(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:
CFP
e-motion-conference-CFPfinal(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)
Social & Environmental (In)Justice in Discourse & in the Literary/Artistic Imagination.
Ecole Normale Supérieure, University of Tunis (Tunisia) and online (for international participants. 8–10 November 2023.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 4 September 2023.
Presentation of the event
The conference aims at inviting scholarly examinations of the discursive patterns—historiographic, documentary, theoretical, and artistic—within which the old theme of social (in)justice has been revisited in connection to the issue of environmental (in)equality. If—as it has often been noted—exposure to, and suffering from ecological disasters has also been victimizing the lower classes, marginal groups, and indigenous populations, how far did this multi-faceted injustice orient documentary, theoretical and creative practices towards a critical rethinking of the concept of representation, as well as a rethinking of notions such as militancy, commitment, and activism? How have the discourses of culture studies, sociology, sociolinguistics, and literary criticism been approaching those intersections between forms of social and environmental (in)justice? How has the literary and artistic imagination been reacting to the urgency of these issues in an intellectual climate that has been increasingly sceptical about the adequacy of representation and the desirability of the mimetic? How did the issues related to the ecological urgency contribute to the revival of a scholarly interest as well as artists’ concern with the question (in)justice?
Theme of the current edition
Theory and Cultural Studies:
- Indigeneity, ethnic movements, and the conception of environmental justice in historiography
- Ecological and social movements in journalistic representation
- Social activism & the politics of ecology
- Narratives of social and ecological militancy
- Race, class, and gender in the discourses on (in)justice
Theory and Literary Studies:
- Poetic justice in narrative fiction: its convergence with/divergence from the politics and ethics of justice
- Renewed interest of Literature and/or the visual arts in social class and class distinctions
- Environmental justice movements and their impact on artistic expression
- Neo-Realism in literature & the ecocritical wave
- Satire and the militant ethos in (ecocritical) literature & the visual/cinematic arts
Linguistics
- Social justice and academic discourse socialization
- Critical pedagogy and social justice
- Bilingualism/multilingualism in the context of social (in) justice
- Language assessment and social justice
- Learner/teacher agency related to social justice
- Social justice and intercultural education
- Class, gender and/or race related to ecological issues from a sociolinguistic perspective
Event organised by
Department of Languages
Department of English Language, Literature & Civilisation
Ecole Normale Supérieure
University of Tunis
Tunis, Tunisia
Timeline
- Abstract submission deadline: September 4, 2023
- Notification of acceptance by the scientific committee: September 11, 2023
- Conference: November 8-10, 2023
Website
Link for registration is available here.
Contact details
ens.conference.tunis@gmail.com
CFP
(Posted 17 June 2023)
C. S. Lewis : the Re-Enchanted Academic.
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania), 9-10 Nov 2023.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 1 April 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 sciences, that 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 submission extended to the 11 September.
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
- The deadline for submission of abstract presentations has now been extended to the 11th September.
- 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. Updated 23 July 2023)
Touring Travel Writing III: Between Fact and Fiction.
NOVA University of Lisbon – School of Social Sciences and Humanities. 9-10 November 2023.
Deadline for abstracts: 30 September 2023.
Venue: NOVA FCSH, Colégio Almada Negreiros (Campus de Campolide)
Date: November 9-10, 2023
CETAPS (Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, Universidade Nova, Lisbon) and CELIS (Centre de Recherches sur les Littératures et la Sociopoétique, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont Ferrand) once again join efforts and organise this international conference which aims to be a locus of debate on the many facets of travel writing, a research area that has emerged as a relevant topic of study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in the last few decades.
