Calls for papers – Conferences taking place in June 2020

Poetics among the Disciplines @ Scientiae 2020
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 3-6 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 7 January 2020

Poetics before Modernity invites papers on ‘Poetics among the’ Disciplines to be proposed for Scientiae, Amsterdam, 3–6 June 2020

​Gathering scholars working on all aspects of c.1400–1700 intellectual history, the Scientiae conference is the ideal venue for a conversation about where knowledge about imaginative literature fits into the period’s disciplinary map, and how the key developments in the sphere of poetics and literary criticism in this period relate to those in other fields and disciplines—alchemy, astrology, epistemology, magic, medicine, natural history and philosophy, the subjects of the trivium and the quadrivium, theology and biblical exegesis, and the visual, plastic, and performative arts, among others. We invite papers which shed new light on any aspect of this relationship, including, but not limited to:

  • the influence of other fields and disciplines on c.1400–1700 poetic theory, and vice versa
  • the changing place of poetry and poetics in the disciplinary map
  • authors who produced important work in poetics and literary criticism as well as other fields—e.g., Scaliger, Melanchthon, Vettori, Camerarius, Patrizi, Tasso, Bacon, Galileo, Marinella, Vossius, Hobbes, Digby, Cavendish—and the connections between these aspects of their work
  • the perceived place of poetic knowledge within the Aristotelian system
  • the impact of poetic theory on the development of the non-literary—visual, plastic, performative, musical—arts, and vice versa
  • the relationship between poetics and the Reformation/Counter-Reformation
  • theories of mimesis within poetics and without
  • theories of allegory within poetics and without
  • poetics and translation theory
  • practical criticism as a form of knowledge

Please send 250-word abstracts for 20-minute papers, accompanied by a 100-word biographical note, topoeticsbeforemodernity@gmail.com by 7 January 2020.  A selection of abstracts will be arranged into panels and submitted for consideration by the Scientiae conference committee. Organizers for Poetics before Modernity: Bryan Brazeau (b.brazeau@warwick.ac.uk ), Vladimir Brljak (vladimir.brljak@durham.ac.uk), Micha Lazarus (mdsl3@cam.ac.uk).

Further information about Poetics before Modernity: poeticsbeforemodernity.net

Further information about Scientiae and the Amsterdam conference: scientiae.co.uk and scientiae.co.uk/conferences/amsterdam-2020

Download the Conference flyer.

(posted 25 Novembe 2019)


Risk and Safety: 9th International Conference on Language, Literature & Culture and Crossroads III Conference
Białystok, Poland, 4-5 June 2020
Deadline for submissions: 1 March 2020

This combined conference is organized jointly by the University of Białystok (Poland) and Çankaya University (Ankara, Turkey). on June 4-5, 2020 in Białystok, Poland, and the topical theme of the conference will be “Risk and Safety” in different areas of human sciences.

This international conference is a peer-reviewed academic event and comprehensive venue for the free exchange and dissemination of ideas on language, translation, literary and cultural studies, and aims to bring together scholars and graduates researching the intersections of these fields in the welcoming atmosphere of the University of Białystok in Poland. We deem this year’s theme covers a wide variety of interdisciplinary studies. Topics might include but are not limited to:

  • representations of natural and anthropogenic catastrophes and ecological transformation in literature,
  • literary disaster discourses, environmental literature, apocalyptic scenarios, eco-thrillers, climate fiction and risk narratives,
  • ‘risk’ and ‘safety’ in travel writing,
  • climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the extinction of the human race,
  • the motif of humankind beyond rescue,
  • atomic war, nuclear devastation and nature’s revenge,
  • facing the problems of the Anthropocene, promoting change, transforming humanity,
  • ‘world risk theory’ and postcolonial theory, trauma narratives,
  • the ethics and strategies of survival,
  • eye-witness narratives, testimonio,
  • anxiety, suffering, loss and displacement,
  • narrative patterns and the semantics of disaster literature,
  • the aesthetic and ethical aspects of destruction,
  • different modes of projecting the future in mimetic and speculative fiction,
  • national, cultural, gender and sexual identities,
  • security, sustainability, precaution and prevention,
  • indigenous languages and cultures, an alternative, non-technocratic, non-anthropocentric attitude towards nature,
  • retranslation of nature’s language, fundamental transformation of societies,
  • corpus-driven analysis of ‘risk’ and ‘safety’,
  • ‘risk’ and ‘safety’ in media reporting,
  • diachronic studies of ‘risk’ and ‘safety’

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Dr. Gerd Bayer, Friedrich–Alexander University Erlangen–Nürnberg

Dr. Anna Barcz, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich

We deem this year’s theme covers a wide variety of interdisciplinary studies, focusing on aspects of language, literature and culture in any or all possible contexts, and employing interdisciplinary approach to address the research problems with methods of and insights borrowed from multiple disciplines.

You may participate as panel organizer, presenter of one paper, or observer. Submissions are open for 20-minute slots.

All submissions to the conference will be reviewed by at least two independent peers for technical merit and content.

Selected papers presented at the conference will be published in a volume: Çankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (ISSN 1309-6761)

A 300-word abstract and 5 keywords should be submitted as an email attachment to LLC2020conference@gmail.com by March 1, 2020. In your email, please include your name, affiliation, email address, phone number, title of the paper, abstract, 5 keywords and a brief bio data. For more information please visit www.elts.cankaya.edu.tr

  • Deadline for submission: March 1, 2020
  • Notification of acceptance: March 10, 2020
  • Registration: April 10, 2020
  • Late Registration: until May 1, 2020

Conference fees (non-refundable):

  • 80€ (100€ for late submissions after April 10, 2020)
  • 40€ (for graduate students&audience/60€ for late submissions after April 10, 2020)

Bank account details: IBAN: PL 74 1160 2202 0000 0002 4179 4476
Bank Millennium SA
SWIFT/BIC: BIGBPLPW
Payment reference: LLC2020 First Name Last Name
Uniwersytet w Bialymstoku, Swierkowa 20 B, 15-328 Bialystok, Poland

All submissions to the conference will be reviewed by at least two independent peers for technical merit and content. The papers presented at the conference will be published in a volume. Should you need further information, please contact the organizers at LLC2020conference@gmail.com

Organizing committee: Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun, Anna Dziok-Łazarecka, Ewelina Feldman-Kołodziejuk, Dorota Guzowska, Anna Maria Karczewska (chair), Daniel Karczewski, Mustafa Kirca (co-chair), Ertuğrul Koç, Magdalena Łapińska (secretary), Grzegorz Moroz, Gülden Taner

(posted 7 September 2019, updated 10 January 2020)


The Iberian Peninsula as seen from North America (1850-1950): an International Conference on Travel Literature and Transatlantic Encounters
University of Alicante, Spain, 4-5 June 2020
Deadline for the submission of proposals: 29 February 2020

This conference is part of the research project “Exotic Spain: American Travel Literature about Spain (1900-1950)” (ATLAS) funded by the Research and Knowledge Transfer Office of Alicante University (GRE18-14 A). The project focuses on the study of a corpus of American authors who traveled to Spain in the first half of the twentieth century, especially on those texts that look beyond the vision of Spain related to the experience of the Spanish Civil War.

