Planning Virtual Conferences in the Humanities: A Detailed Look at the 9th International ESPRit Conference

In June 2021, the DFG Research Unit 228 ‘Journal Literature’1 organized the 9t International Conference of the European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit) on the topic of ‘Periodical Formats in the Market: Economies of Space and Time, Competition and Transfer’. On behalf of the Research Unit, a team from the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) was responsible for planning and carrying out the event, in coordination with the ESPRit Committee. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread in Europe during the Spring of 2020, the conference team agreed to go virtual with the conference, due to the foreseeable legal and logistical difficulties in planning and carrying it out in person. From the outset, planning the virtual conference was flanked by an intensive process of reflection in which the conference team reviewed and adapted its objectives as well as the methods and processes required to achieve these goals. This process of reflection was significantly more intensive than is the case with on-site conferences, which are based on existing experience and logistical support from the host institutions. The experiences and insights gained are shared in this report in order to assist in planning future conferences.