Call for papers – ‘Bibliomigrancy amongst the Ruins: post-1945 Book Movement’

Update: the conference has been rescheduled to 16 – 17th April 2026

The V&A Research Institute, the National Art Library and Archives is committed to provenance research and to exploring the lives of all the objects in our care. We are delighted to announce a conference, taking place on 16 – 17th April 2026, that explicitly extends this focus to books and archives, recognising them as artefacts of cultural heritage as well as carriers of information. This is partly motivated by ongoing work to explore the provenance of the collections of the National Art Library at the V&A, where acquisition during the Second World War accelerated rather than decreased. Doubtless this was partly driven by the sheer scale of the displacement of books in Europe from 1933 to 1945, where estimates are so vast as to strain understanding, running into the hundreds of millions. The conference will look to explore how this is not simply a matter of physical redistribution or of dispossession, but of the fundamental reconstruction of the mechanisms by which cultural and financial value were assigned to these migrant objects.

While recognising the immense suffering and inhumanity beneath successive waves of displacement, this conference will focus on the constitution of channels of book movement after 1945. The destruction and looting of the war had atomised continental book stock, creating new transnational and cross-cultural entanglements. From a moment of continental catastrophe, evaluative and distributive systems were resurrected, rebuilt and created at a vast scale. Competing government programmes billed as reconstructive or reparative caused further waves of destructive movement, as did diplomatic and charitable initiatives. Amidst the chaos, the book market flourished, with sellers ranging from opportunistic individuals to long established dealers connecting with all manner of private and institutional collectors. These interlocking streams of activity were responsive and proactive, pragmatic and idealistic, and irremediably altered the meaning of each book.

We welcome all exploration of this ambiguous moment of bibliomigrancy. Topics discussed may include, but are not limited to:

• Diplomatic and inter-governmental services and exchanges
• State action to amass books outside of their pre-1945 context
• Postwar library building by governmental or military authorities
• Case studies of individual sellers or collectors
• The actions of national and research libraries in profiting from the chaos
• Programmes of relief agencies, charities and welfare organisations
• The role of antiquarian book dealers and auction houses
• Exploration of the levels of informed complicity in seized or stolen books
• Commodification of sacred and ancient texts
• Analysis of fluctuating prices in international markets

We are looking for proposals for 20-minute papers, and particularly welcome submissions from early career researchers. Informal discussions in advance of submissions are welcome and should be sent to the email address below in the first instance.

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, along with a short biography of no more than 100 words to: bibliomigrancy.conference@vam.ac.uk

Deadline for submitted abstracts: 27 May 2025; speakers will be informed of the outcome by 4 June 2025.