Papers on the following topics are welcome:
- Anglophone travel writing on the Portuguese-speaking world Lusophone travel writing on the Anglophone World
- Travelling to write
- Travel writing, the novel, poetry and drama
- Travel writing as report
- Travel and visual culture
- Travel writing, Humanities and the Social Sciences
- Travel writing, gender and power
- Travel writing, (post)colonial discourse and decoloniality
- Travel writing and (forced) migration
- Travel writing, imagined communities and imagology
- Travel writing and tourist culture
- Travel writing and (in)tangible heritage
- Travel writing and exploration
- Travelling as gentrification
- Travel writing, censorship and surveillance
- Travel writing and (auto)biography
- Travel writing and Otherness
- Travel writing, politics and ideology
- Travel writing and ethics
- Travel writing, mobility and conviviality
- Maps as travel narratives
- Travel, Fantasy, Children’s Literature and Young Adult Fiction Sound / Food / Smell / Touch / Visual / Ecoscapes in Travel Writing Travel writing in / as translation
- Utopian and dystopian travel narratives
- Science and travel writing
- History of Travel Writing
- Travel writing: theory and criticism
- Intertextuality in travel writing
- The rhetorics of travel writing
- Teaching Travel Writing
- Travel Writing and ‘World Literature’
Keynote speakers:
- Carl Thompson (University of Surrey, UK)
- Catherine Morgan-Proux (Univ. Clermont-Auvergne, France) Susan Pickford (Univ. de Genève, Switzerland)
Papers and pre-organized panels:
The conference languages are English and Portuguese. Speakers should prepare for a 20-minute presentation. Please send a 300-word abstract, as well as a short biographical note (100 words), by September 30th, to:
touringtravelwriting@gmail.com
Proposals for papers and pre-organized panels (in this case, please also include a brief description of the panel) should include full title of the paper, name, institutional affiliation, contact details, a short bionote and AV requirements (if any). Notification of abstract acceptance or rejection will take place by October 5, 2023.
Further details in the attached CFP.
CFP
(Posted 19 August 2023)
Playwrights and Environment, Nineteenth Century to the Present: Visions and Revisions.
Swedish Institute in Rome, 16-17 November 2023.
Deadline for proposal submissions: 20 August 2023.
Organisers: Professor Vicky Angelaki and Dr Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson, Mid Sweden University
The Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, located in the immediate vicinity of the Swedish Institute in Rome, has adopted the motto “Time is out of joint” (Hamlet, “the time is out of joint”) in the framing of its approach to the curation of its exhibitions and presentation of its collection. The motto indicates a philosophy that does not proceed linearly or hierarchically when it comes to art. It is no longer a matter of separating histories, but of perceiving of artistic and historical narratives as flows, dialogues and intersections. The conference, adaptive to its environment broadly conceived, endorses and adopts this approach for the framing of its theme and for its call for papers. We also nod in the direction of T. S. Eliot and his “visions and revisions” in framing our motivation for looking at textual dramatic landscapes from novel, fluid and open perspectives, recognising the tenuousness and re-writability of arguments and assertions at a time of fast-changing data, and as the consequences of the climate emergency are constantly revealed to us in new ways, with growing impacts.
As an artistic and literary form profoundly embedded in society, playwriting has long proven that it is attuned to shifting cultural, political, and, of course, natural ecologies. The environmental question has, similarly, long been taken up by playwrights in different modes and through a diversity of textual formats and thematic approaches across time. For the purposes of this conference we are concentrating on playwrights and texts from the nineteenth century to the present, aiming to revisit the pioneers that have rightly featured prominently in academic discourses and theatre programming, probing their ground-breaking contribution. At the same time, and to no lesser degree, we are highly invested in recognising and revealing voices less commonly heard, and writers less visible.
The environmental question pertains across cultural, geographical, historical and artistic contexts, cutting through times and places to unite us all in challenges, pleasures, crises and enchantments. Many of the texts that drive and inspire us manage to navigate all these complex states — and many more nuances arising from these — in one and the same text. The texts that motivate this call for papers are the ones that succeed in doing so by remaining astute when it comes to their representational imperative and social function while not losing sight of, and in fact actively promoting the deepest thread of playwriting as an art that can equally move and compel: as textual and visual poetry.
We are hoping to create dialogues that treat time non-linearly while never losing sight of context, facilitating panel discussions that will combine different periods and trends through the lens of shared playwriting sensibilities and innovative approaches.
The conference will probe histories of visual and textual representations of environments, atmospheres and climates to ask what it means to be a visionary and revisionist playwright, and how this links to other theatrical, artistic and literary forms. The terms ‘vision’, ‘visionary’, ‘revision’ and ‘revisionist’ will be problematised artistically, culturally and socially to take on different potential and cross-contingent meanings, associations and potentialities. We are aiming to encourage a process of tracing how terms and approaches cross-pollinate and cross-contextualise rather than in compartmentalising and classifying.
