This colloquium aims to explore the inter-relations between teaching foreign languages and cultural dialogue. Cultural dialogue is inevitably anchored in its own historicity, and changes with historical markers. Thus when teaching foreign  languages, we are automatically faced with the question:  how does dialogue mediate the reality of a given culture and its development  through socio-economic context, history, sciences, in short all formalised systems which make up received ideas - or the doxa of any given period ?

Cultural dialogue is taken in its broadest form, historical, fictional, iconic or linguistic and papers may choose to focus on any of these several fields.

(posted 23 Sep '09)

Keynote speakers: Dr Martin Willis, University of Glamorgan, Dr Christine Ferguson, University of Glasgow, Professor Nick Daly, University College Dublin

In the twenty-first century, environmentalism and the impacts of climate change form a nexus of intense debates about relationship between human culture and the natural world. However, the centrality of the natural world to the nineteenth century imagination has long been acknowledged by scholars, way-marked by Lynn Merrill's The Romance of Victorian Natural History (1989) for example, while Mike Davis's Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (2002) demonstrates the relevance of nineteenth-century research to the modern world.

This conference probes the significance of nature to the long nineteenth century and to our study of its literature, history, science, art, and other media. How did the natural world influence people in the nineteenth century -- and how did nineteenth-century culture shape attitudes to the natural world? Have twenty-first century questions over nature, climate, and the environment changed the way we view and study the cultural products of the nineteenth century, or offered new avenues for research, especially interdisciplinary research?

•    Representations of nature in history, literature, drama, poetry, art, theatre
•    Representations of, or human relationships with: oceans and the seaside, mountains and the countryside, rivers, lakes, gardens, working animals, pets
•    Natural history, specimens, collecting, displaying
•    Science and human or animal nature: hybridity, husbandry, eugenics; Darwinism and biology; Lyell and geology
•    Climate change, environmentalism, eco-criticism, the ecotopia
•    The natural world in romance, Gothic, the fantastic
•    Natural horror, biological monstrosity and the limits of the human
•    The (un)natural city, machine, media
•    The (super)natural world: ghosts, spiritualism, Gothic
•    Theoretical approaches to human and animal nature or the representation of nature.

Postgraduate and early-career researchers are invited to submit 300 word proposals for 20 minute papers or proposals for panels to <natureconference@ed.ac.uk> by 16 November 2009.
See also: http://www.englit.ed.ac.uk/other/NatureConference/landingpage.htm
Organisers: Claire McKechnie, University of Edinburgh and Dr Emily Alder, Edinburgh Napier University. Contact us at <natureconference@ed.ac.uk>.
We are grateful for the support of the British Association for Victorian Studies, the British Society for Literature and Science, and the Centre for Literature and Writing at Edinburgh Napier University.

(posted 17 Aug '09)

It is not easy to cover the numerous studies of reception theory as applied to literature. Generally speaking, two main approaches are distinguished: 1) the study of real audiences at specific moments in time (e.g. Jauss), and 2) the study of how the work of fiction seems to construct an implied or ideal reader (e.g. Iser, Eco). In film studies, the question of reception tends to take on the first approach (e.g. Janet Staiger), focusing on interpretations of a given film as determined by its historical and cultural context, and not by its narrative structure and/or aesthetics.

This conference aims at tackling different aspects of the question of reception (both historical and aesthetic) in order to conciliate two approaches which Jauss and Iser did not see as antagonistic but complementary. Theoretical frameworks such as psychoanalysis (e.g. Metz) and cognitive psychology can be considered, but others are obviously welcome.

The question of reception will raise questions of aesthetic effect, interpretation and context and, ultimately, lead to wonder at how fiction contaminates reality and/or other fictions. The three axes will each aim at underlining the complexity of reception theory as applied to two fields, cinema and literature. Talks can deal with films and literary works from all countries and all genres, and must be presented in either French or English. Proposals should be addressed to the two organizers before September 30, 2009.

Christophe Gelly (Université Blaise Pascal): <cgelly@yahoo.fr>
David Roche (Université de Bourgogne): <mudrock@neuf.fr>.

