The 9th Conference of the European Society for the Study of English will be hosted by the Department of English of the University of Aarhus, in the city of Århus (same place, different spelling!).

A perfect city in many respects, Århus is prosperous, relaxed, historic, architecturally distinguished, big enough to have major cultural institutions and a large selection of interesting shops and restaurants, small enough to be explored easily by foot or bicycle, enriched by a major university without being dominated by it, connected with reality and the world as a major port, well supplied with sophisticated cafés, internationally oriented, thoroughly Danish, surrounded by sandy beaches and beautiful woods, and, despite all of this, only sporadically visited by tourists.
The University of Aarhus, founded in 1928, often claims to have the most beautiful campus in Scandinavia, and is very close to the city centre. It has recently undergone a major expansion, and now has 35,000 students and 10,000 staff.
The academic programme for the conference will be supplemented by a range of excursions, so that participants can make the most of the many cultural attractions located in and around the city, and explore the surrounding landscape. Conference participants who wish to prolong their stay in town will be able to enjoy the major international Århus Festival (29 August–7 September 2008).
Delegates are invited to visit the Conference website at http://www.esse2008.dk, which will be updated regularly over the coming months with full details of the academic programme (including, in due course, the titles of papers to be discussed at the seminars), registration procedures, a wide range of accommodation options, further information about the city of Århus, and travel advice.
Proposals for papers and poster sessions: see the Conference website.
Registration: Please note that registration will open on 1 February 2008, by which time full details of how to register will be available on the Conference website. A flat fee will be charged for the entire Conference. There will be no daily rate.
ESSE members, registering by 1 May 2008 EUR 105
ESSE members, registering after 1 May 2008 EUR 125
Non-members, registering by 1 May 2008 EUR 125
Non-members, registering after 1 May 2008 EUR 150
Delegates from countries experiencing currency difficulties may apply for a reduced fee, or, in some cases, a fee-waiver, by submitting their case in writing at the time of registration. Such applications will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis, with a provisional list established during the course of the registration period.
Please note that neither the University of Aarhus nor ESSE can accept liability for travel, accommodation, or other expenses incurred by convenors, co-convenors, or those invited to participate in round tables or seminars.

The year 2008, as well as being the 120th anniversary of her birth, celebrates the centenary of Katherine Mansfield’s arrival in London in 1908 from New Zealand at the age of nineteen, in order to pursue a career as a writer. Within three years she would see her first collection of short stories published – In a German Pension – meet John Middleton Murry, her future husband, and go on to forge a career as the writer of some of the twentieth-century’s most remarkable short stories.

This major three-day international conference aims to re-evaluate Katherine Mansfield’s contribution to 20th century literature, as well as assessing the state of Mansfield scholarship and criticism today. We seek proposals for papers from national and international academics, postgraduates and independent scholars. Suggested topics for discussion might include, but are not limited to:

KM and literary London, KM in Europe, KM and Travel Writing, KM and her cultural importance to New Zealand, KM: European vs colonial writer, KM as innovator of the Modernist short story, KM: screen depictions and the film Leave All Fair, KM and television adaptations/documentaries, KM and artistic representations, KM and Bloomsbury / Virginia Woolf, KM and D. H. Lawrence, KM and John Middleton Murry: Rhythm and Blue Review, KM and children, KM’s literary debts and legacies, KM and styles of representing the self, KM’s non-fiction: letters and diaries, KM and auto/biography, KM literary criticism and theory, KM’s writing: foreign reception, translation and dissemination.
Confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Mary Ann Caws, City University of New York; Dr Ian Conrich, Director, Centre for New Zealand Studies, Birkbeck, University of London; Professor Clare Hanson, University of Southampton; Kathleen Jones, biographer and poet; Professor Vincent O’Sullivan, DCNZM, Victoria, University of Wellington; Professor Angela Smith, University of Stirling; Margaret Scott, editor; Professor C. K. Stead, ONZ, CBE, University of Auckland; Jacqueline Wilson, OBE, Children’s Laureate; Professor John Worthen, University of Nottingham.
Paper titles, 250-300 word abstracts (for 20 minute papers), and 150 word bio-sketches should be sent to BOTH conference organisers by Friday 1 February 2008: Dr Gerri Kimber  <gerri@thekimbers.co.uk>  and Professor Janet Wilson  <janet.wilson@northampton.ac.uk>. A decision on proposals received will be made by 22 February 2008.
The conference venue is in Bloomsbury with several associated KM sites within easy walking distance. In addition, a coach tour of KM associated sites in London is being planned, together with a wine reception, conference dinner, and readings from KM’s stories. Further details relating to the conference will appear within the coming months on the Centre for New Zealand Studies' new website, currently under construction.
Publications arising from the conference are planned.

