October 2009




The Mad Scientist in 19th to 21st Century Fiction
Brest, France  -  1-2 Oct 2009
Deadline for papers: 15 March 2009 (closed)

The mad scientist is a complex figure which dates back to Antiquity, a time when genius and madness were perceived as complementary facets. This complementarity persists, fuelled by successive epistemological crises which question the perception human beings have of themselves and of the world around them. The figure of the mad scientist crystallizes many diffuse fears which can be political, social, religious, economic or ideological and which are related to the possibility of defining oneself as a human being (Hawthorne, Collins, Doyle, Stevenson, Stoker, Machen, Wells).
This symposium will focus on contemporary metamorphoses of the mad scientist in narratives and visual arts of the late 20th century and early 21st centuries, in the English-speaking world (A. Carter, J. Coe, P. Mc Grath, M. Amis, W. Self) but not exclusively so. Visual arts will enable us to reach beyond geographical or temporal frontiers as the mad scientist‚s popularity is highly indebted to the cinema.
Proposals may deal with various socio-cultural contexts and emphasize ontological, epistemological, psychological, economic or political aspects which have contributed to the persistence and aura of the figure of the mad scientist.
Abstracts should be sent before the 15th of March 2009 to:
<helene.machinal@univ-brest.fr> or <camille.manfredi@univ-brest.fr>.
(posted 14 Jul '08)



The Metareferential Turn in Contemporary Arts and Media: Forms, Functions, and Attempts at Explanation
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria  -  1-3 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 16 February 2009 (closed)

The aim of the symposium is to elucidate the current 'metareferential turn' in the arts and media (high 'meta-art' as well as 'meta-pop') from both a functional and a cultural-historical perspective.
Issues to be considered are: 
• collecting and interpreting relevant cases of metareference in contemporary arts and media, especially where this has not been done so far to a sufficient degree;
• exploring major functions and effects of metaization in contemporary arts and media;
• embedding the current metareferential turn in the general cultural-historical development of 'metaization', and finding possible reasons for its appearance.
Papers (in English) dealing with any of these topics are welcome, especially when they go beyond a discussion of 'metafiction'; yet all papers ought to address the functions of metaization in our world and/or the question of how to explain the current metareferential turn. Length of papers: 30 minutes. For detailed information on 'metareference' and a preceding conference on this subject consult: http://www.uni-graz.at/angwww/angwww_congress.htm.
Please send abstracts of 300 to 500 words with short CV including an indication of academic affiliation to <metareference@uni-graz.at>.
(posted 16 Sep '08)



British Aestheticisms : Sources, Genres, Definitions, Evolutions
Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France  -  2-3 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 1 December 2008 (closed)

Both a social phenomenon, an artistic movement and a literary trend, British Aestheticism has been the object of multiple, sometimes contradictory, definitions which all point to its central role in the advent of modernity. As a movement and as an operative notion Aestheticism is of major importance to anybody interested in nineteenth and early twentieth century British culture.
This international conference on British Aestheticisms : Sources, Genres, Definitions, Evolutions, which will take place in October 2009, aims at reexamining the notion of Aestheticism from a transdisciplinary perspective and hopes to attract contributions (in French or in English) from researchers across the fields of British studies, comparative studies, art history, publishing history, aesthetics, philosophy, reception theory, women‚s studies, queer theory, and gay and lesbian studies.
Papers may focus on the definition and the boundaries of Aestheticism, its relationship with tradition, and its links with contemporary or subsequent movements (European Decadence, Modernism, etc.); we also encourage contributions on the generic definition of Aestheticism, its editorial policies or its circulation and popularization via other media (visual arts, theatre, music-hall) in mainstream culture as well as in various alternative communities, in the general context of the explosion of the means of communication and mechanic reproduction, or what L. Dowling calls artistic "vulgarisation". What authors were/are considered aesthetic? Who read Aesthetic writings (both fiction and non-fiction), bought or saw Aesthetic products, or attended Aesthetic performances? Furthermore, as Aestheticism is concomitant with a re-envisaging of gender and identities, contributors may want to explore the links between Aestheticism and Victorian feminism and with the 'third sex'. Finally, one may want to examine the philosophical underpinnings of a movement based on Kantian philosophy which aimed at challenging oppositions between aesthetics and ethics: is Aestheticism a subversion, a redefinition, or a suspension of the oppositions between aesthetics and ethics?
This conference is organised by the CERVEC Research Center (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Victoriennes, Edouardiennes et Contemporaines, EA 741) of the Université Paul Valéry Montpellier, France. Selected papers will be published. Please send a 300-word abstract before December 1st, 2008 to <catherine.delyfer@univ-montp3.fr> AND <bncoste@free.fr>.
Conference website: http://www.esthetismes.org/
(posted 9 Jun '08)



The Structure of the Noun Phrase in English: Synchronic and Diachronic Explorations
University of Vigo, Spain  -  2-3 October 2009
Deadine for proposals: 30 March 2009 (closed)

We are pleased to announce the First Vigo-Newcastle-Santiago-Leuven International Workshop on 'The structure of the noun phrase in English: synchronic and diachronic explorations' (NP1), to be held at the University of Vigo (Spain) on 2-3 October 2009.
Although there exists an enormous literature on many aspects of nouns and noun phrases (NPs) in English, there are still fundamental issues in their structure and distribution that remain unsolved. These involve matters like the structural relations between different types of NP elements, the relation between internal and external properties of NPs, the parallels (or lack thereof) between verbal and nominal constituents, the factors responsible for the textual frequencies of various NP-related phenomena, and the contribution of different types of NPs to the information structure of texts. This workshop aims at bringing together researchers who are currently looking at the English NP from different points of view (theoretical, structural, functional, textual and descriptive).
We would therefore like to invite presentations concerned with any topic involving NPs, including the following:
- NP complexity: the relationship between grammatical function and NP complexity
- NP types, including binominal phrases, discontinuous NPs and possessive constructions
- the structural representation of NPs and their constituents
- strategies of premodification, postmodification and complementation in the NP
- apposition in the NP
- headedness and NPs
- the exploration of the implications of particular theoretical frameworks for NP structure: diachronic, syntactic, construction-based, cognitive perspectives on all of the above
Invited speakers:
- Douglas Biber (Northern Arizona University)
- Evelien Keizer (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
- John Payne (The University of Manchester)
Abstracts must be submitted in MS Word or RTF format as an e-mail attachment to <np1@uvigo.es> by 30 March 2009. The e-mail should use the subject header 'NP1 abstract'. Abstracts should be one page in length (single-spaced), excluding references, and be written in standard 12-point font. The page should be headed only by the title of the paper and not mention the presenter(s) nor their affiliations or addresses. The accompanying e-mail should include:
(a) Title of the paper
(b) Name(s) of the author(s)
(c) Institutional affiliation(s)
(d) E-mail address(es)
Notification of acceptance will be sent out by 30 April 2009.
Publication:
Authors of papers accepted for presentation will be invited to submit their papers for publication in a special journal issue or volume with an international publisher. Papers will be subjected to refereeing.
Important dates:
30 March 2009: Deadline for abstract submission
30 April 2009: Notification of acceptance or rejection
1 September: (Re-)Submission of 1-page abstract for conference booklet
2-3 October: Workshop at Vigo, Spain
Workshop organisation: NP1 is organised by the Language Variation and Textual Categorisation (LVTC) research group at the University of Vigo (http://lvtcuvigo.blogspot.com), in cooperation with:
- the School of English at the University of Newcastle
- the VLCG Research Group at the University of Santiago de Compostela
- the Functional Linguistics Leuven (FLL) Research group at the University of Leuven.
Providing there is sufficient interest, we anticipate having follow-up workshops in later years.
Contact person: Javier Perez-Guerra <jperez@uvigo.es>.
Workshop webpage: http://webs.uvigo.es/np1
This workshop is sponsored by the English Linguistics Circle (ELC), a network coordinated by Professor Teresa Fanego involving four research groups based at the Universities of Santiago de Compostela and Vigo: http://elc.org.es
(posted 7 Jan '09)



Language, Literature and Cultural Policies - From Evolution to Involution
University of Craiova, Romania  -  2-4 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 15 June 2009 (closed)

The Department of British and American Studies at the Faculty of Letters, University of Craiova and the Center for the Research of European Cultural and Linguistic Identities are pleased to invite you to the 8th International Conference "Language, Literature and Cultural Policies -- From Evolution to Involution", which is to be held in Craiova, Romania, October 2-4, 2009.
Human beings, considered the most intelligent creatures on Earth, believe in evolution, in progress. Evolution, the "process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state" (according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary) sometimes turns to be exactly the opposite. In an attempt to be the best, the unique, the perfect individual, man can become, unconsciously, his enemy. Theories which, at first, are defined as revolutionary, might end in drawbacks, with unexpected consequences.
Our conference challenges the participants to bring their contribution to this arguable process.
Suggested thematic areas
• Progress vs regress
• Interdisciplinary approaches to literature
• Afro-American Literature
• Communication and understanding
• Approaches to discourse and text analyses
Submission instructions
Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. Abstracts should have about 100 words, including keywords. Please fill in the registration form below and send it to the contact persons: Mihai Cosoveanu: <mcosoveanu@yahoo.com> and Florentina Anghel: <florianghel1@yahoo.com>.
1. Title of paper:
2. Section (thematic area): 
3. Name:
4. Academic title:
5. Address:
6. Affiliation:
7. E-mail address:
8. Abstract (100 words):
Deadline: Abstracts will be accepted until June 15, 2009.
Other information concerning the conference is available on the website of the conference: http://cis01.central.ucv.ro/litere/activ_st/colocvii_simpozioane.htm
(posted 22 Apr '09)