We are now inviting papers that may concentrate on topics that include, but are not limited to:
- Iconoclastic approaches to form, content and the environmental question
- Fusions of social, political and ecological crises as taken on in ground-breaking texts
- Minimalisms and maximalisms in the depiction of environmental concerns through non-binary analytical perspectives on form
- Visions of environmental crises, utopias, dystopias and (post-)apocalypses
- Visions of the natural sublime, enchantment and rapture
- Intersectional approaches to environmental dramaturgies towards different forms of justice
- Greening revisions of climates, atmospheres and environments in the dramatic text
- Sustainable textual performances in tenuous environments.
Colleagues are welcome to treat the above as starting points.
It is important to us to note that we encourage participation from colleagues at all career levels and proposals dealing with different geographical, cultural and artistic environments with no restriction.
The event will take place at the Swedish Institute in Rome as a non-residential conference: delegates are expected to make their own accommodation arrangements.
Kindly note: there will be no registration fee, but places are limited.
Please submit proposals to both:
- Vicky Angelaki: vicky.angelaki@miun.se and
- Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson at charlotta.palmstiernaeinarsson@miun.se
Deadline for proposal submissions: 20 August 2023.
Selected speakers will be notified of acceptance by early September at the latest.
(Posted 17 June 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.
Extended deadline for submission: 30 September 2023
Organisers
- University of Lodz, Poland
- Department of English Drama, Theatre, and Film
- Prof. Michal Lachman
- Dr Katarzyna Ojrzyńska
- Dr Shauna O’Brien
As Rosi Braidotti repeatedly reminds us, we live in the age of the fourth industrial revolution and the sixth extinction, both happening simultaneously and shaping our daily lives. The looming apocalypse, or rather apocalypse in progress, intertwines with scientific and economic development on a monumental scale. For many people, such a vision of reality exists only in the realm of denial or fiction, but culture relishes in the potential offered by apocalyptic prospects of what the world might turn into. As Andrew Tate notes, “apocalypse is widely understood in the shared, popular imagination as a kind of classy synonym for spectacular destruction, death on a vast scale and the collapse of all that society might hold dear” (Apocalyptic Fiction, Bloomsbury 2017). Tate aptly observes that “We now live in an era of apparent continual catastrophe,” arguing that “pre-apocalyptic anxiety” defines 21st century writing in general. Apocalyptic writing, according to Tate, is distinguished by two main features: the civilizational collapse and the survival vision that follows it.
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. During the conference, we would like to explore the ways in which works of drama, theatre, art, and media through their (post)apocalyptic focus explore the cultural, social, and political fears and anxieties of our times, addressing the issues of ethics, morality, class, gender, ethnicity, ecology, consumerism, etc. In our discussions, we hope to investigate possible readings of various scenarios, ranging from those embracing posthuman pessimism of our condition, through those offering hopeful alternatives, to the ones cherishing the revolutionary and liberating power of apocalypse.
We are also interested in works and artistic projects which offer formally challenging, experimental and innovative ways to represent apocalyptic visions. Techniques of writing, staging and composing modern works of art test new forms of communicating the aesthetic, revolutionary, and socially rebellious potential of (post)apocalyptic thinking through drama, theatre, site-specific or physical performance, multimedia and multimodal literary projects or documentary and socially inclusive film and media practices. We encourage participants to submit proposals analyzing how apocalyptic thinking enforces formal experimentation which facilitates the search for innovative methods of artistic communication.
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 details: lodz.conference@gmail.com.
Further details in the attached CFP.
CFP
(Posted 29 April 2023. Updated 12 September 2023)
From cottagecore to solarpunk: politics and aesthetics of contemporary pastorals.
Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier 3 (France), 17 November 2023.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 2 October 2023.
Event organised by:
- Constance Pompie (constance.pompie@univ-montp3.fr)
- Théo Maligeay (theo.maligeay@univ-montp3.fr)
- Etudes Montpelliéraines du Monde Anglophone (EMMA)
Presentation of the event
This one-day symposium aims at gathering new points of view about pastoral writing especially insofar as it is influenced or influences political events, choices and practices. We start from Leo Marx’s The Machine in the Garden to ask how does the literary pastoral and its associated political practices become one single ideal. In this domain, new hybrid genres such as cottagecore and solarpunk are particularly interesting, but our scope is in no way limited to them.
