Calls for papers for conferences taking place in November 2023

(E)motion in Changing Worlds.
Thessaloniki, Greece, 3-5 November 2023.
Deadline for the submission of abstracts: 30 March 2023.

The Department of English Literature of the School of English at Aristotle  University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in collaboration with the Hellenic  Association for the Study of English (HASE), invite scholars to (re)submit  proposals for the international conference E-motion in Changing Worlds to be  held in Thessaloniki, 3-5 November 2023. 

Originally announced for May 2020, (E)motion conference was halted and  postponed under global mobility restrictions and bans imposed by Covid-19  outbreak in March 2020. As our changing post-pandemic worlds timidly march into a new normal of (e)motion, the need to re-address the field with old  knowledge and new insight becomes pressing.  

Emotion, whether as energy current, flow, impact or intensity, is a force of  movement and a force on the move. Motile and contagious, it travels and  circulates within and across (non/human) bodies and (non-) places. To feel is  often an urge to move towards, to move away or to move in sync. 

Mobility, whether enforced, controlled or voluntary, be in the form of travel,  tourism, migration, exile or as basic human need to come in or avoid encounter  and connection, is also necessarily an affective event. It is charged with  emotion, shaped by – but also shaping – its force.  

It is the aim of this conference to add to the existing body of thought on  mobility studies, emotion and/or affect theory, focusing in particular on this  inextricable link between emotion and (im-)mobility. We are interested in the  ways in which affective structures and the dispositional dimensions of life  impact and are impacted upon by physical, cultural, class, racial, gender,  technological or juridical modes of mobility in contexts (present or past) that see  people, ideas, images and civic structures being actively on the move. We invite  papers that explore the different ways in which this interaction between “states”  of being, feeling and moving govern how and where we move, think, speak and  connect with others. In the aftermath of Covid-19 health and (e)motion crisis,  we are particularly interested in what the pandemic and its distancing-lockdown  logics have revealed of emotion, mobility and stasis, as well as in the new  economies of moving and feeling shaped in a changing post-pandemic world of virtual e-motion, care crisis, increased vulnerabilities, and emotionally loaded  protest and uprising.  

We invite papers in the fields of literature, language, culture and art that discuss  (E)motion in relation (but not limited) to the following: 

  • Identities (race, gender, class, ethnicities) 
  • Bodies (organic, inorganic) 
  • Travel (tourism, trade and transport) 
  • Geography (e.g. emotional geography) 
  • Media and Digital Technologies 
  • Urban Ecology and Eco-criticism 
  • Biopolitics (medical humanities) 
  • Nation-state politics (nationalism, populism, extremism, neoliberalism,  globalism)  

Abstracts (300 words) and a short biographical note (150 words), together with  your affiliation (if any) and title of your paper should be uploaded on the  following link: https://forms.gle/CqPBLpYAuG297WSN7 

Participants whose proposals had been accepted for presentation in the 2020  conference, and who would like to submit the same proposal, should use the  following link: https://forms.gle/Hc55LxMEry3afVmF8 

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 30 March 2023. Please visit the conference webpage for more information: 

https://www.enl.auth.gr/emotion/

Queries that are not covered by the above webpage can be addressed to Dr E.  Botonaki or Dr M. Ristani in the following address:  

emotionconference@gmail.com

CFP

(Posted 20 January 2023)


Interfused: imagination, faith and reason in Romantic writers: Romanticism in literature.
Corpus Christi College, Oxford (UK), 4 November 2023.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 31 May 2023.

Event organised by

Christian Literary Studies Group, Oxford

Rationale / Presentation of the event
The period in European and anglophone literature from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth known as Romantic had a number of characteristics, and although there was reaction from Enlightenment thinking, some long established threads endured. For the conference we look for associations with Christian and Biblical themes in literary texts. Papers will have a reading time of 20 minutes. Fuller details are on the conference page of the CLSG website.