Moving World(s): Changes and Innovations in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Europe
University of Limoges, France  -  9-10 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 15 October 2008 (closed)

An international interdisciplinary conference organized by EHIC at the University of Limoges, France.
The habit of dividing Time into centuries has often raised controversy due to its arbitrariness and imprecision. Rather than focus exclusively on the topic of disruption - entailing radical and exclusive positions - we have chosen to highlight the notion of continuity: what forms do the changes take at the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance, questioning the fixity of systems and more particularly the world picture and the schema of a central, immobile Earth?
Through historical documents, literary texts or works of art, this conference means to explore the expression of changes in various fields of studies so as to bring together scholars from apparently separate disciplines.
Suggested topics:
· work, economy and daily life: their concrete aspects and their specific vocable
· mobility, the representation and perception of space and territories
· technical innovations in the fields of art, architecture, literature
· Man facing changes and his relation to Time
· participation in public life; exploration of the intimate space as a form of "geographical meditation" (Jean-Marc Besse, Les Grandeurs de la Terre. Aspects du savoir géographique à la Renaissance, Lyon, ENS Éditions, 203, p. 309)
You are invited to submit a proposal for a 30-minute paper (in French or in English).
Deadline for proposals: 15 October 2008
Please contact:
Martine Yvernault : <martine.yvernault@unilim.fr>
Muriel Cunin: <muriel.cunin1@libertysurf.fr>
(posted 10 Jul '08)



After Writing Back. Present and future perspectives in Postcolonial Studies
University of Bergamo,  Italy  -  13-15 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 30 June 2009 (closed)    

Hosted by: University of Bergamo, Faculty of Modern Languages and Literatures, PhD in Euro-American Literatures/Doctoral School of Humanities (Partner of the European PhDNet "Literary and Cultural Studies").
Twenty years ago Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffith and Helen Tiffin published their groundbreaking The Empire Writes Back. The conference purpose is not to celebrate a contribution whose significance is beyond discussion, or simply to upgrade its re-assessment, but to follow up the lines that have been opened by this seminal work. We would like to rethink the possibilities and problems now facing the field of Postcolonial studies. Ashcroft, Griffith and Tiffin themselves have broadened their focus to  fruitful areas such as Globalization, the Enviroment, the Sacred, or the 'Human'.
Postcolonial societies (both colonizer and colonized) have transformed cultures and languages. The negotiation of power relationships engaged by First and Third World cultures has shaped new identities, at the same time suggested a compelling revision of Modernity.
The conference will explore the relevance of  the Postcolonial perspective in engaging with these and more issues. 
Papers may focus on these and other related topics:
- relations between postcolonialism and globalization,  modernity,  environment, ecocriticism;
- postcolonial literature and new forms of resistance;
- literary language, English(es), native languages, linguistic identities.
Confirmed Keynote speakers: Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffith, Helen Tiffin
20-30 minutes papers are welcome.
300-400 words proposals  may be submitted by 30 June 2009 to <flaminia.nicora@unibg.it>.
Please include your name and affiliation, a short bio and e-mail address. 
Convener: Flaminia Nicora, University of Bergamo Italy
Website: http://www.unibg.it/struttura/struttura.asp?cerca=dllc_awb09
(posted 25 May '09)



Challenges of Translation Studies in a Globalized World
University of Maribor, Slovenia  -  14-17 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 15 April 2009 (closed)

Globalization should not be seen merely as a modern buzzword with an ephemeral lifespan. We need to be aware that globalization is a way of life that we have adopted because of the society and the environment in which we live. Life in a multilingual and multicultural society is a fact; it is turning into the default mode of behaviour, a meme that we unconsciously embrace as the norm, including communicative norms.
The role of the translator or interpreter in this context is one of the key issues that our joint scientific meeting, albeit only a small stone in the mosaic of contemporary translation studies, will attempt to elucidate. We will examine translation and interpreting from various perspectives in order to better understand these complicated communicative processes and develop even more successful strategies for putting things into words for other cultures.
However, the contemporary cultural space of our time is compressed like none before, and ways of communicating change rapidly. How do we, translators and interpreters, respond to this? What are the tasks of modern translators and interpreters? To bridge otherness or to strengthen it? To adapt quickly or to rely on the much safer route of conventionality? How are these processes for dealing with this particularly complicated way of communication influenced by the related disciplines: neuro- and psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, ecolinguistics, anthropology, and others? How can we improve the processes of decision making and move towards more appropriate translates and those better adapted to the end user? How is process optimization related to ethics within translation studies?
These and many other questions will be addressed and hopefully at least partially answered at the joint scientific meeting that will take place from the 15th to 17th October 2009 at the University of Maribor.
Our keynote speakers include:
• Professor Mary Snell-Hornby (University of Vienna)
• Professor Gyde Hansen (Copenhagen Business School)
• Professor Franz Pöchhacker (University of Vienna)
• Professor Erich Prunc( (University of Graz)
• Professor Karmen Terzan Kopecky (University of Maribor)
Proposals for papers (in English or German) are invited in the following subject areas:
• Translation Studies as an Interdiscipline
• Technical Translation
• Interpreting
• Literary Translation
• Translator/Interpreter Training
Please send an abstract of between 150 and 250 words to the symposium email address: <ts.challenges2009@uni-mb.si>

Abstracts should be sent as Word attachments. Please mention your full name (including academic title), affiliation, postal address, e-mail address, subject area, and the title of your presentation.
Due date for the submission of abstracts is 15th April 2009. E-mail notifications will be sent to authors whose papers are accepted to the symposium by 30th May 2009.
Conference fee:
100 € regular
60 € students (please send proof of student status)
30 € late registration fee (to be added to all registration fees after 30th June 2009)
Registration form, symposium programme and other information will be available on the symposium webpage:
http://events.ff.uni-mb.si/tschallenges
(posted 4 Dec '08)



Darwin, Tennyson and Their Readers:  A Bicentenary Celebration, 1809 - 2009
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK  -  17 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 1 October 2008 (closed)

Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Professor Dame Gillian Beer, Clare Hall College, Cambridge; Professor George Levine, Emeritus Professor, Rutgers University, U.S.A.
2009 will mark the bicentenary of the births of both Alfred Tennyson and Charles Darwin. Our one-day conference will celebrate this event by exploring the interaction of literature and science in the Victorian period, mining the rich vein of research opened up by Professor Dame Gillian Beer in Darwin's Plots (1983) and continued by Professor George Levine in Darwin and the Novelists (1988). Professors Beer and Levine will both be presenting plenary papers at the conference, outlining their latest thinking and building on the central insight that 'the cultural traffic ran both ways.'
Short Papers are therefore invited, exploring the links, not only between Tennyson and Darwin, but more generally between the writings of nineteenth century scientists and of nineteenth century poets or novelists - evidence that they were reading each other. A paper on Thomas Huxley's reading of Tennyson would be especially welcomed. Some more obvious subjects might be: George Eliot or John Ruskin's reading of Darwin; Darwin and Myth; Darwin reading Dickens; 'Optimistic Materialism' in the light of George Levine's latest book, Darwin Loves You (2007); 'Condition of England Novels and Evolutionary Theory: Kingsley, Disraeli and Darwin; 'Tennyson and Browning: two responses to evolutionary debates'; Lewis Carroll reads Tennyson and Darwin; 'Growing Younger With the Years:  the Reputations of Tennyson and Darwin reconsidered'; or 'A Passion for Fabulation:  Darwin, Tennyson and Autobiography'.
Proposals for Papers, including a 300-word summary, should be sent by 1st October 2008 to:
Dr Valerie Purton, Department of English, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, U.K.
<Valerie.Purton@anglia.ac.uk>.
Tel: 0845-196-2496.
(posted 6 May '08)



(Mis-)Representations: Trauma Discourses and Cultural Productions
University of Zurich, Switzerland  -  17 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 29 May 2009 (closed)

A post-graduate conference.
Moving far beyond its origins in medical terminology, "trauma" has enjoyed a multitude of applications in various disciplines. Where trauma originally denoted a physical wound, within the fields of psychoanalysis and psychology, any inspection or treatment of the traumatic wound shifts the main emphasis from somatic to psychic topologies.
With the inclusion of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) into the official diagnostic manual in 1980, public awareness of trauma increased rapidly. Since the mid 1990s trauma has also gained a great deal in currency within fields other than psychology and psychiatry. Scholars such as Cathy Caruth, Dominick LaCapra, Shoshana Felman and Lawrence Langer have introduced trauma theory as a central concern of their literary interpretations. The term has taken on cultural dimensions due largely to its relevance for issues of collective identity, and has thus become popular in Cultural Studies. The vogue of the concept has also necessarily been contingent on a succession of historical conditions -- two World Wars, the Vietnam War, (post)colonialism and global terrorism -- as well as on changes in the ideologies, philosophy, and cultural practices of the West: particularly the popularization of psychoanalytic discourse and the proliferation of public stagings of personal suffering in the mass media. While the concept of trauma has traditionally been used to address concerns of the victimized and marginalized, it has also come to function well as a paradigm for postmodern anxieties concerning experience and representation. Though a widespread interest in concepts of trauma presents possibilities for fecund transdisciplinary interconnections and knowledge transfer, its apparent protean adaptability also requires a continual critical reevaluation of its applications.
The aim of this conference -- which is conceived as a forum of exchange primarily for doctoral and post-doctoral researchers -- is to explore the potentials and the limitations of the concept of trauma in its various appropriations for cultural productions. We invite contributions on topics from various fields and eras of literary or cultural studies. Topics to be considered include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Representation of Trauma in Literature, Art and Media
- Trauma and Narrative
- Gendered Trauma and Traumas of Gender
- Testimony, Truth, Ethics
- Trauma, Memory and Identity
- Collective / Cultural Trauma
- Trauma and Language
- Application of trauma discourses for cultural and literary analysis
- Definitions of trauma and their political and cultural implications
- Histories of Trauma, Traumatic Histories
Please send a 250-word proposal for a 20-minute talk and a brief CV to <scott.loren@unisg.ch> by 29 May 2009. Further information is available on the website of the English Seminar, University of Zurich:
http://www.es.uzh.ch/Subsites/events/trauma09.html
(posted 14 Feb '09)



