Calls for papers – Conferences taking place in April 2016

The Metamorphoses of the Book: New Global Literary Networks
Université de Paris-Ouest, Nanterre La Défense, France, 1-2 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 5 October 2015

1604-booksOrganizing Committee :
Constance COLLIN, université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
Sylvie DUCAS, CSLF, université Paris OuestNanterre La Défense
Nicolas MALAIS, CSLF, université Paris OuestNanterre La Défense
Pascal ZINCK, Pléïade,université Paris Sorbonne Cité
Venue of the conference : Pôle des Métiers du Livre de Saint-Cloud (France), université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense

Context
The research group “The Book: Creativity, Culture and Society” of the Centre for Studies in French Literature (CSLF, EA 1856) at the University of Paris West-Nanterre is made up of academics and researchers from multidisplinary fields such as history, literature, sociology, English studies, information and communications, aesthetics and semiotics. Its main focus is to explore issues relating to the book and its circulation, the book trade and its attendant economic, social, and cultural processes.
The research group holds regular meetings and other events at the School of Publishing – Pôle Métiers du Livre at its Saint-Cloud site (11, Avenue Pozzo-di-Borgo, 92210 Saint-Cloud).
In 2016 it is launching a new international project devoted to investigating the Metamorphoses of the Book. We invite proposals for the inaugural conference on the author and new global literary networks.

Presentation
For researchers interested in the ecosystems of contemporary literature, the network presents a wider scope than Bourdieu’s field theory, which it tests and challenges through its interest in the heterogeneous, the Other and the free associations with the members that are interconnected. Less anarchic than the rhizome (Deleuze, Guattari, Serres) and closer to the concept of mediation (Caune, Hennion), the network, is understood very broadly as a group or system of interconnected people or things, practices and discourses, as well as a place of sociability where all collective affiliation is anchored, a space for symbolic representation both personal and public. The network structures the writer and helps him fashion his authorial identity by confronting his singular practice (act of writing) with the collective representation of a cultural affiliation (the book).
With the advent of Web 2.0, the evolution of media and publishing make it possible to release in the public domain texts as well as literary output (poetry, fiction, graphic novels, comics, memoirs, diaries…) outside the editorial control of the publishing houses. The internet, the “network of networks,” profoundly changes and disrupts the traditional processes of promoting and publishing writers. Dedicated websites, blogs, web publishing, writers’ coops / collectives, communities of readers, book clubs, proliferate, thus superseding  a Euro-centric or US-centric tradition, inherited from Romanticism, of presenting the figure of the author as a unique individual, recluse in his study. He is given a voice, through the medium of a book, in absentia to an anonymous public, all of which by courtesy of a publisher or the agents of the literary world (reviewers, media, bookshops, libraries etc…).
By the same token, multiple literary practices have flourished (performances, public readings, audio-visual shows, writers in residence, writing workshops, creative writing degree courses) and expanded exponentially, involving writers and players of the book trade to weave new relationships of literary sociability and engage in new practices.
From book signings at bookstores to public readings and the boom in book festivals, there has been a spectacular transformation of the social visibility of writers as well as a sea change in representations of the literary marketplace. New technical, professional, economic and cultural operators emerge, while the instruments of production, publication, circulation and reception tend to overlap (Kittler, Parikka, Manovich, Zielinski), thus allowing for the reconfiguration of spaces and processes of recognition (McGurl).
The democratization of and incredible diversification in the literary production over the past fifty years, globalization, mass culture and the growth of media cultures (Maigret-Macé) invite us to investigate these new networks formed around the author and the new literary landscape.
Institutional networks of sociability, professional networks of the book trade, media networks or literary community networks, text networks weaving relations between author and reader, and digital networks can be examined in so far as they can shed new light on their relationship with authors and literature. Given that this conference seeks to bring together scholars who work in and between a variety of national literatures, literary, media and cultural histories, submissions are encouraged that engage with and exemplify the rich variety of critical and creative practices.
The conference is open to professors and senior lecturers, scholars, and PhD candidates. MA students in publishing are encouraged to attend.

Instructions
Submission of proposals for papers of 25 minutes in French or English should include:
1 the paper title, followed by name, academic institution and email address
2 a 500-word abstract of the paper, the lines of inquiry and the theoretial approach, the methology used and the main bibliographical sources.
3 a 100-word presentation of the author and his/her research interests.

Proposals will be evalued by a scientific committee and should be sent before 5 October, 2015 to :
sylvie.ducas@wanadoo.fr
cap.zinck@wanadoo.fr
constance.collin@free.fr
nicolasmalais@yahoo.fr

Registration fees
30 euros for professors and senior lecturers
15 euros for PhD candidates and lecturers

(posted 17 June 2015)


Phonetics and forensics: speaker, register and dialect identification: ALOES 2016
Paris 13 University, Villetaneuse, France, 1-2 April 2016
New extended deadline for proposals: 4 January 2016

Plenary speakers:
Geoffrey Stewart Morrison, expert on forensic speech science.
Daniel Hirst, emeritus expert on suprasegmental features.

The 18th Conference on Spoken English at Villetaneuse (ALOES 2016) will welcome two plenary speakers: Geoffrey Stewart Morrison, former subject editor for Speech Communication and co-editor of Vowel Inherent Spectral Change (2013), will give a talk on the segmental aspects of forensic analysis; Daniel Hirst, emeritus senior researcher at the CNRS, co-editor of the proceedings of the Speech Prosody conferences, will focus on the suprasegmental aspects of speaker classification and identification. Their presentations will provide an overview of the most recent techniques and results of segmental and suprasegmental analysis.
Beyond the over-optimistic representations of speaker identification in television programmes and films, this conference aims to foster a discussion of the latest research in English phonetics and phonology as far as speaker identification, speech styles, accents, and idiolects are concerned. We invite papers on these topics: case studies investigating specific features, text-to-speech, perception tests, sociolinguistic features, etc. Papers characterizing genres and spoken discourse will also be considered.

