This is the first of a series of short reports on SHARP 2024: Global Book Cultures, provided by select SHARPists who were supported by SHARP travel awards. They are presented below in interview format. Please feel free to reach out to these scholars for collaboration and networking! Their contact info is hyperlinked to each of their names, below.

Tell us a little about yourself and your research.

My name is Mela Dávila Freire (she, her). I am a researcher, curator, writer and translator. My research focuses on art archives and on the genre of artists’ publications. My specific interests include the feminist revision of the history of artist’s publications, the theoretical and practical intersections between archives and art collections, and the ideological biases hidden in archival structures. I have been Head of Publications and Head of the Study Center at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), and Director of Public Activities at Museo Reina Sofía, and I have also collaborated, as a consultant and independent researcher, with many institutions and private collections, above all in Western Europe. My recent publications include the books “”Mission and Commission. Documenta and the Art Market, 1955 – 1968″” (Barcelona: Polígrafa, 2022) and 2Off-Register: Publishing Experiments by Women Artists in Latin America, 1960 – 1990″” (New York: Center for Book Arts, 2023).

I am Hanne Willekens (she/her), a PhD student at the Scandinavian section of Ghent University in Belgium. My research project, “Women and criticism. An empirical analysis of gender in contemporary Swedish literary criticism”, explores the field of literary criticism in Sweden today from a gender perspective. Literary criticism plays an important role in the way works of literature are perceived and what value is ascribed to them: it has a gatekeeping function, attributing cultural legitimacy through its attention and its discourses. Women have traditionally held a marginal position in the literary field: not only were there fewer women authors, but the number of women critics was even lower. Accordingly, the representation of women’s works in the discourse about literature was marked by a gender bias: they were regarded as a separate and inferior type of literature. However, there has been a significant shift in recent decades: an increasing number of women are participating in various positions within the literary field. In Sweden, a country that is seen as one of the most progressive ones when it comes to gender equality, there is talk of a “feminization of the entire literary field”. The aim of my project is to explore the significance of gender in the field of literary criticism today, in relation to other relevant factors (e.g. literary genres, publishing houses). Drawing on a large corpus of book reviews in Swedish newspapers, the project scrutinizes both the selection mechanisms and the discourses. By mapping out the external factors in relation to literary criticism as a practice, the project aspires to shed a light on potential gender differences in this field.

My name is Anushmita Mohanty (she/hers). I am a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and my doctoral work is about pedagogies and assessments in English literature programs at higher education institutions. I grew up in Ahmedabad, India, and did my undergraduate degree in English literature from Delhi University, before pursuing a Masters in World Literatures at the University of Oxford in the UK. This transnational educational experience exposed me to a variety of pedagogies and evaluative practices, such as mass entrance examinations, language tests like TOEFL and IELTS, application processes, etc. Through this, I developed an interest in how assessments shape entries and experiences of English literature students. I therefore look at archival materials that trace the colonial inceptions of English literature entrance examinations in India, to understand the type of student these assessment practices attempted to mold. I also explore the stories of contemporary English literature students who have been assessed and evaluated in various ways. I specifically look at how they negotiate their identities as readers versus critics, the embodied experience of being part of an examination process, and the social, political, and cultural values and biases that inform English literature assessment. I also research alternative and innovative pedagogies of English literature, which draw from feminist, anti-caste, and anti-racist genealogies, such as pedagogies of hope, care, and kindness. I am also interested in cultural rhetorics, book history, women’s writing, speculative fiction, and reading practices in India.

Can you share a bit about the work you presented at the conference?

Mela: I spoke in the context of the panel “Alternative publishing cultures: Latinx & Latin America”, moderated by Cherylin Elston and with Camila González Simón and Nicole Salania, besides myself. My presentation in this panel, entitled “Off-Register: Experiments in Publishing by Women Artists in Latin America, 1960-1990·, introduced to the public the exhibition of the same title, which was held at the Center for Book Arts, in New York, from 6 Oct to 16 Dec, 2023.
This exhibition set out to explore the creative practices of a series of Latin American women artists who, between 1960 and 1990, channeled part of their artistic impetus into printed and serialized media. The time span it covered tracked the expansion of the conceptual movement, beginning around 1960 and, depending on the geographical contexts, lasting until the end of the 1980s. It aimed to offer an original perspective on the artist’s publications created in these decades, focusing on printed works by some thirty women artists who originated from or developed their practice in various Latin American countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela – and the Chicano community in the United States.