Lincoln Bicentennial Conference: European Readings of Abraham Lincoln, his Times and Legacy
Université Versailles-St-Quentin, France  -  17-18 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 31 January 2009 (closed)

Under the auspices of Laboratoire Suds d'Amériques (Université Versailles-St-Quentin), Observatoire de la Politique Américaine (OPA / CRAN, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3), ReDEHJA (Réseau pour le développement européen de l'histoire de la jeune Amérique), The American University of Paris.
On the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday we invite fresh interpretations of the man, the politician in his times (from the antebellum period though the Civil War) as well as his legacy beyond the Civil War through today, from a European perspective. This shall be the first conference of this kind to be held in France.
Beyond the historical background of 1809-1865 which, like Lincoln himself, "was big enough to be inconsistent" (W. E. B. Du Bois) and brought about fundamental changes in the United States as a nation, we invite analysis of the nature of the man himself–along with his policies, enemies, idolaters and critics–as an American politician and leader. We also seek to examine the complements and contrasts which relate Europe to the United States - and the USA to Europe - as revealed by European readings of Abraham Lincoln and his era, before, throughout, and after the Civil War.
We invite contributors to harvest this terrain from the fields of History, Literature, the Political & Social Sciences, Popular Culture and Mass Media, by focusing in particular on the European perspective–then and now–regarding American events and achievements when the very meaning of democracy and the nation was at stake, not just for the United States but for "the whole family of man" (Lincoln, July 1861). How have the individual prisms of Europeans‚ own History, Literature and Media understood and made use of Lincoln and the US antebellum and Civil War epoch? To what extent has informed awareness by both Europeans and Americans been a litmus test of Euro-American understanding?
Paper proposals (300 words, in English) should be sent by December 31, 2008 together with a brief (one-page) resume both to Naomi Wulf <naomi.wulf@wanadoo.fr> and John Dean <jdeureka@yahoo.com>.
Applicants will be notified about their proposals by 31 January, 2009.
Steering committee: John Dean, Jacques Pothier, Bernard Vincent, Naomi Wulf.
(posted 24 Jun '08)



7th Landau-Paris Symposium on the Eighteenth Century: Touch and Taste (and Smell)
Landau, Germany  -  22-24 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2009 (closed)

As an interdisciplinary venture, the Landau-Paris-Symposia of the past years have focused on the exploration of the relations between TASTE and the senses. The 5th annual meeting, held in Landau in 2007, was dedicated to the study of sight, while last year‚s 6th meeting in Paris tackled smell and hearing and their impact on taste in literature, music and art, with an occasional glance at philosophical dimensions. The third meeting on taste and the senses, to be held in Landau this year, will continue the three-year series on this fascinating topic with papers on the last two senses of touch and taste. As the papers proposed on smell in 2008 were very stimulating but few, the organizers will also consider new proposals on that sense.
We therefore invite proposals for papers (English or French) on important aspects of the relations between touch, smell and taste, and TASTE in the long eighteenth century (European literatures, art, philosophy, music, and drama). Interdisciplinary papers are especially welcome.
Please send your abstracts (about 100 words) to both Frédéric Ogée and Peter Wagner:
<frederic.ogee@univ-paris-diderot.fr>
and
<wagner@uni-landau.-de>.
The deadline is 30 April 2009.
The organizers are hoping to host a final, concluding meeting in 2010, which will gather all the participants in the programme and aim at drawing conclusions and bringing forward new questionings that will open new ground for further research.
The best papers from all the symposia will be published by WVT in volume 3 of the LAPASEC series
(see the website: http://www.uni-landau.de/anglistik/LAPASEC/index.htm)
(posted 13 Jan '09)



Against and Beyond: Subversion and Transgression in Drama, Theatre, Film and Media
University of Łódź, Poland  -  22-24 Oct 2009
Deadline for proposals: 15 June 2009 (closed)

The Department of Drama and Pre-1800 Literature invites you to attend the 2009 Drama Through the Ages and Medieval Literature Conference at the University of Łódź, Poland.
Transgressive movement against or beyond the norm seems to be universally present in all ages and genres of literary and artistic creativity. Openly defiant or covertly subversive, rebellion against social standards that define public and personal roles, ideals and spaces remains an artistic instrument of development while liminal sensitivity or extreme experience continue to threaten the prescribed from the allegory of medieval theatre and poetry to the neo-realism of the drama of the 21st century.
It is therefore the aim of this conference to approach the category of extreme and subversive experience and its literary, theatrical, dramatic and cinematographic representations.
Suggested themes and topics:
-    politics of transgression,
-    techniques of subversion,
-    storytelling as an act of political/historical/religious subversion,
-    spatial conditioning of transgression,
-    the city versus the country: modes of geographic transgression,
-    powers of subversion in private and public domains,
-    transgression and the body,
-    cathartic power of suffering,
-    subversive religious illumination,
-    dance, ecstasy, ritual as ways of experiencing the Other,
-    mass media and virtual reality as ways of transgressing the real and the actual.
The list of keynote speakers to be announced soon.
Submissions of topics and abstracts (250 words) should reach the organisers no later than June 15th 2009.
Conference fee: 300 PLN.
For submissions and enquiries please contact Piotr Spyra at <lodz.conference@gmail.com>.
For updated conference information please see: http://www.filolog.uni.lodz.pl/engdrama
(posted 13 Mar '09)



Text and Context: Literature and History  of Medieval England
Université de Paris Est Marne-la-Vallée, France  -  23-24 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 15 November 2008
(closed)

Economic, political and social historians have often used to great advantage the information gleaned from narrative and literary sources in order to understand better the structures and events of the medieval period. Scholars of medieval literature study the historical context of authors to analyze their texts.  Writers and cinematographers have combined historical data and imagination to render more or less accurate portraits of people and events in the Middle Ages.  It is impossible to separate completely the real from the imagined in medieval history and literature.  Medieval authors of literary texts and poems most often included fictionalized accounts of events that occurred around them.  Very few medieval sources can even be considered void of imagination, from the events recounted by plaintiffs, witnesses and defendants in court records, to the more or less fictional rendering of accounts by manor reeves, to the exaggerated tales of chroniclers and authorities in preambles to legislation. It is quite unlikely that historical actors even saw a line between fact and fiction, let alone attempt to draw one in their discourse. Scholars of the medieval period are constantly confronted with the difficult task of delineating what was real and what was imagined.
Papers for this conference should address questions related to the confluence of imagination and fact in medieval literature and history. Proposals on Anglo-Saxon and medieval England (5th to 15th centuries), both from graduate students and confirmed researchers, are welcome. The organisers are seeking to attract scholars specialized in different fields (political, social, cultural and economic history, literature, etc.) to speak on a broad array of topics (including attempts to turn historical events into fiction for modern audiences). Papers should be roughly 30-minutes long, and they will be arranged into panel sessions on related topics by the conference organisers. A half hour will be reserved for discussion on the papers after each panel.
Please send abstracts of 200 to 300 words to : <robert_braid@yahoo.fr>.
(posted 19 Jul '08)



Memory and Truth
Faculty of Philology, South-Western University "Neofit Rilski", Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria  -  28-31October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 31 July 2009

The English Department at the Faculty of Philology, SWU, is pleased to announce the forthcoming international conference Memory and Truth. Co-organizer of the conference is the Faculty of Philosophy of the SWU.
In today's globalized world, 'memory' and 'truth' have evolved into meeting-ground issues for a whole range of scholarly disciplines: philosophy, sociology, psychology, political history, literary studies, cultural anthropology, linguistics, etc.
We invite contributions from various fields, which tend to problematize the common interpretative paradigms that subsume these two notions.
Working languages of the conference: English, Bulgarian
Conference fee:  60 Euros
Abstract Submission:
Abstracts, not exceeding 300 words, should be sent by 31 July 2009 to Elena Andonova <andonova.elena@gmail.com>
The following information should be specified in the presentation proposal: title of the paper;  name of the author(s); affiliation of the author(s); e-mail address.
(posted 6 Apr '09)



Second ELC International Postgraduate Conference on English Linguistics (ELC2)
Vigo, Spain  -  30-31 October 2009
Deadline for proposals: 1 June 2009 (closed)