The first day of the conference will focus on these issues; we will, however, consider papers on other topics in the field of spoken English, to be presented on the second day. Each talk will be 30 minutes long, followed by 10 minutes for discussion.
Anonymous abstracts (300 words maximum), along with a separate document containing the author’s name and affiliation, should be sent, before 4th January 2016, to the following address: pierre.fournier@univ-paris13.fr
Contact person: Pierre Fournier pierre.fournier@univ-paris13.fr
Organizing committee: Viviane Arigne, Nicolas Ballier, Pierre Fournier, Yann Fuchs and Christiane Migette.
Scientific committee: Viviane Arigne (Paris 13 University), Nicolas Ballier (Paris 7 University), Phil Carr (Montpellier 3 University), Pierre Fournier (Paris 13 University), Mark Gray (Paris 12 University), Sylvie Hanote (University of Poitiers), Sophie Herment (Aix-Marseille University), Susan Moore (University of Limoges), Jennifer Vince (Paris 3 University).

Pre-conference workshop: learner scoring and automatic assessment for spoken data?
A pre-conference workshop will be held at Paris Diderot on March 31st. Geoffrey Stewart Morrison will present L2/L1 data modeling in connection with his published papers. He will give a talk on logistic regression. Daniel Hirst will demo Prozed, a tool for the investigation of learner prosody. We invite papers bearing more specifically on learner data, investigating learner scoring, automatic assessment, data modeling of segmental or suprasegmental features.
New extended deadline: 18 January 2016
Contact persons: nicolas.ballier@univ-paris-diderot.fr / Adrien Méli / Maelle Amand
http://pre-conf-aloes-2016.clillac-arp.univ-paris-diderot.fr

(posted 14 November 2015)


Manoel de Oliveira: A Poetics of Dissent: VI CECC Conference in Culture & Conflict
Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal, 7-8 April 2016
New extended deadline for proposals: 15 November 2015

Research Centre for Communication and Culture – Universidade Católica Portuguesa
New extended deadline for paper proposals: November 30, 2015

Manoel de Oliveira’s life and work merged with the history of cinema from 1931 when Douro, Faina Fluvial [Labour on the Douro River] was first exhibited until April 2, 2015, when he died. Considered for many years as the oldest filmmaker in activity (Oliveira’s last film O Velho do Restelo [The Old Man of Belém] dates from 2014 when he was 105), Oliveira’s filmography is definitely marked by novelty and esthetic dissent.
Internationally acclaimed, Oliveira’s filmography is unique and distinctive, since, both within the frameworks of international and Portuguese film, it cannot be considered as belonging to a specific cinematic movement/trend and to a particular category. By excelling both in the domain of documentary and fiction or by subtly and skillfully merging both, by making film enter in dialogue with the literary text, Oliveira’s production from the very beginning interrogates what cinema is and what the cinematic language searches for as if his whole work were an attempt to provide an answer to this concern. Besides this crucial ontological interrogation, his filmography reveals a particular ethos that can be analyzed from a universal and a national perspective, since his compromise with unveiling and dissecting the ambiguities and contradictions of the human soul inevitably leads spectators to question individual and collective identities.

Wishing to pay tribute to the filmmaker when the first year of his death is celebrated, this international conference seeks to analyze the various cycles of Oliveira’s work by examining how and to what extent his cinematography can be considered adversarial, and how it configures a poetics of dissent by addressing, among others, the following issues:

  • Oliveira and film criticism
  • Oliveira’s work or the cinema of non-illusion
  • Oliveira and the word as an esthetic object
  • Oliveira and the use of irony
  • The role of music in Oliveira’s cinema
  • Faith and reason or the religious dimension of Oliveira’s filmography
  • Death as a leitmotif in Oliveira
  • Oliveira, cinema and theatre
  • The mystery of time in Oliveira
  • Oliveira and the narratives of frustrated passion
  • Oliveira between film and literature
  • Oliveira’s films and gender roles
  • Oliveira and the construction of Portugal on the screen
  • Oliveira’s role in Portuguese and international filmmaking

The Conference’s working languages are Portuguese and English.
Please send the Organizing Committee 300-word abstracts for 20-minute papers, as well as a brief biographical note (circa 100 words), to oliveirapoetics@gmail.com by November 30, 2015 (new extended deadline). Proposals should list paper title, name, institutional affiliation, and contact details.
Notification of acceptance will be given by December 13, 2015.
Should you have any queries feel free to write us to oliveirapoetics@gmail.com

Organizing Committee: Adriana Martins, Maria do Rosário Lupi Bello, Daniela Agostinho, Miguel-Pedro Quadrio, Tiago Baptista
Keynote Speakers
RANDAL JOHNSON (University of California)
JACQUES LEMIÈRE (Université de Lille)
ANTÓNIO PRETO (Escola Superior Artística do Porto (ESAP)/Universidade Lusófona do Porto)

(posted 19 October 2015, updated 21 November 2015)


English Language & Literatures in English
Partium Christian University, Oradea, Romania, 8 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 1 February 2016

1604-EL-LE-logo11604-EL-LE-logo2The Departments of English Language and Literature & Modern Languages of Partium Christian University, Oradea (Romania), in cooperation with Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church, Budapest (Hungary) are pleased to announce the 6th EL&LE International Conference on English Language & Literatures in English to be held on 8 April 2016.