(posted 8 Jun '09)

In recent times translation has taken on a more central role in societies, whether in India or in the rest of the world. Far from being considered as a linguistic activity only it is now seen as bridging, and sometimes broadening, gaps between different cultures. In Translation Studies, its socio-cultural dimension has been taken into account. It has been shown translation may bring new inputs into local cultures to the extent that it may even reshape them. It may develop national cultures to the detriment of more regional ones, or the reverse, or also play ambivalent roles. In contexts where many languages coexist, its role as a vehicle for mediation and communication is sometimes questioned as it may elevate one language to a higher status while downplaying the others. It may reinforce jingoism or enculturation, prejudices or awareness of differences. In other words translation modifies, or preserves, the perception of the other. Hence, translating as an activity and translation as the result of this activity are inseparable from the concept of culture.

From this viewpoint words are not taken for themselves but for their communicative functions. Translation methods and strategies, different linguistic systems and their constraints in terms of meaning and construction, worldviews, etc. are still analyzed, but in so far as they reveal and contribute to a particular case of intercultural communication.

Besides, translations never only affect words. Texts do not appear on their own but accompany or are accompanied by pre-textual elements such as book covers, figures, diagrams, colour, real products, etc. so that translation studies should analyze translations in their overall environments. As can be seen, the concept of translation that is developed here is all-embracing. Is translation only an inter-linguistic process or does it also constitutes an inter-semiotic activity across cultures and languages?

The time has now come to analyze and estimate the socio-cultural value of translation in terms of its contribution to the receiving cultures, and also the translated cultures at times.  One of the possibilities to understand a culture is to learn its language(s) and the sign systems operating within it. Another complementary one is to study what parts of it are preserved in translating. Besides being a daily activity, translation is thus a means for understanding and maybe improving inter-linguistic, inter-semiotic and intercultural communication. The question whether cultural synthesis can be achieved deserves attention.

Aim of the conference: This international conference would like to bring together Indian and non-Indian perspectives on translation with a view to setting up a platform for discussion, comparison and long-term collaboration. It aims to analyze how different cultures interact and interfere with one another through translation.

Venue: Centre for Study of Foreign Languages, School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India.

Hyderabad is the capital city of Andhra Pradesh and is served by an international airport.

- Prof. J. PRABHAKARA RAO, Coordinator, Centre for Study of Foreign Languages, School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-500 046, INDIA, <pjandhyala1@gmail.com>.
- Prof. Jean PEETERS, Université de Bretagne-Sud,  4, rue Jean Zay, BP 92 116 , 56 321 Lorient Cédex, FRANCE,  <jean.peeters@univ-ubs.fr>.

Prof. J. PRABHAKARA RAO, University of Hyderabad, India.
Prof. Pramod Talgeri, Vice-President, Inter-Disciplinary University, Pune
Prof. B.R. Bapuji, CALTS, University of Hyderabad, India
Prof. Jean PEETERS, Université de Bretagne-Sud, France.
Prof. Michel BALLARD, Université d’Artois, France
Prof. Teresa TOMASZKIEWICZ, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland.

Hospitality: The hosting Institution, i.e. Centre for Study of Foreign Languages, University of Hyderabad will provide local hospitality to participants.

Paper Proposals: The conference encourages paper proposals in relation with the above-mentioned theme.
The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 31st October, 2009. Participants intending to give a paper should email an abstract of 600 words maximum as an attached file (MSWord format or RTF) to:
<pjandhyala1@gmail.com> and <jean.peeters@univ-ubs.fr>.

The maximum number of papers is 20 (10 Indian and 10 non Indian). The proposals will be assessed by the scientific committee on the basis of their relevance to the conference’s topic.

(posted 21 Jul '09)

- University of Cape Town (Centre for African Studies),
- University of Paris Diderot Paris 7 (Groupe de Recherche sur l'Eugénisme et le Racisme, ICT-EA 337)
- Artscape Theatre
- Alliances Françaises of Cape Town and Mitchell's Plain

Cultures are the reflection of constant blending, the very movement of the world. The term "métis" comes from Iberian and originally referred to the blending of Christian, Moslem and Jewish populations in the Peninsula. The term "métissage" is the "cultural exchange" of representations whose values change and adjust depending on the period, country and disciplinary approach. The term "Mestizo" has no English equivalent and in the South African context, the definition of "Coloured" has experienced many variations. From being synonymous with the mixing of races during the 19th century, "métissage" no longer only denotes a blending of peoples but also mixing of arts, thoughts, knowledge and cultures.