We are pleased to announce the Second ELC Postgraduate Conference on English Linguistics (ELC2), to be held at the University of Vigo (Spain) on 30-31 October 2009. ELC2 aims to provide linguistics postgraduate students with an opportunity to present and discuss their research in an informal and intellectually stimulating setting.
The conference is organised by postgraduate students from the English Departments of the Universities of Vigo and Santiago de Compostela. It is supported by these two universities and by the English Linguistics Circle, a research network involving the following research teams:
- Variation, Linguistic Change and Grammaticalisation (VLCG; University of Santiago de Compostela; director: Prof. Teresa Fanego) http://www.usc-vlcg.es
- Spoken English Research Team at the University of Santiago de Compostela (SPERTUS; University of Santiago de Compostela; director: Ignacio Palacios Martínez) http://www.usc.es/ia303/spertus
- Language Variation and Textual Categorisation (LVTC; University of Vigo; director: Javier Pérez Guerra) http://lvtcuvigo.blogspot.com
- Methods and Materials for the Teaching and Acquisition of Foreign Languages (MMTAFL, University of Vigo; Coordinadora: Marta Dahlgren- Thorsell).
The English Linguistics Circle was also responsible for ELC1, a former edition of the International Postgraduate Conference on English Linguistics held in Santiago de Compostela in May 2008. A refereed volume containing a selection of the papers presented at ELC1 is now in preparation, and will be published as New trends and methodologies in applied English language research. Diachronic, diatopic and contrastive studies (Linguistic Insights Series; Bern: Peter Lang).
Plenary speakers:
- Ans van Kemenade (Radboud University Nijmegen)
- Terence Odlin (Ohio State University)
- Geoff Thompson (University of Liverpool)
Organising committee:
Lidia Gómez García (University of Santiago de Compostela)
Iria Pastor Gómez (University of Santiago de Compostela)
Paula Rodríguez Puente (University of Santiago de Compostela)
Beatriz Tizón Couto (University of Vigo)
David Tizón Couto (University of Vigo)
Call for papers:
Postgraduate students are invited to submit abstracts for oral presentations on all fields of linguistic research, whether synchronic or diachronic. Papers are to be 20 minutes in length plus 10 minutes for discussion. The conference language is English.
Abstract submission guidelines:
Abstracts should be anonymous and not exceed 400 words. They should preferably be submitted via e-mail as an attachment (Microsoft Word, RTF or PDF files) to the address <elcpostgrad@uvigo.es>.
Abstracts should include:
- the title of the paper
- a list of 5-10 keywords
- the research focus
- the research methodology
- a brief summary of findings (if applicable)
- a short list of key references (restrict references to a minimum).
The e-mail message accompanying the abstract should contain the following information:
- the name(s) of the author(s) and their affiliation(s)
- the author?s e-mail address and contact details
- audiovisual equipment required.
Abstract submission deadline:
Abstracts must be received by 1 June 2009.
Abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by the programme committee and the authors will be notified of acceptance by 30 June 2009 (by e-mail).
Proceedings:
Authors of papers accepted for presentation will be invited to submit their paper for publication (length to be determined) in the volume of conference proceedings. Papers will be subjected to refereeing.
Registration information:
To register for the conference please download the registration form from the conference website http://webs.uvigo.es/elcpostgrad
The fee includes coffee, tea and refreshments during the conference days as well as an informal dinner (Friday 30 October, evening).
The registration fees are as follows:
- 50 euros fee for registration by 15 September 2009
- 60 euros fee for registration after 15 September 2009.
The registration fee can be paid by bank transfer; further information on the bank account number will be available soon.
Conference venue:
The conference will be held at the Club Financiero de Vigo in the centre of the city (García Barbón 62, Vigo - tel.: +34 986 44 72 20 - fax: +34 986 44 98 86 - e-mail: <cfv@clubfinvigo.com> - web: http://www.clubfinvigo.com).
Further information:
For general enquiries send an e-mail message to: <elcpostgrad@uvigo.es>
For further information, visit the conference website: http://webs.uvigo.es/elcpostgrad



  

November 2009



The Future of Ecocriticism: New Horizons
Hotel Limak Limra, Kemer, Antalya, Turkey  -  4-6 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 31 July 2009

"If I told you about a land of love, friend, would you follow me and come?" (Yunus Emre, 13th century Turkish mystic poet).
"The Future of Ecocriticism: New Horizons," organized by Hacettepe and Ankara Universities, Ankara, and co-sponsored by The Turkish Fulbright Commission, will be the first international conference on ecocriticism in Turkey. It welcomes papers on topics related to ecocritical studies from diverse theoretical and literary perspectives. The conference encourages papers on the following topics:
-    International responses to American and world environmental literatures
-    Ecocritical interpretations of Turkish literature and literatures of Turkic speaking peoples
-    Mediterranean environmental literatures
-    Ecocritical theory in new perspectives
-    Connections between Eastern and Western environmental sensibilities
-    Bioregionalism in theory and practice
-    Environmental ethics and aesthetics
-    Deep ecology and ecophilosophy
-    Postmodern ecologies
-    Ecopoetics
-    Environmental education and ecological literacy
-    Narratives of animals and animality
-    Ecological humanism in children’s literatures
-    New ecofeminist approaches to literary texts
-    Ecocritical approaches to myths, legends and folk tales from around the world
-    Literature and environmental justice
-    Marine life and water in ecocritical studies
-    Literary responses to the global ecological crisis and climate change
-    Wild life conservation in ecocritical studies
The official conference language is English. For registration, payment, and booking, please visit our website: http://www.ecocriticism.hacettepe.edu.tr.
Please submit your paper title, an abstract of no more than 350 words, your short bio, and your contact details (institution, mailing address, telephone number, email) by July 31, 2009 to <ecocriticism@hacettepe.edu.tr>. All email submissions will receive a confirmation of receipt. For further information, please contact:
Serpil Oppermann, Hacettepe University, <opperman@hacettepe.edu.tr>
Ufuk Özdağ, Hacettepe University, <ozdag@hacettepe.edu.tr>
Nevin Özkan, Ankara University, <ozkan@humanity.ankara.edu.tr>.
(posted 2 May '09)



Corpus Linguistics and Language Variation
Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy  -  5-7 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 30 June 2009 (closed)

Corpora – principled collections of data in electronic format - have emerged over the last decades as a powerful analytical tool both in applied and theoretical linguistics. They have turned out of particularly significant importance in studies on language variation and language varieties. Indeed, the wealth and amount of data  made available through corpus compilation and query tools  have increasingly enabled researchers to explore differences across spoken and written discourse, social, diachronic and geographic varieties, age groups, gender, idiolects, etc. The widening of studies on language variation and language varieties, however, still calls for discussion on significant methodological issues, which pose, among others, the following questions: What are the major methodological problems in the research field? What is the role of the comparative perspective? Which tools and methodology best suit research?
The conference intends to focus on such issues in order to provide a better definition of the concepts under investigation and bring together significant and innovative contributions in what is now understood as a widely researched area, thus presenting new tools and perspectives to be investigated.  This is also the main general objective of the CLAVIER research group (Corpus and Language Variation Research Group), a research centre recently founded by the Universities of Bergamo, Firenze, Modena and Reggio Emilia, Roma "La Sapienza", and Siena, and currently based in Modena. The point of departure is the invaluable contribution of two complementary strands of linguistic investigation - corpus analysis and discourse analysis – to research on language variation in English, both in quantitative and qualitative terms.
One of the purposes of the 2009 CLAVIER conference is to reinforce national and international cooperation with scholars and research centres that can widen and complement the interest in language variation currently driving research at the centre.
Plenaries:
Udo Fries (University of Zürich)
Anna Mauranen (University of Helsinki)
Josef Schmied (University of Chemnitz)
Geoffrey Williams (University of Bretagne-Sud)
We would like to bring together different perspectives on  language variation and use. Plenaries and papers will aim at giving a special insight into the following topics:  
a.    using historical corpora to investigate diachronic language variation
b.    using corpora as an innovative tool in exploring geographic varieties
c.    corpus linguistics  in the investigation of non-native language use in professional settings
d.    corpus linguistics tools, special languages, and specialist lexicography.
Contributions concerning other topics will also be accepted on condition that they are relevant to the special theme of the Conference.
The conference will start early in the afternoon on the first day and close around lunchtime on the third day. It will be immediately  preceded by a pre-conference workshop on specialist lexicography organized by the Modena Lexi-Term research group. Conference participants are welcome to join the workshop.
Presentation Guidelines:
Papers will be allotted 20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for discussion.
Time will be allotted for a poster session.
Working Language: English
Please send your anonymous abstract totalling no more than 500 words by June 30th 2009 to the following address: <clavier09@unimore.it>.
Please do not include any self-identifying information on the abstract; indicate only the title and the abstract itself. On a separate cover sheet, include: title, format: (paper/ poster), author, affiliation, postal mailing address (for primary author), e-mail (for primary author).
Important dates:
June 30th, 2009: Deadline for receipt of abstracts
July 20th, 2009: Notifications of acceptance/rejection
September 10th, 2009: Programme
Further information will be made available soon on the conference website:
http://www.sltt.unimore.it/clavier09
http://www.sltt.unimore.it/on-line/Home/CLAVIER09Conference.html
Organizing committee: Marina Bondi, Silvia Cacchiani, Silvia Cavalieri, Giuliana Diani, Giuseppe Palumbo.
Scientific Committee: Julia Bamford (Napoli), Marina Bondi (Modena e Reggio Emilia), Gabriella Del Lungo (Firenze), Marina Dossena (Bergamo), Rita Salvi (Roma), Elena Tognini Bonelli (Siena).
(posted 4 Jun '09)



Museum Narratives
Brunauer Zentrum, Salzburg, Austria  -  5-8 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 31 March 2009 (closed)