Timeline 

  • Proposal by 31 May 2023
  • Committee decision by 30 June
  • Final title, blurb etc, as requested, for conference publicity by 31 August
  • 4 November day conference
  • Possible publication in The Glass by 31 January 2024.

Website

CLSG: https://www.clsg.org/html/conference.html 

Contact details

Dr Roger Kojecký, secretary@clsg.org

(Posted 18 February 2023)


C. S. Lewis : the Re-Enchanted Academic.
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania), 9-10 Nov 2023.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 1April 2023.

Event organised by

The Faculty of Letters, LINGUACULTURE – Centre for (Inter)cultural and (Inter)lingual Research

Rationale 

C. S. Lewis taught Literature at Oxford and Cambridge Universities for more than forty years. His prowess led Cambridge to create the Chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature specifically for him. Yet studies of this renown author, apologist, scholar, and deeply invested teacher, too often overlook the specific vocation in which he not only delighted and excelled, but which infused his entire corpus. Lewis’ passion for the literature he taught gripped him from his teenage years (if not earlier!) right through to the end of his life. His final academic book, The Discarded Image, which drew together many of his lectures, was an invocation not to discard the riches of this past; then and now, it calls his readers to consider more closely their own chronological – and literary – snobbery. Within the literature of old Lewis saw much that was fundamental for the well-being of the future; as an intellectual historian he was prophetic. His calling as an academic – whatever genre his output – was to return his readers to the enchantment of literary transcendence.

Come join us in Iasi as we reclaim the image too easily discarded, as we explore Lewis the academic — both his own re-enchantment as such, and how he summoned others to the same, as we discuss how he interwove his calling as a teacher of literature — both in the classroom and on the page — with that of a challenger of contemporary culture; how with wit and intellect he enticed his students and readers into that which he found “so imaginable and so satisfying to the imagination.” In the current zeitgeist of inhospitable contention, of ideological (and physical) warfare, Lewis the academic proffers an engaging, intellectually satisfying, and carefully informed alternative.

On the 60th anniversary of the death of C. S. Lewis, as well as the 10th year since our first Symposium, the sixth C. S. Lewis conference C. S. Lewis: the Re-enchanted Academic addresses topics related to the scholarship of C. S. Lewis and his kindred spirits as members of academia: biographical particulars; vocations as literary/cultural historians and critics; specific attention to the influence of Medieval and Renaissance ages in their writing — academic, theological, and otherwise; their perspectives on pedagogy and education (higher education in particular); their perspectives on the academic as tutor and mentor. We invite papers in the fields of literary history and criticism, cultural studies and arts studies, linguistics, aesthetics, theology, history, ethics, and education sciencesthat will invite constructive dialogues between disciplines and generate constructive responses to contemporary dilemmas.

Timeline 

  • Submission deadline 1st April
  • Notification of acceptance by 30th April  
  • Early Bird Conference Fee: 1st of May 2013

Website

https://simpozioncslewis.blogspot.com/

Contact details

  • Prof. Dr. Rodica Albu – rodica.albu@gmail.com
  • Conf. Dr. Teodora Ghivirigă – teoghivi@yahoo.com
  • Dr. Daniela Vasiliu – denise_vasiliu@yahoo.com

CFP

(Posted 5 March 2023)


Innovation in Language Learning (International Conference – 16th edition).
Florence (Italy) and online, 9-10 November 2023.
Abstract submission deadline: 8 June 2023.

The objective of the Conference is to promote transnational cooperation and share good practice in the field of the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to Language Learning and Teaching. The Innovation in Language Learning Conference is also an excellent opportunity for the presentation of previous and current language learning projects and innovative initiatives.

Two days of inspiring sessions in the framework of a highly interactive onsite and online conference experience will be delivered. Enhanced digital contents will give participants greater access to learning, sharing and networking.

All accepted papers will be presented on-site and on-line.

Interactive Questions and Answers sessions will follow each paper presentation.

Poster Presentation Sessions will also be held, on-site and on-line.

Networking Opportunities will be organized.

