{"id":30,"date":"2026-04-16T10:17:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital-humanities.open.ac.uk\/truth2026\/?page_id=30"},"modified":"2026-10-13T09:49:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T08:49:57","slug":"call-for-papers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/digital-humanities.open.ac.uk\/truth2026\/call-for-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for Papers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Telling the truth? Authorship, audiences and authenticity across discourse, texts and narratives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Thursday 5th<\/sup>– Friday 6th<\/sup> November, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosted online by The Open University, UK<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What constitutes \u201cthe truth\u201d underpins contemporary debates and is increasingly contested and politicised. This conference steps back to reflect on the role played by \u201ctelling the truth\u201d in literary works and non-literary discourses across historical periods, languages and cultures, with the aim of bringing a wide range of perspectives to bear on a concept of enduring importance and throwing new light on present-day tensions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works of literature \u2013 including fiction, biography, documentary, drama, poetry, literary journalism and creative non-fiction \u2013 differ in the ways they relate to, or seek to represent, external \u201crealities\u201d and often convey truths that are experiential and emotional, enabling broader insights into human values, perceptions and experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In literature and creative writing<\/strong>, truth as a concept can be used to establish or undermine narrative authority, present multiple perspectives, create suspense, and drive plot. In discourse and narrative studies<\/strong>, whether an utterance is factually accurate is less important than how a truth-claim functions socially and interactionally, with a focus on how participants in an unfolding interaction orient to ideas of the truth, position themselves, assert (in)authenticity, and negotiate claims as true, questionable, irrelevant, inappropriate, or false. Similar claims can be made of translation studies<\/strong>, where \u201ctruth\u201d may be re-made and authorised through translation practice, while critically oriented discourse analysts focus on who gets to define what is viewed as true in society, positioning truth as a construct that emerges from power relations and is authorised through institutional, political and social discourse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across studies of discourse, translation, literary texts and creative writing, whether in one language or several, \u201ctruth\u201d tends to be positioned as situationally and historically contingent; it is constructed, legitimised, negotiated and contested through discursive practice and linguistic choices; and, crucially, telling the truth is always a functional act which drives actions, organises social relations, produces legitimacy, and structures narratives.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on a range of analytical approaches\u00a0from across linguistics, literature, creative writing and\u00a0translation studies, contributions to the conference will focus not only on\u00a0truth as epistemic accuracy but as a relational function, a premise for action, an ideological tool, an ethical act, a self- and other-positioning resource, an organisational device, and a mechanism of persuasion and control.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conference likewise proposes to examine how the nature and circulation of truth-claims across languages, literature and discourses are liable to be\u00a0impacted\u00a0by shifting technologies and media ecologies. It explores how authorship and authority shape what counts as truth and its consequences across a variety of circumstances and time periods. It also invites an evaluation of the relationship between authority and authenticity, or the shift from notions of factual certainty to concepts of lived experience, personal sincerity, and emotional truth. Finally, it touches upon the novelty of the contemporary \u201cpost-truth\u201d crisis, highlighting a long history of unreliable narration, scepticism, conspiracy theory, falsehood,\u00a0misinformation\u00a0and countercultures, reconceptualising post-truth as an inherent part of the human condition whilst seeking to understand its twenty-first century realisation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We welcome submissions that engage with a wide range of relevant issues across disciplines, including but not limited to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n