Organised by Sabine Coelsch-Foisner, Wolfgang Görtschacher, Sarah Herbe.
Museums are in various ways connected with narratives: they have prompted the literary imagination and feature in a wide range of texts, such as David Lodge's The British Museum is Falling Down, A.S. Byatt’s "Morpho Eugenia", and Evelyn Grill's Der Sammler. Writers and literary texts have been 'developed' in museums or museum-type venues, and museums themselves have experimented with spatial arrangements resembling narrative structures.
Making sense of material data and telling stories about them is one of the basic functions of the public museum, which emerged in the 18th century out of private collections, and which has become ever more experimental in the light of new technologies and the postmodern foregrounding of experience, activity, and process.
The aim of this conference is to exploit the various connections between narratives and the materiality and mediality of the museum. We invite papers dealing with
• museums dedicated to literary texts, authors, or figures in literature
• narratives dealing with, or prompted by, museums, collections, and museum-type venues
• texts and media employed in museums, weaving exhibits into meaningful narratives
• case studies exploring particular spatial or medial strategies of museal presentation from a narratological perspective.
Our interest is mainly in museums and museum-type venues, such as heritage sites, in Anglophone countries, and we would particularly like to encourage those actively involved in museography and museology to contribute papers and engage in what we hope to be a rewarding debate about the 'literariness' of museums.
Papers may not exceed 30 minutes delivery time and will be followed by 15 minutes of discussion. Two papers will be given in one session of 90 minutes in all. The language of papers and discussions is English. This conference also includes a forum for PhD students working in this area and a teachers' forum. The latter will be announced separately.
If you are interested in this conference and wish to offer a paper or take part as a general participant, please contact by 31 March, 2009 (adding an abstract of 350 words describing your project and bearing your name and institutional affiliation):
Professor Sabine Coelsch-Foisner, University of Salzburg, Department of English, Akademiestraße 24, 5020 Salzburg, Austria; Tel.: +43-662-8044-4422, Fax: +43-662-8044-167.
E-Mail: <sabine.coelsch-foisner@sbg.ac.at>.
More information on Salzburg Annual Conferences on Literature and Culture and on the IRCM at:
http://www.uni-salzburg.at/ang/conferences and http://www.uni-salzburg.at/metamorph
(posted 14 Feb '09)



Representing the People
Université de Reims, France  -  6-7 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 15 April 2009 (closed)

Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherches sur les Langues, les Littératures, la Lecture et l’Elaboration de la Pensée, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne.
The notion of the people will be at the core of our reflections. How is the people defined? Does the notion of people exist autonomously and/or in its relation to others? Why, when and how does the notion appear in history, language, literature and the arts? Do the people write about themselves? If not, who speaks for them? What is the legitimacy of such endeavours? Do they imply a hidden agenda? For whom are such representations meant? How are they implemented?
Papers will be presented in English. Abstracts (300 words max.) with a brief résumé should be sent to:
Catherine Heyrendt <catherineheyren@hotmail.com>: / history, politics, history of ideas.
Gilles Sambras <gilles.sambras@neuf.fr>: language, literature and the arts.
Submission deadline : 15 April 2009
(posted 14 Dec '08)



Down to Earth: The Fall in Modern Literature
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, UK  -  Saturday 7 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2009 (closed)

'Is there a shadowy presence behind tragic heroes, in the person of "Adam", the first and greatest man? Adam is certainly their archetype, as Chaucer’s Monk implies by beginning his "tragedies" with Adam’s story.’ Michael Edwards, Towards a Christian Poetics, 1984, p. 15.
'Our beginning is neither at the creation of the world, which could make of us God's continuers, nor in Eden, where our art would be the Word of the universe
, the voice of creation responding to its Creator, but rather in the Fall of man, whether that also be an event in history or simply a manifest fact of the human condition. For us, it is the cherubim with flaming swords that have invented art.' Michael Edwards, 'Lunar Shadows: Reflections on Literary Creation' (from Ombres de lune: réflexions sur la création littéraire, Paris, 2001) in The Glass No 19, p. 6.
'Without the Fall, or some other explanation which we must suppose for our unhappiness, we would not continuously have this desire to re-invent the earth, to invent times and places, narratives, events, characters other than those of life outside literature, to prize the difference writing makes between the world and the book.' Ibid., p. 11

The Fall motif is found widely in modern literature; the idea is a middle term: there's better before and after, actual or suggested.

Keynote paper: After the Garden: Re-imagining the Fall in Contemporary Fiction, Dr Andrew Tate, Department of English and Creative Writing, Lancaster University
Offers of papers to be read at the conference (and subsequently printed in The Glass) are invited before the deadline, 30 April 2009. Papers should have a reading length of 25 minutes. Please send a provisional title and short paragraph stating how you will approach your topic, add some information about your background.
Organised by: the Christian Literary Studies Group
Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2009
Contact: Dr Roger Kojecky
 Check the event website for details: http://www.clsg.org/
(Posted 3 Feb '09)



Rereading Georgette Heyer
Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, UK  -  7 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 15 July 2009

This conference, organised jointly by Lucy Cavendish College and Anglia Ruskin University, is aimed at all those with an interest in Heyer's historical novels, whether academics or general readers.
It will include formal papers and more informal discussion sessions.  We would welcome papers on any aspect of Heyer's historical novels.
Possible topics might include:
-    her sources and influences
-    theoretical approaches to her works
-    her critical and popular reception
-    gender, sexuality and class
Proposals for 20 minute papers should be sent to <sarah.brown@anglia.ac.uk> by 15 July 2009.
(posted 2 Jun '09)



Travel and Translation: Translating Travel Writing in Europe, 1750-1850
Université Paris 13, France  -  13-14 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 2 March 2009 (closed)

Convenors:
- Dr. Susan Pickford (Centre de Recherche Interculturelles sur les Domaines Anglophones et Francophones, Université Paris 13)
- Dr. Alison E., Martin (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg).
Travel and translation are two sides of the same coin. Travel writing translates its readers to new climes; translation makes a text travel in time and space. We invite contributions which focus on the relationship between translation and non-fictional travel writing ˆ both towards the "scientific" and "literary" ends of the spectrum ˆ for the period 1750-1850, which saw great changes both in the practice of travel and travel writing and in the quantity and type of books translated. We welcome papers taking theoretical and historical approaches, as well as case studies. We particularly welcome contributions with a focus on book history.
Suitable topics might include, but are not restricted to:
- Fidelity vs. creativity and self-expression in the translation of travel accounts
- Gender and the 'visibility' of women as translators of travel writing
- Professional vs. amateur translators
- "Scientific" vs. "literary" models of translation in travel accounts
- Translation and anthologisation of travel accounts
- Translators as travellers
- Translating the Grand Tour
- Domestication/foreignisation of travel accounts through translation
It is anticipated that the main focus will be on English, French, Dutch and German but contributions on other European language areas will also be considered.
Guest speakers include Norbert Bachleitner (Universität Wien) and Daniel Roche (Collège de France).
Please send a 300-word abstract in English or French for a 20-minute paper as an email attachment in Word or RTF by Monday 2nd March, 2009, to:
- Dr. Alison E. Martin <alison.martin@anglistik.uni-halle.de>
and
- Dr. Susan Pickford <susan.pickford@gmail.com>.
(posted 20 Jan '09)



Rhythm in Twentieth-Century British Poetry
École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines (ENS LSH), University of Lyon, France  -  13-14 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2009 (closed)

Conference organised on behalf of the Société d’études anglaises contemporaines (SEAC).
Keynote speaker: Derek Attridge (University of York).   
Convenors: Lacy Rumsey (ENS LSH), Simon Jarvis (University of Cambridge), Paul Volsik (Université Paris Diderot).
The twentieth century was one of great change in poetic rhythm in English-language poetry, in Britain as elsewhere, seeing the powerful spread of free or non-metrical forms, continued strength and innovation within the metrical tradition, and - lying between the best-known examples of modernist free verse and the most recognisable metrical forms - a vast range of rhythmic experiment of all kinds, much of which falls outside the dominant paradigms for apprehending poetic rhythm.
The century's closing decades also saw significant changes in the models used to describe and understand poetic rhythm.  Much contemporary work in prosody uses ideas and models drawn from linguistics to further the understanding and criticism of poetry.  Such work has permitted advances in the apprehension of the multiple facets of rhythm in both its linguistic and its psychological aspects, including an exploration of its relationship to metre, intonation and phrasing; it has also helped renew attempts to theorize rhythm’s role in the construction of meaning.  Despite this, a great deal of the twentieth century’s best and most interesting British poetry remains, with regard to its rhythm, under-described, and criticism more generally seems to steer clear of what is often seen as an essential but difficult topic.  This conference will seek to provide an occasion for dialogue between criticism and prosody, in the hope of improving understanding of a rich, various and powerful period for British poetry.
Papers will be welcomed on any aspect of the theory and practice of poetic rhythm in twentieth-century British poetry, with possible topics and approaches including:
-    accounts of individual poets' rhythmic practice;
-    problems and opportunities for rhythmic analysis thrown up by single poems or groups of poems;
-    period styles and their historical and cultural connotations;
-    the place of rhythm in debates over poetic canon, tradition, school;
-    mutations of particular metres or stanza forms;
-    rhythms associated - rightly or wrongly - with particular national, regional, dialect, class or community identifications;
-    the rhythms of music and song as they relate to poetry;
-    rhythm and cognition;
-    the place of prosodic ideas - notions of rhythm, metre, the foot, the beat - in poets’ compositional practice;
-    poets as prosodic theorists and commentators;
-    the relationship between metrical and non-metrical language;
-    free verse as a 'period style' (Marjorie Perloff);
-    the influence of, and on, other national traditions (American, Irish, French…)
-    issues of performance: accent and beat placement, metrical choice, contexts of reading, rhythm in private and public performance;
-    the relationship of scansion to literary theory, of prosody to poetics;
-    "rhythm" in its looser sense of the structure, pattern, movement of a text or body of work.
Proposals for 25-30 minute papers, in English or in French, should be sent before April 30, 2009 to:
Lacy Rumsey: <lrumsey@ens-lsh.fr>
Simon Jarvis: <spj15@cam.ac.uk>
Paul Volsik: <paul.volsik@univ-paris-diderot.fr>
Selected proceedings will be published in a special number of Études britanniques contemporaines.
(posted 12 Feb '09)



