Current Postings

The postings below are all still active, and organized by deadline. Once the deadline has passed, they will be moved to the IABA Posting Archive, on the CBR Website

Time to register for IABA Asia-Pacific

The conference is online, from Tuesday, September 26 until Thursday, September 28

No registration fee, but you must be registered to attend.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-5th-iaba-asia-pacific-conference-tickets-705755302107?aff=oddtdtcreator

11(10%)

The 5th IABA Asia-Pacific Conference Eventbrite – IABA Asia-Pacific Steering Committee presents The 5th IABA Asia-Pacific Conference – Tuesday, 26 September 2023 | Thursday, 28 September 2023 – Find event and ticket information. www.eventbrite.com.au

——-

– on behalf of the IABA Asia-Pacific steering committee

http://iabaasiapacific.wordpress.com

19-23 August, 2024 | Oulu, Finland 4th World Congress of Environmental History

Deadline for Submissions: Sept. 18, 2023
CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A PANEL PANEL: Environmental biography as a methodological challenge

https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/wceh2024/p/13626?utm_source=conference&utm_medium=sendy&utm_campaign=wceh_cfp_share

David Hsiung (Juniata College) and Maarit Leskelä-Kärki (University of Turku), Convenors

Short Abstract:

This panel investigates the multidisciplinary field of environmental biography as a way to study the relationship between environment and humans from the perspectives of environmental humanities, history, and life writing studies. This panel investigates the multidisciplinary field of environmental biography, or like Jessica White (in “From the Miniature to the Momentous: Writing Lives through Ecobiography.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. Volume 35, 2020 – Issue 1: Life Writing in the Anthropocene. 2020) put it: ecobiographies. What is environmental or ecobiography? How do we understand environment, and the interaction between human and nature in biographical life-narratives? What sources can we use in writing biographies from environmental perspectives? The panel seeks for inspiring contributions discussing the possibilities and challenges of writing environmental biographies from different time periods and geographical areas. Biographical approach can concern an individual, but also couple and group biographies as well as prosopographies are possible perspectives. We encourage papers that discuss methodological and ethical challenges of doing biography from an environmental perspective particularly in the overlapping fields of environmental humanities, history, and life writing studies.

Maarit Leskelä-Kärki

Kulttuurihistorian yliopistonlehtori FT,

Kulttuurihistorian ja elämänkerronnan dosentti (Turun yliopisto ja Lapin yliopisto)

Kulttuurihistoria Arcanum,

Vatselankatu 220500 Turun yliopisto 050-5344 627 (gsm) Varajohtaja / SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory

Maarit Leskelä-Kärki

Senior Lecturer in Cultural History

PhD, Title of Docent Department of Cultural History Vice Director / SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory Arcanum,

FIN-20500 University of Turku +358 50 5344627

maarit.leskela@utu.fi

Vatselankatu 2

maarit.leskela@utu.fi

https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/wceh2024/p/13626

Life Narrative and the Digital: An Interdisciplinary Conference

Date: 27 September 2023, 09:00-18:30

Venue: Sitzungssaal, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna
Registration Deadline: 20 September 2023

Website:

https://digital-bio-2023.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/

This one-day conference explores the possibilities, uses, and challenges of digital methods and technologies for auto/biographical research and practice. We are particularly interested in the following questions:

In what ways can digital methods and technologies aid the study and analysis of biographical data?
How can the digital help us devise innovative pathways to the representation of historical individuals’ lives? (e.g. digital platforms)
To what extent do digital formats of life narration tie in with new trends in auto/biographical scholarship and practice? (e.g. metabiography, relational biography, persona studies, group biography, object biography, etc.)
How do we deal with uncertainty and the issue of data quality in the digital representation of biographical data?

The final programme for the event is available here:

https://digital-bio-2023.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/data/html/program.html

Registration for the conference is free of charge and open until 20 September:

https://pretix.eu/digitalbio/

Please note that this is a hybrid event and that you should indicate your preference for either in-person or online participation.

For more information, please consult our conference website, or contact us at amp@oeaw.ac.at.

ELN ELN

Personhood, Spirit, and the Afterlife

English Language Notes, Special Issue 62.2 (October 2024)

Abstracts due: Sept. 1, 2023; Full length Sept. 21, 2023

SCOPE:

English Language Notes invites submissions for a special issue that will explore the dynamic nature of personhood as it relates to various notions of spirit and the afterlife. This interdisciplinary issue seeks to encourage discussions on empirical functionalism and ontological personalism of a person’s individuation, and the textural and palpable expressions of individuality. The editors are interested in how the construction of personhood considers the interaction of the material and immaterial, and how it is informed by the realm outside of the material in its ability to describe itself.

The issue aims to examine posthumous legacies through acts of archival and rhetorical deconstruction in all ways it may reverberate in society, culture, counter-culture, economics, politics, spirituality, and more. The editors also consider how the individual is shaped by cultural nostalgia, religious mythos, competing secular belief systems, and occult practices.

As scholars of rhetoric, the editors are interested in how language plays a part in developing the intersectional contexts of race, class, gender, and citizenship around spiritual, moral, and ethical foundations as it relates to the construction of personhood in spirit and body. This issue seeks to publish a wide variety of perspectives from various points of critical inquiry including scholarly and creative work / practice that expands our notions of the academic West. The issue also aims to explore the construction of personhood as both cultural precept and narrative surveillance in popular culture, media, film, art, and global literatures. We welcome contributions that discuss how artistic practice mirrors spiritual practice in the formation of personhood in times of cultural upheaval, and how personhood functions as civic, historical, and cultural afterlife.

TOPICS OF INTEREST:

We invite scholarly and creative contributions from writers in all fields who engage the subject of personhood as a transdisciplinary trope through which we may consider questions such as:

How does the individual access the spiritual or immaterial realm for personal or creative development?
How does the concept of Afterlife shift in relation to the contemporary political, social, cultural, and private constructs? How do the prevailing concepts of Afterlife shape the individual?
How does the immaterial or spiritual inform medical or bodily care practices, and how do scientific and medical studies interact with the spiritual in generative ways?
How does the construction of personhood function as both cultural precept and narrative surveillance in popular culture, media, film, art, and global literatures? In what ways does artistic practice mirror spiritual practice in the formation of personhood in times of cultural upheaval? How does personhood function as civic, historical, and cultural afterlife.
In what capacity can humanist discourse accommodate notions of pre-life personhood and identity as antecedent to the body despite naturalist and cognitive definitions of personhood which privilege consciousness and cognition?
How might digital personhood, biotechnology, and the expansion of nonhuman and posthuman agency reshape both spiritual and secular understandings of longevity and afterlife?

SUBMISSION:

Submissions may include essays, scholarly-adjacent critical essays, lyric essays, poetry, and genre-fluid texts that take an innovative approach to developing the creative artifacts. Interested authors should feel free to contact the guest editors: Ruth Ellen Kocher at ruthellen.kocher@colorado.edu and KP Kaszubowski at kpkaszu@gmail.com.

Potential contributors may submit abstracts by September 1, 2023 or submit a completed article, essay, or creative piece by September 21, 2023. While the editors invite standard-length, single-author academic articles, we are open to other methods of critical inquiry and creative expression related to the issue’s theme: position papers, clusters, roundtable discussions, interviews, dialogues, and so on.

Essays will undergo peer review. All submissions should adhere to Chicago-style citations, notes and bibliography system. Work should be uploaded to our submission portal here: https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/dup-eln

IMPORTANT DATES:

Submission Deadline: September 21, 2023

Notification: November 30, 2023

Publication Date: October 2024

___________________________________

About English Language Notes: A respected forum of criticism and scholarship in literary and cultural studies since 1962, English Language Notes (ELN) is dedicated to pushing the edge of scholarship in literature and related fields in new directions. Broadening its reach geographically and trans-historically, ELN opens new lines of inquiry and widens emerging fields. Each ELN issue advances topics of current scholarly concern, providing theoretical speculation as well as interdisciplinary recalibrations through practical usage. Offering semiannual, topically themed issues, ELN also includes “Of Note,” an ongoing section featuring related topics, review essays or roundtables of cutting-edge scholarship, and emergent concerns. ELN is a wide-ranging journal that combines theoretical rigor with innovative interdisciplinary collaboration.

Contact Information

Ruth Ellen Kocher (ruthellen.kocher@colorado.edu), KP Kaszubowski (kpkaszu@gmail.com), Guest Editors

Contact Email

eln@colorado.edu

URL: https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/dup-eln

Introducing Southeast Asian Lives and Histories at UC Berkeley

Deadline for Submissions, September 15, 2023

We invite applications for the first year of the annual UC Berkeley CSEAS Southeast Asian Lives and Histories small grants program. Applicants must be enrolled at or affiliated with UCB, other UCs, CSUs, or institutions located in Southeast Asia. Should you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email cseas@berkeley.edu(link sends e-mail).

For applicants from UC Berkeley, other UCs, and CSUs—

The UC Berkeley Center for Southeast Asia Studies is seeking participation in our Southeast Asian Lives (SEALIVES) small grants program from students and faculty with long-term and emergent research and community engagements with Southeast Asians in California or abroad. We are interested in supporting and training students and faculty in multiple approaches to life and oral history collection that include long format, annotated interviews, genealogical or other multi-generational approaches, film, and photography. We aim to support life history research on Southeast Asians of diverse class, educational, occupational, sex/gender, racial/ethnic, linguistic, and regional backgrounds. Small grants of $3,500.00 will fund all components of an interview project with one or two individuals in Southeast Asia or California.

Please submit a completed application form (downloadable here(PDF file)) and the following supporting materials packaged as a single PDF:

A proposal of no more than 600 words that includes:
1. a summary of your research project and how your proposed interview(s) fit within its scope;
2. the site where you will conduct your interviews and the expected language(s) to be used in the interviews;
3. your reasons for selecting these potential interviewees; and
4. the medium of the interviews (film, text, audio, multimodal).

2. A 1-page, detailed budget and justification (travel, accommodations, stipend for interviewee(s), translation and transcription (if needed), etc.).

We highly encourage applications from graduate students and early career researchers, as well as scholars from non-area studies disciplines and inter-disciplinary programs for whom a country or region of Southeast Asia or a diaspora community in California is part of their research. Send applications to cseas@berkeley.edu(link sends e-mail) by Sep 15, 2023 with the subject line “SEALIVES Proposal 2023-2024_California.” Decisions will be made by mid-October 2023 and funds will be disbursed by summer 2024. Recipients of this grant will be required to participate in a fully-funded, in-person, two-day training workshop held in early 2024 with other grant recipients. They will also join a colloquium for sharing about their experiences in Fall 2024.

For applicants affiliated with institutions in Southeast Asia—

The UC Berkeley Center for Southeast Asia Studies is seeking participation in our Southeast Asian Lives (SEALIVES) small grants program from students and faculty with long-term and emergent research and community engagements with Southeast Asians living in various parts of the world. We are interested in supporting and training students and faculty in multiple approaches to life and oral history collection that include long format, annotated interviews, genealogical or other multi-generational approaches, film, and photography. We aim to support life history research on Southeast Asians of diverse class, educational, occupational, sex/gender, racial/ethnic, linguistic, and regional backgrounds. Small grants of $3,000.00 will fund all components of an interview project with one or two individuals in Southeast Asia undertaken by individuals affiliated with institutions in Southeast Asia (Luce guidelines delineate Southeast Asia as Brunei, Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam).

Please submit a completed application form (downloadable here(PDF file)) and the following supporting materials packaged as a single PDF:

A proposal of no more than 600 words that includes:
1. a summary of your research project and how your proposed interview(s) fit within its scope;
2. the site where you will conduct your interviews and the expected language(s) to be used in the interviews;
3. your reasons for selecting these potential interviewees; and
4. the medium of the interviews (film, text, audio, multimodal).

2. A 1-page, detailed budget and justification (travel, accommodations, stipend for interviewee(s), translation and transcription (if needed), etc.). Please use your local currency and convert amounts to USD using OANDA(link is external). Include both currencies in your budget.

We highly encourage applications from graduate students and early career researchers, as well as scholars from non-area studies disciplines and inter-disciplinary programs for whom a country or region of Southeast Asia or a diaspora community in California is part of their research. Send applications to cseas@berkeley.edu(link sends e-mail) by Sep 15, 2023 with the subject line “SEALIVES Proposal 2023-2024_Southeast Asia.” Decisions will be made by mid-October 2023 and funds will be disbursed by summer 2024. Recipients of this grant will be invited to virtually participate in a two-day training workshop held in early 2024 with other grant recipients. They will also virtually join a colloquium for sharing about their experiences in Fall 2024.

For undergraduate applicants from UCB—

The UC Berkeley Center for Southeast Asia Studies is seeking participation in our Southeast Asian Lives (SEALIVES) small grants program from UC Berkeley undergraduate students with research interests in life histories of Southeast Asians in California. We are interested in supporting and training students in multiple approaches to life and oral history collection that include long format, annotated interviews, genealogical or other multi-generational approaches, film, and photography. We aim to support life history research on Southeast Asians of diverse class, educational, occupational, sex/gender, racial/ethnic, linguistic, and regional backgrounds. Small grants of $1,500.00 will fund all components of an interview project with one individual in California.

Please submit a completed application form (downloadable here(PDF file)) and the following supporting materials packaged as a single PDF:

A proposal of no more than 600 words that includes:
1. a summary of your research project and how your proposed interview(s) fit within its scope;
2. the site where you will conduct your interviews and the expected language(s) to be used in the interviews;
3. your reasons for selecting these potential interviewees; and
4. the medium of the interviews (film, text, audio, multimodal).

2. A 1-page, detailed budget and justification (travel, accommodations, stipend for interviewee(s), translation and transcription (if needed), etc.).

Send applications to cseas@berkeley.edu(link sends e-mail) by Sep 15, 2023 with the subject line “SEALIVES Proposal 2023-2024_Undergraduate.” Decisions will be made by mid-October 2023 and funds will be disbursed by summer 2024. Recipients of this grant will be required to participate in a fully funded, in-person, two-day training workshop held in early 2024 with other grant recipients. They will also join a colloquium for sharing about their experiences in Fall 2024.