ATLAS addresses, from an interdisciplinary perspective, a variety of literary texts and analyzes how the vision of Spain has been constructed and how the uses and customs of the chroniclers—as opposed to local uses— influenced their writing and their representation of the territory. Following Mieke Bal, who in Travelling Concepts in the Humanities (2002) invites us “to explore the intellectual excitement of interdisciplinary cultural analysis”, ATLAS plays with the boundaries between literature, linguistics, history, geography, visual arts and philosophy to explore the perception of Spain within a particular historical context, which deserves further critical attention. The project also traces the routes drawn in the different travelogues to construct the authors’ literary cartographies with an informative and pedagogical purpose in mind.

This conference aims to be not only a discussion forum on the project itself, but also an opportunity to further explore both the physical and intellectual journey that these traveling experiences involved. For this purpose, we welcome paper and round-table proposals that deal with the presence of writers, intellectuals and American travelers in the Iberian Peninsula between 1850 and 1950 including, but not restricted to, the following topics:

  • Literary creations—fictional and non-fictional—based on
  • Testimonial and autobiographical writing, literary chronicles, travel
  • Contrastive studies on travel
  • Traveling and chronicles in times of war and
  • Travel experiences and their correlation with visual
  • Philosophical approaches towards travel
  • The “Self” and the “Other” in travel
  • Traveling and travel experiences from a gender-based
  • Spatial criticism, representations of rural and urban
  • Artistic and architectural
  • Studies on corpus linguistics and travel
  • Traveling and travel experiences from an ecocritical
  • Traveling and geography: geocriticism and geolocalization; literature and cartography and study of the
  • Approaches towards travel experiences within a historical
  • Sociological, anthropological, ethnographic approaches towards travel
  • Travel literature and digital

The following plenary speakers have been confirmed:
Dr. Pere Gifra Adoher (Pompeu Fabra University)
Dr. Eulalia Piñero Gil (Autonomous University of Madrid)

Please, submit your proposals in English or Spanish (250-300 words and 3-5 keywords) to alicante.atlas@ua.es by February 29, 2020.

Organizing Committee
Sara Prieto García-Cañedo, U. de Alicante; Lorraine Kerslake Young, U. de Alicante; Remedios Perni Llorente, U. de Alicante; José Antonio Sánchez Fajardo, U. de Alicante

Scientific Commitee
Xavier Amat Montesinos, U. de Alicante; María Encarnación Carrillo García, U. de Murcia; Alba Mª Gálvez Vidal, U. Católica de Murcia; Benito García Elías, U. de Alicante, Macarena García-Avello, U. de Cantabria; Raquel García-Cuevas García, U. of Kent; Eva Espinar, U. de Alicante; Helena Establier, U. de Alicante; Terry Gifford, Bath Spa University; Lourdes López Ropero, U. de Alicante; Elena Martínez-Acacio, U. of Michigan; Mónica Moreno, U. de Alicante; Jorge Olcina Cantos, U. de Alicante ; Robert Tally, Texas State University: Raúl Travé Molero, Ostelea, E. de Turismo

Website: https://web.ua.es/es/atlas
Twitter: @ATLAS_Alicante

(posted 15 January 2020)


Re-writing / Re-imagining the Past: AICED-22
University of Bucharest, Romania, 4-6 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 29 March 2020

The English Department of the University of Bucharest invites proposals for the Literature and Cultural Studies section of its 22nd Annual International Conference:

Venue: The Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Str. Pitar Moş 7–13, Bucharest, Romania

Confirmed keynote speakers:

  • Prof. Roger Sabin (Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London)
  • Dr Ana Karina Schneider (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu)

“I am all for putting new wine in old bottles,
especially if the pressure of the new one
makes the old bottles explode.”
Angela Carter in “Notes from the Front Line”

Rewriting historical and canonical texts has been a persistent tradition in literature; looking backwards – towards the past – was a hallmark of the Renaissance, Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, Victorian literature, Modernism and Postmodernism. Nancy Walker posits that “the practice of appropriating existing stories in one’s own work – borrowing, revising, re-contextualizing – has a long and distinguished history” (The Disobedient Writer: Women and Narrative Tradition, 1995). Some works that reimagine the past do so overtly, others covertly, but in both cases they inevitably “both obscure and encode other stories” (Molly Hite, The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narratives, 1989). One accusation levelled at texts rewriting the past is that they are simply derivative and unoriginal, but in their act of revising, writers do not simply look back: they see with fresh eyes, use the lens of new critical directions and offer new dimensions to the past (Adrienne Rich, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision”, College English 34, 1972). A.S. Byatt has talked about interesting paths that can be explored while telling stories about secrecy, delving deeper into what the past had to hide and revealing the baggage of history (‘Forefathers’, On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays, 2001).

Much recent scholarship has fruitfully traced the ways in which we construct narratives of the past and fill them with contemporary content or bend them to contemporary values. There remains, however, ample room for further exploring the afterlives of the past as constructed in the present. Re-imagining the past, as such, explores the imaginative reconstruction of the past in the writing of historians and in works of historical fiction. Rewriting reveals traces of the original, as interpreted by the author. It is a remnant of something that once was or has passed, but which continues to exist as echoes, relics, memories, or ghosts.

To paraphrase David Lowenthal in The Past is a Foreign Country Revisited (2015), some texts turn the past into a backdrop for imaginary characters, while others use the lives of actual historical figures or even omit, distort or add to the past. Some fictional versions of the past are paradigms of the present, others are strikingly different; both invent pasts for the readers’ delight, yet also strive to help readers feel and know the past in an effort to shed light on new ways of reconceptualizing our relationship with the past. Such works often aestheticize the experience of cultural and historical displacement, and propose alternative forms of continuity and identity.

As such, we ask scholars to consider engagements with the past in terms of ongoing processes of reinvention, reproduction, and revision, as well as the reason why we choose to retell / rewrite / reimagine stories of the past. This conference invites papers that consider new ways of seeing the past, leading to a strengthening of or challenge to our understanding of the past, and productive and experimental ways of retelling, remaking and rebooting, resulting in new imaginaries that reconnect us to the past and are revealing for the present.

Possible topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Re-Imagining/re-writing various types of fiction / genres
  • Retellings of canonical texts
  • Intertextuality
  • Adaptation
  • Narrative approaches to the past
  • Afterlives of characters or authors
  • Reinvention and reproduction
  • Counter-narratives
  • Musical, visual, film retellings
  • Hauntology
  • Historical narratives in comics, film, and/or games.
  • Redefining identities through retelling, re-enactment, and revisionist histories (national identity, race, gender, and sexuality)
  • Appropriation, white-washing, and erasure in retelling
  • Recycling and re-imagining tropes and stereotypes
  • Remakes vs. sequels vs. reboots
  • The question of originality and artistry in adaptation
  • Memory and nostalgia
  • The social, political, and cultural implications of reinvention
  • Reimagining genres and aesthetics
  • Remixing and re-appropriation
  • The politics of remembering and representations of memory
  • Revising/Revisiting History
  • Historical fiction
  • Memory and Re-memory
  • Historiographic Metafiction
  • Revisitings of myth in reworkings, re-appropriations, and contestations of mythical tropes and figures
  • Writing Back from (or into) the Past: Literature, History and ideology
  • Historical drama/history plays, opera, and other historical re-enactments

Conference presentations should be in English, and will be allocated 20 minutes each, plus 10 minutes for discussion. Prospective participants are invited to submit abstracts of up to 200 words. Proposals should be in .doc or .docx format, and should also include (within the same document) name and institutional affiliation, a short bio (no more than 100 words), and e-mail address. Proposals for panel discussions (to be organized by the participant) will also be considered.