All accepted papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings with ISBN, ISSN and DOI codes. The publication will be included in Academia.edu and indexed in Google Scholar. The Proceedings will be sent to be reviewed for inclusion in the Conference Proceedings Citation Index by ISI-Clarivate – Web of Science

For further information please check: http://conference.pixel-online.net/ICT4LL/callforpapers.php

CFP

(Posted 15 April 2023)


Ford Madox Ford: at the Dawn of an Era.
University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (ULICES), Faculty of Arts and Humanities-Lisbon University. 9-10 November 2023.
Deadline for submissions: 3 July 2023.

Convener: University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (ULICES)
Venue: Faculty of Arts and Humanities-Lisbon University

Ford Madox Ford was born Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer on 17 December 1873 in Merton, Surrey. His name runs through the fabric of the modern novel as he tackled different genres and topics in his vast production of works, namely: The Shifting of the Fire (1892), his first novel; The Inheritors (1901), the first of the three novels he wrote in collaboration with Joseph Conrad; fairy tales such as The Brown Owl or The Feather (1892);  a historical trilogy of Henry VIII’s fifth queen, published under the titles The Fifth Queen (1906), Privy Seal (1907), and The Fifth Queen Crowned (1908) which, according to the critics of his day, raised the genre of historical fiction to new heights; his opus magnum, The Good Soldier (1915), and also the Tetralogy Parade’s End (1924) brought the author worldwide literary recognition insofar as they showcase how he had perfected his technique of point of view, time-shift, le mot juste, selection  and progression d’ effet. These more mature works also addressed the author’s anguished weltanschauung. However, his production is not limited to the novel, but extends to poetry, essay writing, journalism and memoirs, leaving ground for the exploration and analysis of a myriad of research possibilities.

150 years have passed since his birth and because of the importance of Ford’s writings at the end of the Victorian Era and during the Edwardian period, providing insightful representations and descriptions of the political, social and cultural status quo of his time (mainly before and after the 1st World War), it is then paramount to celebrate Ford’s valuable contribution to early twentieth century’s (British) literature and culture.

With this in mind, this symposium seeks to give due recognition to Ford Madox Ford’s works and his role as a writer and cultural/social and literary critic during the late Victorian age and the first three decades of the twentieth century. Therefore, participants are invited to present proposals that explore, analyse and problematise cultural, literary, political and social issues that gravitate around Ford’s works.

As such, topics and themes of interest include, but are not restricted to, the following:

  • Modernism
  • Liberalism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism
  • Ideological and economic doctrines
  • The Great War / World War I and narrative
  • Crossroads between the American, British and (continental) European cultures
  • Cultural memory
  • Identity and gender in the “small circle novels”
  • Victorian Woman/ New Woman
  • Mental health
  • Utopia, dystopia and heterotopia

Deadlines and other information

  • 31st July 2023: final deadline for submission of paper presentations
  • The publication of the selected papers will be done at Anglo Saxonica (indexed in scopus), in the form of a Special Issue
  • Languages of the event: Portuguese and English
  • Both remote (online) and onsite presentations will be accepted

Further information through the following e-mail address: fordmadoxfordsymposium23@gmail.com or here.

(Posted 21 April 2023)


Images of Apocalypse and Postapocalypse in Contemporary Theatre, Drama, Film, and Media.
University of Lodz, Faculty of Philology – the conference is run on-site, 16-17.11.2023.
Deadline for submission: 10 September 2023.

Organisers

  • University of Lodz, Poland
  • Department of English Drama, Theatre, and Film
  • Prof. Michal Lachman
  • Dr Katarzyna Ojrzyńska
  • Dr Shauna O’Brien

We wish to invite conference papers and presentations that look at various dramatic, theatrical, cinematic, and media works intent on exploring multiple crisis scenarios and reflecting upon the condition of contemporary society. We are particularly interested in analysis of works which discuss end-of-the-world or end-of-civilization motifs, apocalyptic and postapocalyptic landscapes, as well as epidemics or outbreak narratives.