Keynote speaker:
Professor Claire Omhovère, specialist of landscape writing in Canadian, Australian and Indian literature
Areas of interest:
- The paradox of pastoral forms in the technological context of social media
- The transmediality of the pastoral mode, and the border between work of art and political work
- Engaging or disengaging from the world
- Romantization, idealization and fetishization of the so-called “natural” environment
- Convention, artificiality and the natural
- The city as a metonymy of culture and progress
- The differences between British and American cultural areas in the treatment of pastoral themes
- Mutations of the pastoral and pastoralism induced by the post-colonial context
Website
https://emma.www.univ-montp3.fr/
Contact details
http://theo.maligeay@univ-montp3
Further details in the original CFP below.
CFP
(Posted 17 September 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
Contact details
Conference’s General Secretary envhumconference2023@gmail.com
CFP
(Posted 21 January 2023)
Musical tale and children’s opera in the English-speaking world.
University of Caen Normandy (France), 22-23 November 2023.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 31 August 2023.
Event organised by Marcin Stawiarski
Rationale / Presentation of the event
This international conference’s main argument lies at the crossroads of two somewhat similar yet different traditions: that of the musical tale and that of the opera for children. Particular emphasis will be laid on didactic and pedagogical aspects of children’s productions as well as interrelations between professional and amateur musical productions. The conference will also focus on the role of young audiences and young musicians in the field of musical entertainment and musical productions intended for young audiences in contemporary English-speaking cultural spheres. The event will be held at the University of Caen Normandy. It is hosted by ERIBIA research group (University of Caen) and coorganized by the research team IDEA (University of Lorraine).
Submissions should include a title, a 250-300-word summary, a short biographical note, academic affiliation, and should be sent to marcin.stawiarski@unicaen.fr by August, 31, 2023.
Website
Contact details
(Posted 6 July 2023)
Applied Linguistics: Current Trends and Prospects.
St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia. 18-19 November 2023.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 15 September 2023.
A forum dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the Department of English and American Studies at Sofia University & the 135th anniversary of St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia
Applied Linguistics has long ceased to lend itself easily to definition. Ever since its inception in the late 1950s, the field has become increasingly varied and far-reaching. It represents a constantly evolving discipline which mirrors the evolutionary and adaptive processes of language itself.
The forum we are inviting you to is titled Applied Linguistics: Current Trends and Prospects and celebrates present-day Applied Linguistics no longer being targeted at studying teaching practices only, but aiming to present solutions to any social problem that results from language-related causes. Here we invite scholars and students to seek out, identify, investigate, and offer solutions to social, cultural, educational, and, generally, communicative issues. We aim to celebrate research initiatives which approach language in an empirical manner and which examine the relationship between language and social-issue solutions.
We welcome proposals for presentations of original work related to any aspect of Applied Linguistics which explores the field’s present or looks at its future by discussing innovative topics, approaches and practices.
Topic strands (may include but are not limited to):
- foreign or second language pedagogy and learning
- teaching methodologies
- curricula and teaching materials development
- assessment practices
- bilingualism and multilingualism
- translanguaging
- cross-cultural/intercultural education
- language policy and planning
- language variation and change
- language and culture
- language and ideology
- language and cognition
- translation and interpreting
- oral communication
- written text analysis
- computer or mobile assisted language learning
Working language of the forum: English
Deadline for submission of proposals: 15 September 2023
Confirmation of acceptance: 30 September 2023
Proposals must include:
- first name and family name of the presenter
- institutional affiliation of the presenter
- presenter’s email address
- the title of the proposed presentation
- a 250 words’ abstract of the proposal
- a 100 words’ biographical note of the author
Proposals are to be submitted to: alforumlp@gmail.com
Conference fees:
- Regular fee: 40 EURO
- Reduced fee (doctoral students): 20 EURO
- Students (at the BA or MA level): free
Organizers:
- Irena Dimova, Ph.D.,
- Maria Kolarova, Ph.D.,
- Jonathan McCreedy, Ph.D.,
- Georgi Georgiev
CFP
(Posted 26 July 2023)
5th Networks International Conference.
Partium Christian University, Oradea (Romania). 24 November 2023.
Submission of proposals: 25 October 2023.