Contact Information

UC Berkeley Center for Southeast Asia Studies (CSEAS)

Contact Email

cseas@berkeley.edu

https://ieas.berkeley.edu/centers/center-southeast-asia-studies-cseas/southeast…

Memory, Melancholy and Nostalgia – 8th International Interdisciplinary Conference

7-8 December 2023

-in person (Gdansk, Poland)

– online (via Zoom)

Deadline for Submissions

onsite presenters – 25 September 2023
online presenters – 15 October 2023

CALL FOR PAPERS:

In our modern world, which some have argued to be disjointed while immersing itself ever deeper in crisis, the turning back towards “the olden days” and the ensuing nostalgia constitute a noticeable phenomenon, both individually (the memory of biography) and collectively (the memory of History). Another important – and seemingly also quite noticeable – phenomenon is the longing for something vague, indefinite or never existent.
Hence, during our interdisciplinary conference we would like to concentrate on the phenomena of nostalgia and melancholy. We are interested in all expressions of longing for the past, from the reassuring and action-propelling ones to those which paralyze us, bringing despair and utter dejection.
We want to describe the experience of nostalgia and melancholy in its multifarious manifestations: psychological, social, historical, cultural, philosophical, religious, economic, political, artistic, and many others. We will also devote considerable attention to how these phenomena appear and transform in artistic practices: literature, film, theatre, and visual arts. This is why we invite researchers representing various academic disciplines: anthropology, history, psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, politics, philosophy, economics, law, literary studies, theatre studies, film studies, memory studies, nostalgia studies, migration studies, consciousness studies, dream studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, medical sciences, psychiatry, cognitive sciences, design, project management and others.
Different forms of presentations are encouraged, including case studies, theoretical investigations, problem-oriented arguments, and comparative analyses.
We will be happy to hear from both experienced scholars and young academics at the beginning of their careers, as well as students. We also invite all persons interested in participating in the conference as listeners, without giving a presentation.
We hope that due to its interdisciplinary nature, the conference will bring many interesting observations on and discussions about the role of memory, melancholy and nostalgia in the past and in the present-day world.

Our repertoire of suggested topics includes but is not restricted to:

I. Memory and Affects
– unwanted memory
– nostalgia or melancholy?
– non-melancholic nostalgia
– nostalgia and longing
– the healing power of nostalgia
– nostalgia as an illness
– nostalgia and depression
– nostalgia and psychoanalysis

II. Common Experiences
– nostalgic epochs
– nostalgic nations
– nostalgic generations
– nostalgia and the myth of eternal return
– nostalgia, melancholy and totalitarianisms
– nostalgia and war
– nostalgia and melancholy of the expelled
– nostalgic patriotism
– nostalgia and nationalism
– nostalgia and gender
– nostalgia and religion
– nostalgia and language
– nostalgia and melancholy in the postmodern world
– nostalgia and post-memory

III. Individual Experiences
– return to childhood
– nostalgia for something indefinite
– nostalgia for the future
– nostalgia for a traumatic experience
– nostalgia, melancholy and old age
– nostalgia, melancholy and death
– nostalgia, melancholy and mourning
– nostalgia, melancholy and love
– nostalgia, melancholy and imagination
– nostalgic phantasms
– nostalgic dreams

IV. The Arts
– nostalgia and melancholy as a theme in literature, film, and theatre
– nostalgic literature
– nostalgic cinema
– literature and the arts as a vehicle of memory
– literature, theatre and film in search of lost time
– nostalgic literary genres
– melancholic artists

V. Society
– nostalgia and political movements
– nostalgia, melancholy and memory places
– nostalgia, melancholy and memorials
– nostalgia, melancholy and incentives
– nostalgia, melancholy and community development
– nostalgia, melancholy and migration
– nostalgia, melancholy and meaning-making
– nostalgia, melancholy and drive to change- nostalgia and travelling
– nostalgia and food
– nostalgia and climate changing

Scientific Committee:
Professor Wojciech Owczarski – University of Gdańsk, Poland
Professor Polina Golovátina-Mora – NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Please submit abstracts (no longer than 300 words) of your proposed 20-minute presentations, together with a short biographical note to: conferencenostalgia@gmail.com

Contact Information

Conference Office

Contact Email

conferencenostalgia@gmail.com

http://www.inmindsupport.com/nostalgia-conference

Archives in Transit: From Personal Life Histories to Public Experiences as Academics

Northeast Modern Language Association

March 7-10, 2024 Boston USA

Submission Deadline: September 30, 2023, at: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20713

Abstract

While life in the academy often precludes acknowledging one’s own personal and familial life histories and experiences, generative and embodied scholarship in the humanities requires a thorough reckoning with our positionality and intersectionality. In this creative session, participants traverse from the personal to the professional by paying homage to the roots that lead to routes.

This creative session invites all participants to express aspects of their personal identities that factor into both professional academic work and personal experiences of life in the academy. As a creative session, genre and modality are flexible. Genres can range anywhere from poetry to (non-)fiction as well as dance. Presentational modalities can include, but are not limited to, the gestural, spoken, written, visual, and audial.

After panelists have performed, drawn, presented and/or read their work, there will be a collaborative discussion followed by an interactive discussion between attendees and performers. If there is ample time, an engaging discussion regarding the connections between the personal and the professional will conclude the session. We will end by jointly considering how our personal life experiences augment our abilities as instructors, writers, scholars, and life-long learners.

Description

The creative session will consist of 3-6 presenters who will perform, present, or draw aspects of their personal identities that factor into both professional academic work and personal experiences of life in the academy. Genre and modality are flexible.

Additional Information

For questions or concerns, please contact the session organizer at: andrea.dawn.bryant@gmail.com

Ecologies of Exile: Exploring Literature Penned by Persecuted Writers during the Holocaust

Northeast Modern Language Association

March 7-10, 2024 Boston USA

Submission Deadline: September 30, 2023, at: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20750

Abstract

This seminar concerns the powerful and poignant canon of exile literature and focuses on works penned by authors who were forced to flee Nazi Germany. Working together, we will consider the diverse range of voices, themes, and artistic expressions that emerged from these exiled authors and artists. We will embark on a literary journey as we traverse across lines of identity to analyze works of memoir, fiction, essays, and poetry cultivated by individuals who sought safety transnationally. We will explore the interrelations between exile, stylistic and thematic choices, and conceptions of identity, belonging, and resistance.

Some areas of consideration are to include, but are not limited by, the following:

· The relationship between loss, displacement, and artistic imagination

· Sentiments of belonging, longing for home, and cultural identity

· Writing as resisting totalitarianism, persecution, and the Holocaust

· The transformative power of narrating survival and resilience

· Connections between emotional experiences and literary form

This seminar explores identity in exile and the powerful role literature plays as an act of resistance against oppression. We invite participants to engage with a diverse array of voices and perspectives from authors who underwent displacement and persecution, thus nurturing a deeper understanding of literary contributions as they are located within the broader socio-political context of their respective situations. We additionally seek to encounter how literary expression, survival, and displacement allow a deeper understanding regarding how their contributions to a literary landscape prove to be a remaining act of resistance and fortitude.

The seminar seeks to nurture the opportunity for participants to encounter the multilayered, transnational, and multilingual legacy penned by exiled writers fleeing Nazi Germany. Working together, we will honor the voices, perspectives, experiences, and work of our chosen authors and consider how their works continually contribute to understanding how human experience shapes persecution and the search for belonging.

Description

This seminar will consider the diverse range of voices, themes, and artistic expressions that emerged from exiled authors and artists during and following the Holocaust.

Additional Information

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the session organizer at: andrea.dawn.bryant@gmail.com

Contact Information

Andrea Dawn Bryant

Contact Email

andrea.dawn.bryant@gmail.com

URL

https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20750

Avatars, Heteronyms, Phantoms: Life Writing, Literary Masks, and the Dispersion of the Self

American Comparative Literature Association Meeting

March 14-17, 2024

Montreal, Canada

Deadline for Submissions: September 30, 2023

As the age of online avatars as a source of anonymity is superseded by the obverse phenomenon (instead of real persons under fictitious names, algorithms using real names are increasingly part of our horizon of anxiety and expectation), it is time to look back on the complex transactions between literary avatars and life-writing. In the chapter “Playing for Real” from her book Derivative Lives (2022), Virginia Rademacher has noted the “progressive loss of the real to the simulated”, but also, as its correlative, the “dispersion of authority through the intervention of other players” (136). In this way, a biofictional or autofictional game in which the author thinks they hold behind-the-scenes control over the thresholds between imagination and the real ends up hijacked by the democratized rights of anyone’s claims to intercede in this hybrid invention.

This seminar invites papers exploring the genealogy of contemporary writers’ literary avatars and/ or contextualizing these social media ephemerides as part of a broader literary tradition. If we think of Cervantes’s famous conceit of “Don Quixote” as a translation of Cide Hamete Benengeli’s writings, auctorial alter-egos can be said to be coextensive with the history of modern literature. They first start springing from the page as the made-up authors of eighteenth-century pseudo-translations (Vanacker 2018), a tradition which culminated in the nineteenth century (Toremans 2017). With the advent of periodicals, a new stage opens for invented names, often with personalities attached. From the plethora of “pseudo-persons” in Blackwoods’ Magazine in the 1820s (Esterhammer 2020, 38) to Coleridge’s alter-egos (Knox 2010, 425) or John Clare’s “Don Juan”, playing nearly tongue-in-cheek with his known delusion of being Lord Byron, the Romantics did not lack their avatars. Only Modernist authors seemed to outdo them, (re)inventing hybrid life-writing forms from “autobiografiction” (Saunders 2010) to heteronymy. Fernando Pessoa, creator of over seventy alternative selves, seems to hold a record for literary deception, but only if we do not count Romain Gary, the Lithuanian-born “French Ambassador to Hollywood”, multilingual writer, and pseudo-translator of his own “Promise at Dawn”, who pulled the impossible feat of winning the Goncourt Prize twice (under different names).

In most of these cases, the “false” selves have deep auto/biographical roots, thus complicating common assumptions in biofiction and autofiction scholarship about the importance of onomastic identity between the protagonist and a historical figure.

In exploring the avatar as a reincarnation of the heteronym, but also as a phantomatic return of auctorial anxieties about authenticity and the real, this seminar proposes to look at the dispersion of the self into a kaleidoscope of names and personas through the lens of life-writing.

Laura Cernat, Todd Avery, and I will be co-chairing the sessions. We are interested in the literary precursors of contemporary biographical masks, avatars, and pseudonyms. We welcome proposals pertaining to a variety of cultures and historical periods and exploring the phenomenon of writing under another name or forging an entire fictive identity, in the form of made-up editors or columnists, made-up authors of pseudotranslations, or other literary conceits meant to disturb the univocal relationship between author and written work.

Organizer: Laura Cernat

Co-Organizer: Virginia Rademacher

Contact the Seminar Organizers

Virginia Newhall Rademacher, PhD
Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies
Chair, Arts and Humanities Division
Babson College
Babson Park, MA 02457
vrademacher@babson.edu
WebEx personal room: https://babson.webex.com/meet/vrademacher
Author Page: Derivative Lives (Bloomsbury, 2022)

CFP–Graphic Biographical Fiction (9/31/2023) Edited Collection

Deadline for Submissions: September 30, 2023

Hello everyone,

I am happy to announce that my colleague Maria Juko and I are co-editing a volume of essays on graphic biographical fiction that explores the connections and tensions between comic studies and biofiction studies. I hope some of you will consider contributing to our volume.

Here’s the call for papers!

Nancy Pedri

Graphic Biographical Fiction

Scholars have only recently turned a critical eye towards the fictionalization of real people despite biofiction’s popularity on the literary market since the 1980s. Unlike autobiographies or biographies, rather than a truthful account of the person’s life story, biofiction centres on a creative interpretation of a real person’s life in which they become a character.

Following David Lodge, who emphasized that the biographical novel “takes a real person and their real history as the subject matter for imaginative exploration” (8), Michael Lackey emphasizes that “the biographical novel is, first and foremost, fiction” (5). Further refining his definition of this literary form, Lackey explains how “the author of biofiction fictionalizes a historical person’s life in order to project into existence his or her own vision of life and the world” (Biofiction 13).

Despite its growing popularity in life writing studies (Lackey, Latham, Layne), there has been a lack of research in graphic narratives that dramatize the lives of real people across words and images. In this issue, we take our cue from Paul Franssen and Ton Hoenselaars, who wished to “locate this genre in the field of literary production” (18), to locate it in the field of comics studies. As such, this special issue seeks to fill an important gap in exploring the tensions and productive relationships between biofiction and the graphic medium. Graphic biographical fiction asks us to reflect on several questions about storytelling, reading, and consumption and marketing patterns.

These include, but are not limited to:

– What is the relationship between graphic biographical fiction from graphic biography, historical fiction, or portraiture?
– How does graphic biographical fiction impact our understanding of biographical fiction?
– How does graphic biographical fiction address identity or the fact/fiction divide?
– What questions about authorship does graphic biographical fiction raise?
– What implications for character does graphic biographical fiction’s fictionalized treatment of a real person have?
– How do graphic biographical fictions navigate the dangers of imposture, falsification, or sensationalism?
– How does the visual aspect of graphic biographical fiction contribute to the dramatization of a real person and a real life?
– To what extend are readers encouraged to merge the real life person with their work/ creative output?
– What real life people are represented in graphic biographic fiction, and what makes them a suitable choice for authors?
– Why do graphic biographical novels from European countries often focus on British or American subjects?
– How is this genre promoted and why?
– What readership does this genre attract and why?

Please send an abstract (200-300 words) and a short biography (100 words) to both editors, Maria Juko (mariajuko@gmail.com) and Nancy Pedri (npedri@mun.ca)

Deadline: 31 September 2023

Works Cited

Franssen, P and Hoenselaars T. 1999. “Introduction: The Author as Character. Defining a Genre.” In Granssen, P and Hoenselaars, T. editors. The Author as Character Representing History Writers in Western Literature. Fairleigh Dickinson UP, pp. 11-38.
Glaser, Brigitte Johanna. ‘Mediating Postcolonial Issues through Graphic Biofiction: Comics as a New Frontier in the Study of Literatures in English’. In: Michael Keneally, Rhona Richman Keneally, Wolfgang Zach (Hrsg.). editors. Literatures in English: New Frontiers of Research, Tübingen 2014.
Lackey, Michael. “Locating and Defining the Bio in Biofiction!. a/b: Auto/ Biography Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, 2016. pp. 3-10.
———, Biofiction. An Introduction. Routledge, 2022.
Latham, Monica. 2012. “Serv[Ing] Under Two Masters!. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, vol. 27, no. 2, 2012. pp. 354-373.
Layne, Bethany, editor. Biofiction and Writers! Afterlives. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
Lodge, David. The Year of Henry James: The Story of a Novel: With other Essays on the Genesis, Composition, and Reception of Literary Fiction. Penguin, 2007.

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Nancy Pedri, Professor & Head
English, Memorial University of Newfoundland
https://www.mun.ca/faculty/npedri/

Memorial University’s campuses are situated in the traditional territories of diverse Indigenous groups. We acknowledge with respect the diverse histories and cultures of the Beothuk, Mi’kmaq, Innu, and Inuit.