Hanne: At SHARP 2024, I did an individual presentation titled “Women Authors, Women Reviewers, Women’s Books? An Empirical Analysis of Gender and Genre in Book Reviews in the Swedish Newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet (2018–2022)”, which explored the relation between gender and genre in the field of journalistic literary criticism. In the selection of works of literature that receive journalistic attention, external factors like publishing houses and literary genres play an important role. My earlier research demonstrated that, although gender in itself was significant to a work’s chances of being reviewed, it was insufficient to fully account for the variation. Using an approach that combined gender and literary genre provided me with a more detailed and nuanced perspective. Furthermore, where my earlier research had mainly focused on the author’s gender, this paper also introduced the significance of the reviewer’s gender.

My presentation was part of the “Publishing for Women II” panel, which was chaired by Farhana Shaikh. Especially the presentation by Rebecca Rouse, and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, who was attending online, inspired me: the concept of a collaborative genre, where the works are attributed to a group of people, rather than just a single “auteur”, seems like something that could help me to further shed a light on the relation between gender and genre. Although there were only a few people attending the panel, I was able to have an interesting discussion with the audience and my fellow panelists afterwards.

Anushmita: I was part of the “Piracy” panel on July 3rd, 2024, chaired by Professor Fiona Ross. My co-presenters where Michael Knies, whose presentation was titled “”As the Law Stands, We Have No Protection”: The British Typefounders’ Cartel vs. Electrotyping Pirates, 1868-1888”, and Pritha Mukherjee, who presented on “Books and Book-a-likes” in India’s Print Book Markets”. My paper, “The Role of Digital Piracy in Shaping Reading Practices in India”, was about how digital piracy, through shadow libraries like Library Genesis and Anna’s Archive, and digital commons such as the Facebook group “Ask for PDFs from People with Institutional Access” determine the business of reading and studying literature. I examined a small slice of digital piracy life through an ethnography of literature students in New Delhi, who have been long-standing practitioners of digital piracy, which they attribute as having enabled them to become readers and literary critics. Digital piracy, I found, had greatly shaped the reading lives and tastes of these readers, enabled identity formation, led to a self-fashioning as personal archivists and librarians, and made possible their academic careers. Therefore, this paper also pointed to the extent to which the discipline of literary studies depends on digital piracy, especially in the context of the disparity in access to reading resources, publishing, and circulation in the transnational sense.

Beside your own panel, what was your favorite session at the 2024 SHARP Conference? 

Mela: I particularly liked one of the presentations at the panel “Thinking sideways: critique, collaboration and creative formats for book history”, namely the one by Sonali MIsra, who was very inspiring when she described some of the methodologies that she had used in her recently presented PhD.

Hanne: In general, I was positively surprised by the quality of the presentations I attended. I don’t think I could choose just one session, but some of the ones that I enjoyed the most were the “Suitable for children” panel and both of the “Digital platforms & fan fiction” panels on Tuesday, and the “Authoriality and authority in the digital age” panel on Thursday.

The presentations by Marianne Martens and Gitte Balling about DIY projects as a way to perform bookish identity, Xiang Ren about book culture on Douyin, the Chinese counterpart of TikTok, and Sara Kärrholm about dark academia as a book genre were a couple of my favorites. I also enjoyed Angelina Eimannsberger’s presentation about the Goodreads Choice Awards. Furthermore, I thoroughly enjoyed Simone Murray’s presentation about John Green’s crash course literature YouTube channel, as she is an excellent speaker and I found the topic quite captivating.

Sadly, I was unable to attend two of the panels I was most excited about, the “Audiobooks” panel and the “Contemporary publishing structures” panel, as they were scheduled at the same time as my own panel. These panels would have been highly relevant to me, as both of them featured presentations that focused on contemporary literary-sociological topics related to Scandinavia.

Anushmita: I was inspired by the panel on “Alternative publishing cultures: Latinx and Latin America”, in which Mela Freire spoke about experiments in publishing by women artists in Latin America, Camila González Simon presented on the creative and liberatory practice of resistance enacted by the creation of fanzines, and Nicole Salama investigated the relationship between Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera, and its publisher, Aunt Lute. This panel was extremely illuminating with regard to the potential of zines as a pedagogical tool and the complications that emerged between Anzaldúa and her decolonial publishing house. Asha Rogers’ keynote on “Linguistic imperialism” with book history in mind” was also very generative in pointing out the linkages between linguistic systems and the circulation of books. I also found Swara Shukla’s keynote on looking at comments and metrics on Wattpad as “digital marginalia” extremely instructive.

Give us a reading recommendation!

Mela: Probably the book that Sonali Mistra’s PhD will turn into.

Anushmita: I would recommend Cultural Labour: Conceptualizing the Folk Performance by Brahma Prakash, and for a fictional work around book history, Mimi Mondal’s short story “Malotibala Printing Press“.