Organised by The Department of Languages and Literatures of Partium Christian University, Oradea (Romania), in cooperation with the Intercultural Studies Research Center at the Reformed Theological University, Debrecen (Hungary)
The Networks conference will be devoted to the exploration of intercultural relationships as well as cultural negotiations. The topics will evolve around perceptions and interpretations of differences/similarities between societies (eg. Western vs. Eastern), communities, individuals, as well as cultural transactions expressed in narratives and in language.
Keynote speaker: Calum T. M. Nicholson (University of Cambridge)
We invite proposals for papers in English investigating different aspects of the theme in the following fields:
- American/British/Canadian Literatures, Travel literature
- Central Europe and the English-Speaking World
- Cultural Studies
- ESP
- Ethnic Studies
- Gender Studies
- Intermediality
- Language Studies
- Literary Theory and Criticism
- Literatures in the English Language
- Multilingualism and Multiculturalism
- Philosophy
- Postcolonial Studies
- Religious Studies
- Translation Studies
Deadlines:
- Submission of proposals: 25 October 2023
- Paper submission: 15 February 2024
Please, fill in the registration form here:
Venue:
Partium Christian University, str. Primăriei nr. 27. 410209 Oradea
Email Address: english@partium.ro
More details in the attached
CFP
(Posted 8 July 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:
- liliane.campos@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr,
- caroline.pollentier@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr,
- sarah.montin@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr and
- sarah.bouttier@polytechnique.edu.
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)
Network “Comedy as Cultural Studies”.
Institute für Advanced Research in the Humanities (KWI) Essen (Germany), 24-25 November 2023.
Submission of proposals: 15 August 2023.
Event organised by
Dr. Roxanne Phillips, KWI Essen
Presentation
Satirical poems and humorous prints, comedies and vaudevilles, stand-up, witty adverts and memes: to elicit responses from an audience, funny artefacts must draw upon cultural knowledge and invoke conventionalised expectations, only to subsequently disavow or thwart them, at times spectacularly. On the one hand, this renders social constructions and conflicts visible, such as the inclusion/exclusion dynamics that arise from categories of difference like race, class, gender or disability. On the other hand, comedy can explore unexpectedly modified cultural and bodily techniques, thereby both imagining and shaping alternative models of social coexistence. Commonplace situations that go hilariously wrong as well as popular comic genres thus provide important spaces for the negotiation of cultural knowledge. In this regard, they possess considerable influence, easily rivalling so-called high culture.
Seemingly fixed meanings, referential frameworks and courses of action can be disturbed or exaggerated by comedy, thereby exposing their inherent instabilities and contradictions. Thus, comic artefacts and phenomena generate a sense of uncertainty and relativity, which unsettles widely accepted norms. At the same time, this guarantees their epistemological productivity: Based on iteration, i.e. the repetition and failure of symbolic conventions, comedy brings forth realms of ambiguity and these, in turn, compel societies to deliberate meaning. This often extends to analysing culture itself, in other words: the processes, discourses, and practices that contribute to symbolic orders. For when presented in amusing and whimsical settings, culture can be addressed as a mutable construct that could have taken a different trajectory.
Comedy relies on many factors, including its – potentially involuntary – producers as well as the individual dispositions and emotional states of the audience. A well-placed joke can soothe and reconcile, it may cause a smile or even bring forth comic relief, yet it can just as well lead to a complete loss of control – for example, when it overwhelms the recipient’s body and causes corporeal ‘boundary reactions’ (H. Plessner), eliciting tears of laughter and involuntarily sounds. The pranks of a circus clown can evoke sympathy or act out aggressions; a bizarre anecdote told at a social gathering may foster intimacy or help to overcome embarrassing situations, but it could also stimulate feelings of shame. The impact and the functions of comedy are rarely clear-cut. While subtle irony can formulate subliminal criticism, qualify positions or reverse perspectives, crude and vulgar humour sometimes satisfies a desire that is socially or politically taboo. The varied effects also emerge from the comic forms and media that are employed. Therefore, it is important to also examine the differences between real-life occasions for laughter, which may arise coincidentally, and the countless aesthetic possibilities comic performances enact.
