Calls for papers for conferences taking place in November 2024

Conference: The Politics of Weird and the Weirdness of Politics.
Venue and date: Dunărea de Jos University, Galați (Romania) – online; 2 November 2024.
Deadline for proposal submissions: 30 September 2024.

Organiser: The English Department at Dunărea de Jos University of Galati, Romania

The vibe shift among the Democratic base since President Biden announced he would not seek reelection has been remarkable: apathy and anxiety have morphed into enthusiasm and a newfound pugnacious spirit. Stumping for Vice-President Kamala Harris, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Harris’ vice-presidential pick, launched the verbal missile which has revitalized the campaign’s messaging and sought to define Republicans in succinct, yet devastating terms: they’re weird.

Weird has set the internet afire, a testament to the power of this deceivingly simple and relatable term. It comes after decades of conservative aspersions against women, people of color, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and left-leaning individuals, and in the wake of more recent demonization campaigns against migrants pouring in from “prisons and insane asylums” (bizarrely spearheaded by the fictional Hannibal Lecter), “radical Marxists,” and “childless cat ladies,” among others. As HP Lovecraft points out in the opening of his seminal essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” “[t]he oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” (Lovecraft 1973: 12). Fear of the unknown permeates conservative anxieties and determines what this group brands as weird. According to this logic, Kamala Harris is, indeed, weird, with her South Asian and Black hybrid identity, her relentless political ascent as a woman, and her status as a stepmother. To much of America, however, with its recent immigrant heritage, racial diversity, patchwork of genders and sexual orientations, and various family configurations, she is reassuringly normal, albeit exceptional in her achievements. So, what, then, the weird Democrats are talking about?

Mark Fisher, in the introduction to his 2016 book The Weird and the Eerie, defines the weird as “that which does not belong. The weird brings to the familiar something which ordinarily lies beyond it, and which cannot be reconciled with the “homely” (even as its negation)” (Fisher 2016: 10, original emphasis). What is the “homely” that Democrats and moderate Republicans recognize in the Harris/Walz ticket? What is it “that does not belong” in terms of the Trump/Vance ticket and MAGA surrogates, messaging, and policies? What has been fueling the success of the weird messaging?

In our pre-election online conference, we would like to explore the facets of weird in contemporary American politics. We invite 20-minute papers from a variety of fields (American studies, linguistics, journalism and media studies, cultural studies, literature, etc.) which engage with the definitions and manifestations of weird in the context of the 2024 presidential campaign.

Possible topics include (but are not restricted to):

  • the ways in which American political discourse constructs and deconstructs the idea of “weird”
  • exploring how the term “weird” has been employed (and deployed) by the Harris/Walz campaign
  • the role of social media in amplifying both “weirdness” and reactions to it
  • responses by the Trump/Vance campaign
  • analyzing instances of “weirdness” in various political campaigns (presidential or down-ballot) – ads, speeches, printed materials
  • intersectional identities and “weirdness”
  • fictional characters and pop culture references
  • the crossover between fictional “weirdness” and real-world politics
  • Project 2025/Agenda 47 and “weirdness”

Paper proposals should include:

  • full name
  • institutional affiliation
  • email address
  • abstract (250 words)
  • bio-note (100 words)

Please send proposals to weirdconference@gmail.com by September 30, 2024.

CFP

For further details, please check the original call inserted below.

(Posted 13 August 2024)


Conference: Material Realisms in Contemporary British Literature.
Venue and dates: Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier (France); 7-8 November 2024.
Deadline for proposal submissions: 17.05.2024.