We look forward in particular to hosting a panel organized by the Romanian Studies Association of America, applying a Romanian Studies perspective to aspects of the conference theme.

A selection of papers from the conference will be published in University of Bucharest Review (ISSN 2069–8658) – listed on Erih Plus, Scopus, EBSCO (Literary Reference Centre Plus), CEEOL and Ulrichsweb. See the guidelines for contributors at https://ubr.rev.unibuc.ro/.

Deadline for proposals: 29 March 2020

Please send proposals (and enquiries) to conf.eng.litcult@lls.unibuc.ro

The conference fee of 50 euro (or 200 lei if paid in Romanian currency) is payable in cash on registration, and covers lunches and refreshments during the conference, but not evening meals.

For further details and updates, see: https://engleza.lls.unibuc.ro/conferinte/ .

(Enquiries regarding the Theoretical and Applied Linguistics section of the conference, which will be running at the same time, should be sent to bucharest.aiced22@gmail.com.)

We look forward to welcoming you in Bucharest,

 Organizing and Selection Committee: Dr Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandr, Alexandra Bacalu, Dr Alina Bottez, Dr James Brown, Dr Eliana Ionoaia, Dr Dragoș Manea, Prof. Mădălina Nicolaescu, Dr Andreea Paris-Popa, Dr Cristian Vîjea, Dr Ioana Zirra

Advisory Board: Dr Nazmi Ağıl (Koç University, Istanbul), Prof. Bart Eeckhout (University of Antwerp), Prof. José Manuel Estévez-Saá (University of A Coruña), Dr Felicity Hand (Autonomous University of Barcelona), Prof. Michael Hattaway (New York University, London), Prof. Carl Lavery (University of Glasgow), Prof. Thomas Leitch (University of Delaware), Dr Chris Louttit (Radboud University, Nijmegen), Prof. Domnica Rădulescu (Washington and Lee University, Lexington), Prof. Kerstin Shands (Södertörn University); Prof. Nicolas Tredell (University of Sussex)

(posted 11 December 2019)


Stages: NFEAP 2020 (14th Norwegian Forum for English for Academic Purposes summer conference)
Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet), Oslo, Norway, 11-12 June 2020
Deadline for abstracts: 14 February 2020

The idea of a stage – as space of performance, period of development or both – opens up rich ways of thinking about academic writing and academic speech. When we talk about stages, we might mean the stages of a text, the stages of a writing process, the stages of a writing career. We might mean writing as performance, or the stages of the seminar room or lecture theatre, where discoursal norms demand that speaking entails a kind of performing. How might EAP teachers and thinkers reckon with the stages – process and performance – of writing, teaching, speaking, research, academic work as a whole?

We welcome work that addresses staging or stages in relation to EAP theory and practice. We invite proposals that explore the stages of  EAP concepts; EAP training methods, principles, practices and research; needs analysis, syllabus and materials design, teaching strategies and methodological issues; group/interdisciplinary teaching; critical EAP; e-learning and technology; academic identities; academic literacies; any other relevant topics.

Plenary speakers:

  • Paul Kei Matsuda, Arizona State University, USA
  • Pat Thomson, University of Nottingham, UK
  • Lisa McGrath (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) and Raffaella Negretti (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)

Submission guidelines:

Please submit your abstract of no more than 300 words and a biography of no more than 50 words by February 14th, 2020 using the link below. The standard length for presentations is 30 minutes (20 minutes for presentation, plus 10 minutes for discussion). You will be notified of the outcome of the review process by March 16th, 2020.

Please use this link to submit your proposal.

The Ann Torday Gulden Scholarship

Ann Torday Gulden has been, for many years, a tireless and vital advocate for EAP in Norway, and this scholarship is named in her honour. This annual scholarship contributes up to 5000 NOK to the expenses of an EAP teacher or researcher to come to the conference and present their work. We seek to support work that is distinctive and original and that exemplifies innovative approaches to EAP theory and practice. It is open to all – please check the box provided in the proposal submission form if you would like to be considered for the scholarship. We particularly encourage graduate students to apply.

Conference webpage: https://blogg.hioa.no/nfeap/

Important dates:

  • Registration opens: January 2020
  • Deadline for abstracts: 14 February 2020
  • Notification of acceptance: 16 March 2020
  • Conference programme available: mid-April 2020
  • Deadline for registration: 20 May 2020
  • NFEAP conference 2020: 11th-12th June 2020

Registration:

The 2000 NOK conference registration fee includes refreshments and lunch for both days of the conference and the conference dinner on Thursday evening.

Please note that the NFEAP is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

We would like to thank you in advance for your contribution to the 14th NFEAP summer conference and look forward to having the opportunity to discuss and disseminate your work.

On behalf of the NFEAP organizing committee,Tom Muir, Kristin Solli and Pavel Zemliansky

(posted 26 January 2020)


Music and Sounds
St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, UK, 13 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 1 February 2020

An internatioinal conference organised by London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination
and life to everything.”
Plato

The abilities of music to influence and effect human beings are felt every day from the music we listen to for motivation, music played when we work, while we dine, when we shop or while entertaining. Imagine the sensation we get when listening to a skilful singer hit a passionate array of notes, or a crescendo in a piece of symphonic music, a touching lyric uttered with a beautiful melody. Listening to music is the only activity we engage in that uses the entire brain. The right kind of music, a type that is not disruptive or one that breaks your concentration has many beneficial effects including positively influencing intelligence, even stimulating pain reduction responses and is very healing. More than just the music itself it is in the sound we hear, sound that is driven by a desire for quality and created by technology. Thanks to technological advances, there have been great advances in our means to hear the music in a manner that bathes the listener in sound that is transportative and immersive.

The conference aims to bring together scholars and professionals and explore various aspects of Music Studies discussing theoretical concepts as well as practical challenges and the solutions of using music and sounds across disciplines.

Topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:

  • Music History
  • Music Perception
  • Music and Psychology
  • Music Theory
  • Philosophy of Music
  • Music in Advertising
  • Psychology of Music
  • Sociology of Music
  • Teaching Music
  • Wind Instruments
  • Women in Music
  • Noise Control Engineering
  • Pattern Recognition in Music
  • Psychoacoustics
  • Signal Processing
  • Film and Music
  • Sound Design for Film and Videogames
  • Mathematical Analysis of Musical Instruments
  • Mathematical Models in Music
  • Mathematical Models in Acoustics
  • Multimedia
  • Music Cognition
  • Music Education and Music in Education
  • Functional Sounds
  • Audio Branding and Semantic Audio
  • Noise Control Engineering
  • Signal Processing

Paper proposals up to 250 words should be sent by 1 February 2020 to: sounds@lcir.co.uk. Please download Paper proposal form.

Registration fee – 100 GBP

https://sounds.lcir.co.uk/

(posted 4 January 2020)


Pilgrimages and Tourism
St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, UK, 13-14 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 10 November 2019

Conference website: https://tourism.lcir.co.uk/

Organised by London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

Pilgrimages are ancient practices of humankind and are associated with a great variety of religious, spiritual and secular traditions. In today’s world the number of visits to sacred sites such as Santiago de Compostela (Spain), La Virgen de Guadalupe (Mexico), Matka Boska Czetochowska (Poland), secular places  such as Graceland, home of Elvis Presley, Eifel Tower in Paris, Hiroshima Peace Museum and virtual pilgrimages, facilitated by video and satellite links is growing. With them, tourism both individual and in groups has been steadily increasing and changing.