The conference committee welcomes original contributions on such topics as follows:

  • American Literature
  • British Literature
  • Canadian Studies
  • Central Europe and the English-Speaking World
  • Cultural Studies
  • ESP
  • Ethnic Studies
  • Gender Studies
  • Intermediality
  • Language Studies
  • Literary Theory and Criticism
  • Literatures in the English Language
  • Multilingualism and Multiculturalism
  • Philosophy
  • Postcolonial Studies
  • Religious Studies
  • Translation Studies

M.A. students are also invited to make presentations in sessions for postgraduate students.
Deadline for Submission of Proposals: 1 February 2016
Those who wish to present a paper are kindly asked to register on: https://partiumenglish.wordpress.com/
Conference fee: Early-bird Registration until 10 March, Late Registration after 11 March
Participants from Romania: 200 RON (Early bird), 250 RON (Late registration)
Sttudents: 100 RON (Earrly bird), 150 RON (Late registration)
Participants from abroad: 50 Euros (Early bird), 70 Euros (Late registration)
Students from abroad: 25 Euros (Early bird), 40 Euros (Late registration)
The fee covers participation costs, conference paper folder, conference program, coffee breaks, lunch and closing dinner on 8 April. A selection of conference papers will be published in print.
Method of payment: by bank transfer.
SWIFT Code  OTPVROBU
Account number:
RO88 OTPV 22 0000 290 701 RO03 (lei)
RO48 OTPV 22 1000 290 701 EU 01 (euros)
Please, indicate the following payment purpose on the bank transfer order: EL&LE Conference.
Bank transfer charges have to be paid by the registrant.
Requests for invoice must be indicated by email to the Organizers, at partium.english@gmail.com
Refund policy:
All cancellation must be notified by email to the Organizers, at partium.english@gmail.com
• Before 15 March, 2016: 50 % of registration fee will be refunded
• After 15 March, 2016: no refund
Reimbursment will be processed after the conference.

(posted 8 December 2015)


William Shakespeare: Past, Present and Future
Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania, 8-9 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 15 January 2016

 The year 2016 marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death (1564-1616). It is with this in mind that the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy at Vytautas Magnus University invite academics and professionals to present their papers on one of the most quoted of the English writers. The most quoted for a reason: Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets are not only an integral part of the literary, film or theatre studies — the author’s writings are now analysed among the scholars from various fields, providing modern academia with the bridges between different disciplines, establishing common grounds and paving a way for the interdisciplinarity of modern science. Thus, it is not surprising that Shakespeare’s plays are interpreted through a variety of angles, from King Lear as a re-enactment of the Oedipus complex to The Merchant of Venice as a legal play.
Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, we welcome researchers from various disciplines, including (but not limited to) literature, linguistics, culture, history, politics, law, philosophy, sociology, psychology, cognitive sciences, etc.
Suggested topics:

  • Shakespeare in/and the Arts
  • Shakespeare across cultures/the globe
  • Shakespearean adaptations, appropriations, translations and transformations
  • Place in Shakespeare
  • Shakespeare in film and theatre
  • Shakespeare and Politics
  • Shakespeare and Law
  • Transtextual links with Shakespeare
  • Everyday Shakespeare
  • Shakespeare and History
  • Europe in Shakespeare’s days
  • Shakespeare in the Digital Age
  • Shakespeare and war
  • Shakespeare and memory
  • Shakespeare and psychotherapy.

The conference language is English (the mother tongue of Shakespeare!).
Length of presentations: 20 minutes
Conference fee: 50 EUR (30 EUR for PhD students)
Please send the application form (name and surname, affiliation, contacts, title of the paper and abstract of 1500 characters by 15 January 2016 to Emilis Kasparas, Department of English Philology, Vytautas Magnus University afk@hmf.vdu.lt or/and emiliskasparas@yahoo.com
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 31th January 2016.

(posted 7 October 2015)


Conflict, Migration and Identity in Modern Ireland: Global and transnational perspectives
Trinity College Dublin, Carlow College and VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, Ireland, 13-15 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 12 February 2016

1604-ConflictKeynote Speakers:
Professor Bridget Anderson (Oxford University)
Professor Joe Cleary (Maynooth University)
Professor Enda Delaney (University of Edinburgh)
Professor Joe Lee (New York University)

This interdisciplinary conference will offer a timely opportunity to examine and reflect on the relationships between conflict, migration and identity in modern Irish history and culture. Along with local and national perspectives on conflict, migration and identity, we also seek contributions that explore the Irish experience within transnational and global trends, connections and contexts. Masterclasses on the histories, sociology and literatures of migration, conflict and identity will also be offered by leading scholars in the field. The conference will be set within the context of VISUAL’s spring exhibition programme of Irish and international work which explores questions of contemporary cultural identities in response to the centenary of the 1916 Rising. The programme includes a major solo show by Yinka Shonibare MBE, Post Colony by Gareth Kennedy, new work by Clodagh Emoe in collaboration with Spiresi, a humanitarian, intercultural, non-governmental organisation that works with asylum seekers, refugees and migrants; The Great Wall by Tadhg O Sullivan; and a new musical composition in response to the season’s themes, by musicians Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Iarla Ó Lionáird.

Proposals for individual papers (max. 20mins) and for complete panel sessions from all relevant disciplines are welcome.
Suggested topics may include but are not restricted to:

  • Relationships between migration and revolutionary violence
  • Warfare, political conflict and migration
  • Representations of migration, conflict and identity in modern Irish literature
  • Migration and ideas of nationhood and integration
  • Migration, crime and violence
  • Histories and theories of conflict
  • Questions of identity in modern Ireland
  • The politics of representation: migrant voices within media, art and culture
  • Northern Ireland: experiences of conflict, migration and identity
  • Ireland within the global experience of migration
  • Resistance and subaltern identities in Irish and transnational contexts

Please send proposals of 200-250 words and a brief biography to the following email address: migrationconference16@gmail.comClosing date for receipt of proposals: 12 February 2016

Conference Organizers:Dr Richard Mc Mahon (Dept of History, TCD), Ann Mulrooney (CEO, VISUAL), Dr David Ralph (Dept of Sociology, TCD), Dr Eoghan Smith (Dept of Humanities, Carlow College), Dr Simon Workman (Dept of Humanities, Carlow College)The event is co-produced by Trinity College Dublin, Carlow College and VISUAL, and will be hosted within Carlow College and VISUAL

