CFP

25–26 June 2026

School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon
University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (CEAUL/ULICES)

 

 

 

In a world shaped by forced migration, environmental crisis, protracted conflicts, and volatile borders – both literal and symbolic – the question of home continues to provoke urgent intellectual, ethical, and creative responses. The RHOME 2026 international conference invites researchers, writers, and artists to reflect on the multidimensional notion of home and the ways in which it intersects with displacement, sanctuary, and belonging in contemporary English-speaking literatures and cultures.

Building on the work of the RHOME research project since its inception in 2013, and following the success of the 2023 conference on (Dis)locations: The Shifting Thematics of Home, this edition seeks to explore how home is imagined, remembered, contested, and reconfigured in cultural production across diverse geopolitical and historical contexts.

In her 2025 book Sanctuary: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling, Marina Warner reflects on the complexities of refuge and belonging:

Sanctuary does not only designate a reprieve that might be short-lived or a temporary suspension of the rules. It broadens into ideas of home. [...] Taking refuge is not the same as feeling at home, of belonging. The sanctuary can be a harbour [...] but it is not a permanent residence. [...] Homelands are fashioned over time, and imagination plays a part in making spaces where displaced persons and peoples can feel they belong. [...] According to this fresh, vivid concept of homeland [...] the boats of the suppliants – the refugees, the migrants, the xenoi or strangers – are the most desolating symbols of homelessness. (2-3)

This powerful meditation serves as a springboard for RHOME 2026. What do notions such as sanctuary, harbour, or home mean in the 21st century? How do literary and cultural texts negotiate the liminalities between exile and return, estrangement and rootedness, presence and absence? And how are these negotiations shaped by power, memory, language, and imagination? How can the sanctuary - or sanctuary city - function as an in-between space of refuge for migrants where the limits and legitimacy of belonging and non-belonging are negotiated (Bhabha 1994; Anzaldúa 1987)?

Drawing on the work of Michel de Certeau, Henri Lefebvre and Michel Foucault, the sanctuary can also be viewed as a space of resistance, a contested area, where dominant discourses and dominating power structures are challenged and subverted. Through a Foucauldian approach and applying his theory of biopolitics to questions of home and belonging, one can argue sanctuary cities provide refuge, inclusion and visibility for the unrecognised, undocumented subject, refusing categorisations such as those that define who gets to live and who is allowed care and security (Foucault 2003).

We invite paper proposals that critically engage with the concept of home in its material, symbolic, affective, and imagined forms, with particular interest in how sanctuary and displacement are represented and rethought in Anglophone literatures and cultures.

Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

● Home and (non)belonging
● Sanctuary and the limits of refuge
● Sanctuary cities
● Displacement, exile, and return
● Home and the poetics of memory
● Imaginary homelands and imagined communities
● Home, conflict and war
● Home and the Anthropocene
● Narratives of migration and hospitality
● Un-homing and precarious domesticities
● Language, identity and the construction of home
● English in contexts of refuge and displacement
● The embodied experience of home and displacement
● Topophilia, nostalgia, and affective geographies
● Indigenous homes
● Nature as sanctuary
● Home and spiritualities
● Ageing in Place
● Homes, impairment and disability

● Home and care
● Surviving “homelessness”
● Ecological belonging
● Ecological refugism

 

Submission Guidelines

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers from scholars at all career stages, as well as creative practitioners. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words and should be accompanied by:

● A short bio note (max. 50 words)
● Name and institutional affiliation
● 5 keywords

Please send submissions to rephome@letras.ulisboa.pt by 15 December 2025.

Conference Format

RHOME 2026 will include keynote lectures by internationally recognised scholars (to be announced), creative writing workshops, and opportunities for cross-disciplinary dialogue. As in previous editions, we welcome creative and critical engagements with the theme, as well as proposals for panels and roundtables.

About RHOME

The RHOME – Representations of Home research project explores representations of home and belonging in contexts marked by migration, colonisation, conflict, and postcoloniality, with a focus on English-language literatures and cultures. Since 2013, the project has promoted symposia, public seminars (RHOSE), creative writing initiatives (RHOME Creative), and outreach activities (ROAM) aimed at fostering dialogue within and beyond academia.

For further information, please visit: https://rhome.letras.ulisboa.pt/en/

Fees and Registration

Registration Type Early Bird (until 15 March 2026)

Late Registration (after 15 March until 1 June 2026)

With presentation 150€ 170€

With presentation + pre-conference workshop:

Student with presentation 40€ 60€
Student with presentation + pre-conference workshop 50€ 70€

● Enrolment fees must be paid by the dates and in the amounts indicated above.
● Please note that fees do not include any bank transfer charges.
● Fees are non-refundable in the event of participant cancellation.

Important: If you require an invoice, wish to pay by an alternative method (e.g. bank transfer), or have been granted a fee exemption (for CEAUL / ULICES members), please do not complete the registration form. Instead, contact the organisers directly at: rephome@letras.ulisboa.pt

Organising Committee 
Ana Raquel Fernandes (CEAUL- ULICES / Universidade Europeia / IPL)
Maria João Ferro (CEAUL – ULICES / IPL)
Zsófia Gombár (CEAUL- ULICES / IPL)
Tatiana Ribeiro (CEAUL – ULICES)
Guilherme Malheiro (CEAUL-ULICES)
Rasha Neddar (CEAUL-ULICES)

Scientific Committee
Alexandra Cheira (CEAUL-ULICES)
Alla Efimova (Curator and Independent Scholar)
Ana Cristina Mendes (CEAUL-ULICES / FLUL)
Ana Raquel Fernandes (CEAUL-ULICES / Universidade Europeia / IPL)
Anne Etienne (University College Cork)
Edgardo Medeiros da Silva (CEAUL-ULICES / ISCSP)
Elizabeth Abele (Nazarbayev University)
Isabel Alves (CEAUL-ULICES / UTAD)
Jean Page (CEAUL-ULICES)
Joana Corrêa Monteiro (CEAUL-ULICES / UCP)
Laura Miñano (University of Valencia)

Lesley Saunders (IoEUCL)
Maria João Ferro (CEAUL-ULICES / IPL)
Margarida Pereira Martins (CEAUL-ULICES / Universidade Aberta)
Marijke Boucherie (CEAUL-ULICES / FLUL)
Mary Fowke (CEAUL-ULICES)
Mário Avelar (CEAUL-ULICES / FLUL)
Mick Greer (CEAUL-ULICES / FLUL)
Neil Larson (University of California, Davis)
Paula Horta (CEAUL-ULICES / FLUL)
Rita Queiroz de Barros (CEAUL-ULICES / FLUL)
Rui Carvalho Homem (CETAPS / FLUP)
Teresa Casal (CEAUL-ULICES / FLUL)
Zsófia Gombár (CEAUL-ULICES / IPL)
Zuzanna Zarebska (CEAUL-ULICES / IPS)