Full Title: French and Italian Graduate Student Annual Symposium
Short Title: FRITAS
Theme: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Power

Date: 14-Nov-2025 - 14-Nov-2025
Location: AUSTIN, USA
Contact Person: French and Italian Annual Symposium
Meeting Email: [email protected]
Web Site: https://sites.google.com/utexas.edu/utfritas/home?authuser=1

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Philosophy of Language; Sociolinguistics

Call Deadline: 11-Jul-2025

Call for Papers:

The Department of French and Italian at the University of Texas at Austin invites submissions for our annual symposium, to be held on November 14th, 2025. This year’s theme, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Power, seeks to explore the dynamics of hegemony, oppression, and resistance
across various fields of study.

We follow Stuart Hall's definition of power, bringing together Gramsci, Foucault, and Said’s perspectives to argue that power takes many forms, from coercion to consent, and “ cannot be thought of in terms of one group having a monopoly of power [...] It includes the dominant and the dominated within its circuits.” Power is constrictive yet productive, creating new discourses as easily as it restricts existing ones. Power is not the sole dominion of oppressive apparatuses, as Foucault reminds us, “Where there is power, there is resistance.” For our inaugural symposium, we welcome papers or interventions from a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives. As we hope to promote transdisciplinary conversations, we especially encourage contributions that engage with multiple disciplines or resist disciplinary convention.

We welcome papers that engage with this theme from a variety of disciplinary angles, including but not limited to:
- Social Movements and Activism
- Literary Studies
- Film and Drama
- Linguistics and Language Hegemony
- Postcolonialism and Subaltern Studies
- Identity Formation and Marginalized Voices
- Environmental Humanities and Ecocriticism
- Religious Perspectives on Resistance
- Pedagogy and Resistance in Education
- Visual Arts, Art History, and Art Practices
- Creative Writing and Performance-Based Resistance
- Feminist and Queer Studies

Submissions may come from any discipline and any time period. Presentations and abstracts must be submitted in English. We especially encourage papers that draw upon French and Italian traditions related to these themes. The symposium also welcomes creative presentations, including short film screenings, end-of-the-day performance presentations, and discussions involving community activists and educators.

Submission Guidelines:
- Abstract length: 250–500 words
- Languages: Abstracts may be submitted in English, and presentations must be in English
- Deadline for submission: June 11th, 2025
- Notification of acceptance: On a rolling basis
- Presentation format: 15–20 minute presentations, followed by discussion

Please submit your abstract along with a short bio (100 words) to [email protected] by June 11th, 2025

For any inquiries, please contact [email protected]

We look forward to your submissions and to an engaging symposium!