(Illustration: Yinka Shionibare, Cannonball Heaven, 2011.  Image Courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery)

(posted 22 January 2016)


The Street and the City – Awakenings
University of Lisbon, Portugal, 14-15 April 2016
New extended deadline for proposals: 21 March 2016

Convener: University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies / ESHTE
Venue: School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon and Estoril Higher Institute for Tourism and Hotel Studies

Keynote speakers (confirmed)
Professor Christoph Lindner (University of Amsterdam)
Professor Malcolm Miles (Plymouth University)
Professor Nancy Duxbury (CES – Coimbra University and Simon Fraser University)

Like a piece of architecture, the city is a construction in space, but one of vast scale, a thing perceived only in the course of long spans of time. City design is therefore a temporal art, but it can rarely use the controlled and limited sequences of other temporal arts like music. On different occasions and for different people, the sequences are reversed, interrupted, abandoned, cut across. It is seen in all lights and all weathers. (Lynch, 1960)

Throughout the centuries cities have expanded intensely resulting in numerous challenges to their features and distinctiveness. A whole new sense of community has developed and the urban space can now be seen both as legacy and future heritage. The trends and challenges that cities encompass pose a new awareness for researchers, the way they are represented, felt, interpreted, all promote different visions of the space we all (once) inhabit(ed).
The Street and The City is the first of a series of multidisciplinary conferences with special emphasis on the city and the life that has evolved around it throughout more than three hundred years. English studies play a vital role in this conference both from the cultural and the geographical points of view.
The First International Conference The Street and the City – AWAKENINGS will take place at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, and Estoril Higher Institute for Tourism and Hotel Studies on the 14th and 15th April 2016. The organisation of this scientific meeting was born from the will to promote an interdisciplinary debate within the English studies and is intended to be a productive space to disseminate the most recent academic researches alongside the cultural and social studies with a special emphasis on the period between the 18th and the 21st century.
While encouraging an international scientific debate, the Conference will provide an opportunity of interchange between researchers regarding urban spaces, its representations and cultural dynamics. Of special interest to this conference are presentations which scrutinise the potential of the streets and the cities as space, i.e.,
the circulation of people, their commercial trades and businesses, the street and its hub and the different perspectives that can be offered from different areas of studies.
As Halbwachs puts it:
I arrive for the first time in London and take walks with different companions. An architect directs my attention to the character and arrangement of city buildings. A historian tells me why a certain street, house, or other spot is historically noteworthy. A painter alerts me to the colours in the parks, the lines of the palaces and churches, and the play of light and shadow on the walls and façades of Westminster and on the Thames. A businessman takes me into the public thoroughfares, to the shops, bookstores, and department stores. (1980:23)
Assuming that the potential of space and time which cities comprise mostly definitely acts as an enabler for multidisciplinary dialogue, the aim of this series of conferences is to bring together a truly interdisciplinary group of scholars from literature, cultural studies, anthropology, history, politics, the social sciences and other related disciplines. As such, topics and themes of interest include, but are not restricted to, the following:

  1. Cities and Visual Culture
  2. Moving Elements in the City
  3. Tourism and the City
  4. Gendered Urban Spaces
  5. Urban Cultural Heritage
  6. Trends in the Streets
  7. Commercial Trades in the Cities
  8. Senses and the Streets
  9. Mobility in the City and Urban Flows
  10. Cities and Hospitality
  11. (Collective) Memories in the City
  12. Utopian Cities
  13. Urban Art
  14. Literature and the City
  15. Cinema and the City
  16. Moments of the City

We welcome suggestions for papers, pre-organised panels and roundtables (20 minutes per speaker) by 21 March 2016 (new extended deadline) submitted on the conference webpage: http://www.thestreetandthecityul.wordpress.com
Contact email: thestreetandthecity@gmail.com
Abstracts of around 300 words for individual papers of twenty-minute duration. Please include the full title of your paper, name, institutional affiliation, contact information (postal address and e-mail address) and a short bionote.
Round tables of up to four speakers plus a chairperson and a 500-word proposal (and bionotes)
Panels – of three speakers plus a chairperson. Please include a brief description of the panel (300 words) and a 300-word abstract and bionote for each speaker.
Conference languages: Portuguese and English
Selected peer reviewed publication
Organising committee: Adelaide Meira Serras, Ana Bravo, Ana Mendes, Márcia Bessa Marques, Maria José Pires, Michaela Henriques, Nélia Cruz, Patricia Rodrigues, Paula Rama da Silva, Paulo Alves, Teresa Malafaia
Scientific committee: Adelaide Meira Serras, Ana Mendes, Isabel Simões Ferreira, José Sancho Silva, Luísa Leal de Faria, Michaela Henriques, Patricia Rodrigues, Paula Rama da Silva, Raúl das Roucas Filipe, Teresa Malafaia

(posted 14 January 2016, updated 18 March 2016)


Henry James and Memory
British Library Conference Centre, London, UK, 14-16 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 30 June 2015

Plenary Speakers:
Sarah Churchwell, Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities, University of East Anglia
Richard Holmes, OBE, FRSL, FBA, biographer
Adrian Poole, Professor of English Literature, Trinity College, Cambridge

2016 marks the centenary of the death of Henry James (15 April 1843-28 February 1916), and will be a year in which James’s heritage will be celebrated, and will come under scrutiny, in a variety of settings and in different modes. This first conference of the centenary year will take place in London, James’s adopted home and the location of much of his fiction, and will be hosted by the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library, one of the world’s greatest libraries. Taking advantage of another centenary, it will give special attention to James’s richly complex relation to Shakespeare, as well as to other writers, especially poets. In addition to academic papers, it will also involve readings by creative writers — in poetry and prose — of works inspired by James and his example.
The conference, which will start with a public event on Thursday evening 14 April and continue until Saturday afternoon 16 April 2016, invites proposals for individual papers (twenty minutes) and three-paper panels under the general rubric of ‘Henry James and Memory.’
James was himself much given to the act of remembrance, whether reminiscing in his biographical and autobiographical writings, or echoing the words and works of other writers and artists in his fiction. Likewise, James has had a vivid afterlife in various literary and artistic forms up to the present day. ‘Henry James and Memory’ encourages submissions that address either of these angles.