Reinventing the Renaissance Occult in Modern and Post-modern Culture
Anglia Ruskin University, UK  -  14 November 2009
Deadline for proposals:  31 May 2009 (closed)

Over the last hundred years many creative writers, critics, thinkers and artists -- for example Peter Ackroyd, Derek Jarman, Carl Jung and Marina Warner - have turned to the magicians and alchemists of the Renaissance period for inspiration. Some have been drawn to the intriguing remoteness of such figures from our own more scientific and sceptical age.  Others, by contrast, have sought to discover unexpected points of contact between the mysteries of the occult and more modern mysteries, such as quantum science. The lure of the occult today may partly be explained by a growing dissatisfaction with Enlightenment rationalism and its perceived failure to address fundamental human concerns.
This conference, which will take place on Saturday 14 November 2009 at Anglia Ruskin University, will explore these more recent aspects of the afterlife of the Renaissance Occult.
We welcome brief proposals for 30 minute papers from creative writers and scholars in any relevant field.
Keynote speakers will include Professor Gyorgy Szonyi, a Leverhulme Visiting Professor from the University of Szeged, Dr Ewan Fernie (Royal Holloway) and Professor Marina Warner (Essex). Please send your abstract to <sarah.brown@anglia.ac.uk> by 3 1 May 2009.
(posted 29 Apr '09)



History, Mystery & Myth
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK  -  14 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 1 September 2009

2009 Postgraduate Conference.
In recent years trends in biography have shifted from the desire to present a definitive life to a more self reflexive approach. Metabiographies such as Lucasta Miller's The Bronte Myth, Sarah Churchwell's The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe and Richard Holmes's The Age of Wonder provide alternative renderings of both the biographical subject and his or her entry into collective cultural consciousness.
This one day postgraduate conference intends to respond to these recent innovations in life writing by offering the opportunity to explore such questions as:
- Is the "definitive life" dead?
- How can we write about subjects with pervasive public images?
- Does biography have a claim to truth of representation?
We invite postgraduate researchers to submit abstracts for papers of 15-20 minutes considering the questions posed above or indeed any topics connected to the role of myth in biography and history.  These may include but are not confined to the following research areas:
- Works in Progress: Strategies for Negotiating Mythologized Subjects
- Critical Readings: Analysing History, "Truth" and Perception in Life Writing
- Theoretical Approaches: Audience Expectations, Historical Conventions and the Biographical Form
Paper title with an abstract of between 200-300 words should be emailed to <Biography@uea.ac.uk> by 1st September. Please include your name, email address and university affiliation along with brief details of your writing or research project.
The conference will commence with a keynote speech by life writer Kathryn Hughes, and the event will conclude with a 60 minute round table discussion in which practicing biographers Jon Cooke, Lucasta Miller, Helen Smith and DJ Taylor will consider themes arising from the day.
(posted 5 May '09)



Imagining Amsterdam: Visions and Revisions
Amsterdam, Netherlands  -  19-21 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 14 February 2009 (closed)

Amsterdam has always been a locus of powerful imagining, and for centuries the city has been the subject of representation in literature, music, and the visual arts. Yet while artists and writers have long emphasised the city's reputation for permissiveness and tolerance, in recent years the international image of Amsterdam as the paradigm of an "open society" has been charged with new significance and urgency. Against the backdrop of the war on terror, an increasingly polarised debate has taken place about multiculturalism and about new, global challenges to our Western models of capitalist democracy. In this context Amsterdam has emerged as a privileged site of representation which registers changes, instabilities, and contradictions in the contemporary self-image of the West. On the one hand, the city’s small scale and friendly face continue to secure a special - though often caricatured - place for it in the iconography of liberal democracy, and images of Amsterdam as open and tolerant have been reinflected and reassessed. On the other hand, international media coverage of the murder of Theo van Gogh and other recent events has located Amsterdam at the forefront of transformations that are felt to be underway or imminent in European society at large, turning the city into the site of various imaginings of the future. In a variety of ways, the image of Amsterdam stimulates utopian, heterotopian, as well as dystopian scenarios and speculations. Writers, artists, and film makers use the image of Amsterdam as a vehicle for reflection on much wider social, political, and cultural concerns, and their literary, filmic, and artistic renderings allow us to explore contemporary ideas about global and international developments.
This conference aims to examine the popular, literary, cinematic, and artistic image of Amsterdam in the age of globalisation. From internationally acclaimed novels by John Irving, Arnon Grunberg, and Ian McEwan to blockbusters like Soderbergh's Ocean's Twelve; from historical fictions by Deborah Moggach and David Liss to sociological journalism like Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam; and from Albert Camus's classic novel La Chute to art films like Peter Greenaway's Nightwatching, the storehouse of international representations of Amsterdam is vast and diverse. But whether these representations focus on the city as the setting of experimental and alternative lifestyles, on its history as a cradle of early-modern and modern capitalism, or on the inter-cultural tensions (including a religiously motivated killing) which it has seen in recent years, Amsterdam has always triggered an intense and multifaceted response in the eyes of its international and Anglophone beholders. The conference welcomes papers that explore these issues from various theoretical, critical, analytical, and cultural perspectives.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
1.    Representations of Amsterdam as a transcultural meeting place: How do imaginings of Amsterdam situate the Netherlands in the world? By which strategies is the city constructed and marketed as a "brand"? In what sort of cultural practices and representations do the notions of tolerance, liberty and freedom commonly associated with Amsterdam find embodiment?
2.    Representations of Amsterdam as an historical centre of capitalism, commerce, and colonial trade: What are the politics and aesthetics of these imaginings in the face of a changing economic world order? How does Amsterdam function as a lieu de mémoire of the financial and economic world? Which scenarios for the future does the image of Amsterdam invite?
3.    Representations of "libertarian" Amsterdam: In imagining Amsterdam as a sanctuary for legalised prostitution and euthanasia, do artists and film makers respond to a reality which they see as being unique to Dutch society? Or, do they displace foreign or international concerns, problems, and issues onto the Dutch city? What sort of authority - historical or artistic, fact-based or fictional - do these representations claim? And how can we historicise these, often stereotypical representations?
4.    Representations of Amsterdam as the paradigm of an "open society" whose tolerance and long-standing multiculturalist ideals are currently under question: How has the image of the city changed since 9/11 and the "clash of civilisations" debate? How do literature, cinema, and the arts respond to the global coverage of recent Dutch news events? What sort of cultural transfers are facilitated by these responses?
Further suggestions for panels or individual papers:
•    Novels, comic books, and graphic novels set in Amsterdam.
•    Heritage films set in Amsterdam.
•    Amsterdam as the setting for life-changing experiences.
•    Lifestyles and Amsterdam.
•    Constructions of otherness in and through constructions of Amsterdam.
•    Popular music ("Dans le port d’Amsterdam") about Amsterdam.
•    Adaptations of classic Dutch novels.
•    The international reception of Netherlandic literature and film art.
•    Rembrandt in cultural memory.
•    Amsterdam as a centre of trade in the 17th century.
•    Imaginings of Dutch-American cultural transfers.
•    Amsterdam architecture and city spaces.
•    Cinematic transfers in mainstream film (e.g. Paul Verhoeven, Dick Maas) and art house cinema (e.g. Theo van Gogh, Peter Greenaway).
Proposals for individual papers of no more than 300 words should be sent to both Dr. Joyce Goggin <j.goggin@uva.nl> and Dr. Marco de Waard <marco.dewaard@uva.nl> by February 14, 2009. We also welcome proposals for panels of three speakers (summarising the rationale of the panel and providing abstracts of each paper). The conference will be held in Amsterdam, November 19-21, 2009, and will be jointly hosted by the Department of English and the Institute of Culture and History (ICH), University of Amsterdam and Amsterdam University College.
For registration details and regular updates about the programme and the plenary speakers: see our website http://www.hum.uva.nl/Imagining-Amsterdam
(posted 3 Nov '08)



Reading British Spaces: Annual Conference of the German Association for the Study of British Cultures
Universität Paderborn, Germany  -  19-21 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 5 June 2009 (closed)