Organisers: Catherine BERNARD (Université Paris Cité) / Jean-Michel GANTEAU (Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier 3)

Presentation

Keynote lectures:

  • Émilie Walezak, Professor of contemporary English Literature, Nantes Université
  • Peter Boxall, Goldsmiths’ Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford

One of the purposes of this conference will be to assess the persistence of realism in contemporary literary production, thereby taking up Emilie Walezak’s contention that “not only are writers reinventing realism today, but that there are also new ways of reading realism” (Walezak). (One of) its main hypothesi/es is that, paradoxically, realism is back with a vengeance so as to chronicle the demise of the stable, enclosed, sovereign human subject that was, precisely, at the heart of the realistic idiom of the past decades. Owing to the influence of feminist theory in such areas as the ethics of care, vulnerability studies and posthumanism, among others, the contemporary subject is seen to be caught in a mesh of interdependences with its environments. A great deal of emphasis naturally falls on the ways in which s/he is both “embodied and embedded” (Braidotti), how s/he is entwined with the rest of the living, vibrant world (Bennett) through the means, notably, of “entanglements” and “contact zones” (Haraway), at times envisaged in terms of “trans-corporeality” (Alaimo), and how s/he emerges out of intra-actions in which relation precedes existence (Barad). When Barad evokes the category of “agential realism” to reconceptualise our understanding of the subject, or when contemporary scholars unearth John Dupré’s notion of “promiscuous realism” (Dupré) to account for the way in which the human is a series of assemblages and entanglements, a holobiont that is “both an individual and an ecosystem” at the same time (Brandt), they do so to describe a reality that has evolved radically – unless it is our frames of perception that have adapted to our understandings of the contemporary crises. In fact, they refer to a subject that is steeped in a materiality that can no longer be denied or overlooked and that presents itself as a priority. 

One of the objectives of this conference will be to address the ways in which such new perceptions are remediated by new realistic idioms that take into account manifestations of a new ordinary, hitherto unidentified forms of life, and inventory them. We aim to engage with texts that process our new experience of such realities and present a universe characterised by an “enmeshing of matter and thought, of embodied aesthetic experience and critical experience” that Catherine Bernard calls a “neo-empiricism” (translation ours), a far cry from the binarisms of yesteryear and the metafictional defamiliarization that went along with them. In other terms, we aim to address the ways in which realism redefines itself from inside, by postulating and presenting continuities as opposed to breaks, and by favouring ontologies relying on connections, interactions and intra-actions. Crucially, such a turn (back) to a materialist-realist agenda entails radical aesthetic issues, among which that of the scalar poetics of fictions intent on making us see such entanglements with the micro-reality of organic life forms (Campos). A case in point has been provided by the recent bout of Covid fictions struggling to disclose the organic materiality of our historical condition.

Ultimately, such a program comes with momentous questions: why do we still need the category of “realism” (as distinct from “mimesis,” “representation,” or simply “materialism”) to account for contemporary production? How does our new interest in and concern for materiality lead fictional writing to re-think itself in relation to a specific reality? And, in that sense, how does this new realism succeed in making the world and our experience of it legible again? Or does it, on the contrary, embrace the uncanny opacity of reality? Ultimately, what does this materialist turn share with historical materialism and its critical political agenda? Thus, might such materialist mediations harbour alternative forms of praxis? 

Possible and not exclusive lines of enquiry are listed below: 

  • The precursors of contemporary material-realist texts.
  • The relevance of naturalism in relation to material realism.
  • The persistence of historical realism in contemporary, material realism.
  • Material realism as inventory.
  • The perception and consideration of the material.
  • The prevalence of metonymy.
  • The presentation of scale effects.
  • The issue of narrative care and the reparative function of material realism.

Website address 

https://mat-real.sciencesconf.org/

Contact details

CFP

For further details, please check the original call inserted below.

(Posted 27 January 2024)


Conference: Place and Space in Contemporary English-Written Literatures.
Venue and dates: Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Charles University, Prague; 15-16 November 2024.
Deadline for proposal submissions: 16 June 2024.