Possible topics and themes include, but are not limited to:

  • Jamesian allusions to, echoes of and other treatments of Shakespeare (the fourth centenary of whose death is also being commemorated extensively at the British Library in 2016) and other English, American, and European writers
  • commemorations of James
  • James’s autobiographical and biographical writings
  • representations of the processes of memory and imagination in James’s fiction and non-fiction
  • ‘the visitable past’: memory, commemoration, reminiscence in James’s fiction and non-fiction
  • adaptations of James for stage, film, radio, and television
  • fiction based on James’s life, or rewriting James’s own fiction
  • Jamesian influences in later writing (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama)
  • James’s legacies to criticism and theory

The academic organisers are Philip Horne (University College London), Gert Buelens (Ghent University) and Oliver Herford (University of Birmingham).
Please submit one-page proposals by e-mail to JamesAndMemory@gmail.com to reach us by 30 June 2015.
Presenters will be notified by 15 August.

(posted 15 May 2015)


10th International IDEA Conference
Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, 14-16 April 2016
New extended deadline for proposals: 15 January 2015

IDEAFounded in 2005, IDEA is the Turkish national association for English studies. As a member of ESSE (The European Society for the Study of English) IDEA aims at bringing together academics working in the fields of linguistics, literature, language teaching and cultural studies.
This year we will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of IDEA conferences at Bogazici University, Istanbul, the host venue of the very 1st conference.
Our conference accepts papers in a wide range of topics from many different fields of “Studies in English”” Some of the major fields are: Literature, Cultural and Critical Studies, Linguistics, Language Teaching
and Translation Studies.

Please submit an abstract (maximum 250 words) to: idea10@boun.edu.tr
Only email submissions are going to be accepted.
Please include your name, affiliation, abstract title, email address, a brief biography and 5-6 keywords pertaining to your topic.
We would also appreciate if you could write the name of the field of study in the title section of your email.
After sending your abstract you should receive a confirmation email within 3 workdays. If you have not received a confirmation after 3 workdays, please contact us.
All the abstracts will be peer reviewed.
The deadline for abstract proposals is 15 January 2015 (new extended deadline)
We are looking forward to seeing you in Istanbul!
http://www.idea10.boun.edu.tr

(posted 12 November 2015, updated 4 January 2016)


Wales and Scotland in European Travel Writing 1760-1870
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK, 16-17 April 2016

“Le Pays de Galles ressemble entièrement à la Suisse”
J-J Rousseau

A one-day conference jointly organized by two AHRC-funded projects: European Travellers to Wales 1750–2010 and Curious Travellers: Thomas Pennant and the Welsh and Scottish Tour 1760-1820

A one-day conference looking at perceptions of Wales and Scotland in a century’s worth of travel-writing from Continental Europe. What attracted travellers from France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries to venture beyond the attractive bustle of London to the Celtic peripheries? How aware are writers of the cultural differences within the United Kingdom? What sources and literary influences inspire them, and shape their experience?
We are particularly interested in exploring European translations of (or borrowings from) the trail-blazing works of Thomas Pennant (author of numerous Tours in Scotland and Wales 1769-1778) and William Gilpin (Observations on the River Wye 1782), and others. How are these key works mediated in different European languages, and do they colour Continental experiences of Wales and Scotland, as they undoubtedly did for British travellers? Pennant himself travelled on the Continent in 1765, and formed important links with some of the foremost members of the scientific community: to what extent did these networks help to spread knowledge of his work across Europe?
Potential topics could also include:

  • Translating travel texts
  • Literary tourism:  Gray, Ossian, Herder, Scott
  • Continental Celtic connections and prehistoric landscapes (particularly post-Renan and Arnold)
  • The aesthetics of landscape/picturesque — parallels with Alps
  • Scientific tours, natural history or geology — European networks and influences.

We welcome any expressions of interest at this stage. Please contact:
– Heather Williams h.williams@cymru.ac.uk
– or Mary-Ann Constantine mary-ann.constantine@cymru.ac.uk

(posted 27 May 2015)


Spatiality and Temporality
Warsaw, Poland, 22 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 15 February 2016

An international symposium organized by Interdisciplinary Research Foundation
Keynote speaker: Prof. Ingrida Eglė Žindžiuvienė, Vytautas Magnus University

Interdisciplinary Research Foundation is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the upcoming “Spatiality and Temporality” International Symposium. The symposium is addressed to academics, researchers and professionals with a particular interest related to the conference topic.
We invite proposals from various disciplines including philosophy, history, sociology, anthropology, culture studies, literature and architecture. The language of the symposium is English.
The symposium will explore spatiality and temporality as fundamental categories of human experience and cognition and it will discuss various interpretations of these categories and complex relations between them. The symposium will also examine conceptions and perceptions of time and space in relation to memory, historical and social change, technological innovations, interactivity and cultural differentiation.
Papers are invited on topics related, but not limited, to:

  • time and space boundaries
  • monuments and historical sites
  • globalization and urban spaces
  • places made by nature
  • ruins and forgotten places
  • heterotopias and heterochronies
  • toponymy and topoanalysis
  • cartography and mapmaking

Proposals up to 250 words and a brief biographical note should be sent by 15 February 2016 to: spatiality.temporality@irf-network.org
Selected papers will be published in the post-conference volume.
Full registration fee: 70 €
Student registration fee: 50 €
Conference venue: As-Bud Conference Centre, Central Tower, Al. Jerozolimskie 81, Warsaw
The Paper proposal form is available for download from the Conference website.
Conference website: http://spatiality.temporality.irf-network.org

(posted 19 January 2016)


European Association for American Studies Conference 2016
Constanta, Romania, 22-25 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 15 June 2015

1604-EAAS-2016The full cfp is available on the website of EAAS.
Keynote speakers:
Rodica Mihaila, Professor Emeritus, University of Bucharest; Director, Fulbright Commission Bucharest
Garry Gerstle, Paul Mellon Professor of American Studies Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Linda Cox, Executive Director, Bronx River Alliance/Bronx River Administrator, New York

To highlight the range and diversity of American Studies in Europe the EAAS is issuing an open call for proposals for the 2016 conference.
Proposers may wish to identify and explore long-standing, current and emerging intellectual debates in American Studies; to explore critically the varying practices and methodologies in American Studies; to bring to life current discussions and to posit potential paradigms in American Studies.
The various anniversaries of 2016 provide a variety of potential foundations for proposals.