At a time when the term 'spatial turn' has almost become a truism in Cultural Studies, the spatial grounding of identity constructions is a central topic of cultural analysis. Based on the approaches of New Cultural Geography, many researchers aim at ‘reading’ spaces in a semiotic way, i.e. at looking at the meanings that are subconsciously or deliberately associated with them. This is especially productive with regard to group identities. On the one hand, this includes those traditionally mediated in spatial terms like national or class identities. On the other hand, there are new, potentially contested constructions of social or cultural hierarchies (e.g. in the workplace) that can be naturalised by giving them a supposedly solid spatial basis.
The conference will address such questions with a specific focus on Britain. Comparative perspectives e.g. with regard to Germany or the US can however also be included in the discussion. Papers will deal both with actual spaces and with their representation in fictional, non-fictional and visual texts. A range of different approaches from more general analyses to very concrete historical and contemporary case studies is welcome.
More particularly, paper topics may include the following issues:
•    the processes and problems of constructing national identity in Britain
•    the British regions and the identity clashes between them
•    the contrast between city and countryside and its development
•    gendered spaces in Britain
•    spatial manifestations of social class
•    relationships between space and constructions of ethnicity in Britain
•    the functioning of British cultural spaces
•    the use of space in British literary and medial representations
•    metaphorical, imaginary and 'lost' spaces in Britain
Please send prospective paper titles (for 20-minute slots) and abstracts (of about 300 words) to: <toennies@mail.upb.de> by 5 June 2009.
The organising team looks forward to receiving your suggestions and to welcoming you to Paderborn!
(posted 7 Mar 2009)
 


Darwin Among the Disciplines
Göttingen University, Germany  -  20-21 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 1 April 2009 (closed)

Darwin’s theory of evolution was to revolutionise the understanding of the natural and social world and has had far-reaching implications on theological, sociological, biological and political issues as perhaps no other scientific theory. The English Department of Göttingen University will celebrate the long-lasting impact of Darwin's evolutionary model in academic fields as well as popular culture with a two-day academic conference "Darwin Among the Disciplines" on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species in November 2009. By bringing together contributions from the humanities and arts, natural sciences, social sciences and theology, we hope for a transdisciplinary exploration of how Darwin's ideas have reshaped our understanding of human nature and engendered ongoing debates and controversies.
We invite papers exploring Darwin's legacy with particular, though not exclusive, relevance to the following themed sessions: Darwin's impact on art, music, and literature, the Darwin industry (books, exhibitions), evolution and religion, evolution and popular culture, evolution and the social sciences, evolution and biotechnology; evolution and sex / gender.
The conference will take place November 20-21, 2009 at Göttingen University; the conference language will be English.
Keynote speakers include Ian Duncan, CU Berkeley, Eve-Marie Engels, Tübingen and Virginia Richter, Berne University.
200-words abstracts should be sent by April 1st, 2009 to Barbara Schaff, Englisches Seminar der Universität Göttingen, Käte-Hamburger-Weg 3, D - 37073 Göttingen. Email: <bschaff@uni-goettingen.de>.
(posted 2 Mar '09)



Mapping Exception in Early Modern England
University of Paris Ouest - La Defense, France  -  20-21 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 30 June 2009 (closed)

As part of its series of meetings on "Early Modern Cartography of Difference" the TIMEE research group is organising a two-day conference on the politics of exception in the Elizabethan era (broadly interpreted) on 20th-21st November 2009, hosted by the University of Paris Ouest - La Defense.
This conference follows up on a previous gathering in 2006 where we traced ways in which a number of forms of otherness (the deviant, the uncanny…) were negotiated or enacted through language and texts.
While very much connected to these issues, the notion of exception calls for a shift of focus to cases where difference occurs and is read against a background of variously self-conscious, explicit norms. It may indeed be provided for or pre-empted in the very rationale of such norms. The notion obviously cuts across a very wide range of discourses and social uses, both in terms of Early Modern categories and modern academic disciplines (law, literature, history of science…) and transdisciplinary approaches are strongly encouraged. Exception can be usefully approached through such cognate notions as monstrousness, rarity, the exotic or cases of jurisprudence but whichever the perspective adopted, papers should, as much as possible, attend to the social uses of the concept(s) chosen in the Early Modern era and/or their syntactic incorporation. Whilst literary approaches will most likely form the core of the conference, alternate angles include, but are not limited to: natural history, history of collecting, history of law, social history, lexicography…
Proposals (about half-a-page long) should be submitted by 30th June 2009 to François Mallet and Yan Brailowsky: <timee@u-paris10.fr>.
(posted 8 Jun '09)



William Gladstone, Victorianism and Nationalism in historical and literary perspective
New Bulgarian University (NBU), Sofia, Bulgaria  -  21-22 November 2009
Deadline for submissions: 31 July 2009

The Bulgarian Society for British Studies and the History Department of  New Bulgarian University (NBU), Sofia  organize a conference to mark the Gladstone Bicentenary entitled William Gladstone, Victorianism and Nationalism in historical and literary perspective, to be held at NBU on November 20-21, 2009.
The panels at the conference will be centered on:
- Gladstone and Victorianism
- European nationalism and self-determination
- Language, and politics
- The European concert and humanitarian intervention.
Proposals of papers with summaries (up to 200 words) should be sent to Assoc. Prof. Roumen Genov at: <genov@nbu.bg> by July 31, 2009.
(posted 23 Mar '09)



Style in theory / Styling theory
Inaugural Event, International Literary Criticism and Theory Conference Series
University of Malta, Old University Building, Valletta, Malta  -  26-28 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 30 June 2009 (closed)

Contact E-Mail: <styleintheory2009@um.edu.mt>
Website: http://www.um.edu.mt/events/styleintheory2009
What, in theory, is style?
What is the role and place of style(s) in theory, in the writing practice of theory?
Is theory style, and is this the same thing as saying it is stylized?
Has theory gone out of style, never (or about) to return?
Can theory be restyled?
Style, in theory—is that the question of theory, and of theory’s future in the age of new media?
Confirmed Speakers:
Catherine Belsey
Simon Critchley
Stefan Herbrechter
Giuseppe Mazzotta
Laurent Milesi
Jean-Michel Rabaté
Abstracts for papers, preferably stylishly brief, should be sent to styleintheory2009@um.edu.mt by 30 June 2009, copied to the addresses below. The organizers will also be glad to respond to questions about the conference.
Organizers: Ivan Callus, James Corby, Gloria Lauri-Lucente
(posted 19 May '69)



English-speaking film and television industries abroad: industrial and cultural relations
Université Paris Ouest Nanterre - La Défense, France  -  27 November 2009
Deadline for proposals: 30 June 2009 (closed)

CinEcoSA’s first one-day symposium will take place at Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense (formerly known as Paris X Nanterre) on Friday 27 November 2009.
The English-speaking film world, united by the English language and the circulation of talents, technicians and capital, encompasses a variety of types of industrial organisation. There is a number of cooperations between the industries of the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. These countries not only work together, they also have relationships with other audiovisual industries across Europe, Latin America and Asia. At a time when globalisation is thriving, English-speaking film and television industries are getting more and more involved abroad.
The involvement of English-speaking film and television industries abroad takes various shapes. One is the shooting of productions abroad, i.e. runaway productions. Another is producing abroad, i.e. financing films or television programmes of non-English-speaking countries, sometimes in the local language. Although these two types of involvements, runaway productions and direct investments, stem from different economic and cultural practices, they should not be considered conflicting but rather complementary.
Studying such issues depends on the standpoint you adopt. First, the meanings of "abroad" and "foreign" are problematic and imply defining the concept of "nationality". As the world is becoming increasingly "global", is the concept of nationality still relevant? This question is particularly apt when one analyses the close relationships which link English-speaking film and television industries. Secondly, these issues should be considered both from the point of view of the investors and from the point of view of the host countries and industries. Why shoot and produce abroad? What specific kinds of films and programmes are shot and produced? How do the host countries and industries react? Are these relationships profitable (financially, technologically, etc.) or do they create tensions or disagreements?
We will welcome historical perspectives on this phenomenon, but more especially studies which emphasize its current specificities and possible future impacts. The aim is to analyse the cultural phenomena at work in a globalized world where national cultures still have a role to play. What are the industrial and cultural stakes of the involvement of English-speaking film and television industries abroad?
Papers (in English or French) might explore one or more of the following themes:
- relationships between investors and local players (collaboration or control, difficulties arising in the working relationships, mutual advantages)
- changing movie-making landscapes
- types of films and programmes shot and produced
- distribution of those films and programmes
- privileged relationships between two countries (Britain/India, United States/Canada, etc.)
- definition of the  nationality of the productions
- cultural content
- questions of hybridization and transnationalization
- cultural exchanges or tensions
- marketing practices
- reception of those productions
Please send your proposals (300 words maximum) by June 30, 2009 to: <cinecosa@u-paris10.fr>.
Website: http://www.cinecosa.com
(posted 8 Jun '09)




 
December 2009

 


Perception/s
Institut Supérieur des Sciences Humaines de Tunis, Tunisia  -  3-5 December 2009
Deadline for proposals: 14 March 2009 (closed)