This conference seeks to explore, analyse and discuss the complex concepts of pilgrimages and tourism. What is a pilgrimage? Do pilgrimages contribute to the sense of community and belonging? Is tourism a transformative experience?  How do souvenirs, memorabilia and travelogues facilitate imagination of other people and places?

Conference presentations will be related, but not limited, to:

  • History of pilgrimages and tourism
  • Geography of pilgrimage and tourism
  • Pilgrimages, tourism and religion
  • Pilgrimages and theology
  • Pilgrimages, tourism and philosophy
  • Pilgrimages, tourism and literature
  • Pilgrimages, tourism and media
  • Pilgrimages, tourism and art
  • Pilgrimages, tourism and economy
  • Pilgrimages, tourism and politics
  • Pilgrimages, tourism and culture
  • Teaching tourism and pilgrimages

The conference will bring together scholars from different fields including philosophy, religion, theology, sociology, anthropology, history, literature, art, economy, geography, cultural studies, political studies and others.

Submissions may propose various formats, including:

  • Individually submitted papers (organised into panels by committee)
  • Panels (3-4 individual papers)
  • Roundtable discussions (led by one of the presenters)
  • Posters

Proposals up to 250 words and a brief biographical note should be sent by 10 November 2019 to: tourism@lcir.co.uk
Download the Paper proposal form from the Conference website.

Standard registration fee – 220 GBP
Student registration fee – 180 GBP

(posted 27 September 2019)


Nonviolence and Intercultural Dialogue
Oxford, UK, 6-7 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 1 December 2019

An international conference organized by the London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research
Conference website: http://violence.society.lcir.co.uk/

“We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed, but we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it”
Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The principle of nonviolence, also known as nonviolent resistance, rejects the use of physical violence to achieve social or political change. History shows that the success of peaceful social transformation depends largely on individuals who are charismatic, knowledgeable, skilled in the strategies and methods of nonviolence (Tolstoy, Gandhi, King, Chavez, Walesa, Dalai Lama, Louise Patterson, Menchu and others). Gene Sharp coined the term revolutionary nonviolence in the 20th century and transformed the meaning of the nonviolence from the passive to an active agent as a framework for creating peace.

This conference seeks to explore, analyse and discuss the complex concept of nonviolence as a strategy toward peace and progress. It will apply an interdisciplinary approach to various manifestations of nonviolence and will also act as an academic space to explore solutions for creating peace.

Conference presentations will be related, but not limited, to:

  • Theories of nonviolence
  • History of nonviolence
  • Nonviolence and philosophy
  • Nonviolence and peace studies
  • Nonviolence and literature
  • Nonviolence and media
  • Nonviolence and art
  • Nonviolence and culture
  • Nonviolence and politics
  • Icons of nonviolence
  • Teaching nonviolence

The conference will bring together scholars from different fields including philosophy, religion, sociology, international relations, history, literature, art, peace studies, cultural studies, political studies and others.

Submissions may propose various formats, including:

  • Individually submitted papers (organised into panels by committee)
  • Panels (3-4 individual papers)
  • Roundtable discussions (led by one of the presenters)
  • Posters

Proposals up to 250 words and a brief biographical note should be sent by 1 December 2019 to violence.society@lcir.co.uk. Download Paper proposal form.

Standard registration fee – 180 GBP
Student registration fee – 160 GBP

Conference venue: Brasenose College, University of Oxford, Radcliffe Square, Oxford  OX14AJ

(posted 28 September 2019)


The Arthurian legend in film, TV series, comics, music and games
Université Polytechnique Hauts de France, Valenciennes – ISH (Institut Sociétés & Humanités), 12-13 November 2020
Deadline for proposals: 15 June 2020
With the kind support of the Research Unit DeScripto.
 
The legend of King Arthur has widely benefited from the emergence of new media, mass production and what Henry Jenkins theorised as participatory culture. Highly popular in the 16th century, first printed and circulated in medieval manuscripts, then later in books, Arthur as a figure was partly overshadowed in the 17th and 18th centuries but came back into fashion with Romanticism and the Medieval Revival period of the 19th century. Rewritings of the medieval sources such as the novel in verse by Chrétien de Troyes or 13th-century texts in prose (Petit Cycle de Robert de Boron, Cycle Vulgate, Tristan en prose, Perlesvaus…) helped to disseminate the legend.
Under the influence of film makers, screenwriters, composers and graphic artists the Arthurian legend has constantly been transformed, reshaped and redefined. From the 20th century onwards, and far from having fallen into oblivion, the Arthurian legend has spawned a large variety of adaptations and reappropriations. It migrated from film to TV series and even into the world of games, whether board games or video games. The legend has also inspired artists to create comic books, graphic novels, and compose musical pieces.
 
While Arthurian figures and myths in 19th-century Britain have long attracted scholarly attention, we invite contributions that examine how what may be termed « para-Arthurian forms » emerged in other media and what could account for the migration process. Those para-Arthurian forms have no doubt had an impact on the original medieval legend and therefore we seek to explore during that conference the way adaptations and appropriations can bridge cultural and aesthetic gaps between highbrow literature and popular culture. 
Specific Arthurian characters may be selected for papers, such as Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, Morgan Le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, Percival, or Sir Launcelot. Major recurring themes and emblematic elements, places and objects on which the legend was built and thrived can also be addressed. The latter may comprise the quest of the Holy Grail, particular battles, rituals and rites of passage of the knights, as well as the role played by important female figures.
 
Beside a short biographical note, proposals in French or English, no longer than 300 words with 5-6 keywords, should be sent to the following email address: arthurtransmedial@gmail.com.
 
Deadline for proposals : June 15, 2020
Date of acceptance : July 1-15, 2020
 
For further details regarding this conference you can contact me as well at bfriantk@uphf.fr

(posted 7 April 2020)


Back Talk: Women’s Writing, Modernism and Resistance. The Third Modernist Network Cymru Conference
Cardiff University, UK, 17-18 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 27 March 2020

Keynote speakers: Prof. Kirsti Bohata (CREW, Swansea University), Prof. Diana Wallace (University of South Wales)

The writing of modernist Margiad Evans bespeaks her visceral, deeply creative relationship with the Welsh borderlands of Ross-on-Wye – a landscape which ‘seemed to flow between my breasts, from some deep central love that would make it blood to leave the lovely river….The mute hills, the valleys, the clouds that wave…. My very soul lives here’. (quoted in Asbee, 2018)

In recent years, a ‘High Modernism’ imagined in monolithic, metropolitan terms has been split open to reveal a plurality of different chronologies, styles, and locations. As writers like Evans demonstrate, ‘[s]o much depends…on place, proximity, position’; on ‘which modernism, written when and why and from what place – which city, which hillside, which seat on the train, which new nation or new colony, and before, after, or during which war.’ (Doyle and Winkiel, 2005, p.1) So much depends, too, on the position that a writer assumes – and is assigned – in the geography of modernism, a position that is undoubtedly conditioned and informed by gender.