We invite papers addressing the following issues:

  • apocalypse or apocalypses – the repeated and inevitable threats of an ending,
  • the apocalypse underway – living and surviving the apocalypse,
  • Robinsonian salvaging as the apocalyptic trope,
  • apocalypse as the interrogation of modernity (postcolonial and feminist critique),
  • apocalypse and images of global capital, labour, precarity and justice,
  • apocalypse and dystopia/totalitarianism,
  • apocalypse as the critique of humanism,
  • women-centered apocalypse,
  • queer apocalypses,
  • apocalypse and the indigenous people,
  • apocalypse and people with disabilities,
  • apocalypse and formal experiment,
  • apocalypse and social transformation,
  • apocalypse and the cultural subconscious/repressed,
  • survival horror,
  • social resilience and sustainability in literature and art,
  • literary, dramatic and theatrical images of climate apocalypse.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

  • Professor Paola Spinozzi, University of Ferrara, Italy 
  • Professor Katarzyna Więckowska, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland

Please, submit your topic proposals and abstracts (up to 300 words) together with a short bio to the following address: lodz.conference@gmail.com, before 10 September 2023

Website

https://dramathroughtheages.wordpress.com.

Contact detailslodz.conference@gmail.com.

(Posted 29 April 2023)


Recent Approaches to the Environmental Humanities: Literary and Cultural Reflections on the Human and More-Than-Human World.
Zoom (online) event, 17-19 November 2023.
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 31 May 2023.

Event organised by

The Journal of Ecohumanism which is published by Transnational Press London.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers of the Conference’s Round Table

  • Peggy Karpouzou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
  • Roberto Marchesini, Centro Studi Filosofia Postumanista, Italy
  • Pramod K. Nayar, The University of Hyderabad, India
  • Scott Slovic, University of Idaho, United States of America

Coordinator

Nikoleta Zampaki, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Presentation

Environmental Humanities is one of the most dynamic research fields within Humanities. Environmental Humanities seek to explore the relationship between human and non-human life-forms within their natural environment. Yet, what kind of interplays are found at the heart of Environmental Humanities? Since we are amid pandemic vulnerabilities, ecological catastrophes, rapid techno-scientific advances and increased biological and socio-political states of precarity, the Environmental Humanities also seek to figure out the future of human and non-human nature.

Conscious of the insecurities and constant changes and transformations of subjectivity in the 21st century, the conference aims to open up a multicultural space that moves beyond geographical boundaries to foster discussions and listen to a variety of voices addressing the complex issues associated with the Anthropocene, the more-than-human world (e.g., animals, plants, forests, water, soil, bacteria, viruses, whole ecosystems, etc.) and the various multispecies entanglements. By pooling the collective knowledge about the human and the more-than-human world, we can enhance our chances of reaching potential solutions to sustaining our planet.

This three-day conference will explore questions that facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue among academics and scholars from around the world investigating the evolving concepts of the “human” and “non-human” life-forms that remain crucial to our shared planetary present and future. We invite individual papers and panel proposals related, but not necessarily limited to, the following topics:

  • human and more-than-human world in Literary Theory, Cultural Criticism and Humanities (e.g., Ecocriticism, Ecofeminism, Eco-Narratology, Ecopoetics, Zoopoetics, Biosemiotics, Ecosemiotics, New Materialism, Environmental Humanities, Blue/Ocean Humanities, Plant Humanities, Critical Animal Studies, etc.)
  • human and more-than-human world, ecology, nature and environment in Comparative Literature (e.g., European, American, Asian, African, Australian, etc.)
  • human and more-than-human world in -cenes, e.g., Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene, etc.
  • human and more-than-human world in Continental Philosophy and Global Philosophy
  • human and more-than-human world in Arts (e.g., Eco-/Bio-Art, Ecomusicology, etc.) and Eco-Aesthetics
  • human and more-than-human world in Media Studies, Visual Studies and Film Studies
  • human and more-than-human world and Posthumanism, Transhumanism, AI, and Ethics
  • human and more-than-human world in Digital Humanities
  • human and more-than-human world in Biomimicry, Design Studies and Digital Modelling
  • human and more-than-human world in Urban Studies, Spatial Studies, Citizen Humanities, Smart Cities and Citizenship Futures
  • human and more-than-human world in Postcolonial Studies and Indigenous Studies
  • human and more-than-human world in Food Studies
  • human and more-than-human world in Medical Humanities, Health Humanities, Pandemics, Bioethics and Biotechnology
  • human and more-than-human world in Disability Studies
  • human and more-than-human world in Environmental History
  • the language of/for human and more-than-human world, Ecolinguistics
  • human and more-than-human world in Environmental Justice
  • Eco-Narratology and Storytelling about human and more-than-human world
  • Energy Humanities and human and more-than-human world
  • ​human and more-than-human world and Psychology Studies (e.g., Ecopsychology, etc.)
  • human and more-than-human world and Anthropology Studies
  • human and more-than-human world and Education Studies
  • human and more-than-human world and Sociology
  • towards the future of the human and more-than-human world

The official language of the conference is English. The conference will be held via the Zoom platform and will also be recorded. Interested scholars are kindly asked to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words, together with a short bio (150 words), for 15-minutes presentation. We also welcome proposals for panels of 4-5 scholars. In that case, please send us the panel’s title, one page description, full names of scholars, their affiliations and e-mails. We don’t accept poster announcements or artworks. Abstracts and proposals for panels should be original and not prior published or announced. Please send the material to the conference’s General Secretary envhumconference2023@gmail.com.

All the participants will receive a signed certificate of attendance for their participation in the conference. After selection and double peer review of the conference’s chapters, the conference’s proceedings will be published by TPLondon. More details will be sent to all the participants after the conference’s end.  

Timeline 

Important Dates

  • Deadline for abstract, short bio and panels’ submissions: 31st of May 2023
  • Peer Review Accept/Reject Notification: 30th of June 2023
  • Draft Program’s Announcement: 1st of September 2023
  • Final Program’s Announcement: 31st of October 2023

Website

https://ecohumanism.co.uk/

Contact details

Conference’s General Secretary envhumconference2023@gmail.com

CFP

(Posted 21 January 2023)


English and Irish Women Writers of the Long Eighteenth Century – A Commemorative Conference.
University of Pécs (Hungary), 24-25 November, 2023.
Deadline for proposals: 31 May 2023.

The Department of English Literatures and Cultures in association with the Irish Studies Research  Centre at the University of Pécs invite you to attend a commemorative conference on the occasion of  the 400th anniversary of the birth of Margaret Cavendish in 2023 and the 300th anniversary of the  birth of Frances Sheridan in 2024.  

We invite proposals for papers on a broad range of topics related to the conference theme. We also  welcome approaches which deal with reception, or address transnational and cross-cultural subjects. 

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was an iconic public personage of the  Restoration period. Derided by contemporaries as a “mad, conceited,  ridiculous woman” (in renowned diarist Pepys’ words), the Duchess of  Newcastle has been the subject of increased scholarly interest in the last  couple of decades. Given the scarcity of published women writers in the era,  Cavendish’s literary output was truly incredible both in terms of quantity and versatility. She made her first appearance in print with a collection of poetic pieces and essays (Poems and Fancies, 1653), produced an autobiography (A  True Relation of my Birth, Breeding, and Life, 1656), epistles (CCXI Sociable  Letters, 1664), philosophical treatises (Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, 1666), not to  mention her work as a prolific experimental playwright with two printed collections of plays (Plays,  1662; Plays, Never Before Printed, 1668), which were never put on stage in her own lifetime. Her most  famous work is The Blazing World (1666), a unique generic hybrid containing elements of romance,  utopia, and drama. Recent scholarship recognises Cavendish’s achievement from many perspectives:  some see her as a biographical and literary exile, some focus on her hidden literary debts and her  unique techniques of mixing genres, while others are more interested in her self-representation  techniques and her role as a public female intellectual involved in the philosophical debates of her time.