  • 150 years earlier marked the start of post-Civil War Reconstruction.
  • The 1860s was the era of the dime novel, and Seeley Regester’s The Dead Letter, credited by some as the first full-length American crime novel, appeared in 1866;
  • 125 years will have passed since Thomas Edison patented the motion camera;
  • 1916 saw the creation of the US National Parks Service;
  • the opening of the nation’s first birth control clinic;
  • the election from Montana of Jeanette Rankin, the first woman to sit in the US House of Representatives;
  • the release of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance;
  • the publication of Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems;
  • Shirley Jackson, Walker Percy, and Walter Cronkite were born in 1916;
  • Henry James died in the same year;
  • The National Organization for Women celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2016;
  • Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, its narrative echoing the American Revolution, also dates from 1966,
  • Star Trek first reached TV screens in that same year.

Contemporary American Studies topics could include, for example:
– discussion and exploration through various methodologies of the USA’s strong, diverse and expanding literary canon;
– the multi-dimensional character and seemingly endless inventiveness of America’s cultural output;
– the adaptability of American culture in an age offering radically new social media;
– the heritage that might be left after the nation’s first African-American presidency.

The EAAS conference encompasses topics across the disciplinary spectrum in American Studies, as well as interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches to the subject.  The themes mentioned above are only indicative, and not in any way intended to be a definitive list.

The conference content will be defined by the range and breadth of your suggestions and the conference committee looks forward to receiving many different and stimulating proposals.

Format
The EAAS is moving away from its former Workshop format. Proposals are now invited that may use a variety of presentation styles. The conference structure is expected mainly to consist of traditional panel sessions with papers, and proposals for panels of papers are very welcome indeed, but submissions may also be proposed as roundtables, workshops, shop-talks, dialogues, interviews, performances, individual lecture presentations, readings or in other innovative formats. Proposals for individual papers are also welcome, and will be considered for inclusion in appropriate conference sessions. Anyone interested in putting together a panel would be welcome to use the EAAS elist to seek panellists. It is expected that the conference will be made up mainly of sessions lasting 90 minutes or 2 hours, but there may be opportunity for shorter sessions. All proposals are expected to include the opportunity for discussion.
Session chairs
Volunteers are invited to fill the role of chairs or facilitators for sessions where these positions are vacant.  Volunteers to chair sessions should indicate their willingness in the submission form and include keywords outlining their areas of expertise.  The conference committee will gratefully call on volunteers to add them to appropriate sessions where possible.
EAAS has established the practice of publishing a small number of papers from each conference in an edited collection. The local conference committee looks forward to continuing this tradition, and may request session chairs to nominate work for consideration by the editors.
Selection
The EAAS is committed to a conference that reflects the broadest disciplinary range within American Studies, the multinational membership of the EAAS, and the international participation that its biennial meetings attract.
The conference committee will take these aims into account in reviewing proposals and in constructing the conference programme.

The deadline for Proposals will be 15 June 2015.
Use this link to access the submission form: http://www.enl.auth.gr/abstracts/index.html
All proposals must include the name and institutional affiliation of the proposer.
Proposals are invited for individual paper presentations or complete panels, roundtables, workshops, shop-talks, dialogues, interviews, performances, individual lecture presentations, readings or other innovative formats.  All proposals are expected to include the opportunity for discussion.
Colleagues are also invited to volunteer as session chairs or facilitators using this web form.
Submissions should state a title for the panel/presentation/paper/proposal and a small number of keywords providing an indication of the disciplinary reach and content of the proposal.
Proposals for individual papers should consist of an abstract (max. 250 words) including brief mention of any relevant supporting information.
Proposals for panels and other formats should provide a brief explanation of the structure and goals of the proposed session (500 words), accompanied by details of the contributors and 250-word abstracts of each contribution.
All proposals must include details of any audiovisual or other equipment required to deliver the session/presentation, using the appropriate field in the web form.
Colleagues volunteering as session chairs or facilitators should include keywords indicating their expertise and interests

Small grants may be awarded at a later date by EAAS to help some presenters attend the conference. Such awards will be in an amount no more than €200, and eligibility to compete for support will be restricted to such categories as presenters who are members of the American Studies associations in low GDP countries, and postgraduate students without other financial support. Acceptance on to the EAAS conference programme does not imply the award of any financial support. http://eaas.eu/eaas-grants/eaas-conference-travel-grants

(posted 21 May 2015)


Wealth in Transatlantic Realism and Naturalism. A Panel at the Conference of the European Association for American Studies
Constanta, Romania, 22-25 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 5 June 2015

This panel, organized by Gert Buelens (Ghent University) and Jude Davies (University of Winchester), will examine transatlantic literary representations of the rise of finance capitalism in and around the period 1875-1917, with a particular focus on the figure of the financier and the different sources of “old money” and “new money” At the start of this period, London was the heart of the financial world; towards the end, New York could be regarded as having replaced London in this position. Connections between America and Britain were strong in the world of speculation, where wealth was being created less by means of profit derived from production or landed property and more thanks to the ascribed value of financial stock.
Literary realism and naturalism are in part responses to these shifting and intensifying relations between old and new, real and virtual, material and ideal, natural and social, especially when charting transatlantic flows of capital, commodities, and people. Works that spring to mind are Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (1875), with its speculator Augustus Melmotte and the transatlantically funded scheme of the railway that is to connect San Francisco and Vera Cruz; several of Edith Wharton’s works, with their depiction of the varying “customs” that regulate wealth in the US and France; Theodore Dreiser’s trilogy of the financier Frank Cowperwood; Henry James’s unfinished Ivory Tower (1917) and its reflection on the moral aftermath of the acquisition of wealth.