The Department of English Studies at Károli Gáspár University hosts an international conference from September 4–7, 2008 in Budapest to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Milton. Papers on any aspects of Milton Studies are invited. Possible panels will include (but are not limited to) Milton and the classics, Milton’s theology, Milton’s politics, the critical reception of Milton’s works in the 18th and 19th centuries, Milton controversies of the 20th century, prospects and possibilities of Milton studies in the 21st century, etc.

Please send a short abstract of your paper to Miklós Péti: <peti_miklos@kre.hu>, or <peti.miklos@kre.hu> by March 15, 2008.

(posted 24 Nov '07)

A One-Day Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference.
Keynote Speaker: Ian Buchanan, Professor of Critical and Cultural Theory in the School of English, Communication, and Philosophy, Cardiff University.

'It is never the beginning or the end which are interesting; the beginning and the end are points. What is interesting is the middle' Dialogues II, p.39

For Gilles Deleuze, the real potential of a text lies in process, in its lines of flight. The artist's ability to take up the 'interrupted line' in the middle mobilises a becoming through art, a creation of something new and of endless transformative potential. This interdisciplinary postgraduate conference invites students from the fields of English, Film Studies, Philosophy, Art, Performing Arts, and Cultural Studies to explore how Deleuze's concept of the 'line of flight' opens up new, non-representational readings of the text, offering innovative spaces in which to actualise different art forms and ultimately different lines of thought. The following issues will be investigated:

How can Deleuze be applied to contemporary texts?
How is his work relevant for literature/film/art today?
How does Deleuze's work relate to other theoretical paradigms?
How can Deleuze be used to open up new readings of literature?

In an age in which identity politics has become so important, where can Deleuzian theory fit?

Proposals are invited for 20 minute papers from postgraduates exploring any of the above issues. Please send an abstract of 300 words and a brief biographical note (no more than 100 words) in Times New Roman size 12 to Lucy Prodgers <lucy.prodgers@student.mmu.ac.uk> by Friday 20th June 2008.

We anticipate the publication of selected papers in A/V (Actual/Virtual), an online audio-visual Journal for Deleuze Studies. See: http://www.eri.mmu.ac.uk/deleuze/journal06intro.php

The conference is supported by the English Research Institute (ERI) and Research, Enterprise and Development (RED) office at MMU, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

(posted 30 Apr '08, updated 21 May '08, updated 20 Jun '08))

George Moore (1852-1933), Anglo-Irish novelist, journalist, short story writer, memoirist, autobiographer, art critic, dramatist, and sometime poet and painter, was a prominent and often notorious figure in many literary and aesthetic movements at the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries. A self-proclaimed enfant terrible of the fin de siècle (which saw bans imposed on many of his novels, including A Modern Lover, A Mummer’s Wife, Esther Waters), Moore never ceased to challenge established literary conventions, styles and subject matter. Although too much of an individualist to align himself neatly with specific cultural groupings, Moore was nevertheless associated with most of the key movements of his time. At the turn of the century he assumed a pivotal role in the Irish Literary Revival, and in the early twentieth century he continued to experiment with form and genre, revising many of his earlier writings and developing new interests in fields such as classical adaptation.