"By "métissage", we do not necessarily mean the emergence of a mixed culture, in other words, the fusion and hybridization of "identities", or what J. L. Amselle defines as "a mixture whose parts are impossible to distinguish". Before being a result, "Métissage" is a movement and a dynamic and creative process of the middle kingdom [the environment but also the middle space] which, through exchange, borrowing and reinvention, generates cultural traits or behaviours that are the result of fusion but at the same time, originality. These creations out of the middle space, whether lasting or momentary, profound or superficial, stabilizing or traumatic, are nonetheless all signs of permanent "métissage". (Gilles Harvard, Empire et Métissages, Indiens et Français dans le Pays d'en Haut 1600-1715, Paris, Septentrion, 2003, pp 44-45).

The purpose of the conference is to encourage thought, from a multi-disciplinary point of view, on the mixing of cultures that have formed the movement of our world. It is directed at political scientists, historians, geographers, sociologists, economists, linguists, jurists, literature specialists, anthropologists, philosophers, etc. In theory, we are open to any approach but will give priority to original subjects and slants. The theme will not be limited historically or geographically so as not to exclude works on ancient and contemporary worlds and on familiar or distant lands. Submissions may consist of case studies to open theoretical discussion.

- The genesis of métissage: the succession of wars, exoduses and migrations as phenomena of pacific localization/delocalization, subject to the collision of worlds and political, cultural and social grafts, is a suitable canvas for the observation and analysis of métissage in action.

Métissages, hybridization and otherness: involves tracking the thoughts of the Other by way of these notions. From the - Other as radical difference (otherness) to the Other as a fusion of identities (hybridization), is métissage an alternative creation of the Other, a third path between the identical and the different?

- Métissages and globalization: in accelerating the movement of knowledge, ideas, capital, populations, property and social models, does globalization increase métissages or reduce them by homogenizing cultures? Does it make métissage commonplace by dint of seeking it out or does it exponentially proliferate the potential of original fusion and borrowings? Does it turn métissage into a new means of organizing the world or does it negate it by removing differences?

<Metissages2010@yahoo.com>

A publication of the proceedings from the conference is planned after approval of the articles by the editorial committee, chaired by Prof. Harry Garuba (UCT, CAS) and Prof. Michel Prum (Paris Diderot Paris 7, GRER-ICT).

(posted 1 Jul '09)

Call for papers (deadline: 15th November)

1) Plurilingualism, multilingualism, language policies and planning;
2) Plurilingualism, identity and citizenship;
3) Language and intercultural education and innovation.

(posted 26 Oct '09)

Proposals are welcome relating to the above and associated topics in the context of both Irish and international literature for children, children’s culture and the culture of childhood: Fiction, graphic novels, picture books, adaptation, film, theatre, audio books, the history of the book, poetry, and publishing.
We would also welcome submissions for panels (of 3 papers).
Proposals of 250 words should be sent to Conference Secretary Pádraic Whyte <padraicwhyte@gmail.com> (subject line should clearly indicate 'ISSCL Proposal') to arrive no later than 1 December 2009.

(posted 16 Oct '09)

An international conference organized by:

John Ashbery (born in 1927) is an outstanding American poet whose immense oeuvre represents more than 50 years of prolific writing in all genres: poetry of course, but also fiction, theater plays, literary essays, art criticism, translation. In addition, he is a graphic artist yet to be discovered. A major figure in the New York art scene from the 1950s on, Ashbery lived in Paris for 10 years between 1956 and 1965, thus comforting his position as a key participant in the transatlantic network of artists working at the cutting edge of literary creation. The fact that his poetry is anthologized both in mainstream and more marginal collections shows the rare capacity it has to transcend the great divide separating "canonical" writers from radical experimentalists.

This international conference will provide a critical overview of Ashbery's work in as many dimensions and from as many angles as possible. More specifically, attention will be paid to the following topics:

- The Sister Arts (Poetry/Music/Painting) and Their Representation in Ashbery's Writing
- The Reception of Ashbery's Work in the United States and Abroad
- Landscapes of Reality, Landscape of Imagination in Ashbery
- Ashbery's "Difficult Visibility"
- Innovation and Tradition in Ashbery
- High Culture and Popular Culture in Ashbery's Writing
- John Ashbery and France
- Is Ashbery a Lyrical or a Formalist Poet?

