Liberas, UGent, the Laboratoire des pratiques et des identités journalistiques (ReSIC-ULB) and CAMille (ULB/KBR) are organizing between 5 and 7 June a three-day international colloquium on the life stories and careers of "forgotten journalists". The history of journalism has often focused on a limited number of famous individuals. Behind these big names are many journalists whose names and work have not made it into the canon. But to capture the full diversity of the journalistic field, these careers and lives need to be recovered. 

Presentation

Liberas, UGent, the Laboratoire des pratiques et des identités journalistiques (ReSIC-ULB) and CAMille (ULB/KBR) are organizing between 5 and 7 June a three-day international colloquium on the life stories and careers of "forgotten journalists". The history of journalism has often focused on a limited number of famous individuals. Behind these big names are many journalists whose names and work have not made it into the canon. But to capture the full diversity of the journalistic field, these careers and lives need to be recovered.

Three particular groups of forgotten media professionals stand out: women journalists, journalists who made an important mark on the media landscape of their colonial and post-colonial societies during periods of (de)colonization, and those who worked in sectors and areas of journalism that are often considered less prestigious. The third category includes forgotten war photographers, for example, as well as invisible news workers such as telegraph and linotype operators.

Both young researchers and established scholars, including several authors with extensive experience in professional journalism, will present new research on the experiences of forgotten journalists in very different geographical and historical contexts from biographical or prosopographical perspectives.  The speakers will take us from a French political exile from the Second French Empire (1852-1870) who took up his pen again in Brussels, to a Belgian nobleman who covered historical events around the world a hundred years later during the early Cold War.

The program includes three keynote lectures: a French-language lecture by Marie-Eve Thérenty (Université de Montpellier III) on women who wrote for the film sections of French newspapers in the interwar period, a lecture by Will Mary (Louisiana State University) on the importance of the workplaces and technical resources available to large groups of news workers, and a lecture by Noah Amir Arjomand (University of California) on the professional particularities and importance of "fixers" in making sense of current-day crises in the Middle East.

The colloquium can take place thanks to the support of the Research Foundation Flanders-FWO and the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS.

The colloquium will take place in the conference room of Liberas in the center of Ghent - (Kramersplein 23).

The full program, with all up-to-date details and information on the speakers and the abstracts of their papers, can be accessed at www.forgottenjournalists2025.eu.

Please check this website for updates as the program can be subject to changes.

If you wish to attend, please register by sending an email to: inschrijven@liberas.eu. Please specify which day(s) of the conference you'd wish to attend.

The registration fee for the full conference is 50 euro (sandwich lunches included). The registration fee for one conference day is 25 euro.

Program

Jour 5 - Day 1 (Thursday)

9:00-09:45: Welcome by Liberas and CAMIlle

• 09:45-10:45: Marie-Eve Thérenty (Université de Montpellier III (France)), Keynote lecture: ‘"Où sont les femmes ? Une enquête surprenante et instructive sur la page cinéma des grands quotidiens français de l'entre-deux-guerres"

10:45-11:00: coffee break

11:00-13:00 - Panel 1 Journalism and otherisms

• Jeffrey Tyssens (Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium)), Charles-Alcée Campan (1800-1877), an “orléaniste” pressman in Belgian exile during the Second Empire
• Michaël Auwers (Study Centre for War and Society (Belgium)), From Europe to the World: Alain de Prelle de la Nieppe’s globe-trotting journalism during the early Cold War
• Nina Žnidaršič (University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)), Genealogy of Journalism in Socialist Yugoslavia: An Oral-Historical Elaboration of Journalists' Professional identity and Experience
• Benji de la Piedra (John W. Kluge Center (US)), The journalistic life of Herbert H. Denton Jr. (1943-89)

13:00-14:00: Lunch

14:00-15:30 - Panel 2 Women journalists (I) – individual experiences

• Nick Richardson (La Trobe University (Australia)), Patricia Jarrett: a rarity, not a novelty
• Juliette De Maeyer (Université de Montréal) (Canada)) (& Dominique Trudel), Mary Bacon (Martin) Ford and the Organization of Art through Journalism
• Carlo Bovolo (University of Torino (Italy)), A Life for Young Readers: Ines Piacentini (1875-1961) and the Italian Methodist Press for Children