Organiser: Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Charles University, Prague

Plenary speakers:

  • Emeritus Professor Susana Onega (University of Zaragoza),
  • Professor Martin Procházka (Charles University)

Presentation

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, literary theory and criticism began to focus on the representation of space and place, which gradually acquired the significance that time and temporality had enjoyed for centuries. The fact that human beings live in space-time, and that these two dimensions significantly determine our existence and are equally crucial for the formation of our identity, opened up a fruitful field of interest for theorists, culminating in what has been called the postmodern “spatial turn”. Its immediate consequence, as Emmanuelle Peraldo notes, is that space “is now considered as a central metaphor and topos in literature”. This relationship is reciprocal: not only do the spatial properties of our existence shape who we are and how we perceive ourselves and the world around us, but our perception and interpretation of space also determine the character and significance of our living environments. The study of textual representations of space is thus one of the ways in which we can better understand not only the spaces in question, but also our own spatial, social and cultural experience, both individual and collective.

Therefore, we welcome proposals focusing on diverse spatial aspects of Anglophone literatures of the past three decades from a range of relevant critical perspectives, addressing concerns such as

  • spaces/places in time; spaces/places and time
  • spatial identities; identity and place/space
  • spatial topoi
  • spatial dichotomies  
  • places/spaces of transgression
  • spatial anxieties
  • liminal places/spaces
  • the country and/or the city
  • houses and/in literature
  • architecture and/or urban planning in literature

Paper proposals should include: 

  • full name of the applicant
  • affiliation
  • email address
  • title of the paper
  • abstract (150-250 words)
  • preferred presentation date (15 November/ 16 November). 
  • Proposals should be summited on one of the organisers’ email addresses (petr.chalupsky@pedf.cuni.cz or tereza.topolovska@pedf.cuni.cz). 

Website address: webkajl.pedf.cuni.cz/conference

Contact details

CFP

For further details, please check the original call inserted below.

(Posted 22 February 2024)


Winter Doctoral Symposium: Literatures and Cultures in English.
Venue and dates: NOVA University of Lisbon, School of Social Sciences and Humanities – Colégio Almada Negreiros; 18-19 November 2024.
Deadline for proposal submissions: 15 June 2024.

Organiser: Centre for English, Translation, and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS) – NOVA University of Lisbon School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Keynote Speakers:

Isabel Alves (CEAUL/ULICES – DLAC UTAD)
Zuzanna Zarebska (CEAUL/ULICES – FLUL)

Presentation

This symposium intends to bring together doctoral candidates and early-career researchers from various academic fields to discuss their work or other topics related to literatures and cultures in English. This Doctoral Symposium will serve as a platform for networking and sharing experiences as early career academic researchers in a supportive and collaborative environment. 

We welcome paper proposals that explore a range of topics in the areas of literature and culture in the English language. Proposals for papers can relate, but are not limited, to the following topics: 

  • Contemporary British and American literature and culture
  • Interdisciplinary approaches to literature and culture
  • Anglo-Portuguese Studies
  • Global literatures in English
  • Postmodern and postcolonial perspectives on literature and culture
  • Queer Studies and LGBTQ+ literature
  • Ecocriticism and environmental humanities
  • Intersections between science, literature, and culture
  • African American literature and culture
  • Asian American literature and culture
  • Diaspora and migration in literature and culture
  • Literary adaptations and transmedia narratives
  • Intersections between videogames, literature, and culture
  • Digital Humanities and literature
  • Translation Studies
  • Literature and popular culture

Please note that this list is not exhaustive, and we welcome innovative and interdisciplinary proposals on any topic related to literatures and cultures in English.

Contact details

Any inquiries should be sent to novadoctoralsymposium@gmail.com

CFP and Poster

For further details, please check the original CFP and event poster inserted below.

(Posted 23 April 2023)


Conference: Voices from the Margins – 9th international conference of the Tunisian Association for English Language Studies (TAELS).
Venue and dates: Hammamet / Monastir – Tunisia; 22-23 November 2024.
Deadline for proposal submissions: 30 June 2024.