The conference will also take advantage of being hosted in Paris during the "Printemps des Poètes" yearly events to pay tribute to John Ashbery by organizing readings of his poetry, gathering artists for contributions and putting together a "John Ashbery in Paris" exhibition.

Proposals for papers (title and 300-word abstract) should be sent before September 30, 2009, to the scientific committee:

Prof. Antoine Cazé, University Paris 7 Diderot: <antcaze@wanadoo.fr>
Prof. Abigail Lang, University Paris 7 Diderot: <abigail.lang@wanadoo.fr>
Prof. Olivier Brossard, University Marne-la-Vallée: <olivier.brossard@univ-paris-est.fr>
Prof. Vincent Broqua, University Paris 12: <vincentbroqua@gmail.com>.

(posted 10 Jun '09)

This international conference, organised by the University of Strasbourg's Research Group in Anglophone Literature and Culture, is a follow up to its previous conference: "High Culture, Low Culture: reprise, recycling, recuperating" which was held in November 2007.

The notion of reprise implies consciously deployed strategies of reference, citation, intertextuality or even pastiche working under the assumption that all cultural productions are palimpsests. Recycling texts, documents or ideas is a way of modifying, transforming, perhaps even bowdlerizing or impoverishing them. It equally raises the question of intellectual pauperization that might arise from consumerism, mass-commodification and the way culture has been integrated into the "social metabolism" (Hannah Arendt). The notion of recuperation implies a shift of perspective insofar that what is under scrutiny is not so much the object that is being reappropriated as its user and the underlying ideology at work.

Among the many critical issues for study, we shall be particularly interested in the interrelations between same and other, repetition and disparity, hybridization and identity and also the means and modes of misappropriation and instrumentalization. We welcome papers in the domains of literature, civilisation, history of art and cultural history and are open to a broad range of theoretical and conceptual approaches.

(posted 1 Jul '09)

The Departments of Anglo-American Philology I and II (Linguistics and Literature) wish to announce their 9th International Conference on Women’s Studies, and invite you to submit papers on the topics listed below. The Organizing Committee for this conference, featuring national and international speakers, will publish texts selected after peer review for the Women's Studies collection, Vol. VII.

Organizing Committee: Ana Antón-Pacheco, Isabel Durán, Asunción López-Varela, Carmen Méndez, JoAnne Neff, Ana Laura Rodríguez.

•    Cultural Imagery and Representations of Difference in Film/Literature and Society
•    Theorizing Difference from a Multiracial Perspective
•    The New Geography of Identity, Sexual Difference and Collective Identities
•    Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age
•    Fundamentalisms, Totalitarianisms and Gender
•    Women and the Third World
•    Justice and Feminism: Women’s Human Rights and Cultural Differences
•    The Languages of Difference: Linguistic Perspectives on Gender Studies
•    Masculinities, Gender Relations and Equality

•    Full text (Word or compatible):  December 1st,  2009 deadline
•    Spanish or English
•    Texts of approximately 2,500 words (9 pages, double spaced), including notes and bibliography
•    Formats for sessions: a) 20-minute individual paper; b) Chaired panels with three participants
•    Stylistic guidelines:  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Papers which do not conform to these guidelines will not be considered.

•    Before February 15th, 2010:  15 € for students- 50 € for Faculty / professionals
•    After this date: 20€ for students - 60 € for  Faculty / professionals
•    Send this form with a copy of the bank statement to: <jornadamujer@filol.ucm.es> or to Dra. Ana Laura Rodríguez. Dpto. de Filología Inglesa I, Facultad de Filología, Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid 28040, Spain.

(posted 3 Jul '09)

• 15 December 2009: Deadline for submission
• 15 January 2010: Notification of acceptance

(posted 20 Nov '09)

Etymologically speaking, the term "allogeneic" characterizes what is foreign, non-native, the Other. Indeed, discourse can integrate the Other in a visible even obvious way, a strategy particularly evident in the inclusion of quotations or in the addition of illustrations. Such allogeneic elements, juxtaposed with the original text, enter into a process of resonance with it, influencing the identity of the work as a whole. By introducing distinct perspectives/visions, these elements that are foreign to the initial text call into question the notion of a single, unequivocal, central  narrative source/authority. Which begs the following questions : How do these additions relate to the initial text (reduplication, counterpoint, complementation, amplification or contrast and dissonance)? What impact does this heterogeneity have simultaneously on the work and on the reader (a decentering effect or an effect of fragmentation, the metamorphosis of the primary discourse and/or the enriching of its content and the increasing of the demands made on the imagination)? It would also be possible to analyse the interweaving of such allogeneic discourses within the primary discourse, phenomena connected to the processes of collage, assembly, as well as the possible seams that result from it (the effacing of these or, on the contrary, the highlighting of them), the function of frames and margins, the importance of the fragmented, in short the play on the physicality of the work, thus revealed and called into question.

