Research Archives - IALJS: The International Association for Literary Journalism Studies

Star-Studded Panels Featured at IALJS at AEJMC Washington, DC

In early August, IALJS sessions at the annual AEJMC sparkled with insight on two panels featuring a mix of accomplished world-class scholars. Washington, DC was the site of last year’s conference, which hosted two full sessions dedicated to the theme of “The Art of Fact in Science and Nature Writing.” The sessions marked the last…

David O. Dowling

New Book: “Seeking to Understand the World: Literary Journalism of Vincent Sheean” by Anish Dave

Vincent Sheean was a paradigmatic American foreign correspondent in 1930s and 1940s. He won the inaugural National Book Award for biography for his 1935 book Personal History. The book became a model for many other contemporary foreign correspondents who wrote their own personal accounts of their journalistic experiences. When Sheean died in 1975, the New York Times published…

Anish Dave

Second Call: Join Us in Creating an Interactive Map of Global Literary Journalism

Authors’ Note: We have received some great responses, and we’re beginning the process of compiling our bibliography. In the meantime, we’d like to renew our call for your help in moving this project forward. Thanks! Manuel Carvalho Coutinho and I (Fitz) are currently embarking on an ambitious project and we need your help! We are…

Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

Excerpt: Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspapers in New York by Jordana Cox

The following is an excerpt from the introduction of Jordana Cox’s book Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspapers in New York (University of Massachusetts, 2023). Authors who would like to promote their books of or about literary journalism in the newsletter can email us at literaryjournalismsubmissions [at] gmail.com. Not many people can say…

Jordana Cox

Excerpt: How the News Feels by Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

The following is a short excerpt from the introduction of Fitz’s new book, How the News Feels: The Empathic Power of Literary Journalists (University of Massachusetts Press, 2023). Authors who would like to promote their books of or about literary journalism in the newsletter can email us at literaryjournalismsubmissions [at] gmail.com. Literary Journalists’ Empathic Power…

IALJS

Join Us in Creating an Interactive Map of Global Literary Journalism

Manuel Carvalho Coutinho and I (Fitz) are currently embarking on an ambitious project and we need your help! We are putting together a list of works of literary journalism from around the world with the objective of creating a database and, later on, an interactive world map that would be freely accessed to anyone interested…

Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

Looking for Uncle Tom’s Cabin

I live in Natchitoches, Louisiana, in the parish of the same name; in Louisiana, we have parishes and not counties. After my landlord and neighbor gave me a copy of a little travelogue published in 1892 titled A Visit to Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Daniel B. Corley, a judge and former mayor of Abilene, Texas, I went looking…

Brian Gabrial

The Rapid Media Change Theory of the History of American Literary Journalism

Literary journalism emerges during times of rapid media change This essay is excerpted and adapted from Jonathan D. Fitzgerald’s forthcoming book How the News Feels: The Empathic Power of Literary Journalists (University of Massachusetts Press, July 2023). When I was in graduate school and beginning to approach the field of literary journalism studies, I was…

Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

Literary Journalism In Fin-De-Siècle Vienna

A cultural tradition of newspapers. *Editor’s note: This article is from our archives. It originally appeared in Literary Journalism vol. 12, no. 2 (2018). Newspapers may not be the first cultural output that springs to mind in connection with Vienna, a city best known for its artistic and intellectual accomplishments over the last century. Instead,…

Kate McQueen

Literary Journalism in Twentieth Century Turkey

Literary journalism in twentieth century Turkey can be divided into two periods: pre-1950, when the first reportages were published, and post-1950. After 1950, examples of direct literary journalism began to proliferate. There are about fifteen direct literary journalism examples in this century ranging in topic from adventure to torturing. Some of these studies are: Ben…

Ömer Özer

The Lettered City

How the Crónicas of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora helped shape New Spain *Editor’s note: This article is from our archives. It originally appeared in Literary Journalism vol. 14, no. 2 (2020). In Latin America, the crónica is an historical matter. Everything starts with the Crónicas de Indias, a group of texts written by conquerors, soldiers and…

Sac-Nicté Calderón

The Footprints in the Text

How do we keep an eye on process behind the product of literary journalism? I should start by acknowledging that I came to literary journalism studies per se (hereafter LJS) through something of a side-door: from American Studies, where I had been most recently writing about police power. And aside from an unabashedly partisan stint…

Chris Wilson