The new perspectives made possible in recent years by developments in transnational and race studies, together with challenges to divisions between ‘elitist’ and middlebrow forms, have facilitated a more nuanced understanding of gender-based approaches in the study of twentieth-century literary culture. However, as Jane Garrity (2013) has argued, the welcome expansion of the field of modernist studies has been accompanied by a persistent marginalization of experimental twentieth-century women’s writing, particularly work by non-canonical writers. Similarly, while new national and place-based frameworks have helped bring recognition to Welsh modernism, more needs to be done to pluralise and fully decentre the map of British modernist activities – just as more needs to be done to illuminate the vital role of women writers in the modernist impulse.

Drawing on bel hooks’s concept of ‘talking back’ (1989, 2014) to male, ethnocentric positions, this conference explores the strategies used by women and/or Welsh modernists to participate in, challenge, and ultimately reconfigure, major modernist forms and cultures. Interrogating how the example of Wales might serve to further expand and unsettle our ideas of ‘High Modernism’, we consider how women use their marginalised, liminal and/or gendered positioning to formulate and engage a process of what Teresa de Lauretis calls ‘thinking within and against’ dominant literary styles, cultures and methodologies (1994, p. 294).

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

  • Redefining the role of the ‘woman writer’
  • Constructing identity: local, national, and global affiliations
  • Location and environment
  • Rejecting and/or embracing the metropolitan
  • Communities: material, cultural, and affective links connecting modernist women writers to each other, both in Ireland and Britain, and across the world
  • Silence and speaking out: connections to the ‘Me Too’ movement and contemporary feminisms
  • Gender and the archive
  • Encoding strategies of resistance: writing women’s sexuality
  • Fashion, clothes and performance
  • The role of small publishers in reclaiming literary women’s voices
  • Boundaries and definitions: challenging and stretching existing understandings of modernism
  • Pedagogy and modernism: rethinking and diversifying the syllabus

Proposals for papers (20 minutes) should include a summary of the proposed paper (300 words), the speaker’s contact details, and a short bio (100 words). Papers can be delivered in English or Welsh with simultaneous translation; please indicate the language in which you wish to deliver your paper. If you wish to send a proposal in Welsh, please could you also include a copy of your abstract and biography in English.

Proposals should be sent to modernistnetworkcymru@gmail.com by 27 March 2020.

Since 2014, MONC has aimed to showcase the range and diversity of research into modernism happening in Wales today. Through its website, mailing list and conferences, it brings together scholars and professionals working on modernism in Wales and beyond to encourage collaboration and communication. For more information, please visit https://modnetcymru.wixsite.com/website

(posted 4 March 2020)


Networking May Sinclair
Université de Nantes, France, 18-19 June 2020
Nw extended deadline for proposals: 15 February 2020

Keynote speaker: Professor Suzanne Raitt, College of William & Mary

This international conference explores the diversity of connections, inspirations and influences in the work of modernist writer, May Sinclair (1863-1946). It will be held at the University of Nantes (France) on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th June 2019.

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, May Sinclair was one of the most successful and widely known of British women novelists (Wilson, 2001). She produced over twenty novels and six collections of short stories and collaborated with many modernist writers and poets, including Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, H.D. and Richard Aldington. Her life was also exceptionally rich. She took an active part in the women’s suffrage movement and published several pamphlets for women’s rights between 1908 and 1917. In the early 1910s, she got involved in medico-psychological research, and wrote half a dozen psychoanalytical research papers. In 1915, she spent two weeks near the Belgian front with an ambulance unit and her Journal of Impressions in Belgium was one of the first wartime women’s diaries published in Britain (Raitt 2000, 163). She was also the acclaimed author of two major philosophical essays on idealism (1917 and 1922) that led to her election to the Aristotelian Society. Last, she was an influential literary historian and literary critic and wrote several much-quoted articles and prefaces on the stream of consciousness, the Brontë sisters and imagist poetry.

Many reviewers and critics have shown that May Sinclair’s modernism was not so much a derivation of other contemporary aesthetics but was rather a product of her idiosyncratic articulation of her many research interests and experiences. In addition, “the interdisciplinarity of Sinclair’s output […] eludes straightforward categorisation and this has arguably contributed to the traditional critical neglect of her writing” (Bowler & Drewery 2016, 1).

As May Sinclair is now “gaining critical legitimacy” (Raitt 2016, 23), this conference seeks to explore Sinclair’s texts and contexts and aims to shed light on her place in literary history and on her contribution to “the radical modernist challenge to traditional assumptions about what it means to be human” (Bowler & Drewery 2016, 14). Papers comparing Sinclair and other writers are thus particularly welcome; suggested topics might include (but are not limited to):

  • May Sinclair and her contemporaries: Thomas Hardy, Henry James, H. G. Wells, D. H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, Charlotte Mew, H. D., Richard Aldington, T S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Bowen, Mary Butts, Olive Moore etc.
  • May Sinclair and modernity/the modern/modernism
  • May Sinclair & WW1 writers
  • May Sinclair and Victorian and late nineteenth-century authors: the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, George Meredith etc.
  • May Sinclair and romantic poets: Shelley, Byron etc.
  • May Sinclair and philosophy: Henri Bergson, Bertrand Russell, Baruch Spinoza, T. H. Green, Arthur Schopenhauer, Samuel Butler, Francis Herbert Bradley etc.
  • May Sinclair and psychology: William James, Sigmund Freud, C. G. Jung, Pierre Janet, Melanie Klein, Ella Sharpe, Joan Riviere, Alfred Adler, Charles Myers etc.
  • May Sinclair and mysticism: Evelyn Underhill, the Society for Psychical Research, etc.
  • May Sinclair and first-wave feminism
  • Contemporary reception of May Sinclair
  • May Sinclair and her literary legacy
  • May Sinclair in translation
  • May Sinclair and music
  • May Sinclair and films or TV adaptations

Proposals no longer than 350 words, together with a 200-word biography, should be sent to the conference organisers before February 15th, 2020 (new extended deadline)

https://maysinclairsociety.com/2019/07/22/cfp-networking-may-sinclair-les-reseaux-litteraires-de-may-sinclair-universite-de-nantes-18th-19th-june-2020/

Conference organisers:
Leslie de Bont, Université de Nantes leslie.debont@univ-nantes.fr
Isabelle Brasme, Université de Nîmes isabellebrasme@gmail.com
Florence Marie, Université de Pau florence.marie@univ-pau.fr

(posted 24 August 2019, updated 10 January 2020)


The Future of Education International Conference – 10th edition
A fully virtual conference, 18-19 June 2020
New extended deadline for proposals: 18 May 2020

The 10th edition of the Future of Education International Conference will take place on 18 – 19 June 2020.
The objective of the Future of Education Conference is to promote transnational cooperation and share good practice in the field of education. The Conference is also an excellent opportunity for the presentation of previous and current education projects and initiatives.

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Due to current concerns about COVID-19, the 10th edition of the Future of Education International Conference shifts to a Fully Virtual Conference.

  • Papers will be presented in virtual synchronous or asynchronous modes.
  • Interactive Questions and Answers sessions will follow each paper presentation. 
  • Virtual Poster Presentation Sessions will be held.
  • Networking Opportunities will be organized.

For further information please check: http://conference.pixel-online.net/FOE/callforpapers.php

Conference presentation video: https://youtu.be/OLw8mr2m7sM

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The Call for Papers is addressed to teachers, researchers and experts in the field of education as well as to coordinators of teaching and training projects.

Experts in the field of education are therefore invited to submit an abstract of a paper to be presented in the conference.