There is an abundance of examples in literature of hybrid texts, whether one considers novels into which other textual genres (poetry, press articles…) have been inserted, an insertion evident to the naked eye that is often instantiated by a play on typographical presentation (with the text and blank spaces) as well as on intertextuality, or else texts in which another medium appears (real maps, diagrams, photographs, illustrations…), these additions being (or not, for that matter) of the author’s invention. These various inclusions also raise the questions of the composition of the work, the creative source, its originality, as well as the way in which one form of discourse echoes another, and, in the case of intertextuality or interpicturality, echoes another artist. Such echoing obliges the reader to adopt a particular way of reading the work, a mode that will be based on a constant to-ing and fro-ing between several allogeneic forms, a search for unity and meaning, an activity of re-composition and reconstitution or even quite simply the experiencing (sometimes great fun but sometimes destabilizing) of the fragmentary. This return to the origin can also be carried out by examining manuscripts adorned with drawings, graffiti or even other authors' notes in the margins, each of which constitutes an illustration by an artist who, as a reader, already inscribes the draft for his own works in the margin of someone else’s text. The opposite, whereby the written word breaks in on the visual representation, on a painting or on a screen, is a phenomenon that raises the same questions as those inspired by the interweaving of the visual in the verbal.

These questions are also valid for the field of civilisation, and notably for the analysis of historical and political speeches. Hybrid texts also have their place here, intermingling various types of discourse (maps, photographs, paintings) which, when juxtaposed, both confront and respond to each other.

From a more linguistic point of view, the question of borrowings, which are clearly allogeneic, is relevant. Such forms are either rejected or naturalised with the passing of time, with this "naturalisation" corresponding to a sort of reversed "allogeneisation", as the borrowed term no longer belongs in its original context. This subject also invites analyses of voluntarily atypical linguistic creations, which imply a play on syntax, morphology, lexicon, or other linguistic systems (cf. jargon/technolect, slang), an undertaking the result of which is the creation of allogeneic forms that most often function to identify and/or exclude. This subject can also be examined with respect to the (mis)appropriation of linguistic conventions (and of conventional expressions), whether purposeful or not, in the media, advertising, and humour, as well as in literature, which constitutes a strategy that is immediately recognisable by any speaker belonging to the linguistic community in question. Similarly, one might consider different types of discourse, and in particular indirect or free indirect speech, both ways of integrating the discourse of another in one’s own speech. Pertinent analyses may include the extent to which this "foreign" discourse is integrated, the differences at the level of assertion, and even the signs of rejection of this discourse by way of its integration at the surface level.

In the area of didactics, this topic could lead to studies on the organisation of school textbooks. In particular, one might analyse the choice of authentic (and more often than not cultural) documents, which are necessarily diverted from their original context and, as a result, become allogeneic. Studies could also concentrate on the layout of didactic materials, notably with respect to effects of echo, of complementarity, or of contrast, but also as concerns the modifications that are linked to their didactisation (vocabulary notes, breaks, titles…). One might thus reflect upon the reasons that motivate these conscious or unconscious choices as well as upon their possible effects (help in understanding various themes, manipulation of the students' way of thinking…).

- Fabienne Gaspari <fabienne.gaspari@univ-pau.fr>
- or Catherine Mari <catherine.mari@univ-pau.fr >.

(posted 3 Jul '09)

The "image drive" which, according to Philippe Hamon, emerged in the XIXth century, continues to prevail, or even thrive, in our current society where inventions, technology, business strategies, and communication campaigns emphasize diverse iconographic media. Literary texts appear as the mirror image of this development in that they often accord an essential position to the protean image. An interest in the study of the relationship between text and image -- intermedial theory, the cinematographic adaptation of certain texts, etc. -- is consequently validated.

This international conference organized by the CRILA research group will take place 19-20 March 2010 at the University of Angers, France, and will pursue the lines of reflection previously explored by the group on the theme of description in the short story in English. It will be specifically dedicated to the short story in English, and all presentations will be in English.