Frances Sheridan (1724-1766) was born in Dublin as the child of an Anglo-Irish Protestant family. She  married actor and theatre director Thomas Sheridan (1719-1788) and in 1758 the couple moved to  London permanently. Her literary career began with the writing of novels, the first of which was  Eugenia and Adelaide (published only in 1791). In London she was introduced to Samuel Richardson  (1689-1761) and showed him her manuscript. Richardson encouraged her to pursue the writing of  fiction. The influence of Richardson’s Pamela can be seen in her most successful novel, Memoirs of  Miss Sidney Bidulph (1761) which, like its model, is also written in diary form. Later she turned to the  genre of drama and had two of her plays premiered in Drury Lane Theatre  by David Garrick’s Company: The Discovery (1763) and The Dupe (1764). A  third piece, A Trip to Bath (1765) did not make it to the stage at that time but English playwright Elizabeth Kuti (1969) adapted and re-titled it as The Whisperers in 1999; thus refashioned, the drama went into production by  Rough Magic Theatre Company in Ireland. Frances and Thomas Sheridan’s  son, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), who later became a widely  acclaimed playwright, wrote his first works drawing inspiration from his  mother’s literary achievement.

Topics can include, but are not limited to: 

  • the works of Margaret Cavendish 
  • the life and writings of Frances Sheridan 
  • any aspect of women writers’ history in the long 18th century 
  • women and the rise of the novel 
  • feminist approaches to the works of women writers in the long eighteenth century – the reception of English and Irish female authors of the long eighteenth century. 

Proposals of 250 words for 20-minute papers and a short CV (no more than 150 words) should be sent to Professor Mária Kurdi (kurdi.maria@pte.hu) by 31 May 2023. Besides individual papers, we welcome proposals for joint panels of three papers. Please include a brief rationale for the panel along with an abstract and CV for each presenter. 

We also invite proposals for complete panels and roundtables. Those wishing to organise them are kindly asked to contact the Organising Committee at maczelka.csaba@pte.hu by 30 April 2023. A selection of the papers is planned to be published. 

CFP

(Posted 13 February 2023)


Microscopic Imaginaries in 20th and 21st-Century Literature
Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris (France), 24 November 2023.
Deadline for proposals: 31 May 2023.

When Ronald Ross discovered the protozoan responsible for malaria in 1897, he wrote a poem addressing “million-murdering Death” whose “cunning seeds” he had found. Ross’s poem remains famous, but how has his hope that art and science would walk “hand in hand” fared in the following centuries? Over the 20th century, microscopy was revolutionised by UV, phase contrast, and electron technology. The circulation of microscopic images increased exponentially with the arrival of television, internet and digital photography. While visualisations of atomic physics were influential for modernist writers, genetic engineering and microbial agency have become key ingredients of 21st-century crime fiction and science fiction, as well as inspirations for ecopoetry, molecular poetics and experiments in living poetry.This symposium aims to identify the microscopic imaginaries that appeared over this period, and the turning points that structured literature’s engagement with microscopy. We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers in English, on any written literary genre, particularly around the following topics:

  • the epistemic dimensions of literary form
  • the aesthetics of scale
  • the role of literature in changing scopic regimes
  • ethical and political dimensions of microscopic imaginaries
  • conceptual shifts provoked by microscopic perspectives, around notions such as community, agency, subject, or environment
  • relations between microscopic imaginaries and movements such as modernism, naturalism or new materialism
  • authorial postures and reader expectations created by microscopic perspectives
  • relations between scientific imagination, popular science imagination and literary imagination
  •  how scientific and literary discourses have shaped each other over this period 

Proposals should be sent in Word or PDF documents by the 31st of May 2023 to the organisers: 

Answers will be sent out by the 9th of June.

The symposium will be held at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Maison de la Recherche, 4 rue des Irlandais, in Paris. A second symposium will be organized in 2024 on microscopic imaginaries in theatre and performance: a separate call for papers will be issued for that event. 

CFP

(Posted 12 May 2023)