Call for papers – European Symposium of the History of Audio Drama 2024

Type of meetig: Hybrid (in-person and remote)

Date: 2-3 September, 2024

Venue: Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Humanities, 1088 Budapest, Múzeum krt 6-8., HUNGARY

We invite scholars of radio drama studies and related fields, and practitioners, to contribute to the European Symposium of the History of Audio Drama, held in Budapest, Hungary.

The genre of radio drama has many names, including podcast fiction, scripted audio fiction, radio theater, or radio play and includs genres such as ars acustica, radio / audio feature or documentary play. The acces to these works are significantly more limited than of any other literary/media production. After a recent low, with the popularity of podcasts, audio dramas now again play an important role in our acustic media ecosystem. With this, old, long time not aired pieces are rediscovered and newly built online databases enable us to have an overview of the corpus of past audio drama productions. However, since the genre is language-locked, each country has different pathways in the preservation, rediscovery and production and exchange of audio dramas, from original productions to adaptations. The goal of this symposium is to inspire discussion between scholars and producers of radio dramas to have an overview of these national pathways, and to gain insight into the new national and international rediscovery of the genre. Our ultimate goal is to lay out the fundation of a European radio drama study group where key works, authors, directors, national or period styles and subgenres are explored to get a deeper understanding of how this „invisible” genre developed over the last 100+ years responding to artistic and political needs.

SUBMISSIONS

The format of the presentations is oral, 15 minutes plus questions.

Please submit 300-500-words-long abstracts of your presentation.

The short abstracts submitted and accepted would be published in a symposium proceedings online.

Submission should be sent directly to the organizer of the symposium: hargitai.henrik@btk.elte.hu

Submissions should include in one Word (docx) or pdf file the following elements:

Author(s) name

Author(s) affiliation

Presenting author’s name

Session (1: History of audio drama in Europe;  2: Audio drama production in Europe; 3: Contexts of radio drama)

Format (in-person in Budapest, or live remote, via projected zoom screen)

Title 

Text of abstract (300-500 words)

Submissions will be evaluated by the Symposium’s Organizing Committee (members from the Hungarian Radio Drama History Research Group).

N.B. After the conference we would invite contributors to create a full, formal, referenced, peer-reviewed paper version of their contribution to be published as chapters of a thematic book (with DOI numbers) published by ELTE University.

REGISTRATION, IMPORTANT DATES

This is a nonprofit symposium organized by scholars and no registration fee is requested.

Deadline for submissions: May 15, 2024

Notification of acceptance: June 15, 2024

Conference: September 2-3, 2024

Planned program

It may change reflecting submissions

SEPTEMBER 2, 2024

Eötvös Loránd University, Faculy of Humanities, 1088 Budapest, Múzeum krt 6-8.

9.00 Arrival, registration

10.00 Session 1: History of audio drama in Europe

           11.30: Coffee break

13.00 Lunch break (on your own)

15.00 Session 2: Audio drama production in Europe

           16.30: coffee break

18.00 Closing

SEPTEMBER 3, 2024

Eötvös Loránd University, Faculy of Humanities, 1088 Budapest, Múzeum krt 6-8.

9.00 Session 3: Contexts of radio drama

           10.30 Coffee break

11:00 Public panel discussion with invited participants: The past and future of the audio drama

12:30 Discussion of possibilities for cooperation and future plans 

13.30 Closing