Short proposals (no more than one page) are invited for twenty-minute papers that deal with works from American realism and/or naturalism and/or with British and other European literatures relating to the period, from a transatlantic perspective. Details on the EAAS conference may be found at http://eaas2016.org/.
Please send proposals to transatlanticwealth@gmail.com by 5 June 2015. Proposers will be notified by 15 June.

(posted 21 May 2015)


Do the Senses Make Sense?: The Five Senses in Nabokov’’s Work
Biarritz, France, 28 April – 1 May 2016
Deadline for proposals: 1 October 2015

International Conference organized by the French Vladimir Nabokov Society
After the 2013 Conference on “Nabokov and France” in Paris, the Enchanted Researchers – The French Vladimir Nabokov Society invites scholars to reflect upon the importance and significance of the Five Senses in Nabokov’s work, poetics and aesthetics, for its next International Conference.
Keynotes Speakers are Brian Boyd (University of Auckland) and Maurice Couturier (University of Nice).
The Conference will take place in Biarritz, France, a place familiar to most of Nabokov’s readers, as he powerfully evoked the sea resort— popular vacation spot for White Russians until 1917—and its Grande Plage, on which he “found himself digging, one day, side by side with a little French girl called Colette”, the author’s “first love”. Biarritz was the place where Nabokov had one of his first intense sensorial and emotional experiences, and offered many elements to stimulate his perceptive and imaginative self: from the “rising, rotating mass of foamy, green water” of the ocean to the sound of the Basque language, from the salty breeze on his lips to the “deep, mealy sand” in which he dug, from the “pistachio ice cream of a heavenly green” to the pine smell of the beach cabin, his sensorial memories saturate the short story “First Love” (chapter seven of Speak, Memory).
Senses make particular sense in Nabokov’s world, since he was not only a trilingual writer, but also a man gifted with a spectacular visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile and kinetic memory. In addition, Nabokov was a famous synaesthete, and therefore one should hardly attempt to study the importance of one given sense without taking into account its relation to the other ones. The knowledge brought by neuroscience and cognitive science in the field of synaesthesia may therefore open up new perspectives for researchers interested in that topic in Nabokov’’s oeuvre.
The central importance of sensory modalities in Nabokov’s work should also be related to his multilingualism, and his personal history; since he came from an aristocratic family frequently travelling, employing foreigners and having access to an amount of foreign products quite exceptional when compared to their fellow Russian citizens, Nabokov’’s senses were constantly stimulated by new sounds, sights, smells, tastes and textures in his childhood. His acute sensory perceptions were then probably further developed with the experiences brought by his émigré life throughout Europe and the United States.
One may even wonder whether the very exercise of putting sensible experience into words did not play a fundamental role in shaping, nourishing and amplifying the richness and sharpness of Nabokov’s sensory perceptions.
Similarly, Nabokov’s entomological practice, which ruined his eyesight, also had a significant (though paradoxical) impact on the acuteness of his visual perception of detail and color, and probably on his other modes of perception.
Considering that so far the key role of senses in Nabokov’’s work and aesthetics (keeping in mind that this very word stems for the Greek word for senses) has not been tackled on a large scale, this International Nabokov Conference offers to be the first occasion for such academic reflections and exchanges to take place, so that the Nabokovian scholarly community helps “senses make sense” in his work.
Scholars are therefore invited to reflect upon the impact of senses on Nabokov’’s creative process, on his poetic and aesthetic principles, and on his way of experiencing the world around him.

Proposals may include, but may not be limited to, the following topics:
– senses and synaesthesia: questioning vision as the potential key-sense; the recurring association of senses; synaesthesia in Nabokov’’s poetics.
– senses and multilingualism: perceptions and languages; the taste/sound of words depending on the language (see the breakfast scene in Ada, I, 12); senses in Nabokov’’s translations/self-translations;
– senses and/in descriptions: how senses combine and infuse descriptions with intense life-likelihood; the role of senses in characterization; the importance of senses in narrators and focalizers;
– perceptions of alien worlds: Nabokov’’s keen sense of observation; the function of senses in satire and mockery;
– senses and language: the sensations of articulating language (see the incipit of Lolita); how foreign languages are perceived and described;
– senses and memory: sensory perceptions and the mnemonic process/writing; senses in his autobiographical writings;
– senses and entomology: the sensory quality of Nabokov’’s entomological descriptions, of his inclusion of entomology in his fictional writings; role of his lepidopterological practice in his aesthetics and his perception of the world;
– senses and intermediality: the role of Nabokov’s perception in his inclusion of works of art (painting, cinema, music, theater), or objects from popular culture around him (posters, songs, ads, daily life products, food, perfumes );
– senses and aesthetics: the sensual pleasures of reading (the recurring “tingle in the spine” image); senses in Nabokov’’s teaching of literature; sensory perceptions in Nabokov’s aesthetic principles;
– senses and sensuality: senses and the texture of desire; sensory perceptions in Nabokov’s erotic texts.

