TRUE CRIME AS A SERIAL AND TRANSMEDIA PHENOMENON: LOCAL PERSPECTIVES AND GLOBAL CONTEXTS
Milan, Italy
Organization: IULM University - Milan
International Conference organized by Daniela Cardini, Alessia Francesca Casiraghi, Diletta Cenni e Dalila Saccuta
IULM University, Milan, 26-27 November 2025
EXTENDED DEADLINE for CFP submissions: 30 June 2025
NOTE: The development of the project has led to a change in the working title from “True Crime as a Serial and Transmedia Phenomenon: The Italian Scenario” to “True Crime as a Serial and Transmedia Phenomenon: Local Perspectives and Global Contexts.” This shift allows for a broader and more inclusive exploration of the topic.
As Ian Punnett notes, in recent years, true crime has gained widespread transnational and multiplatform success. Yet, beyond its contemporary popularity, true crime stands out as a genre with a long and complex history, tracing its roots back to the very origins of serial storytelling—an enduring testament to the power of its narratives. Despite its cultural and commercial relevance, the genre remains underexplored in academic research, with only a few notable exceptions. This gap is particularly evident in the Italian media landscape, where true crime has been largely overlooked as a subject of scholarly inquiry.
The conference "TRUE CRIME AS A SERIAL AND TRANSMEDIA PHENOMENON: LOCAL PERSPECTIVES AND GLOBAL CONTEXTS", held at IULM University in Milan on 26-27 November 2025, aims to critically examine true crime as a transnational genre, while highlighting its local variations and specificities across different media landscapes.
We invite proposals that explore how true crime narratives are developed, adapted, and received within specific cultural and geographical contexts. We particularly welcome contributions examining true crime across various media platforms—literature, theater, radio, television, cinema, podcasts—and its intersections with celebrity culture, fan communities, digital storytelling, and social media engagement.
Additional topics of interest include the geographical and spatial dimensions of crime representation, the role of family and gender, historical evolutions of the genre, and the interplay between local traditions and global narrative models.
Research on genre hybridity—exploring intersections between true crime, noir, detective fiction, comedy, horror, and Gothic—and studies on the distinctive narrative strategies of true crime are also encouraged.
While this is an international conference open to diverse cultural contexts, particular attention will be given to studies that investigate local adaptations of true crime and the tensions between global formats and local storytelling traditions.
The conference languages will be English and Italian, with simultaneous translation provided.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
- Historical perspectives on true crime across media and national contexts
- True crime and genre hybridization (noir, detective fiction, comedy, horror, Gothic)
- Local and transnational dimensions of true crime narratives
- Crime, family, and gender roles in true crime storytelling
- True crime and celebrity culture
- True crime fan cultures and digital communities
- Social media and crime storytelling (YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, etc.)
- True crime on streaming platforms, television, and podcasts
- The use of archival material and historical reconstruction
- Internet sleuthing, forensic fandom, and amateur investigations
- True crime journalism and its role in shaping public discourse
We look forward to receiving proposals from scholars around the world, with special interest in research that sheds light on the local articulations of true crime phenomena.
Submission Guidelines:
Please submit an abstract (up to 300 words), along with 5 keywords, a short bio (max. 150 words), and an optional bibliography (up to five references) to: truecrimeconference@gmail.com
The conference will be held in-person only.
Submission deadline: 30 June 2025
Notification of acceptance: 20 July 2025
Keynote speakers will be announced shortly.
Alessia Francesca Casiraghi