The following themes will be given a privileged position in the conference but are not restrictive, as researchers interested in the study of the relationship between the short story and the image may propose other avenues of reflection.

- What sorts of images are included in the frame of the short story? In a particular author's work, or in a specific story, is one of the elements in the triad of visual images (description and ekphrasis), verbal images (clichés and stereotypes), and reading images (stylistic and rhetorical tropes) given a dominant position?
- What are the objectives that inform  the inclusion of the iconic and "substitutes for the pictorial" (L. Louvel) in the body of the story?
- Does an aesthetics of flatness, suggested by the image, conflict with the concept of textual depth or, on the contrary,  does it serve the text's overall design? Is there a relationship of dangerous competition or of advantageous complementarity between the story and the image?
- What effects does the image have on the reader of short stories? What does the reader see when he/she reads? Would it be possible to speak of photographic or cinematographic effects?
- Does the brevity of the short story form, as compared to the novel, allow for special effects, framing, decentering, or other instances of experimentation that might constitute signs of the genre's particular strengths or workmanship?

A selection of articles will be published in a special issue of The Journal of the Short Story in English, an international, peer review journal (paper version and available for consultation at Revues.org).

The English Department at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, is pleased to announce the second international meeting of the phoneticians of English. The aim of the event is to bring together researchers who investigate various aspects of English phonetics and English pronunciation both from the theoretical and pedagogical perspectives. Papers addressing comparative issues between English and another language are most welcome.
The official language of the conference is English. The keynote speakers are Emeritus Professor of Phonetics John Wells, University College London, UK, and Professor Tatjana Paunović, University of Niš, Serbia.
Each paper will be allotted 30 minutes (20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion). A selection of papers will be published after the conference.
An abstract of up to 300 words should contain the following information:
(1)    Title of the paper
(2)    Name of the author(s)
(3)    Affiliation of the author(s)
(4)    E-mail address
(5)    Postal address
(6)    Contact phone number
Submissions should be sent by e-mail (as Word attachments) to: <bimep.2010@gmail.com>.
For more information, email Dr. Biljana Cubrovic at: <biljana.cubrovic@gmail.com>.

(posted 6 September 2009, updated 21 January 2010)

The purpose of this conference is to bring attention to  Lawrence's specific use of language and foreign languages, even if at a theoretical level, he preferred to write about artistic "utterance," "effort at expression," or "voice" rather than language. He was working on his first novel when he declared: "I must flaw my English if I am to be anything but a stilted, starched parson. How can I be wilful and whimsical in good English?" (L I 51 13 May 1908). At the other end of his career, in his Nettles, he satirized those who censored him for his daring use of what he called an "honest and healthy English tongue: " Oh mince your words and mince them well/if you don't want to break the sweet English spell" ("My Native Land"). In prose as in poetry, he always tried "to break the stiff neck of habit" (Introduction to the American edition of New Poems).  Like many expatriate writers of that period, he peppered his various writings with foreign words, thus enriching his range of stylistic effects.

- Lawrence's idiosyncratic use of English (vocabulary, word combination, unusual syntax, compound adjectives or metaphors, stylistic problems, use of dialect, obscurities, incommunicability, untranslatability etc.)
-  Lawrence and the Words of Others (perception of other languages, inclusions of foreign words in his various works and function of these inclusions, range of vocabulary, clichés, contamination of  English or his English by other languages, reflection on or practice of translation, foreign languages and otherness, stereotypes  etc.)

Proposals for papers with short abstracts should be submitted by e-mail before November 15th 2009 to Ginette Roy: <roy@u-paris10.fr>.

(posted 18 Jul '09)

Website : http://www.ual.es/Congresos/George_Moore/
Organiser: María Elena Jaime de Pablos.
This conference invites 20-minute papers on George Moore and 'the discovery of human nature' from a wide range of perspectives. Although other topics may be considered, we welcome papers dealing with, but not being limited to, issues such as the following:

- Moore's representations of human nature
- The link between human nature and art according to Moore
- Soul and flesh / Good and evil in Moore's writings
- The split subject in Moore's stories
- Real vs. stereotypical characters in  Moore's works
- The woman question in  Moore's narrative
- Human development and human aging in Moore's texts
- Moore's 'philosophic immoralism'
- oore rebellion against Victorian tradition
- Authorial contrasts and similarities: Moore, human nature and its treatment by his contemporaries (e.g., Gissing, Bennett, Meredith, Flaubert, D'Annunzio, Egerton, Grand, Yeats, Tennyson, Swinburne, Christina Rossetti, Wilde, Stevenson, James, Conrad, Wells, Forster)