Touring Travel Writing III: Between Fact and Fiction International Conference

Date: November 9-10 2023

Venue: NOVA FCSH, Colégio Almada Negreiros (Campus de Campolide)

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2023

touringtravelwriting@gmail.com

CETAPS (Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, Universidade Nova, Lisbon) and CELIS (Centre de Recherches sur les Littératures et la Sociopoétique, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand) once again join efforts and organise this international conference which aims to be a locus of debate on the many facets of travel writing, a research area that has emerged as a relevant topic of study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in the last few decades.

Papers on the following topics are welcome:

Anglophone travel writing on the Portuguese-speaking world

Lusophone travel writing on the Anglophone World

Travelling to write

Travel writing, the novel, poetry and drama

Travel writing as report

Travel and visual culture

Travel writing, Humanities and the Social Sciences

Travel writing, gender and power

Travel writing, (post)colonial discourse and decoloniality

Travel writing and (forced) migration

Travel writing, imagined communities and imagology

Travel writing and tourist culture

Travel writing and (in)tangible heritage

Travel writing and exploration

Travelling as gentrification

Travel writing, censorship and surveillance

Travel writing and (auto)biography

Travel writing and Otherness

Travel writing, politics and ideology

Travel writing and ethics

Travel writing, mobility and conviviality

Maps as travel narratives

Travel, Fantasy, Children’s Literature and Young Adult Fiction

Sound/Food/Smell/Touch/Visual/Ecoscapes in Travel Writing

Travel writing in/as translation

Utopian and dystopian travel narratives

Science and travel writing

History of Travel Writing

Travel writing: theory and criticism

Intertextuality in travel writing

The rhetorics of travel writing

Teaching Travel Writing

Travel Writing and ‘World Literature’

Keynote speakers:

Carl Thompson (University of Surrey, UK)

Catherine Morgan-Proux (Univ. Clermont-Auvergne, France)

Susan Pickford (Univ. de Genève, Switzerland)

Papers and pre-organized panels:

The conference languages are English and Portuguese. Speakers should prepare for a 20-minute presentation. Please send a 300-word abstract, as well as a short biographical note (100 words), by September 30th, to:

touringtravelwriting@gmail.com

Proposals for papers and pre-organized panels (in this case, please also include a brief description of the panel) should include full title of the paper, name, institutional affiliation, contact details, a short bionote and AV requirements (if any).

Notification of abstract acceptance or rejection will take place by October 5, 2023.

Registration fees:

• Full fee: 80 Euros

• Students: 40 Euros (ID required)

Payment must be made until October 20, 2023. After this date proposals will no longer be considered.

For further queries please contact:

cetaps@fcsh.unl.pt

touringtravelwriting@gmail.com

mzc@fcsh.unl.pt

Delegates are responsible for their own travel arrangements and accommodation. The conference website will soon provide useful information.

Payment:

Payment by bank transfer:

Payment by Pay Pal

Reference: CETAPS CONGRESSOS – 610245

BIC: TOTAPTPL

IBAN: PT50 0018 000321419114020 13

Tax identification number: 501559094

This is additional data your bank may require:

Account Owner: FCSHUNL – Research Units

Bank: BANCO SANTANDER TOTTA S.A.

For PayPal payments, use the email: dgfc@fcsh.unl.pt

Identify your payment referring to:

CETAPS 610245 International Conference (Touring Travel Writing III).

Please add PayPal international taxes:

PT + EURO zone: 3,4% + 0,35€

Rest of the World: 4,90% + 0,35€

Full Fee: 83,07 € (PT & EURO zone)

83,92 € (Rest of the World)

Student Fee: 41,71 € (PT & EURO zone)

42,31 € (Rest of the World)

Please send a copy of your confirmed payment to: cetaps@fcsh.unl.pt

Event website:

http://www.touringtravelwriting.wordpress.com

9(14.1%)

Organized by the Anglo-Portuguese Studies research area.

Organizing Committee:

Maria Zulmira Castanheira

Rogério Miguel Puga

Gabriela Gândara Terenas

Miguel Alarcão

João Paulo Pereira da Silva

Isabel Oliveira

Maria da Conceição Castel-Branco

Marco Neves

Administrative support:

Cristina Carinhas: cetaps@fcsh.unl.pt

Mariana Gonçalves: cetapsgestao@fcsh.unl.pt

A Light in the Fog: Creative Writing about Adoption

Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, March 7-10, 2024, Boston, USA

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2023

Poets and Writers: consider submitting for a panel at the Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, March 7-10, 2024, in Boston. Panelists will read original work focused on some aspect of adoption and participate in a discussion. To submit an abstract, go to https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20738 or the NeMLA website and look for panel 20738. Submission deadline is September 30.

Panel Description: A recent article in The New Yorker discusses the “emotional aftermath” America’s 7 million adoptees face. The article uses the term “coming out of the fog” to describe an adoptee’s realization, sometimes triggered by an event in adulthood, about their situation and how it influences many aspects of their lives, especially personality and interactions with others. Adoptions were once secretive affairs, often with a birth mother signing away parental rights, and infants and children housed in institutions run by religious charities or the state until claimed by a couple. Contemporary adoption has many faces: open adoption, foster to adoption, transracial and international adoptions. Of course, further complicating the landscape, inexpensive DNA testing makes it possible for adoptees to locate biological families, with a variety of results. This panel asks poets and prose writers, especially adoptees, to share their work on adoption as a way of reflecting on and discussing this complex topic.

Jerry Wemple

contact email: jwemple@commonwealthu.edu

Women in French 11th International Colloquium “Precarious Lives/Vies Précaires”

March 28-30, 2024,
The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa,

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2023

contact email:

gmstamm@ua.edu

The COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine threatening not only Europe but also shedding new light on other ongoing conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, series of climate change-related natural disasters, and attendant economic strain have thrown into relief what many of us were already aware of: the precarity of our own lives and that of those around us, human and nonhuman. However, as in most cases, that precarity is exacerbated by a number of systemic factors that impact us differently based on our position and identity. Women disproportionately left the workforce during the pandemic and many of the reasons driving this exodus were out of their control. Economic strain has been hardest on women of color; women, children, and minority genders make up the majority of refugees, including climate refugees. Despite being the “grande cause du quinquennat” during the first Macron term (and now renewed for the second), feminicide and domestic violence more widely continue to plague France, mirroring what has been happening in the rest of the world. For Women in French 2024 we invite you to consider the ways in which the precarity of women’s lives throughout history has been depicted in French and Francophone literature and culture. What are the factors that exacerbate that precarity? What or who else is vulnerable to these circumstances? In what ways has resilience emerged in response to these pressures? We welcome proposals of individual papers and entire panels on topics related to the overarching theme “Precarious Lives.”

The conference will take place in Tuscaloosa, AL at The University of Alabama March 28-30, 2024.

While the organizers envision a largely in-person event, accommodations will be made for a limited amount of colleagues who need to participate remotely.

Possible topics may include but are not limited to :

Migration, immigration, asylum
War and genocide
Environment and ecology
Sexual and domestic violence
Class and economic dependency/independence
Race, sexual orientation, other intersectional identities
Charge mentale
Vulnerability studies
Illness and disability studies
Memory studies
Women and mythology
Exile
Women in second-class citizen status
Natural disasters and survival
Precarity and science fiction
Women and precarious democracies
Women and world order
Early emancipation movements
Transatlantic studies
Women and revolution

Participants may present in English or in French. Please send a 250-300 word abstract and short bio to wif2024@ua.edu by September 30, 2023. Participants will be notified of acceptance by October 31, 2023. Panel proposals should include a short (about 100 word) proposal for each paper and a description of the unifying idea of the panel of the same length, as well as a brief bio of each participant.

—

One Book, One WiF

In partnership with our colleagues in WiF UK-Ireland, WIF North America is furthering the ‘One Book, One WiF’ project that began in 2017. The aim of this initiative is to help promote critical interest in less known French and Francophone women writers and thus to increase the readership of their corpus. The author for the 2024 conference is Meryem Alaoui and the text is La Vérité sort de la bouche du cheval (2018). Proposals for papers or a panel on this book or the author in general are welcomed.

Abundant Silence: Narrative and Artistic Strategies of Resistance (Seminar)

Northeast MLA Conference, March 7-10, 2024
Boston, USA
Deadline for Submissions—September 30, 2023

contact email:

kaminerv@utica.edu

This seminar builds on successful past seminars on the roles and limits of narrative in bearing witness to trauma and injustice. This year, we examine relationships between silence and abundance as artistic resistance strategies against colonial, racist, and exclusionary narratives.

Silence is often discussed as an absence, but silences in literature and art are also abundant with meaning. On one hand, silences can refuse appropriations of voice and hegemonic interpretive frameworks. On the other hand, they can create echoes that produce new interpretations or ways of reading trauma and injustice. In this way, silences can be sites of excess, abundance, and plenitude. They can connect readers, authors, characters, and people represented in texts; they can produce spaces for love and care, for innovative relationships and ethical commitments. With this in mind, we invite participants to consider some of the following questions:

What are the tensions between silence and abundance in literature and art? What can we, as readers or as scholars, learn from embracing these tensions rather than trying to resolve them?

When and how might we think of silences as being full? How can silences bring something other than narrative into being? How can silences draw our attention to absences? When and how do silences echo?

What stories are told by silences, absences, or things that don’t speak? In what ways are these artworks and literature more than products to be consumed? Do the ideas of surplus, abundance, and/or plenitude offer a framework for understanding the meanings of narrative silences?

In what ways can silence and abundance interweave to create spaces of care or resistance? In what ways can silences reflect and contribute to thriving?

Papers on all genres, media, and geographical contexts welcome. Please submit 200-word abstract and bio to the portal:

https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20397

The Rise of Autoliterature

Northeast MLA Conference, March 7-10, 2024
Boston, USA
Deadline for Submissions—September 30, 2023

contact email:

calliein@buffalo.edu

This panel will analyze autofiction and autotheory as contemporary literary genres still on the rise, with particular interest in putting the two in conversation with each other.

Autofiction and autotheory continue to grow in popularity as forms of contemporary life writing. Despite their differences, these two genres share a concern in representations of selfhood and subjective experience that explicitly engage and are shaped by other literary and philosophical texts. Moreover, by emphasizing the intertextuality of lived experience, they both challenge (1) the perceived conventionality of more established life writing genres, such as memoir, and (2) everyday assumptions of unmediated, individual self-expression.

This panel will analyze autofiction and autotheory as contemporary literary genres still on the rise, with particular interest in putting the two in conversation with each other. Papers may engage autofiction or autotheory, or the relationship between the two, as genres, market categories, or artistic practices; look closely at specific works of autofiction and/or autotheory; or explore other forms of what we might call “autoliterature.”

As the session title suggests, papers that historicize the emergence and development of autofiction and/or autotheory or that broadly analyze their ideological functions and features in a particular national or cultural context are especially welcome.

Abstracts are due Sep 30, 2023, and should be submitted through NeMLA’s submission portal (

https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20337

NeMLA 2024 will take place in person at Boston, MA on March 7-10, 2024. More information about the convention can be found on the NeMLA website

https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention.html

Please feel free to reach out with any questions to calliein@buffalo.edu.

Adapted Lives and Spectral Presences
Northeast MLA Conference, March 7-10, 2024
Boston, USA
Deadline for Submissions—September 30, 2023

https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20004229/adapted-lives-and-spectral-presences-nemla-2024

The theme of the NeMLA 2024 Conference in Boston, MA is “Surplus.” This panel focuses on adaptations in which historical subjects, especially writers, artists, and musicians, serve as “co-authors” of the adaptation itself, challenge the conventions of historical fiction and biopics. These adaptations inscribe or stage what is surplus in the archive, as historical personages articulate previously unspoken thoughts, concealed desires, or the keys that help subsequent generations understand their political, social, or creative endeavors. Elizabeth Freeman coined the term erotohistoriography to describe an “anti-systemic method” that does not so much seek to write the past into the present as to encounter the past already in the present by “treating the present itself as a hybrid.” In these encounters, dead bodies may come back to life as spectral or corporeal figures, activating alternate temporalities that disrupt hegemonic, regulatory time. Erotohistoriography effects a “counterhistory” informing later artistic productions, particularly when the resuscitated body is used to “effect, figure, or perform” cross-generational encounters, revealing how lived experiences of marginalized groups and individuals can be erased, rewritten, or reconfigured. Closely aligned with the concept of queer temporality, erotohistoriography forges cross-generational alliances that facilitate what Jill Dolan calls “utopian performatives.” This panel invites presentations on hybridizations of past and present in adaptations in which cross-generational encounters are a foundational element of their representational apparatuses, whether these encounters are manifest in the imaginations of the subjects or authors of historical fiction, or spectral and corporeal presences in adaptations intended for film and live performance.

Please submit abstracts of 250 words for consideration by September 30 through NeMLA’s submission portal at

https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/User/SubmitAbstract/20803

0(0%)

Contact Information
David Pellegrini, Eastern Connecticut State University
Contact Email
pellegrinid@easternct.edu

“You’ve Got Me in My Feelings”: Discomfort and Discourse of “Excessive” Emotions in Trauma Memoir

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2023

Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Conference 2024

Boston, MA

March 7-10, 2024

Trivialization of trauma is an increasing concern for scholars and clinicians alike, and Americans often culturally employ the language of trauma in hyperbolic or sarcastic ways, but does this humor or hyperbole also couch collective cultural unease with overwhelming emotions? In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk reminds us that “the essence of trauma is that it is overwhelming, unbelievable, and unbearable,” making bearing witness to it discomfiting and making witnesses acutely aware of their own mortality salience (197). In order to heal from traumatic experience, van der Kolk and van der Hart argue, “Traumatic memories are the unassimilated scraps of overwhelming experiences, which need to be integrated with existing mental schemes, and be transformed into narrative language,” concluding that it is necessary to “return to the memory often in order to complete it” (176). While what is traumatizing to one individual may not be for another, the vast majority of people will experience something that elicits particularly overwhelming, “negative” emotions, like grief, terror, or rage.

While society tends to embrace collective shows of emotion that are viewed as “positive,” narratives that are focused on a happy ending, or storytelling that is neatly packaged to encourage consumerism or crowdfunding, too often Americans devalue, denigrate, and avoid individual experience of overpowering emotions to our individual and collective detriment. In trauma memoir—memoir that narrates traumatic experience(s) of the author—the reading public functions as witness to these raw, private experiences of emotion, providing a necessary space for readers to learn to sit with the discomfort of intense, inconvenient emotions while also seeing how the memoirist copes and, most importantly, survives.

This accepted panel invites explorations and analyses of “excessive” or inconvenient emotions in trauma memoir. For general inquiries, please contact Danielle French, Kent State Universitydfrenc12@kent.edu. Finally, no remote presentations are permitted per NeMLA guidelines, so please be ready to present in Boston. For all general guidelines and 2024 NeMLA Conference information see: https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention.html.

Please submit your paper proposals to: https://cfplist.com/nemla/User/SubmitAbstract/20533.

Violences Big and Small: Personal Stories of Resilience and Revelation

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2023

Northeast MLA Conference (NeMLA 2024, Boston) March 7–10, 2024

contact email:

mejias@strose.edu

This creative panel will be dedicated to nonfiction stories of excess and loss, of fear and humiliation. Through personal accounts that unfold around moments of trauma—of violences big and small—we will explore the place of resilience and revelation amid a surplus of pain.

The panel draws inspiration from chronicles of normalized racial discrimination such as Marco Avilés’ No soy tu cholo (2018), as well as from works like Lo que no tiene nombre (2013), Piedad Bonnet’s book on how schizophrenia devastated her son, and Annie Ernaux’s brutally honest account of an illegal abortion in the autobiographical novel L’événement (2000). Similar impulses can be found in contemporary English language authors of memoirs and essays such as Tara Westover (Educated, 2018), Maggie O’Farrell (I am, I am, I am, 2018), and Emilie Pine (Notes to Self, 2019). “It is essential to write about things that hurt and isolate so that we feel less alone,” O’Farrell has said. In agreement with her statement, this panel’s organizing principle is that, by writing about our moments of greatest vulnerability, we may be able to create a space of authentic communion with other human beings.

Send 250-word proposals. They must include a short sample of the text that you’re proposing to read. Up to six personal stories written in Spanish will make up this panel. Given time limitations, the texts selected for reading should be between 900 and 1,000 words long.

Please use this link to send your proposal:

https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20746

Behind the Scenes: The Literary Documentary, Scene II

Northeast Modern Language Association Convention,
March 7-10, 2024–Boston USA

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2023

contact email:

kblombart@verizon.net

Literary documentaries have become a popular pedagogical tool in higher education. Abstracts are invited from literary, media/film, and legal studies’ professionals to share their experiences, expertise and perspectives on the processes and complexities in creating a literary documentary.

Literary documentaries in the past decade have become not only popular in higher education, but they are popular among the general public. These documentaries, an excellent medium for teaching poets and writers, offer audiences a culturally rich, fascinating aspect of a writer’s daily life (i.e., Creeley, Olson, Merwin, de Prima, Sendak, Percy; see 2014 AWP), revealing poignant, intimate scenes of his/her creative life.

However, what are the pitfalls of biographical misinterpretation in a brief, 60-minute glimpse into a writer’s life? Whom to interview for a “real” portrayal (friends, family, scholars)? How to “pitch” your doc to sell your film? What are the complexities to consider, for example the plan from idea to reality, funding, marketing? What are the legal considerations of copyright, contracts, insurance, distribution, royalties? Which documentaries are considered worthy entries in the national and international film festivals? 250-300 word abstracts.

CFP for Roundtable “Translation, Travel Writing, and Excess”

NorthEast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Annual Convention, March 7-10, 2024

Deadline for submissions: September 30, 2023

Chairs:

Sanjukta Banerjee (York University)

Elisa Leonzio (Università di Torino , Freie Universität Berlin)

The notion of “excess” in translation and travel (writing) brings to attention the plurality of the unfamiliar often put away as “lack”. It is also connected to critical awareness of and engagement with the polysemy of others leading to inquiries that can accommodate “thick description”, “thick translation”, and point to the ambiguity and ambivalence of both the translated and the translator. How does excess figure in representations constructed and circulated by travel and translation? How is it turned into “lack” and “omission”? What processes are involved in the determination of details as “junk” (Bender and Marrinan 2005) — archived yet excluded — but not necessarily as “garbage”? What kinds of deviations from received knowledge get left out in translation ? What are the ethical dimensions of these inquiries? And how can we engage productively with the notion of excess? This roundtable seeks to explore these and other relevant questions in translation and travel (writing) as co-constitutive and distinct practices. We want to draw particular attention to the significance of ambiguity as a vital resource for exploring the limits of representation constructed and facilitated by translation and travel. We invite perspectives, especially those relevant to the global south, from theoretical and creative works and from across disciplines, including, but not limited to, translation studies, travel writing studies, cultural and media studies, and archival studies.

Please submit abstracts of 200-300 words for presentations (5-7 mins) by September 30, 2023 at https://cfplist.com/nemla/User/SubmitAbstract/20794

For additional information, please contact sanjukta1@sympatico.ca or elileo@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Contact Info:

For information about conference: support@nemla.org

For information about roundtable: sanjukta1@sympatico.ca OR elileo@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Contact Email:

sanjukta1@sympatico.ca

URL:

https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20794

Deadline for Submissions Sept. 30 2023

The Rise of Autoliterature (NeMLA 2024 panel)

This panel will analyze autofiction and autotheory as contemporary literary genres still on the rise, with particular interest in putting the two in conversation with each other.

Abstracts are due Sep 30, 2023, and should be submitted through NeMLA’s submission portal
(https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20337).

NeMLA 2024 will take place in person at Boston, MA on March 7-10, 2024. More information about the convention can be found on the NeMLA website (https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention.html).

Please feel free to reach out with any questions to calliein@buffalo.edu.

Deadline for Submissions September 30, 2023

“You’ve Got Me in My Feelings”: Discomfort and Discourse of “Excessive” Emotions in Trauma Memoir

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2023

Danielle French, Kent State University

dfrenc12@kent.edu

Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Conference 2024

Boston, MA

March 7-10, 2024

This panel invites explorations and analyses of “excessive” or inconvenient emotions in trauma memoir. For general inquiries, please contact dfrenc12@kent.edu. Finally, no remote presentations are permitted per NeMLA guidelines, so please be ready to present in Boston.

Please submit your paper proposals to: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20533.

Deadline for Submissions October 1, 2023

Fragmented Lives

Call for papers

Reykjavik, 12-15 June 2024
in collaboration with the Centre for Studies in Memory and Literature, University of Iceland
IABA (International Auto/Biography Association) World Conference 2024

The IABA World Conference 2024 will be held at the University of Iceland in collaboration with the Centre for Studies in Memory and Literature 12-15 June 2024. The theme of the conference is ‘Fragmented Lives.’ We invite proposals for individual papers or panels of 3-4 papers as well as round-table suggestions on that theme.

The world is fragmented in different ways in our times, due to wealth disparity, migration, and the continuing climate catastrophe. The digital revolution means that lives are now lived online as well as off – where fragmented identities and selves are played out. The recent pandemic can also be said to have fragmented our sense of time. This in turn shapes life writing and self-expression. As Eva Karpinski has argued ‘the autobiographical fragment is uniquely suited to address the discontinuities and ruptures of history, experience, and memory’ (Karpinski 2013), and that is why we turn to this theme to gain new insights into auto/biographical writing.

One of the key issues at stake in auto/biographical narration is memory, and memory is usually incomplete, fragmented. Narrative is at times used to reflect this fragmentation, or it is used to paper over the cracks, to create a cohesive narrative out of a fragmented past. The biographer is also faced with fragmentary knowledge of the past when writing on another’s life, a past which is then pieced together.

We are looking for papers on how lives and life writing can be addressed and examined in light of fragmentation. Themes and issues include, but are not limited to

fragmented narrative
fragmented identity
fragmented ecologies
fragments of a life
fragmented genres

digital fragmentation
fragmented pasts

Graduate students and early career researchers are especially encouraged to apply individually and with panels. A workshop for this group is also planned and reduced conference fees will be available.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Anna Poletti is associate professor of English at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. They research life writing in contemporary Anglophone media and culture, and specialize in archival research, queer and feminist theory, and cultural studies methodologies. Anna’s research explores two primary themes: 1) the variety of roles life writing plays in contemporary societies, politics and cultures, and 2) the way people use media technologies and material culture to attach meaning to lived experience. Exploring these themes, Anna has published on topics such as Andy Warhol’s use of the cardboard box, digital storytelling, zines, selfies, graphic medicine, and youth-led climate activism. Their books include: Stories of the Self: Life Writing After the Book (New York University Press, 2020), Intimate Ephemera: Reading Young Lives in Australian Zine Culture (Melbourne University Press, 2008), and Life Narratives and Youth Culture: Representation, Agency and Participation (with Kate Douglas, Palgrave 2016). Anna co-edited the Eisner Award-nominated collection Graphic Medicine (with Erin La Cour, University of Hawai’i Press, 2021), and Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online (with Julie Rak, University of Wisconsin Press, 2014). Their first novel (hello, world?) explores online identity, sexuality and gender, and will be published by Semiotext(e) in 2024. With Kate Douglas and John Zuern, Anna is a Series Editor of the book series New Directions in Life Narrative for Bloomsbury.

Erla Hulda Halldórsdóttir is a Professor of Women’s and Gender History at the University of Iceland. She has published works on women’s and gender history, biography, correspondence, and (women’s) historiography. Among her works in Icelandic is the monograph Nútímans konur (Women of Modernity, 2011) in which she relies heavily on correspondence when exploring women’s education and the construction of gender in late 19th century Iceland. In 2020 she co-authored the award-winning book Konur sem kjósa. Aldarsaga (A Centenary of Women Voters, 2020) in which the authors study women’s citizenship and agency in 20th-century Iceland. Among her works in English are articles in Life Writing (2010, 2015) and Women’s History Review (2018). She co-edited Biography, Gender, and History: Nordic Perspectives (2016) and wrote a chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Auto/Biography (2020). Erla Hulda is now working on two projects related to correspondence and life writing. First, it is the publication (2023) of 50 love letters written by an Icelandic student in Copenhagen to his fiancé in Iceland, 1825-1832 – before and after he betrayed her. Second, for publication in 2024, the biography of Sigríður Pálsdóttir (1809-1871) who wrote 250 letters to her brother for half a century. For both these cases only one side of the correspondence has survived.

Please send abstracts (300 words) or panel/round-table suggestions, and short bio (150 words) to IABAWorld2024@gmail.com by 1 October 2023. For more information see https://iabaworld2024.hi.is/.

‘1974-2024: Annie Ernaux’s Years – a Global Perspective’

International Conference

University of Edinburgh & University of St Andrews

3-5 October 2024
Deadline for Submissions: 29 September 2023

With Annie Ernaux’s participation (pending confirmation)

Confirmed keynote speaker: Prof. Barbara Havercroft, University of Toronto

Annie Ernaux’s writings have gained increasing international attention in recent years, especially since the English translation of Les Années (The Years), seen by many as her masterwork, was published in 2017 and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2019. The global reach of her works culminated in the award of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature ‘for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory’. This prestigious prize, that she was the first French female writer to receive, anchored her status as a major 20th and 21st-century author and instantly brought her global fame – she was for instance the guest of honour at the New Delhi world book fair in 2023.

Most of Ernaux’s writings are non-fictional and depict the life experiences of a French woman born in 1940, as much as an experience of Frenchness across genders, social classes and generations. Yet, despite being situated in a specific time, space and in personal experience, critics and readers have often commented on the universal reach of her works.

Fifty years after the publication of Les Armoires vides (Cleaned Out) in 1974, her debut autobiographical novel partly based on her back-alley abortion in the 1960s, this conference aims to interrogate the universal dimension of Ernaux’s books and locate them in an international context, assessing the significance of her writings beyond the French-speaking world.

As more translations of her books become available, this event will seek to broaden the scope of academic criticism on her works and shed light on her links with past and contemporary world literature, by examining her influences and legacy as a writer and public intellectual figure. Although the scholarship on Annie Ernaux emerged in the English-speaking world in the 1980s, this event will be the first international, solely English-speaking conference focusing on her work.

We are particularly pleased to host this event in Scotland where Ernaux’s talks in August 2019 as part of the International Book Festival attracted a very large audience, both in French and in English, which was a testimony to the reach and relevance of her works. The conference will take place in the historic locations of Edinburgh and St Andrews across three days, with an opening evening at the French Institute in Edinburgh.

Questions and themes that will be addressed in the conference include, but are not limited to:

the international reception and ‘universal’ dimension of Annie Ernaux’s works
the ‘transpersonal’ nature of her work, between the personal and the collective
life-writing and genre hybridity (between fiction and non-fiction, intimacy and extimacy)
perceptions and representations of time
gender, identity and bodily experiences; self and others
ageing, abortion and illness narratives
the portrayal of post-1945 socio-political and cultural changes in France and beyond (e.g. feminism, social mobility…)
travels and the significance of other countries and other cultures (eg. Venice; the USSR…)
the influence of international authors and artists on her writing; Ernaux’s legacy as a writer and her influence on contemporary authors and artists worldwide
questions of translation and adaptation, across languages and media (intermediality)
teaching Ernaux worldwide and pedagogical matters
national and international fame, legitimacy, and the question of ‘popularity’ and popular culture; the 2022 Nobel Prize award
Ernaux’s status as a leftist intellectual and committed writer; the political scope of her work in France and beyond

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers (in English) to be sent before 29 September 2023 to both conference organisers:

Dr Fabien Arribert-Narce (Senior Lecturer in French, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh), f.arribert-narce@ed.ac.uk
Dr Elise Hugueny-Léger (Senior Lecturer in French, School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews), esmh@st-andrews.ac.uk

About the conference organisers:

Dr Fabien Arribert-Narce is Senior Lecturer in French and Comparative Literature at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Photobiographies: pour une écriture de notation de la vie (Barthes, Roche, Ernaux) (Champion, 2014), and editor of L’Autobiographie entre autres (Peter Lang, 2013), The Pleasure in/of the Text (Peter Lang, 2021), and Intermedial Encounters Between Image, Music and Text (Peter Lang, 2023). His recent publications include articles on Ernaux’s ‘photojournal’ in Écrire la vie and uses of photography in Mémoire de fille.

Dr Elise Hugueny-Léger is a Senior lecturer in French at the University of St Andrews. Her research focuses on contemporary life-writing and the creative writing process – she recently published Projections de soi: identités et images en mouvement dans l’autofiction (Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2022). She is the author of Annie Ernaux, une poétique de la transgression (Peter Lang, 2009) and co-created the bilingual website www.annie-ernaux.org. In recent years, her work on Ernaux has focused on the reception of her books, including internationally, as well as on Ernaux’s creative process.

Proposals for papers should include the name, affiliation and email address for all paper authors, as well as a brief (max. 250 words) abstract, paper title and biographical note (max. 50 words).

Proposals from practitioners, translators and members of the publishing community are particularly welcome alongside proposals from established academics and early-career scholars and PhD students.

Proposals from international speakers are particularly welcome.

The provisional programme of the conference will be announced at the beginning of 2024. This project will lead to a peer-reviewed publication of selected papers.

2024- Edinburgh & St Andrews

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th’ ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh SC005336.

“Beyond Words: Interdisciplinary Intersections of Creative Writing and Wellbeing”
bookandvolumeofthemind@gmail.comCONTACT:
CALL DEADLINE: 500-word abstracts by FRIDAY 6th OCTOBER 2023
EDITORS: Dr Caty Flynn (The Genre Lab.) & Professor Ursula Hurley (University of Salford)

CONTEXT

The phrase “creative writing” is used in wellbeing interventions as a catch-all term for many forms of practice. Currently, there is scant research to back up claims of efficacy, and little insight in terms of what the actual benefits of specific creative writing practices are, why these benefits occur, and how we can utilise this knowledge for shaping such practices so that we can get the most out of them. We believe passionately that creative writing can, indeed, improve wellbeing.

But, we want to present a collection of investigations into the mechanisms of why and, by doing so, lay blueprints for how. This important intersection between wellbeing and creative writing has yet to be addressed robustly and this collection attempts to do so.

Creative writing research is inherently interdisciplinary. As Mi Csikszentmihalyi explains, “being able to braid together ideas and emotions from disparate domains is one way writers express their creativity” (263). Science and psychology recognise the broader implications of creative writing’s applicability, evidenced by a wealth of developments over the last century, including but not limited to the explicit influences apparent in everyone from Freud to Damasio to
Hofstadter, to Narrative Psychology (see Sarbin, 1986) and Drama Therapy (see Jones, 1996).

Theorists of all disciplines typically turn to storytelling to elucidate their points. But, what can creative writing do for these fields beyond offering metaphors or analogies (useful as that may be)? What can creative writing do in terms of application, theory, communication, and creative conceptualisation with regard to wellbeing? In this proposed collection, we seek to move beyond metaphor towards mutual enrichment.

The overall purpose of the volume is to showcase innovative methodologies and new theories, highlight benefits and challenges, offer frameworks and directions for future research, and encourage new developments at the intersection of creative writing practice and wellbeing.

Our enquiry considers the implications for creative practice; psychological and therapeutic practice; self-help; intersectionality, social justice and transformation; and experimental scientific research.

SUGGESTED THEMES/TOPICS
We aim to be inclusive in terms of discipline, approach, and background. We encourage both single-author and collaborative submissions, and chapters which incorporate practice-based research or creative or hybrid forms into process or presentation, thereby making form as well as content part of the research, as well as more traditional academic chapters. We are interested in chapters that foreground specific genres of writing or specific areas of wellbeing, and those which take a broader view. We encourage personal investigations as well as social research. Essentially, we are open to receiving any creative and robust response to the brief from any and every disciplinary perspective, to showcase the diversity of current practices and their transformative potential.

Of particular interest is interdisciplinary work that can creatively raise issues, themes, and topics such as:

• Creative writing as a practice through which to shift perspective, question given rules and habitual behaviours, and imagine things otherwise.
• Connections between the processes and concepts of writing and those of the cognitive and social sciences. Comparative essays on concepts from psychology, mental health, neuroscience, sociology etc with concepts from creative writing i.e., stories and brain processes, rhetorical/literary devices as biological/psychological/emotional functions/tools.
• How can we make creative writing concepts accessible beyond literacy, vision, or any other barrier which impedes engagement? Chapters might imagine brail or audio methods, oral storytelling, dramatic or musical performance, games, and/or inclusive social facilitations.
• Re-imaginings, syntheses, or innovative extensions of traditional or existing theory from an interdisciplinary lens – i.e., creative writing and psychology.
• Case-studies, evaluative reports, cameos, co-constructed content or other outputs from creative writing wellbeing intervention trials or projects.
• The capacities of creative writing to constitute a free and accessible mode of self-care for a large demographic of people in ways that support intersecting social inequalities observable in accessing effective mental health, wellbeing, and self-development support.
• Are all types of creative writing good for us? Are certain types of writing “better” for us or more transformational, and others “worse” for us or regressive? In terms of reading or writing, particular genres or styles or movements or periods or practices.
• Specific genres & their wellbeing potential / mental health utility/resonance; specific mental health conditions explored through the lens of creative writing; specific outcomes – self-expression; reconceptualisation; control; confidence; change; perspective; reflection; etc.
• Evolutionary advantages of creative writing.
• Disciplinary, sectoral, and/or any other challenges, difficulties, issues, or barriers in creative writing wellbeing research, development, engagement, and evaluation, including but not limited to ethical procedure, methodology, engagement, skillset, resources, knowledge base, facilitation, publication, funding, collaboration, and interdisciplinary working. How can we transform or overcome these challenges?
• Robustly researched theoretical essays regarding the “why” and “how” of wellbeing/self-development benefits which emerge from creative writing.
• The potential of creative writing for social change, resisting injustice, and transforming perceptions.
• Methodologies for creative writing & mental health research and innovation.
• Theoretical, experimental, and creative investigations of concepts and practices such as journaling; self-expression; life-writing; self-writing; and so on.
• How can we build co-construction, community involvement, and social engagement into creative writing wellbeing projects?
• Everyday utility/application of creative writing concepts/practices for self-care/expression/development.
• The future of writing for wellbeing – directions/next steps; predictions/hopes; necessary changes; potential problems.

All chapters must constitute fully-integrated interdisciplinary work – a dialogue between fields, rather than a reading of one discipline through another in a one-way dynamic. All of these topics/ideas can be approached in whatever genre of writing feels appropriate. However, we do expect there to be rigorous interdisciplinary research, reading, and critical thinking underpinning even the most creative or experimental chapter. We interpret creative writing broadly, so do contact us if you are unsure about definitional boundaries.
___________
Format: We invite 500-word Abstracts for 5,000-10,000-word chapters (negotiable). Please include up to 5 keywords and a brief biography of the author(s) which includes an institutional affiliation and your contact email.
Send your abstract to: bookandvolumeofthemind@gmail.com
Deadline for Abstracts: 06/10/2023.
Accepted authors will be notified 20/10/2023.
Accepted chapters to be delivered no later than 19/04/2024.
Editorial team: Dr Caty Flynn (The Genre Lab.) & Professor Ursula Hurley (University of Salford)

REFERENCES
Cozolino, L. (2010). The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2013). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennial.
Damasio, A. (2000). The Feeling of what Happens. London: Vintage.
Freud, S. (2008). The Interpretation of Dreams. Oxford: Oxford’s World Classics.
Hofstadter, D. (2007). I am a Strange Loop. Philadelphia: Basic Books.
Koestler, A. (1975). The Act of Creation. London: Picador.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors We Live By. London: University of Chicago Press.
Prentiss, S. and Walker, N. eds. (2020). The Science of Story: The Brain Behind Creative Nonfiction. London: Bloomsbury.

Professor Ursula Hurley (she/her)
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion lead
School of Arts, Media & Creative Technology / Room 203 Crescent House
University of Salford, Manchester M5 4WT
T: +44(0) 161 295 2851
u.k.hurley@salford.ac.uk /

www.salford.ac.uk

Call for papers

Fragmented Lives

IABA (International Auto/Biography Association) World Conference 2024

Reykjavik, 12-15 June 2024

in collaboration with the Centre for Studies in Memory and Literature, University of Iceland

deadline for submissions, Oct. 1, 2023

fragmented narrative
fragmented identity
fragmented ecologies
fragments of a life
fragmented genres

digital fragmentation
fragmented pasts

Please send abstracts (300 words) or panel/round-table suggestions, and short bio (150 words) to IABAWorld2024@gmail.com by 1 October 2023. Further information will be available soon on https://memory.hi.is/iaba-world-2024/

Deadline for submissions: October 9, 2023

Call for Book Chapters: Recovering Lost Voices 19th-century British Literature

This collection aims to continue the work of diversifying the 19th-century British literary canon. Many authors who were revolutionary and popular during their time are now underrepresented in the current scholarly field. The essays in the collection will touch on underread texts and authors as well as underappreciated characters in more traditionally canonical works. We welcome essays using lenses such as disability studies, trauma theory, critical race theory, queer theory, postcolonial studies, and more.

Chapter proposals can include but are not limited to:

Underread 19th-century British authors
19th-century diaries or letters that have been critically ignored
Approaches to underread or unappreciated works using
- Disability theory
- Queer theory
- Critical race theory
- Postcolonial studies
- Trauma studies
Examinations of minor or ignored characters in canonical works

Please submit an abstract no longer than 500 words to Michaela George ( Michaela.George@unh.edu) and Elizabeth Drummey (Elizabeth.Drummey@unh.edu), the volume editors. Additionally, please include a short biography (max. 300 words).

Reckoning with the past: Soviet communism in postcolonial Australian perspective
Academic workshop (and publication)
24 November 2023, 9am-5pm, The Australian National University, Canberra
Abstract deadline: 1 November, 2023

Expatriate East European writers like Kapka Kassabova and Lea Ypi have portrayed their countries of birth (Bulgaria, Albania) as colonized territories. This perspective on Eastern Europe, however, is not common in Australian life writing in English. There does exist an archive of Australian life narratives in languages other than English, the languages of Eastern Europe, like Polish, Latvian, Ukrainian or Hungarian, which does share this perception of Soviet bloc countries as colonized places. But this archive is not widely known. In fact, the “Soviet story” is largely missing from public narratives and understanding of World War II and its aftermath in Australia. This is in spite of the fact that Australia is the home to many survivors of the Stalinist regime and their descendants: a great number of refugees evacuated from the USSR, from gulags in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Turkestan, were among the over 180,000 displaced persons resettled to Australia under the post-war mass migration scheme.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought to the attention of a broader cross-section of Australian society historic events that were previously largely ignored or unknown (such as Stalin’s Holodomor famine of the 1930s). It also brought to the fore instances of Russia’s manipulation of historical memory under Putin’s regime and the long history of Russian imperialism that underpins his war against Ukraine. It might thus be a good time to explore parallels between the (post)colonial and (post)socialist realms, and reflect on questions such as: Where does Siberia feature in an Australian imaginary? Can Australia apply familiar postcolonial paradigms to its approaches to and understandings of Eastern Europe? We acknowledge the ambiguity of the term “Eastern Europe”; here we are using it to refer to Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe – essentially, the countries of the former Soviet bloc and Yugoslavia.

While a post-colonial approach to describing the condition of Eastern European countries is commonly used by academics in the region, Western scholars of postcolonialism have been reluctant to extend the paradigm to include the Soviet empire (e.g. Şandru 2012; Skórczewski 2006). In the 2011 Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature (Quayson 2011), “not only is there no chapter dedicated to East-Central European countries, but the editor of the two volumes does not even consider the possibility of including one” (Terian, 2012). The blame for such exclusion is often placed by critics on the Marxist foundations of post-colonial theory and postcolonial scholars’ unwillingness to accuse the Soviet Union of imperial behaviours (Şandru 2013).

We are looking for contributors to this academic workshop and the publication that will follow (a special issue or edited volume), who are working on various forms of life narrative (life writing, oral history, autobiographical fiction, etc.) and are interested in offering a critical reading of cultural productions, a critical response to the existing scholarship on views of Soviet communism in Australia, or a personal, creative response to the debate. Papers can address, among others, topics within broader themes including:
–          Memories of Eastern Europe in Australia
–          Soviet colonialism in Australian perceptions
–          Translating (post)colonialisms
–          Multilayered meanings of East European socialism in Australia
–          Curating memory
–          “Communism in the family” – remembering earlier generations
Please send a 250-word abstract with a short bio by 1 November 2023 to
Dr Kasia Williams (ANU Centre for European Studies) kasia.williams@anu.edu.au
and Dr Mary Besemeres (ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics) mary.besemeres@anu.edu.au

Queen Elizabeth II: Life, Times, Legacies

17-19 April 2024

Lisbon, NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Portugal

Deadline for Submissions, October 15, 2023

The reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II (1952-2022) was the longest so far in the history of the British monarchy. Partly due, without doubt, to its exceptional duration, her seventy-year reign witnessed momentous events with far-reaching consequences, such as the end of the Empire; the decline of Britain on the international political scene; the ‘troubles’ and unrest within the British Isles and the prospect of a DisUnited Kingdom; the emergence and consolidation of popular and youth cultures and the relationship between the Crown and the media, to name but a few. The period is also of particular interest for Anglo-Portuguese Studies, as it raises issues such as the political relations between the two oldest allies during the Salazar/Caetano regime, the official visits, the impact of World War II, decolonisation, and the Revolution of the 25th April 1974, amongst others.

Keynote speakers:

João Carlos Espada

(IEP, Universidade Católica Portuguesa)

John Darwin

(Nuffield College, University of Oxford)

Martin Dale

(University of Minho)

Pedro Aires Oliveira

(IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)

Philip Murphy

(University of London)

Steve Marsh

(University of Cardiff)

Teresa Pinto Coelho

(IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)

>> Official website

6(10%)

This International Conference seeks to analyse and assess Elizabeth’s life, times, and legacies across a broad range of disciplines, themes and topics, such as:

The British Monarchy
The British and Other European Monarchies
Monarchy and National Identity(ies)
Monarchy and Republic
British Institutions
Britain and the Emergence of Popular and Youth Cultures
Britain and the Welfare State
Britain in/and Europe
Britain and Brexit
Britain and Portugal: The Alliance during Elizabeth II’s Reign
Britain in/and the World
Britain and the USA: A Special Relationship?
The Queen and the European Monarchies
The Queen: Biographies and Chronicles
The Queen in Literature
The Queen in/and the Visual Arts
The Queen in/and the Media
Screening the Queen: Cinema and Television
Staging and Singing the Queen: Theatre and Music
The Queen and the (Re)Invention of Tradition(s)
The Queen, Memorabilia, and Merchandising
The Queen in/and Fashion
Royal Spaces and Geographies
The Queen in and out of doors: Sport, Animals, and Pets
The Queen and her Royal Residences
The Royal Family: Past, Present (and Future?)
Other

Languages: English and/or Portuguese

Submissions

The organisers will welcome proposals for 20-minute papers. Submissions should be sent by email to elizabeth2legacy@gmail.com including the title of the paper, an abstract (250-300 words), the author’s data (name, affiliation, contact address) and the author’s bio-note (150 words).

Deadline for proposals: 15 October 2023 [NEW!]
Notification of acceptance: 30 November 2023
Deadline for registration: 31 December 2023

Registration

Fees:
Physical (On-site) Presentation: 130€
Online Presentation: 120€
On-site (Physical) Listener: 80€
Online Listener: 70€
Students: 30€
Members of the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, CETAPS, IHC, IN2PAST and external supervisors to NOVA FCSH Masters in Teacher Education: Free

All delegates are responsible for their own travel arrangements and accommodation.

Contact Information

For any inquiries, please contact the organising committee via email.