Papers can be given in either English or French.
Conference proposals of up to 300 words should be accompanied by a short biographical note and should be sent before October 1st, 2015 to marie.bouchet@vladimir-nabokov.org
Conference organizers:
Isabelle Poulin, Université de Bordeaux-Montaigne
Marie Bouchet, Université de Toulouse
Julie Loison-Charles, Université Lille III
Morgane Allain-Roussel, Université de Saint-Etienne
For more information consult http://www.vladimir-nabokov.org

(posted 10 July 2015)


Beyond Frankenstein’s Shadow: Mary Shelley’s Works and Their European Reception
Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France, 29 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 15 December 2015

It has become a cliché of writing on Frankenstein to note the dissimilarit
between the novel and its eponymous but diverse cultural reproductions.
Fred Botting, Making Monstruous: Frankenstein, Criticism, Theory (1991)

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein is at the origin of a modern myth that has been fuelled by diverse cultural reproduction. This has generated a long-lasting metonymy in which Shelley has been viewed mainly or exclusively as ‘the author of Frankenstein’. And while the last twenty years have witnessed a flowering in the study of Shelley’s work, there is still a need to approach ‘the inclusive Mary Shelley’ (Nora Crook). Mary Shelley’s novels explore a number of complex themes, such as the choice of political liberty over love, or republicanism over tyranny (Valperga); the extinction of humanity and the impossibility of an ideal political system (The Last Man, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck); the failure of the Byronic hero with respect to love and family relationships (Lodore); as well as incest and paternal tyranny (Mathilda, Falkner). Her fiction offers interesting challenges to the critic not least because of her narrators’ polyphonic, interweaving voices.
This conference intends to bring together scholars interested in an overall reassessment of Mary Shelley’s work and its European reception. With a view to retracing the process of transmission, recreation and translation that have marked the past 200 years, contributions focusing on the role played by different media in the reception of her work – dramatic or cinematic adaptations, illustrations of her writings, biographical studies – are particularly welcome.
This conference invites contributions on any aspect of Mary Shelley’s fictional, historical, critical and autobiographical work and its European reception will be considered. These may include:

  • Reading Mary Shelley in the light of contemporary critical practices
  • Mary Shelley’s critical reception today
  • Theatrical and/or film adaptations of her work
  • Visual illustrations in/of her writings
  • The Frankenstein myth
  • Editing the Mary Shelley canon
  • Mary Shelley’s role as Percy Bysshe Shelley’s editor
  • Echoes and interrelationships between Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s works
  • Approaches to translating Mary Shelley
  • Mary Shelley’s European reception
  • The influence of Mary Shelley on the European novel

The organizers invite proposals of no more than 300 words for 30-minute presentations on any aspect of Mary Shelley’s works and their European reception.
Proposals, together with a short biographical statement and institutional affiliation, should be sent by 15 December 2015 to:
antonella.braida-laplace@univ-lorraine.fr

(posted 2 November 2015)


Debt and Indebtedness (in the literary, economic, and artistic senses of the word) in Medieval Texts
Nantes University, France, 29 April 2016
Deadline for proposals: 1 March 2016

Medieval texts are sometimes described as outgrowths of pre-existing sources, to which they are indebted for what they borrow, translate or transform. Literary indebtedness certainly is one of the key features of textual production in the Middle Ages. Middle English Breton lays like Lay Le Freine or Sir Launfal are a case in point among others. One other aspect of the medieval context is the development in the Christian western world from the 13th century onwards of a flourishing economic system. The economic expansion concurrent with the urban growth has a decisive impact on the Christian outlook on money and business contracts (see Pierre Jean de Olivi, Tractatus de Contractibus, written at the end of the 13th century). Paradoxically in an increasingly commercial and financial landscape/mindscape, the mendicant orders appeal to apostolic deprivation and castigate the lures of riches and possessions. No wonder incurring debt is regarded as an omen of moral ruin, a hindrance to spiritual redemption in the hereafter.

In the early fifteenth-century prose debate about the Decalogue, Dives and Pauper, the moneyless preacher draws a black picture of debtors (Vol. I, Part 2, Ninth Precept, Ch. 7, l.16-44). A condemnation of greed and covetousness, this Commandment, as glossed by Pauper instructing the rich layman in scriptural/spiritual matters, broaches the issue of debt. What he underlines at that point of his lengthy demonstration is that greed irremediably leads to debt and shady dealings bound to be punished by the devil: “(…) so that neyther for dred of God ne for schame ne for speche of the world they cesyn nout to borwyn ne to getyn falslyche othir mennys good and so fallyn deppere & deppere in dette til at the laste the fend sleth hem body and soule. And therfor loke that thu paye wel thin dettis whil thu myght (…)” at lines 26-30.  The advisory, if not admonitory, tone aims to warn Dives about grasping people’s relentless fall. Debt is associated with moral erring and incurable blindness.

In medieval times, debts are despised, along with debtors and those who make a living by lending money, usurers in other words, although paying one’s debts is an absolute requirement. Anthropologist David Graeber, in his history of debt (Debt: The First 5,000 Years, 2011), reminds us of the binding moral power of this very notion, which actually precedes the invention of money. A promise to pay considered sacred in the biblical sense of a covenant between God and man (like Noah, for instance) or between two persons, a debt implies a link, both financial and moral, that binds the debtor to the creditor who finds himself in a superior position until the debt is honoured, or in some cases until remission of the debt, as in The Franklin’s Tale: the Orleans clerk eventually writes off Aurelius’s debt (1,000 pounds’ worth) after the latter has writen off Dorigen’s.

Medieval texts, either poetry or prose, testify to the significant role played by the notion of indebtedness, which takes on several meanings. In addition to being purely financial, a debt can be of honour, of gratitude, of love, or a debt to the family, the peers, or the community. A debt is also of an intellectual and aesthetic nature, when a medieval “auctor” pays tribute to his sources, or not. Illustrations of the various aspects of indebtedness can be found in romances and lays, epics, saints’ lives among other genres.

The conference invites the participants to examine all kinds of medieval texts, whether verse or prose, in English or in other languages, through the filter of the idea of debt and indebtedness.

Please submit an abstract either in English or in French of about 250 words by March 1st  2016 to agnes.blandeau@univ-nantes.fr.

(posted 23 January 2016)