It is also worthwhile to consider the periphery: those instances in which comedy feels cringy or unpleasantly uncanny; the situations in which it not only stages failures but actually fails itself, leading to awkward silence. Whether deliberate or accidental, comic phenomena evoke an array of effects and affects, which prompt vigilant monitoring by societal, legal or aesthetic discourses. In addition to thematic aspects, comic techniques become highly significant here, such as satirical distortions, grotesque amalgamations, understatements and amplifications; serial or contrastive arrangements, diversionary tactics and tipping points; mechanical bodies, pain, both staged and genuine, and occasionally astonishing acrobatics. Firmly established aesthetic, artistic and media practices of comedy even have the potential to elicit laughter when they are deliberately subverted, undercut or rejected – after all, “comedy is always a pleasure-spectacle of form’s self-violation” (L. Berlant/S. Ngai). That said, the different techniques of comic representation remain intricately intertwined with the cultural knowledge of their era, shaped by it both in their inception and subsequent modulations. At the same time, it is crucial to acknowledge the importance of feedback: comic techniques can influence societies as profoundly as the themes, behaviours or situations that generate comedy and are analysed by it.
We are seeking research projects from the humanities and the social sciences for an upcoming DFG network that recognises comedy as a distinct cultural practice. Taking historical change and differences in media into account, the network aims to explore comic forms, configurations and strategies, their effects and functions as well as their extremes, limitations and blind spots. We aim to establish a transdisciplinary framework for scholars working on cultural studies projects that prioritize the historical and cultural specificity of comic events, rather than pursuing universal theories of comedy. A wide range of research subjects, aesthetic interests, methodological and theoretical concerns as well as epochs from antiquity to the present are welcome.
The fundamental goal of the network is
- to establish comedy, often neglected in many disciplines, as a structurally complex, aesthetically rich and socially relevant object of research,
- to uncover the unique potential of comedy, its diverse forms, practices and epistemic contexts as valuable tools for cultural analysis,
- to critically examine, refine and expand both recognised approaches and current avenues of research through transdisciplinary scholarship, so as to develop new cultural studies approaches to comedy.
The network can accommodate a maximum of 20 members, including researchers from outside Germany. It will commence its work for a period of up to three years upon securing funding. Working languages are German and English. If third-party funding gets approved, the network will cover the costs of travel and accommodation for members attending future network events.
The network’s kick-off event is scheduled to take place on 24 and 25 November 2023 at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen. Following brief presentations of the projects (5-10 min), our attention will turn towards envisioning network events and research topics, collaboratively establishing the foundation for the DFG application. In the absence of funding, we can provide support for the inaugural event.
Interested parties are invited to submit a short project outline of approx. 1500 characters and a biographical note that may include previous publications in the field. Please send both documents, preferably bundled into one single PDF, to roxanne.phillips@kwi-nrw.de by 15 August 2023.
Contact details
(Posted 24 June 2023)
Call for Organisers: British Society for Literature and Science Winter Symposium 2023.
British Society for Literature and Science (BSLS), Online Event, in or around November 2023.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 31 July 2023.
Presentation of the event
The British Society for Literature and Science seeks organisers for its annual Winter Symposium, a one-day PGR/ECR-led event on a specific theme proposed by the organisers. This year, the BSLS members at the annual conference expressed particular interest in themes of Scale, and Alternate Histories, but we encourage potential organisers to move forward with any theme associated with literature and science.
Proposals are invited from postgraduates, and from early career academics who were recently postgraduates, for a one-day online event on a discrete theme to take place in or around November 2023. We encourage collaborations of two or more people. You need not be based in the UK. You need not be a BSLS member to apply (but we encourage you to join!). Proposals should be no longer than two sides of A4, and should include a description of the event, details of the organisers, potential speakers (if known) and types of papers, panels, or other sessions to be included. The symposium might also cover research training and career advice alongside showcasing ongoing research. It is hoped that each event will have a ‘non-conference’ feel, and include different types of papers, panels, and ways of sharing knowledge. Feel free to contact Emily or Louise to discuss possibilities.
The BSLS Executive Committee will support the organisers throughout the process in both administrative and technical matters. Details of previous Winter Symposia can be found here. The BSLS will award around £500 in support of the symposium, which should be free to attend if possible. Proposals should be emailed to Emily Alder (em.alder@napier.ac.uk) and Louise Benson James (louise.bensonjames@ugent.be) by Monday 31 July 2023.
Timeline
- Proposals due 31 July 2023
- Decisions communicated August 2023
- Event takes place c. November 2023
Website
Contact details
- Emily Alder (em.alder@napier.ac.uk) and
- Louise Benson James (louise.bensonjames@ugent.be)
(Posted 17 June 2023)