Call for papers – no. 46 “Growing Up / Grandir”

Call for papers

n° 46 (Fall 2025)

Intermediality. History and Theory of the Arts, Literature, and Technologies

Intermédialités. Histoire et théorie des arts, des lettres et des techniques

Sous la direction de :

Growing Up

Change of state, transition, encounter with norms, first times. Childhood and adolescence, categories with a social and historical function, are spaces conducive to forms of scenaristic and formal inventiveness as well as territories in which discourses on the role of the media develop, clarifying the ways of thinking about the latter in our cultures. Our focus on the process of growing up and the ways in which it is put into narrative encourages the development of rich reflections on various intermedia practices: the relationship between text and image, text and sound, analog and digital images, for example.

This issue of Intermédialités / Intermediality explores the ways in which film, television, literature, and digital media narrate and shape the delicate journey of growing up. In what ways does a transhistorical, transcultural, and intermedial perspective enable us to update and deconstruct the notion of the coming-of-age narrative?

A paradoxical moment of negation—“the adolescent is neither a child nor an adult” (Bourdieu 1980, Vultur 2021)—the passage from childhood to adulthood enables creators to tell stories capable of deviating from a heterocentric, colonial perspective, or one marked out by norms perceived as stable and absolute. Indeed, while growing up may constitute an “emancipation,” it is important to demystify the universalizing scope of the concept of “growing up well.” Thus, some content critically deconstructs the linear development of the human being, demystifying the process of growing up in relation to the pressures of conformity and adequacy to norms of productivity and performance, including that of achieving “happiness” (Ahmed 2010). Some narratives, too, focus on situations in which the possibility of growing up is forbidden or where the subject doesn’t want to grow up, or they question the political significance and radical potential of disobedience (Gros 2018, Didi-Huberman 2021).

Think of literature in the eighteenth century, when the first books to “train” children appeared; or the twentieth century, when silent and animated films were geared towards children. This transitional period also ties in well with the notion of the indiscipline of television (Uricchio 2020) and, more specifically, with the complex narratives of serial storytelling in contemporary television spread over several episodes and conducive to forms of wandering, vulnerability, and hesitation. More broadly, in line with the cultural eclecticism observable in the younger generations (Glevarec 2013), narratives about childhood and adolescence massively question the boundaries between media, with hybrid narratives frequently amalgamating various artistic forms (cinema, television, literature, videogame productions, graphic novels, music videos, collage, etc.). When we look at representations of childhood and works aimed at children, questions of media hierarchy arise. These encourage us to think about the relationship between elite and niche markets in literature and audiovisual media and how these relationships have changed over time.

Within the same framework, we can study specific media practices and their impact: the role of social networks, binge watching, AI in education and homework, multiplayer online games as community spaces or sources of isolation, or online programming (coding) and audiovisual creation.

These phenomena lend themselves to intermedial analysis and approaches from the digital humanities.We can also address, within this framework, the role of technology and the presence of the screen as guardian (think of discourses on television as a “good” or “bad” “teacher”) in order to understand mediality as a presence that affects the process of growing up.

Grandir/Growing Up therefore aims to bring together specialists from several fields to study the trajectories of growth depicted in the media to confront the tensions they construct between past, present, and future. The aim of the issue is therefore to offer an insight into the ways in which these norms are established, to deepen knowledge concerning the representation of cultural and media practices that characterize growing up, and, finally, to highlight critical and creative alternatives, from a transhistorical, transcultural, and intermedial perspective.

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Intermédialités/Intermediality is a biannual journal, which publishes original articles in French and English evaluated through a blind peer review process.

Proposals (350–400 words) in English or French should include an abstract, a preliminary bibliography (five books or articles), and a brief biographical note (academic program, fields of interest, 5–10 lines). Proposals will be evaluated by the journal’s Scientific Committee based on the originality of the approach and thematic relevance. They should be sent to the guest editors (marta.boni@umontreal.ca and boisvert.stefany@uqam.ca.) by July 19, 2024.

Completed texts should be sent before January 25, 2025. They should be no longer than 6,000 words (40,000 characters, including spaces) and can incorporate illustrations (audio, visual, still, or animated) whose publication rights should be secured by the authors.

Authors are requested to follow the submission guidelines available at:

[FR] http://cri.histart.umontreal.ca/cri/fr/intermedialites/protocole-de-redaction.pdf

[EN] http://cri.histart.umontreal.ca/cri/fr/intermedialites/submission-guidelines.pdf

For more information on Intermédialités/Intermedialities, please consult the journal issues available through the online portal Érudit: http://www.erudit.org/revue/im/apropos.html

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