Organiser: Tunisian Association for English Language Studies

Presentation

The international conference “Voices from the Margins” aspires to explore the rewards and challenges of the margin and provide a platform for discussion aiming at granting space to the downgraded voices of marginalised communities and underrepresented minorities to erupt and disrupt time-honoured hierarchies. The conference is meant to be an occasion to celebrate the neglected chronicles of those who have been historically deprived of agency and denied access to power structures. More than ever, marginalised voices are cruising towards visibility and empowerment by resisting erasure, reclaiming agency and asserting their presence in political, ideological and discursive structures that often seek to nullify their existence. By giving vent to the aspirations of these voices, we are granted entry into the profound significance of narratives from the margins, recognizing their potential to shake the foundations of hegemonic discourse, contest metanarratives and redefine societal constructs where subordination, oppression and injustice reign supreme. These narratives stand as testaments to the persistent endeavours at dismantling cultural, psychological, and epistemic barriers that seek to categorise, delimit, and confine all those who do not conform to normative structures to the narrow limits of the periphery.

It is within this framework that the conference aims to bring researchers and academics together to critically engage with marginality-focused issues from multiple perspectives and diverse standpoints. The conference is intended as an interdisciplinary event. Hence, we invite presentations from different academic disciplines such as history, sociology, philosophy, psychology, literary studies, linguistics and others. Different forms of presentations are encouraged, including case studies, theoretical investigations, problem-oriented arguments, and comparative analyses. The steering committee would like to share a global call and invite participants to submit individual and panel proposals related, but not limited, to the following topics: 

  • Rethinking marginality
  • Voicing the subaltern
  • Discourses on marginality
  • Narratives of resistance and resilience
  • Voice, agency and empowerment 
  • Legacies of violence, servitude and indentureship
  • Vulnerability, exploitation and marginalised communities
  • Racism and invisibility
  • Gender and marginalisation
  • Intersectionality and marginalities
  • Discourses of madness and deviance
  • Global media and marginalised voices
  • Social media and marginality
  • Marginalised cultures in the media
  • Transnationalism, migration and refugee status
  • Diaspora communities and marginality
  • Corporeal and psychological marginalization
  • Marginalised bodies
  • Ablesim and disability

Website address: www.taels.org

Contact details

CFP

For further details, please check the original call inserted below..

(Posted 4 April 2024)


One-day Symposium.: Journals and Magazines, a Place for Debate between Theater, Dance and Performance (France, UK, North America), 1950-2020.
Venue and dates: Maison de la Recherche, Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris, France (onsite and online); Monday, 25 November 2024.
Deadline for proposal submissions: 6 September 2024.

Organisers: Ophélie Landrin (Boston College France) and Samuel Lhuillery (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, GRIRT).

Presentation

The RELIRE project aims to write or rewrite the history and genealogies of performative scenic objects – often named with hybrid formulas such as “post-dramatic theater”, “performance dance”, “interartistic performances”, “stage performances” or just “performances” – which are often paralleled with the more general term of performance art which tends to erase its richness and diversity.

By choosing to consider these practices in a historical perspective, the aim is to understand the bonds and the mutual influences between the different protagonists who contributed to the birth of these scenic genres while questioning the anti-theatrical discourse that generally came with its emergence, in order to reconsider and renew its historiographical and genealogical understanding. This reflection belongs to an attempt of cross historiographies between theater, dance and performance art.

Amidst the protagonists of the birth and spreading of this concept of “performance” in the theater field, journals such as Théâtre/PublicPerformance MagazineTDR/ The Drama Review or Mouvement play a major role: due to their materiality, the conditions in which they emerged and how they were published, and their relationship to spaces, structures, institutions, historiographical and ideological debates within a time frame, they become a very precious object to be studied in order to comprehend the history of mutual influences between theater and performance art.

Hence a more in-depth knowledge of the first instance of the word “performance” and the evolution of its use in different French, English, American journals dedicated to theater and dance are necessary to draw its outlines – just like its counterpart the knowledge of the use of the word “theater” in journals dedicated to visual arts, performance art or art history such as AvalancheHigh Performance or arTitudes.  