Abstracts for individual papers and round tables on the topic of the conference are welcome. They should be limited to 150-200 words. All non-plenary papers or presentations are strictly limited to a maximum of 20 minutes. Submissions must include name, institutional affiliation or independent scholar status, and contact information.
Deadline for submissions: 1 February 2010
 Please send electronic submissions (as attachments) to <mjaime@ual.es>.

(posted 9 Nov '09)

Plenary Speaker: Joan Beal, University of Sheffield, http://www.shef.ac.uk/english/staff/profiles/joanbeal.html
Our guest speaker, Prof. Joan Beal (University of Sheffield), is, inter alia, the author of English in Modern Times 1700-1945 (Arnold, 2004) and Language and Region (Routledge, 2006).
She was one of the co-investigators for the Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English http://www.ncl.ac.uk/necte and, in 2007, she co-edited with K.P. Corrigan and H.L. Moisl two volumes about corpora : /Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora: Vol. 1, Synchronic Databases/ and /Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora: Vol. 2, Diachronic Databases. (/Palgrave Macmillan)

In the last decades, numerous corpora have been developed in English incorporating sound files and different kinds of annotation. Spoken corpora are more recent, more time-consuming and possibly less standardised than text-based corpora. While the equivalent of the BNC for spoken corpora might still be in the making, interesting projects have been proposed or are being finalised. The theme 'corpora' is intended to allow for a wide variety of approaches and topics: papers may use any theoretical framework to study those aspects of English phonology which highlight the use of corpora and the aspects of corpora that question English phonology.

The conference theme should enable participants to re-examine the output of corpora, the phonetic-phonology interface, corpus annotations and their theoretical implications, as well as the advantages of authentic data.
Abstracts not directly related to the theme and posters will also be considered.
Working Languages: English and French.
Anonymous abstracts should be sent by 15 December 2009 to <jvince@univ-paris3.fr> (300 words maximum plus separate page giving personal details).

There will be a pre-conference workshop on March 25th on learner corpora. Studying non-native English using corpora raises interesting issues as to the transferability of the concept of interlanguage for the phonological competence of learners. We invite presentations of existing databases or projects under way addressing some of these issues :

- speech corpora or spoken corpora for learners?
- longitudinal studies and protocols
- database and querying interface
- annotation layers and tools
- POS tagging and "error" tagging
- interlanguage studies, performances and phonological competence

The workshop will consist of longer talks and discussions (30 min. + 30 min.). The workshop will also be videoconferenced through the (free) EVO system and thus talks from distant universities are welcome (Paris local time 10-18).

Anonymous abstracts for the pre-conference workshop should be sent to <nballier@free.fr> (300 words maximum plus separate page giving personal details). Technical details about the workshop will be explained here:

Contact person for the conference: Christiane Migette <chmigette@wanadoo.fr>
Contact person for the workshop : Nicolas Ballier <nballier@free.fr>
Organising committee: Viviane Arigne, Nicolas Ballier, Christiane Migette, François Poirier, Ellenor Shoemaker.
Selection Committee: Viviane Arigne, Nicolas Ballier, Alain Deschamps, Ruth Huart, Christiane Migette, Alain Nicaise, Jenny Vince

(posted 30 Oct '09)

Iconic images of the North, the relationship of North to South, and ethnographic models of "Northernness" often promote political and cultural paradigms from elsewhere. At best they reveal little about the North or Northerners; at worst they may be downright misleading. Ironically, Western culture has enshrined North as that direction in relation to which all others are defined, yet its topography eludes definition. North is not one but a number of Netherlands; and like all frontiers, the North is in its essence imaginative, its being magicked out of ice and snow, muskeg and tundra. Storytelling is its generative principle, the activity through which the North, and Northerners, call themselves into being. This year, the Fifth Annual UCN Conference invites presentations from disciplines that investigate the fictional North. Together, let us explore North in terms of the marvellous, the mysterious, the mythological, and the merely untrue. Abstracts, papers or stories are invited on any aspect of the following topics:
For more information contact the conference program co-chairs: