Conference 2025
Revolution and Resurgence:
Celebrating Feminist Publishing
Workshop/Conference/Hybrid event
Where: Mount Saint Vincent University, Kjipuktuk (Halifax)
Dates: November 28-29, 2025
Keynote Speaker: Professor Hannah McGregor, Simon Fraser University
Deadline for proposals: June 15, 2025
The first editors of Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal (1975) declared: “We take Atlantis as a symbol of the lost kingdom which women are striving to rediscover by discovering themselves.” At a time of increasing neoliberalism and neo-imperialism, the current editors of Atlantis similarly seek to recover and rediscover feminist subjectivities. We also view feminist publishing as an act of revolution that makes space for the development of radical, innovative feminist theories and praxes.
In 2025, Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice celebrates our 50th year of publishing critical feminist research, commentary, literary work, and visual art. To mark this occasion, we are holding a two-day, hybrid conference at Mount Saint Vincent University, Kjipuktuk (Halifax). This event invites bold feminist perspectives that reflect on the past, present, and future of publishing, including its practices and processes. We define “publishing” broadly to include diverse means and forms of communicating to an audience. This includes publishing print and digital text, as well as audio, video, and multimedia publishing.
With a focus on feminist, gender, and sexualities research and creative expression, this event aims to examine the worlds of academic and non-academic publishing to mark the inroads feminist initiatives have made while acknowledging the challenges that lay ahead.
We welcome proposals for traditional academic research papers in addition to those that offer experiences and insights from writers, editors, and publishers working in the field; hands-on workshops; and readings and performances that adopt interdisciplinary perspectives and speak to the complexity of publishing. Topics may include (but not limited to):
• Open access and anti-capitalist publishing ventures
• Anti-colonial and decolonial publishing models
• Indigenous experiences/with perspectives on publishing
• Grassroots mobilization and community activism
• “Old” and “new” modes of publishing (e.g., digital platforms, podcasting, oral-history projects)
• Funding opportunities and their limitations
• What counts as “research”; alternate forms of research communication/knowledge mobilization
• Histories of feminist, women’s, and/or gender-focused publishers, magazines, journals
• The politics of authorship and marginalized writers
• The role of AI in writing, editing, translation, and publishing
• Copyright, intellectual property, and other issues of ownership
• Censorship, deviancy, penalizations, and book-banning
• Book history and/or periodical studies (production, distribution, and reception of written, printed, and illustrated texts)
• Foundational figures in the feminist publishing field
• “The personal is political”: writing the self and lived experience
• Visionary feminist theories and approaches
• Peer review: politics, practices, open review, alternatives
• Editorial practices (e.g., trauma-informed editing; sensitivity/beta readers)
• Accessibility in publishing (e.g., web and print standards; plain-language formats)
• Environmental justice in publishing (e.g., distribution, paper sources, green website host)
• Teaching and mentoring feminist publishing
This event is organized in collaboration with Women, Gender and Social Justice (WGSJ), a member association of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences/Fedération canadienne des sciences humaines.
Submission process:
Please submit a short proposal (approximately 300 words) and a 50-word bio for each presenter. In addition to proposals from individuals, we will also accept pre-organized panels/conversations/workshops on a specific theme (max 4 speakers) or roundtables and discussions (up to 6 presenters).
Please indicate whether you plan to present in-person or virtually. In-person presentations will be given preference.
Send proposals to Atlantis Journal’s Managing Editor: atlantis.journal@msvu.ca.
All conference participants will have an opportunity to submit their work to our 50th anniversary issue of Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice. This issue will be co-edited by Michelle Meagher, Kristin Rodier and Jana Smith Elford.