On an indicative basis, communications may be the following:

  • Monographic study on the appearance and evolution of the term “performance” in a specific journal;
  • Historical overview of the birth of new specialized journals on performance as new spaces for research and creation;
  • Study of the use of the terms “theater” and “theatricality” in an art history or performance journal;
  • Thoughts on the circulation of concepts between journals, through questions of collaborations, reuse, influences or translations;
  • Study of the role of “transmitter” and the impact of the critic in the emergence and dissemination of performance, the critic can sometimes be considered as “ally” or “affiliated” with specific artists;
  • Analysis of friction between different terms such as “performance”; “post dramatic theater”; “performance dance”; “performative theater”: “body art”; “live art”; “living arts”; “events”; “Happenings”; “Public Actions”; “theatrical actions”, etc. within the journals;
  • Study of the appearance and use of these concepts in journals devoted not only to theater, but also to dance, puppetry, circus or the visual arts;
  • Reflection on the impact of geographical origins in the discourse on performance between France, Great Britain and North America;
  • Study of the presentation and critical reception of performances in journals linked to venues or international festivals such as the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Sigma, the Festival d’Automne, etc.

Contact details: revues.relire@gmail.com

(Posted 21 July 2024)


Workshop: Invisible Disabilities – Not Disabled. Just Differently-Abled.
Venue and dates: Dunărea de Jos University of Galaţi (Romania); 26 -27 November 2024.
Deadline for proposal submissions: 1 September 2024.

Organized by The Department Of English of the Faculty of Letters together with The Department Of Theatre, Music And Fine Arts of the Faculty of Arts of “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi (Romania)

We live in an increasingly alienated and alienating world where we put ourselves at safety from prying eyes or intrusive questions. Most often than not, we consciously choose to get lost in a vertiginous maze, the routine of what we call life and we get entrapped in im-personal stories of ourselves that we choose to mediate on social media channels, rarely ever minding the other.

We grow to think that our normality is the other’s normality; we expect to share similar stories and feelings, when, in fact, little do we know about the strife or personal struggles some people, other people, have to overcome every day, and little do we guess about their ab-normality until they become in-visible to the whole world.

Do we consciously throw them behind this curtain of opaque invisibility? Do we instinctively keep our eyes wide shut? Or do they willingly make themselves invisible by, strangely enough, placing themselves out in the open?

The Little Prince says that “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye”. Does this mean that in our entitlement to compare our stories to their stories, in our set expectations to recognize the familiarity of our own projections, we fail to even notice the essential truth about their story or really hear a silent cry for help?

Disability is not a disease and yet, people with disabilities will often fail to feel at ease in their own shoes, feeling more dis-eased rather than dis- abled either by personal choice or by social behaviour. This is why raising awareness about invisible disabilities is crucial for fostering understanding, empathy, and support within our communities.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for those with disabilities is not the fact that their shoes are too tight, but rather the lack of understanding or validation we, as the other, fail to show or give, forcing them, yet again, to live a life of skepticism and disbelief (neither of which belongs to them but to us), pushing them ever farther away behind the invisible curtain of isolation, frustration and reluctance to reach out ever again!

It is our belief that, living in the times that we do, raising awareness about invisible disabilities is essential for creating a more inclusive and supportive society on a small scale and world on a large scale! It is our belief that through education and by learning about the various types of invisible disabilities and their effects, we can develop a greater understanding and empathy for those who live a life of in-visibility.

Let this second edition of the International Workshop on disability become an awareness campaign that will eventually help dispel myths and misconceptions about Invisible Disabilities, reduce stigma and encourage more people to seek help. And let us all remember and learn of the talent, determination and unique perspectives of the people whose stories have enriched the world and served as inspiration to many.

In so doing, future participants are invited to announce their intention to take part in the event with presentations that explore the cultural and social multiplicity of invisible disability.