All accepted papers will be included in the Conference Proceedings published by Filodiritto Editore with ISBN, ISSN, DOI and ISPN codes. This publication will be sent to be reviewed for inclusion in Conference Proceedings Citation Index by Thomson Reuters (ISI-Clarivate). The publication will also be included in Academia.edu and indexed in Google Scholar.

Furthermore, among the accepted papers, up to 15 best papers will be selected. Authors of the selected papers will be requested to send an extended version of their articles that will be blind reviewed by MDPI academic editors and the accepted ones will be published in the Special Issues Section, indexed by Ei Compendex, SCOPUS (Elsevier), Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI – Web of Science).

For further information, please contact us at the following address: foe@pixel-online.net or visit the Future of Education conference website: http://conference.pixel-online.net/FOE/

(posted 25 September 2019, updated 20 March 2020, updated 4 May 2020)


The Place of Memory and the Memory of Place
Cambridge, UK, 20-21 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 1 February 2020

An international confeence organised by London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

Memory is a major theme in contemporary life, a key to personal, social and cultural identity. Scholars have studied the concept from different perspectives and within different disciplines: philosophy, sociology, anthropology, geography, architecture, urban design, and the interdisciplinary “place studies”. According to Pierre Nora, places of memory or lieux de mémoire refer to those places where “memory crystallizes and secretes itself”; the places where the exhausted capital of collective memory condenses and is expressed. To be considered as such, these sites must be definable in the three senses of the word: material, symbolical and functional, all in different degrees but always present. What makes them a memory site is the interplay of memory and history, the interaction of both factors, which allows their reciprocal over-determination.

“The Place of Memory and the Memory of Place” International Conference aims to spark new conversations across the field of memory and place studies. Papers are invited on topics related, but not limited, to:

  • monuments and sites of trauma
  • childhood homes
  • city space and sightseeing
  • burial places (graves, cementaries, necropoleis)
  • ruins and forgotten places
  • heterotopias and heterochronies
  • toponymy and topoanalysis
  • cartography and mapmaking

The conference will bring together scholars from different fields including philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, literature, linguistics, architecture, geography and others.

Paper proposals up to 250 words should be sent by 1 February 2020 to: memory@lcir.co.uk. Download paper proposal form.

Standard registration fee – 220 GBP      Student registration fee – 180 GBP

http://memory.lcir.co.uk/

(posted 29 December 2019)


War Memories (2020): Sharing War Memories – From the Military to the Civilian
Le Mans University, France, 24-26 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 20 January 2020

International Conference initiated by  Professor Renée Dickason (Université Rennes 2), Professor  Stéphanie Bélanger (Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario) and Professor Delphine Letort (Le Mans Université)

Download the cfp: https://warmem2020.sciencesconf.org/data/pages/CFP_warmem_2020_EN.pdf

War narratives are subject to emphases, orientations and points of view that give a particular flavour to wars fought by populations (anonymously, individually and/or hidden in an organisation, secret or not)  and by the military (from high command to the ‘unknown soldier’). Such accounts evolve with the benefit of hindsight, the writing of history textbooks and the constant (re)interpretations of archives (new or not) and the official version a country wishes to put forward according to its political agendas and visions of patriotism, citizenship and human rights, or its diplomatic or international policy objectives. The narratives of wars vary with the context and the need for men and women to express their inner feelings when faced with the torments and human atrocities of war; they also reflect the place of individuals within a group and the implications of group cohesion within the larger community.

Civilians’ knowledge of the war effort and the involvement of the military is informed by two types of documents: primary sources (letters, emails, photographs, videos, testimonies, trench gazettes, blogs, etc.) provide direct information about the war experienced at an individual level, whereas secondary sources mediate these artefacts by incorporating them into another narrative.

The artefacts of war become the original materials which museums and memorials turn into places of memory, while feature films provide a less direct approach as they often (re)mediate the original accounts of first-hand witnesses through documentary, ethno-fiction, docudrama or more generally through fiction. These documents show a possible encounter between the military and civilian spheres, especially when the two are separated either in time or space.

Civilians learn about past and distant wars through the narratives built on them and through the images produced either by the military themselves, by news reporters embedded with them or following in their footsteps, or by historians. Journalistic records often frame the understanding of war by shining light on events hidden from the public gaze, by illuminating the conflicts or the complicity between civilian witnesses and members of the military. Whether intended to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the indigenous populations or to denigrate the enemy by reductive stereotyping, military strategies condition how armed forces regard the ‘Other’. Humanitarian groups approach war with a different goal in mind; their representations of war emphasize the dangers for civilian populations trapped by an ongoing conflict and reintroduce human concerns where war technology erases them. The case of civilian hostages is of particular relevance in this context.

This conference aims to explore zones of contact between the military and the civilian worlds – be they real or virtual. Zones of contact extend beyond the battlefields to civilian areas, where the enemy is sometimes conflated with undeclared combatants (especially in the age of terrorism). Soldiers may also find respite in the civilian life that wars disrupt but cannot completely annihilate. The contacts between the military and the civilians are often channeled by professional relationships. Doctors, nurses, drivers, journalists, artists… provide a link between two worlds that outsourcing has brought closer together in the contemporary era.

Both volunteers and conscripts undergo a change of status when they join the armed forces. The transition from the civilian to the military world may be a life-changing event, but it may also become part and parcel of one’s daily rhythm as war can increasingly be pursued without even leaving the home country (for example, with the development of drone technology). How do the military manage to attract civilians into donning the uniform? How do the veterans reintegrate into civilian life and overcome the trauma of waging war, especially when serious injury makes them unfit for further service.

The study of the relationships between the civilian and the military implies research into the artefacts of war, conveying the perception of combat by the military themselves or by the civilians observing them. This relationship is founded on a variety of objects aiming at boosting admiration for war heroes or condemnation of war criminals.

Reality turns into fiction as it becomes a political or romanticized narrative in film and on television, in literature and in the arts – and this transformation illuminates the civilians’ perception of war as well as soldiers’ perception of themselves.

In 2020, to mark the tenth year anniversary of the active and fruitful collaboration on the theme of war memories, our research groups – ACE (Rennes), the Royal Military College of Canada (Kingston, Ontario) and 3L.AM (Le Mans) – would like to offer researchers and members of civil society the opportunity to participate in workshop discussions on the subject of sexual violence and abuse perpetuated as a weapon of war, and on the fate of children in wartime, in addition to the themes in the non-exhaustive list given below.Other possible workshops:

  • Remembering, transmitting war (commemorations, textbooks (paper or e-learning), museums…) and narrating war (children’s literature, graphic novels, essays, short stories, drama, poetry…)
  • Drawing, photographing or filming war (documentaries, docu-fictions, ethno-fiction)
  • Medialization of war (news bulletins, news reports, blogs, social media, websites…
  • War and the human dimension: testimonies of trauma and the management of emotions (from military to civilian points of view)
  • Childhood in wartime: mobilization of children in armed conflicts; staging children characters in, fictional and non-fictional, war narratives; writing or representing war for a young public
  • Women civilians and the military in war; women as war weapons and victims

A vibrant homage will be delivered to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Denis Mukewege and his fights in the Democratic Republic of  Congo

With keynote speeches by:

  • Jonathan Bignell (Professor of Television and Film, Reading University, United Kingdom)
    Keynote provisional  title: Television and Ephemerality: Remembering and Forgetting War
  • Daniel Palmieri (Historian, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, Switzerland)
    Keynote provisional title: “Now, the World without me”.
    Humanitarians and Sexual Violence in Time of War
  • Stéphanie Bélanger (Professor, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario)
    Keynote provisional title: Voice or Loyalty? Dealing with Memories in the Armed Forces

SUBMISSION DEADLINE : 20th JANUARY 2020

All submissions will be considered after the deadline of 20th January 2020.

