Since the inaugural 2023 conference, queer bibliography has grown from an interesting concept to a burgeoning field. Our 2027 theme, Taking Stock, marks the fifth annual conference and is a chance to pause and reflect on genealogies of the field, the present state of queer bibliographical enquiry, and our senses of the future. How might we trace queer histories of queer bibliography? How can we imagine critical futures for bibliographical enquiry within and beyond its traditional academic locations? Where do we find ourselves and our work?
Stock also has meaning in bibliography. While “stock” originally referred to a tree trunk or plant stem, and figuratively to the source of a line of descent or even a human torso, it later began to connote an aggregate of goods—in the context of bookmaking, one might own a stock of paper or pasteboard. Towards the mid-nineteenth century, “paper stock” began to connote the raw material of paper itself. “Stock” might refer to the inventories of booksellers, the process of beginning and curating an institutional or personal collection, and the supply and material characteristics of paper. From the raw materials of books to the origins and shapes of personal, commercial, and institutional collections, how does "stock" participate in the production, articulation, and study of queer textuality and textual communities? What is queer about materiality, the ecology of books, and the processes of making and engaging with (collections of) physical textual objects?
We invite participants to engage in stock-taking or reflect on bibliographical stock, broadly defined. We welcome meta, theoretical, and historiographical work that takes stock of queer bibliography, and we welcome proposals that relate to “stock” in bibliography, book history, and reception studies.
This three-day hybrid conference will be hosted at the John Rylands Library, part of the University of Manchester, and online on 2–4 September 2027. The conference will feature two days of panels, conversation, and discussion on 2 and 3 September and will be followed by an optional workshop on 4 September. Conference programming may also include evening receptions, tours of Manchester libraries (including Chetham’s Library, the oldest public library in England), and collection viewings at the Rylands.
The conference welcomes participants from a diverse range of fields and career stages, including: book arts practitioners, activists, postgraduates, early career researchers, independent scholars, librarians, archivists, and booksellers, both in person and via video conference. As in past years, the goal of the broadly articulated theme of “taking stock” is to bring people in and to shape conversation, not to exclude or limit. All submissions that engage with the intertwined relationship between queerness and bibliography are encouraged.
Participants will be invited to submit a 2000-word pre-circulated paper, before presenting in panels of 10-minute papers. We also welcome alternative contributions, such as workshops, roundtables, or self-organised seminars and creative presentations, with a pre-circulated submission that provides a grounding for the conference contribution.
Contributors should submit an abstract of 200–300 words, along with a short bio, by 29 January 2027: Submission form
Prospective speakers will be informed of the outcome by 12th March. Pre-circulated papers will be collected and shared in mid-July.
Any questions should be directed to: queerbibliography@gmail.com