Possible papers and/or presentations associated with the topic may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • sight impairment;
  • hearing impairment;
  • physical disabilities (limitations on a person’s physical functioning, mobility, dexterity or stamina);
  • mental disabilities (anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, mood disorders, trauma and stressor-related disorders, neuro-developmental disorders, substance related and addictive disorder);
  • cognitive disabilities (intellectual disability; autism spectrum disorders; severe, persistent mental illness; brain injury; stroke; Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias);
  • inclusion, dialogue and prospective change.

The ultimate aim of the Workshop is to bring together academics and specialists in the field of disability, students and/ or parents whose children deal with some sort of disability so that awareness is raised, expectations become grounded in reality and social stereotyping is overcome. 

Send a 250-word abstract, 5 keywords and a 100-word bio to the workshop organizer, to Lidia Mihaela Necula, “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi, at lidia.necula@ugal.ro by 1 September 2024.

CFP

For further details, please check the original call inserted below.

(Posted 12 August 2024)


Conference: Adapting and Rewriting in the Age of the Enlightenment.
Venue and dates: Ca’Foscari University, Venice. 28, 29 and 30 November 2024.
Updated deadline for submissions: 20 August 2024.

The PhD Programme in Modern Languages, Cultures and Societies and Linguistics invites proposals for papers  for the Conference ‘Adapting and Rewriting in the Age of the Enlightenment’, held at Ca’ Foscari University,  Venice. We welcome submissions from PhD students and early-career researchers. 

The 18th century in Europe was marked by dynamic intellectual and social movements. In this context of extraordinary ferment, the circulation and adaptation of knowledge kindled a  cultural revolution, where originality and tradition were deeply intertwined.  

From a synchronic point of view, through extensive travels, epistolary exchanges, periodical  publications, and translations, ideas transcended national boundaries. The circulation of  knowledge, however, also traverses temporal boundaries: the 18th century inherited a wealth of  knowledge from the past, which scholars skilfully adapted to contemporary contexts. Our  Conference adopts this diachronic perspective, aiming to explore the diverse forms and modes of  rewriting, circulation, and adaptation – be it cultural, linguistic, or literary – of knowledge from  previous eras within the framework of 18th-century Europe.  

Literary adaptation, as a creative strategy, can take on numerous declinations. Examples include  the adaptation of classical and modern myths, the dissemination of scientific and philosophical  knowledge through literature, the revival of literary forms, genres transformations and translations.  

This Conference seeks to investigate the causes, modes, forms, and key figures of 18th-century  adaptation. We will reflect on the role of such a cultural practice in the evolutionary process and  transformations of literature at play in Enlightenment Europe. 

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: 

  • The practice and outcomes of adaptation (e.g. of myths, legends, and folklore,  etc.) 
  • Rewriting and forms of intertextuality (e.g. from classical, medieval, and modern texts, etc.) 
  • Transmission and transformation of scientific and philosophical knowledge · Translation and reception of literary texts 
  • Intersemiotic translation (e.g., from novels to theatre, from literature to visual art,  from literature to music, etc.) 
  • Interpretation, paraphrasing, parody, revision
  • The influence of contexts and audience in adaptation practices 

We welcome proposals for individual papers in English or French. 

To submit your proposal, please send a 250-word abstract, along with your academic affiliation, to  conference18@unive.it for consideration. Each presentation will last 20 minutes. 

The new deadline for submissions is 20 August 2024

The Conference will be held exclusively in person in Venice on 28, 29 and 30 November 2024

CFP

For further details, please check the original call inserted below.

(Posted 1 May 2024. Updated 3 August 2024)


Conference: Intertextuality in Anglophone Literature: Contemporary Reflections on Traces and Echoes.
Venue and dates: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris; 29-30 November 2024.
Deadline for proposal submissions: 31 May 2024.