Please send your abstract (350 words) and biography (200 words) directly to the conference website. You will need to create an account in the Submission section before filling up the fields required and uploading your document (see information on the conference website).

We will not be able to give you any news concerning the acceptance of your work before 20th January 2020.

(posted 21 September 2019)


Transnationalism and Minor Cultures: 3rd World Congress of Scottish Literatures
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, 24-28 June 2020
Deadline for proposals for papers and for pre-organized panels: 30 June 2019

The Third World Congress of Scottish Literatures will be held at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, on 24-28 June 2020. The venue of the Congress is renowned for its rich history shaped by numerous influences of minority cultures as well as by the more than three centuries of the supremacy of the multinational Austrian Empire. The Congress’s main theme, “Transnationalism and Minor Cultures”, invokes the crucial importance of transcultural communication, migration and social interconnectivity for the development of Scottish literatures. It also points out the significance of internal diversity and hybridity on the shaping of Scottish, European and global literary contexts and cultural awareness. We propose to discuss the main theme in two interrelated, contextual and functional perspectives:

  1. The Transnational Contexts of Scottish Literatures: Empires, “Imagined Communities”, Social, Economic and Cultural Exchanges
  2. The Importance of Celtic Literatures and Cultures for the Internal Dynamic and Transnational Functioning of Scottish Literatures

The Steering Committee welcomes proposals for papers that explore these or any of the following themes in relation to Scotland’s literatures in any language:

  • Scottish Literatures and Celtic Cultures
  • Zones of Contact
  • Imaginary Origins and Affinities – Pan-Celticism, Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism
  • Imperial Routes and Connections
  • Scottish Literatures and International Tourism
  • Circulation of Scottish Cultural Icons
  • The Role of Translations and Adaptations
  • Reception and Cultural Interchange: Scotland in Europe and the Globalized World
  • Reception and Cultural Interchange: Recent Immigrant Communities/Voices
  • “Becoming Minoritarian”: Avant-Gardes and Alternative Cultures
  • Transnationalism, Minor Literatures and Canonicity
  • Transnationalism, Minor Cultures and Pedagogy
  • Transnationalism and Minor Cultures: New Methodologies and New Media

Proposals for pre-organized panels on these themes are welcome, and should be submitted with a list of agreed participants and their abstracts and affiliations, by the deadline for proposal submissions. In keeping with the Congress’s focus on dialogue and in order to maximize discussion and participation, panel organizers are encouraged to explore alternatives to the traditional format of three to four papers, such as workshops or roundtables. We extend a special welcome to graduate and postgraduate students, who may either submit proposals for traditional papers or (if they do not feel ready for a full paper yet) for presenting their project in the form of a poster or multimedia presentation (incl. slide-supported talks, videos, short films etc.) in an informal ‘work in progress’ section where they can gain feedback from other scholars present. PhD students are also invited to attend an informal get together and networking event on the first day of the Congress. Please note that in the interest of involving as many people as possible, participants are kindly asked to present only one paper at the Congress; however, they may also take part in a roundtable as a speaker or a discussant. Papers in English, Scots and Gaelic are welcome, however, the Congress is unable to provide translation services. The deadline for ALL proposal submissions is 30 June 2019. Proposals for papers, posters and presentations should include an abstract of c. 200 words, including affiliation. Please send submissions to the Congress Secretary, Petra Johana Poncarová, at PetraJohana.Poncarova@ff.cuni.cz All participants must be members of the International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures (IASSL) at the time of the Congress (please contact scotlit-iassl@glasgow.ac.uk for further details). Keynote Speakers:

  • Joep Leerssen (University of Amsterdam)
  • Glenda Norquay (Liverpool John Moores University)
  • Christopher Whyte (freelance scholar, writer, and translator)
  • Angela Esterhammer (University of Toronto)

Congress Website: https://scotlit2020.ff.cuni.cz The Steering Committee

The Third World Congress of Scottish Literatures is supported by the European Regional Development Fund Project “Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World” (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000734).

(posted 5 February 2019)


Authority and Trust: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Germany, 25-27 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 16 December 2019

The DFG-funded research training group “Authority and Trust in American Culture, Society, History, and Politics” invites proposals for an international conference that will explore the emergence and transformation of authority and trust in American politics, society, religion, literature, and culture from the nineteenth century to the present.

In recent decades, American society and culture have become increasingly polarized. Economic inequality, social and spatial segregation, and a decaying infrastructure have undermined trust in the fairness and efficiency of political processes, while the general public appears to have become more susceptible to anti-establishment sentiments, populism, and conspiracy theories. Police brutality has reinforced a deep- seated distrust of authorities among minorities. The crisis of authority and trust has also affected U.S. leadership in world politics and the global economy. Authority and trust arguably do not simply decline or disappear but are subject to constant change. We thus conceive of authority and trust as dynamic and complementary concepts: authority pertains to the tension between power and legitimacy and implies the ability to induce voluntary obedience; trust, by contrast, often connotes personal and intimate relationships among equals. Trust also extends to larger impersonal entities and institutions, and authority, as a social relationship based on voluntary compliance, seeks the trust of those who are asked to comply.

We seek papers that investigate different elements of authority and trust within the U.S. context and how the sources, functions, and manifestations of authority and trust have changed over time. Contributions should speak to one or several of the three thematic areas below (the examples given are by no means to be considered exhaustive). The division between these areas provides a starting point for a larger interdisciplinary discussion between history, political science, geography, literature, linguistics, cultural studies, media studies, and religious history. Papers that cut across thematic, historical, geographical, and disciplinary boundaries are especially encouraged.

  • The Authority of the Modern State and Trust in Public and Social Institutions
    • popular and legal notions of legitimate self-defense
    • the impact of America’s gun culture on state authority and social trust
    • racial discrimination and the criminal justice system
    • patterns of trust in and authority of experts, expert bodies, the media, parties, advocacy groups, governmental and/or educational institutions
    • the U.S. global leadership role and shifting patterns of international authority
    • trust in the use of hard, soft, and smart power, and of public diplomacy
  • The Urban Dimension of Authority and Trust
    • everyday life practices and discourses
    • power relations and governance of different actors in urban development and planning (such as the state, the private economy, or civil society)
    • polarization and growing inequalities in cities as a consequence of authority and trust
    • reactions to authority and trust at different urban scales (such as the neighborhood, the street corner, etc.); resistance against discrimination and the segregation of particular ethnic, racial, economic and social groups
    • cities and intersectional identity formation – new freedoms and/or constraints
    • the authority of “high culture” in urban environments
    • metrolingualism and superdiversity
    • the symbolic power of semiotic (re-)presentations in/of the city
  • Authority and Trust in Culture, Literature, and Religion
    • the relationship between authority, trust, and cultural institutions (e.g., publishers, the academy, literary magazines); the production of literary-aesthetic authority or trust in the context of identity questions (“recognition”) and questions of social equality (stigma, elitism)
    • ways in which literary or cultural artifacts register the shifts and tensions between religious and cultural authority; ways in which they conceptualize and problematize trust, its conditions, expressions, and challenges
    • new forms of religious authority that responded to the challenges and problems of an individualized and democratized religion since the nineteenth century
    • charismatic authority in new religious movements and non-Christian spiritualities; or mystical authority and female agency from the 19th century onwards

Submission information:

  • Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be submitted in English by December 16, 2019.
  • Please also provide a short bio.
  • Doctoral students and early-career researchers are expressly encouraged to apply.