15:30-16:00 Coffee break

16:00-18:00 - Panel 3 Women journalists (II) – Collective experiences

• Eline Batsleer (Ghent University (Belgium)), Reviving a generation of forgotten Italian women journalists
• Balázs Sipos (Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary)), Forgotten female journalists in Hungary, 1860s–1918
• Chloé Nejma Rondeleux (Université Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne (France)), Algerian women journalists raised in France: unusual trajectories in the service of socialist Algeria in the 1980s

Jour 6 – Day 2 (Friday)

• 9:30-10:30: Will Mari, Louisiana State University (US), Keynote lecture: “The material traces of forgotten journalists: the importance of places and objects in telling the stories of the rank-and-file”

10:30-12:45 - Panel 4 journalists at war

• Patricia Loughlin (University of Central Oklahoma (US)), Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant’s Shadow Shapes and American Women War Correspondents during the First World War
• Ross F. Collins (North Dakota State University (US), Camille Ferdy and the influence of French journalism during the First World War

11:30-11:45 Coffee break

• Stephanie Seul (University of Bremen (Germany)), Forgotten women war reporters of the First World War: Avis Waterman, the London Times’ Milan correspondent reporting from the Italian front
• James Mueller (University of North Texas (US)), The Forgotten Black Panther of the Pen: Trezzvant Anderson Publicized the Heroics of African American Tankers in World War II

12:45-13:30: Lunch

13:30-15:30 - Panel 5 In the margins of journalism

• Joël Langonné (Université Catholique de l’Ouest (France)), Maritime newspapers and long-distance telegraphy (1905-1914) The on-board telegraph operator as a heroic figure (of journalism?)
• Louise Francezon (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (France)), Unveiling the Shadows: The Life and Career of Suzanne Laroche, A Marginalized Photojournalist
• Teresa Ferré Panisello (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain)), Under the shadow of Robert Capa: local photojournalists in the Spanish Civil War
• Theresa Russell-Loretz (Millersville University of Pennsylvania (US)), “Purely Personal Piffle”: Legacy Construction of Ruth Lovrien Conner, Midwestern Journalist and Linotype operator

15:30-16:00 Coffee Break

16:00-18:00 - Panel 6 Colonialism & postcolonialism

• Leon Atkinson-MacEwen (University of Tasmania) (Australia)), Gilbert Robertson (1794-1851) – The Vandemonian Radical journalist derided by colonial administrators and historians alike
• Jaron Murphy (University of Bournemouth (UK)), “It’s Difficult to Decide My Identity”: A Re-Evaluation of the Life, Career and Legacy of Black South African Journalist Nat Nakasa (1937-1965)
• Nathan Lauwers (Liberas / Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium)), Congo through the lens of the literary journalist
• Christoph De Spiegeleer (Liberas /Vrije Universiteit Brussel/ Ghent University (Belgium)), Forgotten journalistic voices of internationalism during the Cold War. The International Federation of Journalists and the Global South in the 1960s

Jour 7 – Day 3 (Saturday)

• 9:30-10:30: Noah Amir Arjomand, University of California (US), Keynote lecture: “Journalism's Invisible Brokers: Fixers in Turkey and Syria”

10:30-12:45 - Panel 7 Women journalists (III) - Crossing borders

• Babs Boter (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands)), ‘Pressing’ her case: A Dutch journalist calls on Mussolini, Eleanor Roosevelt and Queen Fabiola
• John M. Coward (University of Tulsa (US)), Domesticating the American Frontier: Carrie Adell Strahorn’s Genial Journalism

11:30-11:45: Coffee break

• Claire Blandin & Isabelle Hare (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord & Université Lyon 2 (France)), From Fame to Oblivion. Tytaïna - Elisabeth Sauvy, the Globetrotter Journalist
• Laura M. Calkins (Texas Tech University (US)), Press Reporting from Revolutionary Asia despite ‘No Facilities for Women:’ Charlotte Ebener in China, Indochina, and Indonesia, 1946-1947