Third International English Department Conference on “Perception/s”
The concept of perception is open to endless speculation and debate. The way individuals and societies come to operate within a coherent and presumably unchanging reality, the way language and ideology name, validate, and reinforce ostensibly immutable worldviews, are subjects that command considerable interest and research in the human sciences. With the advent of globalization - the implosion of borders between national communities, co-incident with the strengthening of micro-nationalisms and revival of local allegiances - the assumption that reality and perception are relative, fluid and particular, threateningly hidebound and bigoted, seems to be the order of the day. However, while in current philosophy reality openly sloughs off universality and timelessness, in international politics, however, certain worldviews are waging fierce battles against particularism and change.
The English Department at the 'Institut Supérieur des Sciences Humaines de Tunis' invites papers on perception, especially the way it has been re-thought in the modern era. If perception refers to the process of acquiring sensory information and stimulating the mind to organize and interpret that information, then can we assume that our perception of things is context-free? If perception necessarily has an empirical basis, is it capable of reaching total objectivity and uniformity? Is there a gap between the phenomenal and the noumenal, as Kant argues, and is there such a thing as ‘intrinsic reality’, the unattainable ‘things-in-themselves’? Or do we operate in the realm of perception – constructed realities and self-contained linguistic and ideological universes - as Hegel would rather argue? What is the role of apperception in creating and organizing our understanding of the world?
These question and others are worth re-asking in the light of recent (and old) scholarship. The conference will be a forum to exchange research findings, points of view and ideas regarding the concept of perception
Papers may discuss, but are not limited to the following topics:
•    Literary discourse and the representation of reality.
•    Literature and ideology.
•    Aesthetic theories of perception.
•    Postmodern theory and the concept of perception?
•    Language and meaning.
•    Language and reality.
•    Coherence and pragmatism theories.
•    Contingency.
•    Political discourse and perception.
•    Truth and perception.
•    History / Historiography and perception..
•    Media and perception.
•    International relations and perception.
Submission Requirements:
Oral presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes. Please submit abstracts not exceeding 300 words. The deadline for abstract submission is March, 14th, 2009.
Please send your abstracts to:
By e-mail to: <confperceptions2009@gmail.com>
Or by snail mail to:
Institut Supérieur des Sciences Humaines de Tunis, Département d’Anglais,
26 Av. Dargouth Pacha, 1007 Tunis, Tunisia
Tel. 71 569 499 / 71 561 439
Fax. (216) 71 571 911
Schedule:
January 2009: call for papers
March 14th, 2009: deadline for submitting abstracts.
April 18th, 2009: notification of participants of selected abstracts.
Scientific Committee:
Mr Imed Bouslama, Mrs. Lamia Tayeb, Mrs. Hela Ayed, Mr Adel Manai
Organizing Committee:
Mr Imed Bouslama, Mrs. Fatima Radhouani, Mrs. Sameh Ben Aziza, Ms. Karima Arif
(posted 10 Feb '09)



(Dis)Entangling Darwin: Cross-Disciplinary Reflections on the Man and his Legacy
University of Porto, Portugal  -  4-5 December 2009
Deadline for proposals: 15 October 2009

2009 marks the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth (12 February 1809) and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his groundbreaking On the Origin of Species (24 November 1859).
The University of Porto CETAPS (Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies) is holding a special conference to honour Charles Darwin's enduring legacy, and examine how his ideas remain central to contemporary research, within and beyond the biological sciences, echoing the global celebrations of his life and work, and his impact across the disciplines.
Keynote Speakers:
David Amigoni (Keele University, UK), http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/en/staff/d_amigoni.html
John Van Wyhe (Cambridge University, UK), http://darwin-online.org.uk/people/van_wyhe.html
Special Guest Speakers:
João Cabral – Botanist (FCUP).
Jorge Vieira – Biologist/Molecular Evolution/IBMC (Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology).
Maria Teresa Malafaia – Specialist in English/Victorian Studies/Social Darwinism (UL).
Nuno Ferrand – Biologist. CIBIO coordinator (Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources - UP).
Octávio Mateus – Biologist and Paleontologist (specialist in Dinosaurs. FCT-UNL/Museum of Lourinhã).
The conference title draws inspiration from the notable conclusion of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. In it he writes:
"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us […] There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
Darwin's descriptions rely on the formulation of incredibly complex and visual pictures, often portrayed in a series of "imaginary illustrations" which combine colourful arrangements of both facts and suppositions. The reader is constantly involved in a visual perceptual chaos of entanglements and webbed relationships, performances and theatricalities, exhibiting the way in which the human, animal and natural worlds are mutually imbricated. This conference wishes to contribute to the ongoing disentanglement of Darwin's legacy, which remains as controversial to twenty-first century critics as it was to Darwin's contemporaries. There are still many missing links and inherent contradictions that continue to attract growing, interdisciplinary attention from a wide range of specialisms. All in all, the re-drawing of physical and psychological frontiers demanded by evolutionary theory in an attempt to define what is meant by human nature is still very much in progress, validating at the same time extraordinary opportunities for further research.
We welcome 20-minute papers in English dealing with all aspects of Darwin's legacy, from science to literature and the social sciences, the visual arts, religion, philosophy, politics and cultural relations.
Please include the following information with your proposal: the full title of your paper; a 250-300 word abstract; your name, postal address and e-mail address; your institutional affiliation and position; any audiovisual requirements you may have.
The deadline for proposals is 15 October 2009. Participants will be notified of acceptance no later than 31 October 2009.
Inquiries and proposals should be sent to the following e-mail:  <saragsilva@hotmail.com>.
Conference fee: 60,00 € (includes coffee breaks and Friday lunch). Attendance is free for UP students.
Optional: Conference Dinner (Friday): 20 €
Please check the Porto Faculty of Letters/Sigarra website for updates: http://sigarra.up.pt/up_uk/WEB_PAGE.INICIAL
Additional Information
Organising Committee: Fátima Vieira, Jorge Bastos da Silva, Sara Graça da Silva
(posted 8 Jun '09)



Transnational Feminisms Conference
University of Manchester, UK  -  4-5 December 2009
Deadline for proposals: 28 August 2009

Drawing on the impact of postcolonial feminism and its enactments, this conference will examine how women are affected by political systems in a global climate, how feminism translates and moves across borders, and how feminism can be utilised as a methodology for understanding the transnational context.
Here the transnational is understood to be a complication of notions of the 'elsewhere', highlighting the challenges of fluidity, movement and instability whilst also paying close attention to locatedness. This is a feminism that is engaged with the woman-as-subject without making universalising claims regarding women's experience; it both considers how gender operates and critiques categorisation.
The purpose of this conference is to explore the vitality of feminist interdisciplinarity as it pertains to the transnational, providing space for these debates to come together, creating an interrogation of transnational feminist theory and practice from academic, activist and artistic standpoints.
The conference will also engage with ideas of transnational feminism through workshops, exhibitions and a history walk. We welcome contributions from academics, postgraduates, activists and artists.
Keynote Speakers:
Doctor Anne-Marie Fortier (University of Lancaster)
Professor Gabriele Griffin (University of York)
Doctor Amrit Wilson (Royal Holloway)
Contributions may take the form of papers, workshops, exhibitions or reading group style discussions, amongst others. Paper presentations will consist of panels of 3 x 20 minute papers.
Topics might include:
Global markets of cultural production
Religion and the nation state
Belonging and home
Feminism and neo-colonialism
Diaspora and migration
The international as the popular
Historical moments of transnational feminism
The struggle for, and violence of, borders
Postcolonial/queer intersections
Feminism and gender in a wider global political debate
Sites and voices of privilege
Historicisation and genealogies
Alliances
Cultural and textual translations
Memorialisation
Feminist anti-racism
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words and a short biography by Friday August 28th to: <transfem09@yahoo.co.uk>
Conference website:http: http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/sage/transnationalfeminisms/
All enquiries to Humaira Saeed and Clare Tebbutt <transfem09@yahoo.co.uk>.
Please note that associated activities will take place on 6 December.
(posted 27 Jun '09)



English Language and Literature Studies: Image, Identity, Reality (ELLSIIR)
Faculty of Philology, Belgrade, Serbia  -  4-6 December 2009
Deadline for proposals: 1 July 2009 (closed)

The English Department at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, is pleased to announce the third international conference on English language and literature studies, which will be held on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Department. The aim of the ELLSIIR conference is to promote exchange of ideas across different areas and theoretical frameworks of English linguistics and anglophone literary/cultural studies throughout a broad academic community.
We welcome proposals for papers addressing diverse issues within the general theme of the conference - IMAGE, IDENTITY, REALITY - in the following fields:
•    Theoretical Linguistics
•    Applied Linguistics
•    Literary Studies
•    Cultural Studies
The official language of the conference is English.
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.
Plenary Speakers:
•    David Crystal OBE (Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bangor, UK)
•    Bas Aarts (Professor of English Linguistics, University College London, UK;
 Director of the Survey of English usage)
•    Lynne Cameron (Professor of Applied Linguistics, The Open University, UK)
•    Stephen Regan (Professor of English, University of Durham, UK)
•    Samuel Thomas (Lecturer in English, University of Durham, UK)
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words and should be sent via e-mail (as Word 1997-2003 attachments) to :
<ellsiir.belgrade@gmail.com>
Abstracts should be fully anonymous (title of the paper + abstract + references).
The following information should be specified in the body of the e-mail:
(1)    Title of the paper
(2)    Name of the author(s)
(3)    Affiliation of the author(s)
(4)    Key words
(5)    E-mail address

IMPORTANT DATES
Submission of abstracts: 1 July, 2009           
Notification of acceptance: 15 September, 2009           
CONFERENCE FEE
The conference fee is 80 Euros. The fee includes:
•    conference pack
•    coffee break refreshments
•    welcome party
ACCOMMODATION
Hotel reservations can be made by the organizers upon request.
Conference website: http://www.ellsiir.fil.bg.ac.rs (active as of 1 April 2009).
We look forward to your participation.
On behalf of the ELLSIIR Organizing Committee,
Katarina Rasulić <k.rasulic@fil.bg.ac.rs>                            
Ivana Trbojević <i.trbojevic@fil.bg.ac.rs>.
(posted 10 Mar '09)



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