Contact Email

elizabeth2legacy@gmail.com

Craig Howes, List Manager

Send notices for posting to craighow@hawaii.edu

To browse current listings and the IABA-L archive, go to

IABA Listserv

TO SUBSCRIBE

https://hawaii.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=4b810d876f2fee4b91c849f87&id=5ed81693cc

International Auto/Biography Association Worldwide

https://sites.google.com/ualberta.ca/iaba/home

IABA Student and New Scholar Network (SNS)

https://iabasns.wordpress.com

on Facebook: facebook.com/IABASNS

Deadline for Submissions October 5, 2023

International Film Festival & Symposium on Celebrity: Between Fame and Infamy (10/15/2023; 2/22-3/8/2024) Texas, USA

Texas State University is excited to announce its International Film Festival & Symposium on Celebrity: Between Fame and Infamyin San Marcos, Texas, February 22 – March 8, 2024. The festival will explore the topic of celebrity through a series of feature films and related artefacts (videos, edited clips, filmed performances, etc.) and conclude with a day-long symposium dedicated to the scholarly discussion of celebrity in films and filmic works from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Historical and Theoretical Background

Going back to eighteenth-century Europe, when the notion of celebrity arose, two models come to mind. On the one hand, an unknown writer publishes a text the paradoxical argument of which creates a scandal among literati who, by publishing counterarguments and stoking the writer to continue the controversy, gather a sizable audience and designate a philosopher in the making—Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Achieving fame within a few years, the author of The Social Contractnonetheless sees his work condemned to be burnt upon its release in 1762. On the other hand, and on the opposite end of the social hierarchy, is Marie-Antoinette, Dauphine of France, facing rival image-makers who create, subvert, or degrade the future royal icon, regardless of her own disposition to personify royalty and make herself personable to the public. Fame and infamy work in a seesaw manner in the production of celebrity.

In the early twentieth century, German sociologist Max Weber laid the groundwork for a modern concept of celebrity as the secularization of charismatic authority in the age of capitalism. For Weber, charisma–a notion rooted in theology that alludes to the supernatural or superhuman qualities of an individual as a gift from God–has evolved into celebrity in the “disenchanted,” secularized age of modernity. Writing at the dawn of mass media and increasing popularity of motion pictures, Weber pointed to the development of celebrity culture as a phenomenon created and sustained by moving images and their global circulation.

Today, film and short videos often mediate whose histories and art we celebrate. Global celebrities like Viola Davis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet, and Zendaya, to TikTok influencers and micro-celebrities, use their platforms for social critique, whether in film, documentaries, music videos, or edited clips. Celebrity is sometimes criticized as vacuous, dictated by likes, views, and followers—often quantity over quality, and amusement over art. We make celebrities into idols and watch as they negotiate their fame and infamy. Importantly, no discussion of celebrity is complete without a discussion of political accountability and the publicists, fans and paparazzi who often enable and produce celebrities.

Call for Submissions

We invite proposals for papers and presentations of artists’ own film/video works that explore the concept of celebrity as a political, social, and/or cultural phenomenon. Below is a list of potential topics:

• Celebrity and image-making from style to fraud; politics of authenticity versus hyper-constructed roles

• From celebrity to icon to genius: how does celebrity morph into exceptional creativity?

• Using celebrity for cultural change; mainstreaming subcultures; micro-celebrity and the rise of niche cultures

• Celebrity, the shaping of polity, and vice versa

• Celebrity, censorship, “cancel culture,” and accountability

• Mapping celebrity; influencer geopolitics and the circulation of influence

• Celebrity and hyper-consumerism

• Celebrity and the vicarious life

• Scandal as origin of the celebrity phenomenon

• The aftermath of celebrity; surviving celebrity; posthumous celebrity

Please send all paper/presentation proposals—including a title, a 300-400 word abstract, and a 100-200 word mini-bio—before October 15, 2023, to cm25@txstate.edu or lvalencia@txstate.edu. Sessions will be plenary, and papers will be selected for publication.

Texas State is a public university in Central Texas and a Hispanic-Serving Institution with a diverse student population of 38,000+. Located 30 minutes away from Austin, where the SXSW Film & TV Festival will take place March 8-16, 2024, the University is dedicated to increasing access to the arts and internationalizing higher education in the state.

Contact Information

Carole Martin, Professor of French, Texas State University, cm25@txstate.edu

Louie Valencia, Associate Professor of Digital History, Texas State University, lvalencia@txstate.edu

Contact Email

cm25@txstate.edu

URL

https://internationalfilmfestivalandsymposiumoncelebrity.wp.txstate.edu

CAMPS, CARCERAL IMAGINARIES, & CRITICAL INTERVENTIONS

May 30, 2024 – June 2, 2024

Graz, Austria

Deadline for Submissions–Oct. 23, 2023

This international conference which is co-sponsored by the Center of Inter-American Studies at the University of Graz and the Department of English at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, offers a forum within which graduate students, scholars, writers, practitioners, and the formerly incarcerated can come together to productively consider imprisonment, internment, and related technologies of enclosure as well as examples of resistance, protest, and struggle that have emerged in reaction to them.

The history of the Americas shows that numerous groups have been confined in camps. These include detainees, inmates, prisoners, internally displaced people, asylum seekers, refugees, migrants, children, racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities, activists, and victims of political persecution, among others. It traverses events such as Cuba’s War for Independence, Japanese internment, the Viet Nam War, U.S. military operations at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the corporatization of migrant detention, and the construction of camps at the U.S. southern border, among other events, many of which remain under-documented.

In popular discourse, camps are often associated with short-term humanitarian operations related to the provision of shelter, food, and access to legal assistance. While some camps have functioned this way, scholars from numerous fields in the humanities and social sciences have signaled concerns about their proliferation and the extent to which they facilitate far-reaching cycles of punishment and abuse. Their work demonstrates that the body politic frequently deems the people held in camps to be threatening and undeserving of “full rights” while contributing to their misrepresentation and marginalization. These and related insights prompt us to problematize how camps have been used as well as the assumption that they are necessary or effective.

Building on the first conference in this series, in which five former detainees from Guantánamo discussed their lives in military prison camps and the memoirs they have written about their experiences, the conference seeks to cultivate interdisciplinary and intersectional exchanges that creatively navigate the space between “free society” and knowledge about encampment and a broad typology of camps and camp-like institutions. These include “assembly centers,” barracoons, slave depots, detention and internment camps, prisoner-of-war camps, labor camps, “black sites,” offshore detention centers, concentration and re-education camps, and prison units, among others.

While proposals from all fields are welcome, the organizers anticipate ample participation from persons from the following fields: inter-American studies, literary studies, cultural studies, legal studies, critical prison studies, Caribbean studies, critical discourse analysis, sociocultural analysis, history. Graz is an opportune environment for work on camps, Guantánamo, and rights given its status as the first “Human Rights City” in Europe.

The conference will include keynotes and presentations by former prisoners, academics, and prize-winning writers and poets. Planning of an array of other activities that will enrich the experience of participants is underway. These will be posted on our website as they are confirmed.

Abstracts of 200-350 words for 20-minute presentations or panel proposals consisting of three to four participants should be submitted to camps2024@uni-graz.at by October 23, 2023 along with a biography of 100 words or less. Proposals for presenting poetry, art, film, and other creative work will also be considered. The languages of the conference are English and Spanish, and abstracts are welcome in both languages. Topics to be discussed include but are not limited to:

The past and present of Guantánamo Bay’s detention facilities
Education, creative writing, and literacy projects in jails and prisons
Language of (non)belonging and the homeland
Prison literature and the literature of human rights
The internment of people of Japanese ancestry during WWII
The ethics of encampment and captivity
Haitian detention camps in Fort Allen, Puerto Rico
Abolitionism, military prisons, and legal personhood
Camp-based protest, resistance, and solidarity (art, hunger strikes, writing, legal action, the historical record)
Borders, biometrics, biopolitics, security, and media representations of camps
The Mauritanian and other films about Guantánamo Bay, the War on Terror, and human rights
Prisoners of war and refugee camps, (e.g., WWI and WWII, in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the Americas)
Mass incarceration’s genealogical links to slavery, war, and empire
Immigrant experiences in literature
Refugee camps and understandings of “well-founded fear of persecution”
Testimony, activism, and human rights advocacy
Memoirs, essays, and poetry by former detainees, prisoners, and activists
Dimensions of personal identity (intersections of race, class, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation)
Public memory projects and archives of witness
Truth and reconciliation commissions in the Americas and in the global context

Contact Information

camps2024@uni-graz.at

CFP: Stardom and Fandom, Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference

February 21 — 24, 2024, Albuquerque, New Mexico

deadline for submissions:

October 31, 2023

contact email:

lzubernis@wcupa.edu

Proposals for papers and panels will be accepted starting September 1st for the 45th annual SWPACA conference. One of the nation’s largest interdisciplinary academic conferences, SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas, each typically featuring multiple panels.

The Area Chair for Stardom and Fandom invites paper or panel proposals on any aspect of stardom or fandom. The list of ideas below is limited, so if you have an idea that is not listed, please suggest the new topic. We are an interdisciplinary area and encourage submissions from multiple perspectives and disciplines.

Topics might include:

Studies of individual celebrities and their fans
Studies focused on specific fandoms
The reciprocal relationship between stars and fans
Impact of celebrity and fame on identity construction, reconstruction and sense of self
Reality television, TikTok, YouTube and the changing definition of ‘stardom’
The impact of social media on celebrity/fan interaction
Celebrity/fame addiction as cultural change
The intersection of stars and fans in virtual and physical spaces (Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, conventions)
Celebrity and the construction of persona
Pedagogical approaches to teaching stardom and fandom
Anti-fans and ‘haters’
Fan shame, wank, ‘puriteens’ and fandom policing
Gendered constructions of stars and fans
Historical studies of fandom and fan/celebrity interaction

All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database at http://register.southwestpca.org/southwestpca

SWPACA offers monetary awards for the best graduate student papers in a variety of categories. SWPACA also offers travel fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students. For more information, visit http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/

For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general, please see the Proposal Submission FAQs and Tips page at http://southwestpca.org/conference/faqs-and-tips/ Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words. Including a brief bio in the body of the proposal form is encouraged, but not required. For information on how to submit a proposal for a roundtable or a multi-paper panel, please view the above FAQs and Tips page.

Registration and travel information for the conference will be available at http://southwestpca.org/conference/conference-registration-information/ For 2023, we are excited to be at a new venue, the Marriott Albuquerque (2101 Louisiana Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110), which boasts free parking and close proximity to dining, shopping, and other delights.

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

Call for Papers: Kings & Queens
Royal Studies Network 13th Annual Conference
May 27-28, 2024
American University of Paris and Châteaudun Castle, France
Deadline for Submissions—October 31, 2023

The Royal Studies Network is delighted to launch a call for papers for our thirteenth annual Kings & Queens conference: Gift-giving and Communication Networks. The 2024 conference is conceived to mark the fifth centenary of the death of Queen Claude de France (1499-1524). It will be hosted at The American University of Paris for the first two days (May 27-28). Then it will move to the Châteaudun castle in the Loire Valley where, on May 29, it will hone in on Claude de France and women in Loire Valley courts. The general theme piggybacks on three former conferences: K&Q#2 (Making Connections: Alliances, Networks, Correspondence & Comparisons), K&Q#5 (Dynastic Loyalties), and K&Q#10 (Royal Patronage: Material Culture, Built Heritage & the Reach of the Crown).
Presentations will be accepted in both English and French. In keeping with the spirit of the Royal Studies Network, proposals may deal with courtly gift-giving and communication networks in all times and places. We welcome submissions from professionals, postgraduate researchers, independent and early career scholars. While in-person presentations are preferred, the two days at The American University will be hybrid with online content, allowing for some degree of live streaming or recording of sessions. Please send your proposal to kchevalier@aup.edu.
The deadline for submissions (250 words for an individual proposal, 500 words for a panel) is 31 October 2023. Please specify whether your presentation will be in person or online, and include a title and a short CV.
You should receive a notification of acceptance no later than 15 December 2023.
All queries should be directed to Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier at The American University of Paris via email to kchevalier@aup.edu.
Contact Information
All queries should be directed to Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier at The American University of Paris via email to kchevalier@aup.edu. More general queries on the Kings & Queens Conference series can be addressed to Elena (Ellie) Woodacre, via the Royal Studies Network (RSN). Full details of the call can be found on the link below–you can also use this weblink to contact the RSN.

Call for papers for a Special Cluster in a/b: Autobiography Studies
Spaniards across the Americas after the Spanish Civil War: “I am from the Country Called Exile” / Españoles en las Américas después de la Guerra Civil: “Soy del país del exilio”

Deadline for Submissions October 31, 2023

a/b: Auto/Biography Studies invites academic researchers to contribute to a special cluster that seeks to recover the life writing practices by Spanish women and children who have been displaced across the Americas–North, Central and South America–since the Spanish Civil War (1936) and the almost four decades of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in order to fill some important gaps in the historiography, literature, and social studies at both sides of the Atlantic.
The soon approaching 90th anniversary of the Spanish American Exile marks the urgency of this project. Many Spanish families were exiled across the Atlantic, and yet, their history of diaspora and exile across the Americas has been largely ignored. The lack of representation of these diasporic experiences and the artistic, literary and intellectual work of Spaniards is one the greatest impediments to the reconstruction of a collective narrative or collective memory of exile. To that end, we aim to bring together scholars to raise awareness of the many forms of life writing produced by Spanish women and/or children who were exiled during and after the Spanish civil war, especially those reflecting on the impossibility of belonging to a distant and absent homeland as well as to an imposed new “home” in the American continent.
We see this cluster as one of the first steps against the erasure of the historic memory of Spanish women’s and children’s exile, which not only contributes to the study of Spanish and American life writing practices, but also gives voice to those who have been forgotten across the Américas. Our title recovers a quote by José de la Colina—one of these exiled children—, who insists in defining his identity with the shocking statement “soy del país del exilio,” which translates to “I am from the country called Exile,” showing the identity crisis caused by the imposed exile and the impossibility of belonging. Ultimately, this special cluster aims to recover the collective memory of Spaniards and their experiences of war, exile and diaspora to reconstruct this “country called Exiled” and its many lives.
As a guide, we invite participants to reflect upon the following questions:

How has the experience of the Spanish exile after the Civil War shaped the identity/identities of the women and/or children across the Americas and how has it been reflected in their life writing practices?
How do Spanish women and/or children exiled across the Americas after the Civil War reflect on their new Spanish-American identity/identities in their life writing practices?

Estimated Timeline

October 30, 2023: Chapter proposals of 500 words and a 150-word bio due. Please submit to: Dr. María Gómez Martín, mgomezmartin@csusm.edu, and Dr. Ana Roncero Bellido, aroncerobellido@lewisu.edu
November 30, 2023: Notifications/acceptances sent
May 15, 2024: Complete chapters (4,500-6,000 words) due
September 15, 2024: Internal Reviews Due
December 15, 2024: Revisions Due
May 1, 2025: Manuscript sent to publisher
Special cluster to be published in the first volume of 2026, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 41.1

Please send any questions to Dr. Maria Gomez Martin (mgomezmartin@csusm.edu) and Dr. Ana Roncero-Bellido (aroncerobellido@lewisu.edu).
Contributions should be original and shouldn’t be under consideration for any other publication.
Submissions are accepted in English and Spanish.

