote talks, and excursions. It awards 5 ECTS credits, then working language is English. 

The application deadline for the DCLead Salzburg School is 30 April 2025. The application must include an abstract (3,000–6,000 characters), a motivation letter (up to 5,000 characters), and the details of a referee, including their email address.

Fee: € 490 / € 250 (based on currency strength; includes accommodation, meals, excursions)

Find more information on our homepage https://dclead.eu/ and apply now!

Helena Atteneder, Olaf Kühne, Timo Sedelmeier

Publisher: Springer, 2025

Link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-80707-7

The book offers an interdisciplinary introduction to cartographic representations as multimedia constructs, drawing from media and communication studies, geography, and cartography. It addresses both theoretical foundations and practical applications, with examples from public discourse on climate change, COVID-19, and the war in Ukraine.

We hope this publication will be of interest to scholars working in media geographies, visual communication, and critical cartography.

Please let me know if you need any further details or a short blurb.

Thank you very much in advance – I’d greatly appreciate it!

Warm regards,

Helena Atteneder

October 30-31, 2025 

Stockholm, Sweden 

Deadline: May 1, 2025 

The conference aims to foster engaged debates about, and a comprehensive understanding of, challenges related to the quickly transforming algorithmic society, for media users across Europe. We welcome a wide range of approaches and look forward to discussions that will contribute to scientific analysis of our contemporary media world. 

Read more: https://www.sh.se/english/sodertorn-university/calendar/events/2025-10-30-ecrea-audience-and-reception-studies-2025 

Ipek A. Celik Rappas

Cornell University Press, 2025

Filming in European Cities explores the effort behind creating screen production locations. Ipek A. Celik Rappas accounts the rising demand for original and affordable locations for screen projects due to the growth of streaming platforms. As a result, screen professionals are repeatedly tasked with chores such as transforming a former factory in Istanbul to resemble a war zone in Aleppo, or finding a London street that evokes Barcelona. 

Celik Rappas highlights the pivotal role crew members play in transforming cities and locations into functional screen settings. Examining five European media capitals—Athens, Belfast, Berlin, Istanbul, and Paris—the book delves into the overlooked aspects of location-related screen labor and its ability to generate production value. Filming in European Cities demonstrates that in its perpetual quest for authentic filming locations, the screen industry extracts value from cities and neighborhoods, their marginalized residents, and screen labor, enriching itself through this triple exploitation. 

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501779985/filming-in-european-cities/#bookTabs=1 

Please use code 09BCARD for 30% discount 

Media Industries, Media Geography, European Studies

Edited By: Nelson Ribeiro, Barbie Zelizer

ISBN 9781032756011, March 2025, Routledge

A critical and timely collection that argues for the centrality of propaganda in discussions about the contemporary media landscape and its informational ecosystems.

This book explores how “propaganda,” a foundational concept within media and communication studies, has recently been replaced by alternative terms (disinformation, misinformation, and fake news) that fail to capture the continuities and disruptions of ongoing strategic attempts to (mis)guide public opinion. Edited by Nelson Ribeiro and Barbie Zelizer, the collection highlights how these concepts must be understood as part of a long legacy of propaganda and not just as new phenomena that have emerged in the context of the digital media environment. Chapters explore the strategies and effects of propaganda through a variety of globally diverse case studies, featuring both democracies and autocratic regimes, and highlight how only by understanding propagandistic forms and strategies can we fully begin to understand how public opinion is being molded today by those who resort to deception and falsehood to gain or keep hold of power.

An important resource for students and scholars of media and communication studies and those who are studying and/or researching media and propaganda, media and power, disinformation, fake news, and political communication.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Groningen University, Centre for Media and Journalism Studies

We’re happy to announce that we are taking applications for 3 fully funded positions at the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands! 

The open PhD positions offer unique opportunities to work in an internationally recognized research centre and gain valuable research experience at a top-ranked European university. As a PhD candidate, you will develop your own research project in consultation with the supervisory team. You will conduct independent and original academic research and report results via peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and ultimately a PhD dissertation. The PhD thesis is to be completed within four years. You are also requested to teach. 

The Groningen Centre for Media and Journalism Studies conducts interdisciplinary research in the field of media and journalism studies. It aims to do cutting-edge research that addresses issues that are essential to understand processes of communication in an increasingly mediatized society. 

The positions will all be associated with the CMJS, with an expected start date in September 2025. Deadline for applications is 30 April 2025. 

Open positions:

Gendered Visual Disinformation

This PhD project investigates disinformation at the intersections of gender, visual communication, and political discourse. It studies how women politicians’ intersectional identities are targeted in false and misleading (visual, GenAI) content (e.g., deepfakes), and explores how such discourse poses new challenges for women’s political representation in democratic discourse and civic life. 

For more information: e.r.amit-danhi@rug.nl or m.gehrke@rug.nl  

For the full ad and application link: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-02S000B8ZP 

Uncovering Women’s Cultural Production in India’s Marathi Film Industry Archives

This PhD project investigates the representation and preservation of feminist and women’s cultural heritage within India's Marathi film industry archives. We are particularly interested in projects invested in studying the Marathi film industry post-independence, including any period between 1947-2025. This project aims to (a) address the gaps in archival material related to women's contributions to Marathi cinema and (b) explore how these representations have evolved and what they reveal about broader industrial and socio-cultural changes over time.

For more information: a.v.m.copeland@rug.nl or s.n.mehta@rug.nl  

For the full ad and application link: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-02S000B8YP 

Media literacy as resilience for Ukrainian refugees

This PhD project will study how Ukrainian refugee families in The Netherlands use and co-develop media literacy skills to cope with wartime information challenges. The project will involve ethnographic (including traditional and digital ethnography) work with Ukrainian refugees in The Netherlands, following their daily media use practices to develop a theoretical framework and practical tools for building resilience against disinformation and mediated trauma during war

For more information: o.pasitselska@rug.nl or a.neag@rug.nl

For the full ad and application link: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-02S000B8JP