25 Jun 2026
International Yearbook of the Society for Exile Studies, 2027 Edited by Burcu Dogramaci, Anna Sophia Messner, and Helene Roth. Abstracts (approximately 300 words) and a brief CV may be submitted until 15 July 2026.
The term “subculture” was introduced by the American sociologist Milton Gordon in the mid-1940s “as a concept […] composed of a combination of factorable social situations such as class status, ethnic background, regional and rural or urban residence, and religious affiliation, but forming in their combination a functioning unity which has an integrated impact on the participating individual.” (Gordon 1947). In this context, the term refers to a subculture or counterculture within a specific social, ethnic, or similar group, with its own norms and values, that emerges within a cultural sphere and/or a society (Brasch 2024). At the same time, subculture also highlights the contradictory nature of the “underground,” for from the 1920s to the present, the term has also been used pejoratively in external descriptions—for example, in reference to politically left-wing and youth movements (Schwendter 1971). With an awareness of the different meanings of “subculture,” however, and in reference to Vilém Flusser, this book aims to examine the creative potential and associated creative practices, as well as the intermedial and interdisciplinary alliances of subcultures in exile (Flusser 1984).
Gordon’s concept of subculture emerged shortly after the escape and migration movements in the 1930s and 1940s, in response to dictatorships and wars. Many of those fleeing Nazi persecution, for example, had to settle into a new life in their places of refuge. They were often able to pursue their professions only under difficult conditions; they frequently had to build new networks, create alternative spaces and spheres of activity outside established structures and institutions, and experiment with unconventional artistic practices and ways of working. While in exile in Paris, the Berlin-based physician Charlotte Wolff devoted herself to the art of palm reading and published her book “Studies in Hand Reading” in 1936, featuring handprints of Surrealist artists and writers. While in exile in New York, the exiled dancer Valeska Gert opened her Beggar Bar, a makeshift basement cabaret where the staff performed. The Villa Air-Bel in the French port city of Marseille served as a hideout and transit point for artists persecuted by the Nazi regime, where they reflected on the time spent waiting to continue their journey to their places of exile through shared artistic and creative activities, using the limited resources available to them.
Based on these observations and examples, the 2027 Yearbook of Exile Studies will, for the first time, explore the concepts of subculture—as a counterculture—and exile in conjunction with one another. Juliane Rebentisch characterizes subcultures as “secret histories that […] rarely and discontinuously—namely due to the nature and exclusionary rules of the institutions responsible for avant-garde historiography (e.g., art history)—become ‘historically significant’ in the official sense.” (Rebentisch 2006) Experiences of exile, which are constituted by discontinuities, invisibility, and ruptures, also share similar characteristics with subcultures. The “secret histories” identified by Rebentisch open up new possibilities for perceiving the intersections between subculture and the underground. Examples include the Swing Boys or Swing Girls, who became politicized in Nazi Germany through their love of American swing music and dance and the subsequent surveillance they faced. While not every subcultural practice has the potential for resistance, there are examples in which subcultural (artistic) practices and political resistance manifest together in situations of exile. One example is the artistically and literarily designed leaflets with which Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore opposed the German occupiers during their exile on Jersey.
The 2027 Yearbook will feature historical and contemporary case studies that explore the themes of subculture and exile from diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives, alongside explicitly theory-building contributions. In addition to the 1930s and 1940s, we are also interested in case studies from the recent past and the present. For example, since the 1970s, graffiti art has served as a medium for exiles and migrants to gain visibility within a marginalized social space. Through tagging, graffiti artists inscribe themselves into public space, which serves as a form of self-empowerment. Groups such as the “36 Boys”—composed of young people of Turkish and Kurdish descent in Kreuzberg—gave rise to hybrid subcultures that developed their own rules and codes.
The following questions and topics are of particular interest:
Please submit abstracts (approx. 300 words) and a brief CV as a single PDF file by July 15, 2026, to Dr. Helene Roth (helene.roth@lmu.de).
Selection will take place at the end of July.
The full papers (approx. 30,000 characters) must be submitted by December 1, 2026.