Submit your abstracts via email to GKAT-conference2020@hca.uni-heidelberg.de.

Please consult our website at https://www.hca.uni-heidelberg.de/gkat/index.html for future updates on the conference.

(posted 28 October 2019)


Bicentinaries: The Liberal Revolutions of 1820 and their Impact on Literary Culture
University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, 29-30 June 2020
Deadline for proposals: 31 October 2019

Organised by the Institute of Arts and Humanities, Centre for Humanistic Studies (NETCult), in association with the Anglo-Hispanic Horizons Network (AHH) Taking advantage of the bicentenary celebrations of the liberal revolutions that occurred in southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece) around 1820, but with repercussions in other regions and cultures, this international conference aims to constitute a forum of discussion around the impact that these revolutions had on the literary culture of several countries. Driven by the republican ideals of the French and American Revolutions and by the various independence and nationalist movements, the liberal and constitutionalist wave that swept across several European nations (and their respective colonies) in the first decades of the nineteenth century aimed to completely eradicate the absolutism and feudalism that still prevailed within these monarchist nations, at the end of the Napoleonic invasions. Thus, we are interested in analysing the impact that these movements and striking events had on the literary culture of the nineteenth century, particularly in the works that were then produced in several countries; but we are also interested in exploring the decisive role that many writers (in several languages), some of whom in exile, had in these same movements and events. The ultimate goal of the conference will be to find, in this convergence of different cultures in transition, common literary currents or traditions of a strongly liberal political nature. In the context of this political liberalism and its literary culture, the prevalence of the British constitutional tradition and its republican adaptation by the American Revolution have been singled out as the main motives for the democratic revolutions that took place in the Atlantic world. Nevertheless, the Iberian traditions of freedom – as well as the literature that sustains them – are usually forgotten in this context. Most notably, the Portuguese Revolution of 1820 is strangely absent from many existing historical and literary accounts. However, if we can say that the position of Portugal in this Atlantic context at the beginning of the nineteenth century was central, we can also say that this context is the main explanatory key to understand the motives of the Portuguese Revolution of 1820. From historical and literary perspectives alike, this can be seen as a process of independence, as the abolition of the Old Regime, as the constitution of freedom, and as the foundation of a Portuguese liberal constitutional tradition. But, also, as a response to the extraordinary international challenges that were imposed on Portugal’s independence – by countries such as France, Great Britain, Spain and Brazil. In short, the Portuguese Revolution of 1820, whose main objective was the founding of a new liberal Portugal, combined both liberalism and nationalism, in the manner of the Atlantic Revolutions; and, more relevantly, with that collective manner and purpose attracted and promoted many individual creators. Paper proposals (for 20 minute-presentations) around this more general theme and/or the following particular aspects are welcome:

  • Representations of the liberal revolutions in the literary culture of the period and of later periods
  • The role of periodicals and of illustration in the (creative) representation of the liberal revolts
  • The links between liberalism and the romantic movements in the European and non-European context
  • Issues of political liberty and freedom of literary creation inaugurated by the liberal revolutions
  • The literary places of European and non-European liberalism: genesis, memory, recreation
  • The emergence of the national literatures and nationalist and independence issues in the period
  • Legends and myths associated with the romantic liberal revolt, including the figure of the hero (revolutionaries and martyrs)
  • The perspective of the Other – the liberal revolts seen from the literary culture of other countries
  • Literary images of refugees and exiles in the context of the liberal revolutions and/or writers in exile
  • Literary representations of secret societies in the context of the liberal struggles (the example of Carbonaria)
  • Liberalism and literary genre: The importance of the historical novel in the representation of the liberal conflicts; the role of lyric and drama in the period
  • The diffusion or expansion of literary culture in the context of the liberal revolutions; reception and translation issues

Website: http://cehum.ilch.uminho.pt/revolutions Organisation: Institute of Arts and Humanities, Centre for Humanistic Studies (NETCult), in association with the Anglo-Hispanic Horizons Network (AHH) http://cehum.ilch.uminho.pt/ http://ahh.english.ucla.edu/ Confirmed Guest Speakers:

  • Prof. Ian Haywood (University of Roehampton, UK. President of British Association for Romantic Studies and President of AHH)
  • Prof. Diego Saglia (University of Parma, Italy, senior member of AHH)
  • Prof. Fernando Machado (University of Minho, Portugal)

Organising Committee: Paula Alexandra Guimarães (Coordinator), Orlando Grossegesse, Ian Haywood, Diego Saglia, Sérgio Sousa, Carlos Pazos, Hugo Machado, Ana Catarina Monteiro Scientific Committee (alphabetical order): Agustín Coletes Blanco (University of Oviedo, Spain), Alicia Laspra Ródriguez (University of Oviedo, Spain), André Corrêa de Sá (Univ. Santa Barbara, California, USA), Angela Esterhammer (University of Toronto, Canada), Carlos Pazos (University of Minho, Portugal), Cristina Flores (University of La Rioja, Spain), Eugenia Perojo Arronte (University of Valladolid, Spain), Eunice Ribeiro (University of Minho, Portugal), Fernando Duraán (University of Cadiz, Spain), João Paulo Braga (Catholic University, Portugal), Jonatan González (University of La Rioja, Spain), Jorge Bastos (University of Porto, Portugal), Manuel Gama (University of Minho, Portugal), Maria de Fátima Marinho (University of Porto, Portugal), Orlando Grossegesse (University of Minho, Portugal), Otília Martins (University of Aveiro, Portugal), Paula Alexandra Guimarães (University of Minho, Portugal), Paulo Motta (University of São Paulo, Brazil), Sérgio Sousa (University of Minho, Portugal), Xaquín Nuñez (University of Minho, Portugal) INFORMATION: Submission – abstracts (between 200 and 300 words), with titles, keywords (5) and bionotes (100 words) should be sent to the following e-mail address: litcehum@ilch.uminho.pt. The languages ​​of communication are the following: Portuguese, English, Spanish, French and Italian The paper proposals will be analysed and selected by the scientific committee. At the end of the conference, the organising committee plans to make a peer-reviewed selection of the texts presented for publication: in electronic format and in book form (the latter on request). IMPORTANT DATES:

  • Submission of proposals: until October 31, 2019
  • Notification of acceptance: until December 31, 2019
  • Conference registration (online): until January 31, 2020
  • Programme publication (online): March 31, 2020
  • Registration (for attendants): until May 31, 2020
  • Conference: June 29 and 30, 2020

REGISTRATION FEES:

  • Until January 31, 2020 – 80 euros
  • After this date (and until May 31, 2020) – 120 euros
  • CEHUM members (and ILCH students) — (free registration)

METHOD OF PAYMENT: By bank transfer (to the UMinho account indicated in the website) VENUE: Amphitheatre B1 (Pedagogical Complex 2) and Auditorium of the Institute of Letters and Human Sciences, University of Minho, Gualtar Campus, Braga, Portugal

(posted 17 June 2019)