36.3123, Confs: Who Writes? Authorship and Authority in Transformative Times (Tunisia)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-3123. Fri Oct 17 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.3123, Confs: Who Writes? Authorship and Authority in Transformative Times (Tunisia)

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Valeriia Vyshnevetska
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Mara Baccaro, Daniel Swanson
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Valeriia Vyshnevetska <valeriia at linguistlist.org>

================================================================


Date: 15-Oct-2025
From: Radhia Besbes Krid [radhia.besbes at flshs.isf.tn]
Subject: Who Writes? Authorship and Authority in Transformative Times


Who Writes? Authorship and Authority in Transformative Times
Short Title: WAATT

Date: 05-Feb-2026 - 07-Feb-2026
Location: Sfax, Tunisia
Contact: Radhia Besbes Krid
Contact Email: radhia.besbes at flshs.usf.tn

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Cognitive Science; Discourse
Analysis; General Linguistics; Ling & Literature
Subject Language(s): English (eng)
Language Family(ies): English based

Submission Deadline: 30-Nov-2025

The Department of English, The Laboratory of Approaches to Discourse,
The Laboratory of Language and Automatic Treatment, and The Doctoral
School at the Faculty of Letters and Humanities of Sfax – Tunisia
jointly organize:
International Conference "Who Writes? Authorship and Authority in
Transformative Times"
5-6-7 February 2026
Venue: FLSHS
Between the moment of a work’s inception and the final act of its
dissemination and reception, the author faces a variety of choices and
considerations, where each choice etches the evolving contours of
authorship. Thus, such a concept, long central to the critics’
concerns, remains as lively as it has ever been, namely, in periods of
social, cultural, and technological changes, where it demands renewed
scrutiny.
Traditionally, the figure of the author has carried both symbolic and
institutional authority: as the source of meaning and truth, whether
in literary, historical or scientific discourses. By the late 19th
century, philosophical reconceptualizations of authority in relation
to the ‘self’ (Freud), religion (Nietzsche), and ideology (Marx),
found their full articulation in later theories about discourse
(Foucault), literature (Barthes, Burke, Kristeva), and historiography
(Benjamin, White).
Further still, in transformative times -marked by globalization,
digital innovation, political upheaval, identity discourses and
emergent posthuman voices- this authority has become unstable,
redistributed, or utterly rejected. Moreover, authorship is no longer
a solitary act but often a collaborative, contested, or digitally
mediated process.
What does it mean, then, to write, speak, or claim authorship in a
time when textual production is increasingly collective,
transnational, intermedial, and even artificial?  How do we define
authorship, and what criteria determine who or what can be considered
an author? Is it possible to co-author a work with an AI tool like
ChatGPT?  Who holds the rights to intellectual property when the
creative process involves artificial intelligence? In what ways have
contemporary writings engaged with, or perhaps overlooked, these
shifting dynamics? How might these debates mirror the pressures and
uncertainties currently shaping the humanities?
This conference invites papers that examine the evolving dynamics of
authorship and authority within literary, cultural, academic, and
linguistic discourses and studies. We are particularly interested in
perspectives that consider how enunciating voices enact, experience,
or resist authority, how textuality and genre conventions
reconceptualize and de/construct authority, and how authorship adheres
to or evades institutional and ideological demands.
Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:
 - Autobiography
 - Reliability
 - Performance
 - Identity
 - Voice
 - Artificial Intelligence
 - Anonymity
 - Academic Writing
 - Claims
 - Co-authorship
 - Collaborative Writing
 - Group Authorship
 - Writing Circles
 - Canonicity
 - Publishers, Critics, and Readers and the Construction of Authorship
 - Translation, Adaptation, or Re-Mediation
 - Authorship and the Ethical Turn
 - Censorship
 - Forgery
 - Intersectionality
 - Resistance
 - Tradition and Revolution
 - Litigation
Conference Coordinators:
Dr. Radhia Besbes Krid and Dr. Sabiha Choura
Submission Guidelines:
Please submit a 300 word abstract and 5 keywords to:
authorshiplad at gmail.com
Please include: name, institutional affiliation, short bio (max 100
words), and indication if you prefer to present online or in person.
Deadline for Abstracts submission: 30 November 2025
Notification of acceptance: 31 December 2025



------------------------------------------------------------------------------

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List, a U.S. 501(c)(3) not for profit organization:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=87C2AXTVC4PP8

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Bloomsbury Publishing http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/

De Gruyter Brill https://www.degruyterbrill.com/?changeLang=en

Edinburgh University Press http://www.edinburghuniversitypress.com

John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/

Language Science Press http://langsci-press.org

Lincom GmbH https://lincom-shop.eu/

MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/

Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-36-3123
----------------------------------------------------------