2008 marks the 75th anniversary of Moore’s death. This conference seeks to consolidate recent reassessments of the significance of Moore’s diverse body of work and his interaction with and influence upon his literary and artistic contemporaries.

- Professor Ann Heilmann (University of Hull, UK): <a.heilmann@hull.ac.uk>
- Dr Mark Llewellyn (University of Liverpool, UK): <m.e.llewellyn@liverpool.ac.uk>

(posted 11 Feb '08)

Professor Marion Wynne-Davies
Head of Department
Department of English
AC Building
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey GU2 7XH
<m.wynne-davies@surrey.ac.uk>

(posted 26 May '08)

W. G. 'Max' Sebald taught European Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia until his untimely death in 2001. Reluctant to call his work 'novels', he published hybrid books that meditate upon history, human tragedy, memory, writing and the inner life. Sebald wrote against the mainstream contemporary novel but in an unmistakably distinctive voice. This conference will honour Sebald's memory, and provide a unique opportunity to assess the significance of his oeuvre, by bringing together critics from across disciplinary and national boundaries to reflect on his writing, and also by placing his texts in a wider creative context provided by several special events. The conference will include a performance based on Sebald's work by colleagues from UEA's Drama Studio, an exhibition of visual material relating to his writing from the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and an opportunity to retrace some of Sebald’s steps around the East Anglian countryside.
Topics for panels will include the following aspects of Sebald's writing: Art, Architecture, Photography, Poetry, Trauma, Place, Exile, Walking, Memory, Translation, History, and Humour.
Keynote Speakers include: Gillian Beer, Anthea Bell, Adam Phillips, James Wood.
Organizing Committee: Dr Jeannette Baxter, Dr Jean Boase-Beier, Amanda Hopkinson, Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge.
Send abstracts (200 words + title) in English to Jeannette Baxter <j.baxter@uea.ac.uk> by 31 March 2008.

(posted 4 Aug '07)

Concepts and experiences of the life-course have been critical to making sense of gender difference and women's lives in the past, and have traditionally been a central concern of historians of women. Integral to pioneering work on the history of reproduction and the family, work and leisure, and the body, science and medicine, analysis of the life cycles of women has nonetheless left many questions yet to be explored. This conference encourages comparison of women’s life cycle experiences both across the widest possible range of times and places, and with the life cycle experiences of men. The focus will also be on inter-generational relations as an important, yet often neglected, explanatory factor in either continuity or change over time.
Keynote speakers include Professor Lynda Coon, University of Arkansas, and Dr. Michael Roper, University of Essex.
Possible themes include: fertility and virility; reproductive rituals; the history of the body; motherhood and fatherhood; productive and reproductive divisions of labour; inheritance, women and property; the history of childhood; youth culture; courtship and marriage; gender and old age; death and dying; family histories; sibling relationships; inter-generational conflict; generations and change.
Proposals for individual papers of no more than 20 minutes or for panels of up to three papers are welcome. Panel proposals should be thematic in focus with cross-cultural coverage or the inclusion of papers that enable comparison across chronological boundaries.
For individual paper proposals, please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a one-page CV. For panels, please send a CV for each speaker, and an overall rationale for the panel, in addition to the abstract. Please send proposals by 31 January 2008 to Dr. Rosemary Elliot, Department of Economic and Social History, University of Glasgow, Lilybank House, Bute Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RT. <E-mail: r.elliot@lbss.gla.ac.uk>.

(posted 12 Dec '07)

Irish music holds pride of place among the cultural attributes defining Ireland. On the strength of its indisputable role in shaping the identity of the country or the nation, Irish music attains a mythical dimension as a "natural" element of Celtic culture. To question these certainties which tend to convey a restrictive notion of a so-called Iris