Organiser(s)

  • Florian Bousquet 
  • Yasna Bozhkova 
  • Béatrice Pire 
  • Aliette Ventéjoux 

Presentation

Intertextuality is one of the most fundamental concepts to explore the manufacturing of community in literature. Originating in the work of Julia Kristeva, who drew inspiration from the theory of “dialogic imagination” (Bakhtin), intertextuality emphasizes that “every text is an intertext” (Barthes). The literary canon could thus be defined as a network of intertextual relationships, or even as an echo chamber, where the polyphony of each work resonates with and through other works. The aim of this conference is to examine contemporary issues regarding intertextuality. Among other interests, we will be looking at auctorial strategies to deal with the dynamics of marginalization and exclusion from the canon. Quotation, parody, allusion and pastiche are all intertextual modes that aim to disrupt, subvert or rewrite the canon, and establish new genealogies outside traditional hierarchies. In this way, the intertextual approach intersects fruitfully with the tools of feminist, queer, intersectional, African-American and postcolonial criticism. Postmodern literature tends to attenuate the conflictual side of intertextuality, either holding all appropriation to be non-existent, exhilarating or reduced to a metafictional game with no relation to reality. Intertextuality also helps us to probe an “artificially” intelligent world based on repetitive algorithmic structures. The influence of one text on another becomes diluted or more easily identifiable, thanks to the development of new textual research tools.

Website address 

Contact details

CFP

For further details, please check the original call inserted below.

(Posted 29 March 2024)


One-Day Online Workshop – Pleasure and / in Historical Fictions.
Organiser and dates: Historical Fictions Research Network. 30 November 2024 (online on Zoom): 8 am to 5 pm (GMT).
Deadline for proposal submissions: 1 October 2024.

An online event on Zoom: 15 min. talks, from 8 am to 5 pm (GMT)

Body: The Historical Fictions Research Network, an interdisciplinary and international network of scholars examining historical fictions, i.e. narratives of the past in a variety of popular media, is happy to organise its second one-day workshop on the topic of “Pleasure and / in Historical Fictions”.

Since the historical novel has come out of its critical closet in the last three decades to become a literary genre which “has come to dominate literary culture” (Wilson 2005: 145), which wins literary prizes (see de Groot 2019: 169) and “is snapped up for film and television” (Wilson 2005: 145), it is no longer considered a mere “ ‘feminine’ form” (Wallace 2005: 3) used by women to escape from reality. 

Instead, the manifold uses to which the historical novel and historical fictions more generally have been put have become a frequent concern of academic inquiry. Historical fictions, it has been pointed out, serve as a means of finding orientation in a world of flux, “constructing continuity, orientation and identity” (Paletschek 2011: 3). They satisfy “the need for emotional and aesthetic experience and for adventure, for a risk-free encounter with what is strange” (ibid.; cf. also Jordanova 2019: ch 7). Moreover, historical fictions offer the opportunity to write marginalized groups back into the past (see e.g. Wallace 2005), and thus to address past wrongs. 

In this one-day workshop, we aim to focus particularly on the Pleasures and / in Historical Fictions and to explore not only why the public are enthusiastic to consume the past in many popular forms, but also the manyfold pleasures that are described in historical fictions. 

Short, 15-minute papers are invited on topics related, but not limited, to:

  • Food and its consumption in historical fiction
  • The aesthetic and visual appeal of the past and past settings
  • Love and Sex in historical fiction
  • Liberties, equalities and opportunities in historical fictions
  • Exoticism and escapism in historical fictions 
  • Utopian histories 
  • Representations of sport and/or recreation in the past
  • Representations of collective /shared pleasure in the past
  • Historical fictions and taboo

Paper proposals are due by 1 October 2024. They should consist of a title, an abstract of 250 words max., and a short bio (150 words max). Please submit proposals through our online form (https://conferences.historicalfictionsresearch.org/hfrn24_workshop/).

Organisers: Series Editors Global Historical Fictions (https://brill.com/page/hifi

  • Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir,
  • Jerome de Groot,
  • Dorothea Flothow,
  • Siobhan O’Connor, and
  • Stephanie Russo.

For further details, please check the original call inserted below.

(Posted 3 September 2024)