2027 World Congress
Call for Papers
Adolfo Ibáñez University and the consortium of institutions sponsoring this event are delighted to invite you to the 2027 World Congress of the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies, centered on the theme “Global Imaginaries,
Maritime Power, and Intercontinental Circulations: the Ambivalent Legacies of the Long Nineteenth Century.”
The city of Valparaíso—overlooking which this event will take place—presents itself as a site of memory that evokes the ambivalent legacies of the nineteenth century. Its distinctive urban geography recalls a time of prosperity and grandeur, simultaneously linked to the rise of transpacific trade following the Hispanic American independences, to the construction of the Chilean nation-state, and to the emergence of a cosmopolitan and free-trade ideology that facilitated massive immigration and the flourishing of capitalism. Intellectuals, travelers, sailors, diplomats, and merchants who passed through its docks and streets envisioned this southern emporium in diverse ways: as a land of opportunity for private enterprise, as a node of commercial civilization and American republican modernity, as the radiating hub of Chile’s maritime expansion, and as a site of projection for imperial powers
contending for regional hegemony. A walk through the city situates us before this complex past and invites reflection on its
inheritances. Valparaíso’s enigmatic ecosystem of ruined palaces, abandoned mansions, and shuttered companies compels us to experience decline firsthand. We become aware of the volatile, fleeting, and unstable character of the historical dynamics that once brought the port its golden age. Its urban landscapes, as beautiful as they are dilapidated, operate as a suggestive metonymy, urging us to pose historical questions about how variations in international order, maritime power, and global circuits of exchange shaped the rise and fall of contemporary societies since the long nineteenth century.
This Congress invites participants to engage with the unresolved legacies of the long nineteenth century, organizing their contributions around the following themes while selecting their own spatial and temporal frameworks of analysis:
I. Maritime Power and Global Geopolitics_Development of naval empires, maritime
infrastructures, and oceanic territorialities; shifting visions of international order
and regional hegemony.
II. Circulations Across Continents and Oceans_Flows of people, goods, knowledge,
and species; diasporas, trade routes, missions, and transnational entanglements.
III. Port Cities and Urban Imaginaries_Port cities as cosmopolitan laboratories; their
architecture, social fabric, memoryscapes, and connections to global capitalism.
IV. Aesthetic Forms and Representations of the Global_Literary, visual, and
performative representations of mobility, empire, modernity, and decline across the
arts and media.
V. Ambivalent Legacies of Liberalism and Capitalism_Tensions between progress and
exclusion, free trade and dispossession, cosmopolitanism and empire, as articulated
in politics, economy, and culture.
VI. Afterlives of the Long Nineteenth Century_Memory, heritage, and the persistence
of nineteenth-century structures in twentieth- and twenty-first-century imaginaries,
institutions, and aesthetics.
Call for Papers
2027 World Congress of the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies
Global Imaginaries, Maritime Power, and Intercontinental Circulations: the
Ambivalent Legacies of the Long Nineteenth Century
Dates: June 21–23, 2027
Venue: Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Viña del Mar Campus, Valparaíso Region, Chile
Adolfo Ibáñez University and the consortium of institutions sponsoring this event are delighted to invite scholars to participate in the 2027 World Congress of the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies, to be held in Viña del Mar, overlooking the port
city of Valparaíso.
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Building upon the Congress theme, “Global Imaginaries, Maritime Power, and Intercontinental Circulations: the Ambivalent Legacies of the Long Nineteenth Century,” we invite paper and panel proposals that explore unresolved legacies
of the nineteenth century from a wide range of disciplinary and comparative perspectives.
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Topics of Interest
Proposals may engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Visions of international order and global geopolitics in nineteenth-century thought.
- Imaginations of post-imperial possibilities for the organization of power and society.
- The development of maritime power in its military, institutional, technological, and commercial dimensions.
- The creation of intercontinental and transnational networks of circulation of knowledge, ideas, goods, and practices, and their impact on power structures.
- The legacies of the nineteenth century in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: memory, structural connections, and comparative perspectives.
Submission Guidelines
Please submit proposals through the online form.
Individual Papers:
o Abstract of 200–250 words.
o Short CV of 100–150 words.
Panels (3–4 participants):
o Panel abstract of 200–250 words.
o Abstracts of each paper (200–250 words each).
o Short CVs of all participants (100–150 words each).
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While the working language of the congress is English, we welcome paper and panel proposals in Spanish. An ad hoc committee is
currently exploring ways to incorporate additional languages into our future events, although the Council has not yet considered their recommendations. For now, Spanish-language proposals are warmly welcome, and a Spanish version of the Call for Papers will also be made available.
Important Dates
-Deadline for submissions: May 30 2026.
-Notification of acceptance: June 15 2026.
For further information, please contact the Organizing Committee at secretariat@global19c.com.
We look forward to welcoming you in Viña del Mar in June 2027!