Spanish call for papers

Convocatoria para la presentación de artículos para número monográfico: españoles en las Américas después de la Guerra Civil: “Soy del país del exilio”
a/b: Auto/Biography Studies invita a investigadores académicos a contribuir en un número monográfico que tiene como objetivo recuperar las prácticas auto/biográficas de mujeres y niños españoles que han sido desplazados en las Américas (América del Norte, Central y del Sur) desde la Guerra Civil española (después de 1936) y las casi cuatro décadas de dictadura franquista, con el fin de llenar algunos vacíos importantes en la historiografía, la literatura y los estudios sociales a ambos lados del Atlántico.

En este número pretendemos reunir a académicos para dar a conocer las muchas formas de escritura auto/biográfica producidas por mujeres y niños españoles que fueron exiliados durante y después de la guerra civil española, especialmente aquellos que reflexionan sobre la imposibilidad de pertenecer a una patria lejana y ausente, así como a un nuevo “hogar” impuesto en el continente americano.
En última instancia, este trabajo colaborativo ayudará a recuperar la memoria colectiva de las experiencias de la guerra, el exilio y la diáspora de los españoles en las Américas para reconstruir lo que José Colina, uno de estos niños exiliados, describió como “el país llamado exilio”.
A modo de orientación, invitamos a nuestros participantes a reflexionar sobre la siguiente problemática:

¿Cómo ha moldeado la experiencia del exilio español después de la Guerra Civil la identidad/identidades de las mujeres y/o niños en las Américas y cómo se ha reflejado en sus ejercicios de escritura autobiográfica?
¿Cómo reflexionan las mujeres y/o niños españoles exiliados en las Américas después de la Guerra Civil sobre su nueva identidad/identidades hispanoamericanas en sus ejercicios de escritura autobiográfica?

Las contribuciones que deseen participar en esta convocatoria se harán llegar a las coordinadoras del monográfico por correo electrónico (Dr. María Gómez Martín, mgomezmartin@csusm.edu y Dr. Ana Roncero Bellido, aroncerobellido@lewisu.edu).

Calendario tentativo:

30 octubre 2023: último día para enviar propuestas de 500 palabras y una nota biográfica de 150 palabras a Dr. María Gómez Martín, mgomezmartin@csusm.edu, y Dr. Ana Roncero Bellido, aroncerobellido@lewisu.edu
30 noviembre 2023: Notificación de las contribuciones aceptadas.
15 mayo 2024: Último día para enviar capítulos (4,500-6,000 words)
15 septiembre 2024: Completar revisiones internas
15 diciembre 2024: Último día para enviar revisiones.
1 mayo 2025: Se enviará el manuscrito completo.
El monográfico se publicará en el primer volumen de 2026, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 41.1

Las contribuciones deben ser originales y no deben estar bajo consideración para ninguna otra publicación.
Se aceptan ensayos en inglés y español.

CFP: Archival Lives/Lives in the Archive (11/01/23; Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, April 5-6 2024)

deadline for submissions:

November 1, 2023

contact email:

ddavies@uh.edu

Archival research has always been a cornerstone of medieval studies, but recent work has reinvigorated the field by transforming our understanding of the lives of late-medieval authors and people alike. The discovery of new evidence in the case of Cecily Chaumpaigne and Geoffrey Chaucer, contentious debates around identifying “Chaucer’s Scribe” Adam Pinkhurst and recovery of figures such as Eleanor Rykener and the rebels of 1381 all demonstrate how archival research enriches our understanding of the medieval past. This thread invites contributions that foster new understandings of lives in the archives and bring a theoretical eye to the practice of archival research itself. Proposals might address new microhistories of medieval figures; the need for what Saidiya Hartman names “critical fabulation” to address archival silences and erasures; the colonial and imperialist history of institutions such as the National Archives; the archival lives of poets such as Thomas Hoccleve and John Lydgate; medieval manuscripts as technologies of the archive; the limits of empirical history as an analytic for literary history; and theorizations of archival “discovery” as a colonial epistemology.

This thread will consist of a series of panels. You can choose to submit a paper or a pre-organized panel. Each panel will have a faculty respondent.

SUBMIT A PAPER ABSTRACT (DUE NOV 1):

Proposals for papers can touch upon any aspect of the general theme, and we encourage proposals from medievalists of any discipline and any geographic area. Scholars can apply to the general call, or

to specific sub-themes

12(10%)

. We accept proposals from anyone with a Ph.D. or who is in the process of gaining a doctorate. Abstracts should be submitted by November 1, 2023.

PROPOSE A PANEL (DUE NOV 1):

We also invite participants to submit whole panels of papers, that is, a pre-organized panel. Professional organizations often submit panels from among their membership, but individual are also invited to do the same. To submit a full panel, you need to send a description of the panel, a CV and abstract for the papers you would like to include, and suggestions for possible respondents. Panel proposals are due November 1, 2023.

More information here:

https://new.sewanee.edu/academics/medieval-colloquium/2024-conference-info/conference-sub-themes/archival-lives-lives-in-the-archives/

Translation, Transposition, and Travel in the Global Nineteenth Century
Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies World Congress
16 to 19 January 2025
Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait
Deadline for Submissions: November 15, 2023 (Panels); December 15, 2023 (Papers)

Keynote speakers:
Marwan Kraidy, Northwestern University Qatar
Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter
Arthur Asseraf, University of Cambridge
Sarga Moussa, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle

The period between 1750 and 1914 was marked by change, motion, and mobility. Advances in transport and the expansion of imperial powers brought together an array of peoples and facilitated contact between different cultures. These cultural encounters spurred the discovery of new information and of efforts to transmit, mask, or contain it. Translation played a seminal role in informing the public about the changing world and its interconnections. Imaginative writings and scientific concepts were subject to transposition and adaptation across languages and cultures. Indeed, global modernizing processes were due, to some extent, to travel, translation, and transposition.
For its second world congress to be held in Kuwait from 16 to 19 January 2025, the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies is pleased to invite proposals on the theme of “Translation, Transposition, and Travel in the Global Nineteenth Century.” We welcome proposals for papers and panels that explore transits between places, languages, cultures, and ideas. Topics may include (but are not limited to):

Travel and adventure
Initiatic journeys
Travel narratives and nautical fiction
Pilgrimage
Slave trade and the forced movement of peoples
Circulations, transfers, and migrations
Nomadism
Problems in translation (e.g., political humour, the absurd, nonsense, etc.)
Exile and displacement
Explorers and expeditions
Science fiction
Intermedial translation
Steamers and trains
Colonization
Translation and life writing
Transfer of knowledge
Cultural transposition
Adaptation across cultures
Transmediality and transnationalism
Transfer and transmission
Texts and their contexts
Transposition in music
Transposition and translation
Travel maps and cartographies of navigation
Books as travelling objects
Photography, painting, and travel
Tourism and visual culture
Nomadic narratives
Translation and the discovery of new cultures
The re/discovery of ancient civilizations/Egyptomania
Translation and the discovery of European modernity

In addition to paper and panel proposals related to the conference theme, we also welcome proposals for prearranged special panels on topics in global nineteenth-century studies more broadly:
Methodology OR Pedagogy Roundtables: Sessions focused on methodological approaches to studying and practical strategies for teaching the nineteenth century in a global context.
Big Ideas: Sessions focused on a single thought-provoking topic related to the global nineteenth century. The format may vary from standard panels (three presenters and a moderator) to lightning roundtables (five to eight presenters delivering short, provocative position papers) to others that may be proposed.
Proposals (due 15 November for panels; 15 December for individual papers)
Individual paper proposals should consist of an abstract (200-250 words), brief biography (80- 100 words), and full contact information in a single pdf document or Word file. Panel proposals should include abstracts for 3-4 papers, a brief rationale that connects the papers (100-200 words), and biographies of each participant (80-100 words) in a single pdf or Word file. All proposals should include 3 to 5 keywords. Successful panel proposals will include participants from more than one institution, and, ideally, represent a mix of disciplines/fields and career stages. Panel proposals should also indicate the category for evaluation: general conference program or special session; Methodology or Pedagogy Roundtable; or Big Ideas. Although the working language of the conference is English, a limited number of slots will be available for presentations in Arabic.
Location and requirements
The congress will be held at the Global Studies Center, Gulf University for Science and Technology, in Kuwait. Modern, prosperous, and safe, Kuwait boasts a unique cultural mix, a longstanding tradition of the theatrical arts, diverse cuisine, and some of the best beaches in the region. Presenters, panel chairs, and workshop participants must be current members of the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies at the time of the World Congress. For more information on membership, visit

www.global19c.com

4(11.4%)

. Proposals and questions should be directed to the Program Committee: societygncs@gmail.com. Please visit the 2025 Congress website for the most up-to-date information:

https://www.sgncscongress.com

0(0%)

Contact Email
societygncs@gmail.com
URL

https://www.sgncscongress.com/

Call for abstracts for a special issue of the International Mad Studies Journal (IMSJ), Maddening the Academy

Deadline for Submissions, December 15, 2023

Guest Editors:

Meaghan Krazinski (she/they), Syracuse University

Jersey Cosantino (they/them), Syracuse University

Jennifer Poole (she/her), Toronto Metropolitan University

May Friedman (she/her), Toronto Metropolitan University

Both traditional formats and non-traditional forms are welcome (and encouraged!).

Deadline to submit abstracts: December 15th 2023, with publication in 2025

Call For Abstracts:

The academy (noun): A place. A body. A collection of bodies, of bodyminds that bend/are bent toward who and what is considered “normal”. Never neutral, always operating in the context and coordinates of space and time including histories of in/access(ability).

The academy often functions to suppress, oppress, invalidate, and erase m/Mad knowledges, ideas, thoughts, and expressions, while at the same time producing forms of madness by pathologizing ways of being that exist outside the boundaries of “normal”.

The academy is a geopolitical space that reproduces itself and extends its control beyond the physical campus, while entwined in legacies of violence that reflect how education and the medical-industrial complex are always and have always been tools of white supremacy, ableism, sanism, and colonialism.

Yet, while seeking to distance itself and rid itself of m/Madness, the academy encircles itself around it, quite literally, in its histories and investments in control of Mad/mad(dened) people, leaving traces of these hauntings (Gordon, 2008) and becomings in its wake.

In this special issue of the International Mad Studies Journal, we seek to explore how Mad Studies, bodyminds, knowledges, meaning-making, thoughts, ideas, creativity, and imaginations, engage in an ongoing process of m/Maddening the academy and being m/Maddened by the academy. We operate from a shared understanding that the academy is rooted in the glorification of a particular colonial, white supremacist, neoliberal, Western, Global North ideological and political context and we seek to transgress this. Therefore, we invite a multitude of definitions of what the academy is, has been, and can be. We are especially grateful to scholars Juan Carlos Cea-Madrid and Tatiana Parada for their 2021 article “Maddening the Academy: Mad Studies, Critical Methodologies and Militant Research in Mental Health” from which the title of this special issue pays homage.

We invite submissions from individuals with complex and multifaceted m/Mad(dening) relationships to the academy, including folks who were excluded from the academy, who rejected the academy, who found home and community within the academy, who long/ed for the promises of the academy, who helped to carve more accessible pathways through the academy, who seek to watch the academy burn once and for all…the list is endless.

The ways that we, as guest editors of this special issue, practice and dream of m/Maddening the academy and hold space for the stories and felt-sense experiences of those m/Maddened by the academy are made possible because of histories of global activist and community-based resistance to psychiatrization, and the controlling, harmful practices of the psy-disciplines. Thus, a m/Maddening of the academy encompasses an infinite array of experiences and perspectives, backgrounds and identity intersections, pasts and presents, all the while perpetually seeking m/Mad(dened) futures that are liberatory for all.

Abstract Submissions:

We encourage abstract submissions to this special issue of the International Mad Studies Journal, “Maddening the Academy,” by December 15, 2023 via email to mkrazins@syr.edu. If alternative dates are helpful, we welcome these requests. Abstracts should:

be approximately 250 words that describe what will be discussed/addressed in your final article/submission and how this is connected to the theme of the special issue
include an approximately 100 word bio
include clear references to/engagement with Mad Studies scholarship/Mad movement building.

Estimated Publication Timeline (that also honors m/Mad time, Crip time, queer time, etc.):

August 2023: CFA is shared publicly
December 15, 2023: Author abstracts are submitted to guest editors
February 2024: Editors begin to contact authors
August 2024: Author final submissions due
Peer Review
Author Revisions
Copyediting
Special issue ready for publication: Winter/Spring 2025

Accessibility: Please note that we intend this special issue to also take up a process of m/Maddening academic outputs. As a result, we are open to processes which may make submission and contribution to this issue more accessible, nourishing and open to all. Please let us know what specific processes, including timelines, can best support your engagement.

Final Submission Formats: In addition to traditional scholarly writing, we welcome arts-based, poetic, musical, autobiographical, photographic, and other non-normative contributions. Because the journal is entirely virtual, video, audio and other creative formats and offerings can be distributed and are warmly welcomed. We request that you include a brief written/recorded description of your arts-based contribution that highlights the submission’s connections to the special issue theme and personal significance. Contributors may choose to have their submission peer reviewed or reviewed only by editors. For more information, please feel free to reach out to us.

Final Submission Word Count: There is no minimum word-count for scholarly writing submissions of finished articles. We do ask that you please not exceed 5,000 words and to reach out to us directly if your piece will likely exceed this word count.

For more information on this special issue, including possible themes and topics that we welcome you to explore, please feel free to reach out and we would be happy to share a longer, more detailed call for abstracts.

Guest Editor Bios:

Meaghan Krazinski: Meaghan (she/they), is a doctoral student in Special Education at Syracuse University with advanced study in women’s and gender studies. They seek to privilege neurodivergent ways of knowing as a means of resisting the pathologizing logics of the academy. Their most recent work investigates the relationships between healing, trauma, race, and disability labels. They also have a forthcoming work on the topic of Autistic understandings of gender and identity. Meaghan is white, multiply neurodivergent, and has education, class, and citizenship privileges with English as a first language. They hold a master’s in inclusive special education and a certificate of advanced study in disability studies from Syracuse University.

