Is there an economy of the spectacular in Shakespeare's plays—or those of his contemporaries? Is the spectacular always caught in a pattern of mise en abyme? How does it reverberate, cathartically or not, from the actor-spectator to the spectator? Several types of spectaculars could be considered. One spectacular, that of pageants for example, codified and controlled by official power and whose aim is to impose admiration and respect, or that of court masques presenting an amazingly costly show. A more evanescent spectacular flirting with the irrational and corresponding to ghostly apparitions (Hamlet, Macbeth) and supernatural phenomena (The Tempest) which is intended to leave spectators dumbfounded. Another type of spectacular falls within the scope of the theatre of cruelty (Titus Andronicus, King Lear) and can be regarded as a fictitious version of highly visible public tortures - running the risk of appearing over-gruesome on stage. So what may be given focus to is no doubt the articulation between the spectacular and ideology, between the spectacular and power (who pulls the strings and what for), between sheer entertainment and wonder and a show unquestionably designed to assert absolute power - to rephrase it, is there a political economy of the spectacular? Could the spectacular be the mediated expression of some absolutist force? What else could it be?
Such questions are given further scope when the spectacular is to be performed on stage or adapted on screen. Many are the times when Shakespeare, resorting to epidictic discourse or ekphrasis, has characters reporting spectacular scenes (Coriolanus’s military feat for example, or the arrival of Cleopatra’s barge), sometimes so deeply emotional that they can hardly be reported (the reunion of Leontes and Perdita for instance). Some stage or film directors have nevertheless attempted to show those intense moments. To which point were they successful? More generally speaking, how can the spectacular be performed and with what technical means? Is the screen always more powerful than the stage? Isn’t there the risk of a loss in intensity when what strikes the imagination is explicitly put before our eyes? Performing the spectacular has evolved through ages and cultures, and the practice may closely follow technological improvements. But nowadays how do directors, both stage and film, manage to trigger the emotions and reactions of spectators living in a society saturated with special effects and shock pictures?
Abstracts should be sent before 15 November to <pascale.drouet@neuf.fr>.
A short bibliography is available for download.

(posted 26 Sep '07)

The first international NarrativEncounters conference, entitled New Perspectives on Narration, will focus on new interpretations and readings, definitions and valuations, of narrative's significance to all branches of critical thought, art and experience. The organisers invite papers from a wide range of disciplines and interests, possible topics include, but are not limited to, narrative's centrality to fiction, film, theory; history and narrative; queering narrative; metanarratives; visual art, image, and narrative; narrating gender; spatio-temporal aspects of narrative; narrative innovation and textual event; system-collapse-transgressing narrative; staging narrative; cultural transformations of narrative; narrative and new media; verse narratives; the futures of narrative forms: e-narratives, television, comics, outsider art, fan fictions etc.; 'ideal' and 'degraded' narratives; genre and narratology; marginality and the limits of narration.
Plenary Speakers: Dr. Paul Cobley (London Metropolitan University), Dr. Ruth Page (Birmingham City University).
NarrativEncounters encourages the submission of abstracts encompassing all periods, and areas of research.
Abstracts (max. 250 words) should be submitted to the organisers: Danny Kennedy, Deborah Mellamphy, Catherine Smith and Dr. Éibhear Walshe at: <narrativeabstracts@gmail.com>. The deadline for proposals is 15 December 2007. 

(posted 22 Oct '07)

Descriptions of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic provide a rich material produced both in the Arctic and in other parts of the world. The extent of this material has increased considerably since the Romantic period, hand in hand with the systematic scientific investigation of these regions. These descriptions will often correspond more or less to Arctic realities, but also constitute their own reality: the way in which the Arctic has been understood and imagined throughout history. Taken together, they make up a discourse on the Arctic, formed both by actual Arctic experiences and its own intertextual continuities - in addition to many other earlier and contemporaneous discourses, including the discourse of literature.
This international conference will concentrate on Arctic discourses after Romanticism and up to the present day, using approaches to such discourses developed within literary studies. It will focus both on Arctic discourse in literary texts and literary discourse in non-literary descriptions of the Arctic. It will examine the development of Arctic discourses; the use of narrative, figurative and generic strategies in Arctic discourses; and the effect of changing communication technologies on Arctic discourses. It will also focus on contact zones between the European/American and the Arctic, and cultures which identify themselves as both Arctic and European/American.
Please send proposals for papers, with a 250-word abstract, by 15 September 2007 to <Silje.Gaupseth@hum.uit.no>. Presentations are expected to last 20 minutes. The participation registration deadline will be 1 November 2007. "Arctic Discourses 2008", Tromsø 21-23 February 2008, is part of the research programme of the Arktiske diskurser project, based at the University of Tromsø and funded by the University and The Research Council of Norway.

(posted 24 Jul '07)

This is the 2008 Event of IATEFL LMCS SIG (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, Literature Media & Cultural Studies, Special Interest Group).
Plenary Speakers:
David Boucher, Professorial Fellow, School of European Studies, University of Cardiff, UK (author of Dylan & Cohen: Poets of Rock & Roll, Continuum 2004);
Jim Scrivener, Bell Educational Trust, London, UK.
Further information about the event:
Venue: Fazekas Mihaly Gimnazium, Horváth tér 8, 1082 Budapest (carefully modernized Art Nouveau style school on the edge of central Pest).
Exhibition of materials on the three musicians, plus DVDs of performance.
Please send proposals to: David A. Hill, LMCS Conference, Maros utca 44/A.1.4, 1122 Budapest, Hungary, or email to: <futured@hu.inter.net>, or telephone 00-36-1-3553653 for information between 10.00 and 20.00 CET.
Proposals (maximum 75 words) should be sent along with: first name, family name and title of speaker; institutional affiliation; IATEFL membership number; email address; tel; fax; address; biodata (maximum 75 words); technical requirements.
Fees : £ 20 (IATEFL LMCS SIG Members); £30 (IATEFL non LMCS SIG members); £40 (non-IATEFL members); HUF 3000 (IATEFL LIT SIG members); HUF 3500 (IATEFL HU Non-LIT SIG members); HUF 5000 (Hungary non-IATEFL members).

(posted 26 Nov '07)

This is a joint Conference of the Centro Interdisciplinare di Studi Romantici and the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism.
The Romantic period was one of intense upheaval, global migrations, revolution, and also idealism: an era in which the concepts of nation and community, and the nationalities of knowledge and art, were constantly being called in question and reinvented. We invite papers that take up the construction and dissolution of national identities both positively, in terms of new forms of internationalism and cultural exchange; and more problematically, for example through war, or through forms of (non)identity or (non)community that elude utopian collectivizations. The conference welcomes not only papers on literature, the arts and culture, but also on philosophy, aesthetics, political theory and other forms of thought relevant to the topic.
Possible topics include: travel writing, mental travellers, countries of the mind; Italy in the Romantic imagination; reimagining the Mediterranean; the British Romantics in Europe; transatlantic Romanticism; romantic exiles; the experience of the foreign; boundaries and peripheries; war, international revolutions; theorizing cosmopolitanism; feminist cosmopolitanism; the (inter)nationalization of knowledge: encyclopedias, journals, translation; intersciences; trans-disciplines (e.g. Comparative Literature, Comparative Mythology); (inter)nationalizing genres; translating between genres; national and international theatre; nationalism and sociability; colonialism and community; transitional identities; intellectual communities (universities, schools of thought, professional communities, salons); artistic or epistolary communities; global environments; ‘contact zone’ experience; slavery and abolition; independence and liberation movements.
Organizing Committee: Lilla Maria Crisafulli (Bologna), Gregory P. Kucich (Notre Dame), Tilottama Rajan (Western Ontario), Diego Saglia (Parma).

(posted 2 Apr '07)

This conference focuses upon local, international and transnational engagements with Black British literature and the arts – in relation to its production, reception and cultural position. Through the multiple disciplines of the arts, it creates a meeting point for prominent and emerging scholars, writers and practitioners in order to explore the impact of this field, both at home and abroad. The context is one of critical investigation and celebration; a journey along diasporic and aesthetic routes. We invite papers across a broad spectrum of interests: drama, poetry, prose, performance, film, visual arts, curating, arts management and history. Areas of discussion might connect with the following ideas:

(i) At home and abroad – sights and sites of reception
(ii) Securing credentials
(iii) Historicising the field
(iv) Publishing and Black writers
(v) Celebrate or segregate – the problematics of a Black British canon
(vi) Arts bodies, cultural policy and education
(vii) Sexual/textual practices
(viii) Carnival and spectacle

Please send your abstract (250 words) and a short bio to: <OnWhoseTerms@gold.ac.uk>. Deadline: 15th December 2007.

Deirdre Osborne (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Mark Stein (University of Muenster, Germany)
Godfrey Brandt (Birkbeck, University of London)

(posted 24 Nov '07)

The federating approach for this conference, sponsored by LSA (Littératures et Sociétés Anglophones), will be for presenters to examine at large or in detail one or more books of Selected Poems (presumably the word "selected" figures in the title, but exceptions will be considered) and deal with some of the questions raised below.
Who decides what poems are the important ones for a book of Selected Poems? What motivates the author to choose one poem over another?  This question leads to another, that of the influence of the readers on the author, as far as choice is concerned. How does the selection allow both familiar readers to approach a poetic corpus with new insights and new readers to become initiates of the work?
How do the new reader and the familiar reader of a poet negotiate the poems that are left out of the selection?  How does a specific selection reveal or obfuscate an author's overall writing style or thematic choices? What are the methods of structuring the selection? What advantages or disadvantages does such structuring offer? Are selected volumes the ideal pedagogical tool? To what extent does a volume of selected poems guarantee a poet a place in the canon of received contemporary poetry? When is the best time for a poet to make a selection of his or her work? How does the living poet deal with the expansion of creativity, as she or he outlives a first selection? What are the differences for the reader between volumes of collected and selected poems?
The above suggestions for inquiry are to be completed by the presenters with their own preoccupations concerning the selection process.
Proposals should be in English, 500 words long, accompanied by a brief biographical statement, and sent as a word document to: <jennifer.kilgore@unicaen.fr>  and <helene.aji@univ-lemans.fr>.
Postal address: Jennifer Kilgore, Université de Caen, Département d'Anglais, Esplanade de la Paix, 14032 CAEN Cedex, France.

(posted 20 Mar '07)

The Third International William Golding Conference will continue to explore the ethic and aesthetic issues raised in the 1993 First Conference (Saint-Etienne) and 2001 Second Conference (Mons). In order to do so, it will address the poetics of memory in Golding's work : memory as a means of constructing/deconstructing patterns of knowledge and authority, of salvaging and displacing the past through re-presentation. While "history must make certain", as Golding wrote in the essay which provides our title, story often proceeds to "make uncertain" while pretending to enlighten what once took place. Thus, the rituals of discovery staged in the essays dealing with ancient Egypt - digging into pits, untying the mummy's bandages, deciphering hieroglyphs - are partly denounced in the novels as wishful procedures. Fascination for the past is at the core of Golding's texts, yet its artistic treatment often takes the form of ironic or irreverent reconstruction. Representation of past selves, past others, past events and past civilizations becomes a way for the creative writer to reflect on the possibility of unsettling what appeared to be settled once and for all through innovative language.
Possible topics for investigation include, but are not limited to: anamnesis, remembering, amnesia; the aesthetics of archeology; writing and narrating as record, reconstruction, testimony, confession, exorcism, displacement; myth and history; inventing the past : the staging of antique cultures.
All papers are to be delivered in English. Please send a provisional title and abstract (250-300 words) by e-mail to Camille Fort <camillefort@yahoo.fr>. The deadline for submissions is October 15, 2008.

(posted 3 Aug '07)

The GERAS – the French research association in English for Specific Purposes – will hold its 29th annual Conference from 13th to 15th March 2008, at the University of Orleans, France.
The two conference languages are French and English.
We are very pleased to announce that our plenary speakers are:
- Ken HYLAND (Professor of Education, University of London; Head of the Centre for Academic and Professional Literacies; co-editor of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes)
- Philip RILEY (Professor of Ethnolinguistics and former Director of the CRAPEL, Université de Nancy II)
The conference website, in English and French, is at : http://www.geras2008.fr (to access our new site, you might need to refresh the homepage – if you had visited the previous version of the site – by clicking on the ‘Refresh’ icon in your browser)
On the site you can:
- download the form to submit a paper proposal. Deadline for submissions: 15th December 2007.
- download the registration form. Deadline for registration: 15th February 2008.
- discover more about the theme and organisation of the conference
- find practical information on the venue, accommodation, etc.
The organising team of GERAS 2008 looks forward to welcoming you to Orléans.

(posted 10 Oct '07, updated 17 Dec '07))

All literary texts raise problems of interpretation. That is all the more true when these texts come from a foreign culture and have obviously not been written for us. The question is: how can we determine when our understanding of a literary work stops? There always seems to be a gap that cannot be bridged, a kernel that will always resist us. What is the exact nature of this kernel: the presence of foreign referents, of modes of symbolization we are not familiar with, of a memory which is not ours? It is commonly accepted that, even though mankind is one, cultures are irretrievably divided. Can a foreign writer tell us something that will be relevant for us about ourselves, the others, the world the divine, etc.? The problem clearly also has pedagogical consequences, especially for students who study literary works written in a foreign language. The papers for this conference (in French or in English) will analyse examples taken from literature writtten in English.
The Conference is organized by the CRIIILLA (Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur les langues, les littératures, la lecture et l'élaboration de la pensée).

(posted 2 Jul '07)

The different readings of the myth of Prometheus centre around two main poles. The first one presents Prometheus as a godlike figure who can "control fire," whereas the second presents him as a sorcerer's apprentice who "plays with fire". From the Renaissance to the 20th century, the arts and literature have adopted these apparently irreconcilable approaches to the myth. During the Renaissance, philosophers (Bacon, Erasmus, etc.) gave different interpretations of a myth which was the basis of a common allegorical culture for poets (Spenser, Ronsard, etc.) and other artists and musicians of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries (The Lord Masque of Thomas Campion may serve as an illustration of this). In the 19th and 20th centuries, the myth is to be found in music (Beethoven, Parry, Scriabin, Libby Larsen, etc.), in literature (Shelley, Tony Harrison, etc.) and in the plastic arts (J. S. Sargent, Lipchitz, etc.).
Different aspects of the myth of Prometheus have already been dealt with in books or colloquiums. This conference aims to tackle an aspect which has been studied and commented upon less than the other aspects: the representations of the myth of Prometheus and their evolution through time and space. Papers will analyse the adaptation, extension and diffusion of the representations of the myth in the arts and literature. Interdisciplinary and comparative approaches, be they diachronic or generic, will be especially appreciated. Papers which probe the predominance and representations of the myth in some particular genre(s) would fit perfectly with our area of interest. Though the emphasis of the conference will be on papers focussing on the English-speaking world, papers stressing the manifestations of the myth in other parts of the world (Germany, Italy, etc.) will also be welcome in as much as they, directly or indirectly, shed light on the influence that a given reading of the myth has/had on the English-speaking writers, composers, painters and sculptors who deal/dealt with the myth of Prometheus.
Half-hour presentations can be given in English or in French. A selection of papers fitting perfectly with our area of interest will be published in "Regards croisés sur le monde Anglophone," by the Presses Universitaires de Nancy. Please send your proposals (title and 250-word abstract) with a brief curriculum vitae (1 page) to Claudine Armand <Claudine.Armand@univ-nancy2.fr> and Jean-Philippe Heberlé <Jean-Philippe.Heberle@univ-nancy2.fr> before 30 June 2007.

(posted 9 Feb '07)

In The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985), Jürgen Habermas argues that modernity is intent upon defining its own values and finding its standards within itself, thus breaking away from tradition and political / cultural heritage. Is transformation to be understood as a departure from an initial, original state—in which case how can one decide with any certainty that the "source" was THE original? Difficult questions related to creation and authorship arise then. Moreover one may wonder whether, as the biographer D.F. McKenzie put it, some transformations are not "the sine qua non of a text's survival" or of the survival of any cultural object
Since the 1950s the idea that "culture" refers to a complex, multiple reality has been widely accepted. Raymond Williams was one of the first British academics to elaborate extensively on culture, both in Culture and Society (1958) and in Keywords (1975), the latter book defining itself as "a vocabulary of culture and society", i.e. a descriptive study of how cultural and social transformations occur within language, which in turn impacts on those transformations.
This international Conference, organized by the LERMA (Aix-en-Provence) in collaboration with the University of Oxford-Brookes, aims at exploring the different forms transformation takes on (transfer, adaptation, cross-over, rewriting, republishing…), their outcomes (hybridism, generic transfers…) and their reception, in order to understand how they fit into a specific culture. Emphasis will be laid on changes from lowbrow to middlebrow and highbrow cultures, considered diachronically and synchronically. Papers will deal with the English-speaking world (Great Britain, the Commonwealth and the United States), and transformations will be analysed within each of these geographical areas and between separate areas. The colloquium will not be merely devoted to the study of texts. It will also tackle other cultural practices (visual and aural representations, such as painting, architecture, films, radio broadcasts…). As regards the period covered by the symposium, papers on the pre-modern and post-modern eras are most welcome.
Papers will be in English. Please submit proposals in English (300 words) and short speaker biographies by 30 June 2007 to all organizers at the following addresses: Cécile Cottenet <cecile.cottenet@up.univ-aix.fr>, Gail Marshall <gmarshall@brookes.ac.uk>, Jean-Christophe Murat <jean-christophe.murat@up.univ-mrs.fr>, Nathalie Vanfasse <nvaix@yahoo.fr>.

(posted 16 Apr '07)

The seminar will examine the question of the other from the point of view of the first encounter and will thus envisage the moment of initial meeting with the other and the various forms that this meeting can take.
Two major lines of enquiry could be pursued: a study of the first encounter as an event, of the representations of the encounter itself (dramatisation, eye-to-eye, face-to-face) and of the time and place where it occurs; but also a reflection on the resources mobilized to create a textual and pictorial narrative of the meeting.
The term "encounter" is linked with the notions of coming across, confronting in combat and coming into contact with someone or something; it may imply the idea of conflict and confrontation, or a sense of chance, surprise and the unexpected. The encounter with the Other is a fortuitous event, which becomes the moment or the place where otherness emerges and where the observer is astonished by what he/she sees.
Whether the event is a chance encounter or on the contrary a deliberate meeting, preceded by a variety of expectations, the cultural or sociological preconstructions or preconceptions which often underlie or even drive the attempt to establish contact with the Other are all elements which need to be taken into account. What one might refer to as the "before" of the encounter necessarily shapes the moment of the encounter itself, but also the "after". Even when it is expected, the encounter with another always contains a certain degree of surprise, so that a complex interplay between the predictable and the unpredictable is initiated and the face-to-face contact with the other becomes all the more meaningful and assumes the dimensions of a powerful confrontation. Conversely, is it possible to envisage  the extreme case in which expectations are disappointed and the encounter remains a non-event because the otherness has no impact, precisely because the other is the same?
It is this confrontation which forms the essence of so many texts, particularly, though not exclusively, those of colonial writing: travel narratives, explorers' notebooks, sociological and anthropological studies, all relate that moment when, each with their own expectations, one group of people comes into contact with another, or rather with "the Other". The expectations of the encounter are also expressed in the vogue for exoticism, a current which goes hand in hand with these genres and which is also frequently represented in pictures. Certain post-colonial literatures revisit this confrontation, or collision, through parody and irony.
Finally, thought may be given to how this confrontation is narrated in texts and images and how the discourse accounts for the way otherness impinges on the consciousness and strikes the observer. Are there specific linguistic or artistic markers to express this dialectic of the expected and the unexpected, to relate afresh the surprise, or even paralysis, the open-mouthed silence, which the face-to-face confrontation with otherness can generate?

The proposals will be examined by a scientific committee and the results sent to authors by the end of the month. Papers can be delivered in English or French. The proceedings will be published in electronic form.
There will be a registration fee of 25 euros. Speakers' accommodation and meals (lunch, dinner and hotel Friday, lunch Saturday) will be provided by the organizers and travelling expenses may be re-imbursed up to a maximum of 75 euros (unless there are exceptional circumstances).

(posted 5 Nov '07)

The efforts of scholars in the last half-century have served to confirm George Gissing's ranking among the major writers of fiction of his age. The steady flow in recent years of multifaceted comment on his writings speaks for itself, and the impressive amount of unpublished material made available over the last two decades is providing invaluable new clues to his artistic practices. Interestingly, Gissing's growing pertinence is not merely that of a leading exponent and translator of late Victorian culture. His art is also increasingly regarded as rooted in his recognition of separateness, understood as aesthetic gesture as much as theme. Papers are therefore sought on all aspects of Gissing's contacts and/or confrontations with the Other, on his receptiveness to and negotiation of, ego-threatening novelty, to be defined in a variety of ways: cultural, intellectual, ideological, artistic. Discussions of his (mis-)representation of the defamiliarized self in his fictional constructs and personal writings, are also invited: the venue being Lille in France, Gissing's last homeland, papers on the correlative issue of his reading of Englishness and foreignness will be most welcome.
For the Third International George Gissing Conference, the Advisory Committee is composed of: Professor Pierre Coustillas (University of Lille 3); Professor Constance Harsh (Colgate University); Dr Christine Huguet (University of Lille 3); Dr Simon J. James (Durham University); Dr Emma Liggins (Manchester Metropolitan University); Dr Diana Maltz (Southern Oregon University); Dr Bouwe Postmus (University of Amsterdam); Dr John Sloan (Harris Manchester College, Oxford).
Proposals (200-300 words), together with a brief CV, should be sent to the Conference organiser Christine Huguet at: christine.huguet-meriaux@univ-lille3.fr
Conference Venue and Enquiries: Maison de la Recherche, Université Charles de Gaulle-Lille 3 (CECILLE Research Centre, University of Lille, with the academic support of IES, University of London).
The website used for the conference will be: http://evenements.univ-lille3.fr/recherche/colloque-george-gissing.
Conference information and registration forms will be obtainable there from January 2007.

The English Department at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, is pleased to announce the first international meeting of the phoneticians of English.
The aim of the event is to bring together researchers who investigate various aspects of English phonetics and English pronunciation both from the theoretical and pedagogical perspectives. Papers addressing comparative issues between English and another language are most welcome.
The official language of the conference is English.
The keynote speakers are Dr. Jane Setter, University of Reading, UK, and Professor Tvrtko Prcic, University of Novi Sad, Serbia.
Each paper will be allotted 30 minutes (20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion).
A selection of papers will be published after the conference.

(1)    Title of the paper
(2)    Name of the author(s)
(3)    Affiliation of the author(s)
(4)    E-mail address
(5)    Postal address
(6)    Contact phone number

Submission of abstracts: February 25th, 2008              
Notification of acceptance: March 1st, 2008

• conference pack
• coffee break refreshments

Hotel reservations will be made by the organizers upon request. Prices will range from 35 to 80 Euros per night (single or double room, breakfast included).

Dr Biljana Cubrovic
English department
Faculty of Philology
Studentski trg br. 3
11000 Belgrade
Serbia

In order to study the two literary capitals of 19th-century Europe, we seek to gather together scholars working on the representation of the city in French and/or English literature. Paris and London, antagonists yet also reciprocal mirrors and models, are both emblematic of the advent of the modern metropolis. While a great number of studies deal with specific authors’ representation of the city, with cultural history or the mapping of literary Paris or London, the comparative study of the two capitals has been relatively neglected. With this conference, we will aim to help fill this gap. We thus welcome papers dealing with the description and analysis of the relationship between the two cities in 19th-century literature.

Please send your abstract (half a page) and contact details (University, position held, short academic biography) to Helle Waahlberg (h.h.waahlberg@ilos.uio.no) before 30 September 2007. The working languages of the conference will be French and English, and we accept papers in either language. For further information about the conference, please write to <h.h.waahlberg@ilos.uio.no>
Organizers: Tore Rem, Professor of English Literature, and Helle Waahlberg, Lecturer in French Literature, University of Oslo.

(posted 3 Jul '07)

"To twentieth-century political theories [the English people] oppose not another theory of their own, but a moral quality which must be vaguely described as decency" (George Orwell, 'The English People', Orwell's England, Penguin 2001, p.304).
For Orwell (and for countless others) "decency" is a quality which is intuitively self-evident, a foundation both invisible and indisputable. It cultivates its imperviousness to critical analysis or to translation. Meanwhile everyone (who is English) knows perfectly well what "decency"  is, everybody has his firm conviction as to what it involves. So what is it? A basic, minimal threshold of sociability or of civilised existence?  A mode of masculine being-at-home-in the world? A criterion of sober, dry-eyed exemplarity? A mode of reasonable piety? Or maybe it is the subliminal trace of the critical expectation of a, somehow better, social order that is yet to come? In all cases, "decency" is a quality which tells us something about what it means to be English. Or what it means to be  an English man. For what of the "decency" of the Englishwoman? Of all this, "decency" speaks, by way of its intimation of the serene and would-be unfathomable enigma of an English national identity, whose defining feature is the ambiguous or reluctant quality of its modernity.
The conference will therefore address "decency" as a mode of defining and foundational vagueness, the paradoxical bedrock of the modern English experience. It welcomes papers dealing with the successive historical manifestations and emblems of "decency". It will examine the reverberations of the quality which are to be found in the complementary discourses of the literary, the political, the historical and the historiographical, while seeking to address the effects of the quality or category of decency in the  construction of gender and national differences, since the 18th century.

(posted 4 May '07)

This conference will be the second of a four years' cycle on Autonomy and Commitment in Twentieth Century Literature and Arts. Postmodernist literature will be the focus of this conference which means to define literary autonomy and the various forms of literary commitment (political, aesthetic, religious, ethical, etc.) while exploring the ways in which they can be connected (for a more detailed CFP, see the SAES website http://www.saesfrance.org or http://www.cervec.org).

(posted 4 Aug '07)