Jersey Cosantino: Jersey Cosantino (they/them), a former K-12 educator, is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Foundations of Education at Syracuse University, completing certificates of advanced study in women’s and gender studies and disability studies. Jersey’s scholarship resides at the intersections of Mad studies and trans studies and, utilizing disability and transformative justice frameworks, their research centers the experiences and subjectivities of Mad, neurodivergent, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals. Through oral history and autoethnography, Jersey seeks to construct Mad trans archives that create pathways and portals to Mad trans futures, imaginaries, and elsewheres. Using Mad trans methodologies that challenge sanism, ableism, and transmisia, Jersey’s research confronts medical model discourses and the pathologizing gaze of the psychiatric industrial complex. Jersey identifies as Mad, neurodivergent, queer, trans, and non-binary and is white with class, education, and citizenship privilege. They are a co-facilitator for SU’s Intergroup Dialogue Program and a co-editor of the International Mad Studies Journal. Jersey holds a master’s degree in high school English education (‘14) and a graduate certificate in mindfulness studies (‘19) from Lesley University, and a bachelor’s degree in English and studio art from Wellesley College (‘09).

Jennifer (Jen) Poole (she/her) is a white, first generation settler to T’karonto (Treaty 13). Jen identifies as M/maddened and along with race, class, education, employment, citizenship, language and other privileges, lives with disability, pain and fear. As an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Toronto Metropolitan University, Jen’s work sits in the confluence of madness and grief, and while companioning learners is Jen’s professional priority, current (re) search projects focus on grief in the classroom, sanism, care, decolonizing education and knowledge. Jen is also a settler trainer for the Centre for Indigegogy at Wilfrid Laurier University, a Fellow at the Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research at the University of Toronto and a Teaching Fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University. Additionally, Jen is a proud bonus parent, a TEDX talker and a long time community peer supporter. Jen is happiest outside.

May Friedman: May Friedman (she/her) works as a faculty member at Toronto Metropolitan University. May’s research looks at unstable identities, including bodies that do not conform to normative tropes of race, ethnicity, ability, size, beauty and health. Most recently much of May’s research has focused on intersectional approaches to fat studies considering the multiple and fluid experiences of both fat oppression and fat activism. Drawing on a range of arts-based methods including digital storytelling as well as analyses of treasured garments, May has explored meaning making and representation in relation to embodiment and experience.

Email questions to: mkrazins@syr.edu

Please share out with all who may be interested!

Live Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTlHcfa54_hj9tEbB8fh8L_237sJ__vkY4Wu4dFifV_rzvut5nSIs1CZs2wkGUjC_XTb7-B-P5k6AIs/pub

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May Friedman (she/her)
Professor
School of Social Work and School of Fashion
Toronto Metropolitan University
350 Victoria St. Toronto, ON M5B 2K3
Office: 208-D Eric Palin Hall
416-979-5000 x552525
may.friedman@torontomu.ca

*

Call for Papers:

Selbstporträts

Expressionismus, Ausgabe 20/2024

Herausgegeben von Kristin Eichhorn und Johannes S. Lorenzen

Deadline for Abstracts 1/1/2024

Das Selbstporträt gehört zu den klassischen Motiven der Malerei, führt darüber hinaus aber auch zu der für die Moderne zentralen Frage nach den Wechselwirkungen zwischen Künstler*in und Werk. Es rückt den Produktionsprozess ebenso ins Zentrum wie den Menschen dahinter und erlaubt so neben der programmatischen Selbstverortung auch eine Diskussion über Art und Rolle künstlerischen Schaffens, die weit über bildende Kunst hinausgeht. In der Moderne werden deren mediale Möglichkeiten durch die Fotografie entscheidend erweitert, auch die Selbstdarstellung der kunstschaffenden Persönlichkeit verändert sich – man denke an die Akte von Egon Schiele, der sich oft selbst nackt und stilisiert malte und damit durchaus für Kontroversen sorgte. Künstlerische Selbstinszenierung durch Spiegelung der eigenen Person im eigenen Werk ist auch in der Literatur möglich und weit verbreitet. So ist es kein Zufall, dass viele Protagonisten im Werk Franz Kafkas als „K“ eingeführt werden und die frühen Romane von Johannes R. Becher autobiografische Züge aufweisen bzw. reale Lebensereignisse des Autors verarbeiten. Hintergrund dieser neuen Fokussierung auf das Selbst sind nicht zuletzt auch das Aufkommen der Psychoanalyse und dem Begriff eines ‚Ichs‘, das sich vor dem Hintergrund verdrängter Traumata und Sexualität gesellschaftlich konstituieren muss, sowie der weitgehende Wegfall religiöser und spiritueller Bedeutungsmuster, die das moderne Subjekt auf die eigene Biografie und die eigenen Lebensentscheidungen zurückwirft.

Hat es das self-fashioning (Stephen Greenblatt) schon in der Renaissance gegeben, nimmt der Druck zur Selbstinszenierung vor dem Hintergrund miteinander konkurrierender und oft kurzlebiger (avantgardistischer) Strömungen zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts noch einmal deutlich zu, die nicht ohne Grund ihre Positionen durch so viele Manifeste begründen. Hinzu kommt, dass die Rolle des Künstlers zeitgenössisch stark über seine Rolle zur Gesellschaft definiert wird. Er kann als poeta vates eine quasireligiöse Seherfigur darstellen, sich entweder durch Elitarismus oder durch Provokation und Antibürgerlichkeit von der restlichen Gesellschaft absetzen und in mehr oder weniger konkreter politischer Verankerung ihre grundlegende Veränderung anstreben: In jedem Fall gehen Kunst und Leben eine enge Verbindung ein, bezeugen und beglaubigen sich gegenseitig. Künstlertum gilt es biografisch in Szene zu setzen und das Werk muss wiederum zu der Persona passen, der sich sein*e Erschaffer*in verpflichtet fühlt. So sind die Grenzen zwischen Fiktion und Realität nicht zuletzt in der Literatur des Expressionismus fließend, etwa wenn Else Lasker-Schüler als Figur in ihren Texten auftaucht, dort eine fiktive Identität als Prinz Jussuf annimmt, als der sie gleichzeitig wiederum im realen Leben auftritt.

Häufig hat das Selbstporträt im Expressionismus also keine rein abbildende Funktion. Es entwickelt sich vielmehr ein komplexes Wechselspiel zwischen Original und Abbild, das die Grenzen zwischen beiden ebenso verwischt, wie es die Frage aufwirft, wo die Kunst endet und das Leben beginnt. Das geplante Heft möchte diesen und anderen Aspekten des Selbstbildnisses im Expressionismus vertieft nachgehen. Dabei sind sowohl Überlegungen zur generellen Praxis der Selbstverortung und Selbstinszenierung möglich wie auch die Auseinandersetzung mit einzelnen (bildkünstlerischen) Selbstporträts bzw. Alter Egos in narrativen Formaten (Literatur, Film).

Abstracts zu diesen, aber gerne auch anderen thematisch einschlägigen Aspekten von nicht mehr als 2.000 Zeichen senden Sie bitte bis zum 1. Januar 2024 an eichhorn@neofelis-verlag.de und lorenzen@neofelis-verlag.de. Zudem werden unabhängig vom Thema des Hefts auch immer Vorschläge für Rezensionen oder Diskussionsbeiträge zu aktuellen Forschungsdebatten entgegengenommen, die Phänomene der aktuellen Expressionismus-Rezeption vorstellen und besprechen.

Die fertigen Beiträge sollten einen Umfang von 20.000 Zeichen (inkl. Leerzeichen und Fußnoten) nicht überschreiten und sind bis zum 1. Juli 2024 einzureichen. Das Heft im November 2024.

ENGLISH VERSION

The self-portrait is one of the classical motifs of painting, but it also leads to the question of the interaction between artist and work, which is central to modernism. It focuses on the production process as well as on the person behind it and thus, in addition to the programmatic self-positioning, also allows a discussion about the nature and role of artistic creation that goes far beyond fine art. In the modern era, photography decisively expands the media possibilities of art, and the self-portrayal of the artistic personality changes as well – think of the nudes of Egon Schiele, who often painted himself naked and stylized, thus causing controversy. Artistic self-dramatization by mirroring one’s own person in one’s own work is also possible and widespread in literature. Thus it is no coincidence that many protagonists in Franz Kafka’s work are introduced as “K” and that the early novels of Johannes R. Becher have autobiographical features or process real life events of the author. The background to this new focus on the self is not least the emergence of psychoanalysis and the concept of an ‘I’ that has to constitute itself socially against the background of repressed traumas and sexuality, as well as the widespread disappearance of religious and spiritual patterns of meaning, which the modern subject could relate to his own biography and his own life decisions.

If self-fashioning (Stephen Greenblatt) already existed in the Renaissance, the pressure for self-dramatization increases again significantly at the beginning of the 20th century against the background of competing and often short-lived (avant-garde) currents, which not without reason justify their positions through so many manifestos. In addition, the role of the artist is contemporary strongly defined by his role to society. As poeta vates, he can represent a quasi-religious seer figure, set himself apart from the rest of society either through elitism or through provocation and anti-bourgeoisie, and strive for its fundamental change in more or less concrete political anchoring: In each case, art and life enter into a close relationship, testifying to and authenticating each other. Artistry must be staged biographically, and the work must in turn fit the persona to which its creator is committed. Thus the boundaries between fiction and reality are fluid, not least in the literature of Expressionism, for example when Else Lasker-Schüler appears as a character in her texts, assuming there a fictitious identity as Prince Jussuf, as whom she in turn appears in real life.

Please send abstracts on these, but also gladly other thematically relevant aspects of no more than 2,000 characters to eichhorn@neofelis-verlag.de and lorenzen@neofelis-verlag.de by January 1, 2024. In addition, regardless of the theme of the issue, we also always accept proposals for reviews or discussion papers on current research debates that present and discuss phenomena in the current reception of Expressionism. Final articles must be in German but translations will be accepted.

Finished articles should not exceed 20,000 characters (including spaces and footnotes) and should be submitted by July 1, 2024. The issue in November 2024.

The Expatriate Archive Centre (EAC) invites master’s students around the world to participate in the EAC Master’s Thesis Award and submit theses that contribute to the scholarship of expatriation studies.

Prize: €500 and promotion of the executive summary of the winning thesis by the EAC and partner organisations.

Application deadline: 31 March 2024.

Master thesis requirements:
•             The thesis should relate to the EAC’s mission and objectives;
•             The thesis is written in English;
•             The thesis is from the 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22, or 2022–23 academic year;
•             The thesis has been awarded a mark of 8/10 or more (or equivalent, e.g., 16/20 or more, or an ‘A’).

In 2019, we created this award to celebrate and reward talents who produce outstanding master’s theses that help to further understand the impact of expatriation on people’s lives. Five jurors evaluate the submissions. They use the following criteria: originality and innovation (20%); technical quality (30%); composition (10%); potential for contributing to the stimulation of scholarly (e.g. theoretical, methodological, etc.) perspectives regarding the award theme (20%); potential for contributing to the stimulation of practical engagement by policy, industry and/or civil society actors with the award theme (20%). More information about how to apply can be found here.

Partner organisations: Families in Global Transition, The International Metropolis Project, International Centre for Archival Research, TheHagueOnLine, ACCESS Netherlands and DutchNews.nl.

For more information about the EAC and this initiative, please visit our website or email welcome@xpatarchive.com.

Have a nice day,
Kristine

Director

Expatriate Archive Centre
Paramaribostraat 20
2585 GN The Hague (the Netherlands)
T. +31 (0)70 427 2014
F. +31 (0)70 427 2016
director@xpatarchive.com
www.xpatarchive.com
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The postings below are all still active, and organized by deadline. Once the deadline has passed, they will be moved to the IABA Posting Archive, on the CBR Website

Ecologies of Exile: Exploring Literature Penned by Persecuted Writers during the Holocaust

Avatars, Heteronyms, Phantoms: Life Writing, Literary Masks, and the Dispersion of the SelfAmerican Comparative Literature Association MeetingMarch 14-17, 2024Montreal, Canada

CFP–Graphic Biographical Fiction (9/31/2023) Edited Collection

Please send an abstract (200-300 words) and a short biography (100 words) to both editors, Maria Juko (mariajuko@gmail.com) and Nancy Pedri (npedri@mun.ca)

Touring Travel Writing III: Between Fact and Fiction International Conference

A Light in the Fog: Creative Writing about AdoptionNortheast Modern Language Association Convention, March 7-10, 2024, Boston, USA

Women in French 11th International Colloquium “Precarious Lives/Vies Précaires”

Abundant Silence: Narrative and Artistic Strategies of Resistance (Seminar)

The Rise of Autoliterature

“You’ve Got Me in My Feelings”: Discomfort and Discourse of “Excessive” Emotions in Trauma Memoir

Violences Big and Small: Personal Stories of Resilience and Revelation

Behind the Scenes: The Literary Documentary, Scene II

CFP for Roundtable “Translation, Travel Writing, and Excess”

The Rise of Autoliterature (NeMLA 2024 panel)

“You’ve Got Me in My Feelings”: Discomfort and Discourse of “Excessive” Emotions in Trauma Memoir

Call for Book Chapters: Recovering Lost Voices 19th-century British Literature

Queen Elizabeth II: Life, Times, Legacies

CAMPS, CARCERAL IMAGINARIES, & CRITICAL INTERVENTIONS

CFP: Stardom and Fandom, Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference

Call for Papers: Kings & QueensRoyal Studies Network 13th Annual ConferenceMay 27-28, 2024American University of Paris and Châteaudun Castle, FranceDeadline for Submissions—October 31, 2023

CFP: Archival Lives/Lives in the Archive (11/01/23; Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, April 5-6 2024)

Translation, Transposition, and Travel in the Global Nineteenth CenturySociety for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies World Congress16 to 19 January 2025Gulf University for Science and Technology, KuwaitDeadline for Submissions: November 15, 2023 (Panels); December 15, 2023 (Papers)

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Partner organisations: Families in Global Transition, The International Metropolis Project, International Centre for Archival Research, TheHagueOnLine, ACCESS Netherlands and DutchNews.nl.

For more information about the EAC and this initiative, please visit our website or email welcome@xpatarchive.com. Have a nice day,Kristine

Avatars, Heteronyms, Phantoms: Life Writing, Literary Masks, and the Dispersion of the Self

American Comparative Literature Association Meeting

March 14-17, 2024

Montreal, Canada

A Light in the Fog: Creative Writing about Adoption

Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, March 7-10, 2024, Boston, USA

Call for Papers: Kings & Queens
Royal Studies Network 13th Annual Conference
May 27-28, 2024
American University of Paris and Châteaudun Castle, France
Deadline for Submissions—October 31, 2023

Translation, Transposition, and Travel in the Global Nineteenth Century
Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies World Congress
16 to 19 January 2025
Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait
Deadline for Submissions: November 15, 2023 (Panels); December 15, 2023 (Papers)

For more information about the EAC and this initiative, please visit our website or email welcome@xpatarchive.com.

Have a nice day,
Kristine