The deadlines have passed for the following listings, or they are notices of new issues of life writing journals. We provide this information here for points of reference for scholars interested in trends in the field.

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Call for Papers: Journal of Greek Media and Culture

Edited by Dr Olga Kourelou and Dr Lydia Papadimitriou Special Issue: ‘Greek Stardom and Celebrity: Histories and Methods’ Deadline for Abstracts: May 15, 2024 View the full call here>> https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-greek-media-culture#call-for-papers Since the publication of Richard Dyer’s Stars (1979), which initiated the beginning of a scholarly enquiry into film stardom, star studies have been constantly evolving and expanding. While most early work on stardom focused on issues of representation and the ideological significance of film stars, or their role in the industrialisation of Hollywood cinema, the field has expanded across film, TV and media studies; adopting new areas of investigation and methodological approaches, including work on the nature of fame and celebrity (Holmes and Redmond 2007; Holmes and Negra 2011), empirical audience research (Herzog and Gaines 1991; Stacey 1994), acting and performance (Naremore 1988; Hollinger 2006; Baron 2018), as well as national and transnational stars and stardoms (Vincendeau 2000; Landy 2010; Meeuf and Raphael 2013; Yu and Austin 2017; Lawrence 2020). Meanwhile, Greek film studies have been experiencing an exponential growth in both the Greek- and English-language academe. However, while popular Greek cinema has been reclaimed as a serious object of academic study for some time now, the phenomenon of stardom in Greece has not enjoyed a similar academic reappraisal, despite its acknowledged centrality in Greek cinema and beyond. It is primarily in connection with Old Greek Cinema (Kourelou 2020; Karalis 2015; Potamitis 2013; Kartalou 2011; Kyriacos 2009), genre (Papadimitriou 2009, 2004; Eleftheriotis 1995) and, to a lesser extent, acting (Lykourgioti 2017; Dimitriadis 2008; Kourelou 2008) that Greek film criticism has recognised the role of stardom. Beyond these contexts, there has been a considerable lack of critical engagement with the diachronic manifestation and development not only of stardom but also of celebrity. This issue aims to lay the groundwork for a wide-ranging debate on the subject that will improve our understanding of stardom in Greece. The issue, however, does not seek to simply celebrate individual stars, unearth their biographies or elaborate on the types they embody. Rather, our concern is with exploring theoretical issues individual or groups of stars raise, the kinds of identities and meanings they personify, as well as the ways in which they negotiate the values and contradictions of their era. At the same time, we are not only interested in revealing the textual significance of stars in specific historical contexts, but also their political economy and discursive construction. Some of the lines of enquiry we would particularly like to pursue revolve around the following questions: how has stardom evolved historically in Greece? Does cinema still provide the ultimate confirmation of stardom, as Christine Gledhill (1991) claimed in relation to Hollywood stars more than three decades ago? How have media technologies (from TV and VHS to social media) impacted not only the way stars emerge, but also the way their fame has been conceptualised and their fans engage with them? How can we understand Greek stardom in nationally and culturally specific terms as well as through the way it intersects with other – dominant or peripheral – transnational contexts? What ideas about personhood do stars articulate, how do these change over time and how do they help audiences make sense of themselves and the (Greek) world? In order to reveal the multitude of stardoms in Greek film, TV and media, we invite (but do not limit) proposals on the following topics:

• Histories of stardom and celebrity
• Stars and genre
• Stars and film style
• Stars, gender and sexuality
• Stars, ethnicity and race
• Stars and the nation
• Star labour
• Ageing
• Acting and performance
• The relationship between studios and stars, auteurs and stars
• The interconnectivity between theatrical, film and/or TV stardom
• Non-film stardom
• Cult stardom
• Reception and spectatorship: stardom and film criticism, the role of the audience (and different types of audiences) and how they make use of star images

Please send a title, 300 word abstract and a short biography to Dr Olga Kourelou (kourelou.o@unic.ac.cy) and Dr Lydia Papadimitriou (L.Papadimitriou@ljmu.ac.uk) by 15 May 2024. The final articles should be around 6000-8000 words, and submitted to the editors by 1 November 2024. * CFP–Witnessing the War in Ukraine: Testimony in the Pursuit of Justice Summer Institute

August 27-30, 2024 Wroclaw, Poland Deadline for Submissions: May 15, 2024

As an urgent response to the Russian military aggression against sovereign Ukraine, several partner institutions launched the Summer Institute Witnessing the War in Ukraine in July 2022 and then hosted the Second Institute in June 2023. Over the two years, the circumstances of the war led to the rapid growth of grassroot activism and formation of new research communities both in Ukraine and beyond. As academic researchers, we consider it as our professional and ethical obligation to continue the initiative we introduced two years ago to further disseminate our academic expertise in oral history, ethnography, memory studies, interview research and research of witness literature, as well as to share this knowledge with a broad and evolving community of practitioners working in various local settings. The third Summer Institute in 2024 will focus on testimony research in the pursuit of justice, with an ambition to chart novel disciplinary approaches for oral history, memory studies and anthropology, while affording victims of the war a space of trust, empowerment and dignity. We invite the prospective WWSI 2024 participants to bring to the limelight, contextualize and interrogate injustice as it has been witnessed, observed and experienced, from a variety of conceptual and disciplinary perspectives, across diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural groups of Ukraine. Testimonies provided by eyewitnesses play a pivotal role in uncovering crimes, establishing culpability of war criminals, and securing redress for victims. The first-hand testimonies serve not only as crucial components in legal proceedings but also as a solid basis for upholding human rights and international law during armed conflicts. Moreover, such juridical work with witnesses lays the groundwork for restoring trust in the legal system and fostering peace in post-conflict societies. The concept of genocide is of special interest within the framework of WWSI 2024. Since 2014 the rhetoric of genocide has been tested to provide a juridical qualification of the crimes of the Russian Federation committed in Ukraine. We will discuss existing scholarly approaches and gauge the possibility of qualifying assaults against one’s life, one’s group identity, one’s cultural heritage and one’s natural habitat as crimes of genocide in a comparative perspective. Another focus of WWSI 2024 is proposed to be on experiences of occupation and pursuit of justice in the formerly occupied territories. Among the confirmed invited speakers are: Oksana Dovgopolova, Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University Gabriele Rosenthal, University of Göttingen Kristina Hook, Kennesaw State University’s School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding, and Development Dirk Moses,  City College of New York Hasan Hasanović, Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Centre Claudia Seymour, Geneva Graduate Institute Yevheniia Podobna, Journalist & documentarian Nataliya Zubar, Maidan Monitoring Information Centre Józef Markiewicz, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews What to expect Over the course of four days, the institute will offer a series of presentations, workshops, and mentorship opportunities examining current trends in scholarly and creative reflections on witnessing the war in Ukraine. Invited speakers and faculty will lead such discussions and invited participants will be offered opportunities to discuss their work with other members of the Institute. Testimonials to the work of the previous Summer Institute can be found here. The Summer Institute will be held in person in Wrocław, Poland. The working language of the Institute is English. The registration fee for the Summer Institute is 200 EURO. In support of accepted participants residing in Ukraine, the travel grant (covering travel, accommodation and registration fee) will be announced.

To participate in the Institute, apply here.

Your application should include a personal statement in English explaining how this Summer Institute will benefit your scholarly and/or creative work and ongoing or planned projects, a brief bio, and contact information. Important Deadlines and Dates: Application Deadline — 15 May, 2024 Notifications of Acceptance — 1 June, 2024 Summer Institute — 27-30 August, 2024 Organizers Lund University, Sweden Huculak Chair in Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography, University of Alberta, Canada Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Canada Ukrainian Oral History Association, Ukraine Polish Oral History Association, Poland Dobra Wola Foundation, Poland Centrum Historii Zajezdnia Ukrainian-German Historical Commission Organizing Committee

• Natalia Khanenko-Friesen — Oral historian and cultural anthropologist, Director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and Huculak Chair in Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography, both at University of Alberta; Co-Head of Ukrainian Oral History Association.
• Eleonora Narvselius — Anthropologist from Lund University, currently leading the research project Ukrainians in Poland: Making Home in Times of Peace and War, in collaboration with Wrocław University.
• Gelinada Grinchenko — Oral historian, Philipp Schwartz Fellow at the University of Wuppertal (Germany); Co-Head of Ukrainian Oral History Association.
• Alina Doboszewska — Researcher at the Institute of Sociology of Jagiellonian University, NGO activist, founder and president of the Dobra Wola Foundation in Krakow.

https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20030136/cfp-witnessing-war-ukraine-testimony-pursuit-justice-summer-institute *

CFP: Articles About Mental Illnesses in Reality Television for Book Project

deadline for submissions:  May 15, 2024 The pandemic brought a lot of changes to the structure of American society. COVID-19 was a disabling pandemic, leaving many people with severe health issues that they didn’t have pre-pandemic and which now affect their daily life. And when it comes to mental illness, the pandemic threw some of us into the realization that loneliness, depression, anxiety, etc. are more prevalent than we thought. This issue was so prominent in the minds of health officials, that the Surgeon General released a report on this new loneliness epidemic. Reality television has not typically been a place for nuanced discussions about anything, but the representation we’ve seen has improved a lot in the past decade, from a “finalist” talking about his depression on The Bachelorette to differently abled contestants on a variety of shows. And, it’s worth noting, that with the popularity and large audience of the genre, sometimes these shows can be the first time someone sees themselves represented or learns about a different type of person. I am seeking abstracts for potential articles for a book project that will be themed around representations of mental illnesses/disorders/disabilities in reality television. Some potential topics are listed below to help spur ideas! Please submit a 300 word abstract and 100 word bio by May 15, 2024 to acabral@sfsu.edu. Once abstracts have been received, a full proposal will be submitted to the interested publisher (McFarland & Company) by June 15, 2024 and if accepted, essays/papers will be due by the end of August 2024. Possible areas for discussion include:

• How men with disabilities are depicted versus women with disabilities
• Desirability politics in relation to dating shows and the typical uplifting of one specific body type (white, straight, skinny, able bodied).
• Less sanitized depictions of mental illness, such a portrayals of what could probably be labeled Obsessive Compulsive Disorder on shows like My Strange Addiction
• Shows that focus on a specific disorder, like The OCD project
• How reality television portrayals of mental illness fit into the larger conversation about mental health, especially post-COVID and acknowledging the push by many for society to be more accepting
• How representation of mental illnesses on reality television shows and how that may affect public perception
• Mental illness “influencers” and/or how reality television contestants have used a newfound platform to discuss their mental health
• How appearing on reality television can cause or worsen mental illness, such as on camera emotional breakdowns on Love Is Blind
• How certain shows, especially marriage oriented ones like The Bachelor, force contestants to reveal their trauma (notably a contestant on Tayshia’s season of The Bachelorette told her about his suicide attempt)

Special issue editor: Angelica Cabral, Women and Gender Studies MA student at San Francisco State University. Editor Bio: Angelica Cabral is in her first year of the Women and Gender Studies Master’s program at San Francisco State University, with a focus on studying internet culture and social media as they intersect with gender and sexuality. Alongside being a student, she is the Development and Communications Manager for a youth focused nonprofit. In February she presented at the 2024 Southwest Popular/American Culture Association. Her paper was titled “Hot Girls Have IBS: An analysis of the use of meme culture to cope with an illness primarily affecting women.” Her writing has appeared in Mother Jones, Slate, The Objective, and more. * Call for Papers Women’s Autobiographical Filmmaking  Special issue of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, Summer 2026 Deadline for Abstracts: May 15, 2024 Guest editors: Dr Felicia Chan (University of Manchester) and Dr Monika Kukolova (University of Salford) Autobiographical filmmaking refers to films created by filmmakers that tell stories about their lives, experiences and memories. These may be truthful or partially fictionalised, remembered clearly or misremembered, or a combination of these, usually in ways that also explore how film as a medium itself can do this — a form of practice-as-research, if you like. We are interested in exploring with potential contributors whether there might be a gendered nature to this mode of filmmaking / life-remembering / self-narrating? Do filmmakers who identify as women tell different stories about themselves and their lives from those who identify as men, or do they do so in a different way? How do women filmmakers navigate their simultaneous objecthood and subjecthood in the eye of the camera (Everett, 2007)? Much of the canon in film studies is constituted by works of male auteurs, all in one form or another said to be exploring their lives, their pasts and their selves on screen: think of figures like Federico Fellini, Woody Allen, François Truffaut, Shane Meadows, the list goes on. This structural domination is being continually challenged (Gledhill and Knight, 2015) and moves to rehistoricise women’s filmmaking have seen increased attention on figures from Agnès Varda through to Greta Gerwig though much more remains to be done on women filmmakers in the global majority. There has been a longer history of scholarship on women’s literary life-writing (Smith and Watson, 1998; Neuman, 2016; Brodzki and Schenck, 2019) but less so on women’s life-writing on/through film as a mode of self-narration. How have women filmmakers had to navigate the industrial structures of filmmaking with all its gatekeeping mechanisms, including access to capital? To what extent are these gatekeeping mechanisms disproportionately discriminatory towards women? We are inviting proposals to explore any area of the subject, although we are especially keen to receive proposals from scholars studying the ways women in the global majority use cinema to write themselves and their memories into post/colonial histories. We would also like to invite proposals on alternative publication formats such as the video essay, and shorter provocations, interviews or reports. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Filmmaker case studies
• Close readings of individual films
• Industry analysis
• Autobiographical film as method
• Challenges to theoretical orthodoxies, e.g. auteur theory, canon-making, etc.
• Decolonial approaches to gender studies and women’s filmmaking

Full-length articles: 5,500-7,000 words, including notes but excluding references Video essay: Approx. 3-15 mins, plus accompanying text 500-1000 words Short reports, provocations, reviews, interviews, reflections: 1,500-2,500 words Full-length articles and video essays will be subject to full peer review. Guidelines here: https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Guidelines.html Publication Timeline 15 May 2024, abstract due 31 May 2024, notification of editors’ decision 15 January 2025, full video essay / manuscript due Publication: Summer 2026 If you are interested in contributing to this issue, please send a 300-word abstract along with a brief biography, in the same file, to Dr Monika Kukolova (M.Kukolova@salford.ac.uk) Feel free to contact us with any questions. Alphaville is a diamond open-access journal, and it requests no fee from authors or readers. Visit us at https://www.alphavillejournal.com Contact Information Dr Felicia Chan, University of Manchester, UK: Felicia.Chan@manchester.ac.uk Dr Monika Kukolova, University of Salford, UK: M.Kukolova@salford.ac.uk Contact Email Felicia.Chan@manchester.ac.uk URL https://www.alphavillejournal.com * Call-for-Papers Cultural Depictions of the Stepmother: Literature, Stage, and Screen. An Edited Collection Deadline for Abstract Submissions–30 April, 2024 This call is for abstracts for a scholarly, international edited collection entitled, Cultural Depictions of the Stepmother: Literature, Stage, and Screen. Currently I am seeking a number of academics and professionals in the field who might like to send me an abstract for consideration for inclusion in the book. Deadline for abstract submissions:  30 April, 2024 The aim of this scholarly edited collection is to reveal how, in any society, the personal expectations and actual experiences of the stepmother may differ from the societal and cultural expectations and realities of the role. The further aim is to show how the stepmother is perceived in the popular views of a particular society, as demonstrated in the literature, stage, screen, and pop culture narratives, of that society. To whatever degree, every culture in the world is different to all others. Yet, in any culture, religious and cultural beliefs are inseparable, intrinsic one to the other, and are important to the traditions, customs, practices and laws of any particular culture or society. One figure that remains consistent in almost every culture, and that attracts the attention, is the stepmother. Regardless of whether a culture is mainly monogamous or polygamous, the stepmother is one of the female figures that are central to the family, the community and hence the society and the culture. Various sources define the stepmother as: a woman who is married to one’s father after the divorce or separation of one’s parents or the death of one’s natural mother; a non-biological female parent who is married to a child’s biological male parent. An added complexity exists: statistics indicate that globally, there has been an increase of children born outside of marriage and who are raised by their cohabiting or non-cohabiting parents. Thus, a stepmother can be a woman who either marries or is the female partner of a man who has biological children resulting from a former marriage, or a previous union with some other woman.  A woman may also become a stepmother by default as in the case of, say, raising the children of a deceased (or otherwise absent) relative, or an orphan or an abandoned child as if her own offspring. Thus, given that cultural and religious, and social traditions, and laws vary widely across the globe, a woman may become the stepmother either by fact or by custom, or by religious or civil law, or by de facto relationship, or by guardianship. In most though not necessarily all cultures, and according to the religious and cultural beliefs and laws of a culture, as well as the civil laws of that country, a man who has been but is no longer married may remarry; and in some other cultures also, a man who is currently married may marry or take a second wife who may be expected to act as stepmother to his biological children by another previous marriage or union that has ended, or by agreement between the child’s/children’s biological parents. It is generally understood that whether she is welcomed by her new family or not, a man’s first wife or female partner brings with her some baggage into the life of the man she either weds or cohabits or has a relationship with, and hence into the family into which she marries or enters in some way.  Perhaps this may be more so in the case of the stepmother—a second (or further) wife or female partner of a man who already has a biological child/or children from a former relationship. Sometimes, too, a woman who becomes a stepmother will bring her own biological offspring into the union. It is well documented that parenting can be a difficult task at times. For a stepmother, the challenges, problems, and the difficulties in raising some other woman’s biological children may differ to those experienced by the biological mother. Questions arise: within any culture, what are the implications for a woman who weds or become the female partner of a widower or a divorced or separated man who is actively involved with, or is responsible for, his biological child/children from a previous union? Likewise, what are the implications for a stepmother in a) a polygamous arrangement, and b) for a stepmother in a monogamous relationship? Some suggestions for potential contributors to consider, and that could be addressed, may include but not limited to, are:

• • What are the cultural and social duties and expectations of the stepmother; and what are her personal realities and expectations, as depicted in the popular culture of a particular culture/society? Is it possible to detect differences or sameness between the fictionalized portrayals and the realities and social dictates of that culture?

• • How do class, ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and possibly history, shape depictions of the stepmother, as indicated in the popular screen, stage, and literary productions of any one particular culture?

• • What is the range of ways in which the stepmother is represented in the popular/social culture of the various societies?

• • Are there any powerful cultural or socially historical antecedents for the representations of the stepmother in popular/social culture, as screen, stage, and literary productions?

• • What are the creators’ and/or the producers’ intentions behind their portrayals of the stepmother; what are their messages for their audiences?

• • How would we establish the underlying cultural, historical, or production motivations for particular depictions of the stepmother?

How often, if at all, are these representations told from the point-of-view of the stepmother herself? Alternatively, how often, if at all, are these representations told from the point-of-view of the stepchild/stepchildren, or the husband or partner of that woman herself?

• • Is there a difference between the ways in which the stepmother is depicted in film for small and large screen, and between those mediums to the depictions in drama, and to literature? Or in these depictions, is there a reasonably broad consensus between these genres?

This collection of scholarly essays will make an intervention in the field: it will be the first of its kind to make a comprehensive study of what being a stepmother means to and for the woman, to the family, the community, the culture, and the society to which she belongs. This to investigate whether or not there are characteristic features of the stepmother between cultures that may have either some similarity, or that are totally dissimilar; explore the popular beliefs and popular culture in relation to stepmother-hood in any one or more society/ies; document and record how various eastern and western societies perceive and represent the socially and culturally important figure of the stepmother in screen, stage, and literary works, including folk tales and pop culture narratives; indicate if there is agreement or difference between the various cultures on how the figure of the stepmother is depicted in popular culture to the viewing/reading audiences; establish a new and dynamic area of theoretical research crossing family studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, social history, gender studies, social studies, and the humanities in general; point the way to possible future cross-disciplinary work through examining various peoples and societies by way of cultural depictions of the stepmother; and permit scholarly consideration of the extent to which the creators and producers of narratives about the stepmother place this figure on the perimeter of society or at its center. Submission instructions: At this initial stage, in lieu of “chapters,” this proposed work, Cultural Depictions of the Stepmother, calls for extended abstracts for consideration for inclusion in the book.

1. 1. The extended abstracts must be more than 1,500 words and less than 2,000 words.

Full-length chapters of not less than, say, 7,000 words, and no more than 8,500 words each (including notes but excluding references lists, title of work, and key words), will be solicited from these abstracts.

1. 1. Please keep in mind that your essay-chapter will be written from your extended abstract. Your abstract will carry the same title as your essay-chapter.

1. 1. To be considered, an abstract must be written in English, and submitted as a Word document.

1. 1. When writing your abstract use Times New Roman point 12, and 1.15 spacing.

1. 1. At the beginning of your extended abstract, immediately after the title of your work and your name, add 5 to 8 keywords that best relate to your work.

1. 1. Use the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition.

1. 1. Since this work is intended for Lexington Books, USA, please use American (US) spelling not English (UK) spelling, and not Australian English spelling;

1. 1. Use the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary;

1. 1. For this project it is most important to use an impersonal academic voice when writing your abstract, and possibly your chapter later. That is, do not use the teacherly voice (“as we will see…”; “here we see…”; “as it will become clear”; …); and do not use 1st person or the personal voice (I; We will find; We find; You; Us; …)

1. 1. Use endnotes not footnotes, use counting numbers not Roman numerals, and keep the endnotes to a bare minimum, working the information into the text where possible;

1. 1. Do cite all your work in your extended abstract as you would in a full chapter:

a) In the body of the abstract, add parenthetical in-text citations (family name of author and year, and page number/s) (e.g. Smith 2019, 230); b) And fully reference all in-text citations in detail and in alphabetical order, in the References list at the end of your abstract;

1. 1. Please send your completed abstract as a Word document attached to an email, by the date given in this call for papers;

1. 1. To this same email please also attach, as separate Word documents, the following:

• • Your covering letter, giving your academic title/s, affiliation, your position, and your home and telephone numbers, your home address, and your email contact details;

• • A short bio of no more than 250 words;

• • Your C.V., including a full list of your publications and giving the publishing details and dates, and including those in press.

Editor: Dr Jo Parnell, PhD| Researcher, and Honorary Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, College of Human and Social Futures, University of Newcastle, Australia. Papers should be forwarded to: Jo.Parnell@newcastle.edu.au  or annette.parnell@newcastle.edu.au or joandbobparnell@bigpond.com  * Call for Presentations Auto / Bio / Fictional Graphic Narratives: A Online Symposium Thursday 27 June 2024 Deadline for Submissions: April 19, 2024 Life-writing in its many forms, including autofiction and biofiction, has grown exponentially in recent decades. Comics and graphic narratives have similarly become widespread and respected literary genres that feature many biographical, autobiographical, autofictional or biofictional texts. Completing the 2023-24 Auto / Bio / Fiction series at the Goldsmiths’ Centre for Comparative Literature, this online symposium will reflect on the combination of these two forms in order to explore how auto / bio / fictional graphic narratives and comics mobilise – and may put in tension – the visual and the verbal, the individual and the collective, the historical and the fictional, the documentary and the imagined, as well as popular culture and ‘serious’ literary fiction in constructing historical lives with varying degrees of fictionality and purposes. We invite proposals for varied forms of contributions, which can include:

• • –  20-minute formal papers

• • –  10-minute flash contributions

• • –  digital posters (i.e., as in a conference poster session: the poster can be shown

through screen share, with a 5-6 minute explanation)

• • –  roundtable proposals (3-4 contributions in which each speaker presents their

position in no more than 5 minutes, followed by a discussion / conversation)

• • –  led practical exercises or workshops

• • –  presentation of work in progress by practitioners

• • –  other formats not listed above

Topics may address (but are not limited to):

• • –  the representation and development of auto/biographical and auto/biofictional

identity

• • –  the representation of self and other

• • –  constructions and explorations of gender, sexual orientation, religion, race,

ethnicity…

• • –  experiences of displacement, migration, illness, war

• • –  the relationships or tensions between the factual and the fictional, the documentary

and the imagined, the visual and the verbal in the representation of the life

• • –  the literariness of graphic life narratives

• • –  wordless narratives (e.g. George A. Walker’s The Life and Times of Conrad Black: AWordless Biography)

• • –  chronotopes of life-writing; the temporal and spatial dimensions of life narratives

• • –  the relationship between author/narrator/illustrator and the character whose life is re-told –  how forms of reading experience, in hard copy or digital formats, affect the sense of the life conveyed in the narrative

• • –  tone in graphic life narratives: the dramatic, traumatic, melodramatic; the comedic, the ironic, the satirical…

• • –  effects and function of humour, pathos, surprise…

• • –  translations of graphic life narratives

• • –  adaptation of traditional written biographies into graphic narratives

• • –  historical and geographical developments of the genre

Comparisons across languages, cultures and traditions are most welcome. Proposals are welcome from academics and practitioners at any stage of their career. Please send your proposals by 19 April 2024 to: CCL@gold.ac.uk (please include the words “Auto-Bio-Fictional Graphic Narratives” in the subject line). Proposals should include: 1) a summary of up to 250 words of the proposed contribution, and 3-5 keywords; 2) the type of contribution proposed (formal paper, digital poster, etc.: see the list above); 3) a short biography of up to 150 words. For more information visit: https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/auto-bio- fictional-graphic-narratives-a-symposium/. * PhD Studentship in UK – Oral History and Provenance (4/8/2024) British Library and University College London Colleagues from the Oral History Team at the British Library write: We are excited to announce the details of a collaborative AHRC-funded PhD entitled ‘Exploring the Importance of Provenance in Oral History Collections’. The project will be jointly supervised by the British Library Oral History team and the Department of Information Studies at UCL. Applications are now open and close on the 8^th April 2024. Please share with your networks! More information below, full details including application instructions is available on the UCL website. Please read the application information carefully – do not use the ‘apply now’ button on the listing. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/search-ucl-jobs/details?nPostingId=9173&nPostingTargetId=21440&id=Q1KFK026203F3VBQBLO8M8M07&LG=UK&languageSelect=UK&mask=ext University College London (UCL) and the British Library are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from 1 October 2024 under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme. This research will examine the importance of documenting provenance for archived oral history collections by exploring the value of records of provenance to archivists and oral history researchers, and how making such records available to researchers could enhance understanding of oral history interviews and the historiography of the discipline. This project will be jointly supervised by Dr Andrew Flinn (Reader in Archive Studies and Oral History) and Dr Hannah Smyth (Lecturer in Archives and Records Management) in the Department of Information Studies at UCL (UCL:DIS) and by Dr Madeline White (Curator Oral History) and Mary Stewart (Lead Curator Oral History) at the British Library. The student will spend time with both UCL and the British Library and will become part of the wider cohort of AHRC CDP funded PhD students across the UK. UCL and the British Library are keen to encourage applications from a wide range of students and particularly welcome those currently underrepresented in doctoral student cohorts. * Call for Papers Stardom & Fandom Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA) 2024 SWPACA Summer Salon June 20-22, 2024 Virtual Conference Submissions open on March 25, 2024 Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2024 Proposals for papers are now being accepted for the SWPACA Summer Salon. SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas in a variety of categories encompassing the following: Film, Television, Music, & Visual Media; Historic & Contemporary Cultures; Identities & Cultures; Language & Literature; Science Fiction & Fantasy; and Pedagogy & Popular Culture. For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit https://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/ 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

• • Celebrity and the construction of persona

• • Pedagogical approaches to teaching stardom and fandom

• • Anti-fans and ‘haters’

• • Fan shame, wank, purity culture and fandom policing

• • Gendered constructions of stars and fans

• • Shipping, anti-shipping and representation

• • Historical studies of fandom and fan/celebrity interaction

All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database at https://register.southwestpca.org/southwestpca For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general, please see the Proposal Submission FAQs and Tips page at https://southwestpca.org/conference/faqs-and-tips/ Registration information for the conference will be available at https://southwestpca.org/conference/conference-registration-information/ Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words. Only one proposal per person, please; no roundtables. If you have any questions about the Stardom and Fandom area, please contact its Area Chair, Dr. Lynn Zubernis, Professor, West Chester University, lzubernis@wcupa.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@southwestpca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you. We look forward to receiving your submissions! * Call for Papers for a Special Issue (2025) Letters in/as Pedagogy Journal of Epistolary Studies Deadline for Submissions: April 15, 2024 Letters and letter writing have captivated scholars across diverse fields, including life writing, cultural studies, history, and literary studies. In the digital age, there is a renewed interest in studying letters within the ever-evolving landscape of digital communication technologies and platforms. Digital tools have revolutionized the examination of historical letters, enabling the archiving, analysis, and presentation of these artefacts. Interpersonal communication has undergone a transformation with the prevalence of email and social media. Additionally, the emergence of large language models like ChatGPT has added new dimensions to the discourse on interpersonal communication, as the chatbots promise seamless and rapid generation of personalized letters. The transformative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has underscored the relevance of letters and letter writing in education. As teachers and students abruptly transitioned to online learning during the pandemic, some educators explored the potential of letters as a means to establish meaningful connections during a period of social distancing and isolation. Already before the pandemic letters were employed as interventions in individual classes. For instance, teachers asked students to write letters to future students of the same course, encouraging the students to share their experiences and advice (inspired by James M. Lang Small Teaching). Letters have also served as the foundation for entire courses, as exemplified by Toni Bower’s “Epistolary Fiction before 1800” course, where students were introduced to contemporary epistolary novels that use multimodality or digital communication technologies to better appreciate the form’s “long and vibrant history.” Moreover, letters have been used to communicate educational theory, as seen in Paulo Freire’s Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those who Dare Teach (2005). Letter writing can offer a unique possibility to create and explore relationships in writing where shared knowing is made possible despite geographical, temporal, cultural and other distances between the addresser and the addressee.  As the editors of We Saved the Best for You: Letters of Hope, Imagination and Wisdom for 21^st Century Educators (2013) note, epistolary genre has the potential to “illuminate experiential connections and continuity across space and time” (xiv). This call for papers invites scholars to contribute their insights, research findings, and perspectives on the multifaceted relationship between letters, real-life and fictional, and pedagogy. Letters, with their malleable form, can serve a multitude of purposes. We invite contributions that explore the diverse ways in which letters may be used in and as pedagogical practices: the cultural and societal significance of letters as means of imparting knowledge and values; historical and contemporary examples of letters used for didactic purposes; and the evolution of letter writing manuals and their future in the digital age. We encourage discussions on how letters can be used to create a supportive and empathetic learning environment, connect students across geographical, temporal, and cultural boundaries, and how educators use letter writing as reflective practice. To explores these questions, we invite contributions on a range of topics, including but not limited to:

• • Didactic purpose/ potential of letters

• • Letter writing manuals: past, present, and future

• • Letter writing as pedagogy of care

• • Public pedagogy through letters

• • Letters and global education

• • Autoethnographic letter writing

• • Letters in language learning

• • Electronic correspondence

• • Multimodal epistolarity

Sindija Franzetti has proposed this special issue on “Letters in/as Pedagogy” and will serve as guest editor. If you are interested in having a peer-reviewed article published in this special issue of the Journal of Epistolary Studies, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, the article title, 3-5 key words, a short biographical note, and your email address to lettersinpedagogy@gmail.com no later than April 15, 2024. You will be notified by May 1, 2024, whether your proposed paper has been accepted. The final date for full article submission is pending. The aim is to publish the issue in 2025. *

CFP Translation, Transposition, and Travel in the Global Nineteenth Century

16-19 January 2025 Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies World Congress Global Studies Center, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait deadline for submissions: March 25, 2024 Keynote speakers: Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter Marwan Kraidy, Northwestern University QatarArthur 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 (extended deadline of 25 March) 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. 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. *

Un-Bioed: Radically Reimagining Black Women’s Lives (3/28-29/2024)

University of Kentucky USA This 2-day conference is an opportunity to celebrate and expand the community of Black women’s life writers. Black women’s life writing has been among the fastest-growing literary subgenres in the past several years. Long before this explosion of memoirs and biographies on and by Black women, scholars such as Nell Painter, Farah Jasmine Griffin, and Barbara Ransby led the way in the 1990s and early 2000s, writing path-breaking biographies and establishing the methodologies that other scholars would build upon. And while Black women’s biography has remained a vital form of writing and research for academics at various career stages, only a few have managed to secure contracts with commercial publishers and garner wider audience reach. Join us on Thursday, March 28, 2024, from 4 – 6 pm at the William T. Young Library Auditorium for an inspiring keynote from Salamishah Tillet (Baruch College), followed by a reception at the Alumni Gallery. The next day Friday, March 29, 2024, join us at the Alumni Gallery from 9 am – 3 pm for a day of panels and workshops dedicated to community, craft, and marketing. The schedule of events with speakers can be found here. Register here for free! Please share widely—we look forward to seeing you in March! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/un-bioed-radically-reimagining-black-womens-lives-tickets-761393888617?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl Shanna G. Benjamin, Ph.D. Professor of African American Studies, Wake Forest she/her My book, Half in Shadow, is available for purchase! Read my interview with the AAIHS to learn more about the book and why I wrote it. Visit my Linktree for videos of past events and notice of upcoming talks. Here’s how you pronounce my name. *

2024 Conference: Call for Papers

Defining the Letter– The Epistolary Research Network (TERN) will hold its fifth conference 4-5 October 2024. Deadline for Abstracts: March 29

1. 1. On February 28, 1943, someone found scraps of paper in their garden, thrown from the window of a train going to Auschwitz-Birkenau. This person delivered these scribbled messages from resistance fighter Simone Alizon to her father. [Arch. Nat. 72A fonds Alizon.]

1. 1. James Lee Byars wrote more than 100 letters, using a variety of materials, forms, and ideas, to artist Joseph Beuys over a period of 16 years. Received but never replied to, they explore the day-to-day of his artistic practice.

Whether composed under difficult circumstances or elaborated as part of a creative experiment, these examples share one feature. They raise the question: What is or should be considered a letter? Must it be written on socially recognized media, be it papyrus sheets, potsherds, or vellum, to qualify? Must it have a date, greetings, closing, and include epistolary conventions, like asking after someone’s health? Must it have a specific addressee, or be delivered via a postal institution? TERN2024 will serve as a forum to discuss and elaborate a definition of ‘letter.’ Is one definition even possible for this form of communication that has been adapted in many ways by many people over millennia and across the globe? We are interested in bringing together examples that challenge in some way current thinking or current definitions of ‘letter.’ Topics might include:

• • epistolary communications on atypical materials (pages torn from books, fabric, handmade ink)

• • written under duress or difficult situations (war, exile, prison, refugee camps, censorship, travel)

• • examine conventions specific to one group of people (secret societies, coded letters, academic or philosophical letters)

• • letters written by those unfamiliar with letter conventions and formats (children, those with limited literacy, or those writing letters for the first time)

• • hybrid forms (poem letters, essay letters, petitions, literary letters, etc.)

​ Proposals (maximum 250 words) and a brief biography (CV) should be sent to ternetwork@hotmail.com. The deadline is 29 March 2023. The conference will be virtual and the language will be English. As always, we will try to accommodate all times zones. Publication of selected papers will be arranged following the conference. *

Deadline for Submissions, March 31, 2024

CFP: Oral History and Disability The Oral History Review is happy to announce a call for papers for a special issue dedicated to Oral History and Disability. It is currently slated for the Spring 2025 issue of the OHR. Oral historians often write and talk about inclusion, even radical inclusion. What does this mean in practice? What contributions have oral historians made – or can they make – to Disability Studies? What are the cultural representations of disability and how can oral historians add to a view of disability beyond the traditional, mostly medical, and socially constructed ones? What do the practices of oral historians with disabilities look or sound like? What can oral historians learn about communication from people with disabilities? And how do such themes as embodiment, trauma, and identity, topics oral historians often discuss, apply to disability? For this issue, we especially want to encourage multimedia submissions and to push thinking around new technologies for both interviewing and oral history project outcomes. This might include, for example, for the blind and seeing impaired, not only audio but perhaps screen reader (or text-toaudio) software. For people who are deaf or hearing impaired, the use of signed interviews with video online (ASL), closed captioning, and downloadable transcripts. Or for people with neurocognitive differences, intellectual disabilities, and other conditions, anything from assistive devices to language cues within an interview to the use of photos to aid in story capture. This special issue thus asks oral historians to explore:

• • Multimedia projects and the use of audio/video/photography

• • New technologies for both interviewing and oral history project outcomes

• • Access and accessibility

• • Visibility and its meanings

• • Stories before and after the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act

• • The second wave of the disability rights movement, also called Disability Justice (DJ)

• • The role of oral history in Disability Studies and history

• • How disability is framed today and at different times and places

• • Disability and advocacy, family, and religious belief

• • Stories from the field of narrative medicine, which seeks to bridge clinical practice and patients’ emotional health and well being

• • What oral historians can learn about communication from people with disabilities, and/or from artists with disabilities who address the labor of care in their work

• • How oral history can be used to investigate the structural ableism that people with disabilities confront daily (spatial equity)

• • Disability and poverty, gender, or race

• • COVID-19 stories

• • And other themes that oral historians often address – embodiment, trauma, community, labor, inclusion/exclusion, identity – as applied to disability

It is estimated that one in four people in the U.S. alone live with a disability. If you have questions, book and media review ideas, or would like to discuss your proposal in advance, please contact the OHR editor, Holly Werner-Thomas, at holly@hollythomasoralhistory.com by December 31, 2023. To submit your articles, use the OHR submission portal, https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ohr. The deadline for submissions is March 31, 2024. Contact Email holly@hollythomasoralhistory.com URLhttps://oralhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/OHR-Spring-2025-Call-for-Papers.pdf *

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 Follow us on: Facebook  Twitter  Instagram *

Close Encounters in War and Personal Narratives: Experience, Memory, and Storytelling Special issue of CEIWJ [Close Encounters in War Journal]

Deadline for Submissions: March 31, 2024

War has been the object of narration and storytelling since ancient times. Epics, myths, and legends transmitted the memory of heroes’ deeds, thus shaping and consolidating the cultural identities of local communities and ethnic enclaves and later nation-states and empires. Mythical storytelling evolved into historical narration as wars began to be recorded and accounted for systematically by early historians like Herodotus, Thucydides, or in Rome’s Annales. The public narration of war was an effective instrument of political and ideological cohesion as it displayed power and fuelled patriotic sentiments. However, the narration of war remained confined to the domain of public discourse despite armies consisting of individuals who contributed to the war directly and with personal sacrifice. The first personal account of war in the Western cultural tradition is Odysseus’s tale of the fall of Troy, which he shares with the Phaeaces. Thucydides referred to singular episodes involving specific individuals in his narration of the Peloponnesian Wars, though his discourse excludes any form of direct and personal narration. The first case of an extensive autobiographical war narrative is Julius Caesar’s De bello gallico. Despite being narrated in the third person, this work provides an individual-centred perspective about the military campaigns led by Caesar between 58 and 50 BC, culminating with the conquest of Gallia and Britannia. For the first time, the historian, the storyteller, and the protagonist of the tale coexist in the figure of the anonymous narrator/chronicler who accounts for Caesar’s deeds in the third person.

Personal narratives about war have seldom reached the public before the nineteenth century. This caused scholars to believe that anonymous soldiers, who constituted the core of all armies in any historical period, never wrote about their experiences. Writing, on the other hand, was a skill far from being achieved by everyone in the pre-modern era. Only a few combatants could account for their war experiences in writing, for example, through letters, diaries and memoirs, a small number of which has reached the public as books. Furthermore, while personal accounts of war mostly remained confined to military, political, and intelligence communication – and are therefore stored in archives and mostly accessible as historical sources – the first testimonies of war that became works of public interest did not appear in the form of autobiographies or memoirs. An author like Tobias Smollett transfigured his war experiences as a navy surgeon in his novel The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748). Something similar did Herman Melville in White Jacket (1850), an autobiographical work inspired by the author’s experience as a sailor on the frigate USS United States. In general, it can be stated that the Napoleonic wars (1800-1815) triggered an incredible proliferation of autobiographical personal accounts since the 1820s.[1] This is not surprising, if one thinks that modern autobiography – as a genre and as a philosophical form of reflection on the “self” – begins in the seventeenth century with Rousseau’s Confessions (1782),[2] whose “revolution” transformed the subject into a “unique and unrepeatable psychical interiority, which was accessible only through introspective writing.”[3]

If the nineteenth century was characterised by an increasing interest in war personal narratives, the phenomenon assumed a mass scale with the outbreak of the Great War, mainly for two reasons: the enormous mass of soldiers involved in the conflict on a global scale for over four years; and the diffusion of literacy among the mass of enlisted soldiers. Scholars claim that between 1914 and 1918, over 65 billion letters circulated between the frontlines and Italy, France, Germany, and Great Britain.[4] If personal narratives from the nineteenth-century wars amount to hundreds, above all distributed in Western countries, autobiographical accounts of the Great War amount to many thousands, spread all over the world. New groups of authors appear in this recent tradition, such as prisoners of war (POWs), women, and members of colonial troops. One striking phenomenon that characterised the response of some combatants to the Great War was the blooming of poetry in all countries, with remarkable achievements in the UK with the so-called “war poets” Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, and Siegfried Sassoon, in Austria with Georg Trakl, and in Italy with the Futurists, Gabriele D’annunzio, and Giuseppe Ungaretti, only to mention a few examples. Moreover, the technological nature of the war caused all armies to create specialised corps such as pilots, tankers, submarine crews, drivers, and chemical companies, whose members published several personal narratives that enlightened the aspects of the “new” warfare. During and after the Second World War, further groups of witnesses appeared, such as the victims of political and racial persecution and deportation and the members of armed resistance (partisans) against the Nazi and the Fascist authorities in several European countries.

As wars became more and more global, during the twentieth century, so did the more and more established genre of war narratives, which eventually became a consistent section of contemporary literature (despite the debate that saw literary scholars question the literariness of personal narratives), or at least of the international book market. One can recall several personal narratives that have become classics of twentieth-century literature like Henri Barbusse’s Le feu (1916), Ernst Jünger’s In Stahlgewittern (1920), Thomas Edward Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), Anne Frank’s Diary (1947), Primo Levi’s Se questo è un uomo (1958), Elie Wiesel’s La Nuit (1958), Elechi Amadi’s Sunset in Biafra (1973), Eugene Sledge’s, With the Old Breed (1981), Eric Lomax’ The Railway Man (1995), Isaac Fadoyebo’s A Stroke of Unbelievable Luck (1999), Keiko Tamura’s Michi’s Memoirs (2001), and many more worldwide.

As a genre, personal narratives have evolved over two centuries, passing from being almost exclusively memoirs written by high-ranking officers (mostly noble) to consisting of a much more multifaceted variety of expressive forms including letters, diaries, autobiographical sketches, poems, published or unpublished memoirs, oral histories and autobiographical fiction. After a long-lasting prejudice that banned personal narratives from the history of war and conflict, which was relegated to the disciplinary field of Military History, since the 1960s historians have begun to look at these narrations as valid and valuable sources of historical knowledge, thus giving impulse, after the so-called “cultural” and “narrative” turns after the 1970s, to the birth of sub-disciplines such as Micro-History, History of Mentality, Cultural History, Oral History and more recently the History of the Emotions. Working with personal narratives is a challenging scholarly enterprise due to the flickering and multifaceted nature of this kind of written expression, which is transversal to literary genres while including forms, styles, and registers typical of the spoken language. Personal narratives can hardly provide an overall comprehension and depiction of war, as they can inform about events that occurred on a smaller scale and the perception that human beings have of the war as a direct experience. Therefore, working with personal narratives often requires intellectual flexibility and the ability to blend different disciplinary approaches by borrowing diverse methodological, critical and analytical tools.

Issue n. 7 of the CEIWJ aims to investigate the theme of the close encounters in war in connection with the universe of personal narratives to study how people have accounted for their personal experience of war in ancient, pre-modern, modern and contemporary periods. To do so, we invite the submission of articles focused on the investigation of testimonies from a broad spectrum of theoretical and critical perspectives in the fields of Aesthetics, Anthropology, Classics, Comparative Literature, Cultural History, Ethics, Epistemology, Ethnology, Gender Studies, History of Art, History of Ideas, Linguistics, Memory Studies, Modern Languages, Oral History, Philosophy of Language, Psychology, Religion, Social Sciences, and Trauma Studies.

We invite, per the scientific purpose of the journal, contributions that focus on human dimensions and perspectives on this topic. We, therefore, seek articles that analyse the close encounters in war in diaries, letters, autobiographies, memoirs, autobiographical fiction, oral histories and other egodocuments such as juridical testimonies and memoirs, bulletins and reports (military, medical, technical, and so on), photographic albums, drawings and paintings. The following aspects (among others) may be considered:

• Representation and perception of the “self” in the context of war;
• Language, public and private (e.g. the use of dialect or foreign languages; encrypted writing; metaphors, symbols and allegories; alternative forms of communication);
• Propaganda and ideology (e.g. political perspectives; racism; nationalism; religious fanaticism);
• Ethical and moral aspects (e.g. personal development; self-understanding; the relation with the others; justification of violence; acceptance of suffering and death);
• Censorship and self-censorship in personal narratives;
• Literary aspects of personal narratives (e.g. use of literary models and styles; editorial re-elaboration of personal narratives for publication; the relationship between fiction and autobiographical writing; personal narrative and the literary canon);
• Personal narratives as historical sources (e.g. methodological and deontological  issues; epistemological value of personal narratives; rhetoric and logic);
• Anti-war attitudes (e.g. pacifism; criticism of violence; desertion and conscience objection; sabotage);
• Feelings and emotions in personal narratives;
• Personal narratives and trauma;
• Identity and diversity (e.g. gender; ethnicity; cultural heritage);
• Personal narratives in pop culture (e.g. film; TV; journalism; cultural heritage);
• Personal narratives and the culture of memory (local and collective) (e.g. archives and repositories; Public History; sites of memory; public use of personal narratives through the Internet);

 CEIWJ encourages inter/multidisciplinary approaches and dialogue among different scientific fields to promote discussion and scholarly research. The blending of different approaches will be warmly welcomed. Contributions from established scholars, early-career researchers, doctoral students, witnesses of war (e.g. veterans, journalists, reporters, etc.) and practitioners who have dealt with or used personal narratives in the course of their activities will be considered. Case studies may include different historical periods and geographic areas.

The editors of the Close Encounters in War Journal invite the submission of abstracts of 250 words in English by 31 March 2024 to ceiwj@nutorevelli.org. The authors invited to submit their works will be required to send articles of 8,000-10,000 words (endnotes included, bibliographical references not included in word count), in English by 14 June 2024. All articles will undergo a process of double-blind peer review. We will notify the results of the review in September 2024. Final versions of revised articles will be submitted in November 2024. Please see the submission guidelines at: https://closeencountersinwar.org/instruction-for-authors-submissions/.

 [1]     See, for example, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc&key=Napoleonic%20Wars%2C%201800%2D1815%20%2D%2D%20Personal%20narratives%2C%20French (Napoleonic wars 1800-1815), http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book//browse?type=lcsubc&key=Crimean%20War%2C%201853%2D1856%20%2D%2D%20Personal%20narratives (Crimean war 1853-1856), and https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/166546.First_hand_accounts_of_the_Napoleonic_Wars. See also the repository of personal narratives from the American Civil War of the University of Maryland at https://lib.guides.umd.edu/c.php?g=326774&p=2197450 (all websites last accessed on 11^th January 2024).[2]     James Goodwin, in “Narcissus and Autobiography”, Genre, 12, 1 (1979): 69-92; Andrea Battistini, Lo specchio di Dedalo. Autobiografia e biografia, Bologna, il Mulino, 103-104.[3]     Gianluca Cinelli, Ermeneutica e scrittura autobiografica. Primo Levi, Nuto Revelli, Rosetta Loy, Mario Rigoni Stern, Milan, Unicopli, 2008, 12.[4]     Carlo Stiaccini, War Letters (Italy), in International Encyclopedia of the First World War (8 January 2017): 2. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_letters_italy.

Contact Information

Gianluca Cinelli giancin77@yahoo.it

Patrizia Piredda patrizia.piredda@oxfordalumni.org

Simona Tobia s.tobia@univ-pau.fr

Fabio Caffarena fabio.caffarena@unige.it

Contact Email

ceiwj@nutorevelli.org

URL

https://closeencountersinwar.org/2024/01/17/call-for-articles-for-issue-n-7-202…

*

Talking Back Interdisciplinary Conference

June 25, 2024 Nottingham, UK Deadline for Submissions: April 1, 2024

‘Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, and those who stand and struggle side by side, a gesture of defiance that heals, that makes new life, and new growth possible. It is that act of speech, of “talking back” that is no mere gesture of empty words, that is the expression of moving from object to subject, that is the liberated voice.’ bell hooks, “Talking Back.” Discourse (1986), p. 128. 

Talking Back interdisciplinary conference is an in-person conference that will be held in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It will bring together researchers, writers, poets, and activists in order to contribute to cross-cultural dialogue, collaborative thinking, and ongoing discussions on resistance and representation. Reflecting on speech as a radical force against the systemic silencing of marginalised voices (hooks, 1989), we would like to invite proposals from writers, academics, creatives, and activists alike who are interested in exploring critical and creative approaches to decolonial activism, reclamations of culture and identity, and the transformative power of voice. We invite contributions that explore marginalised voices, representations of dissent against western hegemony and rigid binaries, and resistance to silencing and structural oppression. We welcome critical and creative approaches to proposals from participants of all genders, racial groups, and faith groups. The conference is free to attend and will take place at Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England on Tuesday 25th June 2024. The conference will be followed by an open-mic poetry and networking event, centred on the theme of ‘talking back.’ Proposals Suggestions include and are not limited to:

1. 1. Solidarity in dialogue: The power of collaboration in amplifying silenced voices.

1. 1. Testimonial narratives of marginalisation and dissent – how can speech become an act and practice of resistance?

1. 1. Resisting marginalisation and challenging labels.

1. 1. ‘Talking back’ as a form of activism – in what ways does the idea of ‘talking back’ contribute to decolonial modes of thinking and understanding.

1. 1. Exposing injustice: Challenging on-going realities of colonialism

Submission Guidelines Please submit a 250-word abstract/proposal for a 20-minute paper or presentation along with a 100-word biographical statement to: talkingbackconference@gmail.com. Please title your email with the type of submission you are applying for:

• • 20-minute paper: Talking Back Conference 2024

• • 20-minute presentation: Talking Back Conference 2024

Funding The conference is free to attend. We are also able to offer 4 travel bursaries of up to £50 to support self-funded and disadvantaged students with travel costs. If you wish to apply for one of these bursaries, please express your interest at the bottom of your abstract, along with a brief summary explaining why you require the support. Key Dates

• • Deadline for all submissions: 1st April 2024

• • Conference date: 25th June 2024

Queries Email us at talkingbackconference@gmail.com if you have any questions. We look forward to receiving your submissions. This conference is made possible by generous funding and support provided by New Art Exchange, Bonington Gallery, and the NTU Postcolonial Research Group. Contact Email talkingbackconference@gmail.com URL https://talkingbackconference2024.wordpress.com * Call for Papers Voices of Resistance in and against Dutch Empire, 1600-2020s Thursday 12 and Friday 13 September 2024, at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, Deadline proposals: 1 April 2024. Throughout the long history of Dutch empire starting in the early seventeenth century and extending into the postcolonial present, various people both in imperial dependencies across the globe and the metropole have resisted the logics and realities of oppression and exploitation. While colonisers’ perspectives have received plentiful attention, this conference puts the often marginalized voices of resistance in and against Dutch empire front and centre. Drawing on recent trends in the intellectual history of anticolonialism, the conference will chart and discuss the intellectual interventions of actors who agitated against the Dutch empire and its legacies. We invite contributions on the ideas, practices and networks of anticolonial actors who navigated the Dutch empire from the seventeenth century up to today, including freedom fighters and poets, religious leaders and (formerly) enslaved rebels, artists and activists, musicians, political thinkers and intellectuals, journalists and writers. We thus interpret voices of resistance broadly, ranging from political protest to works of fiction and from artistic and literary forms of expression to philosophical tractates as well as pamphlets and other forms of ephemeral writing. We aim to take a long-term perspective from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century and combine East and West that have often been treated as separate sections of the historiography of Dutch empire. Anticolonial stories have long served as chronicles about heroic resistance such as that of the nineteenth-century Javanese Prince Diponegoro or have confirmed teleological narratives ‘from empire to nation state’. We aim to contextualize such narratives by looking into related memory practices in anticolonial and postcolonial settings and by examining the transnational and transimperial entanglements of anticolonial networks. Besides contributions focusing on better-known anticolonial agitators and their networks, we are also interested in bringing together more subtle stories of, for example, legal resistance and more local accounts of religious defiance or economic subversion. Furthermore, we are interested in exploring not only what voices of resistance were fighting against but also in analysing the constructive agendas they put forth. From histories of political thought to meaningful practices of artistic, religious, and literary resistance, the conference will examine how anticolonial actors in transimperial contexts criticized and shaped the (end of the) Dutch empire. The conference, which will be held on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 September 2024, at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, is a critical follow-up to the international conference “Visions of Empire in Dutch History”, organized in 2016 at Leiden University, and the resulting edited volume The Dutch Empire Between Ideas and Practice [Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies] (Palgrave, 2019). Call for papers We invite proposals for papers on the following range of topics: – languages, ideologies and conceptual histories of resistance – ideas articulated in the context of political protests, (labour) strikes, violent rebellions – anticolonial or decolonial scholarship, including history writing, social sciences, humanities – artistic and literary expressions of resistance, including fiction, poetry, songs, visual arts – memory and memorialization of acts of resistance – demands for symbolic and financial forms of reparations and/or restitution We furthermore encourage: – long-term and diachronic perspectives (1600-2020) – comparative and/or interconnected perspectives from East and West, including the Indian Ocean region, the Indonesian archipelago, Cape Good Hope/South Africa, the Dutch Atlantic and Dutch North America, the Caribbean, Surinam, Dutch Guyana and Brazil – transimperial perspectives of voices that operated within the Dutch empire but agitated against other empires or imperialism more broadly, and of those actors who operated in other imperial spheres, but whose efforts were aimed against the Dutch empire – paper proposals by junior researchers (at RMA or PhD level) as well as more senior scholars, from different backgrounds (also outside academia) Individual paper proposals should consist of an abstract (200-250 words), a brief biography (50-100 words), and contact information. Proposals should be directed to the organizational committee: dr. René Koekkoek, dr. Anne-Isabelle Richard, and dr. Arthur Weststeijn at a.v.weststeijn@uu.nl. https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20021539/voices-resistance-and-against-dutch-empire-1600-2020s Deadline proposals: 1 April 2024. Notification of selected proposals will be given by 1 May 2024. *

The 2024 Project Narrative Summer Institute: Rhetorical and Intersectional Narratologies in Dialogue

Co-Directors: Jim Phelan and Robyn Warhol Dates: June 17-28, 2024 (on Zoom) https://projectnarrative.osu.edu/2024-project-narrative-summer-institute-rhetorical-and-intersectional-narratologies-dialogue-online PNSI is a two-week workshop that offers faculty and advanced graduate students in any discipline the opportunity for an intensive study of core concepts and issues in narrative theory. The focus for summer 2024 will be Rhetorical and Intersectional Narratologies, and the co-directors will ground their approach in the principle of dialogue.  More specifically, we will explore the grounding principles of each approach by reading foundational and cutting-edge texts from each, and we will attend to the convergences and divergences between them.  Just as important, we will add a range of primary texts to the dialogue, including Jane Austen’s Emma, Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever,” Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif,” and Jesmyn Ward’s “On Witness and Respair.”  Sample questions:  How do rhetorical narratology’s roots in the Poetics of Aristotle and of the neo-Aristotelian Chicago Critics and intersectional narratology’s roots in structuralism and feminist theory influence the current theory and practice of each approach? How do the narrative texts prompt re-examination, revision, and/or extensions of the theories? More generally, what can rhetorical and intersectional narratologies do for each other?  We’ll take up these (and other) questions as we work through the syllabus, and in relation to the specific interests and projects of the participants.  At the end of the Institute, each participant will present and receive feedback on their individual project. Syllabus Before the Institute begins, everyone should (re)read Jane Austen’s Emma Part I: Rhetorical Narratology Monday, June 17 Poetics:  Theoretical Texts: Aristotle, Poetics; R.S. Crane, “The Concept of Plot and the Plot of Tom Jones”; Ralph W. Rader; “The Dramatic Monologue and Related Lyric Forms”; James Phelan, “The Chicago School: From Neo-Aristotelian Poetics to the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative” Narrative Texts (in addition to Emma): T.C. Boyle, “Chicxulub”; Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”; Alfred, Lord Tennyson “Tithonus” Tuesday, June 18: The Rhetorical and Ethical Turn Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction:  Excerpt about Unreliable Narration and “Control of Distance in Emma”; Booth, The Company We Keep, discussion of Emma; Peter J. Rabinowitz, “Truth in Fiction: A Re-Examination of Audiences”; Introduction to Before Reading; Nielsen, Phelan, and Walsh, “Ten Theses about Fictionality.” Narrative Texts: Emma; Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”; Toni Cade Bambara, “The Lesson”; Roddy Doyle, “Worms” Wednesday, June 19: Rhetorical Poetics Theoretical Texts: Phelan, Intro to Reading People, Reading Plots; Chapter One of Somebody Telling Somebody Else; Excerpts from Debating Rhetorical Narratology: definitions of mimetic, thematic, and synthetic; discussion of Emma; Phelan and Sarah Copland, “The Ideal Narratee and the Rhetorical Model of Audiences” Narrative Texts (in addition to Emma): Wharton, “Roman Fever”; Cisneros, “Barbie-Q”; John Donne, “The Flea,” Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl” Thursday, June 20: Applied Rhetorical Narratology: Rhetorical Narrative Medicine; Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism Phelan, Excerpts from Narrative Medicine, Chapter 1; “Narrative as Rhetoric and the Art of Medicine”; Chapter 11, Narrative Medicine Workshops: Understanding, Overstanding, Springboarding; Phelan, “Rhetorical Listening: Character, Progression and Fictionality in African American Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism” Narrative Texts: Jesmyn Ward, “On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic”; Joyce Carol Oates, “Hospice/Honeymoon”; Stories by Mary Bullock and Scotia Brown from Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism Part Two:  Intersectional Narratologies Friday, June 21: NARRATIVE DISRUPTED First, read: Toni Morrison, “Recitatif.” Plot, Genre, Ethnicity: Paula Gunn Allen, “Kochinnenako in Academe“(1986) Sexualities: Valerie Rohy, “Queer Narrative Theory” (2018) Race & Disability, Robyn Warhol & Amy Shuman, “The Unspeakable, the Unnarratable and the Repudiation of Epiphany in ‘Recitatif’” (2018); Monday, June 24: NARRATIVITY/TELLABILITY Ruth Page, “The Narrative Dimensions of Social Media Storytelling: Options for Linearity and Tellership” (2015) Susan Lanser & Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, “Narratology at the Checkpoint” (2019) David Herman, “Zoonarratology” (2012) Julio Cortázar, “Axolotl” Tuesday, June 25:  EMPATHY/SUBJECTIVITY First, read: Judith Butler, “Giving an Account of Oneself” (2009)—available on Project Muse Katherine Young, “Narratives of Indeterminacy: Breaking the Medical Body into its Discourses: Breaking the Discursive Body out of Postmodernism” (1999) Amy Shuman, “Entitlement and Empathy in Personal Narrative” (2006) Warhol, “She Was Not Heard: Personal Narratives that Tackle Structural Racism.” Additional narratives from Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism Wednesday, June 26: ALTERNATE PARADIGMS Susan Lanser, “Toward (a Queerer and) More (Feminist) Narratology” (2015) Claudia Breger, “Affects in Configuration: A New Approach to Narrative Worldmaking” (2017) Karin Kukkonen, “A moving target – cognitive narratology and feminism” (2018) Thursday, June 27 and Friday, June 28: Participant Presentations To Apply: Applicants should send a current CV, a short description of the proposed project (no longer than a single-spaced page), and one letter of recommendation to Project Narrative by April 1, 2024. Applications will be reviewed promptly after the deadline. If, in order to meet funding deadlines, applicants need an earlier decision, the co-directors will consider special requests for early action. Applications can be emailed to projectnarrative@osu.edu or sent by post to the following address: 421 Denney Hall Attn: James Phelan, Project Narrative 164 Annie and John Glenn Avenue Columbus, OH 43210 Please email projectnarrative@osu.edu with any questions about applying.

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Fees Tuition for the 2024 Project Narrative Summer Institute is $1900. The co-directors will gladly write in support of participants’ applications for funding from home institutions.

— Jim Phelan, Distinguished University Professor and Editor, Narrative Director, Project Narrative Department of English Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210-1370 614-292-6669 FAX 614-292-7816 phelan.1@osu.edu *

Slavery, Authorship and Literary Culture

Call for papers

April 1, 2024 Edited Collection This volume, the last in a three-volume series devoted to the comparative literary history of modern slavery, explores slavery, past and present, from the perspective of authorship, textuality and literary cultures. The editors invite abstracts for essays on all aspects of this question. Slavery is often portrayed as shrouded in silence due to the simple fact that the number of texts and accounts written by enslaved people is very limited, especially when compared to the vast amount of documentation produced by the colonial powers. As recent scholarship has shown, however, enslaved people were not silent — silence is rather an effect created by the privileging of some forms of writing and as a result certain voices and viewpoints over others. This volume aims to investigate writing about slavery in all its forms, from the written traces left by enslaved people to the archives of slaveholders and from the discourses of abolition to postcolonial narrative. While we acknowledge the problem of invisibility as a fundamental condition for the study of slavery, we also wish to highlight the ways in which discourses about slavery have found their way into print and other media as well as the ways in which these texts have circulated and been read. The volume will consider how enslaved people expressed themselves in writing, considering, among other genres, letters, legal and financial documents, as well as published texts of all kinds. We encourage contributions that explore how the formerly enslaved took up authorship as free colored people or, after emancipation, in newspapers, journals or in other contexts and venues. We will consider the literary cultures that took shape in colonies and countries in which texts on slavery were produced and disseminated. Finally, we wish to explore postcolonial writing about slavery as well as accounts of slavery in today’s world. An important question for the volume will be how and to what extent authorship corresponds to agency and political subjectivity. For vol. 3 we invite articles that address any of the many the ways in which literature relating to slavery has been written, disseminated, read and discussed. This includes, for example, the existence of libraries and literary and scientific circles in colonial settings, the ways in which colonial literature was read and discussed in Europe, international debates about abolition, the uses of literature in colonial schools and missions, and more broadly the use of text as documentation. Articles might also consider processes of translation between languages and cultures, e.g. from an African to a plantation context, when texts pass from one colonial system to another, or when accounts circulate between European audiences and readers in other parts of the world. We also invite articles that address the afterlives of colonial slavery in contemporary literatures worldwide and the recreation of lost authorship as authors engage with the memory of slavery and attempt to recover lost voices. The volume will have a broad historical and geographical scope. We encourage submissions on modern slavery from the 16^th century to the present. While the focus will be on the Atlantic world, we are also interested in the related systems of African, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean slavery. Comparative angles are especially welcome. Areas of particular interest include but are not limited to:

• • Questions of agency and political subjectivity in relation to authorship. How do we situate slave narratives and their impact both at the time of their publication and since? Where do we locate the voices of enslaved and formerly enslaved in different genres and forms of textual expression?

• • Literary cultures in the colonial world, e.g. the existence of libraries, bookstores, printing presses, scientific societies and the relationship between literature and literary institutions and the practices of slavery in the colonies and Europe.

• • The relationship between literary, performative, and visual forms of expression relating to slavery in the colonies and in Europe.

• • Gender in colonial literary culture, in relation to questions of subjectivity, and in later historical and literary reflections on the gender structures of slavery and post-slavery societies.

• • The relationship between slavery and colonialism and the development of African print culture and the traces and translation of oral slavery stories in printed texts.

• • The role of abolitionist movements in the disseminations of early texts on slavery and the establishment of African-American and African-European literary traditions.

• • The relationship between economy, capitalism and literature in the colonial Atlantic and its importance for the circulation, translation and commerce of texts across the Atlantic and between colonial spheres.

• • How to recognize processes of silencing. Which strategies of reading traces and absences must be employed in order to highlight and perhaps counteract silencing?

• • Post- and decolonial responses to slavery in 20^th-century art, film and literature especially in relationship to questions of voice and agency.

Please send a 300 words abstract to the volume editors Mads Anders Baggesgaard (madsbaggesgaard@cc.au.dk) and Helen Atawube Yitah (hyitah@ug.edu.gh) no later than April 1, 2024. If selected for further process, the final deadline for the article will be October 1, 2024. After that deadline there will be a peer review process. The volume will be published in the fall of 2025. This volume is the third and last in Comparative Literary Histories of Slavery, main eds. Mads Anders Baggesgaard, Madeleine Dobie and Karen-Margrethe Simonsen in the series of literary histories made by CHLEL (Coordinating Committee for Literatures in European Languages) under the ICLA (International Comparative Literature Association) Publishing House: John Benjamins Publishing. Please read the description of the book here: https://cc.au.dk/en/slaverystudies/projects/comparative-literary-history-of-modern-slavery. Kind regards from the editors Mads Anders Baggesgaard (Comparative Literature, Aarhus University) Helen Atawube Yitah (Department of English, University of Ghana) Contact Email madsbaggesgaard@cc.au.dk URLhttps://cc.au.dk/en/slaverystudies/show/artikel/call-for-papers-slavery-authorship-and-literary-culture * Podcast Launch–“Biographers in Conversation” (4/3/2024) Today I launched “Biographers in Conversation” a free weekly podcast of interviews with biographers from around the world about the choices they make while researching, writing and publishing life stories. It launches on 3 April 2024, however, here’s a sneak peek of the biographers I’ll chat with over the next few months. Please share the sneak peek far and wide within your networks to get the word out https://www.biographersinconversation.com/sneak-peek/ Warmest wishes Gabriella Gabriella Marie Kelly-Davies Doctoral candidate: Breaking through the pain barrier. The extraordinary life of Dr Michael J. Cousins  School of Literature, Arts and Media University of Sydney gkel6637@uni.sydney.edu.au 0408 256 381 * The Indigenous Nineteenth Century  4-5 June 2024, University of Kent Deadline for Submissions: March 15, 2024 Keynote: Professor Chris Andersen (Métis, University of Alberta), Professor David Stirrup (University of York) and Métis community members: ‘”On the trail of Alexander Isbister: 19th Century Métis Nationhood in Motion” The Victorian Diversities Research Network, in collaboration with the Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies (CISCS) are pleased to announce a two-day AHRC-funded symposium: ‘The Indigenous Nineteenth Century.’ With the aim of producing new, interdisciplinary scholarship, anti-colonial research methodologies and critical interventions that re-indigenise the nineteenth-century archive and scholarly approaches to it, this two-day, hybrid symposium is accompanied by two publication opportunities: a special issue of the journal Transmotion and an edited collection to be published by Palgrave. The work of indigenising the nineteenth-century colonial archive is well under way, and this symposium aims to bring together scholars, writers, artists, curators and educators in literary studies, Indigenous studies, museum studies, library studies, and historical research areas to discuss the pleasures and problematics of (re)indigenising the colonial archive. The historical archives of imperial and colonial settlement are founded on what Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson has theorised as a foundational mis-recognition, a philosophical refusal to see Indigenous peoples’ cultures and lifeways outside of pre-conceived Eurocentric frameworks. The violence these archives do to First Nations people is ongoing. Literature and the creative arts can offer a space to interrogate the racialised-archive and its role in forming national, colonial and imperial identities. However, as Narungga woman, poet and scholar Natalie Harkin has highlighted, the wounds created by the epistemic violence of the archive still bleed. It is this problematic that this symposium proposes to investigate. The organisers therefore welcome 20 minute research papers, position papers and creative/critical interventions on the following themes: 1) Alternative archives: nineteenth-century Indigenous cultural production including treaties, petitions, letters, life writing, travel writing, novels and poetry, song culture, storytelling, material culture. 2)Colonisation and knowledge production: colonial archives and the challenges of recovering Indigenous voices from within them. Decolonial approaches to colonial archives, methodologies for addressing gaps and absences in the archive, settler-Indigenous collaborations, Indigenous language loss and revitalisation. 3)Creative-critical forms of historical writing that unsettle linear narratives and disrupt hegemonic perspectives. These can include life writing; historical novels; ‘critical fabulation’ (Hartman) and speculative history; histories of Indigenous political formations and resistance movements. 4)Contemporary literary and artistic responses by Indigenous cultural producers that seek to remix, rewrite and reconstitute colonial history and artifacts. 5)Indigenising cultural institutions: curatorial practices, representation and decolonial museology. Abstracts of 300 words and bios of 150 words for 20 minute papers or panels of 3-4 speakers should be submitted to L.E.Atkin@kent.ac.uk . Creative and critical interventions that are outside the scope of the traditional research paper are very welcome. These might include ‘in conversation’ sessions, readings, performances and other types of practice-based intervention. If you can only attend online, please say so in your submission. Online sessions will be held on June 5^th.  All submissions should be made by 15 March 2024. Participants will be notified by the organisers of their acceptance and the outcome of any bursary applications by 28 March 2024. In order to facilitate scholarly collaboration and cross-disciplinary conversation, we would like to invite as many people as possible to join us in Kent. To this end, we can offer six travel grants to ECR, precarious and Indigenous scholars travelling from within the UK and outside of the UK. The three UK based grants are worth up to £200 each and the three international grants are worth up to £1000 each. If you would like to be considered for one of these, please include a short expression of interest with your abstract submission. Priority will be given to those without access to institutional funding or coming from outside Europe. * Call for papers: Essay Cluster on Political Biofictions (Biographical Fictions) a/b: Auto/Biography Studies  Contact: Jenny Rademacher: vrademacher@babson.edu Deadline for Submissions: March 15, 2024 Political Biofictions By openly playing in the space between the real and the speculative, biofictions constitute thresholds between the situated realities of actual, biographical subjects and the imaginative potential of fictional creation. Thus, while deriving from real sources, biofictions liberate fiction from interacting with only invented worlds. Instead, these works invite us to experiment with our biographical lives and to use invention to evaluate and reshape real-world concerns. Amid the threats posed by delimiting political realities (e.g. dictatorship, war, sectarian conflict, populism), biofictions offer potent outlets to protest powerlessness or the inevitability of such outcomes and to speculate on alternative pasts and futures. For example, they may invite us to revise and reimagine the lives of those who contributed and who were left out of official narratives. Emma Donoghue has referred to biofiction as “voicing the nobodies.” Colum McCann has emphasized the “contested realities” and obscured truths that many writers of biofiction explore—the effort to challenge and interrogate claims to truth and what we can trust. By imaginatively making visible voices and meanings that power has so often obscured, biofictions are inherently political spaces that have the potential to challenge dominant, authoritarian modes of determining the world. In this sense, biofictions are both an outgrowth of a dispersive, uncertain reality and a mode for navigating this context, modeling alternatives for how we manage and rethink its possibilities and pitfalls. The political uncertainties we face are not only the risks of physical dangers to ourselves and our planet—although those are very real—but also to the confidence and trust we have in sources and claims to veracity. The conflicts we are confronting across so many spheres are exacerbated by misleading fictions and conspiracy theories masquerading as fact. Because biofictions employ invention in reimagining biographical lives, they might be misunderstood as undermining the importance of truth, or even fostering the legitimacy of neologisms such as post-truth, truthiness, or “alternative” facts. Yet, it is exactly the opposite. By examining critically the connection to factual realities and the distinct but equally significant responsibility to how we use fiction, biofictions offer potential antidotes against post-truth contagions. Ultimately, post-truth narratives manipulate facts to support convenient fictions, whereas biofictions, when done well, strive to use fiction to better comprehend the real. Possible topics might include (but are not limited to) biofictional works that: (*Please note! Examples of texts are simply illustrative and not intended by any means to be exhaustive. The possibilities are far too many and varied!)

• • Imaginatively recreate the biography of a political figure in ways that undermine official or popular rhetoric and the imposition of false mythologies (Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat, Joyce Carol Oates’ Blonde, Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Like a Fading Shadow, Anchee Min’s Becoming Madame Mao e.g.)

• • Creatively give voice to overlooked, suppressed, silenced, or otherwise overlooked biographical figures (Colum McCann’s Transatlantic, Barbara Chase-Riboud’s Sally Hemings, J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait e.g.)

• • Invite and explore metaphoric linkages between creatively re-imagined past lives and contemporary politico-historical and sociological contexts and power dynamics (Lauren Groff’s Matrix, Rosa Montero’s The Ridiculous Idea of Never Seeing You Again, Colm Tóibín’s The Magician, David Ebershoff’s The Danish Girl, Colum McCann’s Transatlantic e.g.)

• • Explore subjective, private truths that challenge the treatment of national and political myths, offering more nuanced understandings to the experiences of complicated historical moments and traumas (e.g. Colum McCann’s Apeirogon, Javier Cercas’ Soldiers of Salamis e.g.)

• • Decolonialize a dominant history of subjection, engaging with universal questions of powerlessness (Chika Unigwe’s The Black Messiah, J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, Hassan Najmi’s Gertude, Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of the Celt e.g.)

• • Explore the susceptibility to invest in false and deceptive figures of power and belief (Javier Cercas’ The Imposter, Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob, J.M. Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg, e.g.)

• • Inventively explore how precursors of feminism speak critically to contemporary realities (Rosa Montero’s The Ridiculous Idea of Never Seeing You Again, Anna Banti’s Artemesia, Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, e.g.)

• • May include anti-biopics that use fiction to engage speculatively with uncertainties around popular and political representations of public figures and others (I, Tonya, Neruda, e.g.)

• • Include more theoretical explorations regarding the contemporary boom in biofiction and the relationship to questions of truth, trust, political uncertainties and risks to our shared humanity

Submission Guidelines Please send expressions of interest and a brief proposal/abstract of @50 words by March 15, 2024. All Inquiries and essays should be sent to Jenny Rademacher at vrademacher@babson.edu. All submitted essays should have a relevant theoretical framework and participate in contemporary conversations within the field of auto/biography studies. Potential contributors may find it helpful to refer to back issues of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies prior to submitting their work for consideration. Completed essays are due July 31, 2024. Essays should be between 7,000-9,000 words in length, including notes and Works Cited. All essays should follow the a/b instructions for authors and style sheet, which can be found at:  https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=raut20 About the Editor: Jenny Rademacher is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies and Chair of the Arts and Humanities Division at Babson College. She has published widely on genre, identity, and new narrative formats, including the contemporary surge in auto- and biofiction. Her book Derivative Lives: Biofiction, Uncertainty, and Speculative Riskin Contemporary Spanish Narrative (Bloomsbury, 2022) places the biographical novel within the wider context of contemporary thought, exploring the rich field of biofiction in relation to concepts of uncertainty, speculation, and risk in a post-truth age. She received her PhD in Spanish Literature from the University of Virginia, M.A. in International Affairs and Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and an A.B. from Harvard University. * American Women’s Mobility Narratives (proposed special session) Modern Language Association Convention, January 9-12 2025 New Orleans, USA deadline for submissions:  March 15, 2024 contact email: Nina.Bannett25@citytech.cuny.edu How is women’s mobility  exemplified through American women’s fiction, poetry, and memoir?  How do American women’s mobility narratives render women visible or invisible.  Please submit abstracts of approximately 250 words for this proposed special session of MLA 2025 in New Orleans. * CALL FOR PAPERS: LITERARY BIOGRAPHY DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: MARCH 15, 2024 I am pleased to share this call for papers for a guaranteed session of the European Regions Forum at the 2025 MLA Convention (New Orleans, 9-12 January 2025). Please submit proposals for papers that discuss either the practice of writing literary biography or current projects in literary biography in the context of Europe. Please send a 250-word abstract & brief biography by 15 March 2024 to Julia Elsky (jelsky@luc.edu). Julia Elsky, PhD Associate Professor of French Department of Modern Languages & Literatures Loyola University Chicago URL https://mla.confex.com/mla/2025/webprogrampreliminary/Paper26029.html *

Special Issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies Lives, Selves, Media and #MeToo: Anticipating Futures, Tracing Histories and Articulating the Present Call for Papers Abstracts due 4 March 2024 This issue explores #MeToo not as an isolated media flare, but as part of a wider social, cultural and historical matrix wherein auto/biographical modes and practices collide and connect with feminist resistance—as well as negotiate and impel its backlash. #MeToo crosses media borders, inviting scholars to consider how media shape and are shaped by political movements, and how transmedia forms a part of this story. Testimony is the dominant form of engagement with the #MeToo hashtag. Millions of tweets have offered testimony and asked for the public to bear witness as people who have long been silent about their experiences of sexual violence, most of them women, speak out on social media. That a feminist phenomenon occurring in the age of the selfie has been propelled by auto/biographical statements, is extremely online, and has “Me” at its centre is possibly unsurprising and legitimately—to scholars of life narrative, at least—fascinating. Me Too began in 2006 as a Black, feminist grassroots movement founded by activist Tarana Burke. The focus was local support for Black girls and women who had survived sexual violence, and Burke used Myspace to spread her message. The Twitter hashtag exploded in 2017 in social media ecosystem different from the 2006 Myspace era. The flood of mass digital testimony drew attention from news media, inspiring books, and breaking a long-held silence by exposing perpetrators of sexual violence, chiefly in the entertainment and media industry. Likewise, #MeToo spills over historical and national borders, and is embedded within broader discourses and histories of feminist activism and sexual violence. We want to explore what has alternately been called the ‘moment’ and the ‘movement’ of #MeToo/Me Too beyond the temporal location of the hashtag and phrase. What conditions, movements, stories, and texts came before #MeToo that benefit from re-examination (or refresh) in light of #MeToo? What conditions, movements, stories, and texts are emerging after #MeToo and might productively be linked to this significant phenomenon? And where might we imagine the future leads now? Have futures been opened up or closed off by #MeToo? What have we learned from the past that would benefit future feminist activism addressing sexual violence? This issue welcomes broad interpretations of “media” to think beyond the social media context and into print media, ephemera, sound and screen media, with a view to examining the significance of mediation (and media contexts) in testimony, auto/biographical practices, and feminist activism. Our suggestions for engaging with this theme include:

• • How media forms and networks (digital, print and beyond) have played a part in feminist resistance

• • Stories, reportage, memoir, and media before and/or after #MeToo

• • The violent rhythms of ‘progress’ and backlash, and how this pattern shapes the stories we tell about gender and violence

• • Backlash politics and social media

• • Hashtag activism

• • Testimony and media(tion)

• • The embeddedness of media in social and political life, relevant to gendered violence and feminist protest

• • Forms of protest and the evolution of protest in relation to gender and violence

• • Addressing the problems of #MeToo

• • Racism, sexism and other forms of ideological violence within activist movements

• • Testimony and feminist media history/feminist activism

• • Posthuman feminist pasts, presents and futures

• • Health humanities approaches to #MeToo

• • Mediating sexual trauma in the past and present

• • Mass testimony and collective trauma

• • Digital activism, policy, and structural change

• • Parallel phenomena (what is occurring parallel to #MeToo and how would we benefit from seeing ‘across’ media and political contexts?)

• • Memoir and other narratives of childhood trauma

• • Feminist resistance, gendered violence and celebrity culture

• • Teaching #MeToo

• • #MeToo futures

• • Memoir of the movement including Tarana Burke’s Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement

We are seeking 250-300 word abstracts for articles of up to 6000 words, and shorter creative or critical contributions of up to 1000 words. Please make clear in your abstract which format your proposal pertains to. Abstracts are due on 4 March 2024, and full papers will be due on 2 September 2024. Please submit abstracts via email to: kylie.cardell@flinders.edu.au and emma.maguire@jcu.edu.au We are also planning a collaborative workshop for potential contributors in July 2024, and details will follow for those whose full papers are requested. Editors The editorial team for this special issue is led by Kylie Cardell (Flinders University) and Emma Maguire (James Cook University). Please submit abstracts via email to: kylie.cardell@flinders.edu.au and emma.maguire@jcu.edu.au Emma Maguire BA(Hons), PhD Lecturer in English and Writing BA Coordinator BA First Year Coordinator College of Arts, Society & Education James Cook University, Australia Digital Content Editor, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies journal Steering Committee Member, International Auto/Biography Association Asia-Pacific Chapter (IABA-AP) Member: International Auto/Biography Association (IABA), Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP), The Life Narrative Lab, Writers SA New article in Life Writing journal:  Field Culture in Unprecedented Times: Writing the Unexpected, Narrating the Future at a Virtual Conference New article in Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly: Shame, Trauma, and the Body After #MeToo: The Year in Australia New book chapter in Career Narratives and Academic Womanhood (ed. Lisa Ortiz-Vilarelle, Routledge 2023): Docile Bodies (of Work): Coaxing the Neoliberal Academic via the Online Researcher Profile * SUMMER CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS: The Auto/Biography Study Group Summer Conference entitled ‘Disappointments and Dissonances’ will take place on 10th-12th July 2024 at Venue Reading, University of Reading. We are pleased to announce the call for papers/installations: https://britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/bsa-autobiography-summer-conference-2024-disappointments-and-dissonances/. The abstract submission deadline is 4th March 2024 at 5pm. We welcome papers and presentations that respond to the concept of disappointments and dissonances substantively, theoretically, methodologically and creatively. This year, as last, we also welcome ‘installation pieces’ which might include a poster, creative artefact(s), a short video or other. The keynote will be given by Dr Karin Bacon, Marino, Institute of Education, An Associated College of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin. Karin’s paper is entitled: ‘A Family Divided by Conflict Politics – disappointments and dissonances’. We invite abstract submissions (250 words) for 30/35-minute oral presentations followed by discussion and for installation pieces (there will be space in the programme for viewing and discussion of these). We are pleased to invite papers from across the broadest range of auto/biographical work, including ‘work-in-progress’ and those testing out innovative approaches, and welcome colleagues and friends from in and outside of the academy at all career stages. Please contact gayle.letherby@plymouth.ac.uk  and/or seerya@tcd.ie for further detail about the conference. The key dates leading up to the conference are as follows: •       Abstract submission deadline: 4th March at 5pm. •       Abstract notification and conference registration opens week beginning: 23rd March. •       Presenter booking deadline: 6th May. •       Delegate booking deadline: 3rd June. •       Conference: 10th-12th July. Registration includes ensuite accommodation and full board: BSA Member Registration: £450, Auto/Biography Study Group Member Registration: £460, Non-Member Registration: £490. SEMINARS: Registration is open for the final two seminars of this academic year. The links to join each event will be sent approximately 24 hours beforehand: Thursday 7th March 2024 at 1700-1800: Life as a fat female body: A feminist narrative inquiry with Iranian women by Somayeh McKian (Independent Academic): https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/life-as-a-fat-female-body-a-feminist-narrative-inquiry-with-iranian-women-by-somayeh-mckian-independent-academic/ Wednesday 1st May 2024 at 1700-1800: Women’s spaces of knowledge: Lady Mary’s contribution to the Covid vaccine by Mich Page: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/women-s-spaces-of-knowledge-lady-mary-s-contribution-to-the-covid-vaccine/ DENNIS SMITH: Michael Erben recently received words of thanks from Dennis’ family in response to the letter expressing our condolences. They were particularly touched to know that he was held in such high regard by the group. This is a tribute page for your information: https://dennis-smith-1945-2024.muchloved.com/.. The family are collecting for Cruse Bereavement Support. AUTO/BIOGRAPHY STUDY GROUP MEMBERSHIP: In advance of the conference registration opening we thought it would be valuable to remind everyone about the benefits of joining the group. ‘Join us’ information is available here: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/join-us/. As a paid member of the Auto/Biography Study Group you will benefit from reductions on conference costs and publications, free publication in the group’s open access online journal (non-members pay £30 per submission) and a free seminar series. You will also be registered on the JISCmail list: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=BSA-AUTO-BIOGRAPHY-GROUP. The annual payment categories for the 2024 calendar year are £30 for members of the BSA and £40 for non-members. Payment may be made via PayPal by logging in or by debit/credit card and choosing to pay as a guest: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/autobiography-membership/. We are a charity and non-profit group and all proceeds from group subscriptions help to fund our publications and group events. Have a good week. Best wishes Anne Chappell and Carly Stewart Auto/Biography Study Group Convenors Email: anne.chappell@brunel.ac.uk and cstewart@bournemouth.ac.uk Find the Auto/Biography Study Group: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/ Find the Auto/Biography Study Group on X: @AutoBiographySG Join the Auto/Biography Study Group: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/join-us/ *

CFP: Historiography and Hagiography in Buddhism and Beyond

July 8-10, 2024 Cambridge University, United Kingdom Deadline for Submissions: February 23, 2024 This international conference aims to bring together scholars working on practices of record-keeping, historiography, and hagiography in the Buddhist tradition and in related cultural fields. Recent years saw a steadily-growing interest in the impact of Buddhism on historiography and hagiography, in tandem with an unprecedented increase in the availability of textual and visual primary sources. Ambitious digitization projects (especially of premodern sources) and the changing landscape of the digital realm offer new opportunities to study premodern and contemporary practices of writing and narration. In this three-days conference, we seek to foster an interdisciplinary discussion on practices of textual and visual recording, storytelling, and memory in Chinese Buddhism and beyond – past, present, and future. This conference is generously sponsored by the Tzu Chi Foundation (慈濟) and hosted by the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. The conference will take place at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, United Kingdom, on 8-10 July 2024 (08/07/2024-10/07/2024). Accommodation and meals will be provided for the duration of the conference. Travel expenses to Cambridge will be covered for conference presenters (please contact organizers for further details). We welcome proposals for papers on topics relating to historiography, hagiography, and narration, including but not limited to:

• • Buddhist historiography and record-keeping

• • Historiography and record-keeping in other Chinese religious traditions

• • Narrating lives of extraordinary individuals (e.g. biographies, autobiographies, hagiographies) in textual, oral, visual, and material forms

• • The intersection of Buddhism and literature

• • Book culture and production of texts in the Buddhist tradition (e.g. in print culture, manuscript culture, publishing practices, patronage of textual production, production of temple gazetteers and mountain gazetteers etc.)

• • Uses of visual arts and the performance arts in creating or supporting Buddhist historiography and hagiography

Proposals for papers should include the following information:

1. 1. Name, affiliation, and title of position at the affiliated institution (independent scholars are also welcome to apply; please note “independent scholar” in your proposal if relevant)

1. 1. 250 word abstract

1. 1. Contact information: email, address, and phone number(s)

The deadline for all proposals is Friday, February 23^rd, 2024 (23/02/2024). Proposals should be sent as either Word or PDF to the following email address: hist.hagio@gmail.com For general information and logistical questions, please email the organizing committee at: hist.hagio@gmail.com Regarding the conference, please contact the primary organizer, Dr Noga Ganany at ng462@cam.ac.uk. *Proposals must be submitted in English.

Contact Email hist.hagio@gmail.com * CALL FOR PAPERS Palgrave Handbook of Disability in Comics and Graphic Narratives deadline for submissions:  February 28, 2024 We invite abstracts for articles to be published in a collection showcasing scholarly research related to disability in comics and graphic narratives. This edited volume will highlight insights from both disability studies as well as comics studies. Centering a disability justice ethos, we especially welcome: submissions by disabled authors/creators; collaborative submissions; work that engages with disability life writing and/or disclosure; work that addresses accommodations and accessibility as they relate to comics pedagogy, form, and/or readership. The collection envisions a diverse selection of contributors (i.e. a mix of early, mid-, and established scholars from the humanities, comics studies, and disability studies; disability activists; comics creators; comics journalists; and so on) that represent a range of perspectives, methodologies, and communities across the globe. The contents of the collection may be likewise diverse, including essays by individual and collaborative authors, interviews, and/or creative work. Essays in all languages are welcome (to be published in translation). We encourage examinations of mainstream titles and characters, independent comics, as well as considerations of the ways disability shapes comics form in creative ways. We are especially interested in contributions that explore additional intersections of race, class, sexuality, and gender; and works that challenge ableism in comics theory and/or challenge comics’ ocularcentrism. We especially welcome essays on potential themes and keywords such as:

• • Accessibility

• • Activism

• • Archive

• • Autobiography

• • Coloniality

• • Disability Justice

• • Disability as Method

• • Genre(s)

• • Intersectionality

• • Mental Health/Illness

• • Monstrosity/grotesque

• • Multiculturalism

• • Neurodivergence

• • Pedagogy

• • Sexuality

• • Sound

• • Superheroes and supervillains

• • Touch

• • Transnationalism

• • Vision

We welcome inquiries by email. Please submit 250-300 word abstracts and 50-word bios by February 28th, 2024. After reviewing submissions, the editors will select contributors and then submit a proposal for publication by Palgrave. Final essays will be approximately 5,000-10,000 words depending on the topic. We also welcome submissions of scholarship in comics formats between 10 and 20 pages. For questions, or to submit a proposal, contact keyword.disability.comics@gmail.com * The Empire and I: Individuals in Empires and Postimperial Spaces – 3rd Annual Conference of the RTG 2571 Empires Freiberg, Germany November 28–30, 2024 Deadline for Submissions: February 29, 2024 Analysing the relations between individuals and empires has a long tradition in historiography: from the biographies of “great men” to more recent approaches such as “imperial biographies” and “imperial subjects”. And while the first has rightly been criticised in the past, the latter have shown that there is significant analytical value in studying individuals even when trying to understand macro-phenomena such as empires. As individuals can function as the smallest analytical units for exploring of broader historical developments, focusing on them can shed light on more general political, economic, and social dynamics. Retracing the activities of individuals, therefore, can be used to analyse the factors that shaped living conditions within imperial and postimperial spaces. This approach also opens up new perspectives on the agency of individuals and the strategies they could and did use to thrive and persist within or resist imperial environments. Focusing on individuals also offers possibilities to grasp their influence on empires. Individual actors impacted the way empires evolved, for instance by making use of imperial structures or policies for their own gains. Moreover, the ways individuals thought, spoke, and wrote about imperial environments illustrate how empires are perceived and conceptualised to this day. The relationships between empire and individual can therefore be approached not just through historiography but through a multitude of disciplines and for different time periods and regions. The third annual conference of the RTG 2571 “Empires” likewise aims to examine the relations between individuals and empires from different perspectives. We welcome contributions from all the humanities and social sciences as well as hybrid sciences. We especially encourage scholars in the early stages of their careers (PhD & Postdocs) to submit proposals. Interested applicants are invited to send a working title, an abstract (c. 400 words) for a presentation of 20 minutes and a short CV (no more than two pages) to the mentioned mail adress by February 29th 2024. Any further queries can be directed to the same address. Accommodation in Freiburg will be organised and covered by the RTG “Empires”. We will also reimburse presenters for their travel expenses. Contact Information Aaron Zidar Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg DFG Graduiertenkolleg 2571 „Imperien” Platz der Universität 3 79085 Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) Contact Email conference-empires@grk2571.uni-freiburg.de URL https://www.grk2571.uni-freiburg.de/events/conferences/annual-conference-2024?s… * CALL FOR PAPERS International Conference on “Diverse Lives: Narratives of Śākyamuni Buddha in Text and Image” October 16–19, 2024 Conference Location: Royal Museum of Mariemont, Belgium Deadline for Submissions: February 29, 2024 The founding figure of Buddhism, Śākyamuni Buddha, has played an enormously important role for South and East Asian – and more recently also Western – cultures and societies. However, there is no authoritative biographic account which would be accepted by the multitude of Buddhist traditions. On the contrary, the stories concerning Śākyamuni’s life are as diverse as the doctrinal and rituals systems found in the various regions and schools of Asian Buddhism. In this context of the lack of cross-regionally and inter-sectarian accepted textual and visual sources, even key events of Buddha’s life have undergone countless interpretations in textual and visual media in the course of Buddhism’s geographical spread and doctrinal diversification. Some of the influential hagiographical accounts of Buddha’s life, such as the Sanskrit Buddhacarita and the Lalitavistara and their renderings in other languages, have attracted the attention of numerous scholars, whereas many lesser-known narratives have remained understudied. The main goal of this conference is thus to gather scholars and discuss unusual variations and interpretations of Buddha’s life stories found in textual and visual materials. The narratives concerning Buddha’s life will be approached from an interdisciplinary perspective, including religious studies, philological and literary studies, archaeology, and art history, to name a few. We invite speakers to present studies which for example focus on geographically localized adaptations of Buddha’s life – both based on visual and textual sources; variations we find in the texts and manuscripts composed in the various languages along the Silk Road and beyond; hybrid accounts of Buddha’s life which incorporate elements drawn from other traditions or cultural contexts; the way Buddha’s life is interpreted in contemporary media; as well as Western interpretations of Buddha’s life stories. There are no limitations concerning the temporal or geographical framework. The International in-person conference is scheduled for 16-19 October 2024 at the Royal Museum of Mariemont, Belgium. This event is organised, in collaboration with the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies of Ghent University, at the occasion of the exhibition “Buddha. Experiencing the Sensible” (September 21st, 2024 – April 20th, 2025). Interested participants should submit a 300-word proposal and a short biography (maximum 200 words) as a single Word document to Buddha2024@musee-mariemont.be by February 29th, 2024. The language of presentation will be English. Selected speakers will be notified by the end of March 2024. Transport to and from hotels nearby the conference venue will be provided by the organising institutions. Keynote speaker:  Bernard Faure, Director of the Center for Buddhism and East Asian Religions, Columbia University, Kao Professor of Japanese Religion, Columbia University, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University Conference organisers: Ann Heirman, Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures, Professor of Chinese Language and Culture, Director of the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies, Ghent University Christoph Anderl, Professor of Chinese Language and Culture, Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University Lyce Jankowski, Curator of extra-European Art, Domain & Royal Museum of Mariemont Max Deeg, Professor in Buddhist Studies, Cardiff University Neil Schmid, Research Professor, Dunhuang Research Academy * Storytelling as Pedagogy: Historical Biographies in STEM and Social Studies Cain Conference, Science History Institute 7/15-16/2024 Philadelphia USA Deadline for Submissions: February 29, 2024 This Cain Conference will bring together scholars and practitioners of science education and public communication to explore how sharing stories of diverse scientists can help young girls and people of color see themselves as valuable contributors to science, historically and in the future. Organized by Cain Conference Fellow Sibrina Collins, the conference will take place at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, PA on July 15 – July 16, 2024. Connecting with people is at the heart of storytelling. Studies have shown that sharing a compelling story about someone who has made a new contribution, tool, or discovery may inspire a student to pursue their own career in a STEM field.[i] We invite proposals for presentations or panels that focus on writing, adapting, and teaching with historical scientific biographies and narratives in the context of different formats including:

• • Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE)

• • Discussion and/or laboratory courses in K-12 and higher education

• • Large Lecture Courses (incl. flipped classroom formats)

• • Asynchronous online courses and multimedia production

• • Public Learning Environments (incl. churches, museums, and libraries)

We welcome proposals from educators, scholars, historians and biographers, editors and publishers, collections professionals, and others with a professional interest in the use of historical biographies in education. Interested applicants should submit an abstract of no more than 300 words and brief autobiographical sketch (50-100 words) by February 29, 2024. Questions and submissions should be sent to biographies@sciencehistory.org. For updates, please see our conference web page at https://www.sciencehistory.org/visit/events/gordon-cain-conference-2024/ [i] Collins, S.N. The importance of storytelling in chemical education. Nat. Chem. 13, 1–2 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-020-00617-7 * Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2024 CFP – Writers of Extreme Situations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective (3/1/2024; 4/16-18/2024) 58th Comp. World Lit. Conf., California USA Venue: California State University, Long Beach. Hybrid Dates: Tuesday and Wednesday, April 16-17 (in-person presentations only with Zoom projections), Thursday, April 18, 2024 (Zoom presentations only) Plenary Speaker: Christopher Goffard, author and senior staff writer, Los Angeles Times Family crises, exilic conditions, forced migrations, excessive poverty, armed conflicts, political warfare, environmental calamities, workers’ exploitation, pandemics, and all manner of natural or man-made disasters have been rising to unprecedented levels over the last decades. How are extreme situations or situations so extraordinary as to defy imagination represented? What are the poetics underlying them? We welcome conversations about how extreme conditions and situations, (individual, collective, or global) are expressed, analyzed, and engaged from a multidisciplinary perspective, including but not limited to:  Literature, Journalism, Geography, Anthropology, Political Science, Criminology, Linguistics, Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Disability Studies, Media Studies, Geology, Human Development, and more. This conference invites paper and panel proposals on all aspects of extreme situations. Possible topics can include but are not limited to: -Literature of extreme situations -Investigative Journalism -Trauma literature -Literatures of genocide -Holocaust memoirs -Feats of survival -Crime narratives -Narratives of addiction -Natural and man-made disasters -Innocent Project LA -Victims speak up: truth to power -The rise against femicide -Wars and exilic narratives -Refugee narratives -Pandemic narratives -Medical malpractice and botched surgeries -Ethics of survival and survivors’ guilt -The Family Secret and the wounded individual -Dementia and violence: nursing homes -Perpetrators and victims -Asylum seekers and their fate in the US -Ethical ordeals: surviving the unimaginable -Memory as a repository of horror -Collapse of ethical systems in a digital world -Institutional responses to catastrophes -Crossing the Mediterranean: the Syrian refugee crisis -Extreme geo-political conflicts -Journalism at work: covering extreme conditions -“The Banality of Evil” in urban settings. -State terrorism and extreme-isms -Millennial fatigue and extremist stances -Monuments of shame -The Kafkaesque in our daily lives -Systemic risks in the 21^st Century -Extreme environments -Soft White Underbelly: Mark Laita interviews –The Trials of Frank Carson Podcast (Christopher Goffard) -Deaths in the Grand Canyon and Other National Parks. We are thrilled to announce that the plenary talk will be delivered by Christopher Goffard, Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist for the LA Times, novelist and podcaster, on Wednesday, April 17^th, at 2PM (PDT). The title of his talk is: “Crossing the Impossible Bridge in a Dynamite Truck: Observations on Film, Friendship and Collaboration” In “Crossing the Impossible Bridge in a Dynamite Truck,” Goffard will reflect on his friendship and collaboration with one of cinema’s great poets of desperation and obsession, William Friedkin, and of their efforts to bring some of Goffard’s riskier stories to the screen. As a crystallization of Friedkin’s danger-courting artistry—and as a metaphor for their quest to get controversial projects made— Goffard invokes an image from the filmmaker’s 1977 masterpiece Sorcerer, in which a truck laden with nitroglycerin attempts to cross a crumbling suspension bridge in the South American jungle. Submissions for individual presentations and 90-minute sessions are welcome from all disciplines and global / historical contexts that engage with historical, personal, or social instances of extreme conditions and situations. Proposals for 15-20 minute presentations should clearly explain the relationship of the paper to the conference theme, describe the evidence to be examined, and offer tentative conclusions. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (not including optional bibliography) should be submitted by March 1, 2024. Please submit abstracts as a Word document in an email attachment to comparativeworldliterature@gmail.com NB: Please do not embed proposals in the text of the email. Make sure to indicate your mode of preference (Zoom on April 18 and in person only on April 16 and 17) for planning purposes While the conference will be hybrid, all Zoom presentations will take place only on Thursday, April 18, and in-person presentations will take place on Tuesday-Wednesday, April 16-17 (and will be Zoom-projected). We cannot accommodate pre-recorded presentations. The conference committee will review all proposals, with accepted papers receiving notification by March 15, 2024. Contact Information Dr. Kathryn Chew Contact Email comparativeworldliterature@gmail.com URL https://cla.csulb.edu/departments/complit/current-conference/ * Registration for IABA World 2024 is now open! The conference will run from 9 am 12 June to 3 pm 15 June 2024. A detailed programme will be available in due course. The fees are as follows: Early Bird (includes access to all sessions, conference materials, coffees, lunches, reception) to 1 March: 34.000 IKR (approx. 230 EUR/250 USD) Full Price after 1 March:  42.000 IKR (approx. 280 EUR/310 USD) PhD Students and PostDocs (includes access to all sessions, conference materials, coffees, lunches, reception, dinner) 27.000 IKR (approx. 180 EUR/200 USD) For more information see: https://iabaworld2024.hi.is/ Please direct all queries to iabaworld2024@gmail.com * Call for Papers—Edited Volume Mothers, Mothering and Trauma/Intergenerational Trauma Edited by Lamees Al Ethari, PhD and Maria D. Lombard, PhD Deadline for Submissions. March 1, 2024: 250–400-word abstract This edited volume on motherhood and trauma builds on Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, which states that the “generation after” [will] “grow up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose own belated stories are evacuated by the stories of the previous generation shaped by traumatic events that can neither be understood nor recreated” (Hirsch 22). This volume will attempt to capture some of those very narratives and belated stories that Hirsch refers to in her rendering of the concept of postmemory, especially within the context of displaced motherhood. The chapters that this volume seeks to collect can be scholarly, creative, or visual. In the narratives chosen for this study, relational ties and generational story-telling/story-building are crucial in the construction of self-identity as they establish a sense of history and belonging for the new(er) generations. On one hand they present a personal narrative, while on the other, a communal narrative in which the experiences of a people is brought to light. While historical frameworks or references may be useful as context, the collection aims to examine experiences shaped by contemporary concepts of motherhood and disconnected/de-fragmented motherhood impacted by displacement and trauma. Areas and stories examined can be from the perspective of the mother, the mother/child relationship, the mother/society dynamic, etc. The editors are particularly interested in submissions that contextualize how Hirsch’s concept of postmemory is reflected in their work. Possible topics might look critically at (but are not limited to) generational experiences of trauma and displacement in relation to:

• •  race, culture, class, and sexuality

• • narratives about or by migrant and/ or refugee mothers

• • rhetorics of refugee/displaced motherhood

• • politics and policy on the refugee family

• • family separation, family resettlement

• • refugee children’s literature and the mother figure

• • narratives or research on adoptive mothers, reproductive health care (access to ultrasounds, pre/post-natal care, family planning, etc.)

• • activism and community action/re-action

• • communication, social media, and telling motherhood stories online

Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997. Timeline for CFP March 1, 2024: Submission of 250-400 word abstract of your chapter and a 50-word bio. April 1, 2024: Acceptance notifications will be sent to contributors. 15 August 2024: Accepted and complete chapters due (6,000 words maximum with MLA format and references) Submissions and questions should be sent to: Dr. Lamees Al Ethari lalehari@uwaterloo.ca Dr. Maria Lombard maria.lombard@northwestern.edu Editor Bios Lamees Al Ethari, PhD Lamees Al Ethari holds a PhD from the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo, where she has been teaching creative writing and literature since 2015. She is a nonfiction editor with The New Quarterly and a co-founder for The X Page: AStorytelling Workshop for Immigrant Women. She is in the process of completing an autoethnographic monograph titled, Patterns of Telling: Women’s Autobiography in theDiaspora, which is a critical exploration of women’s narratives of displacement. She has published, From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris (2018) and Waiting for the Rain: An IraqiMemoir (2019), in which she reflects on her experiences of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, the violent aftermath, and her migration from home. Her poems have appeared in About PlaceJournal, The New Quarterly, The Malpais Review, and the anthology Al Mutanabbi Street StartsHere. Maria D. Lombard, PhD Maria Lombard is the assistant dean for academic affairs at Northwestern University in Qatar. Her research focuses on writing studies, with interests in second-language writing pedagogy, minority and gendered voices, and travel writing. Her scholarly publications include refereed articles and proceedings, as well as book chapters, on belonging, displacement, and motherhood. Her recent edited volume, Reclaiming Migrant Motherhood: Identity, Belonging, andDisplacement in a Global Context (Lexington Books, 2022) examines the representations and lived experiences of migrant, refugee, and otherwise displaced mothers in literature, film, and original ethnographic research. *

 W. G. Sebald at 80: A (Critical) Celebration of Life and Works

Conference Date: Saturday, May 18, 2024 (ON ZOOM) Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2024  This conference invites graduate students and beyond, including lecturers and independent scholars, to join in a critical celebration of the works of the unique Anglo-German author W. G. Sebald (1944-2001). Hailed by legendary critic Susan Sontag in a 2000 essay published in Times Literary Supplement, she asked whether “literary greatness [was] still possible” and concluded “one of the few answers available to English-language readers is the work of W. G. Sebald.” Several journal articles, book chapters, and collections have been published about this eccentric author (see the bibliography below), and yet, he remains largely unknown to Western audiences. This conference hopes to bring scholars out of the woodworks and contribute their thoughts and ideas about Sebald and any of his various works, including his essays, i.e., On the Natural History of Destruction, and literary prose, i.e., After Nature, Vertigo, The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, and Austerlitz. There is no one guiding theme under which to produce critical evaluations of Sebald’s texts. Instead, given the eclecticism of Sebald’s subject matter, diverse approaches are encouraged, including, but not limited to: Postcoloniality Orientalism Gender and Sexuality Bio- and necropolitics Trauma Archive Gothic Ecocriticism Spatiality Temporality Narratology Genre Animal Studies Historiography Religion Rhetoric Thing Theory Photography Frankfurt School Psychoanalysis Thanatourism Translation Please submit a 200-250 word abstract, along with a brief biographical statement and your time zone in order to best approximate appropriate times for presentations, to wgsebald80conference@gmail.com. Full papers should aim to be 10-15 minutes in length. The conference will be held online over Zoom at no charge and, depending on the amount of submissions, may roll over into two days – for now, it is tentatively scheduled on what would have been the author’s 80th birthday (May 18, 1944). (Zoom link will be sent out a week before the conference). Also, select papers will be solicited to be compiled in an edited collection on the works of W. G. Sebald. Details to come. Bibliography Angier, Carole. Speak, Silence: In Search of W. G. Sebald. Bloomsbury Circus, 2021. Burns, Rob, and Wilfried van der Will. “The calamitous perspective of modernity: Sebald’s negative ontology.” Journal of European Studies, vol. 41, no. ¾, 2011, pp. 341-358. DOI: 10.1177/0047244111413700 Fischer, Gerhard, editor. W.G. Sebald: Schreiben ex patria/ Expatriate Writing. Rodopi, 2009. Groves, Jason. “Writing after Nature: A Sebaldian Ecopoetics.” German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene, edited by Caroline Schaumann and Heather I. Sullivan, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 267-292. Johannsen, Anja K. “‘The contrarieties that are our yearnings’: Allegorical, nostalgic and transcendent spaces in the work of W. G. Sebald.” Journal of European Studies, vol. 41, no. ¾, 2011, pp. 377-393. DOI: 10.1177/0047244111413704 Long, J. J., and Anne Fuchs, editors. W. G. Sebald and the Writing of History. Königshausen & Neumann, 2007. Long, J. J., and Anne Whitehead, editors. W. G. Sebald – A Critical Companion. U of Washington P, 2004. McCulloh, Mark Richard. Understanding W. G. Sebald. University of South Carolina Press, 2003. McCulloch, Mark, and Scott Denham, editors. W. G. Sebald: History – Memory – Trauma. De Gruyter, Inc., 2006. Schwarz, Lyn Sharon, editor. the emergence of memory: Conversations with W. G. Sebald. Seven Stories Press, 2007. Silverblatt, Michael. “A Poem of an Invisible Subject.” the emergence of memory: Conversations with W. G. Sebald, edited by Lyn Sharon Schwarz, Seven Stories Press, 2007, pp. 76-86. Wolff, Lynn L. W. G. Sebald’s Hybrid Poetics: Literature as Historiography. De Gruyter, 2014. Zisselsberger, Markus, editor. The Undiscover’d Country: W. G. Sebald and the poetics of travel. Camden House, 2010. *

 “Narrating Lives” International Conference on Storytelling, (Auto)Biography and (Auto)Ethnography

Rome, Italy and Online, 5/31-6/2/2024

https://life-history.lcir.co.uk/

Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2024 London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research Life-history approach occupies the central place in conducting and producing  (auto)biographical and (auto)ethnographic studies through the understanding of self, other, and culture. We construct and develop conceptions and practices by engaging with memory through narrative, in order to negotiate ambivalences and uncertainties of the world and to represent (often traumatic) experiences. The “Narrating Lives” conference will focus on reading and interpreting (auto)biographical texts and methods across the humanities, social sciences, and visual and performing arts. It will analyse theoretical and practical approaches to life writing and the components of (auto)biographical acts, including memory, experience, identity, embodiment, space, and agency. We will attempt to identify key concerns and considerations that led to the development of the methods and to outline the purposes and ethics of (auto)biographical and (auto)ethnographic research. We aim to explore a variety of techniques for gathering data on the self-from diaries to interviews to social media and to promote understanding of multicultural others, qualitative inquiry, and narrative writing. Conference panels will be related, but not limited, to:

• • Life Narrative in Historical Perspective

• • Qualitative Research Methods

• • Oral History, Memory and Written Tradition

• • Journalism and Literary Studies

• • Creative Writing and Performing Arts

• • (Auto)Biographical Element in Film Studies, Media and Communication

• • Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

• • Narrative Medicine

• • Storytelling in Education

• • Ethics and Politics of Research

Submissions may be proposed in various formats, including:

• • Individually submitted papers (organised into panels by the committee)

• • Panels (3-4 individual papers)

• • Posters

Proposals should be sent to: life-history@lcir.co.uk. * BIO’s Hazel Rowley Prize for First-Time Biographers Sponsored by the Biographers International Organization (BIO), the Hazel Rowley Prize offers $5,000 for the best book proposal from a first-time biographer, plus a careful reading by an established agent. Submissions due March 1. Guidelines and entry forms are available on the BIO website: https://biographersinternational.org/award/hazel-rowley-prize/ Contact Information Michael Gately, Executive Director, BIO Contact Email execdirector@biographersinternational.org URL

rnational.org/award/hazel-rowley-prize/

* Call for Papers, Political Biofictions (2/18/2024; 1/9-12/2025) MLA New Orleans USA Alexandre Gefen (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CRNS) and Virginia Newhall Rademacher (Babson College) seek 1 to 2 additional panelists for the seminar, Political Biofictions at MLA 2025. MLA 2025 will be held January 9-12 in New Orleans, LA. Political Biofictions  Biofictions consciously reference historical subjects as their protagonists and then open those life narratives to imaginative possibility. By constituting thresholds between the situated realities of actual, biographical subjects and the imaginative potential of fictional creation, biofictions liberate fiction from interacting only with invented worlds. Instead, these works invite us to experiment with our biographical lives and to use fiction to evaluate and shape real-world concerns. The 2025 MLA Annual Convention theme of visibility is the perfect context for this session on Political Biofictions, especially in light of the crises and conflicts we face across the globe. Emma Donoghue has referred to biofiction as “voicing the nobodies.” Colum McCann has referred to the “contested realities” and obscured truths that writers of biofiction try to reveal – the effort to challenge and interrogate claims to truth and what we can trust. By imaginatively making visible voices and meanings that power has so often obscured, biofictions are inherently political spaces that defy dominant, authoritarian modes of determining the world. We invite diverse approaches, from more pointedly political critiques (Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat, Joyce Carol Oates’ Blonde, Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Like a Fading Shadow, Colum McCann’s Apeirogon, Anchee Min’sBecoming Madame Mao) to morewide-ranging cultural critiques (Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, Colm Toíbín’s  The Magician, Lauren Groff’s Matrix, Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, e.g.) as just a very few examples. If interested, please contact Professor Jenny Rademacher at vrademacher@babson.edu with a brief (one paragraph) proposal by Sunday February 18. 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) *

4 PhD Positions “The Aggressor: Self-Perception and External Perception of an Actor Between Nations” (Heidelberg or Bochum, Germany)

Deadline for Applications: February 18, 2024 Heidelberg University (Department of History) and the Ruhr University Bochum (Faculty of History) invite applications for up to four PhD positions within the framework of the international research project “The Aggressor: Self-Perception and External Perception of an Actor Between Nations” (sponsored by the Daimler and Benz Foundation) to start in spring 2024 and to be hosted by either of the two institutions. The interdisciplinary project, headed by Prof. Dr. Thomas Maissen (Heidelberg University), investigates the identity-forming construction of national enemy images across Europe, which are shaped by aggressors from neighboring countries. The project examines the dynamics of personalization of such enemy imagery, with special attention to concrete historical figures. As ideal types or social figures, they represent hostile groups in collective memory. It comparatively researches and systematizes the perception and interpretation of concrete enemies as aggressors based on historical case studies, focusing on their discursive construction and changing significance in the politics of memory. A detailed description of the project can be found at: https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/fakultaeten/philosophie/zegk/histsem/forschung/project_aggressor_en.html Your tasks:

• • Conceptualization and execution of a doctoral project in German or English over the course of three years, pending an evaluation after the first year

• • Active participation in the further development of the broader project and in its events such as graduate seminars and workshops

Your profile:

• • Above-average degree (Master’s or equivalent) at the time of taking the position

• • Excellent doctoral project proposal

• • Good knowledge of German or English; other language skills are welcome

We offer:

• • A three-year (1+2) fixed-term contract at Heidelberg University or the Ruhr University Bochum

• • Coordinated supervision of the doctoral project by several members of the project team

• • Integration into an international interdisciplinary network of leading scholars from multiple established European research institutions

• • Highly motivating research environment in a strong academic team

• • Participation in international conferences and opportunities for publication of own research results

• • The chance to design exciting projects in the field of Public History

• • Salary based on the collective bargaining agreement of the German federal states (TV-L E13, 65%)

The doctoral project can be freely formulated within the framework of the above-mentioned description. For dissertations with a relevant topic that have already progressed, final funding with a shorter duration is conceivable. For questions regarding the content of the job profile, please contact Prof. Dr. Thomas Maissen (thomas.maissen@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de). Applications in German or English should include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, certificates, proof of language skills and professional experience (if applicable), two short academic letters of reference, and an outline of the doctoral project with details on the desired supervision and host university (max. 20,000 characters including spaces and bibliography) and should be sent as a single PDF file to:  aggressorprojekt@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de. The deadline is February 18, 2024. The interviews are expected to take place online on March 1, 2024. The participating institutions stand for equal opportunities and diversity. Qualified female candidates are especially invited to apply. Persons with severe disabilities will be given preference if they are equally qualified. Information on job advertisements and the collection of personal data is available at www.uni-heidelberg.de/en/job-market Contact Information Prof. Dr. Thomas Maissen, Department of History, Heidelberg University, Grabengasse 3-5, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany Contact Email thomas.maissen@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de URL e/fakultaeten/philosophie/zegk/histsem/forschung/pr… * Exploring Historical War Experiences through Digital Sources and Methodologies Workshop 23–24 May 2024 Tampere University, Finland Deadline for Applications: February 12, 20204 Historians have increasingly striven to understand war from the standpoint of human experience in recent decades. The emotional, psychological, and deeply traumatic experiences of people caught up in violence have become focal points of historical research, particularly concerning conflicts like the World Wars of the 20th century. This workshop discusses the study of war experiences through digital sources and methods. War experiences have been analyzed most often by closely examining the fates of individual people and their ego-documents like letters, diaries, and poems, but digitalization has opened possibilities to explore war from a broader perspective. The digitization of archives has made it easier to access millions of wartime publications, such as newspapers and parliamentary records, now only a few clicks away. Additionally, recent advancements in handwritten text recognition are making historical ego-documents, such as letters, digitally accessible. Transforming documents into data broadens the scope of research from traditional close reading to text-mining methods and creates new opportunities to present war on digital and visual platforms. What are the implications of digitalization for the study of war experiences? Are individual experiences at risk of being neglected in digital, data-driven research? Or can digitalization offer historians new ways to tell stories and convey experiences of war? It is important to emphasize that experiences should not be understood only as narratives of, or written by, individual people. Experience can also be understood more broadly as a mediating sphere between the macro and micro levels where different impulses (personal, social, cultural, and political) merge to form meanings, concepts, actions, and practices. We invite submissions of individual papers and panel discussions that present and analyze cases of historical study of war experiences through digital sources and methodologies. The topics can include, but are not limited to:

• • The concept of experience in digital history

• • Source critical reflection on ego-documents, testimonies, and narrative in the digital realm

• • The role of individual people in digital history

• • Mining war experiences and emotions

• • Silence and trauma in digital data

• • Representing war experiences through numerical data and visualizations

Submission guidelines Please send an abstract of 300 words and a short biography including your name and affiliation to ilari.taskinen@tuni.fi by Monday 12 February 2024. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 29 February 2024. The workshop takes place at Tampere University, Finland on 23–24 May 2024. The workshop is free for selected participants and provides lunch, coffee, and dinner. The organizers can help to cover travel and accommodation expenses for those without their own funding. Please indicate if you need assistance when submitting. Organizers Project: Digital History and Handwritten Sources (DIGIKÄKI) The Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences (HEX) Contact Information Ilari Taskinen (Tampere University) Contact Email ilari.taskinen@tuni.fi URL https://research.tuni.fi/hex/event/call-for-papers-exploring-historical-war-exp… * Call for Papers Janet Frame at 100, special issue of The Journal of Commonwealth Literature Deadline for abstracts: 15^th February 2024  The events of Janet Frame’s remarkable life – thanks in part to the success of her three-volume autobiography – have long overshadowed critical discussions and readings of her wider oeuvre, which includes a range of life narratives, novels, short stories, and poetry. On the hundredth anniversary of her birth, this special issue establishes new understandings of Frame’s work in and for the twenty-first century. Working to establish Frame as a key figure in modern Anglophone literature, this centenary issue scrutinises her experimental approach to literary forms, styles, genres, political orientations, and more. Co-edited by Andrew Dean (Deakin University, AUS), Emma Parker (University of Bristol, UK), and Nicholas Wright (University of Canterbury NZ) this issue solicits articles (7000-7500 words) which discuss Frame’s writing and themes such as:

• • Late modernist literature

• • Experimentations with literary form (metafiction; autofiction; satire; the bildungsroman)

• • Aotearoa New Zealand, postcolonial, or late colonial literatures

• • Records of violence/institutions/imperialism

• • Nationalism, both political and cultural

• • Disability and illness

• • The southern hemisphere

• • Eco-critical readings (oceanic imaginaries, environmental disasters)

• • Adaptations for the screen and stage

• • Translation and literary reception

• • Teaching: reflections on classroom experience and/or pedagogy

• • Posthumous publications and literary afterlives

Deadline for submission of abstracts, 15^th February 2024, to emma.parker@bristol.ac.uk, andrew.dean@deakin.edu.au and nicholas.wright@canterbury.ac.nz Full articles due 1^st August 2024 (for internal peer review) with final submissions and external peer review 1^st November 2024. For full submission guidelines please see: https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/JCL *

CFP: Writers of Extreme Situations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

deadline for submissions:  February 15, 2024 contact email:  comparativeworldliterature@gmail.com CFP: 58th Annual Comparative World Literature Conference Venue: California State University, Long Beach. Hybrid Dates: Tuesday, April 16 (Zoom presentations only), Wednesday and Thursday, April 17-18, 2024 (in person presentations only with Zoom projections) Plenary Speaker: Christopher Goffard, author and senior staff writer, Los Angeles Times Family crises, exilic conditions, forced migrations, excessive poverty, armed conflicts, political warfare, environmental calamities, workers’ exploitation, pandemics, and all manner of natural or man-made disasters have been rising to unprecedented levels over the last decades. How are extreme situations or situations so extraordinary as to defy imagination represented? What are the poetics underlying them? We welcome conversations about how extreme conditions and situations, (individual, collective, or global) are expressed, analyzed, and engaged from a multidisciplinary perspective, including but not limited to:  Literature, Journalism, Geography, Anthropology, Political Science, Criminology, Linguistics, Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Disability Studies, Media Studies, Geology, Human Development, and more. This conference invites paper and panel proposals on all aspects of extreme situations. Possible topics can include but are not limited to: -Literature of extreme situations -Investigative Journalism -Trauma literature -Literatures of genocide -Holocaust memoirs -Feats of survival -Crime narratives -Narratives of addiction -Natural and man-made disasters -Innocent Project LA -Victims speak up: truth to power -The rise against femicide -Wars and exilic narratives -Refugee narratives -Pandemic narratives -Medical malpractice and botched surgeries -Ethics of survival and survivors’ guilt -The Family Secret and the wounded individual -Dementia and violence: nursing homes -Perpetrators and victims -Asylum seekers and their fate in the US -Ethical ordeals: surviving the unimaginable -Memory as a repository of horror -Collapse of ethical systems in a digital world -Institutional responses to catastrophes -Crossing the Mediterranean: the Syrian refugee crisis -Extreme geo-political conflicts -Journalism at work: covering extreme conditions -“The Banality of Evil” in urban settings. -State terrorism and extreme-isms -Millennial fatigue and extremist stances -Monuments of shame -The Kafkaesque in our daily lives -Systemic risks in the 21st Century -Extreme environments -Soft White Underbelly: Mark Laita interviews –The Trials of Frank Carson Podcast (Christopher Goffard) -Deaths in the Grand Canyon and Other National Parks. We are thrilled to announce that the plenary talk will be delivered by Christopher Goffard, Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist for the LA Times, novelist and podcaster, on Thursday, April 19th, at 2PM (PDT). The title of his talk is: “Crossing the Impossible Bridge in a Dynamite Truck: Observations on Film, Friendship and Collaboration” In “Crossing the Impossible Bridge in a Dynamite Truck,” Goffard will reflect on his friendship and collaboration with one of cinema’s great poets of desperation and obsession, William Friedkin, and of their efforts to bring some of Goffard’s riskier stories to the screen. As a crystallization of Friedkin’s danger-courting artistry—and as a metaphor for their quest to get controversial projects made— Goffard invokes an image from the filmmaker’s 1977 masterpiece Sorcerer, in which a truck laden with nitroglycerin attempts to cross a crumbling suspension bridge in the South American jungle. Submissions for individual presentations and 90-minute sessions are welcome from all disciplines and global / historical contexts that engage with historical, personal, or social instances of extreme conditions and situations. Proposals for 15-20 minute presentations should clearly explain the relationship of the paper to the conference theme, describe the evidence to be examined, and offer tentative conclusions. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (not including optional bibliography) should be submitted by January15, 2024. Please submit abstracts as a Word document in an email attachment to comparativeworldliterature@gmail.com NB: Please do not embed proposals in the text of the email. Make sure to indicate your mode of preference (Zoom on April 16 and in person only on April 17 and 18) for planning purposes While the conference will be hybrid, all Zoom presentations will take place only on Tuesday, April 16, and in-person presentations will take place on Wednesday-Thursday, April 17-18 (and will be Zoom-projected). We cannot accommodate pre-recorded presentations. The conference committee will review all proposals, with accepted papers receiving notification by February 15, 2024. *

Call for papers – International Colloquium–Échappées belles – Correspondance of Surrealist Women

deadline for submissions: January 27, 2024 contact email:  lemieux-cloutier.eve@courrier.uqam.ca Organized by Andrea Oberhuber (Montreal University), Sylvano Santini (University of Quebec in Montreal) et Eve Lemieux-Cloutier (University of Quebec in Montreal) Montreal, October 23-25 2024 Where do we stand, almost 100 years after André Breton published the First Manifesto of Surrealism, in our understanding of what Georgiana Colvile and Kate Conley, in La femme s’entête (1998), have called “the feminine part” of the third historical avant-garde? Is it still necessary in 2023 to add a question mark, as the curators did in the case of the Surréalisme au féminin? exhibition at the Musée de Montmartre in summer 2023? Would this symbolize a doubt about the historical presence and aesthetic contribution of numerous female creators – writers and artists, often both at the same time – to the Surrealist movement? It’s true that, in the first pages of the manifesto, Breton evokes a castle in a “rustic setting, not far from Paris” where his “handsome and cordial” friends have taken up residence. He names them all, one by one, before concluding by imagining “and gorgeous women, I might add”, without bothering to specify their names. Over the past thirty years, a growing number of literary critics and art historians have put names and images to these “gorgeous women ” (Rubin Suleiman, 1990, Caws, Kuenzli and Raaberg, 1991, Conley, 1996, Rosemont, 1998, Colvile, 1999, among others). We now know that Simone Kahn and Mick Soupault were immortalized in Man Ray’s group photographs, that the young Gisèle Prassinos was the “femme-enfant” par excellence (Conley and Mahon, 2023) for quite some time, and that the group generally became more welcoming of creative women in the post-war period (Bonnet, 2006). Nor is there any need to revisit the triple role of muse-model-mistress in which young women authors and artists were mostly confined, and which for many was a means of drawing closer to Breton’s “group”, finding new ideas and values, while others have settled for a deliberately marginal position within the Surrealist nebula. Whether their relationship was one of proximity or distance, varying according to the key moments in their careers, their contribution to Surrealist aesthetics and ethics – since the two are intimately linked in the avant-garde movements of the first half of the 20th century – is no longer in doubt today. It seems to us that the centenary of the publication of the founding manifesto offers an opportunity to consider the past-present-future of Surrealism from a perspective that gives pride of place to the feminine. This bias in favor of women’s legacy, particularly in the field of correspondence, is intended to go beyond a binary vision of masculine and feminine, to breathe new life into movement studies and perpetuate creative practices to the present day. No progress, however radical, can be made without a return to the past. Surrealist women creators were witnessed to an era of upheaval that profoundly changed the conditions of art and forms of life. This was the desire of the avant-garde in general and Surrealism in particular, although it has been a long time coming. Women’s art made an original and integral contribution to the creation of these new conditions. And the reasons that explains the late realization of the will to change life are the same that might clarify the delay in the discovery of women’s work. We must avoid repeating this delay by hesitating to join their works to the forms of life that produced them. If the end of art’s autonomy is an essential contribution of the historical avant-gardes, despite their failure, as Peter Bürger (1984) demonstrated long ago, it goes beyond the question of gender. We must recognize, however, that its ultimate consequences affect women more intensely, whose subversive works have not been as decontextualized and neutralized by bourgeois recuperation and the art market as those of men. Besides, in his thesis on the historical failure of the avant-garde, Bürger never mentions the existence of women’s Surrealist works. Without wishing to deny their access to economic capital – they have the same right to it as men – their works still retain their subversive power. It’s this power that we need to bring to light, by revisiting and questioning the forms of life that gave rise to them. As part of the 100th anniversary of Surrealism in 2024, we propose to organize a colloquium on what we might be called a blind spot in surrealism studies to date, prompting us to reflect on it together: the correspondence of writers and artists whom we associate closely or remotely with the movement. They (hers) – Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Lise Deharme, Leonor Fini, Simone Kahn, Nelly Kaplan, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, Suzanne Muzard, Gisèle Prassinos, Dorothea Tanning and Unica Zürn, to name but a few – knew each other from close and far-flung Surrealist circles. Although they sometimes maintained an ongoing correspondence with one of the eminent representatives of Surrealism, there are few examples of letters they addressed to each other. Examples include the correspondence between Simone Kahn and her cousin Denise Lévy, or the few letters exchanged between Claude Cahun and Adrienne Monnier. In the majority of cases, female Surrealist artists corresponded with their male counterparts: Nelly Kaplan and Leonor Fini with André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Gisèle Prassinos with Henri Parisot, Lise Deharme with Pierre Reverdy, Unica Zürn with Henri Michaux and, of course, Jacqueline Lamba with André Breton. While it is generally believed that male writers and artists pursue their work by shaping and editing their correspondence – they somehow know that it will be read – we shouldn’t think that women don’t care. We need to get rid of all gendered stereotypes about epistolary writing, such as the one suggesting that women neglect the literary value of their letters in favor of spontaneity. As Brigitte Diaz (2006) rightly points out, the various gendered stereotypes associated with correspondence should no longer have a place in epistolary studies. This will be all the more true in our colloquium, which, rather than redoing the history of Surrealism, aims to extend and refine it by questioning the modes of sociability favored by women, their desire to collaborate, their friendships and loves, their criticisms, their ambitions, their moods – in short, their aesthetic, political and social sensibilities. In short, it will explore the multiple links – from everyday life to political reflections to questions of advice on a work in progress, for example – that several generations of Surrealist creators established between writing, creation and life in an era that, in more ways than one, can still inspire our own. Proposals for papers – whether for research or research/creation – which may concern published or archival correspondence by women, or, from a broader perspective, the question of epistolary writing by women, should be around 300 words long and accompanied by a brief bio-bibliographical note. Written in French or English, they should be sent simultaneously to Andrea Oberhuber (andrea.oberhuber@umontreal.ca), Sylvano Santini (santini.sylvano@uqam.ca) and Eve Lemieux-Cloutier (lemieux-cloutier.eve@courrier.uqam.ca) no later than January 27, 2024. In the subject line of your message, please indicate “Colloque. Échappées belles”. Please note that the colloquium organizers are planning to submit a funding application to cover part of the travel and subsistence expenses of colloquium participants. Further information will be sent to candidates whose proposals have been accepted by the scientific committee. Bibliography* Bonnet, Marie-Jo, Femmes artistes dans les avant-gardes, Paris,Odile Jacob, 2006. Bürger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde, trad. Michael Shaw, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1974. Caws, Mary Ann, Rudolf Kuenzli et Gwen Raaberg (dir.), Surrealism and Women, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1991. Colvile, Georgiana, et Katharine Conley (dir.), La femme s’entête. La part du féminin dans le surréalisme, Paris, Lachenal et Ritter, coll. « Pleine Marge », 1998. Colvile, Georgiana, Scandaleusement d’elles: trente-quatre femmes surréalistes, Paris, Jean Michel Place, 1999. Conley, Katharine, Automatic Woman, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1996. Conley, Kate, et Alyce Mahon, «The “Problem of Woman” in Surrealism », International Journal of Surrealism, vol. 1 n° 1, 2023, p. v-ix. Diaz, Brigitte, et Jürgen Siess (dir.), L’épistolaire au féminin : Correspondances de femmes (xviiie-xxe siècle),Caen, Presses universitaires de Caen, 2006. Oberhuber, Andrea, Faire œuvre à deux. Le livre surréaliste au féminin, Montréal, Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, coll. « Art + », 2023. Rosemont, Penelope (dir.), Surrealist Women, An International Anthology, Texas, University of Texas Press, coll. « Surrealist Revolution », 1998. Suleiman, Susan Rubin, Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics, and the Avant-Garde, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1990. * 2024 International PhD Conference “Lived Experiences”, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (hybrid format) June 6 and 7, 2024 Deadline for submissions: January 31, 2024 Call for Papers We are pleased to announce the call for papers for Lived Experiences, the international two- day PhD conference that takes place in Brussels, Belgium, on June 7th, and online on June 8th, 2024. This conference aims to create a platform for doctoral students specializing in literary studies, literary translation studies, and theatre studies to showcase their research and engage in discussions on the profound impact of personal narratives and lived experiences in shaping creative works. It provides an excellent opportunity for emerging scholars to actively participate in scholarly dialogues, share their findings, and contribute to the broader academic discourse. Theme and Scope Numerous scholars have explored how the book as a medium shapes the ways in which authors practice life writing. In “Putting Lives on the Record: The Book as Material and Symbol in Life Writing” (2017), Anna Poletti proposes an innovative approach to biography studies focusing on that centrality of “the book as both a medium and a symbol” to both “the practice and the scholarship of life writing” (Poletti, 460). However, a reading strategy, which emphasizes the relationship between a life writing practice and its medium/form, can be applied not only to book-based practices, but also to writing grounded in lived experience across various media, media combinations, and culturally defined forms of writing. Recently, life writing studies took an intermedial and transcultural turn (Rippl, 147), marked by publications such as the volume Intermediality, Life Writing, and American Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Nassim Winnie Balestrini and Ina Bergmann (2018), Experiments in Life-writing: Intersections of Auto/biography and Fiction, edited by Lucia Boldrini and Julia Novak (2017), and Anna Poletti’s (2020) monograph Stories of the self: Life writing after the book. Even more recently, Claudia Jünke and Désirée Schyns published Translating Memories of Violent Pasts: Memory Studies and Translation Studies in Dialogue (2023), a collection of essays from memory studies and translation studies investigating the exploration of memories of violence through the practices of interlingual and intercultural literary translation. As Jünke and Schyns highlight in their introduction to the last-mentioned work, cultural translation already implies a form of remembering: the target text always retains its dual context. It connects the past of the source to practices of rewriting and dynamics of cultural transmission in the present. Lived Experiences seeks to further our understanding of the ways different (combinations of) media, genres, and writing practices (e.g., literary translation) can allow for different expressions and explorations of personal experience. It aims to focus on lived experiences as a catalyst for (literary) creativity, with texts using the conventions and the material, modal, formal, and symbolic affordances of media, genres, and writing practices in creative ways to express specific forms of lived experiences (such as traumatic, formative, or shared cultural experiences). By bringing together scholars of life writing and other literary practices in which lived experience plays a central role, it invites participants to reflect both on how media and genres shape creative forms of life writing and how the need or desire to represent, analyze, or simulate lived experiences can inform practices of literary creation. We encourage participants to explore diverse aspects of lived experiences within the realm of literature and other media, including but not limited to:

1. 1. Autobiographical narratives and memoirs: Analyzing the ways in which personal stories intersect with creative expression and exploring the relationship between fact and fiction.

1. 1. Representations of marginalized and underrepresented voices: Investigating how literature becomes a platform for amplifying and centering marginalized experiences and challenging dominant narratives.

1. 1. Trauma, resilience, and healing: Examining the depiction of lived experiences of trauma in literature and other media and exploring the transformative power of storytelling in the process of healing and resilience.

1. 1. Cultural heritage and identity: Exploring how creative works reflect, preserve, and redefine cultural identity and heritage.

1. 1. Lived experiences in translation: Investigating the role of language mediation in shaping and representing diverse lived experiences across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Submission Guidelines We invite doctoral students to submit abstracts for a 20-minutes presentation, providing the following information:

1. 1. Title of the Paper

1. 1. Abstract (250–300 words)

1. 1. Brief Biography (100 words)

Please submit your abstracts via email to lived.experiences2024@gmail.com no later than January 31st, 2024. Please also indicate your affiliation and your preference for presenting your paper either in person or online. The conference will be held in English. Participation is free of charge. Important Dates

• • Submission Deadline: 31 January 2024

• • Notification of Acceptance: 21 February 2024

• • Conference Date: 7–8 June 2024

Selected papers presented at the conference may have the opportunity to be published in a special issue of the Journal for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (JLIC), based at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. For further inquiries, please contact us at lived.experiences2024 * Biography Lab 2024 (1/20/2024) Biographers International Organization (BIO). Held on ZOOM.   Biographers International Organization (BIO) is excited to announce Biography Lab 2024, which will be held via Zoom on Saturday, January 20, 2024, from 10:30 am – 5:00 pm Eastern (New York) time. BIO invites participants at all levels of interest and experience in the craft of biography to participate in three sequential 90-minute forums led by prize-winning biographers. A social hour concludes the day. The distinguished keynote speaker is Kai Bird, the author of five biographies, including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning and bestselling American Prometheus about Robert Oppenheimer. The three forum leaders are James McGrath Morris, author of multiple biographies about journalists and other writers; Janice P. Nimura, Pulitzer-Prize finalist for The Doctors Blackwell; and Ray A. Shepard, award-winning biographer of Black lives for young readers. Registration: Free to BIO members and students; $60 for nonmembers (fee includes a year’s BIO membership). Go here to register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/biography-lab-2024-tickets-742496776847 * Call for Applications — Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellowships (1/4/2024) CUNY NY USA

FEATURED JOB: The Graduate Center, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, Leon Levy Center for Biography – 5 $72 K Biography Fellowships

The Leon Levy Center for Biography invites applications for four 2024 – 2025 Biography Fellowships and one Leon Levy /Alfred P. Sloan Fellow in science biography. Each resident fellow receives a stipend of $72,000, research assistance, writing space and library privi- leges. They also participate in monthly seminars and the intellectual life of the Graduate Center, CUNY. Application deadline: Jan 4, 2024 Website: llcb.ws.gc.cuny.edu Contact Information Thad Ziolkowski, Deputy Director, the Leon Levy Center for Biography tziolkowski@gc.cuny.edu URL https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=66559 * Call for Papers “Through Their Eyes…” – Biographical Research in the Digital Age Deadline For Submissions: January 4, 2024 PaRDeS 30 (2024) Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies in Germany / Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e.V. Editor: Dr. Björn Siegel (Institute for the History of the German Jews, Germany) Guest-Editor: Prof. Dr. Andrea Sinn (Elon University, USA) Biographical studies have always been central to the historically working humanities, however, the relevance of biographical research seems to have gained importance throughout the last years, calling for a deeper analytical study as well as a critical re-evaluation of such a newly evolving “biographical turn”. Especially in an increasingly digitalized world, including academia, life stories seem to offer new and candid, but also personal and local lenses through which to examine, understand and present historical narratives, cultural phenomena, or literal productions. Different (auto)biographical sources offer the unique opportunity to see history “through their eyes” and provide authentic and insightful perspectives on the past and the present and can therefore, when viewed critically, serve as valuable historical records. Such personal insights into the past and present not only enable researchers to reconstruct and preserve different life stories, but offer a unique opportunity to study political, cultural and social networks and spaces, but also to analyze the interwoven feelings, thoughts and beliefs of people who experienced past realities. However, these sources also raise questions about the interests and perspectives of the writer(s), the reliability and subjectivity of the individual, as well as the constructiveness of the related texts and sources. Therefore, biographical research not only represents an interesting tool and promising methodology, but also poses considerable challenges to researchers in the humanities in general, and Jewish Studies in particular. The challenges are largely connected to phenomena such as (forced) migration, the evolution of diasporas and exiles, the consequences of multilingualism and transnational networks, questions of acculturation and representation, influences of religious principles, social habits or gender relations as well as the effects of changing moral concepts, philosophies, and identities. The worldwide spread of digitization seems to have solved some of these challenges, such as the issues of availability or legibility, but it also leads to new demands and difficulties, when studying biographies. While these phenomena might be universal, they seem to be inherent in Jewish history and culture, thus, making biographical research in Jewish Studies a complex, but also promising methodology. Therefore, the journal PaRDeS is seeking contributions that explore the potential of the “biographical turn in Jewish Studies” and aims to examine its impact on the study and representation, but also preservation of Jewish history, culture, and religion in the digital age. We welcome contributions from fields including but not limited to history and literature, political and cultural studies, sociology and anthropology, as well as contributions focusing on digital studies as well as archeology, archival studies etc. Potential contributions may focus on any character, locality or time period, related to Jewish life stories. Potential papers might focus on the following (not exhaustive) topics and questions, pose examples to illustrate the changing settings and/or

• • What are the specific challenges to write Jewish biographies/life stories in the digital age?

• • How important are biographies in Jewish history, religion and/or philosophy and has itchanged to write a biography in an ever more digitized world?

• • How can one life story influence the study of Jewish history, culture, and religion anddoes the function of the individual and/or collective transform in a digital world?

• • What kind of benefits does the digital age offer/suggest for the of study of Jewishhistory, language(s), religion, and/or culture? And, how does it influence the socialconstruction of a life story?

• • Is digitization expanding the source base of biographical research and does it change theavailability, readability and/or accessibility of sources (e.g. texts and multimedia sources)?

• • How does digitization change the materiality of the sources?

• • How are Jewish biographies used today, e.g. in academia, memory culture, educationalstrategies or public debates and did the representation of Jewish life changed by newlydeveloped digital tools?

• • How do museums and archives modify their strategies to preserve “Jewish life stories” inthe digital age?

• • Do digital biographical studies offer new insights and tools to decode and analyzeemotions or thoughts, but also trauma or violence?Proposals for papers (max. 500 words) and a short CV (max. 100 words) should be submitted to the editors, Björn Siegel (bjoern.siegel@igdj-hh.de) and Andrea Sinn (asinn@elon.edu), by January 5, 2024. The candidates will be notified on January 15, 2024. The submission of the finished papers is tentatively scheduled for May 2024. The full article should be 30.000 to 35.000 characters including spaces. All submissions will undergo a blind peer-review process.PaRDeS is an interdisciplinary journal that ensures its quality through a blind peer review; all articles published in PaRDeS are indexed in Rambi: Index of Articles on Jewish Studies. PaRDeS is published online in open access and in print. Previous issues are available at this link:Contact Information

Editors: Björn Siegel (bjoern.siegel@igdj-hh.de) and Andrea Sinn (asinn@elon.edu) Contact Email bjoern.siegel@igdj-hh.de URL https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/solrsearch/index/search/searchtype/series/id/37 * Call for Papers  Acts of Witnessing on Film American University of Paris July 17, 2024 – July 18, 2024 Deadline for Submissions: January 8, 2024 The definitions, uses, policies, and norms of testimony continue to be debated, with discussions fueled by a large scientific literature; works of philosophy and aesthetics (Frosch, & Pinchewski, 2009, Goutte, 2016, El Madawi, 2020, Détue, 2022) explore the relationship between filmed oral testimonies and historical facts, the narrative processes created by this medium in the Era of the Witness, the contours of truly cinematic testimonies, and even of testimony as a new documentary form (Leimbacher, 2014, Katz, 2018). At the intersection of Trauma Studies, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Memory and Media Studies, scholars have conducted research into audiovisual productions about the Holocaust as well as repressions in Latin America, the Middle-East, North Africa, and Asia (cf. the selected bibliography). These works are characterized by a constructivist perspective and an interest in the role of documentary filmmakers in the writing of history. This conference reflects through a historical perspective on the act of witnessing on film. Beyond “testimonial” cinema (Garibotto, 2019), we hope to approach testimonies as a practice, shaped by the specific environments of their national cinematographic cultures. How are enunciative devices reconfigured through the technical and institutional mediations inherent to the production of knowledge? How can we address the social and political stakes of archiving at the time of creation (omissions, negotiations, political pressures…)? Which epistemological approaches can be used to analyze testimonial functions assigned after the fact (such as previous footage reassigned for other purposes and uses, witness retractions regarding propaganda)? Studies on the historicity of individual accounts in documentaries (most often Anglophone and Francophone) situate their emergence in the 1960s (Leimbacher, 2014). This conference also proposes to account for prior decades and to introduce a global and comparative perspective. We wish to shed light on sensitivities to oral expression specific to various documentary traditions (Zéau, 2020), including those that developed under authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. These elements will be put in dialogue with various approaches to conceptualizing evidence, the document, and the audio trace. In so doing, we hope to pave the way for further research into the international circulation of ideas and expertise. In order to understand the listening conditions (Comolli, 1995) of a verbal testimony centered on personal experiences of violence, it is essential to recognize to what extent the topic is both political and conflictual. It is our wish to explore this dimension of communication in these societies that are torn apart, in particular in authoritarian regimes and police states. We also seek to question the pressures coming from institutions and social groups that lie behind the emergence of testimonies in cinema by comparing examples from various national cinemas. A part of the conference will be dedicated to the dissemination of filmed-based testimonies (their geographical circulation, infrastructure, breadth, and accompanying narratives). This conference is situated at the intersection of the history of cinema and a reflection on the act of witnessing that considers the social history of mass violence and the history of the end of dictatorships. We hope that it will be multidisciplinary and will foster connections between various cultural areas of research. We welcome proposals in French or English from a diversity of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. The conference will take place on June 17 and 18, 2024 at The American University of Paris. Submission criteria:  Please send your proposals in English or French before January 8, 2024. Please indicate the argument and issues raised by the topic of your communication and do not exceed 500 words. Submissions are to be sent to the organizing Committee (schaeffercenter@aup.edu). Authors will be responded to in February 2024. The presentation should be of 20 minutes. Organization Committee : Luba Jurgenson (Sorbonne Université), Constance Pâris de Bollardière (AUP), Brian Schiff (AUP), Irina Tcherneva (CNRS) Scientific Committee, in alphabetical order: Ruth Beckermann (filmmaker) Jennifer Cazenave (Boston University) Jochen Hellbeck (Rutgers University) Luba Jurgenson (Sorbonne) Sylvie Lindeperg (University Paris 1) Ania Szczepanska (University Paris 1) Irina Tcherneva (CNRS) Indicative bibliography 

• • Paul Bernard Nouraud and Luba Jurgenson (ed.), Témoigner par l’image, Paris, Petra, 2015.

• • Paul Bernard Nouraud, Luba Jurgenson, Irina Tcherneva (ed.), Témoigner par l’image II, Paris, Petra, forthcoming in 2023.

• • Véronique Campan, Marie Martin, Sylvie Rollet (ed.), Qu’est-ce qu’un geste politique au cinéma ? Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2019.

• • Catherine Coquio, La littérature en suspens. Écritures de la Shoah : le témoignage et les œuvres, Paris, L’Arachnéen, 2015.

• • Efren Cuevas, Filming History from Below: Microhistorical Documentaries, Columbia University Press, Wallflower Press, 2022.

• • Frédérik Détue, Témoigner au cinéma : une action dans l’histoire, Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2022.

• • Frédérik Détue & Charlotte Lacoste, Témoigner en littérature, Europe n° 1041-1042, janvier-février 2016).

• • Stefanie El Madawi, Approaching Contemporary Cinematic I-Witnessing, PhD thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2020.

• • Paul Frosh & Amit Pinchevski, Media Witnessing. Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication, Pallgrave Macmillan, 2009.

• • Verónica Garibotto, Rethinking testimonial cinema in postdictatorship Argentina: beyond memory fatigue, Indiana University Press, 2019.

• • Martin Goutte, « Le témoignage au rythme des images et des mots : accélération et accumulation », Écrire l’histoire [online], 16 | 2016, pp. 155-163.

• • Luba Jurgenson & Alexandre Prstojevic, Des Témoins aux héritiers, Paris, Petra, 2012.

• • Aurélia Kalisky, « Pour une histoire culturelle du testimonial. De la notion de “témoignage” à celle de “création testimoniale” », PHD thesis, 2013, Paris 3 University.

• • Rebecka Katz Thor, Beyond the Witness. Holocaust Representation and The Testimony Of Images. Three Films by Yael Hersonski, Harun Farocki And Eyal Sivan, Stockholm, Art and Theory Publishing, 2018.

• • Irina Leimbacher, More than Talking Heads: Non-fiction Testimony and Cinematic Form, PHD thesis, University of Berkley, 2014.

• • Sylvie Lindeperg & Annette Wieviorka, Univers concentrationnaire et génocide : voir, savoir, comprendre, Paris, Mille et une nuits, 2008.

• • Rory O’Bryen, Literature, Testimony and Cinema in Contemporary Colombian Culture : Spectres of la Violencia, Woodbridge, Rochester, NY, Tamesis, 2008.

• • Bhaskar Sarkar & Janet Walker (ed.), Documentary Testimonies: Global Archives of Suffering, New York, Routledge, 2010.

• • Annette Wiewiorka, The Era of the Witness, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2006.

• • Caroline Zéau, Le cinéma direct : un art de la mise en scène, l’Âge d’homme, 2020.

• • Revue Images Documentaires « La Parole Filmée », 1995, n° 22.

*

Call For Papers: Rasanblaj Fanm: Stories of Haitian Womanhood, Past, Present and Future, Institute for Black Atlantic Research, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom,

10-12 July 2024 Deadline for Submissions: January 13, 2024 Haitian women are regarded as the poto mitan (central pillar) of Haitian society. As caregivers, warriors, healers, artisans, traders, cultivators, manbos, storytellers, companions and agitators, they have been vital agents in shaping the fortunes of Haiti’s revolutionary anticolonial encounters and its quest for sovereignty and legitimation as an independent state. However, this term of veneration conceals diverse forms of political, social and discursive exclusion that women in Haiti and across the dyaspora confront in the present, and the myriad forms of silence and neglect to which they have been subjected in the historical record. The little that we know of the women whose courage, ferocity, resilience and generosity paved a course for independence, postcolonial statehood and the universal and permanent abolition of slavery in 1804 is often shrouded in mythology, which, as Colin Dayan has highlighted, “not only erases these women but forestalls our turning to [their] real lives.” Moreover, these legendary “sheroes” of Haiti’s past have often been exploited for the sake of political opportunity, symbolically deployed in the service of nationalist sleights of hand which obscure the precarity, insecurity, exploitation and vulnerability of Haitian women in the present. Piecing together the scattered fragments produced by the violence and ruptures of the colonialist archive and the continuing violence, neglect and co-optation of the dominant political oligarchy necessitates a form of rasanblaj, or (re)assembly, a practice advocated by Gina Athena Ulysse which “demands that we consider and confront the limited scope of segregated frameworks to explore what remains excluded in this landscape that is scorched yet full of life, riddled with inequities and dangerous and haunting memories.” Through rasanblaj, multiple modalities and disciplinary perspectives offer pathways of intersection. This conference invites opportunities to (re)assemble narratives, theorisations, performances, mobilisations and representations of Haitian womanhood, past, present and future. It welcomes proposals for 15-20-minute presentations from scholars, artists, activists, performers, creators and organisers that grapple with these diverse assemblages of Haitian womanhood. Potential topics of discussion include (but are not limited to):

• • (Under)representations of women in histories of the Haitian Revolution

• • Literary, artistic and filmic re-imaginings of Haiti’s revolutionary “sheroes” and women of Haiti’s pre- and post-revolutionary history

• • Haitian women as creators of art, literature, film, music and dance

• • Haitian women as subjects in art, literature, film and other media

• • The history of the feminist movement in Haiti

• • Haitian girlhood and education: where it’s been, where it is, where it’s going

• • The restavek system in Haiti and its particular impact on girls and young women

• • Land-tillers and Haiti’s moun andeyo

• • Makers, artisans and Madan Sara

• • Women and culinary traditions in Haiti

• • Cultural veneration of women icons and the notion of the poto mitan

• • Haitian women in the dyaspora

• • Manbos and the primacy of women in Vodou

• • Women elders, matriarchs and oral storytellers

• • Fashion icons and beauty queens from Haiti’s past and present

• • Women’s fashion in Haiti and the dyaspora

• • Women-led social justice organisations in Haiti and across the dyaspora

• • Stateswomen and women of the judiciary in Haiti

This event marks 220 years of Haitian independence, 200 years since Marie-Louise Christophe, first and only Queen of Haiti, departed Britain, and 90 years since the end of the U.S. Occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). It also celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Institute for Black Atlantic Research, whose record of hosting international events celebrating Haitian history and culture is established. As a radically transnational, interdisciplinary, collaborative, anticolonial and feminist endeavour, we aspire to create a conference that is inclusive in its structure and its mode of dissemination, and will make provisions for presenters in English, French and (where possible) in Kreyòl. Though we hope to assemble as many delegates in one common space as possible for this ambitious project, we recognise the challenges and potential barriers to travel (especially for our Haitian contingent). For this reason, and in order to promote inclusive discussions, there will be some opportunities for remote and hybrid participation.* A selection of the accepted papers may be invited to further develop their research for inclusion in an edited volume that may be produced after the conference. Confirmed keynote speakers include the Haitian-born artist Patricia Brintle, Ayitian Ourstorian and Vodouvi Professor Bayyinah Bello and filmmaker and journalist Etant Dupain.  Proposals for papers, panels, film/video presentations, workshops, and roundtables are due by 13 January 2024. Please submit an abstract of up to 300 words (these should be “blinded”, with names and affiliations removed, for peer review), along with a separate document containing a short biography of no more than 200 words (to include name and institutional/organisational affiliation if applicable). Proposals for complete panels of three speakers (or up to a maximum of four, keeping in mind that sessions will run for 90 minutes) are also welcomed. For full panel submissions, a designated group representative should collate abstracts and speaker biographies. All materials should be sent to the conference organisers, Dr M. Stephanie Chancy and Dr Nicole Willson at rasanblajfanm@gmail.com by the deadline date. * Proposals should indicate language requirements and any needs for remote participation.

Conference Committee

Dr M. Stephanie Chancy, Digital Library of the Caribbean, University of Florida Dr Nathan Dize, Washington University in St. Louis Dr Rachel Douglas, University of Glasgow Dr Raphael Hoermann, Institute for Black Atlantic Research, University of Central Lancashire Isabelle Dupuy, Writer and Trustee of the London Library Dr Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, California State University San Marcos Dr Nicole L. Willson, Institute for Black Atlantic Research, University of Central Lancashire Contact Email rasanblajfanm@gmail.com URL https://www.fanmrebel.com/media/cfp-rasanblaj-fanm-stories-of-haitian-womanhood-past-present-and-future * (Re)Tracing Self, World, and Agency in Narratives of Transformation Université Laval’s Graduate Conference for English Literature (ULGCEL) March 15, 2024 (Hybrid) Deadline for Submissions: January 14, 2024  “Writing and performing should deepen the meaning of words, should illuminate, transfix and transform.” –bell hooks In literary studies, scholars and writers such as bell hooks have highlighted the transformative potential of words, revealing that writing and artistic performance are not merely acts of creation but journeys toward self-discovery and social change. As we navigate the complexities of our contemporary society, marked by profound shifts and challenges, the need for narratives of transformation has become more urgent. In an era that grapples with social justice, environmental crises, and cultural transformation and revitalization, we invite scholars from various fields to engage with the theme of “Narratives of Transformation.” This call for papers seeks to reflect on writing and artistic performance as vehicles for personal and collective healing and empowerment. We invite papers on all narrative forms and genres that inspire change, challenge the status quo, and bring forth stories that (re)trace and weave together individual and collective pasts, presents, and futures. Université Laval’s 2024 Graduate Conference for English Literature proposes to engage narratives of transformation to consider questions such as:

• • In what ways can narratives of transformation serve as a catalyst for personal growth, social change, or healing in our contemporary society?

• • How do authors explore the intersectionality of identities, such as race, gender, or class, in the context of narratives of transformation?

• • What are the roles of storytelling and writing in challenging the status quo and inspiring change in today’s world?

• • What ethical and social responsibilities should writers and scholars consider when engaging with narratives of transformation?

• • How can narrative (re)imagine and bridge past, present, and future, and to what effect?

• • How does literature employ narrative techniques to depict transitions and convey the aesthetics of change and transformation?

ULGCEL 2024 invites graduate student presentations that explore such questions as they relate to literature, film, graphic novels, television, video games, or wherever narrative is found. We welcome a variety of theoretical and critical approaches and encourage presentations of 15-20 minutes. Topics for consideration encompass, but are not confined to:

• • Intersectionality

• • Multiculturalism

• • Identity and Representation

• • Gender and Sexuality

• • Postcolonial Narratives

• • Environmental Narratives

• • Dystopian and Utopian Narratives

• • Transcultural Narratives

• • Narrative and Ethics

• • Narrative and Memory

The conference will be held in a hybrid format on March 15, 2024. Speakers can present in person on the UL campus or via Zoom. We invite graduate students (MA, PhD, as well as advanced undergraduates) from various disciplines (Literature, Translation Studies, Film Studies, Cultural Studies, Indigenous Studies, History, etc.) to submit proposals. Visit the website for information on post-conference publishing opportunities. Please submit an abstract of 250 words and a biography of 50 words to: aeglea@asso.ulaval.ca. Include your name, affiliation, degree program, e-mail address, equipment needs, as well as the title of your presentation, and upload the document as both PDF and Word attachments. UPDATE: The deadline for proposals is now January 14, 2024. You will be informed of our decision by January 21, 2024. Website: https://aegleaulaval.wixsite.com/home/about-9 *

(Para-)Military Violence, War Crimes in Post-Soviet Conflicts and Narratives of the Russo-Ukrainian War: New Avenues of Methodology and Research

May 21-23, 28-29, 2024 Application deadline: January 15, 2024. Potsdam and Jerusalem Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in cooperation with the Pilecki Institute, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and the University of New Europe (UNE) organize a joint international workshop that will take place in two locations: The Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam (ZZF) (May 21-23, 2024) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (May 28-29, 2024). The first part of the workshop at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam will take place within the research framework KonKoop (Conflict and Cooperation in Eastern Europe: The Consequences of the Reconfiguration of Political, Economic, and Social Spaces since the End of the Cold War). It will primarily focus on the topic of (para-)military violence over a period of time starting with the collapse of the USSR till present. The Mutiny of the Wagner group in summer 2023 has highlighted the significance of armed militias for understanding conflict, violence and war in the post-Soviet space. The dissolution of the USSR was preceded by the disintegration of the Soviet Army and the rise of armed groups, local strongmen and warlords in parts of the Caucasus, in Central Asia and in Moldova. From the 1990s onwards irregular formations of armed men played a significant role in various conflicts from Chechnya to the Donbas. These men, as well as the regular armed units of Russia used violence and committed war crimes in the conflicts following the dissolution of the USSR. The workshop will assemble both those who have contributed to the ongoing discussion on methodological approaches in the study of violent groups, including ethical questions, as well as researchers who have already studied sources and collected data in the field. Presentations will include work on the conflicts of the late USSR and the 1990s as well as more recent studies about the Russian war against Ukraine (starting in 2014). The goal of the workshop is to gain a better understanding of the origins, the actors as well as the forms and consequences of irregular military violence from perestroika to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The workshop language is English. Submissions should include a one-page abstract and a short CV. Please send all materials by 15 January 2024 to alyona.bidenko@zzf-potsdam.de Applications are welcome from scholars and nonacademic research professionals such as journalists and activists. Some of the participants’ travel costs will be reimbursed upon request. In cooperation with the University of New Europe network a publication of some of the contributions is planned with a transcript in the “New Europes” book series. Organizing committee: Alyona Bidenko (ZZF/ KonKoop), Jan Claas Behrends (ZZF/ Viadrina U) Contact email: alyona.bidenko@zzf-potsdam.de For more information see. www.zzf-potsdam.de www.konkoop.de neweurope.university The Potsdam Workshop is supported by funds from the Federal Ministry of Research (BMBF) The second part of the workshop at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem will concentrate on the Russo-Ukrainian war and explore a range of topics related to how the war is narrated, constructed and interpreted by its immediate witnesses: refugees from Ukraine who left the country to various destinations, primarily to Europe and Israel. Topics that we intend to discuss include but are not limited to the following: I. History of the war seen from “within” We look forward to discussing the major narrative strands in the stories about living in Ukraine during the war (possibly, under the Russian occupation), of flight/evacuation to other countries and of current refugeehood in the country of destination. We aim here at enhancing our understanding of the social reality, micropolitics of everyday life and larger social processes as all these were altered by the war. Some of the foci in this discussion may include: 1) grass-root agency in the situation of war: where and how it is produced and sustained, how it facilitates micro-level social practices, how it shapes interaction in larger social networks and how it is inscribed in the workings of formal institutions or organizations; 2) various choices (practical, moral, political, linguistic, etc.) involved in people’s war-time experience contexts and how these choices reflect people’s individual and group-based political allegiances and humanitarian commitments; 3) individual and collective identity(ies) and their role in shaping people’s vision of the broader context of Russo-Ukrainian war, of their war-time experiences in Ukraine and later in their new host countries, as well as of the broader political agendas on the international level against which these identities are negotiated. II. Methodology We are also looking forward to discussing methodologies underlying our oral history research with particular regard to the nature of our interviews and to some extent participant observation. First, here we may focus on the ontologies of the texts produced in our work with particular regard to the following aspects: a) “translatability” of the war experience, particularly of the trauma experience, and “conditions of felicity” under which communication of this experience becomes possible; b) the role of individual and collective subjectivities invoked in people’s stories as categories of the scholarly analysis; c) critique of the nature of oral narratives produced in a multiple-stage process of immediate perception and postponed reflection of the witnesses, as well as the interpretation on the part of researchers and their resulting value for the academic discourse; d) crystallization of earlier “raw” testimonies into structured narratives with specific civil agendas, as well as various social, political and cultural factors that impact this process; e) possible theoretical framings that allow oral narratives to become part of the academic discourse. Second, we may discuss the place of our findings within the existing discourses in social sciences and humanities, such as “anthropology of emergency,” identity-and-agency theory, actor-network theory, anthropology of everyday life, genocide studies, Ukrainian studies, European studies, Israel studies, studies of colonialism and post-colonialism, diaspora and nationalism studies, aliyah studies, etc. Third, we might give thought to how ethnographic and anthropological perspectives on the one hand provide the possibility of different framings of historical events and processes as compared to official documentary sources, but on the other, how they may complement each other to expand our perspective on the object of our study. In other words, how oral history may be integrated into the larger historical canon and how this synthesis may provide a more human-oriented perspective upon the war. III. Further collaborative efforts Last but not least, we are planning to discuss our further research around the theme of the Russo-Ukrainian war, including development of joint projects, creation of cross-referenced archival depositories and establishing research networks with other academic institutions. Applications are welcome from scholars and nonacademic research professionals. We particularly welcome researchers who have been doing oral history research with war-time Ukrainian refugees, as well as scholars in social sciences more broadly. Application deadline: January 15, 2024. Accommodation costs in Israel will be covered. Organizing committee: Semion Goldin (Hebrew U of Jerusalem), semyon.goldin@mail.huji.ac.il, Anna Kushkova (Hebrew U of Jerusalem), anna.kushkova@mail.huji.ac.il Contact email: anna.kushkova@mail.huji.ac.il (Anna Kushkova) Contact Information The Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam (ZZF): Alyona Bidenko (ZZF/ KonKoop), Jan Claas Behrends (ZZF/ Viadrina U). Contact email: alyona.bidenko@zzf-potsdam.de. Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Semion Goldin (Hebrew U of Jerusalem), semyon.goldin@mail.huji.ac.il, Anna Kushkova (Hebrew U of Jerusalem), anna.kushkova@mail.huji.ac.il. Contact email: anna.kushkova@mail.huji.ac.il (Anna Kushkova). Contact Email alyona.bidenko@zzf-potsdam.de * Deadline for proposals: January 11, 2024 CFP – Genres in Transit: The Novel of Memory as World Literature Eighth Annual Conference of the Memory Studies Association (MSA) — “Memories in Transit” Lima, Peru, 18 to 20 July 2024  https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/call-for-papers-msa-annual-conference-2024-lima-peru/ This panel is rooted in the research done on the novel of memory in Romania, in the frame of the project The Novel of Memory in Postcommunism: Subgenres, Generations, Transnational Networks and it aims at a wider, transnational and trans-continental mapping of the genre and its local/ global embodiments and traditions. In the last four decades, the novel of memory emerged in various parts of the world, spanning spaces and experiences, most notably in postcolonial, posttotalitarian and posttraumatic situations, in such a proportion that it can be argued it now reaches the scale of a world genre. Counting among its representatives such authors as Salman Rushdie (with Midnight’s Children, 1981), Toni Morrison (with Beloved, 1987), Herta Muller (with The Hunger Angel, 2009), Mircea Cartarescu (with Blinding, 1996), Laura Alcoba (with The Rabbit House, 2007), Gilbert Gatore (with The Past Ahead, 2012) the novel of memory took on challenges of postmodern form vs. political responsibility, but mostly that of memory, often in the form of autofiction, challenging history. However this world genre is discussed, whether in terms of multidirectionality (Michael Rothberg), generationality (Astrid Erll), or postmemory (Marianne Hirsch), the debate is still open on how it came about globally, what subgenres and formulas it favored, if and how it traveled from one author or culture to another. As Wai Chee Dimock puts it in „Genre as World System: Epic and Novel on Four Continents” (2006), literary genres enter a network of interconnection, not of genealogical relations, highlighting „a remote spectrum of affinities, interesting when seen in conjunction, but not themselves organically linked”. Likeliness, Dimock emphasizes, issues “from environments roughly similar but widely dispersed”. Situated at the intersection of memory studies and literary studies, the panel invites papers on the various national embodiments of the novel of memory from Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific, addressing, but not limited to, the following topics:

• • how memory and literary formulas are intertwining in various political contexts

• • how multidirectionality manifests itself (or not) in the forms of this genre

• • how the different geocultural embodiments of the novel of memory deal with variation and resemblance

• • to what extent the novel of memory contributes to the decolonizing of memory being done now in multiple memory cultures and academic contexts.Wider surveys of the genre in national/ transnational frames, as well as individual case studies of authors and literary works are welcome. Scholars from literary, memory, and lifewriting studies interested in these topics may send a brief proposal (200-300 words) to andreea.mironescu@uaic.ro, if possible, no later than January 11, 2024. The deadline for panel submissions to the MSA conference is January 15, 2024.Many thanks and best wishes for 2024,Andreea Mironescu Senior Researcher, Institute of Interdisciplinary Research – Department of Social Sciences and Humanities Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreea-Mirones

* Call for Panel Participants: Memories and Legacies of the World War II Nikkei Incarceration “Memories in Transit,” Memory Studies Association Conference July 18–20, 2024 Lima Peru https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/call-for-papers-msa-annual-conference-2024-lima-peru/ Deadline for Submissions January 9, 2024 This proposed panel explores personal and public remembrance of the North American incarceration of persons of Japanese descent throughout the Second World War (1941–1945), particularly how memories of the event are evoked and mobilized in different historical contexts and conversations. Engaging with key concepts of memory activism (Gutman, Rigney, Wüstenberg), postmemory (Hirsch), and multidirectional memory (Rothberg), among others, we examine how several present-day social movements and political initiatives draw on memories of Nikkei wartime exclusion to challenge contemporary forms of political violence and to fight for more just, equitable, and secure futures. We address the following questions: How can memories of the past be used to combat violence and to motivate political action and solidarity in the present? How do memories of the Japanese diaspora and western exclusion move across and between multiple generations, geographies, populations, and cultures? Further, how can practices of remembrance build community between different groups and draw connections between diverse social movements and political struggles? Spanning the disciplines of history, literature, and media studies, this panel addresses these questions and others by exploring how memories and remembrance of the Nikkei wartime incarceration influences our society today—including ongoing discussions about racial repair, environmental destruction, and coloniality. Ultimately, the panel seeks to offer new and critical insights into the political, activist, environmental, and embodied legacies of the Japanese American incarceration. We invite scholars interested in participating to send a short paper abstract to Kelsey Moore (kelseymoore@ucsb.edu) and Jen Noji (jnoji@g.ucla.edu)as soon as possible, but ideally no later than January 9. NB: All panel materials will be submitted by January 15, 2024. Call for Panel Participants – MSA 2024 (Lima, Peru, July 18-20) [Announcement] * Call for Panel Participants: Memories and Legacies of the World War II Nikkei Incarceration “Memories in Transit,” Memory Studies Association Conference July 18–20, 2024 Lima Peru https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/call-for-papers-msa-annual-conference-2024-lima-peru/ Deadline for Submissions January 9, 2024 This proposed panel explores personal and public remembrance of the North American incarceration of persons of Japanese descent throughout the Second World War (1941–1945), particularly how memories of the event are evoked and mobilized in different historical contexts and conversations. Engaging with key concepts of memory activism (Gutman, Rigney, Wüstenberg), postmemory (Hirsch), and multidirectional memory (Rothberg), among others, we examine how several present-day social movements and political initiatives draw on memories of Nikkei wartime exclusion to challenge contemporary forms of political violence and to fight for more just, equitable, and secure futures. We address the following questions: How can memories of the past be used to combat violence and to motivate political action and solidarity in the present? How do memories of the Japanese diaspora and western exclusion move across and between multiple generations, geographies, populations, and cultures? Further, how can practices of remembrance build community between different groups and draw connections between diverse social movements and political struggles? Spanning the disciplines of history, literature, and media studies, this panel addresses these questions and others by exploring how memories and remembrance of the Nikkei wartime incarceration influences our society today—including ongoing discussions about racial repair, environmental destruction, and coloniality. Ultimately, the panel seeks to offer new and critical insights into the political, activist, environmental, and embodied legacies of the Japanese American incarceration. We invite scholars interested in participating to send a short paper abstract to Kelsey Moore (kelseymoore@ucsb.edu) and Jen Noji (jnoji@g.ucla.edu)as soon as possible, but ideally no later than January 9. NB: All panel materials will be submitted by January 15, 2024. Call for Panel Participants – MSA 2024 (Lima, Peru, July 18-20) [Announcement] *

Symposium Selfing and Shelving: Zines, Zine Media, and Zintivism

deadline for submissions:  December 31, 2023 Zines are extremely versatile and shapeshift across various historical and cultural contexts. The term covers a wide range of objects with different aesthetic and material qualities as well as contexts of production and reception: Zines accommodate the collective concerns of fans and activists (zintivism) and the personal voice of the diarist and letter writer. Since the rise of digital media, zines and their aesthetics have become portable: Digitised and digital zines exist alongside blogs, social media, podcasts, and substacks, which seem to exhibit zine-y tendencies, while digital infrastructures have changed the ways that print zines are produced, distributed, and archived. At the same time, print media, including zines, have seen a revival and postdigital reinvention, not the least as a paper-based escape from screens. In this new constellation, we propose to revisit questions like: Where does the zine begin and end and how have its meanings changed for readers, collectors, and makers? How can contemporary developments of the zine (like the wave of quaranzines) change our understanding of its meaning, genealogy, and archive? And what, and where, are zines now? This symposium suggests considering these questions through the lens of –       shelving – the zine at home, on the shelves of libraries, archives, and collectors, its repurposing and disassembling, its neglect as ephemera as well as remediation through reprints and staging in exhibitions, coffee table books, etc. –       and ‘selfing’ – the zine as a tool in making identities and ‘working on the self,’ as a ‘third space’ for new subjectivities, as ‘sticky’ with affects, as the glue of communal belonging (local/transnational), as resource for ‘subcultural capital’ and distinction, and as conduit for relationships and activism. We especially welcome papers that propose theoretical approaches which attend to the materiality of zines and zine production and consider the printed zine as only one form of zine media. We are interested in new approaches to zines as well as in investigations of media and objects that borrow from, reference, mimic, disguise as, or are influenced by the zine – that are in some way zine-y and take the format, aesthetics, tone, and /or affect beyond paper. Please send an abstract (ca. 300 words) + short bio to safazli@uni-mainz.de and milos.hroch@fsv.cuni.cz by December 31, 2023 This symposium is designed as a friendly space for established and emerging scholars to share and discuss ideas. We also encourage practitioners to apply and are happy to accommodate non-academic formats of presentation. Organisers Sabina Fazli, Obama Institute, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany Miloš Hroch, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic * 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. Journal of Perpetrator Research Special Issue: Complicit Testimonies The Journal of Perpetrator Research is seeking submissions for a special issue on the theme of Complicit Testimonies, scheduled for publication in Spring 2025, and guest-edited by Ivan Stacy (Beijing Normal University). deadline for submissions: December 10, 2023 Introduction Shoshona Felman and Dori Laub wrote their seminal Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (1992) as a result of their experiences with the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale. For this reason, they developed a model in which testimony is closely connected to the subject position of victimhood and the experience of trauma. This relationship has endured in academic research on testimony, with Avishai Margalit, for example, proposing the figure of the “moral witness” as one that has experienced directly the suffering produced by atrocity; it also appears in more recent contributions to The Future of Testimony: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Witnessing (edited by Jane Kilby and Anthony Rowland, 2008) and the Palgrave Handbook of Testimony and Culture, in which the editors Sara Jones and Roger Woods write in their introduction that “the urge to communicate the unique experience is the impulse behind much testimony from survivors of trauma”. Endeavours to explicate the nature of testimony as written or told by those who have lived through extreme suffering are necessary and valuable, yet the creation of testimony does not necessarily presuppose a state of victimhood or an experience of trauma. Analysis of perpetrator testimony by writers including Leigh Payne, Ute Hirsekorn and Sue Vice has productively complicated the relationship between testifier, the account they produce, and their role in historical events. However, the tendency to adjectivize testimony with a particular subject position – typically in the form of “victim testimony” or “perpetrator testimony” – presents a further problem: if, as Margalit argues, “testimony, not direct observation, is our basic source of evidence and knowledge,” to categorize that primary source of knowledge itself with the value-laden labels of “victim” or “perpetrator” imposes an a priori framework for interpreting events and experiences that are still in the process of becoming known. Moreover, as Primo Levi’s well-known elaboration on the “gray zone” in The Drowned and the Saved shows, the blurring of boundaries between victims and perpetrators was one of the central mechanisms by which the camps functioned, as a means of securing the complicity even of those whose lives they were designed to destroy. For this reason, the concept of complicity, and the uncertain moral positions that it encompasses, offers a valuable but hitherto under-theorised approach to studying testimony. The aim of this special issue of the Journal of Perpetrator Research is therefore to explore the relationship between complicity and the creation and reception of testimony from an interdisciplinary perspective. In a general sense, complicity is an increasingly important concept for understanding the negative consequences of actions in an ever-more interconnected world, and as Christopher Kutz notes, “the most important and far-reaching harms and wrongs of contemporary life are the products of collective actions, mediated by social and institutional structures.” Moreover, language itself is at once shaped by social and institutional pressures while also creating and performing complicity with those structures of power: as Thomas Docherty argues, complicity with institutions tends to operate through the “establishment of a reduced lexicon.” This special issue is intended to consider testimony in light of the particular challenges posed by the concept of complicity, and in doing so to examine the nature of narrative accounts created in a moral “gray zone.” Topics for articles in this special issue might include, but are not limited to:

• • Language and form in complicit testimonies

• • Literary and cultural representations of complicit testimonies

• • Affective responses to compromised testimony

• • Complicity and the generic boundaries of testimony

• • Distinctions between perpetration and complicity

• • Complicity and adjacent concepts (beneficiaries and implicated subjects)

• • Categories of complicity (collaborating, consorting, condoning and conniving)

We intend that the special issue will represent a range of disciplines, and we are particularly interested in articles from non-European and non-Anglophone perspectives. Deadline for submissions: Abstracts of around 300 words should be submitted to Ivan Stacy at ivanstacy@gmail.com, no later than 10 December 2023. Queries can be directed to the same email address. Full articles of 6,000-10,000 words will be due by 30 June 2024, with publication scheduled for Spring 2025. * 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

*

Conference Announcement–Diaries in the 20th Century: Testimony, Memory, Self-Construction (12/8-9/2023) Dublin, Ireland, and Zoom

We are thrilled to announce the upcoming international conference Diaries in 20th Century: Testimony, Memory, Self-Construction, sponsored by the UCD Humanities Institute, the College of Arts and Humanities, the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, and the Foundation for Italian Studies. The conference will be held at University College Dublin, Newman Building on 8 and 9 December 2023, and will be live-streamed on Zoom. Please refer to the programme to see the location of the parallel sessions. If you wish to attend the conference either in person or on Zoom, please register here. For further details, please visit UCDiaries2023, and if you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us at ucdiaries2023@gmail.com. Best wishes, The organisers Valeria Taddei and Mara Josi — Dr Valeria Taddei (she/her) IRC Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics University College Dublin — Dr Mara Josi (she/her), Ph.D. Cantab FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellow, Ghent University The Research Foundation – Flanders * Journal of Perpetrator Research Special Issue: Complicit Testimonies The Journal of Perpetrator Research is seeking submissions for a special issue on the theme of Complicit Testimonies, scheduled for publication in Spring 2025, and guest-edited by Ivan Stacy (Beijing Normal University). deadline for submissions: December 10, 2023 Introduction Shoshona Felman and Dori Laub wrote their seminal Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (1992) as a result of their experiences with the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale. For this reason, they developed a model in which testimony is closely connected to the subject position of victimhood and the experience of trauma. This relationship has endured in academic research on testimony, with Avishai Margalit, for example, proposing the figure of the “moral witness” as one that has experienced directly the suffering produced by atrocity; it also appears in more recent contributions to The Future of Testimony: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Witnessing (edited by Jane Kilby and Anthony Rowland, 2008) and the Palgrave Handbook of Testimony and Culture, in which the editors Sara Jones and Roger Woods write in their introduction that “the urge to communicate the unique experience is the impulse behind much testimony from survivors of trauma”. Endeavours to explicate the nature of testimony as written or told by those who have lived through extreme suffering are necessary and valuable, yet the creation of testimony does not necessarily presuppose a state of victimhood or an experience of trauma. Analysis of perpetrator testimony by writers including Leigh Payne, Ute Hirsekorn and Sue Vice has productively complicated the relationship between testifier, the account they produce, and their role in historical events. However, the tendency to adjectivize testimony with a particular subject position – typically in the form of “victim testimony” or “perpetrator testimony” – presents a further problem: if, as Margalit argues, “testimony, not direct observation, is our basic source of evidence and knowledge,” to categorize that primary source of knowledge itself with the value-laden labels of “victim” or “perpetrator” imposes an a priori framework for interpreting events and experiences that are still in the process of becoming known. Moreover, as Primo Levi’s well-known elaboration on the “gray zone” in The Drowned and the Saved shows, the blurring of boundaries between victims and perpetrators was one of the central mechanisms by which the camps functioned, as a means of securing the complicity even of those whose lives they were designed to destroy. For this reason, the concept of complicity, and the uncertain moral positions that it encompasses, offers a valuable but hitherto under-theorised approach to studying testimony. The aim of this special issue of the Journal of Perpetrator Research is therefore to explore the relationship between complicity and the creation and reception of testimony from an interdisciplinary perspective. In a general sense, complicity is an increasingly important concept for understanding the negative consequences of actions in an ever-more interconnected world, and as Christopher Kutz notes, “the most important and far-reaching harms and wrongs of contemporary life are the products of collective actions, mediated by social and institutional structures.” Moreover, language itself is at once shaped by social and institutional pressures while also creating and performing complicity with those structures of power: as Thomas Docherty argues, complicity with institutions tends to operate through the “establishment of a reduced lexicon.” This special issue is intended to consider testimony in light of the particular challenges posed by the concept of complicity, and in doing so to examine the nature of narrative accounts created in a moral “gray zone.” Topics for articles in this special issue might include, but are not limited to:

• • Language and form in complicit testimonies

• • Literary and cultural representations of complicit testimonies

• • Affective responses to compromised testimony

• • Complicity and the generic boundaries of testimony

• • Distinctions between perpetration and complicity

• • Complicity and adjacent concepts (beneficiaries and implicated subjects)

• • Categories of complicity (collaborating, consorting, condoning and conniving)

We intend that the special issue will represent a range of disciplines, and we are particularly interested in articles from non-European and non-Anglophone perspectives. Deadline for submissions: Abstracts of around 300 words should be submitted to Ivan Stacy at ivanstacy@gmail.com, no later than 10 December 2023. Queries can be directed to the same email address. Full articles of 6,000-10,000 words will be due by 30 June 2024, with publication scheduled for Spring 2025. * Deadline for Submissions Dec. 1, 2023

CFP: “Witnessing / Becoming” – University of Toronto, Centre for Comparative Literature, March 22-23, 2024

“‘I bear witness’—that means: ‘I affirm (rightly or wrongly, but in all good faith, sincerely) that that was or is present to me, in space and time (thus, sense-perceptible), and although you do not have access to it, not the same access, you, my addressees, you have to believe me, because I engage myself to tell you the truth, I am already engaged in it, I tell you that I am telling you the truth. Believe me. You have to believe me.’” – Jacques Derrida (“Poetics and Politics of Witnessing” 76) Witnessing is more than seeing, more than recounting testimony. A witness to an event is its participant, whether central or peripheral. In its continuity, the act of witnessing carries us past the immediate crisis of an event, into a post-event life. Processes of witnessing have manifested as fluid, ongoing testimonies, conveyed through various mediums such as novels, memoirs, autobiographies, reports, and films, among others. One could argue that at the core of these testimonies lies what Nadine Gordimer describes in “Literary Witness in A World of Terror: The Inward Testimony” (2009) as “the duality of inwardness and the outside world” (Gordimer 68), the dual exploration of one’s inner self and the external world, the quest to reconcile oneself with the uncertainties inherent in evolving events and the imperative to conceive new meanings of self-identity. We invite papers that consider how testimony has been represented not only as a form of documented eyewitness literature, but also as a process that entails transformations, and encounters that elicit new forms of becoming. By conjugating witnessing with becoming, we invite you to move past the eventuality of crisis, to understand language as irrevocably tied to the process of bearing witness, remaking itself continuously against the possible threat of erasure, “as if it were being invented at every step, and if it were burning immediately” (Jacques Derrida The Post Card 11). Differing subjectivities, selves, and life stories emerge in different environments. How might the act of bearing witness to uncodified subjective experiences and marginalized social realities challenge narratives of dominant power structures? To return to the temporal disconnect between the witnessed event and the performance of testimony, becoming can take a similar form. To become is to recognize the same temporal disconnect, to look backwards at what once was, yet no longer remains. Becoming might be a reading of the past, enacted in tandem with the witness’ attempt to reconstruct it, which remains eternally out of reach. How do these two forms interact with one another? How else might they intertwine? As an interdisciplinary conference, we encourage submissions from a variety of fields, such as literature, philosophy, history, ethnography, anthropology, media studies, disability studies, sociology, art history, religious studies, and gender studies. We welcome papers related (but not limited) to the following topics:

• • Testimonial Literature

• • Ethics of Bearing Witness

• • Living & Writing

• • Socio-political events in literature

• • Performativity

• • Transnationality & the Diaspora

• • Queerness & Alterity

• • Black Studies

• • Indigeneity & Decolonial thought

• • Planetary Subjectivity vs. Capitalist Globalism

• • Language & Translation

• • Temporality & the Self

Those who wish to participate in the conference should submit an abstract of no more than 250 words, along with a short bio. Abstracts must be sent, as attachments, to utorontocomplitconference@gmail.com before December 1, 2023. Emails should include the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and contact information. Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. Contact Information Zichuan Gan, co-organizer PhD student Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto z.gan@mail.utoronto.ca Contact Email utorontocomplitconference@gmail.com *

CFP: Biographies Area of the 2024 Popular Culture Association (PCA) Conference

March 27-30, 2024, Chicago USA Deadline for Paper Proposals: November 30, 2023 The Biographies Area of the Popular Culture Association (PCA)  is soliciting papers for the 2024 conference that examine the connections between biography and popular culture. Papers and full panel presentations regarding any aspect of popular culture and biography are encouraged. Potential topics might include: – Biography and entertainment, art, music, theater – Biography and film – Biography and criminal justice – Television programs about biography – Biography and urban legends – Biography and folklore – Biography and literature – Scholarly Biography – Controversial Biography – Psychoanalysis and Biography – Historical Biography – Political Biography – Autobiography The conference will be held March 27-30, 2024 at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile. Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session.  Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. Below are some recent titles of presentations in the Biographies Area panels: ·Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll: Celebrity Biography through the Lens of Autopsy ·Will Rogers: American Folk Hero or Elitist Fraud ·Manufacturing “Soupy Sales:” Biographical Insights in the Emergence of a Comic Entertainer Please see this link for details and guidelines on submitting to the conference: https://pcaaca.org/general/custom.asp?page=submissionguidelines If interested in submitting for the conference, please provide the title and abstract of your presentation. Contact Information Susie Skarl Associate Professor/Urban Affairs Librarian UNLV Libraries Las Vegas, NV 89154 702-895-2141 susie.skarl@unlv.edu OR susieskarl@gmail.com Contact Email susie.skarl@unlv.edu *

Haunting Lives, edited collection, call for abstracts

Deadline for Submissions November 30, 2023

Are you a creative writer who consciously plays with techniques that transgress the borders between fiction and nonfiction? What is it that attracts you to this liminal space between the two, and what new writing territory do you want to form there? Your work might be in auto/bio/fiction, the historical or nonfiction novel, speculative history or a hybrid genre. You might balk at these categories as reductive and antipathetic to this genre-defying writing. Haunting Lives is an edited collection that will illuminate this border country, help readers to navigate or succumb to its strange terrain and examine the spectres that live there. We are looking for chapters that interrogate creative practice, to investigate how you came to this border country and what you are doing with your writing there.  We want chapters that explore your transgressions and subversions of these borders. We want you to map your challenges to a rigid borderline and to illuminate the effects you create. We are looking for chapters which do this in relation to your own work and with reference to the work of other writers and conceptual frameworks. Think Gordon Burn, Ali Smith’s Seasons quartet of novels or Jay Bernard’s poetry collection, Surge. You might draw on personal/family/cultural memory in your work. You might make stories out of archival documents and objects. How do you bring your imaginative processes to bear on this material to turn it into creative writing? You might be interested in:

• • The subjective

• • The intersectional

• • Telling historical stories from new perspectives

• • Challenging the hegemony of dominant versions of history

• • Bringing hitherto invisible and silenced characters and voices to the fore

• • The creative art of braiding personal and researched stories together

• • Collage techniques

• • Formal experimentation and playfulness

We are particularly interested in the ways that such writing creates powerful haunting effects and sheds uncanny light on real events and people. Ghosts have become a significant trope in recent border writing – Alison MacLeod’s short story collection, All the Beloved Ghosts, experiments with form to tell family histories, combine an autobiographical story with that of Princess Diana and to speculate about making a citizen’s arrest on Tony Blair. Edward Parnell’s Ghostland is both an exploration of the landscape of British ghost stories and a ghost story about his own family. Dylan Trigg says, of returning to a place which holds memories, ‘I am not alone in this memory… I am followed at all times by the ghosts who continue to coinhabit my memories, despite no longer existing in the material world’ Liminal space is the privileged place where ghosts can be brought to light and the past can be brought back to haunt us. Ethan Kleinberg has begun to theorise the concept of hauntological history and the importance of creative writing to it. He foregrounds the role of the imagination in how we make meaning: ‘I use literary fiction as a privileged site that exposes the way the past haunts history’. You might make a virtue of the gorgeous unreliability, peculiarity and rich singularity of memory or you might conjure ghosts/characters from old photographs and official documents. Dan Coxon and Richard V Hirst have identified the uncanny turn in recent fiction: ‘in modern literature, the Uncanny, ‘has become one of its dominant features.’ We want to extend their discussion. Teaching on a creative nonfiction module while my students are simultaneously studying a fiction module seems increasingly nonsensical to me. I begin the module by suggesting that nonfiction is not the opposite of fiction and by the end I steer students toward the border country where they can cross between fiction and nonfiction to tell haunting stories of reality. If you teach Creative Writing, your chapter might also interrogate pedagogical issues raised by these border writings. Such writing is as old as literature itself – Plutarch’s Parallel Lives were more morality tales than they were reliable biographies. In the twentieth century Virginia Woolf turned to fantasy and magical realism to illuminate the life of Vita Sackville-West in Orlando. But in recent times the ’truth’ contract, as outlined by Philippe Lejeune (although even he rescinded it), has been a guiding premise of so much Creative Nonfiction. It has become limiting and debilitating. The litigation against James Frey and his publishers, which resulted in A Million Little Pieces having to be moved across the border and sold as fiction rather than nonfiction, might be seen as a low ebb in this rigid categorisation of creative texts, driven as much, if not more, by marketing as by creative imperatives. We want to highlight and showcase the richness, variety and complexity of writing which claims to be neither or both at the same time. The collection will be co-edited by Dr Helen Pleasance and Professor Rob Edgar, of the York Centre for Writing at York St John University. Chapters should be between 4 and 6000 words. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words and a short biography of no more than 150 words or questions about the project to hauntinglives@outlook.com by 30 November * Call for Abstracts – Turntable Stories  An Edited Collection Deadline for Submissions–Abstracts: November 30, 2023 Turntable Stories will be a collection of stories, memories and histories. It will be an exploration of turntable culture through creative non-fiction in the form of memoir, essays, autoethnography, personal histories and reflections. We want your experiences of club culture and of bedroom mixing. We want to know about your turntable heroes and your turntable buddies. Contributions might feature memories of a life-altering rave or cider-soaked indie-disco. They might be about niche scenes and subcultures. They might be about your local pub and its funk and soul night. The focus might be broad and cultural or specific and personal. Stories can be funny, heart-breaking, weird or all of these things. Contributors can be DJs, collectors, shop owners, researchers, scholars or simply lovers of material culture. What’s important is the foregrounding of narratives that explore our relationship with our decks, what we use them for and how they shape our musical and cultural memories. The turntable is a significant material presence in our cultural and musical life. Our record players sit in dusty corners of our living rooms, take centre stage in clubs, sit sparkling in upmarket shop windows or sad and neglected in the local Cash Converter. They are coveted, mythologised and fetishized. They are functional and material objects that make our record collections spring into life. The recent celebrations of hip hop’s fiftieth birthday take DJ Kool Herc’s Bronx party in August 1973 as a starting place. The 18-year-old DJ (known to his mum as Clive Campbell) made the innovative leap to using two turntables at once. In doing so, he ‘played two copies of the same record, a technique known as the merry-go-round where one moves back and forth, from one record to the next, looping the percussion portions of each track to keep the beat alive’. ¹ The DJ as artistic maverick and tastemaker was born. With him came the wheels of steel, the ones and twos, the decks. With this new way to entertain, the DJ’s understanding of music, crowds and spaces soon became a significant and ubiquitous presence in global cultures and subcultures. By the turn of the new century, turntables sat in bars, clubs, festival stages and carnival floats. To DJ was as legitimate as any other musical skill. DJs became celebrities, superstars and icons. Turntablists showed off lightening sleights of hand. Musical lexicon now included scratching, mixing, break pauses and drops. DJs travelled the world with record boxes on wheels. Grooving across polished departure lounge floors in a timeless and looping party zone. But the turntable has always been a domestic item too. It’s been a hand-me-down from sibling to sibling. It’s been saved up for and bought from brightly lit high-street electrical stores. It’s been a set of broken Technics 1200s with a mixer thrown in for 20 quid a week over a couple of years. It’s been an untouchable presence in the living room, part of a gleaming stack system used only by Dad when he’s doing the crossword with his War Movie themes LP on or by Mum when she is soundtracking her evening G&T with James Taylor.² Decks have been set up in bedrooms, taken to teenage house parties, smuggled into pirate stations at the top of tower blocks. They’ve been direct drive and belt driven. They’ve arrived in boxes with mysterious German and Japanese names printed on them. They’ve been cased in shiny pine and in smudged plastic. They’ve made that hiss and thunk when they hit vinyl. They’ve got dusty. They’ve sat unused but never really disappeared. But then, as the new century arrived, it all stopped. We didn’t need our record players. Clubs moved on too when the CDJ made an appearance. The warning signs were there in the 80s and 90s when tapes and CDs jostled for position. ‘Much more convenient’, we were told.  Our loyalty was tested. Then the pocket-sized gadgets appeared. They held thousands of songs. Then laptops. Suddenly we could access all the music we needed through a few mouse clicks. Sometimes it cost nothing. Music lost its magic. Our tribes and genres dissolved. Record shops looked sad and empty. Record collections were ditched. They ended up in charity shops and car boot sales. They were stashed in lofts and damp garages next to that old turntable. Only a few of us stuck with it. We kept buying them. We keep cleaning them. We keep talking about them. We kept our turntables moving. Now? Turntables have returned.  They are a retro item and a new fascination. Youngsters buy them for playing their new ‘vinyls’. There is a revival. The shops have reappeared and you can buy a flat white in them now. Portable record players like your grandma owned are must-have items for your socials. There are days put aside for buying records. You can order slip mats with a photo of your dog on them. T-shirts have pictures of those old knackered 1200s on them. It all come round full circle. A full revolution. What all of this means is stories and narratives and this is where you come in. We are interested in contributions of between 3000 and 4000 words. Contributions can include memories, observations, academic articles or any combination of these forms. We welcome contributions from experienced writers and from first time writers. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words and a short biography of no more that 150 words or questions about the project to turntablestories@outlook.com by November 30^th 2023. This collection will be curated by the editors of Venue Stories³ (Equinox 2023). Turntable Stories will follow a similar format. * CFP: Biographies Area of the 2024 Popular Culture Association (PCA) Conference March 27-30, Chicago USA Deadline for Submissions: November 30, 2023 The Biographies Area of the Popular Culture Association (PCA)  is soliciting papers for the 2024 conference that examine the connections between biography and popular culture. Papers and full panel presentations regarding any aspect of popular culture and biography are encouraged. Potential topics might include: – Biography and entertainment, art, music, theater – Biography and film – Biography and criminal justice – Television programs about biography – Biography and urban legends – Biography and folklore – Biography and literature – Scholarly Biography – Controversial Biography – Psychoanalysis and Biography – Historical Biography – Political Biography – Autobiography The conference will be held March 27-30, 2024 at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile. Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session.  Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. Below are some recent titles of presentations in the Biographies Area panels: ·Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll: Celebrity Biography through the Lens of Autopsy ·Will Rogers: American Folk Hero or Elitist Fraud ·Manufacturing “Soupy Sales:” Biographical Insights in the Emergence of a Comic Entertainer If interested in submitting for the conference, please provide the title and abstract of your presentation. Deadline for Paper Proposals: November 30, 2023 Contact Information Susie Skarl Associate Professor/Urban Affairs Librarian UNLV Libraries Las Vegas, NV 89154 702-895-2141 Contact Email susie.skarl@unlv.edu

A Cultural History of Trans Lives in the Middle Ages (300-1450)

deadline for submissions:  November 20, 2023 We warmly invite submissions to contribute to A Cultural History of Trans Lives in the Middle Ages (300-1450), edited by J. D. Sargan and Micah James Goodrich. In the past several years, the emerging field of premodern trans studies has taken shape across disciplinary, geographical, and chronological lines. Our volume, A Cultural History of Trans Lives in the Middle Ages (300-1450), which spans over one thousand years of history, will serve to index these critical conversations among medievalists and anticipate new contours that our discussions may take. Please take a moment to look at the main series CFP here: https://bit.ly/CHTLvol1-6 Our volume proceeds from the assumption that there are many ways to tell the story of trans lives before the terminology “transgender” came into existence in the mid-twentieth century. While many medieval ideologies of sex and gender held that the discrete categories of “male” and “female” were spiritually innate and physically immutable, there were other currents of thought that saw the gendered body as porous, open, fluid, and textual. The boundaries of the body could stretch back in time, inhabit multiple places, be alive but not quite, and move between earthly corporeality and divinity. It is this portability of medieval gender that resonates with the prefixial trans- in “transgender,” denoting a state of motion, action, and flux, that our volume seeks to highlight. While the eight chapters in this volume spotlight a topical approach to trans lives in the Middle Ages (law, arts, medicine, etc.), we encourage contributors to think capaciously and extravagantly about how “trans lives” can be imagined. All Bloomsbury’s Cultural Histories are formed of 6 volumes, each volume covering a specific period and all the volumes in an individual History sharing the same set of broad chapter themes. This allows readers to follow a theme across history as well as study it in the context of a particular period. Authors should approach these chapters as a broad survey of the chapter topic, rather than an exposition of the author’s specific research area. That said, we do encourage authors to draw from their expertise. The Chapter titles for these volumes proceed as follows: Chapter Breakdown Chapter One: Law and Social Control [This chapter should take as its focus ‘law’ and ‘regulation’] Contributors for this chapter may consider topics and inquiries such as:

• • Formal and informal laws and legal structures (e.g. sumptuary laws)

• • Scales of law (divine, state, social)

• • Extralegal lives of social control and/or agency

• • Carcerality and embodiment

• • Law and/as violence

• • Law and/as liberation

• • Law and labor

• • Law and movement

Chapter Two: Bodies, Treatment, and Care [This chapter should take as its focus ‘science’ and ‘medicine’] Contributors for this chapter may consider topics and inquiries such as:

• • Medieval scientia and gender

• • Trivium/quadrivium and the body

• • Medieval medicine

• • Reproduction and embodiment

• • Gender-affirming medical care

• • Medical violence (anatomical texts, surgical manuals, “corrective” surgery)

• • Pastoral care

• • “Body-health” and “Soul-health”

Chapter Three: Spirituality and the Sacred [This chapter should take as its focus ‘spirituality’ and ‘the sacred’] Contributors for this chapter may consider topics and inquiries such as:

• • Religious practice across the medieval world (Judaism, paganism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and beyond)

• • Theological doctrine

• • Spiritual practices

• • Cosmologies

• • Sacred ritual

• • Genres of devotion

• • Spiritual embodiments

Chapter Four: Ideas, Debates, and Polemics [This chapter should take as its focus ‘ideas’ and ‘discourse’] Contributors for this chapter may consider topics and inquiries such as:

• • Elite and vernacular cultural ideas re: gender

• • Public gender(s)

• • Speeches, sermons, debates, public discourse

• • Epistolary traditions and exchange of ideas

• • Premodern biopolitics

• • Gender and/as education, scholastic discourse

• • Authenticity, reality, and legitimacy in social discourse

• • Ideas about the self, self-knowledge

• • Philosophies of personhood, identity, embodiment

Chapter Five: Representation and the Arts [This chapter should take as its focus ‘art’ and ‘aesthetics’] Contributors for this chapter may consider topics and inquiries such as:

• • Visual registers of gender and embodiment

• • Aesthetics and/of gender

• • Architectures of gender

• • Drama, plays, performance

• • Medieval media and embodiment

• • Visual censorship and circulation

• • Visibility, invisibility

• • Symbology, typology

• • The senses in art

Chapter Six: Bodies on Display [This chapter should take as its focus ‘bodies’] Contributors for this chapter may consider topics and inquiries such as:

• • Bodies in public fora (theaters, prisons, workplaces, markets, courtrooms/records, trades, health settings, etc.)

• • Imbrication of race, capacity, disability, and gender

• • Shapes, forms, structures

• • The partitive body

• • Care and cultivation of the body

• • The body as meaning-making and world-making

Chapter Seven: Material Culture [This chapter should take as its focus ‘things’ and ‘objects’] Contributors for this chapter may consider topics and inquiries such as:

• • Material registers of gender and embodiment

• • Things, objects

• • “Artifice”

• • Prosthetics and material additions to the body

• • Archaeology

• • “Mundane” things and everyday objects

• • Material modes of signaling transness

Chapter Eight: Natural and Unnatural [This chapter should take as its focus ‘nature’] Contributors for this chapter may consider topics and inquiries such as:

• • Natural philosophy

• • Metrics of naturalness/unnaturalness

• • Human/animal/plant divide

• • Animacies

• • Taxonomies, categories

• • Supernatural (monsters, giants, fairies, etc.)

The CFP is open to anyone working in any discipline and geographical area on trans studies in the medieval period (c.300-1450). We especially encourage trans scholars to submit. Please indicate if you would be interested in collaborating with another author on a chapter. Submit a 250 word abstract outlining your vision of the chapter that you’d like to write along with a brief bio and CV to the volume editors, J.D. Sargan and Micah Goodrich by November 20th [Extended Deadline] to james.sargan@uga.edu and mjgood@bu.edu * Call for Papers–Freedom on the Move and Fugitivity in North American Slavery March 15-16, 2024 Cornell University, Ithaca, USA Deadline for Submissions; November 20, 2023 Freedom on the Move (FOTM) will hold a symposium at Cornell University on March 15-16, 2024 to gather scholars (including early career and graduate students), librarians, archivists, and teachers to discuss the future of fugitivity studies and the impact of FOTM in scholarship, pedagogy, and the digital humanities. We invite scholars to propose papers that are based on Freedom on the Move or related topics of fugitivity. Accepted papers will be pre-circulated among confirmed conference attendees. The resulting in-person discussion will, we hope, advance our collective understanding of self-liberation, racialized surveillance and policing, and marronage and fugitivity, while also helping to build a larger research community. What is Freedom on the Move? With the advent of newspapers in the American colonies, enslavers published advertisements to try to capture freedom-seekers. Jailers posted additional ads describing people they had apprehended. While created to control the movement of enslaved people, the advertisements ultimately preserved the details of individual lives – their personality, appearance, and life story. Freedom on the Move is a database that houses these advertisements. FOTM serves as a research aid, a pedagogical tool, a resource for genealogists, and a starting point for all those who want to use these historical documents in new and creative ways. Interested parties should submit a CV and one-page proposal or abstract (no more than 250 words) to FOTM@cornell.edu by November 20, 2024. Project descriptions should include a brief overview of the argument, sources, the significance of the project, and the current status of the paper (yet to be written, in progress, drafted, completed). Final papers should be between 20-30 pages double-spaced and must be submitted to FOTM@cornell.edu by February 29, 2024 to allow time for circulation to registered attendees and fellow panelists. Contributors will be notified of acceptance by December 8, 2023. An honorarium will be provided for accepted papers, and some travel assistance will be available with priority allocated to graduate students and early career scholars who are presenting papers. All questions and submissions should be sent to FOTM @ cornell.edu . For more information about Freedom on the Move, please visit https://freedomonthemove.org/ Contact Information Department of History Cornell University Contact Email FOTM@Cornell.edu URL https://freedomonthemove.org * Events updates from the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing First – we are disappointed to announce that we have made the difficult decision to cancel this Tuesday’s colloquium on Writing Jewish Women’s Lives. We hope to rearrange the date for next term, and will announce the new date in due course. Meanwhile, the Programme for Writing Jewish Women’s Lives will begin instead with our two Literary Salons, on 7th November and 21st November. And for all our other events please read on! This week we have begun our two term-time writing groups, and over the next couple of weeks we look forward to welcoming you to our first public talks of term – the first of which is online on Sunday night – as well as offering you the chance to join us for a special workshop on non-fiction publishing on 31st October. Further details on these and more below. Best wishes, Alice and the OCLW team Events in 3rd week: Tuesday 24 October, 2pm-3.30pm, Buttery Diane Watt: The Gentlewoman from Reedham: Re-encountering Margaret Paston through her letters, in the 21st century Focusing on selected letters written by Margaret across her lifetime, from the years immediately following her marriage to those leading up to her death, this talk takes the events described as the starting point for a micro-biography. Diane Watt is Professor of Medieval English Literature and Co-Director of SGS (the Sex, Gender and Sexualities Research Centre) at the University of Surrey. In person only. Book here. Tuesday 24 October, 5.30-7pm, LWA Lucas Miller: ‘Thou wast not born for death’: Keats and the Living Art of Writing Literary Lives Lucasta Miller discusses her experiences as a life-writer in the light her of her most recent book, Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph. Free event. Book here Friday 27 October, 10.30am-12.30pm, English Faculty: Laura Marcus Life-Writing Workshops Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and Hermione Lee: Life-Writing and Illness Free event, priority given to students in the English Faculty. Book here. Events in 4th week: Tuesday 31 October, 1pm-8pm, Buttery: Publishing Non-Fiction workshop With Eli Keren and Kate Walsh from United Agents, and featuring a Q&A with Blake Morrison, concluding with a drinks reception. In the first half of the afternoon, receive general advice on crafting compelling book proposals, mastering query letters, and navigating the competitive publishing landscape. In the second half, seize the opportunity to pitch your work and receive feedback on your ideas. £90, £81 for Friends of OCLW. Book for the event here. Tuesday 31 October, 5.30-7pm: Weinrebe Lecture, LWA Blake Morrison in conversation with Hermione Lee: Two Sisters and the Art of Life-Writing Blake Morrison reflects on the challenges, rewards and ethics of putting together family memoirs. Free event. Book here Coming up soon 6th week: Wednesday 15 November, 2pm-3.30pm, online only Pragya Agarwal and Rebecca Donner: Rewriting Women’s Lives Free for members of our Research Network (join here). Find out more and register for the event here. Literary Salons – Writing Jewish Women’s Lives 5th week: Tuesday 7 November, 2pm-3.30pm, Buttery: Rebecca Abrams. Free event, in person and via Zoom. Book here.    and 7th week: Tuesday 21 November, 1.30pm-3.30pm, Buttery: Rebecca Abrams in conversation with Natasha Walter. Free event, in person and via Zoom. Book here. Writing groups Interested in discussion life-writing you’ve read, or perhaps you’re working on a project of your own? We run two weekly writing groups during term time, each group costs just £15 per session, and you can join at any time. Mondays in term time, in-person and online, 11am-12.30pm Friends of OCLW Life-Writing Discussion Group, with Charlie Lee-Potter For an introduction to life-writing, well-known and lesser known authors in the field, and to try your own hand at life-writing, join our friendly weekly group. Find out more here. Thursdays in term time, online only, 3pm-4.30pm Feedback Group, with Alice Little Whether you have a work in progress or simply want to learn how to give and receive feedback, join our small-group sessions to read and discuss life-writing projects. Sign up here. *

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 . 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 Contact Email societygncs@gmail.com URL https://www.sgncscongress.com/ *

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 *

Conference: Urban Lives: Amsterdam Diaries and Other Stories of the Self

Date: 26-28 October 2023, Amsterdam Venue: University Library, Singel 425, Doelenzaal, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Website: https://vu.nl/en/events/2023/amsterdam-diaries-and-other-stories-of-the-self-conference In October 2025, Amsterdam will celebrate its 750th anniversary. In light of this upcoming celebration, two of the city’s institutes of higher education, the University of Amsterdam and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, are organising a conference on Amsterdam diaries and other stories of the self. An exciting lineup of panels, workshops and key-note lectures given by our esteemed colleagues Julie Rak, Nina Siegal, Nadia Bouras and Diederik Oostdijk will provide each participant with a panoply of intellectually stimulating new insights on various aspects of life writing and the beautiful city of Amsterdam. The final programme for the event is available here. Registration for the conference is free of charge and open until 16 October (via the website). For more information, please consult our conference website, or contact us at: AmsterdamUrbanLivesConference@gmail.com *

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. * 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 *

Bloomsbury Cultural History of Trans Lives, Vol 4: The Eighteenth Century

deadline for submissions: November 1, 2023 Sal Nicolazzo (UC Davis), Scott Larson (University of Michigan), and Aixia Huang (SOAS), co-editors

The historical period of 1650-1800 includes massive historical transformations with particular purchase for the history of gender, yet this period has only begun to attract substantial attention from scholars of trans studies. This volume seeks to gather work that engages rigorously with trans studies methodologies while deepening the field’s engagement with historical periods and materials across regions, languages, and disciplines.

We invite chapter proposals that think broadly about “trans lives” in the long 18th century, though we do not propose one stable meaning of “trans lives” in this period or in our historical methodologies; rather, we welcome work that questions or pushes back against prioritizing what is legible as “trans” for contemporary readers/scholars and that opens a wide range of inquiry into the histories of categories, institutions, and practices that shape “trans lives” either in the past or in the present. At the same time, we acknowledge the colonial frameworks that have shaped this volume’s periodization, and we welcome work that critically interrogates the periodization of “the long 18th century.” This volume is part of the Cultural History of Trans Lives series, under contract with Bloomsbury and edited by Blake Gutt, Greta LaFleur, and Emily Skidmore. The series, which we expect will be released as open access after its first year of publication, aims for a broad readership across and beyond academia. We particularly seek proposals for chapters that can both advance scholarly conversations on trans histories of this period and speak to a broader audience of academics across fields, students, activists, community members, and anyone interested in the histories that shape trans lives now. Each volume in the series will contain eight chapters naming broad, general topics (outlined in more detail in the general series call for contributions). We welcome a wide variety of interpretations of the chapter topics from specific disciplinary, geographical, and methodological vantage points. We also understand that contributions might potentially fall under multiple possible categories, and so we welcome proposals that name multiple potential chapters of interest. We seek contributions from writers from a wide range of academic or nonacademic placements, career stages, and disciplinary locations. To propose a contribution, please send a CV and a brief chapter proposal (maximum 500 words) to chtlvol4@gmail.com. *

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/ CENTER FOR BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH / UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA Monday, October 30 4:30-6:00pm EDT/3:30-5:00pm CDT/2:30-4:00pm MDT/1:30-3:00pm PDT/10:30am-12noon HST Online Book Launch and Celebration in honor of Cynthia G. Franklin’s Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea (Fordham UP, 2023) Cynthia G. Franklin is Professor of English at the University of Hawai‘i. She coedits the journal Biography, and is author of Academic Lives: Memoir, Cultural Theory, and the University Today (2009) and Writing Women’s Communities: The Politics and Poetics of Multi-Genre Anthologies (1997). PRESENTATIONS BY: Maryam Griffin, Assistant Professor, University of Washington Fred Moten, Professor, New York University Bill V. Mullen, Professor Emeritus of American Studies, Purdue University Nadine Naber, Professor, University of Illinois; founder, Liberate Your Research Workshops With informal response by Cynthia Franklin Moderator: J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Professor of American Studies and Anthropology, Wesleyan University TO REGISTER FOR THE EVENT GO HERE TO ORDER COPIES GO HERE *

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 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

https://manoa.hawaii.edu/cbr/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 15, 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://internationalfilmfestivalandsymposiumonce * 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. A * “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 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

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 b e available soon on https://memory.hi.is/iaba-world-2024/ 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.

• • Login/Register to submit a paper for this seminar.

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. —- 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 or touringtravelwriting@gmail.com or 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.

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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.

---

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. * 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 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 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.

https://www.annie-ernaux.org/conferences/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, * 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:

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

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

1. 1. A proposal of no more than 600 words that includes:
      1. 1. a summary of your research project and how your proposed interview(s) fit within its scope;
      1. 1. the site where you will conduct your interviews and the expected language(s) to be used in the interviews;
      1. 1. your reasons for selecting these potential interviewees; and
      1. 1. 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 * Deadline for Submissions September 11, 2023 Call for Chapter Contributors—Cambridge Companion to U.S. First Ladies Book Project We are seeking chapter contributors for an edited book titled Cambridge Companion to U.S. First Ladies. According to the series editor, the Cambridge Companion books offer “introductions/overviews to particular themes/events/figures. The books usually consist of 12-15 essays and they present the latest ideas/research/scholarship in a comprehensive and accessible manner. Students make up a portion of the readership for these books, but they are also read by general readers and individual scholars who are interested in the topic. When done correctly, the books not only provide an overview, but also make an important intervention into the study of the particular topic at hand.” Cambridge Companion to U.S. First Ladies will explore the social, cultural, and political influence of the first lady institution and the women who’ve held the position. We already have contributors covering the following subjects: first ladies as political assets/liabilities, first ladies in wartime, first ladies and slavery/civil rights, first ladies’ role in international diplomacy, first ladies as trendsetters, first ladies as Mourners-in-Chief, first ladies’ use of media, and representations of first ladies in film. But there’s still a lot of ground to cover, so we’re looking for additional authors to contribute chapters on topics such as:

• • First ladies as model of American womanhood/Impact of gender norms on first ladies

• • First ladies as social advocates

• • Legacy, memorialization, and public memory of first ladies

• • First ladies and illness

We’re also open to other chapter themes, particularly those covering first ladies and/or topics that are underrepresented in previous works. We’re looking to recruit authors from diverse research and professional perspectives including history, political communication, public address, museum studies, political science, and media studies. Final chapters will be 8,000 – 10,000 words, including endnotes, using Chicago Manual of Style, 17-th edition Notes-Bibliography formatting. The project timeline is as follows:

• • September 11: Call for contributors – letters of interest due

• • Late September: Contributors selected & begin first drafts

• • April 2024: First drafts due

• • May/June 2024: Edited chapters returned

• • July/August 2024: Revisions due

• • August/September 2024: Final edits

• • October 2024: Submission of completed manuscript to press

If you’d like to contribute to this project, please submit the following to editors Lisa Burns (Lisa.Burns@quinnipiac.edu) and Teri Finneman (finnemte@gmail.com) by noon ET on Monday, September 11-th: a short blurb explaining your interest in the project, a brief abstract/chapter sketch (150 – 300 words) on the topic you want to cover, and a short bio (about 75 words) detailing your related research experience. Authors selected to participate will be notified by September 22nd. Contact Information Lisa Burns (Quinnipiac University) and Teri Finneman (University of Kansas) Contact Email Lisa.Burns@quinnipiac.edu * Call for Papers: Dear Liz (edited by Órla Meadhbh Murray & Maria Tamboukou) Abstract deadline: 4th September 2023  Edited book proposal intended for Routledge’s Literary Studies in the Social Sciences (series editor Maria Tamboukou) Calling any scholars who use Liz Stanley’s work. This edited collection will showcase how different scholars have been inspired or influenced by Liz Stanley’s work. We are looking for chapters of around 6000 words discussing your own work in relation to an aspect of Liz’s work. This could be focused on new research, reflecting on previous work, or even pedagogical reflections and all chapters will start with a short letter entitled ‘Dear Liz’, which will be the central title of the book. Chapters can be solo- or co-authored. Please send an abstract (up to 300 words) and a short bio (up to 100 words) via email to: orla.m.murray@durham.ac.uk AND m.tamboukou@uel.ac.uk by 4^th September 2023. Full chapters will be due by end of June 2024. Thanks, Órla Dr. Órla Meadhbh Murray (she/her) Lecturer in Sociology, Durham University Co-founder Institutional Ethnography Network * Literature and Life Writing Midwest Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature October 23-24, 2023 Wheaton College deadline for submissions:  September 7, 2023 This conference brings together scholars of Christianity and literature with contemporary writers of spiritual memoir to celebrate religious life writing and consider the forms, features, and thematic possibilities within the range of associated genres. How do literary works and forms shape portrayals of spiritual life? What might literature accomplish in the spiritual life within writer and reader? How might the literary space of religiously inflected life writing offer particular theological content? This conference will involve traditional panels, creative readings, and student panels, as well as a scholarly keynote. Attendees will also have the opportunity to attend readings and large public talks by several contemporary spiritual memoir writers, including Esau McCaulley, author of the forthcoming memoir How Far to the Promised Land? and Daniel Nayeri, award-winning author of Everything Sad is Untrue, who will be on campus that week.  The scholarly keynote will be given by Jeffrey W. Barbeau (Ph.D., Marquette University), professor of theology at Wheaton College, editor of The Coleridge Bulletin, and a writer on British Romanticism, religion and literature, and the history of Christian thought. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism and Religion(2021) and Religion in Romantic England: An Anthology of Primary Sources (2018). Possible topics include the following:

• • problems in genre: spiritual memoir/spiritual autobiography/spiritual life writing

• • periodization of religious life writing

• • traditions/inheritance in spiritual life writing

• • trends in contemporary spiritual life writing

• • portrayal of the divine in spiritual life writing

• • children’s literature and/as spiritual life writing

• • confession, failure, hamartiology in spiritual life writing

• • social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Substack) and spiritual life writing

• • celebrity/publicity/the public square and spiritual life writing

• • race and spiritual life writing

• • the morphology of conversion (or deconversion) in spiritual life writing

• • private writings/unpublished autobiographical material

• • fictional spiritual life writing

• • politics of religious life writing

• • religious life writing as theory/theology

• • poetic genres and spiritual life writing

• • gender within spiritual life writing

• • literary epigraphs and allusions within spiritual life writing

• • biblical form and language in religious life writing

• • emplottedness within religious life writing

• • development and decline in religious life writing

• • “deconstruction” (or deconstruction!) and spiritual life writing

• • visions, transcendence, and the miraculous within spiritual life writing

• • sentiment and emotion in spiritual life writing

• • narratives of enslavement and/as spiritual life writing

• • rhetorics of spiritual autobiography

• • ethical pitfalls within spiritual life writing

• • portraying others’ lives/portraying one’s own life in spiritual life writing

• • the individual and the church/community of faith in spiritual life writing

As always, the Midwest CCL is open to other proposals concerning the relationship of Christianity and literature, including panel proposals.  Undergraduate students must submit their entire paper for consideration; eligible undergraduate papers will be entered into the national CCL Undergraduate Writing Contest for a cash prize and publication on the CCL website. Send abstracts (200-400 words) via email to cclconference@wheaton.edu by Sept. 7 2023. Panel proposals welcome.  Accepted abstracts/panels will be notified promptly. Participants in the conference must be members of the Conference on Christianity and Literature. Questions may be sent to tiffany.kriner@wheaton.edu. * Deadline for Submissions, August 31, 2023 CFP–“Animal Subjects” (8/31/2023; 2/14-17/2024) College Art Association Conference, Chicago, USA The emergence of animal studies as a distinct field in the last twenty years has led to increased interest in treating animals as subjects. While we can never fully grasp the entirety of an animal’s experience and world, as famously argued by Thomas Nagel, animal subjectivity has been taken up in contemporary art and scholarship in part to examine consider how we can cultivate positive multispecies entanglements that respect animal agency. On the other hand, animal experiences in historical contexts like bestiaries and cabinets of curiosities, circuses and freakshows, zoos and menageries are slowly being recentered to recognize how animals regularly had to navigate the systems of colonialism, capitalism, and bio-politics. The supposedly inferior status of animals in the Enlightened hierarchy of being was used to justify the subjugation of colonial subjects, whether through visual and linguistic rhetoric or through physical proximity, while pets and exotic animals in menageries served as extensions of their human owners, reflecting the latter’s power and status. How can we talk about animals meaningfully without falling prey to the binary of human vs non? This panel invites papers that explore animal histories in relation to systems of power, both past and present. Its goal is to recenter animal subjecthood and to ask what it means to write animal narratives, whether this is a form of speaking-for or if doing so is to conduct a critical intervention into the humanist approach to art history. Field(s) of Study: Time Period: Modern (1800-present) (**will also consider abstracts for papers focusing on the 18th century**) Topics: Social History Topics: Animal Studies Topics: Environmental Art Key dates  August 31: Deadline to submit proposals. September 18: Session chair deadline to finalize sessions, inform participants via email invitation. Accepted submitters will receive an email to access their own SC after September 25. October: Conference registration opens, and full conference schedule is posted. How to submit 

• • Instructions for submission are provided here

• • You can submit your abstract through the link available on the CFP official page

Prior to submission, ensure the following steps are completed 

• • Create a CAA account. Membership is not mandatory at this stage. If you are not a member, you can create an account at the provided link. Skip the payment and joining process for now.

• • Prepare your presentation title and abstract, adhering to the 250-word limit.

• • Prepare a condensed CV, approximately 2 pages in length.

• • (Optional) Gather relevant images or documentation. Please limit this section to five images that support your proposal.

Contact Information Margaryta Golovchenko Ph.D. candidate (she/her/hers) History of Art and Architecture Department University of Oregon Contact Email mgolovch@uoregon.edu URL https://caa.confex.com/caa/2024/webprogrampreliminary/Session12941.html *

Makeshift Historiographies: Case Studies in HIV/AIDS Cultural Archives

College Art Association Annual Conference, February 14–17, 2024, Hilton Chicago. deadline for submissions:  August 31, 2023 For hundreds of artists who died of AIDS-related causes, only scant traces of their work—if any at all—exist in institutional archival repositories. Therefore, art-historical work revolving around the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic has often called for inventive archival methods that blend traditional forms of research with community work and emotional labor. Over the last fifteen years, scholars and activists have contended with the gaps and erasures in such archives as well as the geographic, racial, and gender biases that have characterized many historical projects. In so doing, many have necessarily drawn on and even created community-based repositories, personal collections, and oral history initiatives. The precarity and preciousness of such archives are central topics in recent scholarship, including Marika Cifor’s, Viral Cultures: Activist Archiving in the Age of AIDS (2022), Jarrett Earnest’s Devotion: Today’s Future Becomes Tomorrow’s Archive (2022), and Alexandra Juhasz and Theodore Kerr’s We Are Having This Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural Production (2022). Indebted to these texts, our panel calls for papers focused on case studies elaborating on archival methods related to art histories of HIV/AIDS. Seeking to acknowledge the efforts of scholars, curators, and archivists who have worked to complicate this emergent canon and reimagine the terrain of AIDS cultural production, we welcome papers that reintroduce artists or their legacies into public and scholarly discourse, detailing the journey from discovery, inquiry, analysis, and sharing. We are especially interested in papers offering methodological reflections that might be of use to individuals engaged in parallel projects. This CFP is for a panel at the College Art Association’s 112th Annual Conference, February 14–17, 2024 at the Hilton Chicago. This is an in-person panel. You are invited to submit your presentation proposals before August 31. More information about how to submit can be found here: https://caa.confex.com/caa/2024/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html Kyle Croft and Jackson Davidow @ College Art Association contact email: kcroft@visualaids.org * Personal documents and ephemera as sources for interdisciplinary Holocaust scholarship CFP for a special issue of Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History Deadline for Submissions, August 31, 2023 Edited by Hannah Holtschneider (University of Edinburgh) and Amy Simon (Michigan State University) Since the 1970s, and proliferating in the 1980s, works of life-writing and of academic scholarship have sought to reconstruct the experience of individuals during persecution, and as refugees in different parts of the world. In the past decade micro-historical research has drawn increasingly on personal documents from the Holocaust. Branching out from works on Holocaust testimony and memoirs, literary scholars have engaged with diaries, letters and other ego-documents, and sociologists, linguists and ethnographers have shown interest in personal archives of families affected by the Holocaust. At the same time, the past two decades have seen a rise in publications of memoirs and other forms of life writing that engages specifically with such sources. Typically, such works proceed from one disciplinary perspective and rarely engage with scholarship working on similar sources but with a different scholarly method. Yet, a conversation of scholars in different disciplines working on the same documentary evidence is still lacking. Volumes such as The Diary: The Epic of Everyday Life models a different approach by bringing together literary and cultural scholars with historians in the exploration of diary writing. The proposed special issue seeks to facilitate a similar conversation and bring together scholarship on personal documents from the Holocaust. The aim is to develop and test multi- and interdisciplinary work regarding the value of different ways of approaching and interrogating these sources. We expect historians, literary scholars, linguists and translation scholars, historical anthropologists and sociologists among others to contribute to this special issue. We also encourage those working on documents from hitherto unexplored archival collections of Jewish refugees to majority-world locations, to propose contributions. To this end we are inviting proposals for research articles of 7,000-12,000 words (incl. references and bibliography), annotated translations and research notes. We expect to host two gatherings during the writing process to engage in productive conversation about the  links between topics and cross-disciplinary approaches. The finished articles should act both as stand-alone research papers and model a methodological conversation across the entire special issue suggesting new directions for research in this field. Possible themes engaging personal documents and ephemera from the Holocaust could include, but are by no means limited to:

• • Multiple approaches to the same sources to explore gains of multidisciplinary research and opportunities for interdisciplinary work

• • The role of emotions for writing about personal archives

• • The relevance of materiality

• • Space and place in personal documents

• • Gender as an analytical category

• • Connecting micro- with macro-history

• • Language, translation and genre

• • The value of engaging one collection of documents or a single diary

• • The value of working across a number of collections or different sources

• • Ethical considerations of writing about the lives of ‘private’ individuals

• • Sociological, anthropological, historical, literary theory arising from engagement with personal documents

​​​​Timeline:

• • 300 word proposal with 100 word bio by 31 August 2023. Please send this to h.holtschneider@ed.ac.uk and simonamy@msu.edu.

• • Notification to submit full article by 30 September 2023.

• • Publication is envisaged by the end of 2025.

Contact Info: Dr Hannah Holtschneider, University of Edinburgh, UK Contact Email: h.holtschneider@ed * CFP for Palgrave Handbook on Parenthood in Popular Culture, Deadline for abstracts: 31 August 2023 Edited by Elizabeth Podnieks (Toronto Metropolitan University) and Helena Wahlström Henriksson (Centre for Gender Research at Uppsala University) As editors of the Palgrave Handbook on Parenthood in Popular Culture, which is under contract and has 15 commissioned chapters, we seek approximately 25 additional chapters (6,500-7,500 words) on topics related to parenthood in popular culture. We aim to foreground Indigenous, racialized, LGBTQ+ and non-normative experiences, in contributions that explore popular cultural representations of parental identities from intersectional perspectives, and from diverse cultural and geopolitical locations. Chapters may focus on either mothers/mothering/motherhood or fathers/fathering/fatherhood, or interrogate parents/parenting/parenthood as more comprehensive terms, across genders and in non-binary contexts. We also welcome contributions focusing on non-motherhood/non-fatherhood. By “popular culture,” we signal an expansive term that includes, but is not limited to, the following mediated texts and expressions: literature, TV, film, magazines, journalism/news, social media and technology, music, performance/theatre, advertising, sports, politics, video games and virtual reality, comics/graphics, tattoo art, fine art, public art/graffiti, exhibitions, and fashion. With this Handbook we aim to showcase contemporary representations of parents, parenting, and parenthood in twenty-first-century popular culture, critically assessing how these representations help to shape, respond to, and redefine notions of families and parents, as well as popular culture genres, in the new millennium. As described on its website, “Palgrave Handbooks are high-quality, original reference works that bring together specially-commissioned chapters, cutting-edge research, and the latest review articles in their fields. Our Handbooks provide an unparalleled overview of a specific field of research, while also setting the agenda for future directions of the discipline.” (https://www.palgrave.com/gp/palgrave-handbooks). Schedule: 31 August 2023: Abstract (approx. 250-350 words) due to both editors: lpodniek@torontomu.ca; helena.henriksson@gender.uu.se

• • 1 October Acceptance of Abstracts from Editors

• • 15 January 1^st draft of chapter due

• • 15 March Revisions feedback from Editors

• • 1 May 2024: final version of chapters due

• • Fall 2024: editors submit final book manuscript to press

If you have any questions, please send queries to both editors: lpodniek@torontomu.ca; helena.henriksson@gender.uu.se * Deadline for Submissions Aug. 25, 2023 “Metafiction, Autofiction, and Other Metanarrative Forms of Storytelling” Dear members, I am leading a seminar on “Metafiction, Autofiction, and Other Metanarrative Forms of Storytelling” at the MSA conference with invited speakers Brian McHale and Josh Toth. Please consider participating. Registration has commenced and will end on August 25. If you are interested in participating, all you need to do is sign up now. You do not submit an abstract at this point. Five- to seven-page papers are due about a five weeks prior to the conference. More information about MSA seminars can be found here: https://msa.press.jhu.edu/conferences/msa2023/seminarOverview.html Modern Studies Association Conference, New York, October 26-29, 2023 Leader:

• • Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis, Associate Professor, New York Institute of Technology

Invited Participants:

• • Josh Toth, Professor, MacEwan University,

• • Brian McHale, Emeritus, Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor, Ohio State University

Metafiction, Autofiction, and Other Metanarrative Forms of Storytelling   With three recent publications on metafiction in the last two years—Truth and Metafiction by Josh Toth (2021), Metafiction and the Postwar Novel: Foes, Ghosts, and Faces in the Water by Andrew Dean (2021) and Metafiction by Yaël Schlick (2022)—there is a resurgence of interest in the theory and practice of this literary form, which had fallen from favor after reaching its pinnacle in the eighties. This seminar seeks to explore the various metanarrative facades of fiction, while also expanding perspectives on metanarrative commentary outside verbal storytelling from modernism to postmodernism and beyond. The seminar will attempt to address the following questions. What are the theoretical frameworks that shape metafiction, and what do recent renditions (works by Salvador Plascencia, Hernan Diaz, Susan Choi to name a few) indicate about its development? Is metafiction a self-enclosed hermeneutics, or does it also foreground issues of class, gender, sexuality, or race as seen in novels such as Mat Jason’s Pym? If metafiction is favored by male authorship–as some claim–how do women writers like Margaret Atwood, Clarice Lispector, Amanda Michalopoulou, Rachael Cusk, and others fit in? How is metafiction manifested and what purposes does it serve in specific genres: graphic novels, children’s and young adult fiction, autobiography/memoire/life-writing, poetry, film, or other forms of visual and verbal storytelling? What is the role of metanarrative commentary in popular culture in general? At a time when commercials, documentaries (Netflix: Adams Knows Everything), cartoons (Netflix: A Tale Dark & Grimm), and puppet shows (The Immortal Jellyfish Girl) employ metanarration, it is imperative that we reexamine meta-references across genres. Presenters will have the opportunity to submit their work in a companion on Metafiction, edited by Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis and Josh Toth, currently under contract with Routledge. Regards, Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English​ Director, Interdisciplinary Studies New York Institute of Technology 16 West 61st Street, Room #608 New York, NY 10023 website: https://lissiathanasioukrikelis.com/ *

“Death in Public” /// C19 ’24 Panel Proposal (8/21/2023; 3/14-16/2024) Pasadena USA.

deadline for submissions:  August 21, 2023 Please consider submitting an abstract for the following panel proposal for The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists’ (C19’s) 2024 conference in Pasadena. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

---

Death in Public In “Sex in Public,” Berlant and Warner urged us to consider how sex—something seemingly private—is indeed “mediated by publics.” Similar to Berlant and Warner, we investigate how the concept of death, broadly defined, was determined, imagined, augmented, and regulated as a public spectacle throughout the nineteenth century. Although our contemporary image of a good death is often one of relatives and loved ones gathered around a hospital bed in hushed silence, or the calm stillness of the hospice room, the American public is simultaneously entranced by the idea of spectacular death. Years into a resurgence of the popularity of true crime, it remains the most widely listened-to podcast genre in the United States. On social media platforms such as TikTok, interest in natural burials, morbid curiosities, serial killers, and the paranormal has been used to scam viewers into buying apps, supplements, and home security devices. Offline, the COVID-19 pandemic has politicized and publicized death and sickness on a national and global scale, in a way perhaps last seen during the 1917 flu epidemic. In one age of public interest in death, we look back to another. Biological, social, and political deaths became increasingly public in the United States throughout the nineteenth century, both as a result of highly visible, recognizable violence, such as chattel slavery, the Civil War, and presidential assassinations, as well as more insidious cultural and institutional phenomena, such as the rise of Native American residential schools, tenement housing, and asylums in the second half of the century. These events inspired interests in mesmerism and esoteric death rituals at the time, such as spirit photography and séances, that permeated contemporary religious and literary imaginations. In the twenty-first century, humanities scholars continue to respond to these events, nuancing their understandings of death and dying and revealing how the increasingly public nature of these phenomena enable them to enter new contexts and adopt new meanings. This panel seeks projects that investigate death and the public imagination throughout the nineteenth century, including but not limited to those that consider:

• • Infectious diseases and epidemics (smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, measles, malaria, etc.)

• • Public displays of grief and mourning

• • Imaginations of the “good” and “bad” death

• • Eugenics

• • Social or political death, imprisonment, or institutionalization

• • Chronic illness, terminal illness, and/or disability

• • Ghosts and hauntings, mediums and mesmerism

• • “The little death”

• • Public deaths (murders, assassinations, executions, etc.)

• • Death in/and/of the Archive

• • Queer temporalities, queer deaths

If you would like to be considered for this panel, please email a 250-word abstract as well as a brief biography to Lucy Wallitsch (lucy.wallitsch@emory.edu) and Alex Anderson (ande1204@purdue.edu) by 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday, August 21.  * Thirteenth Biennial MESEA Conference, June 12-14, 2024, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu – Moving Cultures, Moving Ethnicities Open Period for Submissions: August 15, 2023 – November 15, 2023 Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

• • John McLeod (University of Leeds)

• • Anna-Leena Toivanen (University of Eastern Finland)

• • Atlantic Studies Lecture TBC

Those of us who are “world”-travelers have the distinct experience of being different in different “worlds” and of having the capacity to remember other “worlds” and ourselves in them. – Maria Lugones, “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception” (1987) We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there you get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture. – Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing (2016) The MESEA 2024 conference invites contributions that address the diverse layers, definitions, and ‘pathways’ of mobility, including the mobility of people from one place to another, crossings and intersections of cultures, and the formation of hybrid cultural forms. At the same time, mobility, border-crossings, and migration move people emotionally, either directly or through a wide range of cultural representations, and generate various emotional responses ranging from joy and relief to fear, loss and frustration. Affecting both those who travel, those who stay, and those encountered when journeying, such experiences are personal and collective, local and global, theoretical and empirical, and reveal the perplexing nature of mobility, whether this is voluntarily or involuntarily ventured. This conference aims to look into the pluriform contact zones that form with regard to global mobility, and to further explore the ways migration affects experience in diverse ethnic and postcolonial contexts. We seek to examine questions such as:

• • How does mobility from the perspective of affect and lived experience shed light on the variety of modes and genres of (post-)migrant experiences?

• • How are the experiences of displacement, forced migration, and other conditions of unfreedom represented in narrative?

• • How are narratives of mobility and migration formed and articulated historically?

• • To what degree do narratives of mobility contribute to the formation of transnational and translocal communities, and which narratives in various affective registers circulate within them?

• • In what ways are individual and collective memories of mobility (re)framed emotionally, for instance through expressions of melancholy, dissociation, grief, or vulnerability?

• • How is the crossing of cultural borders and transculturation articulated in world literature, film, and performance art?

• • What kind of emergent and/or alternative cultural practices are connected with mobility? How do they challenge dominant notions of identity and belonging?

The 2024 MESEA Conference seeks to explore the diversity of the phenomenon in the nexus of culture, history, borders, and geopolitics. Potential paper and panel submissions can address but are not limited to topics such as follows:

• • nostalgia and narratives of return

• • narratives of forced migration, human trafficking, deportation, and transportation

• • trauma, displacement, and emplacement

• • Gothic journeys and uncanny spaces

• • tragedy, comedy, melodrama, and other genres of migration narratives

• • mourning, melancholia, and migration

• • activism, solidarity, consciousness raising

• • autobiography and memory

• • transforming and hybridizing cultural practices and texts

• • cosmopolitanisms

• • climate migration/mobility

• • home(-making) in migration

• • border communities

• • rebordering and debordering

• • gendered perspectives on mobility

• • the ethics and economics of migration

• • migration as an opportunity

Abstracts should be submitted to our website at https://mesea.org/ between August 15 and November 15, 2023. Submitters will receive notification of acceptance by January 10, 2024. The conference will be arranged as an onsite conference at UEF Joensuu Campus. Preference will be given to complete panel proposals with an inter/transdisciplinary and/or transnational focus. Panels may not include more than 2 participants from the same institution. Presenters are expected to be members of the association in 2024. Previous MESEA Conferences have led to high quality publications (https://mesea.org/publications/). As in previous years, MESEA will award at least one Young Scholars Excellence Award. For more information please visit: http://www.mesea.org Contact Email ludmila_martan@yahoo.com URL https://mesea.org/joensuu-2024/ *

“Death in Public” /// C19 ’24 Panel Proposal (8/21/2023; 3/14-16/2024) Pasadena USA.

deadline for submissions:  August 21, 2023 Please consider submitting an abstract for the following panel proposal for The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists’ (C19’s) 2024 conference in Pasadena. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

---

Death in Public In “Sex in Public,” Berlant and Warner urged us to consider how sex—something seemingly private—is indeed “mediated by publics.” Similar to Berlant and Warner, we investigate how the concept of death, broadly defined, was determined, imagined, augmented, and regulated as a public spectacle throughout the nineteenth century. Although our contemporary image of a good death is often one of relatives and loved ones gathered around a hospital bed in hushed silence, or the calm stillness of the hospice room, the American public is simultaneously entranced by the idea of spectacular death. Years into a resurgence of the popularity of true crime, it remains the most widely listened-to podcast genre in the United States. On social media platforms such as TikTok, interest in natural burials, morbid curiosities, serial killers, and the paranormal has been used to scam viewers into buying apps, supplements, and home security devices. Offline, the COVID-19 pandemic has politicized and publicized death and sickness on a national and global scale, in a way perhaps last seen during the 1917 flu epidemic. In one age of public interest in death, we look back to another. Biological, social, and political deaths became increasingly public in the United States throughout the nineteenth century, both as a result of highly visible, recognizable violence, such as chattel slavery, the Civil War, and presidential assassinations, as well as more insidious cultural and institutional phenomena, such as the rise of Native American residential schools, tenement housing, and asylums in the second half of the century. These events inspired interests in mesmerism and esoteric death rituals at the time, such as spirit photography and séances, that permeated contemporary religious and literary imaginations. In the twenty-first century, humanities scholars continue to respond to these events, nuancing their understandings of death and dying and revealing how the increasingly public nature of these phenomena enable them to enter new contexts and adopt new meanings. This panel seeks projects that investigate death and the public imagination throughout the nineteenth century, including but not limited to those that consider:

• • Infectious diseases and epidemics (smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, measles, malaria, etc.)

• • Public displays of grief and mourning

• • Imaginations of the “good” and “bad” death

• • Eugenics

• • Social or political death, imprisonment, or institutionalization

• • Chronic illness, terminal illness, and/or disability

• • Ghosts and hauntings, mediums and mesmerism

• • “The little death”

• • Public deaths (murders, assassinations, executions, etc.)

• • Death in/and/of the Archive

• • Queer temporalities, queer deaths

If you would like to be considered for this panel, please email a 250-word abstract as well as a brief biography to Lucy Wallitsch (lucy.wallitsch@emory.edu) and Alex Anderson (ande1204@purdue.ed) by 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday, August 21. *

Call for Papers

“Wildness and Wilderness in American Travel Writing” The Society for the Study of American Travel Writing (SSATW) at the American Literature Association Fall Symposium

Oct. 26-28, 2023. Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

Deadline for Submissions: August 10, 2023 The Society for the Study of American Travel Writing (SSATW) seeks proposals for a panel on “Wildness and Wilderness in American Travel Writing” at the American Literature Association’s Fall Symposium (October 26-28, 2023, in Santa Fe, New Mexico). Scholarship on any region or era of American Travel Writing is welcome. The unfamiliar, unexplored, and unsettled places have long captivated the American literary imagination and travel writing. Whether we think of wilderness as sacred, shrinking, imagined, or simulated, how has the spectacle of wildness, in unsettled or settled spaces, impinged upon representations of the American scene by travelers? Proposals might consider how travel writers have metaphorically linked subject matter and creative practice in renditions of confronting geograpies of wilderness and wildness. They might also think about the impact that the wild or the wildernss has had on individual writers, ideas of nation, or constructions of genre. Please submit abstracts of approximately 300 words no later than August 10, 2023, to Susan Roberson (susan.roberson@retiree.tamuk.edu). Early submissions are welcome. Contact Info: Susan Roberson Contact Email: susan.roberson@retiree.tamuk.edu * Women and the Sea in the Early Modern World University of Plymouth UK, Sept. 6 and 7, 2023 Deadline for Submission August 6, 2023 In-Person Online Hybrid We invite submissions for 20-minute papers from PhD students, early career researchers and established researchers from across the world. The symposium will run in a hybrid and in-person format. Call for papers The call for papers is now open. Proposals may cover topics that includes but are not limited to the themes listed below. Please email your abstract of 200–300 words and a short biography/CV to elaine.murphy@plymouth.ac.uk. The closing date for abstracts is Sunday 6 August 2023. Themes that will be covered include

• • Experiences of women at sea

• • Women living and working in maritime communities (dockyards, port towns, fishing)

• •  Women and the Navy

• •  Women and piracy

• •  Women and migration

• •  Enslaved women and the sea

• •  Indigenous women and the sea

• •  Women and private companies (EIC, VOC etc)

• •  Material culture of women at sea

• •  Lives ashore – separation from sailor husbands/family members

• •  Gender and the sea

Organisers 

• • Dr Anna Maria Forssberg, Vasa Museum

• • Dr Deborah Hamer, New Netherlands Institute

• • Dr Elaine Murphy, University of Plymouth

This event is free to attend. Registration is required and will be available soon. Please contact elaine.murphy@plymouth.ac.uk with any queries. URL https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/whats-on/women-and-the-se * Call for Book Chapters: Memory Studies: An Anthology of Perspectives Chapter proposals are invited for a volume on contemporary memory and literary studies edited by Dr. D. Sudha Rani ( VNRVJIET ), Dr. Rachel Irdaya Raj ( VNRVJIET ), Dr.Shashibhusan Nayak (GP Nayagarh). Deadline for abstract submission: 30 July 2023 Abstract selection notification: 30 August 2023 Complete Paper Submission: 30 October 2023 Memory studies is an increasingly diverse, interdisciplinary, and dynamic field of knowledge that spans multiple disciplines. Sociologists, psychologists, literary critics, media, cultural studies scholars, and natural and applied scientists have been exploring the concepts and application of memory to evolve a theoretical, conceptual, and methodological framework to investigate this emerging field of study. Memory—personal, collective, cultural—is crucial to the formation, conservation, and preservation of the identity of an individual, community, society, and nation. The act of remembering involves narration, and storytelling is a form of storing. As narration moves from oral, written, and visual forms to the digital, it becomes imperative to understand the interface between and among the human and the non-human, digital and analog, and its impact on memory and its narrativization. The explosion of technology allows us to know what we need to know and preserve what we want our future generations to know. To study and document certain forms of knowledge that are crucial to defining who we are, this interdisciplinary edited collection aims to bring together researchers, academics, technologists, corporates, and students to discuss, debate, and understand the various storytelling strategies adopted by different communities, regions, and nations to record and preserve their identities and collective memories. Since technology has assumed a crucial role in this endeavor, it is necessary to assess the impact of technology on both the content and form of memory and its narration. The edited collection attempts to understand how the past, present, and future are formed, framed, mediated, and remediated through various forms of storytelling. Drawing on the theoretical and methodological approaches offered by literary, cultural, and media studies, history, sociology, psychology, as well as science and technology, this edited collection hopes to investigate the cultural representations of languages, communities, regions, and nations in oral histories, life writings, testimonies, and fictional and nonfictional narratives. The edited collection would examine issues related to memory, identity, representation, and narrativization and the impact of digital technology on memory studies and storytelling. The edited collection invites papers on the following themes but is not limited to: •          Memory studies—theories and praxis •          Modes and methods of storytelling—of languages, communities, nations, and   regions •          Impact of digital technologies on memory and memory studies •          Language, literature, and memory •          Interdisciplinarity and intersectionality of memory and memory studies. •          Memory and oral history •          Memory and life writing •          Memory and archive •          Memory and erasure •          Memory and marginality •          Memory and textuality •          Memory, cognition, and critical theory •          Memory and the Medium of fiction •          Memory and (mis)representation •          Memory and production of identities Submissions Abstracts of about 200 words, along with up to six keywords, a 50-word bio-note, institutional affiliation, and contact details, should be emailed by 30 July 2023 to shashienglish@gmail.com as a single MS Word document attachment. Chapter requirements: A chapter should be max. Eight thousand words, including footnotes and bibliography adhering to the MLA 9th edition. Important Dates: Deadline for abstract submission: 30 July 2023 Abstract selection notification: 30 August 2023 Complete Paper Submission: 30 October 2023 *

Exploring the Nexus of Healing, Stories, and Illness in the Nineteenth Century and Today

“The Nineteenth Century Today: Interdisciplinary, International, Intertemporal” IN-CSA Conference (Durham University in Durham, UK from July 10 – July 12, 2024). deadline for submissions: August 1, 2023 Call for Papers, “Exploring the Nexus of Healing, Stories, and Illness in the Nineteenth Century and Today” for “The Nineteenth Century Today: Interdisciplinary, International, Intertemporal” IN-CSA Conference (Durham University in Durham, UK from July 10 – July 12, 2024). Please submit a 250-word abstract and a 2-page CV by August 1, 2023 to Melissa Rampelli at mrampelli@holyfamily.edu The nineteenth century witnessed profound transformations in medical practices, literary expressions, and societal attitudes toward health and illness. This panel aims to shed light on the intricate relationship between healing, storytelling, and illness (broadly conceived) during this pivotal period. In light of the IN-CSA’s interdisciplinary, international, and intertemporal theme, papers exploring the legacies–either across time, disciplines, or cultures–of the dynamic between nineteenth-century narrative, illness, and healing are particularly welcome.

*

Fans, Fandoms, and Celebrity Studies – Northeast PCA Hybrid Fall Conference 2023

deadline for submissions:  August 1, 2023 The Northeast Popular/American Culture Association (NEPCA) Fans, Fandoms, and Celebrity Studies Area invites presentation submissions for NEPCA’s hybrid conference to be held October 12 – October 14, 2023 in-person at Nichols College and virtually, via the Zoom platform. This area encourages submissions that focus on interrogating the ideas and the ideals of fans and fandoms, and why we idolize celebrities. We welcome submissions from all theoretical and philosophical perspectives. We are open to submissions in any area of fan and celebrity studies including but not limited to:

• • Creation and authenticity of fandoms

• • Fandoms, diversity and inclusion

• • Celebrity marketing, advertising, and public relations

• • Social media use and celebrity status

• • Defining fandoms

• • Fandoms and politics

• • Celebrities and illness

• • Sport fandoms and celebrities

• • Issues of fame and what it means to be famous in our culture

• • Fandom comparisons between cultures

• • Trust and value of celebrity

• • An individual celebrity

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is August 1, 2023. Please use this form to submit your abstract: https://bit.ly/NEPCA23CFP If you have questions about this Area/the NEPCA Conference please see: https://nepca.blog/2023-annual-conference/ or feel free to reach out to NEPCA’S Fans, Fandoms, and Celebrity Studies Area Chair: Dr. Shelly Jones at jonesmc@delhi.edu  The Centre for Modernist Cultures at the University of Birmingham is delighted to mark the formation of the Modern Letters Editing Network (MoLE) with a virtual workshop:  Working with Modern Letters: Ford Madox Ford, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf  on Monday, 17 July, 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm  The discussion will be led by: Professor Claire Davison, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 Professor Sara Haslam, Open University And moderated by Professor Max Saunders, University of Birmingham You are invited to a Zoom meeting. When: Jul 17, 2023 02:00 PM London Register in advance for this meeting: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvf-6przItH9UWfNyu2pA-C_sng1zIsFf9 After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining. Max Saunders Ford Madox Ford | Reaktion Books Major new centenary exhibition of paintings and drawings by Alfred Cohen has gone online: Works – Alfred Cohen | Ben Uri Gallery and Museum with accompanying fully-illustrated book: https://www.accartbooks.com/uk/store/pv/9780900157691/alfred-cohen/max-saunders-sarah-macdougall/ Imagined Futures: Writing, Science, and Modernity in the To-Day and To-Morrow Book Series, 1923-31 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/imagined-futures-9780198829454?q=saunders&lang=en&cc=gb# * The Centre for Modernist Cultures at the University of Birmingham is delighted to mark the formation of the Modern Letters Editing Network (MoLE) with a virtual workshop:  Working with Modern Letters: Ford Madox Ford, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf  on Monday, 17 July, 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm  The discussion will be led by: Professor Claire Davison, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 Professor Sara Haslam, Open University And moderated by Professor Max Saunders, University of Birmingham You are invited to a Zoom meeting. When: Jul 17, 2023 02:00 PM London Register in advance for this meeting: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvf-6przItH9UWfNyu2pA-C_sng1zIsFf9 After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining. Max Saunders Ford Madox Ford | Reaktion Books Major new centenary exhibition of paintings and drawings by Alfred Cohen has gone online: Works – Alfred Cohen | Ben Uri Gallery and Museum with accompanying fully-illustrated book: https://www.accartbooks.com/uk/store/pv/9780900157691/alfred-cohen/max-saunders-sarah-macdougall/ Imagined Futures: Writing, Science, and Modernity in the To-Day and To-Morrow Book Series, 1923-31 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/imagined-futures-9780198829454?q=saunders&lang=en&cc=gb# Deadline for Submissions July 7, 2023 International Auto/Biography Association Asia-Pacific Conference 2023  26^th-28^th Sept 2023 (online conference) “Life Narrative in Unprecedented Times: Writing the Unexpected, Narrating the Future”.  The pandemic has functioned as a reminder of the importance of life storying and testimony as records of experience, as information sharing, or as creative engagement. This conference explores the ways momentous events shape life narration in the past, now, and for the future, for instance, the role of journalism in circulating personal stories, understanding of the impacts of mental health, and a renewed engagement in family and community histories. Each of these themes has been particularly notable during COVID-19. We invite proposals that address life narratives at unprecedented times, but also how life narrative is located by recent histories in diverse contexts and temporality. The conference welcomes critical and creative responses including, but not limited to, the themes outlined below: *narrating ‘the new normal’ *disrupted/stalled futures *national/ regional/ local life narratives *narrating isolation/ lockdown *non-human and post-human lives, particularly connections during COVID/isolation *illness narratives *stories of grief and loss *ageing and storytelling *life narrative as record-keeping *memorabilia, materials and objects *social media / the rise of TikTok *children and youth as life narrators *Reality television, trends and shifts *non-fiction podcasts *travel narratives/post-COVID *genre shifts (journalism, the essay) *narratives of work and employment Papers will be 10-15 minutes in length. Proposals of 300 words + bios of 50 words should be sent to iaba.asiapacific@flinders.edu.au by 7^th July 2023. —————————-

Kate Douglas (she/her) Professor of English College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences +61 402440223 www.flinders.edu.au/people/kate.douglas

* Call for Proposals: The 39 I.S.E.B. Conference Life Stories Across Times and Spaces Courtyard Marriott in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma  (Conference site on Webpage: https://isebio.com/index.html) Conference Date: October 5-7, 2023  Submission Deadline: June 15, 2023  The International Society for Educational Biography (I.S.E.B.) invites proposals for its annual conference, to be held in partnership with The Society of Philosophy and History of Education (S.O.P.H.E.), October 5-7, 2023, at the Courtyard by Marriott Oklahoma City Downtown in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. CONFERENCE THEME: This year’s conference theme is Life Stories Across Times and Spaces.  Through the lens of time and space, we offer a robust conference space to examine the diverse forms of life writing characterizing the contemporary field. The genres of life writing include biographies such as Plato’s dialogues to St. Augustine’s Confessions, from 1-minute TikTok clips to the voluminous biographies of Winston Churchill, from Anne Frank’s diary to Princess Diana in The Crown.  We invite proposals with a special focus on the temporal and spatial dimensions of life writing and lives as they unfold as well as their writing and reception. This theme recognizes we are living in historic times that demand rigorous scrutiny and This theme recognizes we are living in historic times that demand rigorous scrutiny and discussion of the boundaries of the past and the present and between here and there. We welcome studies at any stage about biographies of all sorts, lengths, modes, and purposes, with the belief that they illuminate facets of humanity and education. Papers and presentations may include, but are not limited to, one or more of the following topics: 1. Educational biographies: constructions of self, learners, educators, agents, and communities 2. Life writing in academic discourses and spaces 3. Life recordings on social media: TikTok, Podcast, and Biopics 4. From the personal to the political: diaries, biographies, autobiographies, and beyond 5. Amplifying minoritized and subaltern voices in life writing 6. Reminiscing about the past and envisioning the future: work, family, and life 7. Conceptions of memory and time: how personal time, social events, national crises, and historical epochs framing our memories 8. Theories and practices of life writing: genres, recordings, and reconstructions 9. Perspectives and genres: autoethnography, testimonio, biography, ethnography, memoir, etc. 10. Fictionalizing historical figures in books, films, science-fiction 11. Geographic and spatial tellings: the influence of space and place in life writing SUBMISSION POLICIES:

• • Participants: Submissions are welcome from ISEB members, non-members, and independent scholars both inside and outside the US.  Graduate students and international scholars are particularly welcome to submit proposals.  Please note that non-members whose proposals are accepted are expected to become members when registering for the conference, in order to be included in the program.

• • In-Person and Virtual Participation: This conference is primarily an in-person space with opportunities for virtual presentation as well. Virtual presentations can only be offered to individual papers and panel presentations. Speakers of virtual presentations should send 15-minute video clips of their presentations no later than Monday, October 2, to ensure a smooth rendition. The speakers should be available on Zoom during the panel sessions to respond to questions. The speakers should be available on Zoom during the panel sessions to respond to questions.  If the entire panel will be virtual, all presenters must designate the same participation mode.  Virtual presenters pay the same conference fee as in-person participants.  While we will do our best to make the presentation process as seamless as possible, technological glitches are always a risk.

• • Format: Submissions should fall into one of four formats—individual papers, panels, roundtable discussions, and poster sessions.  See below for more details.

• • Abstract link: Participants must submit a title and an abstract (no more than 300 words) by June 15, 2023.  Please submit your abstract here.

PRESENTATION TYPES:

1. 1. Individual Papers: Presentations should be 15-20 minutes long.

1. 1. Panels: This category is for a 90-minute session comprised of three or four presentations on a common topic.  Each panel should have an organizer responsible for submitting the panel proposal.  The proposal must include 1) a title for the panel and titles of individual presentations, and 2) an abstract (up to 500 words) for the panel.

1. 1. Roundtable Discussion: This category facilitates interactive discussions of issues pertinent to biographies of all types.  Each roundtable lasts for 90 minutes; the panel may have up to seven members.  The panelists should take no more than 45 minutes to present their views and leave the remaining time for interaction with the audience.  The panel organizer should also serve as the moderator.  The proposal must include 1) a title for the roundtable, and 2) a summary (up to 500 words) describing the perspectives and attitudes panelists have toward the topic.

1. 1. Poster Sessions: We invite submissions for this popular form of presentation posters, where the presenter displays visually a topic relevant to the conference theme and responds to audience’s questions on the spot.  Guidelines are

1. 1. Time: 60 minutes

1. 1. Location: Tables in the conference area

1. 1. Format: Corrugated display board—trifolds opens to roughly 36” x 48” or rollable posters of similar size

1. 1. Additional Media (optional): Laptops to share photos and brief videos

FURTHER INFORMATION: For more information, please email smou@depauw.edu or visit https://isebio.com/index.html Contact Info: Dr. Sherry Mou DePauw University Contact Email: smou@depauw.edu *

Representations of Ethnic Deportations from Eastern and Central Europe to the Soviet Union During and After World War I

Deadline: July 15, 2023 Call for Papers We are seeking contributors to a special issue or edited volume on representations of ethnic deportations from Eastern and Central Europe to the Soviet Union (1930-during and after WWII) favoring representations from ethnic minority groups. Articles are not limited to but can focus on:

• • first and second generation memory, postmemory (Hirsch) as expressed in life-writing, literary representations of all genres, art of all genres

• • on “portable monuments” (Rigney), narratives/stories/histories that could be re-written, appropriated, and transformed in new contexts

• • cultural memory and translation, the circulation of memory between places and languages

• • analyses of varied forms of curating memory (online exhibits, traveling exhibits, museums, monuments, installations, performance, anniversaries and commemorations, film, documentaries)

• • how, in the absence of a crystallized, hard memory, the historical documents and the representations analyzed serve as viable examples of soft memory that succeed in memorializing the forced labor camps experience in its collective and individual forms (‘Soft’ and ‘hard’ memory of deportation (Etkind) in collective and individual forms)

• • new English translations of works (poems, songs, diary entrances, letters, postcards, notes, etc.) by ethnic deportees, if they are subject of analysis or commentary and relate to the cluster and do not exceed 5 pages.

Please send up to 1,000-word proposals by July 15, 2023. Contact Info: Anca Luca Holden, aholden@amherst.edu Oana Popescu Sandu opopescusa@usi.edu Contact Email: ancaholden@yahoo.com * Deadline for Submissions July 15, 2022 Hegemony and peripherality in autobiographical writings: texts, contexts, visibility *** XXII Symposium of the Osservatorio scientifico della memoria autobiografica scritta, orale e iconografica                                                              Academia Belgica, Via Omero 8 ROMA 5, 6, 7 December 2023 Promoted and organized by: Mediapolis.Europa ass. cult. http://mediapoliseuropa.com/ and by Grupo de Investigación “Lectura, Escritura, Alfabetización” (LEA), Universidad de Alcalá Seminario Interdisciplinar de Estudios sobre Cultura Escrita (SIECE), Universidad de Alcalá Nowadays, great store is set on autobiographical – and more generally private – documentation. In the past decades, archives for the preservation of documents have multiplied, while it seems to us that studies aimed at examining their forms remain less satisfactory. However, the latter represent an essential aspect that helps us to understand not just the content of a document but the way of forging it, of forging a testimony, and how documents were made transmissible and comparable. Some questions arise in this regard: – Can the texts of authors and writers be subjected to the same methods of formal analysis? – In what way does the concept of hegemony transpire in an autobiographical text? – How can memory be safeguarded and given value? – Can contemporary society be observed through a clear distinction between social classes? What kind of terminology should be adopted to classify them? – How do the works of authors and writers interact? – To what extent has the digital revolution expanded autobiographical practice and how does it transform it? Submitting the various bodies of work to the same methodological criteria regardless of designation by content or social background appears to be a reasonable intent. The history of culture and science teaches us how the move from listing to classification in the 17^th century, as illustrated by Foucault (1966: 137-176), made it possible to make scientific data comparable. What follows are some points aimed at suggesting some of the possible outlines around which a line of research can be developed. 1. Recognizing oneself within a minority culture. The issue of hegemonies was addressed by Antonio Gramsci (1975). The observation whereby those who exercise hegemony tend to give conformity to language and every form of expression, therefore making them cohesive and comparable, contrasts with the plurality of minority cultures, which are less inscribable into formal constants. There is a vast body of documentation – illustrated and discussed by Antonio Castillo Gómez (2022), among others – on the many archival initiatives that developed especially at the beginning of the 20^th century to preserve these sources, and on their now widely acknowledged importance. It is precisely the spurious origins of these sources that make a formal classification of the texts more difficult, at least at first glance. Unlike authors, writers do not aim to pursue a style, as Barthes points out (1996: 153). Writers should not necessarily be understood as ordinary people. Leonardo da Vinci regarded himself as a writer and not as an author, “not a literary man,” as he defined himself writing to Ludovico il Moro in 1482. He did not know Latin very well, and for this reason he was not regarded as a man of letters. The book Kafka. Toward a Minor Literature (G. Deleuze-F. Guattari, 1975) leads to foundational reflections on this issue, which should constitute a new alphabet for the very conception of the term ‘culture’. In this text Deleuze and Guattari highlight how being without roots, being de-territorialized, leads not to an impoverishment of thought and expressions, but rather to exploring from the margins, from the borders: a distancing that makes it possible to glimpse new lexical, conceptual forms that are open to exchange. Every minority culture (which today have multiplied thanks to the many languages that are circulating, to the multiple forms of coexistence that are necessary in a world in motion) can constitute the instrument required to prevent culture from being ossified into apparatuses. Minority culture develops languages and a conception of space that is labyrinthine, de-confined, thereby suggesting new perspectives. So, who feels legitimized to write? How can experiences that do not come from a canonical style be made well-rounded, rich? In this view, the archives and the written testimonies of ordinary people should not be regarded as mere hunting grounds, but as texts in the strict sense of the term. Chasse aux archives [hunting the archives] is the expression used by Philippe Lejeune to define the voracity for texts from minority and testimonial cultures: “The idea that, within some generations, your texts are tampered with in order to gain information on any subject, without knowing what they are about […] would be disgusting. In order to avoid these misunderstandings, I would strongly emphasize that ‘Hunting is prohibited’”. (Ph. Lejeune 2005: 120-121. The translation is mine). 2. Far from where? In the case of autobiographical writing, it is possible to glimpse a feeling of being or not being part of a hegemonical entity in the position assumed by the subject as it shows itself to be or not be an integral part of a centre or of a periphery. This is not just about a marginality based on social grounds, but more cogently based on a vision of the subject’s own language and culture in their potential to be relevant within a context (Fabio Dei 2018). How does an individual conceive of his or her centrality? Where, when, and how is it possible to circumscribe the position of a writer relaying his or her own life? How does the assumption of a certain stance define an autobiographical narration, legitimise it, structure it also in view of an external glance, of a real, imagined or searched visibility? How does the narrating ‘I’ adopt a perspective of introjection or of extimité, centripetal or centrifugal? Lontano da dove is the title of a book by Claudio Magris (1989). It deals with the drama of thousands of people, their conditions at the time of the crumbling of the powerful Hapsburg Empire. It is a metaphor for the conception of centre and periphery, of hegemony and marginality, of exile as an essential condition. An idea that, starting from a political-cultural analysis, grows into a lexicon, into cultural models, it delineates individual destiny. Magris’s Lontano da dove highlights the difficulty encountered by an individual who, not being part of the hegemonic culture, is observed/observes him/herself and is positioned/positions him/herself as a marginal body. 3. The semantics of the autobiographical text The narrating ‘I’ manifests itself through expressions that testify to its sociocultural and topographical position, and that inscribe it into certain spatial-temporal categories. As George Lakoff and Mark Johnson write (2004 [1980]) in their study Metaphors we live by (see the paragraph “The Me-First Orientation”), our way of narrating is modelled on modi pensandi. A whole cultural conception governs these forms of expression, in which the individual modulates self-narration and relates to the world around him or her. Word order was studied by William Cooper & John Robert Ross (1975). Even the choice of the mother’s or the other’s language and its modelling are cues to the posture of the ‘I’, just as photographs and the ever-widespread selfies signal how self-representation is intended. In other words, in adopting a written or audio-visual register, the ‘l’ allows us to understand how and where it positions itself. Photographic and video images define its autography. Like every form of expression, language is a system composed of relations. In order to understand its meaning, a mapping is necessary, which can be delineated through contents or voids: analysing the use of languages proves to be a tool for outlining not just established but potential relations (L. Hjelmslev 2009). Iconographic expressions such as selfies and those found on the Internet (P. Sibilia 2008) follow the same pattern: showing or not showing reveals a willingness to not just self-narrate in the present but to envision what one would like to be. In the same passage, Hjelmslev argues that language forms itself into a tangle of empty places founded on a veritable difference in potential. 4. The position of the ‘I’ and the language referred to the body An example: in psychiatric patients – who are quintessentially marginal – oral, written and graphic expressions are still closely anchored to the body, to physical actions. Binswanger, a psychiatrist with long-time experience of dialogue with patients, writes: “Out of the blue”, “being in seventh heaven” are expressions of our Dasein, our being. And even though myths and poetry allow us, though a universalizing metaphorical language, to share sensations, feelings and psychic experiences, the “I nonetheless remains the original subject of what raises or falls” (L. Binswanger 2012: 42. The translation is mine). Binswanger, who had inscribed his vision into Heidegger’s philosophy for a long time, gradually distanced himself from his ontological conception to immerse it into concrete cases. An entire vocabulary places the acts of the patient’s Dasein into space: vertiginous height, ascension, altitude, infinity, etc. (L. Binswanger 1971: 237-245). It is possible to suppose that the desire to evade, to disengage, in psychiatric patients determines its lexicon. More generally, in autobiographical writings reference to the body as a vehicle of experiences that crossed it appears to be important. 5. The ‘truth”: what the ‘I’ shows or conceals. Transparency and obstruction The truth is the foundational theme of every autobiography. It can be granted by the pact that the writer makes with the reader. Philippe Lejeune’s work docet (Ph. Lejeune: 1975). The theme of truth powerfully crosses autobiographical writing. Writing about oneself and claiming that it is true implies a pact with a whole series of confirmations and complex manoeuvres. Autofictions intend to escape this criterion. Rousseau’s Confessions, a classic of autobiographical writing, is born as a form of self-externalization that makes uncertainties public in order to justify actions that, within the framework of one’s way of recounting, should be justified. Starobinski calls this attitude ‘transparency and obstruction’.  “Rousseau desired communication and transparency of the heart. But after pursuing this avenue and meeting with disappointment, he chose the opposite course, accepting – indeed provoking – obstructions, which enabled him to withdraw, certain of his innocence, into passive resignation.” (J. Starobinski 1971 : 1. The terms in italics are in the original text). Every kind of writing – and, a fortiori, autobiographical writing – exposes and conceals realities that can nonetheless be glimpsed. In sum, this is Poppea’s veil, which lets us see and not see, thereby raising, demanding more questions than certainties (J. Starobinski 1961). Resolving and understanding the distinction between truth and falsehood requires the use of many coordinates (N. Frogneux 2021); it cannot be submitted to an automatic judgement, either in the historical or in the autobiographical field (see: Carlo Ginzburg, Il filo e le tracce. Vero falso finto 2015). Even adopting a codified language (as Lotman and Bachtin note: see infra) can be a concealment, or an illusion that you can judge a book by its cover. Often, a strong determination to show that the truth is being told is also realized through reference to realia, to what is visible and concrete. In many autobiographies, writers include registry documents. With utmost precision, they mention dates and places in order to make their testimony more believable (B. Barbalato 2009). 6. How writers conceive of hegemony by adopting certain codified forms Lotman writes that a great man or a bandit must find a good reason for regarding himself as an individual who has the right to biography (J. Lotman 1985: 194). Writing life stories, both biographical and autobiographical, requires a formal choice. For this reason, Lotman asserts that a peasant’s opportunistic use of the language of the church or of bureaucracy allows him to inscribe himself into a legitimacy. Also, think of what Bachtin (103) says about unsophisticated culture, about the peasant who, living in an isolated context, believes that every language corresponds exactly to the reality that he wants to designate. The same conviction is shared by André Gide, who asserts that often unsophisticated sources formally represent a copy of the copy (A. Gide 1997 [1926-1950]: 572). Gide dispels the misunderstanding of the authenticity of the document of ordinary people. No writing is spontaneous, let alone the authenticity of those who do not practise writing. The codes to which one resorts can be regarded as a passepartout for the legitimization of one’s own narration and conception of truth, which is thus validated (see A. Castillo Gómez 2016 and V. Sierra Blas 2018). Another important observation by Bachtin concerns the diversity in conceiving and observing a life path today and in antiquity. In antiquity, public and private space was conceived of as one and the same thing. In self-representation there was no difference between an internal self and an external one. The topos was the agora (Ibid.: 279-282). This call for papers invites proposals aimed at examining writers’ and authors’ ways, forms and goals of self-expression, and it intends to investigate mutual contaminations and interferences. Besides what has already been said, particular attention is to be paid to how self-narration presents itself as opening towards the future, how it lets its expectations transpire. In writings there is a quid, a void whose contours, whose latencies are difficult to intercept but nonetheless exist. Wishes are not always openly expressed; often they can be glimpsed between the lines of a text. As Binswanger writes, writing about oneself is a way of letting the future come to oneself. (1971: 261). How can this aspect be interpreted, understood? Michail Bachtin 1979 [1975- Mosca 1955]:1975], “La parola nella poesía e la parola nel romanzo”, 83-108, “La biografía e l’autobiografia antica”, 277-293, in Id., Estetica e romanzo, transl. by Clara Strada Janovic, Torino, Einaudi. Beatrice Barbalato (2009), “L’ipersegnicità nelle testimonianze autobiografiche”, 387-400, in Silvia Bonacchi (ed.), Intr. Anna Tylusińska-Kowalska, Le récit du moi: forme, strutture, modello del racconto autobiografico, in Kwartalnik neofilologiczny, Polska Akademia Nauk, Warsaw 29-30 April 2008. editor: Franciszek Grucza. B. Barbalato-Albert Mingelgrün (eds.) 2012, Télémaque, Archiver et interpréter les témoignages autobiographiques, Louvain-la Neuve, Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Roland Barthes  1998 [“Tel Quel”, 1964], “Écrivains et écrivants”, in Essais critiques, Paris, Seuil. Ludwig Binswanger 1971 [1947], “Le sens anthropologique de la présomption”, 237-245, in Id., Introduction à l’analyse existentielle, translated from the French by Jacqueline Verdeaux and Roland Kuhn, preface by R. Kuhn and Henri Maldiney, Paris, Éd. de Minuit. – Rêve et existence 2012 [1930] translation and introduction Françoise Dastur, postface by E. Basso, Paris, Vrin. Antonio Castillo Gómez 2022, “Voix subalternes. Archives et mémoire écrite des classes populaires”, 117-135, in S. Péquignot and Y. Potin (dir.), Les conflits d’archives, France, Espagne, Méditerranée, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes. Daniele Combierati 2010, Scrivere nella lingua dell’altro, Bruxelles, Peter Lang. William Cooper & John Robert Ross 1975, “World order”, 63–111, in R. E. Grossman et al. (eds.), Papers from the parasession on functionalism, Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Fabio Dei 2018, Cultura popolare in Italia da Gramsci all’Unesco, Bologna, il Mulino.

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari 1975, Kafka. Pour une littérature mineure, Paris, Éd. De Minuit. Michel Foucault 1966, “Classer”, 137-176, in Id, Les mots et le choses, Paris, Gallimard. Nathalie Frogneux, “Une phénoménologie de la vie mensongère”, in Le Phénomène humain. Revue Philosophique de Louvain 118(4), 2021, 573-591. doi: 10.2143/RPL.118.4.3290142. André Gide 1997, Journal 1926-1950, Paris, Gallimard, vol. II. Carlo Ginzburg 2006), Il filo e le tracce. Vero falso finto, Feltrinelli, Milano. Louis Hjelmslev 1975, Résumé of a Theory of Language. Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Copenhague, vol. XVI. Copenhague: Nordisk Sprog- og Kulturforlag. –        (2009), Teoria del linguaggio. Résumé, = TLR, Vicenza, Terra Ferma, Vicenza. Antonio Gramsci 1975, Quaderni del carcere, 3, Quaderni 12-29, critical edition of the Istituto Gramsci by Valentino Gerratana, Torino, Einaudi. Georges Lakoff, Mark Johnson, 2003 [1980], Metaphors We Live By, Chicago-London, The University of Chicago Press. Philippe Lejeune 1975, Le pacte autobiographique, Paris, Seuil. – “Je ne suis pas une source”, Entretien de Ph. Artières, 115-137, in Id., Signes de vie – Le pacte autobiographique 2, 2, Seuil 2005. Ronan Le Roux, « De quoi jouit l’archiviste ? Méditation certalienne sur le ‘vol d’âme’ », in Elodie Belkorchia, Georges Cuer, Françoise Hiraux (dir.), Du matériel à l’immatériel, La Gazette des archives n°262 (2021-2). Jurij M. Lotman 1985, “Il diritto alla biografia”, in Id., La semiosfera-L’asimmetria e il dialogo nelle strutture pensanti, edited and translated from the Russian by Simonetta Salvestroni, Venezia, Marsilio. Claudio Magris 1989, Lontano da Dove, Joseph Roth e la tradizione ebraico-orientale, Torino Einaudi. Paula Sibilia 2008, O show do eu: a intimidade como espetáculo, Rio de Janeiro, Nova Fronteira. Verónica Sierra Blas 2016, Cartas presas. La correspondencia carcelaria en la Guerra Civil y el Franquismo, Madrid, Marcial Pons. Jean Starobinski 1961, “Le voile de Poppée”, 7-27, in Id, L’oeil vivant, Gallimard, 1961. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction. Trans. by Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. Judging panel: Beatrice Barbalato, Mediapolis.europa ass, cult., Université catholique de Louvain Antonio Castillo Gómez, Universidad de Alcalá Nathalie Frogneux, Université catholique de Louvain Verónica Sierra Blas, Universidad de Alcalá Symposium organized by: Mediapolis.Europa (Irene Meliciani: managing director) Mnemosyne o la costruzione del senso, Presses universitaires de Louvain Grupo de Investigación “Lectura, Escritura, Alfabetización” (LEA), Universidad de Alcalá Seminario Interdisciplinar de Estudios sobre Cultura Escrita (SIECE), Universidad de Alcalá This symposium is part of the research project Vox populi. Espacios, prácticas y estrategias de visibilidad de las escrituras del margen en las épocas Moderna y Contemporánea (PID2019-107881GB-I00), financed by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Spain). Suggestions for sending proposals   The languages admitted for submission are: Italian, Spanish, French, English, Portuguese. Everyone is allowed to write in one of these languages. There will be no simultaneous translation. A passive understanding of these languages is desirable. A) Deadline for submission: 15 July 2023. The abstract will be composed of 250 words (max), with citation of two reference sources, and a brief CV (max: 100 words), with possible mention of two of one’s own publications, be they articles, books, or videos. The judging panel will read and select every proposal, which is to be sent to beatrice.barbalato@gmail.com, antonio.castillo@uah.es For information: beatrice.barbalato@gmail.com, antonio.castillo@uah.es,  irenemeliciani@gmail.com The authors of the accepted proposals will be notified by 30 July 2023. B) Regarding enrolment in the colloquium, once the proposals are accepted the fees are: Before 30 September 2023: 150.00€ From 1 to 30 October 2023:  180.00€ Enrolment fee cannot be accepted in loco For graduate students: Before 30 September 2023: 100.00€ From 1to 30 October 2023:   90.00€ Enrolment fee cannot be accepted in loco Once the programme is established, no change is allowed. For activities related to this topic at the University and cultural centers in Spain see the sites http://www.siece.es/   http://grafosfera.blogspot.com/ For information on the symposia organized in previous years by the Osservatorio della memoria autobiografica  scritta, orale e iconografica, visit the site: http://mediapoliseuropa.com/ Deadline for Submissions July 7, 2023 International Auto/Biography Association Asia-Pacific Conference 2023  26^th-28^th Sept 2023 (online conference) “Life Narrative in Unprecedented Times: Writing the Unexpected, Narrating the Future”.  The pandemic has functioned as a reminder of the importance of life storying and testimony as records of experience, as information sharing, or as creative engagement. This conference explores the ways momentous events shape life narration in the past, now, and for the future, for instance, the role of journalism in circulating personal stories, understanding of the impacts of mental health, and a renewed engagement in family and community histories. Each of these themes has been particularly notable during COVID-19. We invite proposals that address life narratives at unprecedented times, but also how life narrative is located by recent histories in diverse contexts and temporality. The conference welcomes critical and creative responses including, but not limited to, the themes outlined below: *narrating ‘the new normal’ *disrupted/stalled futures *national/ regional/ local life narratives *narrating isolation/ lockdown *non-human and post-human lives, particularly connections during COVID/isolation *illness narratives *stories of grief and loss *ageing and storytelling *life narrative as record-keeping *memorabilia, materials and objects *social media / the rise of TikTok *children and youth as life narrators *Reality television, trends and shifts *non-fiction podcasts *travel narratives/post-COVID *genre shifts (journalism, the essay) *narratives of work and employment Papers will be 10-15 minutes in length. Proposals of 300 words + bios of 50 words should be sent to iaba.asiapacific@flinders.edu.au by 7^th July 2023. —————————-

Kate Douglas (she/her) Professor of English College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences +61 402440223 www.flinders.edu.au/people/kate.douglas

* Call for Proposals: The 39 I.S.E.B. Conference Life Stories Across Times and Spaces Courtyard Marriott in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma  (Conference site on Webpage: https://isebio.com/index.html) Conference Date: October 5-7, 2023  Submission Deadline: June 15, 2023  The International Society for Educational Biography (I.S.E.B.) invites proposals for its annual conference, to be held in partnership with The Society of Philosophy and History of Education (S.O.P.H.E.), October 5-7, 2023, at the Courtyard by Marriott Oklahoma City Downtown in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. CONFERENCE THEME: This year’s conference theme is Life Stories Across Times and Spaces.  Through the lens of time and space, we offer a robust conference space to examine the diverse forms of life writing characterizing the contemporary field. The genres of life writing include biographies such as Plato’s dialogues to St. Augustine’s Confessions, from 1-minute TikTok clips to the voluminous biographies of Winston Churchill, from Anne Frank’s diary to Princess Diana in The Crown.  We invite proposals with a special focus on the temporal and spatial dimensions of life writing and lives as they unfold as well as their writing and reception. This theme recognizes we are living in historic times that demand rigorous scrutiny and This theme recognizes we are living in historic times that demand rigorous scrutiny and discussion of the boundaries of the past and the present and between here and there. We welcome studies at any stage about biographies of all sorts, lengths, modes, and purposes, with the belief that they illuminate facets of humanity and education. Papers and presentations may include, but are not limited to, one or more of the following topics: 1. Educational biographies: constructions of self, learners, educators, agents, and communities 2. Life writing in academic discourses and spaces 3. Life recordings on social media: TikTok, Podcast, and Biopics 4. From the personal to the political: diaries, biographies, autobiographies, and beyond 5. Amplifying minoritized and subaltern voices in life writing 6. Reminiscing about the past and envisioning the future: work, family, and life 7. Conceptions of memory and time: how personal time, social events, national crises, and historical epochs framing our memories 8. Theories and practices of life writing: genres, recordings, and reconstructions 9. Perspectives and genres: autoethnography, testimonio, biography, ethnography, memoir, etc. 10. Fictionalizing historical figures in books, films, science-fiction 11. Geographic and spatial tellings: the influence of space and place in life writing SUBMISSION POLICIES:

• • Participants: Submissions are welcome from ISEB members, non-members, and independent scholars both inside and outside the US.  Graduate students and international scholars are particularly welcome to submit proposals.  Please note that non-members whose proposals are accepted are expected to become members when registering for the conference, in order to be included in the program.

• • In-Person and Virtual Participation: This conference is primarily an in-person space with opportunities for virtual presentation as well. Virtual presentations can only be offered to individual papers and panel presentations. Speakers of virtual presentations should send 15-minute video clips of their presentations no later than Monday, October 2, to ensure a smooth rendition. The speakers should be available on Zoom during the panel sessions to respond to questions. The speakers should be available on Zoom during the panel sessions to respond to questions.  If the entire panel will be virtual, all presenters must designate the same participation mode.  Virtual presenters pay the same conference fee as in-person participants.  While we will do our best to make the presentation process as seamless as possible, technological glitches are always a risk.

• • Format: Submissions should fall into one of four formats—individual papers, panels, roundtable discussions, and poster sessions.  See below for more details.

• • Abstract link: Participants must submit a title and an abstract (no more than 300 words) by June 15, 2023.  Please submit your abstract here.

PRESENTATION TYPES:

1. 1. Individual Papers: Presentations should be 15-20 minutes long.

1. 1. Panels: This category is for a 90-minute session comprised of three or four presentations on a common topic.  Each panel should have an organizer responsible for submitting the panel proposal.  The proposal must include 1) a title for the panel and titles of individual presentations, and 2) an abstract (up to 500 words) for the panel.

1. 1. Roundtable Discussion: This category facilitates interactive discussions of issues pertinent to biographies of all types.  Each roundtable lasts for 90 minutes; the panel may have up to seven members.  The panelists should take no more than 45 minutes to present their views and leave the remaining time for interaction with the audience.  The panel organizer should also serve as the moderator.  The proposal must include 1) a title for the roundtable, and 2) a summary (up to 500 words) describing the perspectives and attitudes panelists have toward the topic.

1. 1. Poster Sessions: We invite submissions for this popular form of presentation posters, where the presenter displays visually a topic relevant to the conference theme and responds to audience’s questions on the spot.  Guidelines are

1. 1. Time: 60 minutes

1. 1. Location: Tables in the conference area

1. 1. Format: Corrugated display board—trifolds opens to roughly 36” x 48” or rollable posters of similar size

1. 1. Additional Media (optional): Laptops to share photos and brief videos

FURTHER INFORMATION: For more information, please email smou@depauw.edu or visit https://isebio.com/index.html Contact Info: Dr. Sherry Mou DePauw University Contact Email: smou@depauw.edu *

Representations of Ethnic Deportations from Eastern and Central Europe to the Soviet Union During and After World War I

Deadline: July 15, 2023 Call for Papers We are seeking contributors to a special issue or edited volume on representations of ethnic deportations from Eastern and Central Europe to the Soviet Union (1930-during and after WWII) favoring representations from ethnic minority groups. Articles are not limited to but can focus on:

• • first and second generation memory, postmemory (Hirsch) as expressed in life-writing, literary representations of all genres, art of all genres

• • on “portable monuments” (Rigney), narratives/stories/histories that could be re-written, appropriated, and transformed in new contexts

• • cultural memory and translation, the circulation of memory between places and languages

• • analyses of varied forms of curating memory (online exhibits, traveling exhibits, museums, monuments, installations, performance, anniversaries and commemorations, film, documentaries)

• • how, in the absence of a crystallized, hard memory, the historical documents and the representations analyzed serve as viable examples of soft memory that succeed in memorializing the forced labor camps experience in its collective and individual forms (‘Soft’ and ‘hard’ memory of deportation (Etkind) in collective and individual forms)

• • new English translations of works (poems, songs, diary entrances, letters, postcards, notes, etc.) by ethnic deportees, if they are subject of analysis or commentary and relate to the cluster and do not exceed 5 pages.

Please send up to 1,000-word proposals by July 15, 2023. Contact Info: Anca Luca Holden, aholden@amherst.edu Oana Popescu Sandu opopescusa@usi.edu Contact Email: ancaholden@yahoo.com * Deadline for Submissions July 15, 2022 Hegemony and peripherality in autobiographical writings: texts, contexts, visibility *** XXII Symposium of the Osservatorio scientifico della memoria autobiografica scritta, orale e iconografica                                                              Academia Belgica, Via Omero 8 ROMA 5, 6, 7 December 2023 Promoted and organized by: Mediapolis.Europa ass. cult. http://mediapoliseuropa.com/ and by Grupo de Investigación “Lectura, Escritura, Alfabetización” (LEA), Universidad de Alcalá Seminario Interdisciplinar de Estudios sobre Cultura Escrita (SIECE), Universidad de Alcalá Nowadays, great store is set on autobiographical – and more generally private – documentation. In the past decades, archives for the preservation of documents have multiplied, while it seems to us that studies aimed at examining their forms remain less satisfactory. However, the latter represent an essential aspect that helps us to understand not just the content of a document but the way of forging it, of forging a testimony, and how documents were made transmissible and comparable. Some questions arise in this regard: – Can the texts of authors and writers be subjected to the same methods of formal analysis? – In what way does the concept of hegemony transpire in an autobiographical text? – How can memory be safeguarded and given value? – Can contemporary society be observed through a clear distinction between social classes? What kind of terminology should be adopted to classify them? – How do the works of authors and writers interact? – To what extent has the digital revolution expanded autobiographical practice and how does it transform it? Submitting the various bodies of work to the same methodological criteria regardless of designation by content or social background appears to be a reasonable intent. The history of culture and science teaches us how the move from listing to classification in the 17^th century, as illustrated by Foucault (1966: 137-176), made it possible to make scientific data comparable. What follows are some points aimed at suggesting some of the possible outlines around which a line of research can be developed. 1. Recognizing oneself within a minority culture. The issue of hegemonies was addressed by Antonio Gramsci (1975). The observation whereby those who exercise hegemony tend to give conformity to language and every form of expression, therefore making them cohesive and comparable, contrasts with the plurality of minority cultures, which are less inscribable into formal constants. There is a vast body of documentation – illustrated and discussed by Antonio Castillo Gómez (2022), among others – on the many archival initiatives that developed especially at the beginning of the 20^th century to preserve these sources, and on their now widely acknowledged importance. It is precisely the spurious origins of these sources that make a formal classification of the texts more difficult, at least at first glance. Unlike authors, writers do not aim to pursue a style, as Barthes points out (1996: 153). Writers should not necessarily be understood as ordinary people. Leonardo da Vinci regarded himself as a writer and not as an author, “not a literary man,” as he defined himself writing to Ludovico il Moro in 1482. He did not know Latin very well, and for this reason he was not regarded as a man of letters. The book Kafka. Toward a Minor Literature (G. Deleuze-F. Guattari, 1975) leads to foundational reflections on this issue, which should constitute a new alphabet for the very conception of the term ‘culture’. In this text Deleuze and Guattari highlight how being without roots, being de-territorialized, leads not to an impoverishment of thought and expressions, but rather to exploring from the margins, from the borders: a distancing that makes it possible to glimpse new lexical, conceptual forms that are open to exchange. Every minority culture (which today have multiplied thanks to the many languages that are circulating, to the multiple forms of coexistence that are necessary in a world in motion) can constitute the instrument required to prevent culture from being ossified into apparatuses. Minority culture develops languages and a conception of space that is labyrinthine, de-confined, thereby suggesting new perspectives. So, who feels legitimized to write? How can experiences that do not come from a canonical style be made well-rounded, rich? In this view, the archives and the written testimonies of ordinary people should not be regarded as mere hunting grounds, but as texts in the strict sense of the term. Chasse aux archives [hunting the archives] is the expression used by Philippe Lejeune to define the voracity for texts from minority and testimonial cultures: “The idea that, within some generations, your texts are tampered with in order to gain information on any subject, without knowing what they are about […] would be disgusting. In order to avoid these misunderstandings, I would strongly emphasize that ‘Hunting is prohibited’”. (Ph. Lejeune 2005: 120-121. The translation is mine). 2. Far from where? In the case of autobiographical writing, it is possible to glimpse a feeling of being or not being part of a hegemonical entity in the position assumed by the subject as it shows itself to be or not be an integral part of a centre or of a periphery. This is not just about a marginality based on social grounds, but more cogently based on a vision of the subject’s own language and culture in their potential to be relevant within a context (Fabio Dei 2018). How does an individual conceive of his or her centrality? Where, when, and how is it possible to circumscribe the position of a writer relaying his or her own life? How does the assumption of a certain stance define an autobiographical narration, legitimise it, structure it also in view of an external glance, of a real, imagined or searched visibility? How does the narrating ‘I’ adopt a perspective of introjection or of extimité, centripetal or centrifugal? Lontano da dove is the title of a book by Claudio Magris (1989). It deals with the drama of thousands of people, their conditions at the time of the crumbling of the powerful Hapsburg Empire. It is a metaphor for the conception of centre and periphery, of hegemony and marginality, of exile as an essential condition. An idea that, starting from a political-cultural analysis, grows into a lexicon, into cultural models, it delineates individual destiny. Magris’s Lontano da dove highlights the difficulty encountered by an individual who, not being part of the hegemonic culture, is observed/observes him/herself and is positioned/positions him/herself as a marginal body. 3. The semantics of the autobiographical text The narrating ‘I’ manifests itself through expressions that testify to its sociocultural and topographical position, and that inscribe it into certain spatial-temporal categories. As George Lakoff and Mark Johnson write (2004 [1980]) in their study Metaphors we live by (see the paragraph “The Me-First Orientation”), our way of narrating is modelled on modi pensandi. A whole cultural conception governs these forms of expression, in which the individual modulates self-narration and relates to the world around him or her. Word order was studied by William Cooper & John Robert Ross (1975). Even the choice of the mother’s or the other’s language and its modelling are cues to the posture of the ‘I’, just as photographs and the ever-widespread selfies signal how self-representation is intended. In other words, in adopting a written or audio-visual register, the ‘l’ allows us to understand how and where it positions itself. Photographic and video images define its autography. Like every form of expression, language is a system composed of relations. In order to understand its meaning, a mapping is necessary, which can be delineated through contents or voids: analysing the use of languages proves to be a tool for outlining not just established but potential relations (L. Hjelmslev 2009). Iconographic expressions such as selfies and those found on the Internet (P. Sibilia 2008) follow the same pattern: showing or not showing reveals a willingness to not just self-narrate in the present but to envision what one would like to be. In the same passage, Hjelmslev argues that language forms itself into a tangle of empty places founded on a veritable difference in potential. 4. The position of the ‘I’ and the language referred to the body An example: in psychiatric patients – who are quintessentially marginal – oral, written and graphic expressions are still closely anchored to the body, to physical actions. Binswanger, a psychiatrist with long-time experience of dialogue with patients, writes: “Out of the blue”, “being in seventh heaven” are expressions of our Dasein, our being. And even though myths and poetry allow us, though a universalizing metaphorical language, to share sensations, feelings and psychic experiences, the “I nonetheless remains the original subject of what raises or falls” (L. Binswanger 2012: 42. The translation is mine). Binswanger, who had inscribed his vision into Heidegger’s philosophy for a long time, gradually distanced himself from his ontological conception to immerse it into concrete cases. An entire vocabulary places the acts of the patient’s Dasein into space: vertiginous height, ascension, altitude, infinity, etc. (L. Binswanger 1971: 237-245). It is possible to suppose that the desire to evade, to disengage, in psychiatric patients determines its lexicon. More generally, in autobiographical writings reference to the body as a vehicle of experiences that crossed it appears to be important. 5. The ‘truth”: what the ‘I’ shows or conceals. Transparency and obstruction The truth is the foundational theme of every autobiography. It can be granted by the pact that the writer makes with the reader. Philippe Lejeune’s work docet (Ph. Lejeune: 1975). The theme of truth powerfully crosses autobiographical writing. Writing about oneself and claiming that it is true implies a pact with a whole series of confirmations and complex manoeuvres. Autofictions intend to escape this criterion. Rousseau’s Confessions, a classic of autobiographical writing, is born as a form of self-externalization that makes uncertainties public in order to justify actions that, within the framework of one’s way of recounting, should be justified. Starobinski calls this attitude ‘transparency and obstruction’.  “Rousseau desired communication and transparency of the heart. But after pursuing this avenue and meeting with disappointment, he chose the opposite course, accepting – indeed provoking – obstructions, which enabled him to withdraw, certain of his innocence, into passive resignation.” (J. Starobinski 1971 : 1. The terms in italics are in the original text). Every kind of writing – and, a fortiori, autobiographical writing – exposes and conceals realities that can nonetheless be glimpsed. In sum, this is Poppea’s veil, which lets us see and not see, thereby raising, demanding more questions than certainties (J. Starobinski 1961). Resolving and understanding the distinction between truth and falsehood requires the use of many coordinates (N. Frogneux 2021); it cannot be submitted to an automatic judgement, either in the historical or in the autobiographical field (see: Carlo Ginzburg, Il filo e le tracce. Vero falso finto 2015). Even adopting a codified language (as Lotman and Bachtin note: see infra) can be a concealment, or an illusion that you can judge a book by its cover. Often, a strong determination to show that the truth is being told is also realized through reference to realia, to what is visible and concrete. In many autobiographies, writers include registry documents. With utmost precision, they mention dates and places in order to make their testimony more believable (B. Barbalato 2009). 6. How writers conceive of hegemony by adopting certain codified forms Lotman writes that a great man or a bandit must find a good reason for regarding himself as an individual who has the right to biography (J. Lotman 1985: 194). Writing life stories, both biographical and autobiographical, requires a formal choice. For this reason, Lotman asserts that a peasant’s opportunistic use of the language of the church or of bureaucracy allows him to inscribe himself into a legitimacy. Also, think of what Bachtin (103) says about unsophisticated culture, about the peasant who, living in an isolated context, believes that every language corresponds exactly to the reality that he wants to designate. The same conviction is shared by André Gide, who asserts that often unsophisticated sources formally represent a copy of the copy (A. Gide 1997 [1926-1950]: 572). Gide dispels the misunderstanding of the authenticity of the document of ordinary people. No writing is spontaneous, let alone the authenticity of those who do not practise writing. The codes to which one resorts can be regarded as a passepartout for the legitimization of one’s own narration and conception of truth, which is thus validated (see A. Castillo Gómez 2016 and V. Sierra Blas 2018). Another important observation by Bachtin concerns the diversity in conceiving and observing a life path today and in antiquity. In antiquity, public and private space was conceived of as one and the same thing. In self-representation there was no difference between an internal self and an external one. The topos was the agora (Ibid.: 279-282). This call for papers invites proposals aimed at examining writers’ and authors’ ways, forms and goals of self-expression, and it intends to investigate mutual contaminations and interferences. Besides what has already been said, particular attention is to be paid to how self-narration presents itself as opening towards the future, how it lets its expectations transpire. In writings there is a quid, a void whose contours, whose latencies are difficult to intercept but nonetheless exist. Wishes are not always openly expressed; often they can be glimpsed between the lines of a text. As Binswanger writes, writing about oneself is a way of letting the future come to oneself. (1971: 261). How can this aspect be interpreted, understood? Michail Bachtin 1979 [1975- Mosca 1955]:1975], “La parola nella poesía e la parola nel romanzo”, 83-108, “La biografía e l’autobiografia antica”, 277-293, in Id., Estetica e romanzo, transl. by Clara Strada Janovic, Torino, Einaudi. Beatrice Barbalato (2009), “L’ipersegnicità nelle testimonianze autobiografiche”, 387-400, in Silvia Bonacchi (ed.), Intr. Anna Tylusińska-Kowalska, Le récit du moi: forme, strutture, modello del racconto autobiografico, in Kwartalnik neofilologiczny, Polska Akademia Nauk, Warsaw 29-30 April 2008. editor: Franciszek Grucza. B. Barbalato-Albert Mingelgrün (eds.) 2012, Télémaque, Archiver et interpréter les témoignages autobiographiques, Louvain-la Neuve, Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Roland Barthes  1998 [“Tel Quel”, 1964], “Écrivains et écrivants”, in Essais critiques, Paris, Seuil. Ludwig Binswanger 1971 [1947], “Le sens anthropologique de la présomption”, 237-245, in Id., Introduction à l’analyse existentielle, translated from the French by Jacqueline Verdeaux and Roland Kuhn, preface by R. Kuhn and Henri Maldiney, Paris, Éd. de Minuit. – Rêve et existence 2012 [1930] translation and introduction Françoise Dastur, postface by E. Basso, Paris, Vrin. Antonio Castillo Gómez 2022, “Voix subalternes. Archives et mémoire écrite des classes populaires”, 117-135, in S. Péquignot and Y. Potin (dir.), Les conflits d’archives, France, Espagne, Méditerranée, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes. Daniele Combierati 2010, Scrivere nella lingua dell’altro, Bruxelles, Peter Lang. William Cooper & John Robert Ross 1975, “World order”, 63–111, in R. E. Grossman et al. (eds.), Papers from the parasession on functionalism, Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Fabio Dei 2018, Cultura popolare in Italia da Gramsci all’Unesco, Bologna, il Mulino.

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari 1975, Kafka. Pour une littérature mineure, Paris, Éd. De Minuit. Michel Foucault 1966, “Classer”, 137-176, in Id, Les mots et le choses, Paris, Gallimard. Nathalie Frogneux, “Une phénoménologie de la vie mensongère”, in Le Phénomène humain. Revue Philosophique de Louvain 118(4), 2021, 573-591. doi: 10.2143/RPL.118.4.3290142. André Gide 1997, Journal 1926-1950, Paris, Gallimard, vol. II. Carlo Ginzburg 2006), Il filo e le tracce. Vero falso finto, Feltrinelli, Milano. Louis Hjelmslev 1975, Résumé of a Theory of Language. Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Copenhague, vol. XVI. Copenhague: Nordisk Sprog- og Kulturforlag. –        (2009), Teoria del linguaggio. Résumé, = TLR, Vicenza, Terra Ferma, Vicenza. Antonio Gramsci 1975, Quaderni del carcere, 3, Quaderni 12-29, critical edition of the Istituto Gramsci by Valentino Gerratana, Torino, Einaudi. Georges Lakoff, Mark Johnson, 2003 [1980], Metaphors We Live By, Chicago-London, The University of Chicago Press. Philippe Lejeune 1975, Le pacte autobiographique, Paris, Seuil. – “Je ne suis pas une source”, Entretien de Ph. Artières, 115-137, in Id., Signes de vie – Le pacte autobiographique 2, 2, Seuil 2005. Ronan Le Roux, « De quoi jouit l’archiviste ? Méditation certalienne sur le ‘vol d’âme’ », in Elodie Belkorchia, Georges Cuer, Françoise Hiraux (dir.), Du matériel à l’immatériel, La Gazette des archives n°262 (2021-2). Jurij M. Lotman 1985, “Il diritto alla biografia”, in Id., La semiosfera-L’asimmetria e il dialogo nelle strutture pensanti, edited and translated from the Russian by Simonetta Salvestroni, Venezia, Marsilio. Claudio Magris 1989, Lontano da Dove, Joseph Roth e la tradizione ebraico-orientale, Torino Einaudi. Paula Sibilia 2008, O show do eu: a intimidade como espetáculo, Rio de Janeiro, Nova Fronteira. Verónica Sierra Blas 2016, Cartas presas. La correspondencia carcelaria en la Guerra Civil y el Franquismo, Madrid, Marcial Pons. Jean Starobinski 1961, “Le voile de Poppée”, 7-27, in Id, L’oeil vivant, Gallimard, 1961. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction. Trans. by Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. Judging panel: Beatrice Barbalato, Mediapolis.europa ass, cult., Université catholique de Louvain Antonio Castillo Gómez, Universidad de Alcalá Nathalie Frogneux, Université catholique de Louvain Verónica Sierra Blas, Universidad de Alcalá Symposium organized by: Mediapolis.Europa (Irene Meliciani: managing director) Mnemosyne o la costruzione del senso, Presses universitaires de Louvain Grupo de Investigación “Lectura, Escritura, Alfabetización” (LEA), Universidad de Alcalá Seminario Interdisciplinar de Estudios sobre Cultura Escrita (SIECE), Universidad de Alcalá This symposium is part of the research project Vox populi. Espacios, prácticas y estrategias de visibilidad de las escrituras del margen en las épocas Moderna y Contemporánea (PID2019-107881GB-I00), financed by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Spain). Suggestions for sending proposals   The languages admitted for submission are: Italian, Spanish, French, English, Portuguese. Everyone is allowed to write in one of these languages. There will be no simultaneous translation. A passive understanding of these languages is desirable. A) Deadline for submission: 15 July 2023. The abstract will be composed of 250 words (max), with citation of two reference sources, and a brief CV (max: 100 words), with possible mention of two of one’s own publications, be they articles, books, or videos. The judging panel will read and select every proposal, which is to be sent to beatrice.barbalato@gmail.com, antonio.castillo@uah.es For information: beatrice.barbalato@gmail.com, antonio.castillo@uah.es,  irenemeliciani@gmail.com The authors of the accepted proposals will be notified by 30 July 2023. B) Regarding enrolment in the colloquium, once the proposals are accepted the fees are: Before 30 September 2023: 150.00€ From 1 to 30 October 2023:  180.00€ Enrolment fee cannot be accepted in loco For graduate students: Before 30 September 2023: 100.00€ From 1to 30 October 2023:   90.00€ Enrolment fee cannot be accepted in loco Once the programme is established, no change is allowed. For activities related to this topic at the University and cultural centers in Spain see the sites http://www.siece.es/   http://grafosfera.blogspot.com/ For information on the symposia organized in previous years by the Osservatorio della memoria autobiografica  scritta, orale e iconografica, visit the site: http://mediapoliseuropa.com/ * I am leading a seminar on “Metafiction, Autofiction, and Other Metanarrative Forms of Storytelling” at the MSA conference with invited speakers Brian McHale and Josh Toth. Please consider participating. Registration for the MSA opens soon! Additional details below: Modern Studies Association Conference, New York, October 26-29, 2023 Leader:

• • Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis, Associate Professor, New York Institute of Technology

Invited Participants:

• • Josh Toth, Professor, MacEwan University,

• • Brian McHale, Emeritus, Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor, Ohio State University

Metafiction, Autofiction, and Other Metanarrative Forms of Storytelling   With three recent publications on metafiction in the last two years—Truth and Metafiction by Josh Toth (2021), Metafiction and the Postwar Novel: Foes, Ghosts, and Faces in the Water by Andrew Dean (2021) and Metafiction by Yaël Schlick (2022)—there is a resurgence of interest in the theory and practice of this literary form, which had fallen from favor after reaching its pinnacle in the eighties. This seminar seeks to explore the various metanarrative facades of fiction, while also expanding perspectives on metanarrative commentary outside verbal storytelling from modernism to postmodernism and beyond. The seminar will attempt to address the following questions. What are the theoretical frameworks that shape metafiction, and what do recent renditions (works by Salvador Plascencia, Hernan Diaz, Susan Choi to name a few) indicate about its development? Is metafiction a self-enclosed hermeneutics, or does it also foreground issues of class, gender, sexuality, or race as seen in novels such as Mat Jason’s Pym? If metafiction is favored by male authorship–as some claim–how do women writers like Margaret Atwood, Clarice Lispector, Amanda Michalopoulou, Rachael Cusk, and others fit in? How is metafiction manifested and what purposes does it serve in specific genres: graphic novels, children’s and young adult fiction, autobiography/memoire/life-writing, poetry, film, or other forms of visual and verbal storytelling? What is the role of metanarrative commentary in popular culture in general? At a time when commercials, documentaries (Netflix: Adams Knows Everything), cartoons (Netflix: A Tale Dark & Grimm), and puppet shows (The Immortal Jellyfish Girl) employ metanarration, it is imperative that we reexamine meta-references across genres. Presenters will have the opportunity to submit their work in a companion on Metafiction, edited by Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis and Josh Toth, currently under contract with Routledge. Regards, Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English? Director, Interdisciplinary Studies New York Institute of Technology 16 West 61st Street, Room #608 New York, NY 10023 website: https://lissiathanasioukrikelis.com/ *

The Visual Politics of Borders, Migration and Human Rights in Comics and Graphic Narratives

deadline for submissions:  June 30, 2023 Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Thursday, October 26 through Sunday, October 29, 2023, Portland, Oregon USA This panel aims to explore the ways in which borders intersect with human rights in graphic narratives, whether in fiction or non-fiction. One of the theoretical frameworks for examining borders could be through the lens of border aesthetics, which considers borders as linguistic, cultural, social, political, and spatial entities that can both enable and exclude. The panel will examine how graphic narratives denaturalize and politicize the current global border regime and bordering practices that invariably reproduce the colonial binaries as well as stereotypes about migrants/refugees. The focus will also be on how graphic narratives may reinforce the exclusionary function of borders or reduce the migrants/refugees into mere abject modes of being. The panel is concerned with how these frictions and changes become manifested in graphic narratives and aims to bring together comics studies on migration and human rights. The panel invites submissions that examine any aspect of human rights violations occurring in or enabled by borders, which are understood as both positive interactions and exclusionary practices. Submissions are welcome on any of the following aspects of comics studies and human rights, as well as broader interpretations of the themes that provide a more detailed understanding of border and migration studies:

1. 1. Comics form and human rights

1. 1. Graphic representations of survival

1. 1. Visual-verbal medium and cultural silencing of migrants/refugees

1. 1. Narrative mediation and narrative violence in graphic representations

1. 1. Borders, experiential lives and embodied frames

1. 1. Gender and Child Rights

1. 1. Queer and Trans migrations in graphic novels

1. 1. War zones and the politics of violence

1. 1. Ethics and politics of representing human rights violations in comics and graphic narratives

1. 1. Comics, affect and the immigrant

1. 1. Displacement, disability, dystopia in graphic memoirs

1. 1. Border aesthetics, frames of recognition and empathy

Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words along with a brief bio (not more than 100 words) via the online submission form available on the PAMLA website. You will have to go to https://pamla.ballastacademic.com to login or create an account first. The deadline to submit abstract proposals is June 30, 2023. The web address for this session’s CFP is: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/18807. For any queries, please reach out to: Leenu Sugathan – leenusugathan@gwu.edu Mohit Abrol – mohitabrol463@gmail.com Important Dates: PAMLA Membership Payment Deadline: Friday, July 1 Abstract Proposal Deadline: Wednesday, June 30, 2023 Late Conference Payment Fee Period: August 21-September 15 (After September 1, those who haven’t paid their membership fees will be removed from the program; after September 15, those who haven’t paid their conference fees will be removed from the program) The Conference (at last!): Thursday, October 26 through Sunday, October 29, 2023 * Deadline for Submissions: June 30, 2023

Diaries in the 20th Century: Testimony, Memory, and Self-Construction University College Dublin, 8-9 December 2023

The diary proved an important form of writing during the 20th century, particularly for its engagement with self-definition and memory. In the early decades of the century, it enabled a new exploration of individual personality influenced by late-nineteenth-centurypsychology and philosophy. It can thus be read as an introspective prism displaying the author’s psychological, moral, and physical evolution in a different light from what would have been conceivable before. Around mid-century, it offered diarists a powerful tool to document and elaborate the trauma of the two wars, the self-threatening policies of totalitarian regimes, and the very physical threat of genocide. This kind of diary is a testimonial object of and against war. In the final decades of the century, diaries were written in an individualistic and expressivist society which increasingly blurred the boundaries between reality and fiction. They could thus become the chosen medium for postmodernist literary experimentation and invite a form of self-construction which is a precursor of (but remains very different from) the instantly public self-accounts of present-day blogs and vlogs.

This two-day conference aims to observe these and other evolutions of the twentieth-century diary, exploring their interplay with traditional assumptions about the diary as a repository of memories, an outlet for feelings, as an embodiment of the self, and a concrete means for its preservation. To this end, we invite scholars working from a wide range of disciplines on diaristic writing from different perspectives, with a particular preference for transnational and comparative approaches. Potential topics for papers include, but are not limited to:

• • Theoretical or historical perspectives on diaristic writing during the 20th century

• • Previously unknown/unpublished twentieth-century diaries

• • Diaries as documents or as literary works

• • Diary as a writing genre: real vs. fictional

• • Diary and affects

• • The body in the diary

• • Diaries as chronicles of introspection/self-talk

• • The diary between personal and collective memory

• • Self-analysis, self-questioning, self-discovery, self-awareness in diaristic writing

• • Communities and mutual influence among diary-writers

• • Comparative studies of twentieth-century diaries

• • Diaries and Cognitive Studies

• • Writing diaries during war periods

• • The diary and the Holocaust

• • The diary as gender writing

The conference will be held in person at UCD to facilitate interaction among panelists, and streamed online to allow for a wider attendance. Four travel grants will be offered for PhD, early-career, and independent researchers who cannot rely on institutional funds. Please send your title, abstract for a 20-minute paper (max 250 words), and short bio (max 100 words) to ucdiaries2023@gmail.com, valeria.taddei@ucd.ie, or m.josi1993@gmail.com, by 30 June. Let us know in your email if you would need to be considered for the travel grant. For any further information please do not hesitate to contact us! All the best, Valeria Taddei and Mara Josi Dr Valeria Taddei (she/her) IRC Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics University College Dublin Belfield D04 F6X4 Ireland Dr Mara Josi (she/her), Ph.D (Cantab) Lecturer in Italian School of Languages, Arts and Cultures, University of Manchester, UK Oxford Rd. | M13 9PL * The Life Story in Oral History Practice In-person event at the British Library, London, UK Fri 30 June and Sat 1 July, 2023 Bookings are now open for the exciting International Symposium: the Life Story in Oral History Practice at the British Library on Fri 30 June and Sat 1 July. Booking link and full programme here: https://www.bl.uk/events/the-life-story-in-oral-history-practice-a-two-day-international-symposium. Attendance for the whole event is £45, with day passes available too. We promise innovative speakers from across the globe who will reflect on all aspects of life story interviewing, including Alexander Freund, Indira Chowdhury, Alistair Thomson, Doug Boyd, Wendy Rickard, Rob Perks and Don Ritchie. Our special guest on Saturday 1 July is celebrated artist and curator Lubaina Himid, to discuss her life story recording for Artists’ Lives. Join us for cutting edge debate on oral history practice, research and the impact of new technology, lively discussion and the launch of the exciting new website based on oral history: ‘Discovering Science’. The event is open to all, from newcomers to oral history to the most experienced life story practitioners, historians, writers, archivists and curators. We hope to see you there! Mary Stewart Lead Curator, Oral History Director, National Life Stories The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB Mary.stewart@bl.uk www.bl.uk/oralhistory www.ohs.org.uk Follow us! @BL_OralHistory * Deadline for submissions: June 19, 2023

Graphic Psychiatry – Exploring Visual Narratives of Mental Health

contact email: rbodol@lsuhsc.edu Call for Papers, panel@ SAMLA 95, taking place on November 9-11, 2023, in Atlanta, GA

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Graphic Psychiatry–Exploring Visual Narratives of Mental Health The “Age of Insecurity”  (samla.net/) made mental health a public health concern. From barriers to access to a provider shortage, from soaring suicide rates to supply chain issues that affect the availabilty of ADHD drugs, mental healthcare has become a pervasive topic that affects higher education as well. In this context, the special session sets out to rethink our approaches to ubiquitous visual narratives and iconographies of mental health. For this purpose, we will focus on “Graphic Psychiatry” which here describes a prolific subsection of Graphic Medicine: The term denotes the role that comics/graphic novels can play in healthcare; it is also a shorthand for this area of study and practice. Graphic “Medicine” (“as in the bottled panacea rather than the profession,” I. Williams) is meant to suggest therapeutic potential, both for creators and readers. Comics have been discussed in connection to the history of psychiatry, their graphic pathography or their demonization of psychiatrists, etc. By contrast, graphic novels offer additional types of knowledge. They are book-length narratives, often autobiographical “quest narratives” (A.W. Frank), that depict mental illness, suffering, trauma in their own right. Often, they provide critical insights into treatment, practices, systems and institutions. The first was a wordless novel, Lynd Ward’s The Madman’s Drum, published in 1930, but there has been a proliferation of graphic novels on mental health in the past decade. Examples include Marbles, Rx, Tangles, Lighter Than My Shadow, to name but a few. This special interdisciplinary session invites papers that explore “Graphic Psychiatry” and how it goes beyond “psychiatry as a spectacle” by discussing illness narratives, lived experiences, systemic criticism, as well as pathologies. Additionally, we welcome pedagogy papers on teaching visual narratives of mental health. By June 15, 2023, please submit an abstract of 500 words or less, a brief bio, and any A/V or scheduling requests to Ronja Tripp-Bodola, LSUHSC New Orleans, at rbodol@lsuhsc.edu.

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Ronja R. Bodola, Ph.D., M.A. Assistant Professor – Research/Health Humanities Director of Faculty Development, Education and Scholarly Activity Department of Psychiatry School of Medicine, LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans 2021 Perdido St Room 6218 New Orleans, LA 70112 (504) 568 2544

Travel and Tourism Studies (Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Assn)

CONFERENCE TO BE HELD November 9-11, 2023 in Philadelphia, PA, USA deadline for submissions:  June 30, 2023 traveltourismmapaca@ymail.com Travel and Tourism Studies as a discipline continues to gain popularity in academia, in part because of its inter-disciplinary nature. The Travel and Tourism area seeks papers that discuss and explore any aspect of travel and/or tourism. Topics for this area include, but are not limited to, the following: – travel and gender/race/class – travel and religion – travel and war – personal travel narratives – heritage tourism – material culture and tourism ***VIRTURAL Travel and Tourism! How has lockdown affected travel around the globe?*** Please feel free to consider a wide range of materials, texts and experiences. Applicants are encouraged to consider multi-media (or other alternative format) presentations if those formats would better suit their topics, and may also propose 3- or 4-person panels and roundtables. Submit a brief (300 words) abstract at mapaca.net by June 30, ’23. Students (both undergraduate and graduate) and independent scholars are encouraged to apply. Please feel free to send questions to Jennifer Erica Sweda traveltourismmapaca@ymail.com * CALL FOR PAPERS Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics Imprisoned ‘Self’: Narratives of Loss, Guilt, Transformation Guest Editor: Ayan Chakraborty (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) Deadline for Submissions: June 30, 2023 Prison narratives have, quite recently, emerged as an exciting genre of literary studies in academia. While the concept of imprisonment has always invited a substantial focus within sociological studies, it had marginally to do either with the deeper exploration of the ‘imprisoned self’ or the ‘narratology’ (the logic of the narrative) about the experiences recorded by the prisoner. With life in the prison succeeding in drawing interest from literary critics, different approaches have been proposed to study language and experiences (in terms of wording) to look at the representation of the self and the various expressions of pain, agony, guilt, transformation, and even liberation. Some of them consider looking at these narratives from a more political understanding of the ‘imprisoned self’ about society and power, while a few others explore how language mediates between the author’s ‘reflection’/ ‘realization’ of their self through deeply intense drives like those of melancholia, loss, and suffering or glimpses of transcendental joy that creates a deeper understanding of the ethereal and the personal. The model of the prison has changed over the centuries. While in the European continent, prisons were directly an expression of the ‘will’ of the monarch, it had much to do with the relations of sovereignty and law. However, it is interesting to note that, as Thomas S Freeman points out in his “The Rise of Prison Literature,” prisons of the middle ages and early modernity were structural edifices that symbolized an offense against the divine through a violation of the ‘law’ of the monarch itself (the monarch being a representative of divinity on earth). The prisoner was,  therefore, equivalent to the status of a heretic. Similar ideas can be found within Southern and Central Asiatic regions as well. With the rise of the liberal state, the prisoner was depicted as an ‘outlaw,’ an embodiment of violence and violation of the generic social imagination and to ‘social contract’ in particular. Michel Foucault, in his seminal The Birth of the Prison, delineates how the system of control and incarceration shifted in its objective and technique from the body and the ‘spectacle’ to the ‘mind’ and the need for ‘secrecy.’ Through a system, the prisoner’s self is inevitably a part of political interpellation, marginality, and social gaze. These ideas, though sociological, become an integral part of the prisoner’s self in their understanding of society and their relation to it. Hence, the prisoner, in all personal experiences, is a political being. As much as narratives from political prisoners, revolutionaries, and victims of racial, sexual, colonial, and economic conflicts have recorded intense moments which look at the ‘dissolution’ of the self under psychological crisis, there are instances that constructed a metaphysical idea of the ego of the prisoner that almost absorbed the world into a supernatural unity. These narratives, in their structure and intention, vary radically across symbols and semantics. This issue calls for papers that engage with language, experience, and the self (of the prisoner), study nuances of intention and expression, and explore the relation between a private subject under political scrutiny through prison narratives. To contribute to this special issue, please submit the full manuscript of your article (no less than 4,000 words) with a short author’s bio to the guest editor Ayan Chakraborty at cayan2595@gmail.com, with a copy to jclaindia@gmail.com. You are welcome to ask any questions about submission or the topic you will select. Important Dates: Submission deadline: 30 June 2023; Decision of acceptance: 31 July 2023; Publication of the issue: Autumn 2023/ Winter 2023. ABOUT THE JOURNAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Comparative_Literature_and_Aesthetics The Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (ISSN: 0252-8169) is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Vishvanatha Kaviraja Institute of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, India, since 1977. The Institute was founded by Prof. Ananta Charan Sukla (1942-2020) on 22 August 1977, coinciding with the birth centenary of renowned philosopher, aesthetician, and historian of Indian art Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) to promote interdisciplinary studies and research in comparative literature, literary theory and criticism, aesthetics, philosophy, art history, criticism of the arts, and history of ideas. (Vishvanatha Kaviraja, most widely known for his masterpiece in aesthetics, Sahityadarpana, or the “Mirror of Composition,” was a prolific 14th-century Indian poet, scholar, aesthetician, and rhetorician.) The Journal is committed to comparative and cross-cultural issues in literary understanding and interpretation, aesthetic theories, and conceptual analysis of art. It publishes current research papers, review essays, and special issues of critical interest and contemporary relevance. The Journal has published the finest of essays by authors of global renown like René Wellek, Harold Osborne, John Hospers, John Fisher, Murray Krieger, Martin Bocco, Remo Ceserani, J.B. Vickery, Menachem Brinker, Milton Snoeyenbos, Mary Wiseman, Ronald Roblin, T.R. Martland, S.C. Sengupta, K.R.S. Iyengar, Charles Altieri, Martin Jay, Jonathan Culler, Richard Shusterman, Robert Kraut, Terry Diffey, T.R. Quigley, R.B. Palmer, Keith Keating, and many others. JCLA is indexed and abstracted in the MLA International Bibliography, Master List of Periodicals (USA), Ulrich’s Directory of Periodicals, ERIH PLUS, The Philosopher’s Index (Philosopher’s Information Center), EBSCO, ProQuest (Arts Premium Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Collection, Arts & Humanities Database, Literature Online – Full Text Journals, ProQuest Central, ProQuest Central Essentials), Abstracts of English Studies, WorldCat Directory, ACLA, India Database, Gale (Cengage Learning), Bibliography History of Art (BHA), ArtBibliographies Modern (ABM), Literature Online (LION), Academic Resource Index, Book Review Index Plus, OCLC, Periodicals Index Online (PIO), Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers, CNKI, PhilPapers, Google Scholar, Expanded Academic ASAP, Indian Documentation Service, Publication Forum (JuFo), Summon, J-Gate, United States Library of Congress, New York Public Library, and the British Library. The journal is also indexed in numerous university (central) libraries, state, and public libraries, and scholarly organizations/ learned societies databases. Celebrated scholars of the time like René Wellek, Harold Osborne, Mircea Eliade, Monroe Beardsley, John Hospers, John Fisher, Meyer Abrams, John Boulton, and many renowned foreign and Indian scholars were Members of its Editorial Board. Founding Editor: Ananta Charan Sukla,Vishvanatha Kaviraja Institute, India Email: jclaindia@gmail.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/jclasukla Contact Info: Viraj Shukla Publishing Assistant Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics Contact Email: jclaindia@gmail.com URL: http://jcla.in * Call for Papers ‘Dieu et mon droit (God and my right)’: representations of the British royal family in popular culture deadline for submissions:  June 30, 2023 PopCRN (the UNE Popular Culture Network) are exploring the concept of royalty with a virtual symposium focused on the representations of the British royal family in popular culture to be held online on Thursday 28th & Friday 29th September 2023. The British monarchy has played a leading role in various ways over the last millennium of world history and as such have been frequently depicted in popular culture from the plays of Shakespeare to the extensive coverage in popular magazines. We welcome papers from researchers across the academic spectrum, and encourage papers from postgraduate researchers and early career researchers. Presenters will have the opportunity to publish a refereed book chapter in a book published in 2024. Topics can include, but are not restricted to:

• • We are not amused – Royal reactions to popular events

• • In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis – The intersections of the private and public lives of royalty

• • I do not want a husband who honours me as a queen, if he does not love me as a woman – Love and British royalty

• • I’d like to be queen of people’s hearts – The rhetorical power of royal themes

• • The king is dead, Long live the king – British royals past, present and future

• • I think the relations between the monarchy and the press is very much a two-way street. Anthony Holden – Reporting the royals

• • Spencer – Diana and the gothic

• • Diana, The peoples’ princess – Royalty and celebrity

• • The real intelligence in the royal family comes through my parents to Prince Philip and the children. (Lord Mountbatten) – Celebrity royal children

• • The Crown – Royal representations in film and television

• • Princess for a day – Royal wedding dresses and royal wedding culture

• • I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast (Queen Elizabeth II) Royal food and wine

• • Fashioning a Queen – Royal fashion, then and now

• • Men fight wars. Women win them – The powerful Queen in the patriarchal institution

• • I know what my job was; it was to go out and meet the people and love them. (Princess Diana) – The working royal

• • The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them – Royal views of the general public

• • I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too – Representations of royal gender

• • A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse – Shakespearian depictions of royalty

• • All my birds have flown – The ridiculed royal

• • I have as much privacy as a goldfish in a bowl. (Princess Margaret) – The public gaze and celebrity

• • Let not poor Nelly starve – Royal mistresses

• • Alvanley, who’s your fat friend? – Royalty and friends

• • Was ‘arold, with eyeful of arrow,  On ‘is ‘orse, with ‘is ‘awk in ‘is ‘and – Representations of royalty in folktales

• • You have sent me a Flanders mare ­– Royal marriages of convenience in popular culture

• • I find doing speeches nerve wrecking (Kate Middleton) – Performing royalty

• • I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love – The reluctant royal

• • When I am dead and opened, you shall find ‘Calais’ lying in my heart – Royal concerns of conquest and loss

• • Camelot – The American fixation with the British Royals

• • It is as Queen of Canada that I am here. Queen of Canada and all Canadians, not just one or two ancestral strains (Queen Elizabeth II) – The Royals in the colonies

• • You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe: when it knocked down our buildings it did not replace them with anything more offensive than rubble. We did that. (Prince Charles) – The Royals and war

• • For Portraits to Pop – Queen Elizabeth as a cultural icon

• • Value for money – The Royals and the British economy

• • Royal fever – The Royals and consumer culture

• • They’re changing guards at Buckingham Place – The Royals in children’s literature

• • For a time during the 1980s the Royal Family were not just the most influential family in Britain but probably in Europe and Prince Charles specifically was very much like a defacto Cabinet member and what he said actually had impact on public policy (Andrew Morton) – The Royals and No. 10

• • I should like to be a horse (Queen Elizabeth II) – British royals and animals

• • One day I’m going up in a helicopter and it’ll just blow up. M15 will do away with me. (Princess Diana). Royal conspiracies

• • The state is nothing but an instrument of oppression of one class by another – no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy. (Friedrich Engels) – The royals and the British class system

Please email abstracts (200 words) to popcrn@une.edu.au by 31/6/23. Please include your name, affiliation, email address, title of paper and a short biography (100 words). Registration is free. * Deadline for submissions: July 1, 2023 CFP–Global Crises Cultures: Representing Refugees in the 21st Century eds. Dr Katie Brown (Exteter) and Dr Peter Sloane (Buckingham) Although it is only since 2015 that the phenomena of mass forced displacement has warranted the term ‘crisis’, the pre-existing social, cultural, economic, and military conditions for that were exacerbated by the US led War on Terror which begin in 2001, after the attacks on the World Trade Centre. A 2020 report by Brown University’s Cost of War Project estimated ‘that at least 37 million people have fled their homes in the eight most violent wars the U.S. military has launched or participated in since 2001’ (Vine et al. 2020, 1). During the same period, rising instability in Central and South America (notably the Northern Triangle and Venezuela) has led to record numbers of internally and externally displaced persons, while ongoing conflicts in Africa have created over 30 million refugees. Encouraged by the sheer number of people (almost 1% of global population), Guy S. Goodwin-Gill argues that ‘the refugee problem cannot be considered apart from the field of human rights as a whole’ (2014, 43). Indeed, stripped of the legal protections afforded by a nation state, the refugee represents the limit case for human rights precisely because, as Hannah Arendt has it, a refugee is a person who has ‘lost all other qualities and specific relationships – except that they [are] still human’ (1979, 299). The surging volume of displaced persons and their treatment by possible host nations provokes equally vital questions about how human beings conceive of themselves as part of a common humanity, a sense of species as opposed to polity belongingness. Claude Levi-Strauss observedhalf a century ago that‘the notion of humanity, which includes without distinction of race or civilization all the forms of the human species, appeared very late and in a limited way’ (1976, 329). These limitations become starkly apparent in refugee fictions, poetry, film, literary journalism, and life writing of the 21st century, which capture not simply the predictable brutalities of despotic regimes, but the overt border violence and inhumanity of the democratic states which they imagine as places of sanctuary. During the past decade, several important anthologies have addressed the issue of refugeehood in the present. Agnes Woolley’s wonderful Contemporary Asylum Narratives: Representing Refugees in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave, 2014), Lava Asaad’s edited collection, Literature with A White Helmet: The Textual-Corporeality of Being, Becoming, and Representing Refugees (Routledge, 2019), as well as Mike Classon Frangos and Sheila Ghose’s Refugee Genres: Essays on the Culture of Flight and Refuge (Palgrave, 2022) have drawn attention to cultures of crises in the contemporary period. Working within this context while expanding and advancing the discussions instigated in these works, Cultures of Crises will bring together both established scholars and new critical voices working across the humanities to produce a truly global study of the current period of mass migrations, with essays on movements in Ukraine, Southern and Central America, through the Middle East and Sudan, to Myanmar. While the stories themselves are of key concern, the collection will be formally wide-ranging, exploring refugee’s experiences across fiction, life writing, creative non-fiction, film, poetry, and the visual arts more broadly. Of particular interest are studies that explore multiple texts, multiple themes, and multiple locations, as opposed to single text or single author studies. Given the proliferation of prose fiction studies, preference may also be given to those essays which focus on other forms. The proposed book will be divided into three parts: Prose Fiction and Poetry; Life Writing; Visual Arts. This CFP invites abstracts of 300 words accompanied by a short biography to be submitted to culturesofcrises@gmail.com by July 1st 2023. Final essays of 6-8000 words will be due by September 30th 2024. Eds: Dr Katie Brown is Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies at the University of Exeter. She is the author of Writing and the Revolution: Venezuelan Metafiction 2004-2012 (2019), and co-editor of Crude Words: Contemporary Writing from Venezuela (2016) and Escribir afuera: Cuentos de intemperies y querencias (2021). Dr Peter Sloane is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Buckingham, UK. He is the author of Narrative Displacement: Refugees in 21st Century Fiction and Life Writing (Liverpool University Press, 2025), Kazuo Ishiguro’s Gestural Poetics (Bloomsbury, 2021), David Foster Wallace and the Body (Routledge, 2019), and editor of ReFocus: The Films of Claire Denis (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), and (with K. Shaw) Kazuo Ishiguro: Twenty-First-Century Perspectives (Manchester University Press, 2023).

*

Deadline for submissions: July 1, 2023 Call for Papers  VERSIONS OF THE AFTERLIFE 7th December 2023 Online Conference Between Matthew’s description of heaven as a wedding (22 1-14) – most memorably delivered by Jesus in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ – and Jean Paul Sartre’s verdict that “hell is other people,” there is not only a gap of centuries but also cultures and religions.[1] Despite their disparity, however, both conceptualizations render the fundamental human anxiety related to the weighty question of “what comes next?” They point to the necessity of envisaging the unfamiliar through the familiar, thereby taming the terrifying void. Versions of the afterlife, therefore, are not only related to the need to imagine the hereafter in the sense of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory (for the Catholics), but also to the contemporary notions of “post-theory”, such as post-humanism and the ideas of postmodernism, post-feminism, post-colonialism and post-nationalism. The aim of this conference organized by the Faculty of English at Adam Mickiewicz University, in Poznan, Poland – and co-hosted with the Faculty of Philosophy, AMU, and the Poznań Chapter of the Agder Academy of Social Sciences and Letters – is to explore and discuss the literal, the literary and the metaphorical meanings of the notion of “the afterlife”. We welcome papers representing the humanities in their conceptualizations and literary reifications of the religious, medical and political “hereafters”. Literature (in English) / Art

• • Literary narratives on the hereafter across cultures and religions

• • Saints’ lives and visions

• • Theatre and the drama of/on the hereafter

• • Gothic literature and the visions of the afterlife

• • Literary visions and versions of post-apocalyptic reality

• • Artistic representations of the afterlife: Imaging the hereafter

• • The afterlives of theory: post-humanism and the ideas of postmodernism, post-feminism, etc.

• • The afterlives of ideologies, doctrines, political systems as represented in literary works (post-nationalism, post-colonialism, etc.)

• • The afterlives of literary texts and their authors: adaptations, rewritings, etc.

Medical Humanities / Social Sciences (in literary texts in English)

• • The moment of passing

• • The mystery of one’s body shutting down

• • Marketing death and the life after death

• • Out-of-body experience

• • End-of life dreams and visions versus science

Theology / Ethics (in literary texts in English)

• • Versions of the afterlife from the earliest records to contemporary times across cultures and religions

• • Ars moriendi (good endings vs bad endings)

• • Secular / atheist alternatives for life after death

300-400 word abstracts should be sent to BOTH afterlifewaconference@gmail.com and kbronkk@amu.edu.pl by 1st July 2023. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by the end of August 2023. There will be no fees for conference participation, but active and passive participants need to register in advance.

“Narratives of Displacement” International Conference

28-29 October 2023 – London/Online organised by

London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

Deadline for Submissions 15 June 2023  The conference seeks to explore the narratives of displacement and to demonstrate the validity of a cross-disciplinary approach which brings together the historical, cultural, social and literary expertise in the handling of text. The conference will particularly focus on time and space representations and on treatment of the theme of cultural ambivalence and identity conflict. The subject of displacement will be regarded as both a migration, voluntary or forced, and a sense of being socially or culturally “out of place”. Papers are invited on topics related, but not limited, to:

• • migrations and deportations (expatriation, expulsion, exile, etc.)

• • journeys, pilgrimages, missions

• • mobility and place

• • rootlessness and taking root

• • foreignness and indigeneity

• • (re)settlement and (non)residence

• • nomadism and place attachment

• • hotels, guesthouses, shelters

• • multiculturalism, interculturalism, transculturalism

• • strangerhood and neo-cosmopolitanism

Submissions may be proposed in various formats, including:

• • Individually submitted papers (organised into panels by the committee)

• • Panels (3-4 individual papers)

• • Posters

The conference aims to bring together scholars from different fields. We invite proposals from various disciplines including history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, culture studies, media studies, political science, law, architecture, tourism, religious studies, literature, linguistics, psychology, etc. Proposals up to 250 words should be sent by 15 June 2023 to: displacement@lcir.co.uk. Download Paper proposal form. Registration fee (online participation) – 90 GBP Registration fee (physical participation) – 150 GBP Provisional conference venue: Birkbeck College, University of London * Deadline for submissions: June 15, 2023

Imaginative kin-making. Narrating alternative forms of kinship in survival literature and fiction.

XXXI AIA Conference Rende, Cosenza, 13-16 September 2023 Associazione Italiana di Anglistica Call for proposals for panel Convenors: R. Ciocca (Università di Napoli L’Orientale) and Marta Cariello (Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli)  In Making Kin in the Chthulucene: Reproducing Multispecies Justice (2018), Donna Haraway engaged in the thorny question of survival for a planet already fast travelling towards its demographic and environmental collapse. She addressed the question from a critical post-human and post-anthropocentric stance, affirming the need to reintroduce the practice of caring for the earth at every scale, and to fight against the current mass extinction of species, from the complex perspective of both ‘the Born and the Disappeared’. She meant, by this, not to disjoint the (apparently opposed) necessities of guaranteeing reproductive justice and safety for peoples subjected to genocides, forced sterilizations, missing generations, and at the same time of finding ways to reverse the general population growth. Since the intersection between reproduction justice and environmental concerns is intimately connected to the human capacity to reverse spoliative policies of natural resources and habitats, in a pro-active sense, the feminist philosopher posed the personal and theoretical question of how to lighten our species footprint by creating innovative and enduring relationships without necessarily ‘making more babies’. Taking the cue from this need to engage scary demographic perspectives, we’d like to explore narrations in which the idea of survival is connected to new forms of ‘becoming-with’, of ‘symbiotic assemblages’, or, also, of making kin, making new families as something other/more than entities tied by genealogy or biological bonds, together with the possibilities of lateral, transversal and exogenous adoption practices. We are especially interested in inviting submissions tackling the role of these alter-families and alter-communities in coping with forced migrancy, ethnic or racial cleansing and climate change induced crises. Proposals are welcome from a number of different genre languages which include, but are not limited to, novels, poetry, drama, personal essays, memoirs, film, tv series, and other storytelling practices. Some References Rosi Braidotti and Simone Bignall ,(eds.) Posthuman Ecologies. Complexity and Process after Deleuze, New York, London, Rowman and Littlefield, 2019. Lawrence Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Adele E. Clarke and Donna Haraway (eds), Making Kin Not Population, Chicago, Prickly Paradigm Press, 2018. Lidia Curti (a cura di) Femminismi futuri. Teorie/Poetiche/Fabulazioni. Roma, Iacobelli, 2019. María Puig de la Bellacasa, Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2017. Donna J. Haraway, The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people, and significant otherness, Chicago, Prickly Paradigm, 2003. Marco Malvestio, Raccontare la fine del mondo: Fantascienza e Antropocene. Milano, Nottetempo, 2021. Rob Nixon, Slow violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 2011. Sara Upstone and Peter Ely (eds.), Community in Contemporary British Fiction. From Blair to Brexit London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. Deadline for proposals: 15 June 2023 Send abstracts and bio to: rcio *

Borders and Crossings: an interdisciplinary conference on travel writing

5-7 July 2023, Łódź, Poland Deadline for Submissions: May 31, 2023 Due to unforeseen circumstances outside of the organiser’s control, Borders and Crossings 2023 has additional room for presenters and the call for papers has been reopened to allow maximum participation from across the Arts and Humanities. The 2023 edition of Borders and Crossings takes place in the unique context of Łódź: a post-industrial city situated in the wider European political and economic context, and which epitomises ‘borders and crossings’ in several ways. First, Łódź was called ‘the city of four cultures’ and until WWII was inhabited by people of Polish, Jewish, German, and Russian origin, as well as minorities, with their respective languages, religions, processes of assimilation or cultural isolation, and inward and outward migrations. Second, the city’s industrial history and built environment is founded on forms of travel: migration for industrial employment; the movement of ideas, technologies, and capital within trans-European and trans-Atlantic industrial networks; and movements for social change. Third, the city’s dynamic expansion in the 19th century converged with its occupation by foreign powers, engaging discussion on imperialism, shifting borders, political change, and identity. With this in mind, we invite proposals related to the contexts mentioned above, but also, as is customary at Borders and Crossings, contributions concerning other theoretical and practical aspects of travel writing. Proposals can reflect on, but are by no means limited to, the following themes: ●    Travel writing and the industrial city ●    Representations of travel to/from/around Poland ●    Central Europe or Eastern Europe? Geographical and cultural identities in travel writing ●    East-West interactions ●    Imperialism and travel; indigenous voices ‘writing back’ and decolonisation ●    Travel writing and the self/other ●    Travel and conflict ●    Representations of space and place in travel writing ●    Travel and translation ●    Travel and class/gender/sexuality ●    Travel writing and eco-criticism/nature writing ●    Theories of travel and travel writing ●    The history of travel and/versus tourism ●    The craft and practice of travel writing ●    Travel journalism, guidebooks, digital media, social media ●    Travel writing and other media (film, photography, illustrations, etc.) ●    Non-places and spaces of transit ●    Travel rest and stopovers ●    Modes of transport and points of view ●    Travel and pandemics/disease This event is open to academics, postgraduate researchers, and practitioners (inside and outside of academia) interested in travel writing from a broad range of perspectives. The aim of this conference is to showcase the interdisciplinarity of travel writing studies and the event welcomes proposals from but not restricted to literary studies, mobility and tourism studies, history, geography, creative writing, environmental studies, translation theory and practice, among others. Proposals are not restricted to any period of time or geographical context. Further information on the Borders and Crossings conference series can be found at https://bordersandcrossings23.wordpress.com/.  Although we wish for all participants to be able to attend the conference in Łódź, the conference is hybrid so that participants unable to travel can still present their paper. The conference fee is 60 euro for regular participants and 45 euro for PhD researchers. We invite proposals for 20-minute papers and 60-minute panels of three speakers. Proposals of approximately 250 words (up to 500 words for a panel), accompanied by a short biographical note, should be sent to: bordersandcrossings23@gmail.com. Deadline for proposals: 31 May 2023 Organising committee: Joanna Kruczkowska (University of Łódź) and Ross Cameron (University of Glasgow/University of Strathclyde). Contact Email: bordersandcrossings23@gmail.com URL: https://bordersandcrossings23.wordpress.com/ * DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS JUNE 5 Dear IABA List Members, We are working on Biography’s annual annotated bibliography of critical and theoretical works on life writing, the most extensive reference of its kind, and before finalizing it, we want to make sure it is as timely, inclusive, and extensive as possible. If last year (from January to December 2022) you published, edited, or coedited a book; wrote an article for a journal or an essay for an edited collection; or completed your doctoral dissertation, we would appreciate having that information, so that we can incorporate it into the list. (We may have already included it, but this will make sure your work is noted.) We are also interested in lifewriting-focused podcasts or other media, excluding individual presentations or talks. We would request the following information: ·  Full bibliographic information for each text, formatted according to MLA 9 style ·  A one-sentence annotation per text We are especially committed to noting publications in languages other than English. If you could provide an annotation in English, however, that would be helpful. We would appreciate getting the information by Monday, June 5. Please send your information to Caroline Zuckerman (gabiog@hawaii.edu). Thanks in advance. This bibliography usually has between 1,400 and 1,500 entries, and represents the most extensive annual critical survey of the field. We want to make sure your work appears within it. — Caroline Zuckerman Editorial Assistant and Reviews Editor The Center for Biographical Research Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 1960 East-West Road Biomed B104 Honolulu, HI 96822 Tel: (808) 956-3774 Email: gabiog@hawaii.edu * IO website. * Call for Papers for an Edited Volume (eds. Poonam Bala and Russel Viljoen) Travel Writings and Medical Encounters in the Colonial World Deadline for Abstracts–May 31, 2023 While several European naturalists, doctors travelled to tropical colonies to discover indigenous flora and fauna of medicinal value, their movement also enabled the formation of medical nexuses through various trade routes; the latter provided a cogent medium through which the collected knowledge could be re-located within the European metropoles. Placed in the context of medical humanities, these movements have opened an array of possibilities to study, analyse and recover the medical pasts of indigenous and colonial societies. The genre of travel writing preceded by the production and proliferation of travel texts by literate individuals saw the accumulation of data gathered by travellers during the 18th and 19th centuries. These writings, no doubt, revealed ideas of colonial and expansionist policies as well as imperial prowess which could vindicate colonial expansion and territorial acquisitions. Travel writings in the form of various handwritten notes, descriptions, reference to indigenous healers and sketches depicting medical encounters as written texts included reference to indigenous medical practice, cures, medicines, disease and illnesses and various interpretations of indigenous medicine, healers vis-à-vis their western counterpart. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in particular, these explicated the rhetoric of colonialism and its expanse in the colonised communities. Travel narratives of physicians also reveal their first hand experience with slaves, slavery and the process of enslavement including encounters, resistance, medical inspections, illness, while also including medical treatment provided thereof. The  creation of a new discourse on racism and inequality also opened up issues of power over the discourse of slavery and slave narratives. The proposed volume will examine modalities of disease causation, explanation and their trajectory as a result of interaction with colonial communities in colonized settings around the world. As trained doctors, these male individuals, of European descent often engaged indigenous communities via interpreters or as observers, in order to obtain information about indigenous medical practices, treatment of disease, the relationship between disease and death, sin and sicknesses. We, therefore, seek to produce a collection that traces the “hidden” medical histories of colonized communities derived and gleaned from travel texts, which will enable an understanding of the trajectory of indigenous medical pasts and how they were shaped and re-defined as a result. Understanding the contributions of African and European doctors in the creation of a pharmaceutical industry, natural history and surgical enhancements is an important aspect of this trajectory. Chapter contributions will focus on the following themes, but not limited to these: Historiography, travel writing, medicine and disease studies Travelogues and the social (re)construction of medical pasts Travel scientists, doctors and biographies Indigenous medicine and healing practices in Travelogues Medical travel expeditions Women writers, gender and medicine Travel texts, epidemics/disease and indigenous communities Scientific institutions as sponsors of colonial expeditions Slave narratives and black travel writing Medicine and knowledge in the slave trade Interested scholars may please send an abstract of 250 words with relevant keywords, institutional affiliation and brief biography to Prof. Poonam Bala (p.bala@csuohio.edu)  and  Prof. Russel Viljoen (viljors@unisa.ac.za) by 31 May 2023. Completed draft chapter submissions of 7500 words should be submitted latest by 31 October 2023. Contact Info: Prof. Poonam Bala, Professor Extraordinarius, UNISA (South Africa) and Visiting Scholar, Clevelad State University (Ohio) * Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage (ACDH-CH) 26-27 September 2023 Life Narrative and the Digital: An Interdisciplinary Conference and Workshop

• 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 event will feature both a workshop and a conference track. The workshop (26 September) will be dedicated to short presentations of work-in-progress, with a strong focus on tools, technologies, software, and methods, and with an emphasis on feedback and exchange. The conference (27 September) follows a conventional format, with a mix of research papers and panel discussions, and will be open to the public. Participation in both formats is free of charge. We invite proposals of max. 500 words via OpenReview (https://bit.ly/digital-bio-2023) for 15-minute (workshop) OR 20-minute (conference) contributions by 26 May 2023. For more information, please consult our conference website, or contact us at amp@oeaw.ac.at. Timo Frühwirth, Dimitra Grigoriou, Sandra Mayer * Deadline for submissions: May 31, 2023

PAMLA Veterans Studies Panel

contact email:  deborah.daley@uky.edu Veterans Studies is a growing field of research that addresses the significant impact of military personnel transitioning from active duty to civilian life with an emphasis on the veteran experience. This panel invites papers that explore various aspects of military service and/or the veteran experience, including those that reflect the conference theme of “Shifting Perspectives.” This session invites papers that explore the many facets of military life exhibited in literature, theater, film, and poetry written about or by military veterans as well as scholarly explorations of the veteran experience. Some topics of particular interest include but are not limited to: · Transition from military service · Perceptions or conceptualizations of veteran identity · Reintegration · Systems and experiences which shape veterans’ post-military experiences · Interdisciplinary approaches to veterans studies · Commemoration, memorialization, memory The conference will take place from Thursday, October 26 through Sunday, October 29, 2023 in Portland, Oregon. Potential presenters should submit abstract proposals using the online submission form (you will have to go to https://pamla.ballastacademic.com to login or create an account first). The deadline to submit presentation proposals is May 31, 2023. For more information about the PAMLA conference, please go to https://www.pamla.org/conference/. * Call for Papers for Special Focus Section (January 2025) Refugee Voices in Contemporary Literature Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature Deadline for Submissions: June 1, 2023 This special focus section of Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature highlights the ways refugee authors tell stories of displacement, while engaging with issues of representation, authenticity, voice, the politics of refuge and humanitarianism, and the paradigms of victimhood and rescue. In response to the “problem-oriented approach to refugees,” the growing interdisciplinary field of critical refugee studies (CRS) aims to highlight the resilience and creativity of refugee communities: “a humane and ethical site of inquiry that re-conceptualizes refugee lifeworlds not as a problem to be solved by global elites but as a site of social, political and historical critiques that, when carefully traced, make transparent processes of colonization, war, and displacement” (https://criticalrefugeestudies.com/). This framework and others reframe analyses of literature of displacement: to complicate traditional paradigms of victimhood and rescue (critique of humanitarianism), present nontraditional figures of refugee affect (e.g. the “ungrateful refugee,” Dina Nayeri), excavate additional knowledge of refugee experiences, and shift focal points from suffering to resilience. Considering the continued relevance of refugees as those who are both “invisible and hypervisible” (Nguyen 15), this special issue seeks to remedy the imposed “condition of voicelessness” of those who have been displaced by highlighting their narratives (Soguk 294). The contributions to this issue should engage with critical frameworks that center the creative work of refugee authors and artists, while acknowledging the complexity of what it means to be displaced in the contemporary era. The editors welcome articles that explore topics and concepts related to the opening of critical refugee studies in German Studies as well as in Francophone and Hispanic cultural production, and comparative studies. Themes for contributions may include, but are not limited to:

• figures of displacement and placelessness
• intertwined histories of flight, colonialism, and imperialism
• gratitude and the “ungrateful refugee” (Dina Nayeri)
• the “good” refugee
• concepts of livability
• refugee refusal
• technology and flight
• the place of the camp
• statelessness, human rights and refugee rights in literature
• forced displacement and intersections of Indigenous studies and refugee studies

Please submit an abstract of 350-500 words along with a brief biography to Kathryn Sederberg (ksederbe@kzoo.edu) and Rebekah Slodounik (ras073@bucknell.edu) by June 1, 2023. Notifications of acceptance can be expected by June 15, and complete manuscripts of 6,000-8,000 words, formatted in MLA style (see formatting guidelines), will be due by October 1, 2023. Founded in 1976, the journal Studies in 20^th and 20st Century Literature became open access in 2014, and charges authors no fees. Guest Editors:  Kathryn Sederberg, Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Assistant Professor of German Studies, Kalamazoo College Rebekah Slodounik, Assistant Professor of German Studies, Bucknell University Works Cited Espiritu, Yên Lê, Lan Duong, Ma Vang, Victor Bascara, Khatharya Um, Lila Sharif, and Nigel Hatton. Departures: An Introduction to Critical Refugee Studies. Oakland: U of California P, 2022. Nayeri, Dina. The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You. New York: Catapult, 2019. Nguyen, Viet Thanh, ed. “Introduction.” The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives. New York: Abrams Press, 2018, pp. 11-22. Soguk, Nevgat. “Border’s Capture: Insurrectional Politics, Border-Crossing Humans, and the New Political.” In Borderscapes: Hidden Geographies and Politics at Territory’s Edge, edited by Prem Kumar Rajaram and Carl Grundy-Warr, Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2007, pp. 283-308. Contact Info: guest editors: Kathryn Sederberg (ksederbe@kzoo.edu) and Rebekah Slodounik (ras073@bucknell.edu) general inquiries about the journal: Laura Kanost, editor (lakanost@ksu.edu) Contact Email: ksederbe@kzoo.edu URL: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/ * Dear colleagues, Please find below the call for 4 PhD positions within the framework of the Horizon-Europe-Project “United in Narrative Diversity? Cultural (Ex-)Change and Mutual Perceptions in Eastern and Western Europe at the threshold of the digital age“ (NARDIV). Most interesting for life writing scholars is PhD position 2: Université Aix-Marseille / University of Amsterdam “East-West Perception in Life Narratives of Women in Post-Communist Europe”. Feel free to circulate this advertisement to your network of colleagues and MA students to identify potential candidates. __ University of Amsterdam Faculty of Humanities Department of History, European Studies and Religious Studies dr. M.J.M. Rensen Senior Lecturer in Modern European Literature Bushuis/Oost-Indisch Huis | kamer D2.08B (Post) PO Box 1619 | 1000 BP Amsterdam (Visit) Kloveniersburgwal 48 | 1012 CX AmsterdamT +31.20.525.2198 New publications : Edited volume AUP: Networks, Narratives and Nations: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463720755/networks-narratives-and-nations Redacteur Armada. Tijdschrift voor wereldliteratuur.  * Call for application In the framework of the Horizon-Europe-Project “United in Narrative Diversity? Cultural (Ex-)Change and Mutual Perceptions in Eastern and Western Europe at the threshold of the digital age“ (NARDIV) are four PhD-positions available NARDIV Europe experiences a relaunch of cultural and national stereotypes triggered by the migration crisis, Covid-19, democratic backslides and war against Ukraine. Four decades after the fall of the war, Eastern and Western Europe seem increasingly alienated, each having different perceptions on Europe, the EU and its principles. These trends manifest themselves in an alienation between Eastern and Western Europe, as well as in the perception of Europe in general. Intermittently they are, as we suggest, expressions of resilient post-colonial relationships within Europe. With a focus on the (clichéd binary) East-West confrontation, this project explores the future possibilities of building and managing transnational relationships in the fields of culture and heritage, one of the mainstays of customary cultural diplomacy. Taking six European countries as the basis of our exploration – France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Romania – we critically examine mutual perceptions in Eastern and Western Europe through the prism of intercultural exchange. In the framework of the project, scholars, practitioners from culture-exchange institutes, artists and creative industries players join forces to scrutinise current difficulties, from diverging historical developments, emotional investments, to challenges of the digital media revolution. The objective is to develop new strategies to conceptualise and revitalise cultural encounters and exchange between East and West to discuss mutual perceptions and ideas. The findings of this collaboration aim at a) boosting the culture-diplomacy / exchange sector by strengthening their role as mediators of transnational European values; b) lay bare best and worst practices in order to develop recommendations for new approaches and (media) strategies. Thus, fostering a more inclusive concept of cultural diplomacy to counter populist, identity-based discourses and to promote the European narrative across different cultural heritages. Coordinator: Aix-Marseille Université (Nicole Colin, Catherine Teissier) Partner: Protisvalor Mediterranee SAS FR, Uniwersytet Wroclawski PL, Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg DE, Universitatea Din Bucuresti RO, Uniwersytet Szczecinski PL, Stichting Duitsland Instituut bij de Universiteit van Amsterdam NL, Romanian Cultural Institute RO, Goethe-Institut DE, Institut français de Roumanie RO, Universiteit van Amsterdam NL, EUFRAK-EuroConsults Berlin GmbH DE, GLOBESEC SK PhD position 1: HAW Hamburg / Universiteit van Amsterdam “Inclusive Cultural Policy: Social Media and Hybrid Community Building in European East-West Transfer” – Funding: 3 years – Start: 1 June 2023 (or later) – Employer: HAW Hamburg – PhD-inscription: Universiteit van Amsterdam – Application deadline: 15 May 2023 In the Work Package “Cultural Policy Dialogue in Social Media”, which is coordinated by the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg) in cooperation with the Duitsland Institute of the Universiteit van Amsterdam and the Goethe-Institut Bucharest, new forms of cultural transfer with the help of social media and hybrid event formats as well as a participatory self-image of cultural diplomacy and educational institutions are to be developed. The focus is particularly on cultural exchange and community building in contexts that have often been neglected so far, such as work in rural regions or cooperation with young people. Based on existing research results in the field of cultural communication (e.g. for museums), innovative strategies will be developed, especially in the field of social media, but also hybrid formats for cultural events and workshops for institutions of foreign cultural policy. Your profile – Completed Master’s degree in communication, media, cultural studies or a similar discipline – Interest and initial practical experience in the field of social media and digital communication – Interest in applied research – Knowledge of qualitative and quantitative methods such as guided interviews, text and content analysis and field research – Knowledge of cultural communication, cultural transfer and cultural diplomacy – Ability to work independently and systematically and to work in a team – Good knowledge of German, English and Romanian Your tasks – Writing a scientific dissertation – Field research in Amsterdam and Bucharest (6 months each) – Development of communication strategies for social media using the example of the Goethe-Institut Bucharest and the Duitsland Instituuts Amsterdam. – Development of hybrid formats in foreign cultural policy, especially for the intensification of cultural transfer between young people. – Collaboration in the NARDIV project team – Participation in workshops, conferences and cultural events in the framework of the project NARDIV Further information and application: Prof. Dr. Hanna Klimpe (hanna.klimpe@haw-hamburg.de) PhD position 2: Université Aix-Marseille / Universiteit van Amsterdam “East-West Perception in Life Narratives of Women in Post-Communist Europe” – Funding: 3 years – Start: 1 September 2023 – Employer: Aix-Marseille Université – PhD-inscription: Joint PhD Aix-Marseille Université / Universiteit van Amsterdam – Application deadline: 15 June 2023 In the Work Package “Perceptions of East/West in women’s life narratives in post-communist Europe”, coordinated by the Université d’Aix-Marseille (AMU) in cooperation with the University of Amsterdam, the East-West perception in life narratives of women writers will be investigated within the framework of a dissertation. For this purpose, a corpus will be selected, especially from texts of the genre of life narratives, which can include, for examples, fictional texts, autofictions, autosociobiographical writings, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries as well as hybrid forms. Among other things, images, emotions, embodied experiences and affects are to be examined in the texts, which not only represent the different realities of life, weltanschauung and styles in East and West, but also actively influence mutual perceptions. The Phd project can, for example, focus on female authors from the GDR or East Germany from different generations, female authors with migration or exile experience, and female authors from German-speaking minorities in Eastern and Central Europe. Your profile – Master’s degree in German studies, (comparative) literature or cultural studies, European studies, gender studies or a similar discipline – Interest in intercultural questions, cultural transfer, literary circulation – Interest in qualitative methods of social research such as semi-structured interviews and field research in cultural contexts – Knowledge of the East-West debate in Germany and Europe – Ability to work independently and systematically and to work in a team – Very good knowledge of German, French and English Your tasks – Writing a scientific dissertation – Field research (in Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, etc.): Interviews with authors – Transcription and analysis of interviews – Support in the creation of short video films – Participation in the NARDIV project team – Participation in workshops, conferences and cultural events in the framework of the NARDIV project Further information and application: Dr. Catherine Teissier (catherine.teissier@univ-amu.fr), Dr. Marleen Rensen (m.j.m.rensen@uva.nl) PhD position 3: Université Aix-Marseille / Universitatea din București “The Impact of Cultural Diplomacy as Soft Power in Times of Crises I” – Start: 1 September 2023 – Funding: 3 years – Employer: Aix-Marseille Université – PhD-inscription: Joint PhD Aix-Marseille Université / University of Bucharest – Application deadline: 15 June 2023 As part of the Work Package “Shaping perceptions by cultural diplomacy as soft power”, coordinated by the Universitatea din București and the University of Aix-Marseille in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Bucharest, this PhD will investigate the activities and programmes of German-speaking institutions and their influence on Romanian society and its cultural actors between 1968 and 2007. Your profile – Master’s degree in German studies, cultural studies, history, political science, cultural sociology or a similar discipline – Interest in cultural diplomacy and theories of cultural transfer – Interest in Romanian and German cultural history and the exchange between the two countries – Interest in field research in France and Romania – Ability to work independently and systematically and to work in a team – Very good knowledge of German and Romanian, good knowledge of English, knowledge of French Your tasks – Writing a scientific dissertation in German – Archival research to identify the strategies of the Goethe-Institut and other German-speaking institutions in Romania during the last two decades of communism and in the period between the fall of Ceaușescu and Romania’s accession to the European Union – Analysis of the impact of these strategies on cultural and academic actors and their networks, as well as on civil society – Field research: interviews with cultural and academic actors in Romania, Germany, Austria, etc. – Transcription and analysis of the interviews – Work in the team of the NARDIV project, in particular in cooperation with the PhD student of the Universitatea din București (PhD position 4) – Participation in research workshops, conferences and cultural events organised in the framework of the NARDIV project Further information and application: Prof. Dr. Nicole Colin (nicole.colin-umlauf@univ-amu.fr), Prof. Dr. Horatiu Decuble (horatiu.decuble@lls.unibuc.ro) PhD position 4: Universitatea din București / Université Aix-Marseille “The Impact of Cultural Diplomacy as Soft Power in Times of Crises II” – Funding: 3 years – Start: 1 September 2023 – Employer: Universitatea din București – PhD-inscription: Joint PhD Universitatea din București / Aix-Marseille Université – Applications review and selection of candidates: 1-15 September 2023, Universitatea din București As part of the Work Package “Shaping perceptions by cultural diplomacy as soft power”, coordinated by the Universitatea din București in collaboration with the University of Aix-Marseille and the Institut Français de Bucarest, this PhD will investigate the activities and programmes of the Institut Français de Roumanie and their impact on Romanian society and its cultural actors between 1968 and 2007. Your profile – Master’s degree in political science, history, Romance studies, international relations, sociology of culture or a comparable discipline – Interest in the history of cultural diplomacy and theories of cultural transfer – Knowledge of Romanian and French cultural history and the exchange relations between the two countries – Interest in field research in France and Romania – Ability to work independently and systematically and to work in a team – Very good knowledge of Romanian and French as well as good knowledge of English required; knowledge of German desirable Your tasks – Writing a scientific dissertation in French – Archival research to identify the strategies of the Institut français during the last two decades of communism and in the period between the fall of Ceaușescu and Romania’s accession to the European Union – Analysis of the impact of these strategies on cultural and academic actors and their networks, as well as on civil society – Field research: interviews with cultural, cultural policy and academic actors in Romania, France, etc. – Transcription and analysis of the interviews – Work in the team of the NARDIV project, especially with the PhD student of the Université d’Aix-Marseille (PhD position 3) – Participation in research workshops, conferences and cultural events organised in the framework of the NARDIV project Further information: Prof. Dr. Cristian Preda (cristian.preda@unibuc.ro), Prof. Dr. Nicole Colin (nicole.colin-umlauf@univ-amu.fr) How to apply? We look forward to receiving your online application with the usual application documents (letter of motivation, curriculum vitae, diplomas, recommendations) in one PDF file to the contact persons indicated. Application deadline: see the respective offer *

CfP. Decolonizing the Self: How Do We Perceive Others When We Practice Autotheory?

Special Issue (winter 2024) of The February Journal, edited by Shura Dogadaeva and Andrei Zavadski Deadline for Submissions: May 15, 2023 Andrei: So much is currently being said about decolonization. The term is being used—and, as we currently see in Eastern Europe—also abused a lot. But what does decolonization mean in practice? How does one engage in decolonizing the self? In the next special issue of The February Journal, I would like to focus on approaches to practical self-decolonization. Shura: I agree. But when I think about this, I cannot help but wonder whether I have the right to engage in a self-decolonizing practice. Shouldn’t I, a citizen of Russia and, in one way or another, a product of its imperialist culture, shut up and listen? Shouldn’t I limit my own agency in this regard? Andrei: Decolonizing the self is, in my opinion, one of those tasks that require our immediate and active attention. As somebody who was born and grew up in Belarus, I ‘belong’ to both the colonized and—in a way, especially if we consider Lukashenka’s current politics—the colonizing sides, I think we consciously have to challenge this ‘belonging.’ Ultimately, such work should result in redefining our own subjectivity and thus altering the way we perceive others. It is our primary task, I feel. Shura: But how does one deconstruct one’s ‘belonging’? It is a very abstract term. Belonging to something often means substituting my own experience with a ‘collective,’ ‘universal’ one. Unless you are a white heterosexual male, which is likely to make your personal experience close to ‘the universal one.’ But does it mean, then, that closely listening to myself might lead to a change in how I relate to others? Andrei: If we consider belonging—but also theory, knowledge, and so on—to be a construct imposed by a historical white-male-heterosexual instance and by—more-often-than-not imperialist—thinking, then it is exactly what colonizes, corrupts us, resulting in a colonizing gaze (as well as discourse and behavior) that we exercise upon others. By decolonizing the self—for instance, by dissecting our own experience—we question our belonging and other similar constructs, challenge and deconstruct them, and thus decolonize our relationship to others. Shura: Personal experience allows one to think outside the box, giving this idiomatic cliché a literal meaning. If ‘culture,’ ‘knowledge,’ et cetera are constructs, they confine us within boxed realities. Reflecting on your own experience makes you realize that this box has walls, but they are not as strong as it might seem and can in fact be brought down. Utilizing one’s personal experience for this purpose might seem like a narcissistic trap, but I don’t think it is. Rather, it is about the fact that any personal experience is always much more than ‘universal,’ ‘universalized’ experience. I think autotheory (Fournier 2022; Vaneycken 2020; Wiegman 2020) is a great method to free the self from such imposed colonizing constructs. Andrei: How do you understand autotheory? For me, it is not simply about reflecting on your personal experience and sharing it with others: this would make one part of the identity politics discourse. Moreover, a person engaging in an autotheoretical practice of self-decolonization might, as our editor Isabel Bredenbröker points out, have to resist negative identity politics, that is, outside efforts to keep this person within the confines of one prescribed identity. Shura: Definitely. You know, I love this phrase from Preciado (2021), who writes in Can the Monster Speak? that ‘[t]o be branded with an identity means simply that one does not have the power to designate one’s identity as universal.’ Authotheory isn’t about branding oneself with an identity, it is about deconstructing the ‘universal,’ of which Preciado speaks. Andrei: So, autotheory is about relating your personal experience to the one declared as ‘universal,’ but not with the aim of making the former fit in, but rather, of loosening and shattering the very structure of the universal. Once these epistemological structures are in ruins, voices and experiences that did not fit in become much more audible. By decolonizing the self we are able to listen, hear, and perceive others and their unique experiences. I think my own practice of decolonizing the self started when I realized, some time ago, that I was queer. Luckily, this realization did not make me doubt my own sanity (which sadly happens to a lot of LGBTQIA+ people), but prompted closer attention to my personal experience. Analyzing it against the ‘universal norm’ into which I was supposed to fit, I grew skeptical of ‘the universal’ rather than my own experience. Which, in line with intersectionality thinking, made me more attentive to other marginalized voices around me. Shura: My practice originates in reading groups that I conducted with young adults at a Moscow museum. We read texts on Stalinisim, genocide, World War Two, and similar topics. I soon realized that my pupils did not have the language to talk about traumatic past events. I understood this as a consequence of the (post-)Soviet education system, which saw little transformation, if at all. It made me reevaluate my own education and reexamine, among other things, historical science as a practice of colonization. I started listening to these kids very carefully, and this act of listening made them try hard to formulate their own thoughts, rather than simply reproduce school-taught narratives. Andrei: This reminds me of how Maggie Nelson’s (2015) The Argonauts opens. On the novel’s very first page, she invokes Wittgenstein’s idea that the inexpressible is contained, albeit inexpressibly, within the expressed. By listening to what your students express you are able to get a sense of what they cannot express. Shura: Yes, listening is actually an essential practice for a teacher: it allows her to challenge constructions like ‘knowledge’ or ‘belonging,’ which, in turn, challenges and transforms the types of relationships with others that are imposed by these constructions. Andrei: So, it would be interesting to learn how individuals engage in self-decolonizing autotheoretical practices and what manifestations these practices acquire in artistic, pedagogical, activist, academic, and other fields of life. Shura: Yes! And not only discursive practices: we need to consider what is beyond discourse. (Even though Judith Butler would crucify us for suggesting there is anything non-discursive.) Perhaps there are artistic, performative practices out there that work with affects, emotions, and bodies, aiming at self-decolonization. The question here is: What would this inquiry add to what we know about decolonization already? Andrei: Ana Fabíola Maurício (2023), in her chapter in the book on silence that was reviewed in The February Journal’s Issue 01–02 (Veselov 2023), critiques the discourse of postcolonialism and postcolonial theory for imposing on an individual from an oppressed group a kind of responsibility to be that group’s voice and representative. In other words, the individual’s personal experience is seen as secondary to the collective experience of the group. I believe that engaging in autotheoretical self-decolonizing practices would be a way to emphasize individual experiences and challenge established theoretical approaches. Shura: It would be great to invite authors who are developing autotheoretical self-decolonizing practices in their academic, artistic, activist, pedagogical, and other activities. It would also be great to receive submissions that use different genres and forms of presentation, as well as ones that stem from different geographical, epistemological, and other contexts. References 

1. 1. Fournier L (2022) Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

1. 1. Maurício AF (2023) Un-silencing bodies, un-silencing lives: Artistic (self-)decoloniality and artistic (self-) empowerment. In: Santos L (ed), Cultures of Silence: The Power of Untold Narratives. London and New York, Routledge: 9–27.

1. 1. Nelson M (2015) The Argonauts. Minneapolis, MN, Graywolf Press.

1. 1. Preciado P (2021) Can the Monster Speak. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

1. 1. Vaneycken A (2020) Collectiveness as a form of autotheory. Parse, 12, https://parsejournal.com/article/collectiveness-as-a-form-of-autotheory/ (03/04/23).

1. 1. Veselov A (2023) Book review. Santos L (ed) (2023) Cultures of Silence: The Power of Untold Narratives. London and New York, Routledge. The February Journal, 01–02: 161–170.

1. 1. Wiegman R (2020) Introduction: Autotheory theory. Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, 1(76): 1–14.

To submit a proposal, please provide the following information in English:  • contribution type (e.g., article, visual essay, reflexive essay, data essay, etc.); • language of contribution; • title of contribution; • abstract (300 words); • keywords that indicate the focus of the contribution; • biographical information, including a short biographical statement of maximum 100 words stating research interests and relevant professional experience. Proposals for contributions are due on May 15, 2023. Send all the information requested above—as a single PDF document—to the info@thefebruaryjournal.org. The February Journal is an independent interdisciplinary journal at intersections of academic, art, and activist practices. A project of Tabor Collective, February produces special issues on strategic themes that currently include migration, displacement, statelessness, and exile in the context of war, violence, and aggression. The journal publishes empirical, theoretical, and speculative research that uses de-centering, queer, feminist, decolonial, and autotheoretical methodologies. It welcomes research in a variety of genres, celebrating innovative ways of presentation. Peer-reviewed and available in open access, The February Journal provides a sourcebook of ideas for an international audience. Contact Info: Andrei Zavadski Contact Email: info@thefebruaryjournal.org URL: https://thefebruaryjournal.org/en/announcements/call-for-submissions/25 *

13^th Annual BIO Conference May 19-21, 2023 New York, NY

Along with the Leon Levy Center for Biography, Biographers International Organization (BIO) will co-host a three day conference both in person and online at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. General admission is $345 in person ($295 for members); and $99 for streaming only ($49 for members). Note that a year’s membership is just $60 for most people, $30 for students. Click here to join.

Register Here Addressing both the state of the world and the state of biography, the James Atlas Plenary on Saturday morning will feature a conversation on “Biography in Times of Conflict and War” between Blanche Wiesen Cook, the esteemed biographer of Eleanor Roosevelt, and Beverly Gage, whose recent highly acclaimed biography of J. Edgar Hoover, is on BIO’s short list for the Plutarch Award. The 2023 BIO Award winner, Kitty Kelley, will deliver the keynote address on Saturday afternoon. She is the undisputed first-name in unauthorized biography, captivating readers with her best-selling biographies of Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Nancy Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Oprah, the Bush family, and the British royal family. Panels on biography basics, craft, publishing, and promotion—along with sessions on issues of race, transnationalism, and other subjects—will take place on Saturday. Offerings range from “The Art of the Interview” to “Complicated Icons,” the latter featuring noted biographers Stacy Schiff (on Samuel Adams), David Maraniss (on Jim Thorpe) and Tamara Payne (on Malcolm X). There are ample opportunities for meeting fellow biographers throughout the weekend.

PhD Scholarships now available in English and Creative Writing!

Are you interested in undertaking a PhD or MPhil in English or Creative Writing? Applications for JCU Research Scholarships for 2024 are open for submissions now! Seehttps://www.jcu.edu.au/graduate-research-school/how-to-apply

I am looking to supervise projects that align with the following topics, but am also interested in discussing alternative but related projects with prospective applicants:

– Exploring the power of personal stories through a framework of feminist and/or queer theory.

– Exploring contemporary memoir, personal stories, and/or digital life narrative around sexual trauma.

– Women’s life writing in print and digital forms.

– What work can life writing texts do in relation to the social issue of sexual violence?

– Book clubs as agents of feminist change around sexual and gendered violence in Australia.

Approaches to the above topics may be either literary based or creative practice based, so you could take up and investigate any of these topics by either writing a literary research thesis, or a thesis that combines creative writing and literary scholarship.

External students are encouraged to apply (Australian residents only).

To enquire please contact Dr Emma Maguire, Primary Advisor & Lecturer in English and Writing: emma.maguire@jcu.edu.au

* Epistolary Time / Time in Letters 4th Epistolary Research Network (TERN) Online Symposium 5/5/2023; 10/6-7/2023) The clock is ticking. Schedules, delays, deadlines, queues worry our lives. Letters are often considered in terms of space and geographical distance. In 2023, TERN proposes to revisit themes surrounding temporality, be it in reference to material form or technology, delivery, calendar time or epistolary contents and conventions. Has a delayed letter ever changed a historical event? How do letter writers, consciously or unconsciously, use specific epistolary tenses to collapse or manipulate time, and for what reasons? Why are letters dated to one time period embedded in other dated media like newspapers, manuals or scrapbooks? What of the future of this form of writing? ​ Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

• • anachronisms

• • letters written or delivered under temporal constraints (war, illness, incarceration, difficulty finding carriers)

• • epistolary tenses, time expressions and dating conventions

• • time spent letter writing vs email, societal expectations

• • undated letters, letters removed from calendar time

• • periods when letter writing gained or lost popularity and the social context

• • open letters, letters written for later time periods or no specific time period

• • epistolary conventions concerning letter or letter archive dating

• • best time to write and reply to letters

• • mail art that addresses the concept of time

• • causes and consequences of postponements, delays and other non-delivery

• • letters used to date events in history or the lives of people

• • chronology of letter collections, gap between date letters composed and published

TERN welcomes 250-word maximum proposals for 20-minute papers concerning any geographical location, discipline or historical period. Papers should approach the topic of time in letters in innovative ways that will impact our understanding of this important written form and the societies that have produced it. Please send submissions to ternetwork@hotmail.com by midnight (BST) on 5 May 2023. The conference language is English. Publication of selected papers will be arranged following the conference. * Call for papers – International Conference – Memory gaps: Tracks and Cracks October 19-20, 2023 University of Strasbourg Deadline for Submissions: May 1, 2023 We would like to examine the way in which the arts (theatre, cinema, literature, painting, sculpture, music) draw, trace and unfold the canvases and scores of individual, familiar and collective memory, from traces, cracks, flaws, interstices, lapses, oblivion, loss of memory, repression, from “the memory of what is forgotten”, shadowy areas, crypts, confiscated images and words, prevented, manipulated or forced memory, from “wounded memory” (Ricoeur), forgetting processes, silences, denials, blind spots, scattered fragments, superimposed and/or hybridized strata, from the power of memory and the power over memory. This will also lead us to re-examine, in a comparative perspective, the forms of commitment and the culture and forms of commemoration – “orthopaedic memory, frozen in sterile commemorations”, the memory “on display”. Commitment and commemoration – two key words in the research programme of LES:TRACES (Laboratory for studies on: trauma, art, commemoration, engagement, sound). Scientific committee: Isabelle Reck, Beat Föllmi Director of CREAA: Alessandro Arbo The Centre for Research and Experimentation on the Artistic Act (CREAA) aims to develop knowledge of the artistic act in interdisciplinary matter, by comparing the knowledge and methodologies of the humanities, social sciences and exact sciences. Contact Info: The research group LES:TRACES (Laboratory for studies on: trauma, art, commemoration, engagement, sound) organises in autumn 2023 its third conference with the following topic : Memory gaps: Tracks and Cracks (in arts, theatre, cinema, literature, and music) International Conference, 19 and 20 October 2023, University of Strasbourg Each speaker has 30 minutes of presentation, followed by a 15-minute discussion. The languages of the conference are French and English. The publication of the papers is planned. Please send your proposal (title, short abstract and biography) at the latest by 1 May 2023 to: Beat Föllmi, University of Strasbourg, bfollmi@unistra.fr Contact Email: bfollmi@unistra.fr URL: * Deadline for Submissions, April 30, 2023 Translating Travel Writing in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries French/British Connections/Continuums Centre de Recherches sur les Littératures et la Sociopoétique (CELIS) Institut d’Histoire des Représentations et des Idées dans les Modernités (IHRIM) Société d’étude de da Littérature de Voyage du Monde Anglophone (SELVA 19^th-20^th October, 2023 Maison de Sciences de l’Homme  Clermont-Ferrand France Translators and travellers have largely been understood as similarly negotiating interstitial textual and geographic spaces and places. Tim Youngs’s conception of travellers and translators as “figures moving between cultures, not quite or wholly belonging to any one exclusively^[1]”is particularly pertinent from this standpoint, as is Susan Pickford’s identification of both translation and travel writing as prime sites for “ideologically motivated textual manipulation”.^[2] Thus, the study of the translation of travel texts may not be understood in what Jeff Morrison describes as “narrow, linear, national terms”.^[3] In histories of translation, theoretical and transnational stances have of course received sustained attention over the years (see Michael Cronin for example). Building on perspectives which Martin and Pickford have developed in their work^[4], this conference will seek to consolidate their partial focus on cross-channel, British and French theoretical and operational approaches to the translation of travel texts relating to real or fictional journeying but also to treatises/pamphlets on the necessity, act and/or nature of travel itself. How these travel text translations contributed to shaping international relations between the two countries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and how they participated in the linkages and connections forged by cultural transfers will be the focus of this conference. The relationships established between the travellers and their translators, if any; the identities and literary, scientific or professional credentials of each; how they approach their “translatorship”; how “translation flows”^[5] speak to the equilibrium of cultural relations, are just some areas of interest. Other fruitful approaches might engage with how women progressively took up translation tasks. Alison E. Martin’s 2010 study of European women who “cast themselves as intellectually enquiring, knowledgeable and authoritative figures in their translations”^[6] of scientific travel writing at the end of the eighteenth century is just one extremely useful starting point for further enquiry into diverse types of travel writing, fictional, philological, exploration and/or mercantilist narrative, etc. Book and reception history perspectives are also welcome, addressing the problematics of who published these translations, of how they were made available (circulating libraries, shilling parts, subscriptions), of who read them, and of how “Belles infidèles” traditions fared in terms of circulation and reception as reactions to them became rather more guarded. Proposals from modern-day translators of eighteenth and nineteenth-century travel texts would also be very welcome. Plenary speakers: Ruth Menzies (Aix-Marseille Université) and Marius Warholm Haugen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology). Deadline for submission of 250-word proposals for 25-minute papers: April 30^th, 2023. Please send your proposals as well as a short biographical notice to the two conference organisers below. Notification of acceptance: 31^st May, 2023 Conference organisers Sandhya Patel (UCA, IHRIM) : sandhya.patel@uca.fr Anne Rouhette (UCA, CELIS) : anne.rouhette@uca.fr Scientific committee Gabor Gelleri, University of Aberystwyth Pierre Lurbe, Université Paris Sorbonne Susan Pickford, University of Geneva Jean Viviès, Université Aix-Marseille

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^[1] Tim Youngs, The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p.10. ^[2] Susan Pickford, “Travel Writing in Translation” in Barbara Schaff, Handbook of British Travel Writing, De Gruyter, 2020. ^[3] Alison Martin and Susan Pickford, Travel Narratives in Translation, 1750-1830: Nationalism, Ideology, Gender, Routledge, 2012, p.51. ^[4] See Travel Narratives in Translation, 1750-1830, op. cit.; “Translating 18^th and 19^th-Century European Travel Writing,” InTRAlinea, 2013. ^[5] See Christopher Rundle, The Routledge Handbook of Translation History, 2021. ^[6] Alison E. Martin, “Outward bound: women translators and scientific travel writing, 1780–1800, Annals of Science, 73, 2, 2016, p.1. Contact Info: Conference organisers Sandhya Patel  : sandhya.patel@uca.fr Anne Rouhette : anne.rouhette@uca.fr Contact Email: sandhya.patel@uca.fr

From the List Manager–please excuse the ridiculous error in the subject heading of the last announcement regarding the location of the University of Strasbourg. (Although there is some history there . . . ) My apologies. CH

*Broadcast Date, April 21, 2023 The next episode of the webinar “Let’s Talk Books at NMU (Northern Michigan University)”  hosted by Lynn Domina will be Friday, April 21 at 1:00 Eastern time.  The speaker will be Tom Taylor, speaking about his recent book, Modern Travel in World History (Routledge, 2022). The book explores all sorts of travel by all sorts of people, moving around the world in all sorts of circumstances. Tom Taylor is an Associate Professor of History at Seattle University and has traveled extensively himself. Registration is required but is free and easy, here: https://nmu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dnXEzUN8QMmJcIvo8AyMvw *

Deadline for Submissions, April 28, 2023

Call for Papers – Oral History Network of Ireland 2023 Conference – ‘Oral History: Power and Resistance’

Ireland {Republic} The Oral History Network of Ireland (OHNI) is pleased to announce its 2023 conference on the theme of ‘Oral History: Power and Resistance’. At every stage of the process, oral history projects may be impacted by and engage with issues of power and resistance. Oral histories offer unique insights into the operations of power and resistance in our societies in the past and present. This is not confined to issues of political power and resistance but can include everything from power dynamics within personal relationships, to understanding minority-majority group experiences. Who exercises power, how it is used and how it can be leveraged are key questions for oral historians. Similarly, what is resistance, what forms it takes and how it may or may not effect social change are questions that have been explored with the assistance of oral histories. Power and resistance are also considerations at every level in the creation of an oral history – whose stories are told, how they’re told, the power (or lack thereof) exercised by interviewees and interviewers, and the purpose of oral history itself. The conference will take place in person at Dooley’s Hotel, Waterford on Friday 16th and Saturday 17th June 2023. We are delighted to welcome Graham Smith, Professor of Oral History at Newcastle University, as the keynote speaker. His research interests include public history and environmental oral history, with a particular focus on how people remember in groups, as well as the history of family and the history of medicine. He helped to establish the Oral History Unit and Collective at Newcastle in 2017. A long-time trade union activist, Graham is the joint editor of the Historians for History blog and the editor of the four-volume collection Oral History, published by Routledge in 2017 as part of their Critical Concepts in Historical Studies series. Conference contributions are welcome in a range of formats:

• • Standard conference papers (20 minutes)

• • 10-minute presentations for our ‘Moments’ panels, focusing on outstanding or memorable individuals, experiences, and/or incidents that influenced or changed the way the presenter practices oral history. Contributions showcasing new projects on the conference theme at an early stage of development are also welcome here.

• • Posters and visual presentations

We welcome proposals on any topic related to oral history, particularly those that take an imaginative approach to the conference theme of ‘Power and Resistance’. Potential topics could include (but are not limited to):

• • Power dynamics in the interview

• • Oral history and marginalised voices

• • Elite oral histories

• • Uncovering the operation of power in organisations and institutions

• • Abuses of power

• • Resistance and adaptation

• • Power, resistance and trauma

• • History from above and below

• • Power, resistance and the archive

• • Oral history and empowerment

To propose a paper, please submit an abstract (of not more than 250 words) along with your name, the name of your group, organisation or institution, and your email address to info@oralhistorynetworkireland.ie before Friday, 28 April 2023 at 5pm. All proposals must demonstrate a clear engagement with oral history and/or personal testimony and we actively encourage the use of audio or video clips. The conference committee’s decision on successful abstracts will be communicated to potential presenters in May 2023. For further queries please contact us through info@oralhistorynetworkireland.ie. Contact Email: info@oralhistorynetworkireland.ie URL: https://oralhistorynetworkireland.ie/2023-conference * Deadline for Submissions, April 30, 2023

CFP–Travel Writing

Seeking proposals for presentations on travel writing in English from any period or country. The 2023 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association (RMMLA) convention will be held in Denver, CO from Oct. 12-14. Please submit a 200-word abstract by April 30, 2023 Alan Blackstock alan.blackstock@usu.edu * Deadline for Submissions, April 30, 2023 Translating Travel Writing in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries French/British Connections/Continuums Centre de Recherches sur les Littératures et la Sociopoétique (CELIS) Institut d’Histoire des Représentations et des Idées dans les Modernités (IHRIM) Société d’étude de da Littérature de Voyage du Monde Anglophone (SELVA 19^th-20^th October, 2023 Maison de Sciences de l’Homme  Clermont-Ferrand France Translators and travellers have largely been understood as similarly negotiating interstitial textual and geographic spaces and places. Tim Youngs’s conception of travellers and translators as “figures moving between cultures, not quite or wholly belonging to any one exclusively^[1]”is particularly pertinent from this standpoint, as is Susan Pickford’s identification of both translation and travel writing as prime sites for “ideologically motivated textual manipulation”.^[2] Thus, the study of the translation of travel texts may not be understood in what Jeff Morrison describes as “narrow, linear, national terms”.^[3] In histories of translation, theoretical and transnational stances have of course received sustained attention over the years (see Michael Cronin for example). Building on perspectives which Martin and Pickford have developed in their work^[4], this conference will seek to consolidate their partial focus on cross-channel, British and French theoretical and operational approaches to the translation of travel texts relating to real or fictional journeying but also to treatises/pamphlets on the necessity, act and/or nature of travel itself. How these travel text translations contributed to shaping international relations between the two countries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and how they participated in the linkages and connections forged by cultural transfers will be the focus of this conference. The relationships established between the travellers and their translators, if any; the identities and literary, scientific or professional credentials of each; how they approach their “translatorship”; how “translation flows”^[5] speak to the equilibrium of cultural relations, are just some areas of interest. Other fruitful approaches might engage with how women progressively took up translation tasks. Alison E. Martin’s 2010 study of European women who “cast themselves as intellectually enquiring, knowledgeable and authoritative figures in their translations”^[6] of scientific travel writing at the end of the eighteenth century is just one extremely useful starting point for further enquiry into diverse types of travel writing, fictional, philological, exploration and/or mercantilist narrative, etc. Book and reception history perspectives are also welcome, addressing the problematics of who published these translations, of how they were made available (circulating libraries, shilling parts, subscriptions), of who read them, and of how “Belles infidèles” traditions fared in terms of circulation and reception as reactions to them became rather more guarded. Proposals from modern-day translators of eighteenth and nineteenth-century travel texts would also be very welcome. Plenary speakers: Ruth Menzies (Aix-Marseille Université) and Marius Warholm Haugen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology). Deadline for submission of 250-word proposals for 25-minute papers: April 30^th, 2023. Please send your proposals as well as a short biographical notice to the two conference organisers below. Notification of acceptance: 31^st May, 2023 Conference organisers Sandhya Patel (UCA, IHRIM) : sandhya.patel@uca.fr Anne Rouhette (UCA, CELIS) : anne.rouhette@uca.fr Scientific committee Gabor Gelleri, University of Aberystwyth Pierre Lurbe, Université Paris Sorbonne Susan Pickford, University of Geneva Jean Viviès, Université Aix-Marseille

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^[1] Tim Youngs, The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p.10. ^[2] Susan Pickford, “Travel Writing in Translation” in Barbara Schaff, Handbook of British Travel Writing, De Gruyter, 2020. ^[3] Alison Martin and Susan Pickford, Travel Narratives in Translation, 1750-1830: Nationalism, Ideology, Gender, Routledge, 2012, p.51. ^[4] See Travel Narratives in Translation, 1750-1830, op. cit.; “Translating 18^th and 19^th-Century European Travel Writing,” InTRAlinea, 2013. ^[5] See Christopher Rundle, The Routledge Handbook of Translation History, 2021. ^[6] Alison E. Martin, “Outward bound: women translators and scientific travel writing, 1780–1800, Annals of Science, 73, 2, 2016, p.1. Contact Info: Conference organisers Sandhya Patel  : sandhya.patel@uca.fr Anne Rouhette : anne.rouhette@uca.fr Contact Email: sandhya.patel@uca.fr *

From the List Manager–please excuse the ridiculous error in the subject heading of the last announcement regarding the location of the University of Stasbourg. (Although there is some history there . . . ) My apologies. C

Call for papers – International Conference – Memory gaps: Tracks and Cracks

October 19-20, 2023 University of Strasbourg Deadline for Submissions: May 1, 2023 We would like to examine the way in which the arts (theatre, cinema, literature, painting, sculpture, music) draw, trace and unfold the canvases and scores of individual, familiar and collective memory, from traces, cracks, flaws, interstices, lapses, oblivion, loss of memory, repression, from “the memory of what is forgotten”, shadowy areas, crypts, confiscated images and words, prevented, manipulated or forced memory, from “wounded memory” (Ricoeur), forgetting processes, silences, denials, blind spots, scattered fragments, superimposed and/or hybridized strata, from the power of memory and the power over memory. This will also lead us to re-examine, in a comparative perspective, the forms of commitment and the culture and forms of commemoration – “orthopaedic memory, frozen in sterile commemorations”, the memory “on display”. Commitment and commemoration – two key words in the research programme of LES:TRACES (Laboratory for studies on: trauma, art, commemoration, engagement, sound). Scientific committee: Isabelle Reck, Beat Föllmi Director of CREAA: Alessandro Arbo The Centre for Research and Experimentation on the Artistic Act (CREAA) aims to develop knowledge of the artistic act in interdisciplinary matter, by comparing the knowledge and methodologies of the humanities, social sciences and exact sciences. Contact Info: The research group LES:TRACES (Laboratory for studies on: trauma, art, commemoration, engagement, sound) organises in autumn 2023 its third conference with the following topic : Memory gaps: Tracks and Cracks (in arts, theatre, cinema, literature, and music) International Conference, 19 and 20 October 2023, University of Strasbourg Each speaker has 30 minutes of presentation, followed by a 15-minute discussion. The languages of the conference are French and English. The publication of the papers is planned. Please send your proposal (title, short abstract and biography) at the latest by 1 May 2023 to: Beat Föllmi, University of Strasbourg, bfollmi@unistra.fr Contact Email: bfollmi@unistra.fr URL: * Broadcast Date, April 21, 2023 The next episode of the webinar “Let’s Talk Books at NMU (Northern Michigan University)”  hosted by Lynn Domina will be Friday, April 21 at 1:00 Eastern time.  The speaker will be Tom Taylor, speaking about his recent book, Modern Travel in World History (Routledge, 2022). The book explores all sorts of travel by all sorts of people, moving around the world in all sorts of circumstances. Tom Taylor is an Associate Professor of History at Seattle University and has traveled extensively himself. Registration is required but is free and easy, here: https://nmu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dnXEzUN8QMmJcIvo8AyMvw CALL FOR PAPERS: Creativecritical Writing Now A Special Issue of TEXT Journal of Writing and Writing Courses Deadline for Submissions: April 14, 2023 This Special Issue aims to explore forms of, and approaches to, creativecritical writing: writing which performs scholarly and creative functions simultaneously. Such blended approaches are no longer new—indeed, they are tracking distinct paths and uses in various contexts inside academia and beyond. As such, this Special Issue will take stock of the current nexus between the creative and the critical, as well as speculate on future conceptions of hybrid creative writing /scholarship. The creativecritical mode has a long lineage across fictocritical, autotheoretical and ethnographic writing, as well as creative nonfiction and the essay form. Recently, creativecritical writing has gained popular currency, as evidenced by the work of Rebecca Solnit, Anne Carson, and Maggie Nelson. It is also attracting critical momentum, most noticeably at doctoral level, where, as Kylie Cardell and Kate Douglas note, ‘Many postgraduates [in Life Writing] are engaging in projects where the creative and critical/exegetical are an integrated text’ (207–208). In this Special Issue of TEXT, we invite articles (of roughly 6-8,000 words) that engage with the functions, processes, poetics and ethics of creativecritical writing in its many forms (creative nonfiction, fiction, academic writing, poetry/poetics, testimony and more). These engagements should constellate, in order to ask: Where are we now, and what is next for creativecritical writing? We hope to encourage a compiling of the essayistic, the fictocritical, life writing, the seamless, and more, to assess how the exegesis—and creative writing as research more broadly—might be conceived through a creativecritical lens. Potential contributors might like to consider:

• • What creativecritical writing approaches do within research? (And, what have they done, where are we now, and where we are going?)

• • Creativecritical possibilities for the exegesis, and questions regarding what counts as scholarly output (E.g., what creative writing might do to shift the lexical possibilities of scholarly work; how it can work within institutions). Articulating the role of the exegesis, creative exegetical forms, teaching/doing exegetical writing.

• • Creativecritical approaches as indicative/supportive of new vistas in representation, such as embodied thinking or non-dualistic approaches. (What kind of work is necessary at this juncture? How do thought/body/lived experience interact with scholarly forms? How can life writing operate as scholarship?)

• • The critical power in creative work, and the inherent criticality of creative expression. (What is creative and what is critical? How can the ‘ancient quarrel’ (Brien and Webb 2012) between poetry and philosophy be re-visited? Is creative work possibly critical work?)

• • The popular turn towards the creativecritical

• • The difference,in creative writing scholarship, between explaining the work and the work being research

• • The lineage of creativecritical forms: fictocriticism, art writing, autoethnography, essay

• • The ethics of creativecritical writing

• • Potential forms and approaches to writing that makes and considers/reflects/thinks

• • Hybridity in academic writing

• • The essay and essayism in scholarly contexts; Braided writing and blended forms

How to submit your expression of interest:  Please submit a 200-word Expression of Interest by email to StefanieMarkidis and Daniel Juckes with ‘Creativecritical Writing Now’ as the subject line. In your EOI please outline how your paper or work(s) explore(s) aspects of the creativecritical mode. Please also include the following information: your full name, institutional affiliation (if any), email address, title of paper/work, brief biography (50–100 words), and 3 to 5 keywords (at least 2 of which should clearly relate to the issue’s title). Deadline for EOIs: April 14, 2023. Deadline for finished works: June 30, 2023. Enquiries: Daniel Juckes (daniel.juckes@uwa.edu.au) or Stefanie Markidis (stefanie.markidis@rmit.edu.au) Dr Daniel Juckes (he/him/his) Lecturer (Creative Writing) Associate Editor, Westerly Magazine English and Literary Studies, School of Humanities  •  M204, Perth WA 6009 Australia T +61 8 6488 2066  •  E daniel.juckes@uwa.edu.au * Call for Papers Stardom & Fandom Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA) SWPACA Summer Salon June 8 & 9, 2023 Virtual Conference http://www.southwestpca.org Submissions open on March 18, 2023 Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2023 Proposals for papers are now being accepted for the SWPACA Summer Salon. SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas in a variety of categories encompassing the following: Film, Television, Music, & Visual Media; Historic & Contemporary Cultures; Identities & Cultures; Language & Literature; Science Fiction & Fantasy; and Pedagogy & Popular Culture. For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit http://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/ 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 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, Tumblr, conventions)

• • Celebrity and the construction of persona

• • Pedagogical approaches to teaching stardom and fandom

• • Anti-fans and ‘haters’

• • Fan shame, wank, 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 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/ Registration information for the conference will be available at http://southwestpca.org/conference/conference-registration-information/ 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. If you have any questions about the Stardom & Fandom area, please contact its Area Chair, Dr. Lynn Zubernis, at lzubernis@wcupa.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@southwestpca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you. We look forward to receiving your submissions! Contact Info: Dr. Lynn Zubernis, Area Chair, Stardom and Fandom Contact Email: lzubernis@wcupa.edu URL: http://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/

CALL FOR PAPERS

15^th International Conference of the Estonian Association of Comparative Literature Trauma and Healing: Storying Lives, Literary Engagements, Entangled Memories University of Tartu, Estonia, June 8 to 9, 2023 The deadline for individual proposals has been extended to April 10, 2023.  Acceptance notices will be sent by April 25, 2023. The conceptual framework of trauma has played an immense role in critical inquiry and memory studies for many decades. Russian full-scale military aggression against Ukraine that started on February 24, 2022 that has claimed the lives of thousands of civilians and has brought about the most extensive humanitarian crisis of the 21^st century, forcibly displacing nearly half of the Ukrainian population, brings the notion of trauma into focus with particular urgency. Not only does it merit the revision of existing frameworks and approaches and weigh their applicability in the context of the massive impact of the war in Ukraine but it also calls forth the necessity of developing new frameworks and approaches of supporting coping and healing. With a focus on both individual and collective memory, large-scale historical events as well as those concerning the commonplace contexts of everyday life, involving, for instance, domestic violence, sexual abuse and social marginalization, which are closely related to and depend on social and political regulations and cultural discourses, the development of trauma studies as a field of cultural enquiry has been shaped by a close affinity to the theoretical frameworks of psychoanalysis, post-structuralism and deconstruction. The universal applicability of such theoretical framework of has been called into doubt by scholars working on global, non-Western contexts who highlight the need to consider the ways in which cultural difference impacts the manner of mediating trauma. Among the current advancements within the more inclusive paradigm of trauma, approaches geared towards contributing to the process of healing from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) play an increasingly important role. Sadly, traumatic experience continues to have devastating effect on the survivors and their family members and, in case of trauma brought about by large-scale historical events, the affected societies as a whole. The process of healing from PTSD and, in worse cases, c-PTSD (complex posttraumatic stress disorder) continues to be a long and complicated journey with high risk of trauma dominating the lives of the survivors if left unattended and passing on from generation to generation. For the conference, we welcome proposals attending to the possibilities of healing from and coping with traumatic experience with a focus on, but not limited to Therapeutic mechanisms of literature and other modes of creative self-expression Literary depictions of healing and recovery Different modes and genres of storying life experience of traumatic nature Cultural mediations of healing Discursive constellations of trauma and memory Postmemory and transgenerational trauma Unattended trauma The limits of representation and healing Alternative vocabularies and discourses A special section of the conference is dedicated to the war in Ukraine with a focus on representation of the experience of the war in literature, visual media and life writing. The main working language is English, poster presentations are welcome also in Spanish, French or German. Please send a proposal of 250-300 words and a short bio of about 100 words to evka2023korraldus@lists.ut.ee Panel proposals are also welcome. The deadline for panel proposals is March 15, 2023. NB! The deadline for individual proposals has been extended to April 10, 2023.  Acceptance notices will be sent by April 25, 2023. There is no registration fee. The participants are kindly asked to arrange and cover their travel and accommodation. If necessary, conference organizers advise and assist in finding suitable arrangements. On behalf of the organizing committee Leena Kurvet-Käosaar Associate Professor of Cultural Theory Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu The conference is supported by Baseline Funding Project for National Sciences nr PHVKU22922 22922 “Taking Shelter in Estonia. Stories of Ukrainians Fleeing form the War.” *

July 13-15, 2023, University of Augsburg, Germany

Call for Papers – International Workshop: Relationality and More-Than-Human Storytelling Deadline for Submissions: April 10, 2023

Over the last decade scholars in the Environmental Humanities, compelled by ever-accelerating climate crises, extreme weather events, toxic spills, and the unequal distribution of their disastrous consequences, have intensified their efforts in searching for meaningful ways to reflect the fundamental human impact on Earth’s geology and its ecosystems. Amid these debates, calls to re-think or challenge the seemingly inherent centrality of humans as a species have grown louder, as anthropocentric understandings of humans’ allegedly unique subject position have rightfully come under scrutiny. Some scholars of posthumanism have gone so far as to propose a non-hierarchical philosophy that integrates humans with living organisms as a whole, creating a flat ontology (DeLanda).

The human, in such conceptions, is to be fully decentered and agency is instead attached to phenomena that “‘emerge’” as a result of the “entangled agencies” among various agents (Barad). While such approaches lead to fascinating new perspectives, their insights obviously also trouble core aspects of storytelling: looking for the non-human/more-than-human in literature is anything but intuitive, given that the act of writing is itself ultimately a human one. Various research methodologies within the Environmental Humanities, such as New Materialism, Elemental Ecocriticism, and Object-Oriented Ontology have proliferated in recent years as scholars seek to find new ways of conceptualizing human existence in a more-than-human world. At the same time, proponents of bringing about not only ‘green’ but just transitions have good reason to caution against losing sight of inequalities among humans in these endeavors. This workship aims to embrace these tensions through the lens of relationality as a potential means to decenter the human, while bearing in mind human injustices: Especially when thinking relationality not solely in terms of human-human relations, the human can arguably be placed in a wide and intricate network of what scholars such as Jane Bennett and Bruno Latour call ʻactants.’ Building on Erin James categorization of  “narrative as a particular cognitive affordance by which humans write worlds” (2022), it is our goal to interrogate and explore various ways of how this plays out in literature and other ways of storytelling. Potential topics should focus on some form of relationality, including, but not limited to:

• • Narratological experiments that decenter the human

• • Human-animal relationships

• • Nonhuman fiction

• • Plant studies

• • Reconsiderations of human responsibilities (and place) in a more-than-human world

• • New Materialism

• • Elemental Ecocriticism

• • Object-Oriented Ontology

• • Genre in the context of more-than-human storytelling

• • Ethics of decentering the human

Please send a 300-500 word abstract and a short bio to relationality2023@philhist.uni-augsburg.de by April 10, 2023. * Deadline for Submissions April 15, 2023 Wars, Carcerality and Colonial Prisons (Hi)Story, Testimonies and Representations International Conference Third Edition 13 & 14 November 2023 Tlemcen, Algeria (In-person) This conference derives from the series of scientific events organized in 2015 on the theme of wars (1st event: Cries and Writings of Wars: When Story Gets Involved in History and 2nd event: Children of Wars: Memories, Testimonies and Representations). This year, LLC research lab is launching a third edition (November 2023) which will focus on Wars, Carcerality and Colonial Prisons. The conference will explore the memorial/testimonial experience and the representations of the penitentiary universe in the context of colonial wars and their impact on incarceration, internment, deportation, isolation and regroupment camps. This scientific event aspires to interweave reflections and research on this historical period (end of 19th and 20th centuries) in a multidisciplinary perspective: History, sociology, psychology, political sciences, law media, literature, plastic arts, etc., focusing on colonial wars and imprisonment. Wars reality and magnitude shatter all human illusions. The crimes committed against humankind, the atrocities inflicted by the wars and the internal wounds that never heal make it impossible to forget. The spectre of war never ceased to haunt the places and memories of the human beings who experienced the barbarity, fury and woes of colonial rule. Thousands of people were killed, massacred, martyred or sent to prison as a result of anti-colonial riots, conflicts, revolutions and armed struggles. Exported by the colonizer, the prison was used as an instrument for maintaining order under the colonial power, its mission being to subjugate the local populations and control the territories. Under the guise of civilizing the natives, the colonial administration used the prison to fight crime, affecting all social categories (men, women, adults, minors). Prisons were also an important source of income for the colonial economy. A real penitentiary structure was built at the time: regroupment camps, detention camps, asylums, housing centres, prison farms, barracks, psychiatric hospitals, detention centres, in addition to colonial jails (Cayenne/Guyana, Île des Pins, Nouméa/New Caledonia, Tataouine/Tunisia, Nosy Lava, la Sentinelle de fer/Madagascar, Obock/Gabon, Poulo-Condore/Indochina, etc.). Colonial prisons were not only an instrument for controlling men and spaces, but also a place of exclusion and execution for all those who had challenged colonial hegemony (resistants, nationalists, rebels, opponents and independence fighters). The aim of this conference is to examine a confused and controversial colonial past by focusing on the phenomenon of incarceration and the penitentiary universe; to give, in this case, a status to the memory, the testimonies and the representations of the surviving prisoners whose traces of internment haunt memories to this day. Indeed, war is summoned within detention, it is correlated with the phenomenon of incarceration; a colonial past jointly convened by imprisonment, isolation, exile, deprivation, confinement and deportation. In this perspective, the emphasis during the two days of the conference will be on the colonial policy of repressive reform in the colonised countries, notably the question of regroupment camps, massive deportations, imposed exile and forced migration, which are still little-known tragic phenomena of the colonial penitentiary system. The testimonial discourse and the memorial narrative of male and female prisoners of war who lived through the experience of imprisonment, torture and repression will be at the centre of this scientific event. A discourse that is able to tell and transmit the historical truth of the Algerian war of revolution, the revolutionary uprising in Indochina or Vietnam and other colonised territories that had suffered the same fate, such as South Africa, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Cameroon, Nigeria, Vietnam etc. When investigating the modes of representation of the war and the colonial prison, several questions arise: How can surviving prisoners testify to a carceral experience whose memory remains a gaping wound? What image will they be able to transmit of themselves and of their prison ordeal? What discursive and affective processes are employed in their testimonies?  How will these prisoners of war or survivors of colonial prisons contribute to the re-construction of a historical memory based on colonial repression? What about the supervised education of minors inside prisons and children schooling in regroupment centers and camps? What representations of the penitentiary universe are conveyed by the media, fiction, cinema, painting, drawing and photography? Can words and images heal the inner wounds or erase the horrors that the prisoners had suffered within the walls of prisons? Memory and testimony are indeed two fundamental vectors in writing History, but they are also paths that invite us to penetrate a dark universe destined for erasure and silence. We know, a priori, that carceral testimony traces the narrative course of a descent into hell in order to show how such an experience was lived before being overcome. Faced with their living conditions, prisoners testify or write about their carceral trajectory in order to denounce physical and moral abuse. This form of expression advocates the factual by resorting first and foremost to the testimonial narrative with the intention of depicting the penitentiary universe and all the traumatic scenes experienced by the prisoner of war or deportee in this space (the life of the prisoners, the functioning of the prisons and camps, the disciplinary sanctions and cell sentences  inflicted on the prisoners, the guards and the supervision of the drudgery, the operations carried out by the tormentors and their methods of execution). It takes the form of a means to denounce such inhumane practices and to fight against all the forms in which they are carried out. The prisoners’ accounts often equate the prison with a tomb where Man loses his dignity and finds himself cut off from his loved ones and the outside world. Such is the case of Algerian women who were unable to overcome an obscure carceral ordeal and were forced to keep silent about their internment since independence. Imprisoned by the French army (Aures/Algeria) and forced to undergo appalling interrogations, these women prisoners have buried the traumatic memory of their incarceration deep inside their bodies (tortures, humiliations, anguish, injuries, harassment, rape, suffering, etc). In addition to the testimonies and representations of prisoners of war, the conference will also examine the places and networks of incarceration and confinement in the colonial situation. In this context, we can cite as examples some colonial prisons and penal colonies such as Lambèse (the Aurès), Nouméa (New Caledonia), the dry Guillotine (French Guyana), Poulo-Condore (Indochina), Serkadji/Barberousse (Algiers), Fresnes (Paris), les Baumettes (Marseille), Tifelfel (women prison/Aurès), Montluc (Lyon), Tataouine (Tunisia), Douera (Bône), Nosy Lava/la Sentinelle de fer (Madagascar), Paul-Cazelles (Djelfa), Coudiat Aty (Constantine), the red prison /Ferdjioua (Mila). These places of memory recount the resistance, the descent into hell, and contribute to the restitution of little-known facts. The cartography of these penitentiary institutions or the punitive/carceral archipelago of the French army as an example (in North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar, Indochina and overseas) with their characteristics, their specificities, the categories of prisoners who passed through them, can be considered as a reference to know more about the concentration universe under the colonial empire. Relying on facts to explain the prison reality, the witnesses feel obliged to involve scenes and facts that have been kept secret in order to bestow the value of a living memory upon the testimony. Unable to talk about their carceral experiences, these witnesses of the darkness or the surviving war prisoners often choose silence, solitude and withdrawal as a way of life. In this respect, it seems fundamental to raise questions about what means to implement in order to reconstitute the History of colonial carcerality through the testimonies and the memories of surviving prisoners. How is the double project of the witness realised by revealing historical facts that have been hidden hitherto and restoring the voice of a traumatic prison past for the prisoners of war? How to render the prison experience in the context of the colonial wars? What were the living conditions of the detained (natives or opponents) in front of the punishments and harshness of colonial prisons? How to interpret the silences and the repressed memories of the surviving prisoners in order to carry on living? Thus, this scientific meeting proposes to revisit the theme of colonial wars and their abuses by investigating the History, testimonies and literary and artistic representations of all forms of incarceration and imprisonment, including deportation and regroupment camps in the context of colonial wars and revolutions. The reflection will focus on the following themes: – The cartography of the concentration universe: colonial prisons, regroupment, internment or relegation camps, and penal policies; – The carceral system in the colonies and its traces in the memorial trajectories of the prisoners of war; – The penitentiary universe and the carceral economy in the prisoners’ testimonies: penal labour as an instrument of colonial economic exploitation (forced labour, drudgery, labour and production in the carceral environment); – Itinerancy or the crossing of prisons, deportation, exile, transfer of prisoners, repression and forced migration between imagination and reality – Testimonies: the rewriting of the colonial past and the rehabilitation of the History of prisons; – Women fighters, women prisoners: incarceration, torture and feminine resistance – Memories of prison: the carceral journey of male and female prisoners of war (prisoners’ accounts, personal diaries, epistolary accounts, drawings, wall caricatures, photos, poetry, etc); – The contribution of surviving witnesses/prisoners to the memorial Narrative: the colonial prison between individual and collective memory; – Colonial prisons and repression in the media, documentaries and cinema; – The penitentiary question and the testimonial, literary, media or film productions of the prisoners of war: aesthetics (stylistic, narratological, discursive, iconographic processes, linguistic registers, affective processes) mobilized by the witnesses in the staging of the carceral experience; – The supervised education of minor prisoners and the schooling of children in regroupment camps; – Public/private archives, holdings, colonial legacies or the legacy of colonial prison: what is left of the carceral/colonial heritage? How to participate: The languages of the conference are French, English and Arabic. Papers proposals of about 300 words including a title and an abstract, five keywords and a short bio-bibliographical note should be sent before 15 April 2023 to the following addresses: colloqueguerre@gmail.com  // labolanguesllc@gmail.com The proposals will be examined by the scientific committee of the conference. The participants are to specify the axis in which they will place their communication project. The final programme will be decided on 30 September 2023. At the end of the conference, the scientific committee will select the papers that will be published. Participation Form: Full Name: University/Institution: Telephone: E-mail: Thesis Director (if you are a doctoral student): Title of the communication: Abstract (300 words): Keywords (5)/Axis: Bibliographic references: Bio-bibliographic record:

Important dates:

• Deadline for sending proposals: 15April 2023;

• Results of the scientific evaluation of the proposals: 15 May 2023;

• Final conference program: 30 September 2023;

• Sending of the communication: 25 October 2023;

• Date of the conference: 13-14 November 2023.

Registration fees: 5000 DA for teachers-researchers and 3000 DA for doctoral students (Algerians). 70 € for teachers-researchers and 50 € for doctoral students (outside Algeria). The call for papers can be accessed here: https://llc.univ-tlemcen.dz/en Conference coordinator: Prof. Latifa SARI M. LLC Research Lab:https://llc.univ-tlemcen.dz/en Abou Bakr Belkaïd University -Tlemcen: https://www.univ-tlemcen.dz/en Contact Info: University Abou Bakr Belkaïd-Tlemcen Faculty of Letters and Languages LLC Research Lab Contact Email: labolanguesllc@gmail.com URL: https://llc.univ-tlemcen.dz/en *

“Navigating Cultural Crossroads: Exploring the Experiences of Transnational Travelers in the Americas”

“Journeying (the) Americas: The Paradoxes of Travel (and) Narratives” 11th IASA World Congress 2023 (ASA) University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland, Sept. 7-10, 2023. deadline for submissions:  April 14, 2023 Travel is an intimate part of human existence that involves cultural exchange through observation and interaction. It requires us to recognize that, beyond our allegiance to our own nation, we are also bound together by our shared humanity and the global community. To truly understand our own selves, we must adopt an inclusive perspective towards life, where cultures merge and combine to form a constructive relationship. In today’s globalized world, the practice of travel, mobility, and cross-cultural contact challenges the politics of difference and the homogenizing perspectives of the world state. This ‘openness to the world’[1] enables us to appreciate the diverse cultures around us and discover our own identities in relation to others and their ethnolinguistic backgrounds. By engaging with difference, we can forge cultural connections that transcend time and space, and bring subjectivity into dialogue. International travelers have been flocking to the Americas for centuries, drawn by its diverse cultures, natural beauty, and rich history. From the ancient Incan ruins of Machu Picchu to the bustling streets of New York City, the Americas offer a wide range of experiences for travelers to explore. One of the most popular destinations for international travelers is the United States. With its vast size and cultural diversity, the US offers something for everyone, from the beaches of California to the forests of Maine. Visitors can experience the excitement of Times Square in New York City, the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, or the historical significance of Washington, D.C. Another popular destination for international travelers is Canada, a country that boasts some of the most stunning natural landscapes in the world, from the Rocky Mountains to the vast expanses of the Canadian Shield. Central and South America also offer a wealth of experiences for international travelers. In Central America, visitors can explore the ancient ruins of Tikal in Guatemala, relax on the beaches of Costa Rica, or experience the vibrant culture of Mexico City. South America is home to some of the world’s most iconic destinations, including the Amazon rainforest, the Galapagos Islands, and the Andes Mountains. The Americas are rich in symbolism appreciated by international travelers. Examples include the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, the Mayan pyramids, Niagara Falls, the Hollywood Sign, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Rio Carnival. We invite scholars and researchers to submit papers for presentations (ca. 15 mins.) exploring the theme of transnational travel writing to (and in) the Americas. This interdisciplinary panel aims to examine the ways in which international travel writers from all parts of the world have represented and engaged with the Americas as a destination of traveling as well as a place of longing. We encourage papers that examine the diverse and complex intersections of travel writing with issues such as race, gender, class, imperialism, globalization, and transnationalism. Potential topics may include, but are not limited to: –          Travel writing as a site of cultural exchange and encounter –          Representations of the self and the other in American travel writing –          Travel writing as a form of political and social critique –          Travel writing and imperialism –          Gendered perspectives on American travel writing –          The role of technology and transportation in shaping American travel writing –          The impact of globalization on American travel writing –          The ethics of representing other cultures in American travel writing –          The role of translation and multilingualism in transnational American travel writing We welcome submissions from scholars across disciplines, including literary studies, cultural studies, history, geography, anthropology, and beyond. Please submit abstracts of 300-500 words to Stefan Brandt (stefan.brandt@uni-graz.at) and Saptarshi Mallick (saptarshieng@gmail.com) by Friday, April 14, 2023. ****************************** Prof. Dr. Stefan Brandt University of Graz Department of American Studies (Research Area for American Literary and Cultural History with a Focus on (Trans-) Nationality and Space) Heinrichstr. 18/I A-8010 Graz Dr. Saptarshi Mallick Assistant Professor in English Sukanta Mahavidyalaya, Jalpaiguri University of North Bengal *

Exile at State U: Stories from the Outer Edges of Academe

Deadline for Submissions–EXTENDED DEADLINE April 1, 2023 Seeking abstracts for an edited collection of essays about life on the tenure track, especially for those working in the humanities and social sciences at non-R1 colleges and universities. Because full-time, tenure-track jobs in the humanities and social sciences are hard to come by, we are often told to be grateful and to be quiet. And indeed, there is much to be grateful for and relatively little to shout about. But there are still important stories to be told, and relatively little nonfiction has been written about the subtle but life-changing personal and professional vicissitudes of a career spent in the academic hinterlands of branch state campuses and non-elite private colleges. Especially for those from highly rated grad programs, often in metropolitan locales, a career in a rural area or small town is an eye-opening and life-altering experience. The goal of the collection is to tell it like it is, warts and all. Essays should be autobiographical, not scholarly, and can be focused on a particular career episode (and thus relatively short) or broader in scope and longer in length. The most important thing is to be compelling, or at least interesting. Humor is more than welcome. Writers are welcome to publish under a pseudonym, or anonymously. Possible topics or areas of focus –job application process: interview and campus visit stories; first impressions; deciding whether to take the job –on the tenure track: the challenges (or lack thereof) of meeting tenure and promotion requirements; interactions with other faculty, administrators, community members; networking and conferences; deciding to stay or leave –community in exile: relationships with colleagues; relations with neighbors; location details –after tenure/the middle years: career evolution; putting down roots, professionally and personally; non-academic pursuits; changing jobs –toward retirement: taking stock; successes and regrets Please email 1-2 pp. abstracts and a short bio or CV to douglash@usca.edu by April 1, 2023. Contact Info: Douglas Higbee Department of English University of South Carolina, Aiken Contact Email: douglash@usca.edu Contact Info: Douglas Higbee Professor of English University of South Carolina, Aiken Contact Email: douglash@usca.edu * SPECIAL ISSUE Imprisoned ‘Self’: Narratives of Loss, Guilt, Transformation Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (JCLA) Guest Editor: Ayan Chakraborty (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) Prison narratives have, quite recently, emerged as an exciting genre of literary studies in academia. While the concept of imprisonment has always invited a substantial focus within sociological studies, it had marginally to do either with the deeper exploration of the ‘imprisoned self’ or the ‘narratology’ (the logic of the narrative) about the experiences recorded by the prisoner. With life in the prison succeeding in drawing interest from literary critics, different approaches have been proposed to study language and experiences (in terms of wording) to look at the representation of the self and the various expressions of pain, agony, guilt, transformation, and even liberation. Some of them consider looking at these narratives from a more political understanding of the ‘imprisoned self’ about society and power, while a few others explore how language mediates between the author’s ‘reflection’/ ‘realization’ of their self through deeply intense drives like those of melancholia, loss, and suffering or glimpses of transcendental joy that creates a deeper understanding of the ethereal and the personal. The model of the prison has changed over the centuries. While in the European continent, prisons were directly an expression of the ‘will’ of the monarch, it had much to do with the relations of sovereignty and law. However, it is interesting to note that, as Thomas S Freeman points out in his “The Rise of Prison Literature,” prisons of the middle ages and early modernity were structural edifices that symbolized an offense against the divine through a violation of the ‘law’ of the monarch itself (the monarch being a representative of divinity on earth). The prisoner was, therefore, equivalent to the status of a heretic. Similar ideas can be found within Southern and Central Asiatic regions as well. With the rise of the liberal state, the prisoner was depicted as an ‘outlaw,’ an embodiment of violence and violation of the generic social imagination and to ‘social contract’ in particular. Michel Foucault, in his seminal The Birth of the Prison, delineates how the system of control and incarceration shifted in its objective and technique from the body and the ‘spectacle’ to the ‘mind’ and the need for ‘secrecy.’ Through a system, the prisoner’s self is inevitably a part of political interpellation, marginality, and social gaze. These ideas, though sociological, become an integral part of the prisoner’s self in their understanding of society and their relation to it. Hence, the prisoner, in all personal experiences, is a political being. As much as narratives from political prisoners, revolutionaries, and victims of racial, sexual, colonial, and economic conflicts have recorded intense moments which look at the ‘dissolution’ of the self under psychological crisis, there are instances that constructed a metaphysical idea of the ego of the prisoner that almost absorbed the world into a supernatural unity. These narratives, in their structure and intention, vary radically across symbols and semantics. This issue calls for papers that engage with language, experience, and the self (of the prisoner), study nuances of intention and expression, and explore the relation between a private subject under political scrutiny through prison narratives. To contribute to this special issue, please submit the full manuscript of your article (no less than 4,000 words) with a short author’s bio to the guest editor Ayan Chakraborty at cayan2595@gmail.com, with a copy to jclaindia@gmail.com. You are welcome to ask any questions about submission or the topic you will select. Important Dates: Submission deadline: 31st March 2023; Decision of acceptance: 30th April 2023; Publication of the issue: Autumn 2023/ Winter 2023.

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ABOUT THE JOURNAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Comparative_Literature_and_Aest… The Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (ISSN: 0252-8169) is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Vishvanatha Kaviraja Institute of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, India, since 1977. The Institute was founded by Prof. Ananta Charan Sukla (1942-2020) on 22 August 1977, coinciding with the birth centenary of renowned philosopher, aesthetician, and historian of Indian art Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) to promote interdisciplinary studies and research in comparative literature, literary theory and criticism, aesthetics, philosophy, art history, criticism of the arts, and history of ideas. (Vishvanatha Kaviraja, most widely known for his masterpiece in aesthetics, Sahityadarpana, or the “Mirror of Composition,” was a prolific 14th-century Indian poet, scholar, aesthetician, and rhetorician.) The Journal is committed to comparative and cross-cultural issues in literary understanding and interpretation, aesthetic theories, and conceptual analysis of art. It publishes current research papers, review essays, and special issues of critical interest and contemporary relevance. The Journal has published the finest of essays by authors of global renown like René Wellek, Harold Osborne, John Hospers, John Fisher, Murray Krieger, Martin Bocco, Remo Ceserani, J.B. Vickery, Menachem Brinker, Milton Snoeyenbos, Mary Wiseman, Ronald Roblin, T.R. Martland, S.C. Sengupta, K.R.S. Iyengar, Charles Altieri, Martin Jay, Jonathan Culler, Richard Shusterman, Robert Kraut, Terry Diffey, T.R. Quigley, R.B. Palmer, Keith Keating, and many others. JCLA is indexed and abstracted in the MLA International Bibliography, Master List of Periodicals (USA), Ulrich’s Directory of Periodicals, ERIH PLUS, The Philosopher’s Index (Philosopher’s Information Center), EBSCO, ProQuest (Arts Premium Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Collection, Arts & Humanities Database, Literature Online – Full Text Journals, ProQuest Central, ProQuest Central Essentials), Abstracts of English Studies, WorldCat Directory, ACLA, India Database, Gale (Cengage Learning), Bibliography History of Art (BHA), ArtBibliographies Modern (ABM), Literature Online (LION), Academic Resource Index, Book Review Index Plus, OCLC, Periodicals Index Online (PIO), Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers, CNKI, PhilPapers, Google Scholar, Expanded Academic ASAP, Indian Documentation Service, Publication Forum (JuFo), Summon, J-Gate, United States Library of Congress, New York Public Library, and the British Library. The journal is also indexed in numerous university (central) libraries, state, and public libraries, and scholarly organizations/ learned societies databases. Celebrated scholars of the time like René Wellek, Harold Osborne, Mircea Eliade, Monroe Beardsley, John Hospers, John Fisher, Meyer Abrams, John Boulton, and many renowned foreign and Indian scholars were Members of its Editorial Board. Founding Editor: Ananta Charan Sukla,Vishvanatha Kaviraja Institute, India Email: jclaindia@gmail.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/jclasukla * Call for Papers Black Lives under Nazism Jacob and Yetta Gelman International Research Workshop, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. June 7–16, 2023 Applications due 3/31/23 The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum invites applications for the 2023 Jacob and Yetta Gelman International Research Workshop entitled Black Lives under Nazism. The Mandel Center will co-convene this workshop with Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Department of Anthropology, Hunter College, and Sarah Phillips Casteel, Department of English, Carleton  University. The workshop is scheduled for Wednesday, June 7 through Friday, June 16, 2023, and will take place at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This workshop advances research on the neglected history of the African diaspora in wartime Europe and the experiences of Black people caught up in the genocidal campaign of the Nazis and their collaborators. This small yet diverse population included Black Europeans, African and Caribbean colonial subjects, African-American expatriates, and soldiers from Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. Among the expatriates were a number of American jazz musicians, such as pianist Freddy Johnson and trumpeter Valaida Snow, who chose to stay in Europe when the war broke out rather than return to the segregated society they had sought to escape. Colonial soldiers, such as the Senegalese writer and statesman Léopold Senghor, and children of German colonial subjects, such as journalist and memoirist Theodor Wonja Michael, also found themselves in the clutches of the Nazi regime. Josef Nassy, an artist of African and Sephardic Jewish descent from the Dutch Caribbean colony of Suriname, was imprisoned as an enemy national in internment camps where he painted the most substantial known visual record of Black prisoners in the Nazi camp system. Their experiences of persecution—which ranged from social and legal ostracization, sterilization, forced labor, and imprisonment in camps to murder—are reflected in a diverse body of archival sources, testimonies, and artistic and literary work that offers us a window onto the wartime experiences of African diaspora people. The workshop will focus on these sources in order to address a variety of questions about Black experiences during this period. How did the treatment of Black people by the Nazis vary according to their citizenship, gender, and military or civilian status? What kinds of strategies did they develop to navigate Nazi rule and Nazi occupation? How did their creative work (music, visual art, literature) help them to survive the war years, both spiritually and materially? How did they understand Nazism in relation to other manifestations and systems of racial violence, particularly colonial racism in the Caribbean and Africa and the “Jim Crow” laws that codified segregation in the United States? How has postwar African diaspora writing, art, and film sought to reconstruct and draw attention to this neglected wartime history? This workshop will stimulate new research directions in the field by contributing to both the colonial turn in Holocaust studies and to the burgeoning fields of Black German and Black European studies. By bringing together Holocaust studies and Black studies—two fields not normally connected—it will challenge the compartmentalization of academic knowledge that has rendered the experiences of Black people under the Nazis largely invisible. Moreover, it will draw attention to the role of the creative arts in recovering occluded histories. Finally, the workshop will enhance our understanding of the intersectionality of histories of racial oppression by identifying complexities of identity that were flattened by Nazi racial classification and by revealing unrecognized connections between wartime Europe and global African diaspora communities. The workshop will consist of presentations and discussions led by participants along three thematic tracks: 1) comparative and relational methods and frameworks for addressing the contemporaneous histories of Nazism, colonial racism, and Jim Crow, 2) modes and strategies of survival in the face of racial persecution, and 3) artistic expression and performance as a response to the Nazi regime or conditions of internment and other forms of incarceration and persecution. Daily sessions of the workshop will be comprised of presentations and discussions led by participants, as well as discussions with Museum staff and research in the Museum’s collections. The workshop will be conducted in English. We welcome proposals that address the study of this neglected chapter of wartime history and its aftermath from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Participants will have access to both the Museum’s downtown campus and the David and Fela Shapell Family Collections, Conservation and Research Center. Museum Resources The Museum’s David M. Rubinstein National Institute for Holocaust Documentation houses an unparalleled repository of Holocaust evidence that documents the fate of victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others. The Museum’s comprehensive collection contains millions of documents, artifacts, photos, films, books, and testimonies. The Museum’s Database of Holocaust Survivor and Victim Names contains records on people persecuted during World War II under the Nazi regime. In addition, the Museum possesses the holdings of the International Tracing Service (ITS), which contains more than 200 million digitized pages with information on the fates of 17.5 million people who were subject to incarceration, forced labor, and displacement as a result of World War II. Many of these records have not been examined by scholars, offering unprecedented opportunities to advance the field of Holocaust and genocide studies. The Museum’s related collections include:

• • Oral histories of Afro-Germans, Black expatriates, and African and African-American soldiers and their children, such as Dominique Mendy, Theodor Wonja Michael, Hans Hauck, Hans Massaquoi, Wilfred Fisher, and  Roslyn B. Kraus, among others

• • The Josef Nassy Collection of paintings and drawings from the Laufen and Tittmoning internment camps

• • Photos from internment camps

• • Photos from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean

• • Oral histories of African-American soldiers

• • Records of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars, which placed European refugees at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the US

To search the Museum’s collections, please visit collections.ushmm.org/search. To Apply Applications are welcome from scholars affiliated with universities, research institutions, or memorial sites and in any relevant academic discipline, including anthropology, African studies, African-American/Africana studies, archeology, art history, Black studies, Caribbean studies, genocide studies, geography, history, Jewish studies, Latin American studies, law, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, religion, Romani studies, and others. Applications will be accepted from scholars at all levels of their careers, from Ph.D. candidates to senior faculty. Scholars working at universities and research institutions in Africa and the Caribbean, as well as scholars from historically excluded backgrounds in the field, are particularly encouraged to apply. The Mandel Center will reimburse the costs of round-trip economy-class air tickets to/from the Washington, D.C. metro area, and related incidental expenses, up to a maximum reimbursable amount calculated by home institution location, which will be distributed within 6-8 weeks of the workshop’s conclusion. The Mandel Center will also provide hotel accommodation for the duration of the workshop. Participants are required to attend the full duration of the workshop. The deadline for receipt of applications is March 31, 2023. Applications must include an abstract of no more than 300 words outlining the specific project that the applicant plans to research and present in the workshop, and a short bio in English. All application materials must be submitted in English online at ushmm.org/research-workshops. Questions should be directed to Krista Hegburg, Ph.D., Senior Program Officer, International Academic Programs Division, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, at khegburg@ushmm.org. URL: http://www.ushmm.org/research-workshops *

Call for Papers

Urban Lives: Amsterdam Diaries and Other Stories of the Self Conference held at the University of Amsterdam, 26 – 28 October 2023 Deadline for Submissions  April 1, 2023

In October 2025, Amsterdam will celebrate its 750th anniversary. In light of this upcoming celebration, two of the city’s institutes of higher education, the University of Amsterdam and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, are inviting academics, artists, and others to share their research and knowledge on one particular topic: Amsterdam diaries and other stories of the self. We are in particular focusing on Amsterdam-based self-narratives across the centuries, told by ‘ordinary individuals’, such as diaries and memoirs. We want to examine what it was like to live in the city, to study, work and go out, engage with other people, find places where one belongs (or perhaps feels excluded), and to move through its streets. Given the city ́s long history of migration, the conference seeks to account for the life stories of people with diverse backgrounds in order to study, for example, how migrants have narrated their experiences in this city: how do they tell stories of the place of arrival, their first impressions, chances, challenges and restrictions of this new environment?

Through the theme of Amsterdam life stories, we will further explore the various ways in which the city is manifest in self-representations, whether as a socio-economic space, a cultural environment, a historical setting or otherwise. How do people engage with the city’s history and geography; with texts, imagery and discourses about Amsterdam; with its architecture; and with the life stories of citizens from the past, such as Rembrandt, Spinoza, Anne Frank, Anton de Kom? How does their street and neighborhood relate to forms of self-fashioning and identity-construction? And how do people narrate changes in the city, caused by war, crisis, or environmental conditions, that affect their everyday lives and life-trajectories? It is our goal to explore the life stories which can be found in diaries, letters, memoirs, graphics, sound recordings, or stories told to relatives and researchers. Jointly, we aim to discuss what these stories (and their interpretations) can tell us about the way individuals and groups have perceived and experienced the city of Amsterdam throughout the centuries – and which modes and forms of self-expression are practiced. In that sense, we will explore how the collection of such personal stories can construct a new and diverse ‘biography’ of the city. We further want to bring together experts from life writing studies and urban history. Both fields of study have gained prominence in the humanities and social sciences in recent decades, but their crossovers are still under-explored in scholarly research. It is our aim to stimulate dialogue and open up new avenues for studying how the city shapes the self, and how life stories and self-constructions shape the city. The conference encourages dialogues across boundaries of theory, methodology, genre, place, and time. Possible themes the speakers can focus on are: • Coming of age in Amsterdam • Feelings of (non-)belonging • Places of arrival • Intercultural encounters and connections • Experiences of particular places, such as the harbour, Central Station, parks, and markets • Cultural traditions and practices of self-narration (in for example Christian and Muslim cultures) • Collective rituals and commemorations • Visual and textual expressions of city life • The uses of self-narratives in secondary and higher education; in museums • Amsterdam-based scientists: their personal experiences in the city and in public debates • Policies and practices of making the city’s collection of diaries more inclusive and diverse? • Notions of home and home-making practices in life writing • The potential of Digital Humanities to store and map historical information about diaries and diarists in its spatial and temporal context • Theoretical approaches to the intersections of life writing and (urban) life narratives • Diaries and their (lack of) references to daily urban life • The collection of urban life narratives and issues of in- and exclusivity The conference will feature panel sessions, a round-table session, keynote presentations, and possibly performances, a city excursion, and a museum visit. The conference languages are English and Dutch. All presenters must submit a max. 300-word abstract and a 150-word bio. The abstract and bio may be written in English or Dutch. Presentations which are (almost) ready to be published shortly after the conference may be selected for a volume to appear during the festivities of October 2025. Please submit your abstract before Wednesday, 1 April 2023 using the following mail address: AmsterdamUrbanLivesConference@gmail.com Organizing committee: Babs Boter, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Barbara Henkes, Guest researcher at the University of Groningen Ernestine Hoegen, Independent researcher Marleen Rensen, University of Amsterdam Leonieke Vermeer, University of Groningen * Deadline for Submissions April 1, 2023 International Research in Children’s Literature:  Special issue: Children at War: From Representation to Life Narrative  Editors Maciej Wróblewski (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland) Kate Douglas (Flinders University, Australia) The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been characterized by war and military conflict, from the Great War, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, through to the War in Afghanistan, Somali Civil War, Yugoslav Wars, War in Rwanda, Iraq War, Syrian Civil War, Russia-Ukraine war. These events have resulted in an overwhelming loss of lives. According to UNICEF, children are routinely affected more seriously than adults during wartime: From widespread killing, maiming, abduction and sexual violence to recruitment into armed groups and strikes on schools and hospitals, as well as essential water facilities – children living in conflict zones around the world continue to come under attack at a shocking scale. Today, one in four children live in a country affected by conflict or disaster. . . 1 In the media, and in film and literature, the child has become a complex emblem for the futility of war and military conflict. The child is also the catalyst for intervention – for instance, as adults deploy cultural representations to draw attention to injustices affecting children. There have been many fictional representations of children’s experiences of war, particularly in film, children’s book and in YA literatures. In such instances, adult authors come to speak, feel, and dream on behalf of young people. Here, we see a literary field created for young people by adult writers. The Western tradition of children’s literature, directly linked to education and teaching systems and values, directs the patterns of children’s literatures. However, historically, children have been significant first-person witnesses during wartime. Non-fictional or life narrative genres such as diaries, letters, and more recently social media, have shown a plethora of child and youth-authored texts to show us something of young people’s experiences of war and conflict across the globe. Prominent examples include Anne Frank (and many other young diarists from World War II whose writing has been anthologized; for instance, see Zapruder, Wróblewski); child soldier memoirists of the 2000s; and most recently child activists Malala Yousafzai, writing about conflict in Pakistan, and Bana Al Abed, whose frontline Twitter narrative offers eyewitness testimony on Syrian war (Douglas; Douglas and Poletti). Our understanding of, and increased attention to, child and youth-authored texts about war reflects more general cultural shifts in the notion of childhood and the importance of children as social actors whose experiences and narratives must be heard and recorded in history (Douglas and Poletti; Gilmore and Marshall). This special issue of International Research in Children’s Literature invites papers that explore the diverse ways in which children and youth are represented, or represent their own experiences, of war and military conflict (broadly conceived). Possible topics for discussion include, but are not limited to: • Discussions or case studies representing particular young authors or texts of war/military conflict. • The life narrative forms and genres that young authors use in order to narrate their experiences of war. • The role of social or digital media in creating new spaces for young authors to witness war and military conflict. • How do children/youth negotiate or represent trauma in writing about war/military conflict? • The role of controversy and hoax in the representation of war and military conflict. • The representation of adults by young authors. • Methods for reading life narrative texts of war/military conflict authored by children and youth. • Representations of war/military conflict in children’s literatures written by adults. • Representations of war/military conflict in film and television texts about or for children. Please send a 300 word abstract to Maciej Wróblewski (matej@umk.pl), Kate Douglas (kate.douglas@flinders.edu.au), and Roxanne Harde (rharde@ ualberta.ca) by 1 April 2023. Complete manuscripts (7000 words) will be due 1 August 2023. 1. https://www.unicef.org/stories/children-under-attack-six-grave-violations-againstchildren-times-war 372 —————————-

Kate Douglas (she/her) Professor of English College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences +61 402440223 www.flinders.edu.au/people/kate.douglas

CFP André Gide and 20th-Century Autobiography

MLA Philadelphia (1/4-7/2024) deadline for submissions:  March 17, 2023 For the centennial of Si le grain ne meurt we welcome papers on Gide’s autobiographical writings, potentially alongside works by his contemporaries (Colette, Proust…). 250-300-word proposals in French or English to curtisi@kenyon.edu by 17 March 2023. This session is organized by the Association des Amis d’André Gide at the Modern Language Association Convention (4-7 January 2024, Philadelphia) * In Her Own Hand: Media of Female Agency in the Long 18th Century Call for Papers for a special session The 91st annual Association for German Studies (AGS) in Great Britain and Ireland  Conference at Trinity College Dublin, Tue 29–Thu 31 August 2023. Deadline for Submissions: March 31, 2023 In the long eighteenth century, women found new ways to engage with a male-dominated public sphere and to express their agency in textual media. One famous example would be Sophia de La Roche’s Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771) or her Frauenzeitschrift Pomona (1783/84). Due to many digitisation efforts, manuscripts, letters and other paraphernalia from that time period have become available for analysis for the first time. Particularly writing in the margins, deleted parts, and drafts deemed unfit for publication can form the basis of a re-examination of the polyvalent agency of female authors such as Bettina von Arnim, Caroline von Günderrode or Caroline Pichler. This panel therefore asks how women put their hard-worn textual agency into practice: what were the media of female agency in the long 18th century and how did women writers understand their own writing? Please send your proposals of ca. 250 words and a brief bio (100 words max.) in either English or German by 31 March 2023 to Helga Müllneritsch (helga.muellneritsch@ucd.ie) and Dennis Schäfer (dennis.schaefer@princeton.edu). Contact Info: Helga Müllneritsch (helga.muellneritsch@ucd.ie) Dennis Schäfer (dennis.schaefer@princeton.edu) * Calls for Papers: Modern Language Association Life Writing Forum (for 2024 MLA Conference between Jan. 4 and 7 in Philadelphia, PA, USA—conference theme is “Joys and Sorrows”) Deadlines are listed below. One more CFP will be forthcoming from us, too. Sounding a Life: How does American popular music—specifically through an album’s sounds, lyrics and, in some cases, visuals—allow for the expression of a life with all its inevitable joys and sorrows? Submit 300-word abstracts & short bios by 3/1/23. Contact email: Kimberly Mack, kimberly.mack@utoledo.edu Dialogic Life Writing: How does auto/biography emerge through conversation, whether scholarly dialogue (e.g., bell hooks & Stuart Hall), institutional oral histories (e.g. WPA) or personal interviews (e.g., Malcolm X & Alex Haley)? 300-word abstracts, short bios by 3/1/23. Contact email: Angela Ards, ardsa@bc.edu Teaching Life Writing: A Roundtable: What are the joys and sorrows of teaching life writing in a changing world? This roundtable discussion welcomes proposals on pedagogical approaches to the challenges of the auto/biography classroom. 300-word abstracts, short bios by 3/15/2023. Contact email: Megan Brown, megan.brown@drake.edu Dr. Megan Brown Professor of English Director of Writing Associate Dean, John Dee Bright College Faculty Athletics Representative Drake University * AUTO/BIOGRAPHY STUDY GROUP SUMMER CONFERENCE 2023 ‘NEW BEGINNINGS’: July 14–16, 2023 Wolfson College, Oxford The call for papers is now open and we welcome papers and presentations that respond to the concept of ‘new beginnings’ substantively, theoretically, methodologically and creatively. This year we are also including presentations of ‘installation pieces’ which might include a poster, creative artefact(s) or a short video or other. The keynote will be given by Professor David Brown, Cardiff School of Sport and Health Sciences, Cardiff Metropolitan University. David’s talk is entitled ‘Auto/Biography and Second Generation Practice Theory’. We invite abstract submissions (250 words) for 30-minute oral presentations followed by discussion and for installation pieces (there will be space in the programme for viewing and discussion of these). We are pleased to invite papers from across the broadest range of auto/biographical work, including ‘work-in-progress’ and those testing out innovative approaches, and welcome colleagues and friends from in and outside of the academy at all career stages. Please submit your abstract to https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/bsa-autobiography-summer-conference-2023/. The abstract submission deadline is 15th March at 5pm and abstracts received after this date will not be considered. As before, if you have any queries relating to abstract submission please email events@britsoc.org.uk. Please contact gayle.letherby@plymouth.ac.uk and/or SEERYA@tcd.ie for further detail about the conference. MARCH SEMINAR: This is a final reminder to register for our seminar on Thursday 2nd March at 1700-1800: ‘The roar at the end of years of silence: feminist voices through educating geeta’ by Geeta Ludhra (Brunel University London): https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/autobiography-study-group-seminar-online-the-roar-at-the-end-of-years-of-silence-feminist-voices-through-educating-geeta-by-geeta-ludhra-brunel-university-london-1/ The Zoom link and joining details will be sent out next Thursday morning. If you have any questions about registration please email events@britsoc.org.uk and colleagues will help you. MAY SEMINAR: Registration is also open for the seminar (online) on Thursday 4th May 2023 at 1700-1800: ‘Can children narrate memoirs? Celebrating experimental narratives’ by Amanda-Marie Kale (University of Nottingham): https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/autobiography-study-group-seminar-online-can-children-narrate-memoirs-celebrating-experimental-narratives-by-amanda-marie-kale-university-of-nottingham/ Please share the information with your colleagues and networks. Best wishes Anne Chappell and Carly Stewart Auto/Biography Study Group Convenors Email: anne.chappell@brunel.ac.uk and cstewart@bournemouth.ac.uk Find the Auto/Biography Study Group: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/ Find the Auto/Biography Study Group on Twitter: @AutoBiographySG Join the Auto/Biography Study Group: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/join-us/ Register with the Auto/Biography Study Group: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/BSA-AUTO-BIOGRAPHY-GROUP Submit to our open access online journal ‘Auto/Biography Review’: https://autobiographyreview.com/index.php/abrev *

GSA 2023 Panel: “Autobiographical and Autofictional Writing in the Works of Günter Grass”

Deadline for Paper Submissions: March 15, 2023 The 47th Annual German Studies Association (GSA) Conference, 5-8 October, 2023, Montréal, Quebec Günter Grass’s reservations towards the genre of autobiography are well documented. In a 2003 interview with Der Spiegel, Grass stated: “Wenn ich eine Möglichkeit sähe, mich gewissermaßen in Variation zu erzählen – das wäre vielleicht reizvoll. Aber eigentlich mag ich Autobiographisches in der verschlüsselten Form der Fiktion, des Romans, lieber.” (Doerry und Hage 2003, 144) Despite (or maybe because of) this skepticism, the autobiographical and autofictional are ever present in his works, not just in the so-called ‚Autobiographical Trilogy‘ (Grimms Wörter, Die Box and Beim Häuten der Zwiebel) and in Die Blechtrommel, but also in texts like Das Treffen in Telgte, Im Krebsgang, Mein Jahrhundert and others. This panel aims to engage with recent developments in autobiographical theory, particularly the discourse surrounding the concept of autofictional as a mode of writing rather than a distinct genre: in their recently published volume, Alexandra Effe und Hannie Lawlor (2022, 4) explore the concept’s widespread attraction, defining it as “a combination of real and invented elements; onomastic correspondence between author and character or narrator; and stylistic or linguistic experimentation.” How do these and similar characteristics manifest in the writing of Günter Grass? What insights into his works can be gained from the engagement with new developments in autobiographical and autofictional theory? And what, in turn, can Günter Grass’s texts contribute to better understand the complex and intriguing concept of the autofictional as well as its relation to autobiographical writing? If you are interested in participating in this panel at the 47. Annual Conference of the German Studies Association in Montréal, Canada, please send your abstract 350-500 words together with a short biographical note as well as any questions to Christian Baier (cbaier@snu.ac.kr). Submission deadline is March 15th, 2023.

https://www.thegsa.org/blog/cfp-gsa-47th-annual-conference

Contact Email: cbaier@snu.ac.kr * Deadline for Submissions Mar. 15, 2023 Call for Abstracts: War Diaries: Ecologies of Post-war Reconstructions Dr. Elisa Dainese (Georgia Tech) and Dr. Aleksandar Staničić (TU Delft) DATES AND SUBMISSION DETAILS: Submission opens: December 15, 2022. Submission deadline: March 1, 2023. Pre-selection: March 15, 2023. Tentative Workshop date: April 2023 The destruction of buildings and artifacts has shaped not only the physical attributes of the built environment but also societies, cultures, and entire civilizations across the globe—arguably, with zeal equal to their creative production. Modern-day annihilations of Aleppo and Homs, in Syria, and more recently Mariupol, Volnovakha, and many other towns, in Ukraine, illustrate the weaponization of art and architecture and connect it with a growing number of physical assaults and aggressions against entire populations, their cultural heritage, and spatial landmarks. The need to understand how cities, environments, and societies can recover efficiently and sustainably from such violence is dire. When it comes to the impact of postwar reconstructions, however, existing research focuses mostly on specific and isolated fields, such as urbicide, military urbanism, semiotics of destruction, displacement and migrations, war economies, memorial studies, etc. In the first volume of War Diaries, subtitled Design after the Destruction of Art and Architectureand published in 2022 by the University of Virginia Press (https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5408/), we focused on the role of artistic and architectural design and the field work of designers in the context of postwar reconstruction. Discussions following the publication of the book challenged ongoing debates on post-war rebuilding. They focused on the broader ecological impact of reconstruction and the interrelation between physical, social, and economic settings during recovery and renewal. To address the gap, this call explores the rarely considered but complex ecologies and ecological entanglements emerging after violence and destruction. Ecological intricacies are understood as both richness and diversity of postwar reconstruction approaches, and include investigations on the environmental impact of human actions and the socio-spatial predicament in which different actors operate during recovery. More specifically, in the edited volume that will result from this call, we want to broaden the picture of postwar reconstruction and link the multiple settings and approaches in which rebuilding after violence operates. Future authors of War Diaries: Ecologies of Post-war Reconstructions are invited to investigate complex systems involving design recovery after the war and how they simultaneously address diverse factors, scales, milieus, and resources. The emphasis goes on the relational quality of reconstruction which connects environmental, social, and/or technological settings. Understood in its entirety, the book will consider the built environment as a canvas of various power-plays as well as the arena in which relationships combine to translate into complex postwar realities. Our long-term goal with this project is to test existing and create new urban development scenarios able to recover post-conflict contexts. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• • the relation between environment, territory, and community, including the complexity of landscapes of destruction and extraction, border tensions in territory formations, and the entanglement of ecologies of resistance;

• • the intricacies between social, environmental, and economic milieus, including the frictions between professional expertise and forms of (re)construction labor, the linkages between the environmental inequality of rebuilding and social tolerance, and the crisis emerging from the clash of ecological processes of renewal and (geo)political histories;

• • the connection between body and environment, the violent confrontation of embodied knowledge and damaged landscapes, the biopolitics of recovery, the emergence of ecological tensions in recovered interiors;

• • the predicament of technology and media, their limitations, potential, and broader impact in conducting, researching and designing post-war ecologies of reconstruction.

We would like to invite authors to submit extended abstracts (between 500 and 1000 words). Proposals should be submitted no later than March 1, 2023, via the following email addresses: elisa.dainese@design.gatech.edu and A.Stanicic@tudelft.nl . By March 15, 2023, the co-editors will inform the authors if their proposal is selected. After abstracts are selected, authors will be invited to participate in an extended conversation on the book project which will set the base for a publication on ecologies of postwar reconstruction. This will be the third event that the authors have organized to promote the topic: the first event was in The Netherlands, at Delft Institute of Technology (June 20, 2022), the second event took place in Atlanta (USA), at the Georgia Institute of Technology (September 23, 2022). Authors will be asked to prepare a 5 to 10-minute presentation on the main ideas of their proposal. Presentations will be followed by a group brainstorming session in which we will define more precisely the outline of the book. During the workshop, we will actively engage our authors in a conversation on the book project. We will also discuss a timeframe for publication of the entire manuscript. The modality of the meeting will be hybrid (virtual on zoom and in person; location tbd). Authors will work on the final papers for publication after the event and according to the feedback received. Contact Info: Dr. Elisa Dainese (Georgia Tech, elisa.dainese@design.gatech.edu) and Dr. Aleksandar Staničić (TU Delft, A.Stanicic@tudelft.nl) Contact Email: elisa.dainese@design.gatech.edu *

CALL FOR PAPERS

Trauma and Healing: Storying Lives, Literary Engagements, Entangled Memories University of Tartu, Estonia, June 8 to 9, 2023 15^th International Conference of the Estonian Association of Comparative Literature Deadline for Submissions March 15, 2023  

The conceptual framework of trauma has played an immense role in critical inquiry and memory studies for many decades. Russian full-scale military aggression against Ukraine that started on February 24, 2022 that has claimed the lives of thousands of civilians and has brought about the most extensive humanitarian crisis of the 21^st century, forcibly displacing nearly half of the Ukrainian population, brings the notion of trauma into focus with particular urgency. Not only does it merit the revision of existing frameworks and approaches and weigh their applicability in the context of the massive impact of the war in Ukraine but it also calls forth the necessity of developing new frameworks and approaches of supporting coping and healing.

With a focus on both individual and collective memory, large-scale historical events as well as those concerning the commonplace contexts of everyday life, involving, for instance, domestic violence, sexual abuse and social marginalization, which are closely related to and depend on social and political regulations and cultural discourses, the development of trauma studies as a field of cultural enquiry has been shaped by a close affinity to the theoretical frameworks of psychoanalysis, post-structuralism and deconstruction. The universal applicability of such theoretical framework of has been called into doubt by scholars working on global, non-Western contexts who highlight the need to consider the ways in which cultural difference impacts the manner of mediating trauma. Among the current advancements within the more inclusive paradigm of trauma, approaches geared towards contributing to the process of healing from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) play an increasingly important role. Sadly, traumatic experience continues to have devastating effect on the survivors and their family members and, in case of trauma brought about by large-scale historical events, the affected societies as a whole. The process of healing from PTSD and, in worse cases, c-PTSD (complex posttraumatic stress disorder) continues to be a long and complicated journey with high risk of trauma dominating the lives of the survivors if left unattended and passing on from generation to generation. For the conference, we welcome proposals attending to the possibilities of healing from and coping with traumatic experience with a focus on, but not limited to Therapeutic mechanisms of literature and other modes of creative self-expression Literary depictions of healing and recovery Different modes and genres of storying life experience of traumatic nature Cultural mediations of healing Discursive constellations of trauma and memory Postmemory and transgenerational trauma Unattended trauma The limits of representation and healing Alternative vocabularies and discourses A special section of the conference is dedicated to the war in Ukraine with a focus on representation of the experience of the war in literature, visual media and life writing. The main working language is English, poster presentations are welcome also in Spanish, French or German. Please send a proposal of 250-300 words and a short bio of about 100 words to evka2023korraldus@lists.ut.ee Panel proposals are also welcome. The deadline for panel proposals is March 15, 2023 and individual proposals March 25, 2023.  Acceptance notices will be sent by April 10, 2023. There is no registration fee. The participants are kindly asked to arrange and cover their travel and accommodation. If necessary, conference organizers advise and assist in finding suitable arrangements. On behalf of the organizing committee Leena Kurvet-Käosaar Associate Professor of Cultural Theory Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu The conference is supported by Baseline Funding Project for National Sciences nr PHVKU22922 22922 “Taking Shelter in Estonia. Stories of Ukrainians Fleeing form the War.” *

Autotheory and Its Others

deadline for submissions:  March 15, 2023 Edited Collection Autotheory, an emergent discourse with historic precedents, lacks a stable definition. Recently, Lauren Fournier defined the term as “a self-conscious way of engaging with theory—as a discourse, frame, or mode of thinking and practice—alongside lived experience and subjective embodiment . . .” (Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism). Yet there are as many approaches to autotheory as there are autotheorists. From a recognizable aesthetic in artistic practices to a more scholarly methodology, autotheory remains a shapeshifter. Autotheory can be understood as a methodology rather than as a final result or a specific aesthetic. It is first and foremost an opportunity for a maker (i.e., a writer, a researcher, or an artist) to make sense of reality through a profound, embodied, and possibly speculative processing of theory and art in order to better open up past, present, and future worlds. An acknowledgement of those fields implies an acceptance of others, their realities, and their sense-making attempts. Thus, autotheory is not the act of pinning a loose reference to theory on one’s chest like an honorary medal. Instead, it needs the tangible, sizable presence of the other/s to confront, expand, and contextualize the auto-, and vice versa. We can also approach autotheory as a scholarly genre itself, mixing one’s lived experience with a thoroughgoing engagement with and reflection on theory and art in all its iterations. Although autotheory is an example of what Michel Foucault called “technologies of the self”—a discursive practice, an exercise in shaping one’s life, and a form of pedagogy in the same way that Roland Barthes understood his lecture courses at the Collège de France as a form of paideia, “an introduction to living, a guide to life” (The Neutral)—it is best understood as a practice in which theory and art are not used as a reassuring mirror, a form of self-fashioning, but rather as a catalyst in a project of unlearning and undoing, of becoming other. Such a practice can be found not only in current manifestations of autotheory but also in its predecessors, i.e., in traditions such as romanticism, decadent aestheticism, existentialism, psychoanalysis, and surrealism: currents that tried to understand and galvanize everyday experiences by exploring other ways of doing, feeling, and thinking. The preceding offers a framework for a multi-author collection tentatively entitled Autotheory and Its Others. Punctum Books has expressed early interest in the proposed collection. With editors working from both sides of the Atlantic—Eric Daffron and Becky McLaughlin from the U.S. and Maria Gil Ulldemolins and Kris Pint from Europe—this collection will serve as a testing ground for those definitions while providing space for work that expands and even challenges them. We invite practicing autotheorists to plot its different manifestations and roots. Different realities will require different encounters. What do the latter entail? Who is invited? How does the very definition of the self change depending on context? How does the understanding of the other/s change in different contexts? How do the less academic forms of knowledge, the more local, vernacular, and folkloric branches of culture, appear in autotheoretical practices? What can we learn from these engagements? We seek texts of all sorts—scholarly, creative, theoretical, and pedagogical—that pose and/or reflect on these questions in order to widen the understanding of not only what autotheory is but also what it can do. And, considering the rich legacy of autotheory’s predecessors, biographical, historical, and critical studies of figures whose artistic, pedagogical, and theoretical practices might now be retroactively regarded as autotheory are also welcome. Possible topics include but are not limited to the following: Autotheory and its others: Autotheory in the classroom Autotheory and collaboration Autotheory and its predecessors Autotheory and the self as an/other Autotheory and self-experimentation/transformation Autotheory and its discontents: Autotheory and confession Autotheory and alienation Autotheory and authenticity Autotheory and solipsism Autotheory and ego discourse Autotheory and its genres and modes: Autotheory and life-writing Autotheory and autofiction Autotheory and the lyric essay Autotheory and performance Autotheory and visual art Autotheory and its preoccupations: Autotheory and sexuality Autotheory and race Autotheory and trauma Autotheory and human rights Autotheory and climate crisis Autotheory and its practitioners: Autotheory and Roland Barthes Autotheory and Hélène Cixous Autotheory and Michel Foucault Autotheory and Gloria Anzaldúa Autotheory and bell hooks Please send proposals of 500 words and a brief CV to Becky McLaughlin at the University of South Alabama (bmclaugh@southalabama.edu) with “Autotheory” as the subject line. Deadline for receipt of proposals is March 15, 2023. Accepted papers will typically run between 6,000 and 8,000 words, but the editors will entertain somewhat shorter pieces on a case-by-case basis. We especially invite persons from underrepresented groups to contribute to this collection. * Call for Contributions: [Auto]biographical Writing, Fan Fiction and Education Edited Collection Abstracts Due March 1, 2023 German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey noted the educational value of [auto]biographical writing as a means of understanding life, bound up in hermeneutic knowing:  an intuitive route to understanding based on our situated human-ness, rather than on knowledge based on certainty or probability (Friesen, 2020). Certainly, Dilthey was not the first to note this enduring pedagogical quality of the autobiography as, in the 18^th century, Benjamin Franklin had already offered his autobiography as a model of a life “fit to be imitated” (cited in Jacobson, 2018). Although mimetic modelling and hermeneutic knowing cannot be easily reconciled, it is clear that both rely on a degree of introspection and introjection. Fan fiction, on the other hand, is a fictional novum, which is closely linked to the genre of [auto]biographical writing. Amateur writers feel strongly linked to already established characters, placing them into new situations and, via their own understanding of the world, they write about the characters’ lives, loves and experiences in a speculative way. There is introspection here, in terms of the hermeneutic endeavour of interpreting the character via one’s own context and experience; and there is introjection as the writers seek to model the persona of the fictional character in their own writing. In this proposed publication, we are seeking chapters which address the relationship between [auto]biographical writing and fan fiction, and both of these in relation to education. Suggestions for contributions include (but are not limited to):

• • Pedagogical uses of autobiography/fan fiction

• • Autobiography/fan fiction as pedagogical reduction

• • Self-reflection in autobiographical writing/fan fiction

• • Representation of identities/intersectional identities

• • Hermeneutic knowing and writing in autobiography/fan fiction

Although this work will consider autobiographical and fan fiction from an educational slant, contributions are not limited to scholarship in the field of education. Ideas from across disciplines are encouraged. Papers can be theoretical or empirical in scope. If you are interested in contributing a chapter, please submit a 500 word abstract by March 1st 2023 to: Nicola Robertson n.robertson@strath.ac.uk Yueling Chen yueling.chen.2018@strath.ac.uk * CALL FOR PAPERS Conference: Women’s narratives and European integration history University of Luxembourg/C2DH 20-21 April 2023 Deadline for abstracts: 1 March 2023 The question of women’s role in international relations has given rise to a growing body of research since the mid-1970s. Topics have included pacifist activism during World War Two (Gottlieb & Johnson, 2022; Goedde, 2019; Bell 2015), the feminist movement, human rights issues (Briatte, 2020; Kaplan, 2014; Offen, 2000) and gender issues in international relations theory, as well as other subjects within the fields of gender studies and intersectionality studies (Carver & Lyddon, 2022; Hancock, 2016; Steans, 2013). Female leadership in international relations and post-war diplomacy has also been explored (Müller & Tömmel, 2022; Owens & Rietzler, 2021; Aggestam & Towns, 2018; Sluga & James, 2016). At European level, too, there has been increasing interest in this area. In policy terms, however, although the Treaty of Rome introduced a European gender equality policy in 1957, it was only from 1975 that a common policy on women’s economic and social rights began to be developed. Research has ranged from parity issues (Bereni & Reveillard, 2007; Deshormes, 1991) to women’s participation in the exercise of political power (Woodward, 2004; Union interparlementaire, 1995), the concept of gender mainstreaming as a cross-sector approach (Abels & Mushaben, 2012; Lascoumes & Le Gales, 2004) and female networks and gender issues in European integration (Hertner, 2021; Briatte, Gubin & Thébaud, 2019). But notwithstanding these efforts, in general the presence and influence of women, whether formal or informal, in power relations (Gaspard 2009), institutions (Carbonell, 2019; Dénéchère, 2016), international relations and diplomacy (Badel, 2021; Doré-Audibert, 2002; Seidel, 2023) has received scant attention. The history of European integration and Europeanisation has developed into a varied field that has moved on from an initial focus on the vision and achievements of the founding fathers. However, even though women played a vital part in the European project launched after the Second World War (intellectuals, experts and technocrats, those with menial but essential jobs, parliamentarians, trade unionists, diplomats, activists for the European cause, etc.), their role has yet to be fully explored. Women tended to remain in the background until they began to be more readily accepted as political leaders, particularly following the first European elections by direct universal suffrage in 1979 and the appointment of the first female European Commissioner in 1989. Against this backdrop, “adding a gender perspective to European memory” and history (Milosevic, 2018) seems essential. This conference, which focuses on the period after World War Two, aims to spark discussion on topics that can inform the following issues:

• • From a “his-storical” to a “her-storical” narrative: is there a female narrative in the European integration process? Specific historiographical traditions, theories, methodologies and approaches related to the history of women in Europe in the 20th and 21st centuries;

• • Biographical perspectives: individual women in the development and implementation of the European project;

• • The “female lobby”: how different organisations, groups of thinkers, activists and networks organised themselves to develop their influence, political presence and visibility in Europe (at trans-European/international level, within the EU and in individual Member States)

• • Women in East-West dialogue and the EU’s enlargement

• • Anti-europeanism: women and Euroscepticism

• • Gendered perspectives and issues related to European democracy, rights, policies, institutions and actors

• • Digital storytelling in developing new knowledge of the past: norms and practices in gathering, preserving, sharing and disseminating the memory of women who have played an active role on the European stage (oral history, text mining, network analysis, etc.)

These are intended to serve as broad categories; the conference will be open to a variety of approaches. The conference will take place on 20-21 April 2023 at the University of Luxembourg/Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) in connection with the project “The role of women in European and international relations in Luxembourg (after the Second World War)”, developed by the University of Luxembourg, C2DH and Europe Direct at the University of Luxembourg. Eligibility and how to apply: PhD students, early career researchers and experienced researchers are invited to submit proposals. Applicants should submit an abstract of no more than 500 words outlining their proposal and a short CV by 1 March in writing to François Klein (francois.klein@uni.lu) with the subject heading “Women’s narrative conference application”. Selected applicants will be informed by 10 March 2023. Scientific committee: Dr Elena Danescu (University of Luxembourg/C²DH), Dr Katja Seidel (University of Westminster, School of Humanities), Dr Dieter Schlenker (Historical Archives of the European Union); Prof. Sonja Kmec (University of Luxembourg, Institute for History), François Klein (University of Luxembourg/C²DH). Contact Info: Dr Francois Klein Dr Elena Danescu Contact Email: k.seidel@westminster.ac.uk URL: https://www.c2dh.uni.l * direct your questions to Dr. Yuan Shu (yuan.shu@ttu.edu). The deadline for submission is February 18, 2023. You may choose either on-site or on-line format (cannot be switched). Personal Writing and Textual Practices in the British Empire, C19th-20th One-day conference, University of Leicester Generously supported by the Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies (LIAS) CFP In person, 14 April 2023, 10am-5pm GMT Deadline for Proposals: February 17, 2023 Social drinks to follow Co-convenors: Dr Ipshita Nath (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Saskatchewan) Ellen Smith (AHRC Midlands4Cities PhD Researcher, School of History, Politics & International Relations) We invite submissions of abstracts for individual papers (20 minutes) or whole panels (x3 individual 20-minute papers) for the LIAS-funded one-day conference on Personal Writing and Textual Practices in the British Empire, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The conference will explore the experiences of individuals as constructed and represented through various forms of writing, specifically personal in nature. We are interested in generating new insights and methodologies to study epistolary writing and textual cultures of the empire. The scope is decidedly broad to allow for the widest possible engagement with our key enquiry, which will examine the relationship between personal writing and the ways British imperialism was conceived and has since been remembered to the present day. We are interested in proposals that address genres in personal writings, including private correspondence, journals, memoirs, diaries, scrapbooks, ethnographical accounts, etc.  We aim to create discussions around aspects of the colonial and postcolonial experience that these forms recorded, such as relationships, ­­­domestic subjectivities, travel, colonial service or labour, warfare, everyday life, political action, personal reflection and expressions of identity. Proposals for papers or panels that are interdisciplinary in scope are particularly encouraged. We envisage productive links to be made with methodological approaches to writing from disciplines and fields such as history, literary studies, art history, sociology and psychology, and media and communication studies, for instance. Proposals might wish to address the following topics, but not limited to:

• • Letter writing and communication in colonial and global contexts; formal or official communication networks.

• • Diary writing, journal reporting and documenting the ‘Self’.

• • Subaltern life writing and modes of resistance.

• • Life writing, memoirs and remembrance or memory studies of empire.

• • Writing in familial, personal and domestic spheres.

• • Travel writing, migration, emigration, and writing on the move.

• • The ‘female gaze’ on the empire.

• • Adventure and exploration tales.

• • Missionary writing.

• • Processes, techniques and genres of writing; the material aspects and culture of writing.

• • Artistic representations of writing, or writing supplemented with visual and textual practices, such as interactions of text and photographs/sketching/art/watercolours.

• • Erasure and silencing; editing and destruction.

• • Broader archival practices and the material traces or remnants of writing and text.

• • Private/personal writing as modes of historiography.

• • Problems of authenticity e.g., biases, prejudices, and ideological motivations.

• • Ephemera and textual assemblages e.g., scrapbooks and albums.

• • Literature and fictional responses to empire in personal contexts.

• • Writing and everyday life.

Instructions: For individual papers, please send 250-word abstracts, paper titles, and short biographies to ecss3@leicester.ac.uk (primary conference contact). For panels, please include abstracts and bios for each speaker, as well as a title/short summary of the panel theme and purpose. We ask that proposals and all elements of these are sent in a single word or pdf file. PowerPoint presentations and visual aids are encouraged and the venue will facilitate this. Deadline for proposals: 17 February 2023. All submissions will receive confirmation of entry and decisions will be communicated no later than 22 February 2023. Additional details: the conference is free to attend but registration will be essential as spaces are limited. Lunch and tea and coffee will be provided throughout the day. Registration links and updates will be announced via @LeicsIAS and the LIAS blog: https://www.leicias.le.ac.uk/ *We plan to publish the findings from the conference as an edited collection and speakers will be invited to submit their papers for inclusion in the volume by the end of May. Contact Info: Ellen Smith: ecss3@leicester.ac.uk Contact Email: ecss3@leicester.ac.uk * Deadline for Submissions, February 14, 2023 “The ‘Portfolio’ from Every Angle. Archiving and Preserving Working Documents (1680s-1820s)” Call for Proposals for the International Conference organised at the University Côte d’Azur, CMMC-MSH Sud-Est, on 21-22 March 2024 by Simon Dolet The storage of digital data has been at the heart of our concerns for the past 60 years. Technologies come and go – floppy disk, CD-Rom, USB stick, external hard drive, cloud computing – with greater storage capacity to meet the exponential growth in digital data production. The new ‘digital industry’ also has to respond to the growing fear of data loss as old storage formats become obsolete. However, the issue is older and deserves to be put into a longer perspective. In particular, there seems to have been an inflection in the 18th century, when the quantity of documents preserved and therefore available, compared to previous centuries, recorded an unprecedented growth. The “portefeuille” (or “porte-feuille”) is an example of this concern for the conservation of documents. Used since the 16th century according to the French Academy, in 1718 this term still referred to a “cardboard box folded in two, covered with skin or some other material, & used to carry papers”. While its use in the French language expanded over the course of the century, the term did not enter foreign dictionaries until the beginning of the 19^th century, with literal translations of “porte-feuille”: brieftasche (German), portfolio (English), portafolio (Spanish) or portafoglio (Italian). It is in the European space and its worldwide extensions that the portfolio will be considered here as a support for storing and filing personal documents, documents known or not by its contemporaries, published or not. With the rise of the concept of literacy, the ‘writing life’ (Bertrand, 2015) has animated recent historical studies. The portfolio could add to this historiographical renewal a tool used in all sectors of society – the portfolios of a minister, a merchant, an artist, a craftsman, a man of letters, a scholar, etc. – which contains documents that allow us to identify the life of a person. This is a collection of documents that allow us to get closer to the daily life of the actors. Drafts (Ferrand, 2012), notebooks (Blair, 2010), letters (Chapron, Boutier, 2013), printed matter and so on are ‘living writings’ (Bertrand, 2015) offering the possibility of writing a material, cultural, social and political history. Three main axes have been selected for this scientific meeting in order to consider the role taken by portfolios in society as well as the inflection of uses and practices between the 1680s and the 1820s. The focus will be on case studies, not only of portfolios of famous figures but also of more modest and lesser-known actors. 1. The formation of portfolios If a material approach connects the historian with the archives, it is necessary to understand the uses and sensitivity of the actors to their portfolio(s): purchase, creation, insertion of papers, momentary or definitive extraction, filing, loss, destruction. 2. Within and outside portfolios This section will focus on the documents contained in the portfolios, which are associated with both the successes and failures of their owners. 3. Governing and existing through portfolios The focus here will be on portfolios in relation to the organs of power, without forgetting the power granted to the individual outside of institutions. For an extended version and/or in French : https://www.fabula.org/actualites/112339/le-portefeuille-sous-toutes-ses-coutures-archiver-et-conserver-ses.html Submission Proposals in French or English, the languages of this international conference, should be between 1 and 3,000 characters in length and accompanied by a bio-biographical presentation. They should be sent before 30 September 2023 by email to dolet.simon@gmail.com. This international conference will be published. Scientific commitee Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire-Hernandez (Université Côte d’Azur) Jean Boutier (EHESS) Liliane Hilaire-Pérez (EHESS, Université Paris Cité) Isabelle Laboulais (Université de Strasbourg) Pietro Daniel Omodeo (Università Ca’ Foscari) Contact Info: Simon Dolet Centre de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine Côte d’Azur University, Nice, France PhD Candidate simon.dolet@univ-cotedazur.fr Contact Email: simon.dolet@univ-cotedazur.fr *

Saints and Mystics in Legend and Tradition

September 2, 2023 to September 3, 2023 Surrey, UK Where is the spring that rose where St. Alban’s blood fell? Who cares for Cuddy Ducks? Can we see Enoch and Elijah? When the Virgin fell in labour, was Romani St. Sarah at her side? How did St. Sebastian become a gay icon? Who were the Twin Saints, the Three Pure Ones, the Four Friends and the Five Major Prophets? What goes into a Dumb Cake for St. Agnes’ Eve? Does a wet St. Swithun’s day really foretell forty days of rain? Do girls still appeal to St. Andrew of the fishermen for a good catch in marriage? Can we still hear Old Clem at the hammer and the thunders of St. Barbara? Whether you weave a cross of reeds for Lá Féile Bríde, wear a daff for Dewi Sant, or bear a rose for St. George, come and join our day or we may have to call on St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. A two-day conference on Saints and Mystics in Legend and Tradition will be held on Saturday 2^nd (St. Justus of Lyons) and Sunday 3^rd (St. Gregory the Great) September 2023 at the Chapter House, St. Albans Cathedral. Anyone can join us – scholars, storytellers, hermits and hagiographers. We invite proposals about any saint, mystic, martyr or prophet. Presentations, which should be 20 minutes long, can take the form of talks, performances, or film. For more information, see https://folklore-society.com/events. The conference fee is £35 for speakers, £70 for others attending. Contact Info: Jeremy Harte, Bourne Hall, Spring Street, Ewell, Surrey KT17 1UF. Telephone: 020 8394 1734 Contact Email: jrmharte@gmail.com URL:

https://folklore-society.com/events/

*

The 2023 TTU Symposium on “Pandemic, Environment, and Life Writing”

April 21-22, 2023 deadline for submissions:  February 18, 2023 The Comparative Literature Program at Texas Tech University will host the 2023 symposium on “Pandemic, Environment, and Life Writing” on campus on April 21-22, 2023. Keynote Speakers: Dr. Jennifer Ho, Eaton Professor of Ethnic Studies and Director of the Center for Humanities & the Arts, University of Colorado at Boulder Dr. Laura Hyun Yi Kang, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California at Irvine Dr. Muhsin al-Musawi, Professor of Classic and Modern Arabic Literature and of Comparative and Cultural Studies, Columbia University Dr. Aretha Phiri, Associate Professor of English, University of Rhodes, South Africa Dr. Jacqueline Kolosov, Professor of Creative Writing, Texas Tech University Since the Covid-19 pandemic started in spring 2020, millions of people around the globe have perished, suffered from loss of health and loved ones, and struggled for survival on a day-to-day basis. As humanity exposes vulnerability before unpredictable natural and built environments, hate crime and anti-Asian racism have been on a dramatic rise. The situation has been exacerbated by the emergence of right-wing extremist groups around the globe from dictators in totalitarian regimes to elected nationalist leaders of Western democracies. Moreover, with the escalation of the tech war between the US and China into Cold War 2.0 and the on-going war between Russia and Ukraine, we are facing a possible apocalyptic scenario of nuclear devastation and World War III. In front of these multifarious threats and divisions, what is our common humanity? What role has life writing played in articulating and negotiating our humanity at different moments of crises across time and space? What kind of healing power can life writing generate? Why and how are telling and sharing of personal life narratives critical to our human survival and planetary future? This symposium not only looks for papers that explore life narratives in different aesthetic forms and representational modes from autobiography to autoethnography, from auto-graphics to biopic, but it also encourages presentations that critically historicize and investigate life writing in relation to geopolitics, ethics of science, trauma theories, racial formation analyses, gender performance discourses, and environmental and ecocritical studies. We also welcome readings in creative writing. Please send your 250-word abstract and 2-page C.V. and

The Joys and Challenges of Teaching Biographies

Deadline for Submissions: February 15 Dates of Conference: January 4, 2024 to January 7, 2024 We are seeking two additional panelists to join us for a roundtable session at the 2024 American Historical Association conference in San Francisco, entitled, “The Joys and Challenges of Teaching Biographies.”  The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2023. History and biography are inextricably linked and yet many instructors of introductory undergraduate and advanced high school courses resist including them in their reading lists and overall course pedagogy.  The session will examine the ways in which biographies are and are not used in classrooms at both the college and high school levels.  We will focus on the benefits and limitations of the genre with an eye for including a variety of perspectives.  We seek to address questions such as, “Why do biographies appeal to students?” “Why don’t more classes utilize them?” “How can instructors compensate for periods with limited source materials?” “How can we manage the bias of hagiography?” We (Dr. Nancy S. Kollmann of Stanford University, Dr. M.A. Claussen of the University of San Francisco and Derek Dwight Anderson of Marin Academy) are especially interested in the ideas and expereinces of historians teaching at all levels.  Those interested in participating as a panelist should contact Derek soon. Contact Info: Derek Dwight Anderson, Marin Academy Contact Email: danderson@ma.org * Deadline for Submissions, February 14, 2023 “The ‘Portfolio’ from Every Angle. Archiving and Preserving Working Documents (1680s-1820s)” Call for Proposals for the International Conference organised at the University Côte d’Azur, CMMC-MSH Sud-Est, on 21-22 March 2024 by Simon Dolet The storage of digital data has been at the heart of our concerns for the past 60 years. Technologies come and go – floppy disk, CD-Rom, USB stick, external hard drive, cloud computing – with greater storage capacity to meet the exponential growth in digital data production. The new ‘digital industry’ also has to respond to the growing fear of data loss as old storage formats become obsolete. However, the issue is older and deserves to be put into a longer perspective. In particular, there seems to have been an inflection in the 18th century, when the quantity of documents preserved and therefore available, compared to previous centuries, recorded an unprecedented growth. The “portefeuille” (or “porte-feuille”) is an example of this concern for the conservation of documents. Used since the 16th century according to the French Academy, in 1718 this term still referred to a “cardboard box folded in two, covered with skin or some other material, & used to carry papers”. While its use in the French language expanded over the course of the century, the term did not enter foreign dictionaries until the beginning of the 19^th century, with literal translations of “porte-feuille”: brieftasche (German), portfolio (English), portafolio (Spanish) or portafoglio (Italian). It is in the European space and its worldwide extensions that the portfolio will be considered here as a support for storing and filing personal documents, documents known or not by its contemporaries, published or not. With the rise of the concept of literacy, the ‘writing life’ (Bertrand, 2015) has animated recent historical studies. The portfolio could add to this historiographical renewal a tool used in all sectors of society – the portfolios of a minister, a merchant, an artist, a craftsman, a man of letters, a scholar, etc. – which contains documents that allow us to identify the life of a person. This is a collection of documents that allow us to get closer to the daily life of the actors. Drafts (Ferrand, 2012), notebooks (Blair, 2010), letters (Chapron, Boutier, 2013), printed matter and so on are ‘living writings’ (Bertrand, 2015) offering the possibility of writing a material, cultural, social and political history. Three main axes have been selected for this scientific meeting in order to consider the role taken by portfolios in society as well as the inflection of uses and practices between the 1680s and the 1820s. The focus will be on case studies, not only of portfolios of famous figures but also of more modest and lesser-known actors. 1. The formation of portfolios If a material approach connects the historian with the archives, it is necessary to understand the uses and sensitivity of the actors to their portfolio(s): purchase, creation, insertion of papers, momentary or definitive extraction, filing, loss, destruction. 2. Within and outside portfolios This section will focus on the documents contained in the portfolios, which are associated with both the successes and failures of their owners. 3. Governing and existing through portfolios The focus here will be on portfolios in relation to the organs of power, without forgetting the power granted to the individual outside of institutions. For an extended version and/or in French : https://www.fabula.org/actualites/112339/le-portefeuille-sous-toutes-ses-coutures-archiver-et-conserver-ses.html Submission Proposals in French or English, the languages of this international conference, should be between 1 and 3,000 characters in length and accompanied by a bio-biographical presentation. They should be sent before 30 September 2023 by email to dolet.simon@gmail.com. This international conference will be published. Scientific commitee Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire-Hernandez (Université Côte d’Azur) Jean Boutier (EHESS) Liliane Hilaire-Pérez (EHESS, Université Paris Cité) Isabelle Laboulais (Université de Strasbourg) Pietro Daniel Omodeo (Università Ca’ Foscari) Contact Info: Simon Dolet Centre de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine Côte d’Azur University, Nice, France PhD Candidate simon.dolet@univ-cotedazur.fr Contact Email: simon.dolet@univ-cotedazur.fr *

CFP

From Wine Moms to QAnon: The Violence at the Heart of White Women’s Lifestyle Culture Deadline for Abstracts–February 15, 2023 Co-editors Anna Mae Duane, University of Connecticut & Elizabeth Marshall, Simon Fraser University This proposed edited collection historicizes the harms leveled by the white middle class’s appropriation of Audre Lorde’s investment in self-care. More specifically, we consider how the aspirational empowerment and self-improvement industry has emerged as a force that obscures the violence embedded in individualism, neglects collective trauma, and negates the possibility of collective solutions. Inspired by Kyla Schuller’s observation that white women’s culture often “presents capitalism as the deliverer of equality” and thus obscures how how “capitalism is actually a chief engine of social harm,” we seek essays that explore how the white self- care/wellness industry—broadly defined from the eighteenth century to the present day—exerts a discipline that narrows the radical possibilities of what carework could mean, either for oneself, one’s family, or for one’s community. Questions that guide the collection include: ·      What historical lineages does white women’s wellness culture draw upon? How do these histories contextualize current iterations of white women’s wellness culture? ·      Through what cultural apparatuses are the links between and among white women, wellness and violence produced? ·      How is white, privileged motherhood deployed within a capitalist framework to reassert domesticity/martyrdom? ·      How does the category of white, privileged motherhood enable the cultural work of white supremacy? ·      In what ways does the individualized work of wellness hide the violence of capitalism and resultant harms between and among women?

It is our goal to send a complete manuscript to a publisher in the fall of 2023.

Please send abstracts of between 250-500 words by Feb. 15th, 2023 to Elizabeth_marshall@sfu.ca & anna.duane@uconn.edu. A full draft (approximately 6,000 words) would be due by July 15th 2023. *

Call for Papers: Teaching the American Essay

Deadline for Proposals: February 15, 2023 This call for papers invites proposals for a volume in the MLA Options for Teaching series entitled Teaching the American Essay, edited by Stephanie Redekop. Teaching the American Essay seeks to provide undergraduate literature instructors with a range of classroom approaches, exercises, and assignments for teaching American essays as literary texts. It will complement existing volumes on using essays as compositional models in the writing classroom by collating strategies for teaching essays in American literature survey courses and special-topics seminars or in literature courses on nonfiction. Essays today are hard to ignore: Rebecca Solnit has called ours an “essayistic age”; Christy Wampole has argued in the New York Times for the “essayification of everything”; Kara Wittman and Evan Kindley suggest that the essay is currently “experiencing something of a renaissance.” Indeed, interest in the essay genre is building among literary scholars, as illustrated by several important new volumes, including The Cambridge Companion to the Essay (2022), The Edinburgh Companion to the Essay (2022), On Essays (2020), and the forthcoming Cambridge History of the American Essay. What does it mean to read essays as literary texts, using methods of literary theory, history, or criticism? How do essays relate to or participate in broader trends in American literature, culture, and history? Alongside the wide range of dynamic approaches to these questions in literary scholarship, this volume will demonstrate ways that they can be framed and addressed in the literature classroom. Essays have long been valuable teaching texts, with essayists like Gloria Anzaldúa, James Baldwin, Rachel Carson, Joan Didion, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, Margaret Fuller, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Zora Neale Hurston, Barry Lopez, Audre Lorde, Claudia Rankine, Leslie Marmon Silko, Susan Sontag, Henry David Thoreau, and David Walker frequently appearing on American literature syllabi. This volume will offer strategies that help support the use of essays as literary teaching texts, while also seeking to expand and diversify what Lynn Z. Bloom has identified as the classroom “essay canon.” Suggested topics include: Formal and Generic Approaches to the Essay

• • Teaching subgenres such as the personal essay, nature essay, protest essay, travel essay, literary journalism, etc.

• • Using essays to explore definitions of fact, fiction, and creative nonfiction, or the boundaries of “the literary”

• • Reading “secondary sources” as literature; examining the genre of literary-critical or theoretical essays in the classroom

Teaching Essays and Essayists in Context

• • Essays’ relation to historical, literary, or theoretical trends in American literature; strategies for incorporating essays into courses, units, or lessons on specific historic moments or literary movements in the United States

• • Historicized or contextualized framings of specific essays or essayists

• • Studies of American essays’ cultural work for specific periods or publics

Classroom Methods and Assignments

• • Book history or media studies approaches to teaching essays in their print or publication contexts (e.g., in periodicals, anthologies, or online)

• • Assignments that allow students to consider how studying essays as a literary genre can shape their own writing; “essays on the essay”

Abstract proposals (300–500 words) and a short bio or CV should be e-mailed to Stephanie Redekop (stephanie.redekop@mail.utoronto.ca) by 15 February 2023. Authors will be notified of initial acceptance by 30 April 2023. Pending peer review of the prospectus, completed essays of approximately 4,000 words will be due by 1 November 2023. * The next episode of the webinar “Let’s Talk Books at NMU (Northern Michigan University)”  hosted by Lynn Dominawill be Friday, Feb. 17 at 1:00 Eastern time.  The speaker will be Shelley Puhak discussing her recent book, The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World. Shelley Puhak is a critically acclaimed poet and writer whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, Smithsonian, Time, Lapham’s Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other publications. She is the author of three books of poetry, including the Anthony Hecht Prize-winning Guinevere in Baltimore and Harbinger, a National Poetry Series selection. The Dark Queens is her nonfiction debut. She lives in Maryland. Registration is required but is free and easy, here: https://nmu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dnXEzUN8QMmJcIvo8AyMvw *

Oxford project aims to preserve WW2 memories and objects

A project led by the Faculty of English at the University of Oxford is looking for contributions to a free online archive of family stories, anecdotes, memories and digitized objects relating to people’s experiences of the Second World War. Their Finest Hour, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, aims to digitally collect stories and materials related to Britain’s and the Commonwealth’s role in the Second World War in order to preserve them and make them freely available to the public. Led by Dr Stuart Lee of the Faculty of English, the project team will:

• • Run a series of ‘Digital Collection Days’ at major museums, libraries and heritage centres across the UK and encourage people to bring war-related stories and materials – letters, photos, diaries, memorabilia, or just stories handed down from family members – for digitization

• • Train an army of volunteers and support them in running their own collection events in village halls, community centres, faith centres, schools, colleges and elsewhere

• • Capture people’s thoughts and reactions to the way the war is remembered today

• • Offer an online archive to allow people to upload their objects and/or stories and memories remotely

• • Preserve all the collected stories and objects in a free-to-use online archive that will be launched on 6 June 2024, the 80th anniversary of D-Day

Dr Stuart Lee said, “We’re delighted to be able to create this archive with memories of the Second World War. We know from previous projects that people have so many wonderful objects, photos, and anecdotes which have been passed down from family members which are at risk of getting lost or being forgotten. Our aim is to empower local communities to digitally preserve these stories and objects before they are lost to posterity.” If you have stories or objects that you would like to contribute to the Their Finest Hour archive, you can upload them now. There will be a series of collection events taking place throughout the UK in 2023; keep an eye on the website for dates and details. You can also follow the project’s progress on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Dr Matthew Kidd, Project Manager Contact Email: theirfinesthour@ell.ox.ac.uk URL: http://theirfinesthour.english.ox.ac.uk

* Dear Friends Happy New Year! We hope you have enjoyed the festive period and had a good start to 2023. JANUARY SEMINAR: A reminder to register for our first 2023 online Seminar on 12th January at 1700-1800 (free to members – see below). We are looking forward to ‘The Magic of Social Life: A Self-Other Study of Conjuring’ by Brian Rappert (University of Exeter). Please register on the BSA website: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/autobiography-study-group-seminar-online-the-magic-of-social-life-a-self-other-study-of-conjuring-by-brian-rappert-university-of-exeter/. The Zoom link and joining details will be sent approximately 24 hours before the event. If you have any difficulties or questions about registering please email events@britsoc.org.uk and colleagues will be able to help. OTHER DIARY DATES 2023: The programme of events for 2023 is below. Seminars are free to Auto/Biography Group and BSA members: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/events/. There is a £10 charge for non-members. Seminar (online) on 2nd February 2023 at 1700-1800: ‘Celebration of Longevity’ by Terry Martin (University of Southampton): https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/autobiography-study-group-seminar-online-celebration-of-longevity-by-terry-martin-university-of-southampton/ Seminar (online) on 2nd March 2023 at 1700-1800: ‘The roar at the end of years of silence: feminist voices through educating geeta’ by Geeta Ludhra (Brunel University London): https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/autobiography-study-group-seminar-online-the-roar-at-the-end-of-years-of-silence-feminist-voices-through-educating-geeta-by-geeta-ludhra-brunel-university-london-1/ Seminar (online) on 4th May 2023 at 1700-1800: ‘Can children narrate memoirs? Celebrating experimental narratives’ by Amanda-Marie Kale (University of Nottingham): https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/autobiography-study-group-seminar-online-can-children-narrate-memoirs-celebrating-experimental-narratives-by-amanda-marie-kale-university-of-nottingham/ Auto/Biography Study Group Summer Conference 2023 ‘New Beginnings’ on Wednesday 12th July-Friday 14th July at Wolfson College, Oxford. Keynote: Professor David Brown (Cardiff Metropolitan University). The call for papers will be sent out early in 2023 and further details and registration information will follow. Seminar (online) on 5th October 2023 at 1700-1800: ‘Celebration of student research and creativity activity: An autobiographical journey’ by Amanda Norman (University of Winchester):  https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/autobiography-study-group-seminar-online-celebration-of-student-research-and-creativity-activity-an-autobiographical-journey-by-amanda-norman-university-of-winchester/ Seminar (online) November at 1700-1800: date, details and registration to follow. Auto/Biography Study Group Christmas Conference 2023 on 8th December at Friends House, Euston. Theme, details and registration to follow. MEMBERSHIP: ‘Join us’ information is available here: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/join-us/. As a paid member of the Auto/Biography Study Group you will benefit from a free seminar series (see below and https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/events/), reductions on conference costs and publications, free publication in the group’s open access online journal (non-members pay £30 per submission). You will also be registered on the JISCmail list: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=BSA-AUTO-BIOGRAPHY-GROUP. The annual payment categories for the 2023 calendar year are £30 for members of the BSA £30 and £40 for non-members. Payment may be made via PayPal by logging in or by debit/credit card and choosing to pay as a guest: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/autobiography-membership/. We are a charity and non-profit group and all proceeds from group subscriptions help to fund our publications and group events. AUTO/BIOGRAPHY REVIEW: For more information about our open access journal and the call for papers see Auto/Biography Review information (https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/autobiography-review/) and the journal (website (https://autobiographyreview.com/index.php/abrev) . Please share the information with your networks, including doctoral researchers – we continue to be fully committed to supporting early career researchers. Anne Chappell and Carly Stewart Auto/Biography Study Group Convenors Email: anne.chappell@brunel.ac.uk and cstewart@bournemouth.ac.uk Find the Auto/Biography Study Group: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/ Find the Auto/Biography Study Group on Twitter: @AutoBiographySG Join the Auto/Biography Study Group: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/autobiography-study-group/join-us/ Register with the Auto/Biography Study Group: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/BSA-AUTO-BIOGRAPHY-GROUP Submit to our open access online journal ‘Auto/Biography Review’: https://autobiographyreview.com/index.php/abrev

* *

Call for Papers: Autobiography

deadline for submissions:  February 1, 2023 Nesir: Journal of Literary Studies Guest Editors: Yalçın Armağan (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul) Zeynep Zengin (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul) Nesir: Journal of Literary Studies’ fourth issue is dedicated to the exploration of “autobiography,” a literary genre that stands between fiction and reality, subjectivity and objectivity, individualism and collectivism, and narrative and history. Having gained a central stage in the literary theories that emerged after the 1960s, autobiography is often informed by genre, text and cross-genre breedings, as it concerns itself with the experience, temporality, memory, remembrance and testimony. The issue aims to highlight all these concepts, which are explored by various theoretical schools and disciplines, in relation to autobiographical writing. Against this background, the issue accepts submissions of articles, research notes, critical essays and book reviews written in English or Turkish until February 1st, 2023. The issue also welcomes translated articles (from Turkish into English and vice versa). All submissions should be done through the electronic submission page on the website https://nesirdergisi.com/ Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• • Autobiography as a literary genre

• • The question of cross-genre influences in autobiographies

• • The limits of I/life-narratives

• • Theories on autobiography

• • “Fictional selves” in autobiographical texts

• • Fiction in autobiography, autobiography in fiction

• • Representations of memory in autobiography

• • Experience, remembrance and testimony in autobiography

• • The literature of autobiography in Turkey

• • Autobiographic items in Ottoman literature (mecmuas, tezkires etc.)

• • Autobiograhy in modern Turkish literature

• • Comparative autobiography studies in world literature

• • Women’s experiences in autobiographies

• • Autobiography as a reading/textual contract

• • The crisis of subjectivity vs. objectivity in autobiographies

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES  All submissions should be done through the electronic submission page on the website https://nesirdergisi.com/ Format/ Font: MS Word in Times New Roman 12 point (Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition). All the papers must be original, unpublished and written within 3,000-7,500 words. An abstract in 75-150 words and 5-8 keywords should be embedded within the paper. Each paper should include a cover letter suggesting the name of the author, along with a brief bio, not exceeding 50 words. The name of the author and co-author (if any) must not be written or suggested anywhere except the cover letter. The paper should be original and must have a proper bibliography and work cited section. An acknowledgement shall be sent upon receipt. Any suggested revisions by the editor and peer reviewers must be returned in two weeks without delay. Simultaneous submissions are not allowed. For more information: https://nesirdergisi.com Contact Info: editor@nesirdergisi.com Contact Email: editor@nesirdergisi.com URL: http://nesirdergisi.com * CALL FOR PAPERS: ‘Ethics and Expressions of Third-Generation Holocaust Storytelling’. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics Presently, the Holocaust dwindles on the edge of living memory. As the last Holocaust witnesses pass away, there is a sense of urgency and gravity for the third generation – that is, grandchildren of witnesses or people who are otherwise at a three-generation remove – who seek to preserve and share these stories, and who are the new custodians of this representative responsibility. Jilovsky defines the third generation as ‘the bridging generation … connecting lived memories of the past with people of the future, born after the last eyewitness has passed away’ (2015, p. 94). The ethical complexity surrounding the representation of Holocaust stories, the building of this figurative bridge between past and future, cannot be overstated. The new millennium has seen a surge in literature by grandchildren of survivors, who are grappling with the residual lines of trauma, history and memory in their own lives and consciousness. Aarons writes that ‘This is a generation approaching the Holocaust from a position that is precariously balanced between proximity and distance, a position that characterizes this generation, this literature, the discourse about this literature, and the disposition of our time’ (2016, p. xvii). With each passing year the Holocaust recedes further into history, its memory and preservation increasingly vulnerable to denialism, mythology, and forgetfulness. As a response to this climate of ethical precarity, misrepresentation and shaky ground we find ourselves in, this special issue of Ethical Space seeks to interrogate the ‘Ethics and expressions of third-generation Holocaust storytelling.’ Possible topics include but are by no means limited to:

• • Identifiable themes, techniques, or trends in third-generation texts

• • The Holocaust in contemporary culture and memory

• • The ethics of writing or engaging with survivor trauma

• • Artefacts and places as sites of third-generation understanding

• • Expressions of the Holocaust in life writing, poetry and/or fiction

• • Experiments in Holocaust writing

• • The role of postmemory and imagination in third-generation texts

• • The ethics of representing the dead

• • Technology and innovation in Holocaust story preservation

• • Reflections on third-generation identity and purpose

We welcome abstracts of 250 words for scholarly articles and essays that explore the ethics and intentions of third-generation Holocaust storytelling, as crucial contributions to the global debate around preservation of traumatic histories. Submit abstracts by 1 February 2023 Full papers submitted by 1 September 2023. Papers should be 6000-7000 words in length. Please send abstracts and any queries to tess.scholfield-peters@uts.edu.au. We look forward to reading all submissions! Tess Scholfield-Peters University of Technology Sydney Contact Info: tess.scholfield-peters@uts.edu.au Contact Email: tess.scholfield-peters@uts.edu.au URL: http://www.abramis.co.uk/ethical-space/ *

POSTMEMORY AND THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD – 4th International Interdisciplinary Conference (Online)

deadline for submissions: February 5, 2023 conferencememory@gmail.com Conference online (via Zoom): 23-24 February 2023 Scientific Committee: Professor Wojciech Owczarski – University of Gdańsk, Poland Professor Polina Golovátina-Mora – NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology CFP: ​Coined by Marianne Hirsch in the 1990s, the term postmemory by now entered various disciplines who search to understand how memory form our identity and how we position, articulate or just make sense of our place in the society and our relations with it. The term postmemory problematizes the concept of memory by bringing attention to the memories that are not exactly personal but that keep on shaping one’s life and one’s  way of seeing the world. During our conference we would like to concentrate on the phenomenon of postmemory and how it keeps on shaping the contemporary world. We are interested in all aspects of postmemory: in its individual and collective dimensions, in the past and in the present-day world, and in its potential to direct the future. Whose memory is postmemory: that of generations, communities, nations or families? How is it maintained and passed on? What is the role of imagination in its creation? What is remembered and what is forgotten? Is it always the memory of traumatic experience? How can it be taught and studied? These are some of the questions that inspired the idea of the conference. We would like to explore the phenomenon of postmemory in its multifarious manifestations: psychological, social, historical, cultural, philosophical, religious, economic, political, and many others. As usual, we also want to devote considerable attention to how these phenomena appears in artistic practices: literature, film, theatre or visual arts. That is why we invite researchers representing various academic disciplines: anthropology, history, psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, politics, philosophy, economics, law, literary studies, theatre studies, film studies, memory studies, migration studies, consciousness studies, dream studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, medical sciences, cognitive sciences, and urban studies, to name a few. Different forms of presentations are encouraged, including case studies, theoretical inquiries, problem-oriented arguments or comparative analyses. We will be happy to hear from both experienced scholars and young academics at the start of their careers, as well as doctoral and graduate students. We also invite all persons interested in participating in the conference as listeners, without giving a presentation. ​ Our repertoire of suggested topics includes but is not restricted to: ​ I.  Individual experiences:

• • Postmemory and trauma

• • Postmemory and recovery

• • Postmemory and imagination

• • Postmemory and artefacts

• • Postmemory and personal memories

​ II.  Collective experiences

• • Postmemory and its sources

• • Postmemory and mythology

• • Generational postmemory

• • Postmemory and social non-acceptance

• • Postmemory and solidarity

• • Postmemory and territory

III.  Remembering and Forgetting

• • Postmemory and forced forgetting

• • Postmemory and forced remembering

• • Teaching postmemory

• • Negotiating postmemory

• • Studying postmemory

• • Forgetting/remembering for recovery

• • Postmemory and its purpose

• • Postmemory and allegiances

IV.  Representations

• • Testimonies and memories

• • Genres of Postmemory

• • Postmemory in literature

• • Postmemory in film

• • Postmemory in theatre

• • Postmemory in visual arts

• • Creating as experience

• • Postmemory and urban planning

• • Postmemory and urban art

• • Rural Postmemory

• • Postmemory in the nature

• • Materialism of postmemory

• • Nonhuman postmemory

V.  Feelings and Practices

• • Sadness of postmemory

• • Fear of postmemory

• • Postmemory and nostalgia

• • Postmemory and grief

• • Postmemory and loneliness

• • Postmemory and change

• • Living postmemory

• • Rituals of postmemory

VI.  Institutionalization

• • Postmemory and nation-state

• • Postmemory and identity politics

• • Postmemory and ideology

• • Postmemory and religion

• • Postmemory and punishment systems

• • Postmemory and army

• • Postmemory and school

• • Postmemory and museums

• • Monuments of postmemory

• • Sites and cities of postmemory

• • Economy of postmemory

• • Language of postmemory

VII.  The Contemporary World

• • Postmemory and postcomunism

• • Postcolonialism, decolonization and postmemory

• • Neoliberalism and postmemory

• • Postmemory and migration

• • Postmemory and globalization

• • Postmemory and nationalism

• • Postmemory and new media

• • Postmemory and political correctness

• • Postmemory and natural disasters

​ Please submit abstracts (no longer than 300 words) of your proposed 20-minute presentations, together with a short biographical note, by 5 February 2023 to: conferencememory@gmail.com For all details please visit our website: https://www.inmindsupport.com/postmemory-conference * Call for Papers: “Disembodied Communications: Vulnerable Identities and Caring Connections in Literary Texts” York EGSA Conference 2023 – May 12th, 2023 Deadline: February 3rd, 2023, 11:59 pm EST Disembodiment is widespread in literature. In literary texts around the world, identities may lack physical forms, formerly embodied beings may abandon their bodies, body parts may be lost, disease or technology may invade the body, and organic property may transcend to a nonmaterial world. While being embodied may imply tangibility, visibility, familiarity and security, being disembodied can aptly imply other sides to these discussions: incorporeality, covertness, and vulnerability. More than this, (dis)embodied beings may lose grasp of or be made to feel like strangers in their own bodies, without autonomy or agency. Such feelings may result from oppression due to gender notions, racism, speciesism, ageism, classism, ableism, and various cultures of violence. The “dis” in “disembodiment” hints at the ways in which disparate physical forms and frames of mind can exist simultaneously. Concerns regarding feelings of (dis)embodiment can also call into question vulnerable identities. This conference seeks presentations that explore this interrelation between (dis)embodied communications and vulnerable identities, and what a presence or lack of care can suggest about these connections.  Nel Noddings argues that caring connections would be “interested in maintaining and enhancing caring relations—attending to those we encounter, listening to their expressed needs, and responding positively if possible” (13). When considering how exposure to such physical/mental disembodiments affect one’s sense of self and one’s voice, a humane response would evaluate how we can form caring connections with the vulnerable. Some questions that this conference aims to address are as follows: How do practices in disembodied communications contribute to feelings of vulnerability? How can we consider feelings of and treatment towards autonomy, agency, and subjectivity of vulnerable, (dis)embodied beings? How are such feelings addressed in literary texts? How do literary texts demonstrate care toward the vulnerable? How does a lack of care elicit feelings of compassion, action, and solidarity? Various disciplines and practices have inscribed disembodiment and literary texts with particular interpretations, such as mind-body dualism; when each perspective is considered in isolation, such interpretations can be limited and imbalanced. Disembodied communications are manifested and easily interpreted in many fields of inquiry. Acknowledging these multiple interactions between (dis)embodiment and narrative,  this conference invites papers in any genre, period, or geographical space. Furthermore, (dis)embodiment presents itself in a diverse range of mediums. As such, a literary text, for the purpose of this conference, takes shape in many different forms: novels, graphic novels, short stories, poetry, film/television, nonfiction, theoretical works, memoirs and life writing, journalism, digital narratives, and other multimedia works. Topics in literary texts that may be addressed include, but are not limited to, the following: Discussions of human/nonhuman language in relation to (dis)embodiment Discussions of race, gender, age, sexuality, disability, class, and/or species and how they create meaning regarding disembodiment and vulnerability Virtual/digital communications, spaces, and realities Prioritization of body language and other nonverbal communications Posthuman/transhuman bodies Transgenics, bodily modifications, and de-extinction Narratives of absence, and how such marginalization can lead to (dis)embodiment Ghost stories/narratives of hauntings Communications within sonic communities Dystopian control, apocalyptic oppression, and survivalism Object-oriented approaches to disembodiment Environmental narratives and rhizomatic communities Representations of reproduction and children Representations of cyborg/AI communications Representations and discourses of monstrosity Representations of pandemic-era narratives Representations of “out-of-body” experiences Representations of gaslighting and abuse in relation to feelings of (dis)embodiment Representations of sensory and aesthetic (dis)embodiment Details: This conference is presented by the York University English Graduate Student Association. It will be in person, with a social event planned to take place following the conference, circumstances permitting. There is a possibility, however, that we will be able to accommodate remote presenters and encourage anyone who is interested to apply. If you can only present remotely, we please ask that you specify this with your submission. This conference welcomes submissions not only from graduate students/early-career researchers in English Literature but other related disciplines. Accordingly, our conference emphasizes inclusivity and respectful dialogue. Abstracts between 200 – 350 words should be sent to yorkegsacolloquium2023@gmail.com by 11:59 pm EST on Friday, February 3rd, 2023. Please include a 50 – 100 word biographical note. Visit http://twitter.com/EGSAconference to stay up to date with details of the conference. *

Call for Papers: Autobiography

deadline for submissions:  February 1, 2023 Nesir: Journal of Literary Studies Guest Editors: Yalçın Armağan (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul) Zeynep Zengin (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul) Nesir: Journal of Literary Studies’ fourth issue is dedicated to the exploration of “autobiography,” a literary genre that stands between fiction and reality, subjectivity and objectivity, individualism and collectivism, and narrative and history. Having gained a central stage in the literary theories that emerged after the 1960s, autobiography is often informed by genre, text and cross-genre breedings, as it concerns itself with the experience, temporality, memory, remembrance and testimony. The issue aims to highlight all these concepts, which are explored by various theoretical schools and disciplines, in relation to autobiographical writing. Against this background, the issue accepts submissions of articles, research notes, critical essays and book reviews written in English or Turkish until February 1st, 2023. The issue also welcomes translated articles (from Turkish into English and vice versa). All submissions should be done through the electronic submission page on the website https://nesirdergisi.com/ Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• • Autobiography as a literary genre

• • The question of cross-genre influences in autobiographies

• • The limits of I/life-narratives

• • Theories on autobiography

• • “Fictional selves” in autobiographical texts

• • Fiction in autobiography, autobiography in fiction

• • Representations of memory in autobiography

• • Experience, remembrance and testimony in autobiography

• • The literature of autobiography in Turkey

• • Autobiographic items in Ottoman literature (mecmuas, tezkires etc.)

• • Autobiograhy in modern Turkish literature

• • Comparative autobiography studies in world literature

• • Women’s experiences in autobiographies

• • Autobiography as a reading/textual contract

• • The crisis of subjectivity vs. objectivity in autobiographies

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES  All submissions should be done through the electronic submission page on the website https://nesirdergisi.com/ Format/ Font: MS Word in Times New Roman 12 point (Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition). All the papers must be original, unpublished and written within 3,000-7,500 words. An abstract in 75-150 words and 5-8 keywords should be embedded within the paper. Each paper should include a cover letter suggesting the name of the author, along with a brief bio, not exceeding 50 words. The name of the author and co-author (if any) must not be written or suggested anywhere except the cover letter. The paper should be original and must have a proper bibliography and work cited section. An acknowledgement shall be sent upon receipt. Any suggested revisions by the editor and peer reviewers must be returned in two weeks without delay. Simultaneous submissions are not allowed. For more information: https://nesirdergisi.com Contact Info: editor@nesirdergisi.com Contact Email: editor@nesirdergisi.com URL: http://nesirdergisi.com * CALL FOR PAPERS: ‘Ethics and Expressions of Third-Generation Holocaust Storytelling’. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics Presently, the Holocaust dwindles on the edge of living memory. As the last Holocaust witnesses pass away, there is a sense of urgency and gravity for the third generation – that is, grandchildren of witnesses or people who are otherwise at a three-generation remove – who seek to preserve and share these stories, and who are the new custodians of this representative responsibility. Jilovsky defines the third generation as ‘the bridging generation … connecting lived memories of the past with people of the future, born after the last eyewitness has passed away’ (2015, p. 94). The ethical complexity surrounding the representation of Holocaust stories, the building of this figurative bridge between past and future, cannot be overstated. The new millennium has seen a surge in literature by grandchildren of survivors, who are grappling with the residual lines of trauma, history and memory in their own lives and consciousness. Aarons writes that ‘This is a generation approaching the Holocaust from a position that is precariously balanced between proximity and distance, a position that characterizes this generation, this literature, the discourse about this literature, and the disposition of our time’ (2016, p. xvii). With each passing year the Holocaust recedes further into history, its memory and preservation increasingly vulnerable to denialism, mythology, and forgetfulness. As a response to this climate of ethical precarity, misrepresentation and shaky ground we find ourselves in, this special issue of Ethical Space seeks to interrogate the ‘Ethics and expressions of third-generation Holocaust storytelling.’ Possible topics include but are by no means limited to:

• • Identifiable themes, techniques, or trends in third-generation texts

• • The Holocaust in contemporary culture and memory

• • The ethics of writing or engaging with survivor trauma

• • Artefacts and places as sites of third-generation understanding

• • Expressions of the Holocaust in life writing, poetry and/or fiction

• • Experiments in Holocaust writing

• • The role of postmemory and imagination in third-generation texts

• • The ethics of representing the dead

• • Technology and innovation in Holocaust story preservation

• • Reflections on third-generation identity and purpose

We welcome abstracts of 250 words for scholarly articles and essays that explore the ethics and intentions of third-generation Holocaust storytelling, as crucial contributions to the global debate around preservation of traumatic histories. Submit abstracts by 1 February 2023 Full papers submitted by 1 September 2023. Papers should be 6000-7000 words in length. Please send abstracts and any queries to tess.scholfield-peters@uts.edu.au. We look forward to reading all submissions! Tess Scholfield-Peters University of Technology Sydney Contact Info: tess.scholfield-peters@uts.edu.au Contact Email: tess.scholfield-peters@uts.edu.au URL: http://www.abramis.co.uk/ethical-space/ * *

Exploring Conflict and Political Violence through the Woman’s Lens

Abstract Deadline–January 31, 2023 The peer-reviewed academic journal Acta Universitatis Carolinea – Studia Territorialia invites authors to submit articles for a special issue titled “Exploring Conflict and Political Violence through the Woman’s Lens: Victims, Mediators, and Resisters.” Although both past and current armed conflicts have had deleterious consequences for women, this topic is still under-explored in academia. As Rehn and Johnson Sirleaf pointed out in 2002, “The situation of women in armed conflict has been systematically neglected.” This lacuna persists even though the experience of women during and after conflict is widespread. Russia’s war on Ukraine and the latest women-led uprising in Iran reinforce the urgency of engaging with women’s experiences during conflicts and post-conflict. The painful past of women affected by armed conflict and political violence is frequently overlooked in official memory and in the history of states for a variety of reasons. Often, women’s voices and the memory of their ordeals during conflicts and in oppressive regimes are subsumed in a grand narrative of the suffering of the “whole nation,” which stifles the voices, testimonies, and claims of women victims, resisters, survivors, care givers, fighters, and mediators. Though men inarguably suffer greatly from the violence of political repression and armed conflict, women and girls are much more affected by sexual and psychological violence because they are regarded as repositories of ethnic and cultural identity. Moreover, women are exposed to manifold, intersecting forms of exclusion. Thus, women’s “aftermath” of conflict, as well as the burden of displacement, are experienced considerably differently than that of men. Although women are exposed to double or even triple jeopardy during and after conflicts and mass violence, their experiences nevertheless should not be exclusively viewed through a lens of victimhood. In that vein, we are looking for contributions that address all the dimensions of women’s victimhood but also their resistance to conflict and mass violence. Topics may include, but are not limited to: – Women soldiers – Women heroes and resisters – Women as caregivers during and after conflicts – Women, anti-war protests, and peace movements – Women as victims of political repression – Wars, armed conflicts, and gender-based violence – Gender-based violence as an occasion for solidarity across space and time – Women perpetrators and collaborators in mass violence – Women’s role in conflict mediation and post-conflict societies – Womanism, feminism, and quiet diplomacy in post-conflict situations – Gendered memories of refugees – Feminism and societal body politics – Feminism and international relations – Feminist geopolitics of war – Feminism in peace and conflict studies Submitted articles should be in English and should ideally be 6,000 to 9,000 words long (excluding footnotes and abstract). Submissions should be sent to the journal’s editorial team at stuter@fsv.cuni.cz or uploaded via the Studia Territorialia journal management system. Authors should consult the submission guidelines on the journal’s website for further instructions and preferred style. All contributions will be subject to double-blind peer review. Abstract submission deadline: January 31, 2023. Notification of status and next steps: February 10, 2023. Article submission deadline: April 15, 2023. Acta Universitatis Carolinea – Studia Territorialia is a leading Czech peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on area studies. It covers the history and the social, political, and cultural affairs of the nations of North America, Europe, and post-Soviet Eurasia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The journal is published by the Institute of International Studies of Charles University, Prague. It is indexed in the SCOPUS, ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, DOAJ, and CEEOL databases and others. Please feel free to direct all inquiries to the editors. Contact Info: Lucie Filipova, Studia Territorialia executive editor Contact Email: stuter@fsv.cuni.cz URL: * Call For Papers: Envisioning Queer Black and Indigenous Self-Representations within the Digital Literary Sphere AMLit – American Literatures: Special Issue October 2023 Deadline for Submissions: January 30, 2023 Guest Editors: Oluwadunni Talabi & Corina Wieser-Cox In their book on Queer Indigenous Studies (2011), Qwo-Li Driskill, Chris Finely, Brian Joseph Gilley and Scott Lauria Morgensen ask: “What does a queer decolonization of our homelands, bodies and psyches look like?” (219). Their question is critical when understanding the complex realities of Indigenous and Black queer individuals in the settler-colonial states of both Canada and the US, as well as in the central and southern states of “Latin” America. The queer Indigenous and Black body – especially when it is trans* or gender nonconforming – is often the site of violence and misrepresentation, yet it is also a site of destabilization and decolonization when reimagined and reified in digital media and literary forms. Through online self-representations facilitated by digital infrastructure, the queer Black and Indigenous heterogenous consciousness is made accessible. Queer Black and Indigenous creators and writers, given to existing at the most periphery of inter and intra discourse and imposed upon by the limits of Western gendered vocabulary in Queer discourse, are at the forefront of rethinking queerness. Returning to the past, pulling references that point to liberation and juxtaposing it in the context of the future, they are producing alternate realities and showing a relationship between times, while staying rooted in African and Indigenous world consciousness, inadvertently pushing for queer imaginings beyond Eurocentric epistemological limits. The intersectional shifts and visual aesthetics that arise from the everyday digital sphere of literary and cultural media goes beyond the liberational idea of, ‘if you can imagine it, you can create it’ to the idea of, ‘that it is not your norm does not mean it does not/did not previously exist.’ The digital sphere and its ability to provide an avenue for self-representation, has already been explored by Shola Adenekan in his recently published book African Literature in the Digital Age (2021) in which he showcases how digitalization has enabled African writers to transcend the power relations of traditional publishing and scholarship. In order to discover an unlimited range of non- heteronormative representation and complexity, one must turn to the digital sphere, where queer Black and Indigenous artists from the Americas are leading conversations on the repercussions of colonial modern epistemes and are using an amalgam of their lived reality, historical narratives and fiction to create new epistemes of encompassing futures. Two main questions arise concerning the digital sphere and queer Black and Indigenous selfrepresentations: First, how do digital literary/cultural forms produced by queer Black and Indigenous creatives engender a monumental paradigm shift in queer self-representation and selffashioning? Second, how do the literatures and cultures produced in the digital sphere mediate how the queer body is constructed, viewed, represented, and delineated within a diasporic and settlercolonial context of the Americas? This special issue of AmLit invites papers that analyze queer literary works within the digital sphere, specifically pertaining to queer Indigenous and Black peoples residing in the Americas, i.e., Turtle Island, Mesoamerica, Abya Yala, etc, that might include some of the following topics: • the digitization and archiving of zines: e.g., the People of Color Zine Project (POCZP) and the Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) • Audience engagements with texts/counterpublics • Disruption of the “heteronormativity of settler colonialism” (Smith) through digitization • Visual and literary aesthetics of the “sovereign erotic” (Rifkin) • Two-Spirit epistemologies & digital literatures • Black/Afrofuturist queer futures • The aesthetics of survivance • The aesthetics of metaphysics • New vs. old forms of aesthetics within digital literary media • Digital violence and counterdiscourses • Racism and homophobia online • Misogynoir and reimagining the world through digital resistance • Communal and relational aspects of the digital sphere • Discourses of resistance and survivance • Imaginations created from cultural archives Submission Information Full essays should be between 5,000 and 10,000 words (including notes and bibliography) and be submitted by January 16th, 2023. The deadline has been extended to January 30th, 2023! Notification of acceptance for the articles will follow shortly after the deadline in January. The first round of edits is planned for March 2023 and publication is set to be October 2023. The article should be preceded by a short abstract (180 – 200 words). Bibliographical references and general presentation should follow the current MLA style sheet. If you have any questions before submission, feel free to email the guest editors at digitalselfrepresentations@gmail.com Please send completed articles to the email (digitalselfrepresentations@gmail.com), along with any questions you might have concerning the publication. Guest Editors: Corina Wieser-Cox – University of Bremen Oluwadunni Talabi – University of Bremen Works Cited Adenekan, Shola. African Literature in the Digital Age: Class and Sexual Politics in New Writing from Nigeria and Kenya. Boydell & Brewer, 2021. Driskill, Qwo-Li, et al., editors. Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature. University of Arizona Press, 2011. Contact Info: martin.holtz@uni-graz.at Contact Email: martin.holtz@uni-graz.at URL: http://amlit.eu * Deadline for Submissions January 30, 2023

CfP: Imperial Lives Conference

Date: 30.-31.3.2023 Place: Online/Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum Cologne (RJM). For reasons of greater accessibility and sustainability, the conference will be held completely online. After years of struggle, deflection, and hesitation, ethnographic museums are increasingly accepting the need for decolonization. Often, this is framed in terms of diversity and empowerment and with a special focus on creator communities and their diaspora. We agree: the victims of imperial violence and their descendants need to be at the centre of any fruitful decolonization process. However, this leaves a momentous gap: what about the creators of the museum, the collectors who often violently amassed the collections, as well as those who are implicated in their legacy today? Whose acts of perpetration, violence, transgression, betrayal, superiority, exploitation, and misunderstanding lie at the foundation of the museum? When it comes to the actors in question and their agency, what prevails is often absence or a retreat into abstraction, both in academia and the museum. The “Imperial Lives” conference wants to widen this perspective and offer a complementary approach: it aims at exploring ways of overcoming this colonial aphasia by focussing on the concrete, often messy biographies behind the institution “ethnographic museum”. We propose that the encounter with the personified past of empire – the biographies of imperial collectors – creates a space of unsettlement in which the personal implication of all members of a post-imperial democratic society can be explored and collective memory transformed. Ethnographic museums, as one of the most visible sites of imperial continuity, offer an exemplary field for the exploration of imperial perpetration and implication that goes beyond the bounds of anthropology – especially when it comes to the interaction with broader audiences. This is why the conference will focus on both research and narration, inviting transdisciplinary perspectives from history, cultural, and literary studies as well as artistic, journalistic and activist practices. We call for contributions addressing issues of biographic knowledge generation and representation, including questions such as:

• • How can biographic approaches to the legacy of empire contribute to the decolonisation of ethnographic museums?

• • What may be the archival foundation for biographic approaches to the imperial past? How can imperial personas be portrayed if the only archival material available was produced by themselves? What is the role of ethnographic collections as archives?

• • What kind of biographies are suited for such decolonial biographic research?

• • Who should be doing this research? How does the personal situatedness of the researcher affect the outcome?

• • What forms of representation, what narrative strategies should be used to depict imperial biographies?

• • With museums as the sites of a society’s collective memory: Which narrative approaches are fruitful contributions to the “work of remembrance”?

• • What is the relationship between historical factuality and biographic fiction, especially concerning the archival inequalities of empire?

• • In how far can artistic research and practice enrich modes of biographic display?

Conference language: English There will be a recording of all papers, keynotes, and panels. We are inviting scholars from the fields of: ethnography, anthropology, literary studies, historical science, cultural studies, museology, art history, arts (e.g. fine arts, film, literature etc.), provenance research, journalism. CfP: Please hand in your abstract of max. 500 words (in English, + short bio) until 2023/01/30 via: https://tinyurl.com/abstract-imperiallives2023 For any questions, feel free to get in touch via mail@imperiallives.com Research project “Wilhelm Joest and the Intimacies of Colonial Collecting” (Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, 2019-2023): www.museenkoeln.de/rautenstrauch-joest-museum/Wer-ist-Joest Cooperation: Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Köln; trandisciplinary platform Contemporary& *

TRAVELLING, TRANSMISSION AND TRANSGRESSION – 3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference

February 16, 2023 to February 17, 2023

Poland Deadliine for Submissions: January 31, 2023 Conference Online (via Zoom platform) Scientific Committee: Professor Wojciech Owczarski – University of Gdańsk, Poland Professor Polina Golovátina-Mora – NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology ​ ABOUT CONFERENCE: Experiencing one’s life as a perpetual change rather than something constant has become more and more frequent in the contemporary world. Travelling has gained new dimensions – it is no longer associated merely with tourism, but it often turns out to be a way of life or even a figure of human condition. The homo viator of our times intentionally moves from country to country, rents apartments and does not posses one, changes his or her occupations and work places, meets still new people and is generally well trained in being flexible, mobile, and open to metamorphoses. Travelling, in its both literal and metaphorical meaning, has much to do with transmission and transgression as it enables crossing the geographical, physical, cultural, social, and psychological borders. During our conference, we would like to discuss all these – and many other – aspects of travelling and transgressive experiences.​ We want to describe those phenomena in their multifarious aspects: psychological, social, historical, cultural, philosophical, religious, political, and many others. We also want to devote considerable attention to how they appear in artistic practices: literature, film, theatre, or visual arts. That is why we invite researchers representing various academic disciplines, such as anthropology, history, psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, politics, philosophy, literary studies, theatre studies, film studies, memory studies, gender studies, and postcolonial studies.​ 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 doctoral and graduate 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 travelling, transmission, and transgression in the past and in the present-day world. Our repertoire of suggested topics includes but is not restricted to: I. Individual experiences

• • Travelling as a distraction

• • Travelling and tourism

• • Travelling as a way of life

• • Living in between

• • Liminal spaces

• • Limit situations

• • Transgressive experiences

• • Borderline personality

• • Travelling and cognition

• • Travelling and education

• • Travelling and spiritual growth

• • Solo travelling

• • Travelling and family life

II. Collective experiences

• • Travelling and multiculturalism

• • Transmission of cultural values

• • Travelling and tolerance

• • Travelling and xenophobia

• • Transgressive identity of societies

• • Travelling and migration

• • Forced travelling

• • Travelling and economy

• • Travelling and job market

III. Pandemic experiences

• • Travelling in the time of COVID-19

• • Isolation

• • Social distance

• • Motionlessness

• • Transmission of the virus

IV. Past experiences

• • History of travelling and tourism

• • Known travellers

• • Travelling and geographical discoveries

• • Travelling and colonialism

• • Travelling and time

V. Artistic experiences

• • Travel diaries

• • Travel as a literary motif

• • Travelling in Bildungsroman

• • Road movies

• • Travelling in the media

• • Travelling artists

• • Touring theatres

• • Touring exhibitions

• • Travel guidebooks

Please submit abstracts (no longer than 300 words) of your proposed 20-minute presentations, together with a short biographical note, by 31 January 2023 to: travellingconference@gmail.com Contact Info: Conference Office Contact Email: travellingconference@gmail.com URL:

https://www.inmindsupport.com/travelling-conference

Exploring Conflict and Political Violence through the Woman’s Lens

Abstract Deadline–January 31, 2023 The peer-reviewed academic journal Acta Universitatis Carolinea – Studia Territorialia invites authors to submit articles for a special issue titled “Exploring Conflict and Political Violence through the Woman’s Lens: Victims, Mediators, and Resisters.” Although both past and current armed conflicts have had deleterious consequences for women, this topic is still under-explored in academia. As Rehn and Johnson Sirleaf pointed out in 2002, “The situation of women in armed conflict has been systematically neglected.” This lacuna persists even though the experience of women during and after conflict is widespread. Russia’s war on Ukraine and the latest women-led uprising in Iran reinforce the urgency of engaging with women’s experiences during conflicts and post-conflict. The painful past of women affected by armed conflict and political violence is frequently overlooked in official memory and in the history of states for a variety of reasons. Often, women’s voices and the memory of their ordeals during conflicts and in oppressive regimes are subsumed in a grand narrative of the suffering of the “whole nation,” which stifles the voices, testimonies, and claims of women victims, resisters, survivors, care givers, fighters, and mediators. Though men inarguably suffer greatly from the violence of political repression and armed conflict, women and girls are much more affected by sexual and psychological violence because they are regarded as repositories of ethnic and cultural identity. Moreover, women are exposed to manifold, intersecting forms of exclusion. Thus, women’s “aftermath” of conflict, as well as the burden of displacement, are experienced considerably differently than that of men. Although women are exposed to double or even triple jeopardy during and after conflicts and mass violence, their experiences nevertheless should not be exclusively viewed through a lens of victimhood. In that vein, we are looking for contributions that address all the dimensions of women’s victimhood but also their resistance to conflict and mass violence. Topics may include, but are not limited to: – Women soldiers – Women heroes and resisters – Women as caregivers during and after conflicts – Women, anti-war protests, and peace movements – Women as victims of political repression – Wars, armed conflicts, and gender-based violence – Gender-based violence as an occasion for solidarity across space and time – Women perpetrators and collaborators in mass violence – Women’s role in conflict mediation and post-conflict societies – Womanism, feminism, and quiet diplomacy in post-conflict situations – Gendered memories of refugees – Feminism and societal body politics – Feminism and international relations – Feminist geopolitics of war – Feminism in peace and conflict studies Submitted articles should be in English and should ideally be 6,000 to 9,000 words long (excluding footnotes and abstract). Submissions should be sent to the journal’s editorial team at stuter@fsv.cuni.cz or uploaded via the Studia Territorialia journal management system. Authors should consult the submission guidelines on the journal’s website for further instructions and preferred style. All contributions will be subject to double-blind peer review. Abstract submission deadline: January 31, 2023. Notification of status and next steps: February 10, 2023. Article submission deadline: April 15, 2023. Acta Universitatis Carolinea – Studia Territorialia is a leading Czech peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on area studies. It covers the history and the social, political, and cultural affairs of the nations of North America, Europe, and post-Soviet Eurasia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The journal is published by the Institute of International Studies of Charles University, Prague. It is indexed in the SCOPUS, ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, DOAJ, and CEEOL databases and others. Please feel free to direct all inquiries to the editors. Contact Info: Lucie Filipova, Studia Territorialia executive editor Contact Email: stuter@fsv.cuni.cz URL:  * Biography Lab 2023: An Online Forum on Craft BIO is excited to announce Biography Lab, which will be held via Zoom on January 21, 2023, from 10:30 am – 5 pm New York time. BIO invites participants at all levels of interest and experience in the craft of biography to participate in three sequential 90-minute forums led by prize-winning biographers. A social hour concludes the day. The distinguished plenary speaker will be Hermione Lee, who will give a talk entitled “Biographical Choices.”  The three widely celebrated forum leaders are Caroline Fraser, Pulitzer-Prize winner for Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder; T.J. Stiles, a double Pulitzer-Prize winner, most recently for Custer’s Trial: A Life on the Frontiers of a New America; and Eric K. Washington, winner of the Herbert H. Lehman Prize for New York history for his recent Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal. Registration: Free to BIO members and students; $60 for nonmembers (fee includes a year’s BIO membership). Register here. What to Expect: Forum leaders will present on a specific issue of craft followed by questions and discussion with participants.  Forums will not be recorded to protect the privacy of participants about their own works-in-progress. For more information about Biography Lab 2023, click here. To register, click here. Linda Leavell President, Biographers International Organization president@biographersinternational.org biographersinternational.org

Linda Leavell President, Biographers International Organization president@biographersinternational.org biographersinternational.org

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CFA: 2023 American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Archives Fellowship Program

Deadline for Applications: January 23, 2023 by Isabelle Rohr The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Archives is pleased to announce that it is accepting applications for its 2023 fellowship program. In 2023, three to six fellowships will be awarded to senior scholars, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and independent researchers to conduct research in the JDC Archives, either in New York or in Jerusalem. The fellowship program is open to scholars pursuing biographical research. Topics in the fields of twentieth century Jewish history, modern history, social welfare, migration, and humanitarian assistance will be considered, as well as other areas of academic research covered in the JDC archival collections. Our finding aids can be consulted to identify relevant areas. The fellowship awards are $2,500 and the deadline for submission is January 23, 2023. Fellows are expected to make a remote public presentation on their research upon conclusion of their fellowships. The areas of research and lectures of previously awarded recipients can be viewed here.

• • Read more or reply

he GRACEH (Graduate Conference in European History) series was launched in Budapest in 2007 and is co-organized since 2010 by Central European University, the European University Institute, University of Vienna, and the University of Oxford. The conference is hosted annually by one of these institutions, and in 2023 its 17th edition will be hosted by Central European University in Vienna. The theme of GRACEH 2023 is:

“Voices Heard and Unheard: Authority, Truth, and Silence in Historical Perspective,” 17-19 April 2023, Central European University The past—mediated through written, visual, or material sources—is filled with empty spaces. Incomplete versions of what happened have been taken at face value, passed through time as representing the “real,” and validating particular kinds of the historical understanding devoid of (un)documented actors, practices, and processes. Over the past few decades, scholars have been increasingly interested in voices from “underneath”, lending their ear to, for example, oral histories, messages between the lines, hints, clues, symbols, humor, satires, gestures, or objects to unearth that which has been doomed to non-existence or silence. This approach to historical sources could be labeled as relying on “weak evidence,” for even though it breaks the silence, it escapes clear-cut explanations. How can we retrieve voices from the past? When is “weak evidence” evidence enough to challenge or even replace dominant and established historical interpretations and narratives? To what kind of evidence do we grant higher authority over the other and why? How is authority attached to a piece of evidence? What is the purpose of establishing authority? Is it to state that something actually happened? Or to create an authentic world that looks as veridic as possible? How can a source be used to represent or construct truth? We invite graduate students working on any topic or period in European history and/or Europe in global perspective to delve into these questions and consider the multiple layers conveyed by the notion of historical authority and its implicit elements in historical perspective. We welcome submissions dealing with oral history, popular history, history of science, material history, intellectual history, history of ideas, book history, literary history, art history, social history, political history, legal history, historical anthropology, history in public sphere, archeology, museum studies, media history, and gender history. Topics may include but are not limited to:

• • Voices and truth from below: voices of minorities, marginalized, oppressed/suppressed groups (on the basis of race, class, gender, religion and many more);

• • Establishing and identifying authority and truth in written, visual, material sources: expressing agency, creating authenticity, authorial practices and authorship, self-fashioning;

• • Whose authority? Whose truth?: Practices, regimes and actors of authority, crafting official scientific and historical discourses, forms of erasure, violence, (un)truth, and (in)justice;

• • Mediality and materiality: displaying authority, emblems/signifiers of authority, objects as tokens of authority and truth, “making history” through objects, fakes, distortions, and reproductions;

• • Historical truth in/and literary evidence: the status of historical fiction, the power of myths, propaganda, literature as a historical source, reimagining history across genres (fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, drama, poetry, folktale, and so on);

• • What happened? What is said to have happened?: Layers of authority, “meta” methodological approaches to history writing, critically engaging with historical narratives and historiography, the issue of objective past, “making history” and institutions (institutes, archives, museums, and so forth).

Keynote speakers are: Clio Doyle (Queen Mary University of London) James Kapaló (University College Cork) This conference is open to all graduate students. We particularly encourage submissions from those who have not presented their work at conferences before or are from underrepresented regions and/or institutions. We hope to be able to support travel and/or accommodation for a limited number of presenters without access to institutional funding. Please send abstracts up to 300 words and a brief biography (max 100 words) to graceh2023@ceu.edu by 17 January 2023. Participants will receive a notification of acceptance by 17 February 2023. Final papers (up to 2000 words) should be submitted by 17 March 2023 for pre-circulation. More information can be found at https://graceh2023.wordpress.com/ Contact Info: On behalf of the GRACEH 2023 Organizing Committee: Olga Petrova petrova_olga@phd.ceu.edu Contact Email: graceh2023@ceu.edu URL:

https://graceh2023.wordpress.com/call-for-papers/

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British Women Writers Conference: Liberties

May 25–28 2023 University of Virginia deadline for submissions:  January 15, 2023 contact email:  bwwc2023@gmail.com The organizers of the 2023 BWWC invite papers and panel proposals interpreting the theme of ‘Liberties’ in global and transatlantic British women’s writing from the long eighteenth century to the present. We ask participants to consider ‘liberties’ not only as a political abstraction but also as part of material and experiential subjectivity. Interpreted broadly, liberties include (but are not limited to) legal rights and freedoms, liberty of the person and bodily autonomy, liberties of creative and artistic expression, liberty of profession and vocation, freedom of movement both physical and social, and self-determination in the private and public spheres. How far did these liberties extend to women at different historical moments? Were liberties granted by the state and other institutions or taken despite them? How were they imagined and realized differently by women across categories of race, class, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, age, ability? We invite presenters to contextualize ‘liberties’ in terms of both its capacities and practices as well as its limits and exclusions. British history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries poses conflicting and contradictory narratives of liberty. The abolition of the slave trade did not end indentured labor in the colonies. The expansion of the franchise through legislation did not extend the vote to women and the poor. Free trade and market liberalism increased Britain’s wealth but also aggravated socioeconomic inequalities. The rhetorics of emancipation at home contrasted with the realities of imperial rule abroad. How can we make sense of these partial and conditional liberties using literary history? Whose liberty is centered in literary, historical, and political narratives? How is liberty represented in women’s writing — as aspiration, transgression, fantasy, lack? We welcome scholarship that puts the construct of liberty under critical scrutiny and interrogates its relationship to ongoing and incomplete struggles for liberation. We also welcome presentations and panel proposals on pedagogy. How can we draw connections in our teaching between literary history and the liberationist movements of the present? Short talks on pedagogical methodology, classroom practices, use of digital and other media tools, or collective and community-facing projects are highly encouraged. Possible topics for papers and panels include: Political liberties Women and nationhood, women’s civic participation, women and human rights, anti-slavery and abolition, empire and anti-colonialism, suffrage and women’s liberation Social liberties Women’s education, women’s work and the professions, women travelers and migration, women’s associations and societies, liberty and domesticity Liberties of the body Reproductive liberties, sex and sexuality, desire and consent, queer bodies, women’s physical cultures, women and disability Liberties of expression Gender and performance, women’s self-fashioning, women’s art and aesthetics, women and publicity, women and print culture, women’s intellectual histories Please visit the conference website for more details and to submit your abstracts: http://bwwc23.com/ REMINDER IABA Europe 2023 Life-Writing in Times of Crisis 5–8 July 2023 University of Warsaw, Poland We are pleased to announce that the next IABA Europe Conference will be held in Warsaw, Poland, from July 5th to July 8th 2023. The conference will be held on-site only. The theme of the conference, Life-Writing in Times of Crisis, relates to the challenges we have had to face in Europe and all around the world in recent years. A lot has changed since the 2019 IABA Europe conference in Madrid. The accelerating climate crisis, the COVID–19 pandemic, and then the war in Ukraine have significantly influenced not only our perception of the world, but also the ways in which we record autobiographical experiences (the practice of writing about one’s own life). A crucial component of the difficult situation in Europe and other parts of the world is the refugee crisis. In recent years, inhabitants of countries affected by wars and terrible conflicts – Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or African states – have been seeking peace among European communities. Today, millions of Ukrainians are in the same situation. Contemporary crises may take place on a collective scale and concern events such as war, extermination, the pandemic or economic troubles (rising inflation, unemployment, difficult housing markets), but they can also happen on an individual (personal) scale: illness, the passing of loved ones, imprisonment, forced confinement, hunger, houselessness, unemployment, or changing one’s place of residence… Circumstances of unwanted change, sudden rupture, and discontinuity, which could be described as a sense of living in a previously unknown, utterly changed world, often mark the experience of crisis. In all of these situations, different practices of life-writing emerge – and all of them will interest us. How do dynamic sociopolitical processes shape the stories we tell about our everyday lives? What is the relation between the fragmentation or consolidation of entire social systems and the experimental modes of autobiographical narratives put forward by individuals? Since our conference will be organised in Warsaw, we would like to refer to historical and academic experiences that are specific to Polish and Central European contexts, such as the surprisingly rich tradition of memoir competitions organised in Poland since the 1920s (a total of about 1,500 different competitions were held, with millions of memoirs and diaries collected). Another example would be the tradition of collecting autobiographical documents during the war and the Holocaust, which resulted in the creation of the monumental Ringelblum Archive, among others. Overall, we aim to examine the relationship between crisis situations and writing one’s life. How and why does autobiographical writing happen during crises, when the established order of the world suddenly collapses and everyday life becomes strange, unpredictable, and threatening? How do we talk about our lives, how and why do we record our experiences in difficult conditions? We invite proposals focused on archival records or material records in general (diaries, letters, autobiographies, memoirs), as well as various electronic, virtual life-writing practices that may be performed or kept on-line, on various websites or social media platforms. The theme of the conference may also be analysed from the perspective of life-writing in visual forms (photography, drawings, comics, films and video recordings, among others). Finally, participants may discuss records/reports about the experience of crisis created at the request of journalists or researchers, reporters, sociologists, psychologists, and historians (audiovisual, spoken, written accounts, important oral history tradition). All of the above-mentioned ways of “recording” life in a crisis situation are of great interest to us. During the IABA Warsaw Conference we will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the European Journal of Life Writing. Submissions: We welcome 20-minute individual presentations and 90-minute panel sessions (preferably interdisciplinary and international). The conference will be held in English. Abstracts should not be longer than 300 words; bios should not be longer than 150 words. Practicalities and schedule: Conference website: https://iabawarsaw2023.eu Conference e-mail: iabawarsaw2023@uw.edu.pl Online submissions will open on October 15, 2022 Deadline for proposals: December 31, 2022 Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by January 31, 2023 Registration and conference fees: February 1–March 31, 2023 Preliminary programme: May 1, 2023 Detailed programme: June 1, 2023 Conference Fees: Participants 220 EUR (includes conference lunches and a dinner) The participation of 5 researchers from Ukraine, free of charge *

Family Archives and their Afterlives, 1400-present

June 27, 2023 to June 28, 2023 Deadline for Submissions–Dec. 31, 2022 United Kingdom From the muniments rooms of country estates to scrapbooks, photo albums, and boxes of papers and ephemera stored under the bed: our homes are sites of intergenerational collection and curation. We act as archivists, deciding which materials to keep, both for ourselves and for future generations who will, in time, face the same question. In the early modern period, anxieties over the loss of precious family paperwork were widespread. The sixteenth-century yeoman Robert Furse implored his son to ‘keep sure your wrytynges’, and the resolution of many an eighteenth-century novel – including Charlotte Smith’s The Old Manor House (1793) and a whole host of gothic fiction – turned on the adequate preservation (or otherwise) of family papers and the secrets contained therein. Documents were kept in special vessels (initialled chests, boxes tied up with a loved one’s hair), they were bequeathed in wills, and, as public repositories became more widespread, some collectors attempted to imitate the practices of institutional archives in their own homes – or fought to get their materials included in (or excluded from) these collections. Today, we have the capacity to store an almost infinite quantity of material online – but many of us continue to prize the physical artefact, and books and readymade albums that purport to help us create and store our family archives are widely available. Though in recent years the ‘archival turn’ has led to a renewed interest in the collections compiled by states and institutions, we know rather less about the materials accumulated by families and households. In the absence of the apparent hallmarks of modern archival practice – catalogues, indexes, and, perhaps most pertinently, professional authentication of their historical value – family papers are rarely approached as ‘archives’ – but, when they are transferred into local and national record offices, these same collections go on to form a significant part of our archival heritage. This conference seeks to bring together academics, archivists, and family historians to explore the family archive, in all its forms, from the medieval to the modern period. Topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

• • Approaches to the family archive: definitions, challenges, opportunities

• • The contents and curation of specific family collections

• • Access, circulation, and the ‘social life’ of archives

• • Muniments and legal papers

• • Exclusion and absence in the archive

• • Archives and emotions

• • The matriarchive and women as archivists

• • Arrangement and organisation: cataloguing, inventories, storage, furniture

• • Objects in/and the archive

• • Visual and literary representations of family collections

• • The relationship between family and institutional archives, including bequests, loans, and donations to local and national collections

• • Destruction and dispersal

Please send a title, short bio, and abstract (c. 200-300 words) to: familyarchivesconference@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is 30 December 2022. We would be grateful if you could also let us know if you have any access requirements (e.g. online/hybrid attendance). All papers will be considered for inclusion in an edited collection, estimated date of submission for chapters December 2023. Please make it clear on your submission if you do not wish your paper to be considered. This conference is part of the ‘Family Archives in Early Modern England’ project, supported by the Leverhulme Trust. Visit us at www.family-archives.co.uk. Contact Info: Please send a title, short bio, and abstract (c. 200-300 words) to: familyarchivesconference@gmail.com. Contact Email: familyarchivesconference@gmail.com * READING WOMEN’S LIFE WRITING: A Critical Appraisal In her book Writing a Woman’s Life (1988), the late Carolyn Heilbrun expressed the need for original scripts for women to live by; stories that press beyond the convention and closure of the marriage plot. Men have always had narrative stories, such as the quest motif and the warrior exemplar, on which to base their lives and within which to tell their life stories. But, Heilbrun argues, such stories of action and accomplishment have been denied to women; the behavior praised by these stories has always been branded “unwomanly”. What we need to do is to move outside that male-centered, binary logic altogether. We need to ask not how Woman is different from Man. We need to know how women have come to be who they are through history, which is the history of their oppression by men and male-designed institutions. Only through an analysis of the power relationships between men and women, and practices based on that analysis, will we put an end to our oppression-and only then will we discover what women are or can be. Only in the last third of the twentieth century have women broken through to a realization of the narratives that have been controlling their lives. Women poets of one generation—those born between 1923 and 1932—can now be seen to have transformed the autobiographies of women’s lives, to have expressed, and suffered for expressing, what women had not earlier been allowed to say. Please send your papers at drsunitasinha@gmail.com.The deadline is 30th December, 2022. The Wordlimit is between 3500 to 5000 words. The book shall be published by Atlantic Publishers and Distributors New Delhi. Prof.Sunita Sinha Email: drsunitasinha@gmail.com Website: www.sunitasinha.com

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Deadline for Submissions December 31, 2022 University of Warsaw, Poland 5–8 July 2023 Life-Writing in Times of Crisis IABA Europe 2023 We are pleased to announce that the next IABA Europe Conference will be held in Warsaw, Poland, from July 5th to July 8th 2023. The conference will be held on-site only. The theme of the conference, Life-Writing in Times of Crisis, relates to the challenges we have had to face in Europe and all around the world in recent years. A lot has changed since the 2019 IABA Europe conference in Madrid. The accelerating climate crisis, the COVID–19 pandemic, and then the war in Ukrainehave significantly influenced not only our perception of the world, but also the ways in which we record autobiographical experiences (the practice of writing about one’s own life). A crucial component of the difficult situation in Europe and other parts of the world is the refugee crisis. In recent years, inhabitants of countries affected by wars and terrible conflicts – Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or African states – have been seeking peace among European communities. Today, millions of Ukrainians are in the same situation. Contemporary crises may take place on a collective scale and concern events such as war, extermination, the pandemic or economic troubles (rising inflation, unemployment, difficult housing markets), but they can also happen on an individual (personal) scale: illness, the passing of loved ones, imprisonment, forced confinement, hunger, houselessness, unemployment, or changing one’s place ofresidence. Circumstances of unwanted change, sudden rupture, and discontinuity, which could be described as a sense of living in a previously unknown, utterly changed world, often mark the experience of crisis. In all of these situations, different practices of life-writing emerge – and all of them will interest us. How do dynamic sociopolitical processes shape the stories we tell about our everyday lives? What is the relation between the fragmentation or consolidation of entire social systems and the experimental modes of autobiographical narratives putforward by individuals? Since our conference will be organised in Warsaw, we would like to refer to historical and academic experiences that are specific to Polish and Central European contexts, such as the surprisingly rich tradition of memoir competitions organised in Poland since the 1920s (a total of about 1,500 different competitions were held, with millions of memoirs and diaries collected). Another example would be the tradition of collecting autobiographical documents during the war and the Holocaust, which resulted in the creation of the monumental Ringelblum Archive, among others. Overall, we aim to examine the relationship between crisis situations and writing one’s life. How and why does autobiographical writing happen during crises, when the established order of the world suddenly collapses and everyday life becomes strange, unpredictable, and threatening? How do we talk about our lives, how and why do we record our experiences in difficult conditions? We invite proposals focused on archival records or material records in general (diaries, letters, autobiographies, memoirs), as well as various electronic, virtual life-writing practices that may be performed or kept on-line, on various websites or social media platforms. The theme of the conference may also be analysed from the perspective of life-writing in visual forms (photography, drawings, comics, films and video recordings, among others). Finally, participants may discuss records/reports about the experience of crisis created at the request of journalists or researchers, reporters, sociologists, psychologists, and historians (audiovisual, spoken, written accounts, important oral history tradition). All of the above-mentioned ways of “recording” life in a crisis situation are of great interest to us. During the IABA Warsaw Conference we will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the European Journal of Life Writing. Submissions: We welcome 20-minute individual presentations and 90-minute panel sessions (preferably interdisciplinary and international). The conference will be held in English. Abstracts should not be longer than 300 words; bios should not be longer than 150 words. Practicalities and schedule: Conference website: https://iabawarsaw2023.eu Conference e-mail: iabawarsaw2023@uw.edu.pl Online submissions will open on October 15, 2022 Deadline for proposals: December 31, 2022 Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by January 31, 2023 Registration and conference fees: February 1–March 31, 2023 Preliminary programme: May 1, 2023 Detailed programme: June 1, 2023 Conference Fees: Participants 220 EUR (includes conference lunches and a dinner) The participation of 5 researchers from Ukraine, free of charge PhD student participants 170 EUR (includes conference lunches and a dinner) The participation of 5 PhD students from Ukraine, free of charge IABA Warsaw 2023 Organising Committee Teresa Bruś Marcin Gołąb Joanna Jeziorska-Haładyj Artur Hellich Maciej Libich Lucyna Marzec Joanna Piechura Paweł Rodak Agnieszka Sobolewska Honorata Sroka *

Exile at State U: Stories from the Outer Edges of Academe

deadline for submissions: December 31, 2022 Douglas Higbee/University of South Carolina, Aiken contact email: douglash@usca.edu Seeking abstracts for an edited collection of essays about life on the tenure track, especially for those working in the humanities and social sciences at non-R1 colleges and universities. Because full-time, tenure-track jobs in the humanities and social sciences are hard to come by, we are often told to be grateful and to be quiet. And indeed, there is much to be grateful for and relatively little to shout about. But there are still important stories to be told, and relatively little nonfiction has been written about the subtle but life-changing personal and professional vicissitudes of a career spent in the academic hinterlands of branch state campuses and non-elite private colleges. Especially for those from highly rated grad programs, often in metropolitan locales, a career in a rural area or small town is an eye-opening and life-altering experience. The goal of the collection is to tell it like it is, warts and all. Essays should be autobiographical, not scholarly, and can be focused on a particular career episode (and thus relatively short) or broader in scope and longer in length. The most important thing is to be compelling, or at least interesting. Humor is more than welcome. Writers are welcome to publish under a pseudonym, or anonymously. Possible topics or areas of focus –job application process: interview and campus visit stories; first impressions; deciding whether to take the job –on the tenure track: the challenges (or lack thereof) of meeting tenure and promotion requirements; interactions with other faculty, administrators, community members; networking and conferences; deciding to stay or leave –community in exile: relationships with colleagues; relations with neighbors; location details –after tenure/the middle years: career evolution; putting down roots, professionally and personally; non-academic pursuits; changing jobs –toward retirement: taking stock; successes and regrets Please email 1-2 pp. abstracts and a short bio or CV to douglash@usca.edu by Dec. 31, 2022. Douglas Higbee University of South Carolina, Aiken Deadline for Submissions December 15, 2022

Colonial Letters and the Contact of Knowledges: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Colonial Correspondences

April 11, 2023 to April 14, 2023 University of Bayreuth, Germany Written correspondence (e.g. letters, diaries, telegrams, etc.) were one of the major means of communication during the 19^th – 20^th Century British colonialism of Africa. Through them, the instructions, intensions, decisions, complaints, justifications and agenda of resident British colonial officers, local colonial administrators and collaborators, colonial officials in Britain and colonised subjects (individuals, villages) were transmitted across time and space. These letters offer extraordinary access to the mindset and overall agenda of the entities producing them. The ways of life of these entities, their patterns of social order, repertoires and constellations of knowledges, linguistic voices, world views and cosmologies are projected, both directly and indirectly, in these letters. In themselves, these letters embody the contact zone of colonial-precolonial structures, coloniser-colonised entities, indigenous-foreign knowledges, cultural and linguistic practices, etc. Letters written during British colonialism of Southern Cameroons were the object of study of the research project “Colonial Letters and the Contact of Knowledges” funded by the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, Germany (https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/Projects/Knowledges/Knowledges_Colonial-letters/index.php). The aim of the conference is to present the major findings of the project. We also invite perspectives on British (and other) colonial correspondences in other territories and periods. Call for papers We invite submissions that describe, from multidisciplinary perspectives (within the humanities and social sciences, especially linguistics, history, literature, communication studies, anthropology and sociology), the instantiations of colonial contacts, conflicts, contestations and eventual coalescence, co-habitations and or hybridisations of ‘knowledges’ during colonialism that are embodied in, and transmitted through, letters written during British colonisation of Southern Cameroons (1916-1961) and beyond. Other colonisations, especially in Africa, form part of the focus of the conference. Several lines of investigation fall within the scope of the conference including, but not limited to:

• • Colonial correspondences and the construction of multiple identities

• • Colonial correspondences and the discursive enactment of (social, religious, political, hereditary) power

• • Colonial correspondences and the coalescence, cohabitation and hybridisation of colonial and precolonial social norms (interaction, hierarchy, respect forms, kinship affiliation)

• • Colonial correspondences and the contact of languages

• • Colonial correspondences and patterns of language stratification: official, native, local, dialect, etc. languages

• • Colonial correspondences and the production, consolidation and contestation of ‘knowledges’

• • Colonial correspondences and the role of letter writing agencies

• • Colonial correspondences and the concealment of, and access to, knowledge, information and rights

• • Colonial correspondences and colonial social and power structures of stratification

• • etc.

What patterns of knowledge production are adopted in colonial correspondences? How are these different in letters written by colonial administrators and those written by colonised subjects? What repertoires of knowledges drive their production, rejection and perhaps co-construction? To answer these questions, we invite submissions that adopt multidisciplinary, trans-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary approaches. NB: Selected papers from the conference will be published in the series Africa Multiple: Studies of Africa and its Diasporas (Brill Academic Publishers). Submission Guidelines

• • Deadline for receipt of abstracts: 15 December 2022

• • Feedback on abstracts: 31 December 2022

• • Maximum abstract length: 500 words

• • Submit abstracts to: colonial.letters@uni-bayreuth.de

Partial scholarships We offer per diems of up to 300€ (i.e., 100€ per day) for participants whose abstracts are accepted. More info  at: https://colonial-letters.de/# Contact Info: Conference organisers Eric A. Anchimbe (University of Bayreuth) Glory Essien Otung (University of Bayreuth) Contact Email: colonial.letters@uni-bayreuth.de URL: https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/

Narrative Matters Conference 2023 Instrumental Narratives: Narrative Studies and the Storytelling Boom Tampere University, Finland, 15–17 June 2023 https://events.tuni.fi/narrativematters2023/ CALL FOR PAPERS

NB! Deadline for proposals extended until the end of November 2022!

Welcome to the 11th Narrative Matters conference at Tampere! The conference positions narrative scholars in the midst of the storytelling boom. Everyone is urged to share their story today, from consumers to multinational corporations, from private citizens to nation states. Storytelling consultants are thriving in today’s storytelling economy, but where are narrative scholars? Do the professional analyzers and theorizers of narrative have a say in the current storytelling boom? How to engage in a societal dialogue and debate as a narrative scholar? Featured topics: *   storytelling boom and its social relevance *   novel ways of storytelling today *   emergent methods, ideas, and issues in narrative studies The social events include a lake cruise to Viikinsaari island – dinner, sauna & swim! TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATION –  2 hour train ride from the Helsinki airport –  direct flights to Tampere via 11 hubs –  strong hotel capacity in the campus area Conference webpage / CFP and submission link: https://events.tuni.fi/narrativematters2023/call-for-papers/ CFP OPEN UNTIL NOVEMBER 30, 2022! Conference fee EUR 220 (faculty) / EUR 120 (student) Pre-conference workshops, hosted by Jens Brockmeier, Alexandra Georgakopoulou, Stefan Iversen & Ann Phoenix, will take place on Wednesday, June 14th. NB! Narrative Matters 2023 is an on-site conference with no hybrid sessions and no recording of presentations. We will however include two online sessions in the programme, one early in the morning and another late in the evening (Helsinki time). The conference fee for online participants, who will only have access to these two online sessions, will pay a reduced conference fee of EUR 150 / 100 (students). Main organizers: Maria Mäkelä, Matti Hyvärinen & Mari Hatavara (Tampere University, Narrare) Hanna Meretoja (University of Turku, SELMA) Merja Polvinen (University of Helsinki) The Academy of Finland Consortium Project Instrumental Narratives https://instrumentalnarratives.wordpress.com Full CFP: The eleventh Narrative Matters conference is hosted by Tampere University (Finland) and co-organized by the Instrumental Narratives consortium project, SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory, and Narrare: Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies. The conference positions narrative scholars in the midst of the storytelling boom. Everyone is urged to share their story today, from consumers to multinational corporations, from private citizens to nation states. Storytelling consultants are thriving in today’s storytelling economy, but where are narrative scholars? Do the professional analyzers and theorizers of narrative have a say in the current storytelling boom? How to engage in a societal dialogue and debate as a narrative scholar? The conference will provide a platform for scholars to both seek new applications that might appeal to diverse audiences and to critically reflect on the instrumentalization of narrative studies. Most narrative scholars agree on the rich affordances of storytelling: narrative is a compact and intuitive form for sharing detailed, personal experiences as well as collective, community-forming ideas and outlooks. Thus narrative studies approaches lend generous support to the instrumentalization and commercialization of narrative form in business, politics, media, and personal development. Yet narrative may just as well be put to uses that are dubious if not dangerous. The widespread, uncritical use of narratives of personal experience in journalism and social media may have unintended and unanticipated consequences. Experientiality may come at the cost of informativeness. Furthermore, while narratives are ideally suited to conveying the complexity of human experience, the complexity of large social interactions or material processes, such as climate change, easily exceeds the capacity of storytelling. Now that the benefits of storytelling have caught the public imagination and are recognized in various professional practices, narrative scholarship is in a good position to disseminate critical practices for the analysis of the forms and contexts of storytelling as well. We should also look into future narrative possibilities. The 21st century will no doubt be the era of social media and shared personal narratives, and therefore we should look for productive ways of connecting the personal with the political. How, for example, to bridge the gap between individual particularity and supra-individual concerns at the limits of narrative, such as the climate crisis and global inequality? How to conceptualize and control the afterlife of narratives determined by digital forms of narrative agency? Will new forms of narrative speculation direct our actions as citizens, consumers, and collectives? Which roles will be allotted to specific artistic, digital, and quotidian genres of storytelling? Are these new narrative genres and practices changing the ways people share their experience and use stories in the everyday? Are new affordances for narrative meaning making evolving? We invite narrative scholars across disciplines to address the following (and related) issues: *   storytelling boom and its social relevance *   novel ways of storytelling today *   emergent methods, ideas, and issues in narrative studies *   sociological analysis of curated storytelling *   the study of storytelling rights and privileges; re-thinking of empathy *   narrative and post-truth *   narrative consultancy business; storytelling self-help and manuals *   story-critical reading in narrative studies; story-critical tools for audiences *   popularizing narrative theory and practices *   social life of narratives vs. analysis of individual texts *   narrative and action: political narratives, positioning and counter-narratives *   professional narratives and narratives of professions refigured *   the limits and affordances of narrative in making sense of illness and health *   the limits and affordances of narrative in addressing the environmental crisis *   uses and risks of viral storytelling and social media sharing *   discourse on well-being and cognitive benefits of literature *   the potential of fiction in analysing and resisting the narrative boom Please send your paper and panel proposals by November 30, 2022! The abstract for an individual paper should be 250-300 words. A panel proposal (in the case of a traditional research panel, 3-4 speakers) should be approx. 600 words, including a brief general description + short abstracts of each paper. In addition to the proposal text, please include a 100 word biographical statement for every speaker. If you only wish to present in either of the online sessions, please indicate this in your proposal. Here is the link to the submission form. Narrative Matters 2023 is an on-site conference with no hybrid sessions and no recording of presentations. We will however include two online sessions in the programme, one early in the morning and another late in the evening (Helsinki time). The conference fee for online participants, who will only have access to these two online sessions, will pay a reduced conference fee of EUR 150 / 100 (students). Dr. Maria Mäkelä Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature Tampere University, Finland +358 40 8325635 https://www.tuni.fi/en/maria-makela *

The Ecocritical First Person

American Society for the Study of Literature This CFP is for a guaranteed panel sponsored by the Thoreau Society 2023 ASLE + AESS Conference: “Reclaiming the Commons” July 9-12, 2023 in Portland, Oregon deadline for submissions:  December 1, 2022 What is the role of the personal voice in contemporary ecocritical scholarship? As Dipesh Chakrabarty has argued, conceptualizing climate change demands an awareness of both personal and planetary scales of transformation, yet traditional academic discourse has tended to discourage the use of personal history, anecdote, and the first-person voice. Our roundtable asks what’s at stake in the personal turn and a more intimate mode of literary-critical address. For this roundtable, we seek both excerpts from ecocritical writing in the personal voice and reflective/critical proposals that might trace the historical genealogy of the personal; consider the politics of voice vis-à-vis race and ethnicity, class, gender, and region; discuss marginalized efforts to bear witness; or offer reflexive meditations on our ties to the university and what more informal scholarship has to offer “lay” audiences. This panel has a guaranteed slot on the conference program. Proposals (maximum 200 words) for either/both creative or critical presentations and short CVs due by December 1st to Deanna Kreisel at deekaykay@icloud.com. Travel and Wonder, 1450-1750 Conference 27-28 April 2023 to be held at the University of York deadline for submissions:  November 20, 2022 Call for Papers We invite proposals for conference papers on wonder in early-modern travel writing. Papers are welcome to discuss any geographical area. They may explore (but are not restricted to) the following questions: how did early-modern travellers express wonder? What is the role of the senses in descriptions of wonder? Did travellers doubt their own senses? How did they address the problem of credibility and readers’ doubts when describing wondrous phenomena in their writing? How does wonder in early-modern travel writing relate to scholarly themes such as race, gender, colonialism, material culture, religion, knowledge or scientific discourse? Keynote speakers are Joan-Pau Rubiés (Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona) and Lauren Working (University of York). While preferring in-person presentations, we welcome a limited number of online papers. Please indicate in your proposal whether you plan to present in-person or online. Please submit a brief CV and proposal of 250-300 words for 20 minute papers to Dr Jaska Kainulainen, Docent of history at the University of Helsinki and a research associate at the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (CREMS) at the University of York, at jaska.kainulainen@helsinki.fi by 20 November 2022. The conference is generously supported by the KONE FOUNDATION in association with CREMS, University of York. *

Biography, Autobiography, Memoir, and Personal Narrative

Southwest Popular and American Culture Association February 22-25, 2023, Albuquerque, New Mexico deadline for submissions:  November 14, 2022 Melinda McBee / mcbee58@verizon.net Paper proposals on any aspect of biography, autobiography, memoir, and personal narrative are welcome. Literary papers as well as creative works will be accepted.  Send a 500 word abstract by November 14, 2022, to to conference’s database at http://www.southwestpca.org Directions: Once you have accessed the above web site, you will have to create an account.  After creating you account, on the web site choose Conference, then from the drop-down menu click Call for Papers/Submit Proposal.  Scroll down to the Language and Literature section to Biography, Autobiography, Memoir, and Personal Narrative.  Click the + sign under the Biography area, then choose Submit Proposal. SUBMIT PROPOSAL * As some of you know, I host a monthly webinar series,  “Let’s Talk Books at NMU” (Northern Michigan University).  On November’s episode, I’ll be talking with Etta M. Madden about her book, Engaging Italy: American Women’s Utopian Visions and Transnational Networks. The webinar will occur on Friday, Nov. 18, at 1:00 Eastern time. Registration is required but easy, and can be found here: https://nmu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dnXEzUN8QMmJcIvo8AyMvw Please join us if you’re free, and also feel free to forward this announcement widely. Thanks, Lynn Domina Deadline for Submissions November 1, 2022 The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, welcomes proposals for presentations on Travel and Literature for our 52nd annual conference, March 30-April 1, 2023, in San Antonio, Texas. Submit your 250-500 word abstract at https://www.conftool.pro/cea2023. The Travel and Literature area at CEA is seeking submissions on any aspect of travel and literature, including but not limited to travelogues; travel and ecocriticism; regionalism; travel and identity; intercultural perspectives; etc. Theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches are welcome, as are papers concerning various genres and historical periods of literature. Of particular interest will be presentations that actualize the conference theme, Confluence, as it applies to travelers across America, around the world, and through time and space. How do writers explore, engage, and articulate Confluence within the places, spaces, experiences, texts, and selves of their travels? Conference Theme: CONFLUENCE CEA welcomes proposals for presentations that move to the general conference theme: Confluence. The conference will be held in San Antonio, a city that itself is a kind of confluence: it has been the home of multiple cultures; it has seen the rise and fall of famous missions and military presidios; and it honors in its daily life today its Hispanic heritage and cowboy culture alike. It is no wonder, then, that it is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. General Call for Papers CEA also welcomes proposals for presentations in any of the areas English departments typically encompass, including literature criticism and scholarship, creative writing, rhetoric, composition, technical communication, linguistics, and film. We also welcome papers on areas that influence our work as academics, including student demographics, student/instructor accountability and assessment, student advising, academic leadership in departments and programs, and the place of the English department in the university. Panels and Roundtable Sessions are also welcome. If submitting a pre-formed panel, please create a user ID for each participant, and identify the panel in the submission. Roundtables will feature presentations and discussion of 500-word essays, an opportunity to engage with other scholars, discover other resources, or begin imagining the next steps towards developing ideas into longer, more typical conference papers or articles. Abstract Submissions Accepted until November 1, 2022 For more information on how to submit, please see the full CFP at www.cea-web.org. Format Presentations must be made in person at the conference venue. Neither proxy nor “virtual” (Skyping, etc.) presentations are permitted. Presentations will be limited to 15 minutes. Membership All presenters at the 2023 CEA conference must become members of CEA by January 1, 2023. To join CEA, please go to www.cea-web.org. Other questions? Please email cea.english@gmail.com. Sincerely, Katrina J. Quinn, Ph.D. Special Topics Chair, Travel and Literature (724) 738-2430 | katrina.quinn@sru.edu * Deadline for Submissions November 1, 2022

Call for Proposals – Oxford Handbook of Henry David Thoreau

The editors of the proposed Oxford Handbook of Henry David Thoreau seek proposals for essays on any aspect of Thoreau’s works, life, or reception that significantly reframe an aspect of his scholarly, political, or popular legacy. For more than a century, the dominant image of Thoreau was that of a solitary figure who happily turned his back on social ties and political matters to head off into the woods. In both public and scholarly writing, Thoreau was held up as an exemplar of a certain type of white, able-bodied masculinity: one where wilderness was preferable to domestic and social spaces, and where independence and communion with the self in nature superseded other forms of relationality, community, and solidarity. In recent years, scholarly work on Thoreau, including a major biography and several bicentennial volumes, has challenged these long-held critical perceptions with consideration of his work in relation to gender and sexuality, abolition, indigeneity, race, environmental justice, and other issues. We aim to collect and expand these new directions in Thoreau studies in a comprehensive volume designed to inform the next generation of Thoreau scholarship. We seek contributions from disciplines, traditions, and perspectives that have been previously excluded from or that have been marginalized within Thoreau studies. We are particularly interested in writings that engage with a range of traditions, including anti-racist work and prison abolition; disability justice, LGBTQ+ activism; climate justice; radical politics; as well as experimental or innovative approaches to Thoreau’s life, writings, and legacies. Please send abstracts of 300 words or fewer to kristen.case@maine.edu and james.finley@tamusa.edu by November 1, 2022. In addition, we welcome queries and would be happy to discuss ideas prior to the deadline. Contact Info: Kristen Case, Professor of English, University of Maine Farmington, kristen.case@maine.edu James Finley, Associate Professor of English, Texas A&M University – San Antonio, james.finley@tamusa.edu Contact Email: james.finley@tamusa.edu * Deadline for Submissions November 1, 2022 Call for Papers Out of the USSR: Travelling Women, Travelling Memories 2–3.2.2023 University of Turku, Finland Travelling has always been connected with fundamental social and political changes taking place in societies. Throughout history, one of the countries that people have chosen to leave, move away or have been expelled from, but also a country which they have been going back to, is Russia/the Soviet Union. There is an obvious link between the large transformations that have taken place in Russia since the time of perestroika in the 1990s until the ongoing war in Ukraine and the restrictions of civil rights such as freedom of speech, and the increased mobility out of Russia. The conference takes these transformations as starting points in examining how individuals reflect on and recall the Soviet/Russian home country in literary presentations, addressing the history of mobility, emigration, family, gender, ethnic or religious background in face of their collective memory in their new place of residence. The meeting points for the proposals are the concepts of travelling/mobility/exile and (post-, trans-/cross-cultural) memory. The focus is on women’s fictional texts and memories from the 1980s until today that allow the presentations to address and to acknowledge [e]migrating women writers as mediators of ideas and memories in trans-/cross-cultural contexts. The aim of the conference is to focus on gender in the process of the transformation of cultures through ideas that travel, and to pay special attention to women’s contribution to the cultural transfer and mobility of ideas and memories which have not been sufficiently studied and documented. We expect presentations addressing published fictional texts by women who have moved from the Soviet and Russian territories into new areas, and by writing they have created and processed memories of moving and of resettling in a new country/location of residence. We are especially interested in memories of women emigrants and travellers to the Nordic countries, Germany, Great Britain, the US, France and Israel. The organizers plan to publish an edited collection of papers presented at the conference. We invite researchers to a two-day conference that provides a platform to reflect upon the themes that address the following issues and more: ● What is recalled, and how the history of leaving/migration is experienced, recalled and narrated? ● Ideas, ideologies and memories (e.g. national myths) which women carry along to their new country/location of residence, and how they change in regard to the home country vis-à-vis thenew country? ● The creation and production of post-memorial recollection of family history ● Motives for leaving and emigration ● The constitution of matrilinear narratives and transformation of individual, family- and collective memory through travelling ● Carriers, media, contents, practices and forms of travelling memory ● Recollection of Soviet terror (e.g. Stalinist genocide and Holodomor) in the face of the prevalence of Holocaust memory in the new site of residence ● The understanding of one’s “own” culture, its possible changes, and the kind of presentation / narrative forms the change of location / culture /context produces ● Narratives of lived experiences in the new location ● The form that the social and cultural background (age, profession, gender identity, family background, etc.) takes in the texts ● Cultural memories (family, generation, gendered, etc.) that are carried along and created in the new country of residence, and what is their relation to the new location of residence? ● Narration of the journey, departure and arrival at the new location of residence ● Sites of memory in transition Keynote speakers are: Eva Hausbacher, Professor of Slavic Literature und Culture at the University of Salzburg, Department of Slavic Studies. “Close distances: Narratives of the Soviet Past in Russian-German Women’s Writings” Simona Mitroiu, PhD, Senior Researcher at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Department of Interdisciplinary Research in Social-Human Sciences “Generations of Memory in Women’s Narratives: Literary (re)workings of Transnational Disruptions, Intersections, and Transformations” Please submit your abstract (title, ca. 250 words, names and affiliations of the presenters) by 1. November 2022 to Viola Parente-Čapková (viocap@utu.fi) and Arja Rosenholm (arja.rosenholm@tuni.fi). Acceptance letters and the final programme will be sent by the end of November 2022. The conference has its background in the research project Texts on the Move https://tekstitliikkeessa.com/, examining how Russian women’s texts and ideas have been travelling and moving across the border to Finland in 1840–2020. Organizer: Texts on the Move: Reception of Women’s Writing in Finland and Russia 1840–2020 (Emil Aaltonen Foundation), and University of Turku, and Tampere University * Deadline for Submissions November 1, 2022 Women Writing Women’s Lives Kathy Chamberlain Research Awards Women Writing Women’s Lives (WWWL), a women’s group dedicated to the writing of women’s lives, is pleased to offer five research awards to women who are furthering the group’s mission. The awards are funded by a generous gift from Edith Penty, a veteran activist in the civil rights and women’s movement, who wished to express her gratitude for the work of WWWL and to honor Kathy Chamberlain. A long-time WWWL member and author of Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her Victorian World, Kathy Chamberlain served as WWWL steering committee chair for ten years. Each recipient will be awarded five hundred dollars ($500) to help defray expenses incurred while working on a memoir or biography of a woman, in print or other media, such as film, podcast, bibliography, database, or website. Awardees will also receive a one-year membership in WWWL (including dues). Awards must be used between February 1, 2023 and February 1, 2024. Awards may be used to fund: ● Travel to archives or relevant research locations ● Copying or digitizing materials ● Purchase of books for research ● Computers, software, or other technology needed for the project Eligibility: We welcome submissions from women who are current masters and doctoral students; adjunct and/or unaffiliated scholars who received their PhD in the last six years; assistant professors working towards tenure; and independent researchers. WWWL members are not eligible. How to Apply: Send an email to ChamberlainAward@gmail.com with the subject line “Chamberlain Award Application.” Attach the application, which consists of one PDF document. The document must include the four items below: Name the document with your last name, first name [LAST NAME, FIRST NAME]. 1. Contact Information: Your name, telephone number, permanent address and e-mail, current employer or academic affiliation, and title of project. 2. Proposal: A 500-word proposal describing the project and how it advances the WWWL mission (see below). 3. Budget: List how the funds will be used. 4. Curriculum Vitae: Provide a 1-page Curriculum Vitae. Due Date: Applications will be accepted from September 6 to November 1, 2022 by 11:59 pm. Email the application, which should consist of one PDF attachment to: ChamberlainAward@gmail.com. Please do not include the application in the body of the email. It must be just one attachment. Award recipients will be notified by February 1, 2023. Email or call Allysha A. Leonard, Chamberlain Award Administrative Assistant, if you need assistance: ChamberlainAward@gmail.com  (831) 345-9849. Women Writing Women’s Lives Mission Statement The places, cultures, and communities in which women live their lives change, as do women’s roles, status, interests, and opportunities. Our purpose as a group is to identify these changes, understand their impact, and explain and portray the complex realities of women’s lives. In biographies and memoirs of women, created in writing or other media, we hope to call attention to the reciprocal dynamics between our subjects and society, to find new ways of looking at and presenting women’s stories, and ultimately to influence the way women’s stories are perceived and written.

https://womenwritingwomenslives.org/kathy-chamberlain-award/

* Seminar Title: Reimagining 21^st Century Realisms American Comparative Literature Association’s Annual Meeting in Chicago (March 16-19, 2023) Organizer: Jenny Rademacher, Professor, Babson College (vrademacher@babson.edu) Paper proposals can be submitted at this link from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31, 2022 at this link: https://www.acla.org/reimagining-21st-century-realisms How are we rethinking genres that grapple with the increasingly ambivalent boundaries among truth, fact, and invention?  The past three decades have produced myriad efforts to name the wide range of forms that aim for greater veracity and anchoring to documented realities, while simultaneously equivocating—metamodernism, post-irony, new sincerity, auto/biofictions, and the awkwardly phrased post-post modernism, to name only a few. While the field is still very much in play, there is a common shift away from purely ironic approaches toward the connectedness of language, humans, and reality, and a newly dominant engagement with the capacity of literature and other forms of creative expression to reshape how we live and create. If postmodernism’s perception of language as a self-referential game has played itself to exhaustion, neither are we witnessing a return to literature that naively observes and strives to mimetically represent external reality. Rather than a mirror, contemporary realisms extend beyond materiality to expose the complex and often vexing realness of emotions, perceptions, and ethical obligations to one another and the world we inhabit. In so doing, such speculative realisms experiment with derivative identities and claims to truth, incorporating uncertainty while still trying to speak meaningfully to the realness of human experience.  With attention to their contradictions and confluences, this seminar explores the patterns of reimagined realisms in contemporary narrative— what forms they may be taking, how they are reconfiguring what we may understand as realism, and why. Considering the interaction among these diverse modes and how their growing popularity speaks to the experience of contemporary life, possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• • What is the nature and function of new realisms in shaping what comes after postmodernism?

• • How can fiction be used to experiment with the real and to create alternative ways of seeing and being in the world?

• • If realism has become more speculative, how does it challenge post-truth? How might these forms reveal a common thread for fostering an ethical relationship with truth?

• • How do auto/biofictions explore uncertainties among biographical, fictional, and authorial subjectivities that we navigate in real life and not only in these texts?

• • What do fictions that tread the borders between situated realities and invention provide us that neither non-fiction nor fiction alone might?

• • How do changing concepts of technology impact technique and form, providing thresholds for re-examining what we think we know?

• • Why have these new realisms become so popular with writers and readers?

• • How can a specific writer’s work illuminate important features of contemporary realisms?

• • In what ways do the varied forms of new realisms share a common zeitgeist that extends across multiple geographies (or how do they differ)?

Virginia Newhall Rademacher, PhD Professor, Hispanic Literature and Cultural Studies Babson College Babson Park, MA 02457 vrademacher@babson.edu WebEx personal room: https://babson.webex.com/meet/vrademacher Author Page: Derivative Lives (Bloomsbury, 2022) * American Comparative Literature Association’s Annual Meeting in Chicago (March 16-19, 2023) Seminar Title: Literary Biography Co-organizers: Sara Kippur (Trinity College, CT) and Julia Elsky (Loyola University Chicago, jelsky@luc.edu) Paper proposals can be submitted at this link from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31, 2022: https://www.acla.org/literary-biography This panel seeks to explore the topic of literary biography as both theory and practice. Literary studies since the New Critics have long registered a suspicion of biographical approaches to criticism, yet our contemporary moment–in which scholars and students seem to agree that there are ethical and political stakes to recognizing an author’s lived experiences and actions–pushes us to revisit the terms and stakes of biography in scholarship and in the classroom. To what extent should biography be centered in literary studies and in the comparative literature classroom? How has the form and practice of literary biography evolved? How might we, as practitioners, responsibly take on the task of writing literary biographies? These are some of the questions that motivate our panel and that we hope to address from a range of perspectives. Recent publications suggest the expansiveness of literary biography as a genre: it encompasses, of course, the biography of a person; the biography of a novel, such as Alice Kaplan’s Looking for The Stranger about Camus’s text or Michael Gorra’s Portrait of a Novel about Henry James’s novel; and dual biographies that feature multiple figures, such as Charlotte Gordon’s Romantic Outlaws about Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. This seminar seeks participants who will discuss the form of literary biography in a theoretical framework as well as those who will present the frameworks of the literary biographies they are in the process of writing. The seminar will also be a forum for discussion of how biographers write for general and academic audiences. How do approaches and forms change when looking to publish with an academic press, including those that aim at a broader readership, or a trade publisher? The wide range of approaches, as well as the interest in publishing biographies of women, are evinced by recent publications such as Ann Jefferson’s biography of Natalie Sarraute (Princeton, 2000), Caroline Weber’s Proust’s Duchess (Penguin, 2018), and Ruth Franklin’s biography of Shirley Jackson (Norton, 2016), among others. We would welcome scholars and critics who have or are currently considering writing for a more general audience. We also plan to invite an editor who straddles academic and trade audiences and who could discuss norms in their area of publishing. Julia Elsky, PhD Associate Professor of French Department of Modern Languages and Literatures Loyola University Chicago jelsky@luc.edu * Call for Papers STARDOM AND FANDOM Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA) 44th Annual Conference, February 22-25, 2023 Marriott Albuquerque Albuquerque, New Mexico http://www.southwestpca.org Submissions open on August 15, 2022 Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2022 Proposals for papers and panels are now being accepted for the 44th annual SWPACA conference. One of the nation’s largest interdisciplinary academic conferences, SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas, each typically featuring multiple panels.  For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit http://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/ 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, both current and historical Studies focused on specific fandoms – films, television programs, books, bands, etc. Fandom and loss – how fans cope when beloved things come to an end The reciprocal relationship between stars and fans Impact of celebrity and fame on identity construction, reconstruction and sense of self Reality television, YouTube celebrities, Influencers and the changing definition of ‘stardom’ The impact of social media and various platforms on celebrity/fan interaction Celebrity/fame addiction as cultural change The intersection of stars and fans in virtual and physical spaces (Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok, conventions) Celebrity and the construction of persona Pedagogical approaches to teaching stardom and fandom Fans, Stans, Antis and ‘haters’ Fan shame, wank, fandom policing, and purity culture in fandom spaces 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 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. The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2022.   SWPACA offers monetary awards for the best graduate student papers in a variety of categories. Submissions of accepted, full papers are due January 1, 2023.  SWPACA also offers travel fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students. For more information, visit http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/ 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. In addition, please check out the organization’s peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, at http://journaldialogue.org/ If you have any questions about the Stardom and Fandom area, please contact its Area Chair, Dr. Lynn Zubernis, Professor, West Chester University, at lzubernis@wcupa.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@southwestpca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you. We look forward to receiving your submissions! Contact Info: Lynn Zubernis, PhD Professor, West Chester University 1160 McDermott Drive, Ste 102 West Chester PA 19380 Contact Email: lzubernis@wcupa.edu URL: http://www.southwestpca.org * Deadline for Submissions October 31, 2022 * Deadline for Submissions Oct. 31, 2022

Call for Papers Narrative Matters Conference 2023 Instrumental Narratives: Narrative Studies and the Storytelling Boom Tampere University, Finland, 15–17 June 2023 https://events.tuni.fi/narrativematters2023/

Welcome to the 11th Narrative Matters conference at Tampere! The eleventh Narrative Matters conference is hosted by Tampere University (Finland) and co-organized by the Instrumental Narratives consortium project, SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory, and Narrare: Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies. The conference positions narrative scholars in the midst of the storytelling boom. Everyone is urged to share their story today, from consumers to multinational corporations, from private citizens to nation states. Storytelling consultants are thriving in today’s storytelling economy, but where are narrative scholars? Do the professional analyzers and theorizers of narrative have a say in the current storytelling boom? How to engage in a societal dialogue and debate as a narrative scholar? The conference will provide a platform for scholars to both seek new applications that might appeal to diverse audiences and to critically reflect on the instrumentalization of narrative studies. Most narrative scholars agree on the rich affordances of storytelling: narrative is a compact and intuitive form for sharing detailed, personal experiences as well as collective, community-forming ideas and outlooks. Thus narrative studies approaches lend generous support to the instrumentalization and commercialization of narrative form in business, politics, media, and personal development. Yet narrative may just as well be put to uses that are dubious if not dangerous. The widespread, uncritical use of narratives of personal experience in journalism and social media may have unintended and unanticipated consequences. Experientiality may come at the cost of informativeness. Furthermore, while narratives are ideally suited to conveying the complexity of human experience, the complexity of large social interactions or material processes, such as climate change, easily exceeds the capacity of storytelling. Now that the benefits of storytelling have caught the public imagination and are recognized in various professional practices, narrative scholarship is in a good position to disseminate critical practices for the analysis of the forms and contexts of storytelling as well. We should also look into future narrative possibilities. The 21st century will no doubt be the era of social media and shared personal narratives, and therefore we should look for productive ways of connecting the personal with the political. How, for example, to bridge the gap between individual particularity and supra-individual concerns at the limits of narrative, such as the climate crisis and global inequality? How to conceptualize and control the afterlife of narratives determined by digital forms of narrative agency? Will new forms of narrative speculation direct our actions as citizens, consumers, and collectives? Which roles will be allotted to specific artistic, digital, and quotidian genres of storytelling? Are these new narrative genres and practices changing the ways people share their experience and use stories in the everyday? Are new affordances for narrative meaning making evolving? We invite narrative scholars across disciplines to address the following (and related) issues: *   storytelling boom and its social relevance *   novel ways of storytelling today *   emergent methods, ideas, and issues in narrative studies *   sociological analysis of curated storytelling *   the study of storytelling rights and privileges; re-thinking of empathy *   narrative and post-truth *   narrative consultancy business; storytelling self-help and manuals *   story-critical reading in narrative studies; story-critical tools for audiences *   popularizing narrative theory and practices *   social life of narratives vs. analysis of individual texts *   narrative and action: political narratives, positioning and counter-narratives *   professional narratives and narratives of professions refigured *   the limits and affordances of narrative in making sense of illness and health *   the limits and affordances of narrative in addressing the environmental crisis *   uses and risks of viral storytelling and social media sharing *   discourse on well-being and cognitive benefits of literature *   the potential of fiction in analysing and resisting the narrative boom The social events include a lake cruise to Viikinsaari island – dinner, sauna & swim! TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATION –  2 hour train ride from the Helsinki airport –  direct flights to Tampere via 11 hubs –  strong hotel capacity in the campus area Conference webpage / CFP and submission link: https://events.tuni.fi/narrativematters2023/call-for-papers/ CFP OPEN UNTIL OCTOBER 31, 2022! Conference fee EUR 220 (faculty) / EUR 120 (student) Pre-conference workshops, hosted by Jens Brockmeier, Alexandra Georgakopoulou, Stefan Iversen & Ann Phoenix, will take place on Wednesday, June 14th. More information on registration and participation will be available by the end of September 2022! Main organizers: Maria Mäkelä, Matti Hyvärinen & Mari Hatavara (Tampere University, Narrare) Hanna Meretoja (University of Turku, SELMA) Merja Polvinen (University of Helsinki) The Academy of Finland Consortium Project Instrumental Narratives https://instrumentalnarratives.wordpress.com/ Please send your paper and panel proposals by October 31, 2022! Here is the link to the submission form<https://www.lyyti.in/narrativematters2023cfp> On behalf of the organizing team, Hanna Meretoja ———————- Hanna Meretoja Professor of Comparative Literature, Director of SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory, University of Turku, Finland MAE (Member of Academia Europaea) Tel. +358 50 329 1783 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-ethics-of-storytelling-9780190649364?lang=en&cc=us Call for Papers: “Am I Invisible?” Voices Society Silences   deadlines for submissions:  October 15, 2022 (Pre-Submission Ideas, Proposals, and Abstracts Deadline) November 15, 2022 (Deadline for Drafts)  contact email:  SurviveAndThriveHealing@gmail.com  In this special issue of _Survive and Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine_ (Vol. 8, slated for publication 2023; full schedule below), we ask students, educators, caregivers, victims/survivors, advocates, first responders, and all others who feel they are invisible to bring light to their experiences for others to see. In an era of “me first” and social media filters that make snapshots seem like a perfect life–it is easy for people to feel and question if they are invisible in their pain. It is easy for people to feel the weight of society silencing your cries for help, and the increasing burden making the air too heavy to breathe. We seek to provide a microphone for those who wish to lighten their weight by acknowledging their experiences, to help others feel validated in knowing they are not alone, and to help folks know they are not invisible. In this project, we are inspired by the work of the What They Don’t Tell You About Being a Survivor podcast (available at https://menaspeacemakers.podbean.com/), whose mission is to empower survivors/victims, and help people know they are not alone in what they are going through. The types of traumas discussed on the podcast are not limited to any specific type of trauma. Contributors might explore these questions and other questions of their own:

• • What would I say if the world would listen?

• • What would I share if I didn’t fear the shame of ____?

• • What would I say to those who are starting the journey, I am healing from?

• • What is my story from trauma to healing?

• • How might my journey have gone if people would have helped me when I needed it?

• • What makes me feel invisible while in plain sight?

• • What lies beneath the mask I feel obliged to wear?

• • What is it society silences me from saying about___?

• • How can I help others who are enduring what I have?

• • How can we help others from experiencing the trauma I am?

• • What has healing been like for me?

• • How does my trauma weigh me down still?

• • What they don’t tell you about being a survivor?

We especially would like to hear from people who have/are experiencing trauma (please note: authors can use a pseudonym). The truth is that the majority of us have or will experience trauma; the unfortunate truth is also that people tell us our trauma is not actually trauma. Trauma is trauma, and we want to help folks know they are not invisible, that we see you and you are not alone. We also want to give hope to others through sharing the journey of healing. Providing validation for those who might be hearing “It’s in the past move on.” or something else that minimizes their experience(s). Not asking folks to reopen wounds, but rather name them and share how the trauma has impacted your life. We encourage folks to share the ups and downs of their personal story on surviving and thriving. SUBMISSION DEADLINE -October 15, 2022:  Deadline for Ideas, Proposals, and Abstracts.  Authors who submit by October 15 will receive early feedback to help them grow, expand and develop ideas. Submit to: SurviveAndThriveHealing@gmail.com and to dbeard@d.umn.edu -November 15th, 2022:  Deadline for Completed Work.  You do not need to have submitted an abstract to submit work on this deadline. Submit to: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/ Summer 2023:  Projected Publication SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS “Submissions” may include text (poetry, essay, creative nonfiction, scholarly argument) video, audio, or image files that express the aims and scope of the journal. Submissions cannot have been previously published. A FEW SUGGESTED READINGS, in alphabetical order:

• • A Road Accident
    • • https://blog.reedsy.com/short-story/5olpi9/

• • A Buoy and a Lifehouse
    • • https://youtu.be/zuBV-9_9bII

• • Am I Invisible?
    • • https://youtu.be/k-2PslNeWjA

• • After Trauma: Survivor Stories
    • • https://www.aftertrauma.org/survivors-stories/survivors-stories

• • Blog Stories: Our Wave
    • • https://stories.ourwave.org/

• • Inmates learning and dealing with their own childhood trauma
    • • https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/public-safety/2021/09/12/prison-project-teaches-inmates-about-childhood-trauma-and-its-effects

• • Podcast: What They Don’t Tell You About Being a Survivor
    • • https://menaspeacemakers.podbean.com/

• • Poems About Abuse
    • • https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poems/sad/abuse/

• • Virtual Exhibit: Capturing My Healing
    • • https://discover.ourwave.org/exhibit/capturing-my-healing

ABOUT SURVIVE AND THRIVE: A JOURNAL FOR MEDICAL HUMANITIES AND NARRATIVE AS MEDICINE Survive & Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine aims to provide opportunities for sharing research, artistic work, pedagogical dialogue, and the practices of medical humanities and narrative as medicine. The journal serves a mission in education and the practice of humanities as they relate to illness, injury, and trauma. One of the primary aims of the journal is to bring medical humanities and narrative medicine to patients, survivors, and caregivers. Its emphasis, therefore, is on patients and survivors and their needs, and while aware of and supporting professional medical education, the journal is most concerned with an audience broader than an academic audience. We encourage physicians and others in the medical profession to practice Narrative as Medicine by submitting their work, especially when it encourages them to be artists – visual, performance, and literary. Project co-edited by: Laura Anderson, SurviveAndThriveHealing@gmail.com David Beard, DBeard@d.umn.edu * Deadline for Submissions October 15, 2022 I am thrilled to announce that my fabulous colleague Tripthi Pillai and I are co-editing a new Routledge Companion to Global Women’s Writing (to be published in summer 2024). Please see the cfp below, consider sending us an abstract, and/or share widely with your networks! Routledge Companion to Global Women’s Writing  Editors: Tripthi Pillai and Ina Seethaler We invite abstracts for chapters of previously unpublished and original work to be included in the new Routledge Companion to Global Women’s Writing, which is under contract to be published in July 2024 as part of the Routledge Literature Companions series. Covering both established and emerging topics and methodologies, The Routledge Companion to Global Women’s Writing equips readers with interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches to women’s writing in the global context. Movements and experiences shaping the twenty-first century assert the urgent need for expanding and re-envisioning existing academic and social definitions as well as cultural perceptions of gender, location, and creative expression. In response to this growing need felt by diverse communities across the world, the collection forges new directions in and conceptualizations of identity, experience, and practice. Specifically, we welcome contributions that engage the three principle aspects informing the collection—“global,” “women,” and “writing”—in inclusive ways that not only broaden readers’ understanding of these key identities and concepts but also enable them to explore the underappreciated connections among them. Towards this end, the editors seek a multiplicity of voices from a variety of disciplines and geocultural landscapes. Similarly, we welcome with enthusiasm diverse perspectives, positionalities, and approaches, ranging from commentary on dominant/key debates to exploratory work on budding and innovative practices of global women’s writing. Each section of the handbook offers a broad range of topics that are globally applicable and provide critical and creative access to the nexus of women’s writing. Possible sections and topics include but are not limited to:

1. 1. Bodies: 
      1. 1. Disability and women’s self-expression
      1. 1. Global perspectives on healthcare
      1. 1. Spirituality, religion, and ritual
      1. 1. Transgender poetics and politics

1. 1. Locations: 
      1. 1. Language, borders, and migration
      1. 1. Domesticity and negotiations of home
      1. 1. Ecologies and environments
      1. 1. Carceral experiences

1. 1. Media Landscapes: 
      1. 1. Body art as authorship and activism
      1. 1. Graphic writings
      1. 1. Women in gaming
      1. 1. Social media and global communication

1. 1. Disruptive Canvases:  
      1. 1. Textiles as texts
      1. 1. Storytelling through graffiti/murals/poster art
      1. 1. Global foodways
      1. 1. Artifacts and experiences of war

1. 1. Movements of Resistance: 
      1. 1. Global writing and #metoo
      1. 1. Grassroots activism and movements
      1. 1. Education and liberatory/oppressive practices
      1. 1. Law, justice, and policy

We are especially interested in contributions from authors at various stages of their careers who embrace interdisciplinary approaches and/or adopt practices of citational justice. Please send an abstract of up to 350 words as well as a 200-word biography to tpillai@coastal.edu and iseethale@coastal.edu by October 15, 2022. Contributors will be notified by 15 November 2022 of their abstracts’ acceptance. Completed chapters of up to 6000 words will be expected by May 15, 2023. Some flexibility exists regarding word count, especially in the case of contributions that discuss non-dominant identities, geographies, and/or writing practices. Feel free to reach out to the editors with any queries. Ina C. Seethaler, Ph.D. (she, her, hers) Associate Professor/Director of Women’s and Gender Studies HTC Honors College Coastal Carolina University Kearns 104B PO Box 261954, Conway, SC 29528 iseethale@coastal.edu 843-349-6919 The land on which Coastal Carolina University stands is part of the traditional territory of the Waccamaw Indian People. We honor them and express our gratitude to the ancestors who lived here in the past, the Waccamaw Indian People today, and the generations to come *

Disobedient Lives, Disorderly Archives: Social Justice Agency in Archival Spaces and Arts

ROUND TABLE at the 54th Annual NEMLA (Northeast Modern Language Association) Convention, to be held March 23rd-26th in Niagara Falls, NY, US. deadline for submissions:  September 30, 2022 contact email:  jlmason1@buffalo.edu Abstract: This roundtable will bring together scholars interested in developing and studying archives that push the boundaries of what we consider the archive. At the roundtable, through our work, we will consider questions that arise within archival practices and arts, such as: what constitutes or counts as an archive, what kinds of archival delineations should be drawn, pushed back against, or ruptured, and, perhaps most importantly, what is or should be the role of the archive in combating systemic injustice and advancing social justice? The roundtable seeks to bring together scholars across disciplines and community activists and archivists who are interested in the relationship between social justice activism and the archive, those who are building archives or deconstructing archives or imagining new and different archives with the goal of helping communities and those whose lives have been hidden or suppressed or ignored completely within archives.Archivist-activists and scholars interested in the political and social role of the archive, especially those whose projects are geared toward utilizing the archive as mechanism or space for social justice activism are invited to submit proposals that demonstrate the connection between their social justice concerns and their archival work and interests. The roundtable will be geared toward scholars and activists engaging the archive, in both material, corporeal and immaterial, conceptual senses. It will allow archivists and scholar-activists alike to come together to share and make wisdom concerning the use of the archive as a space for shaping and advancing social change, and for changing the social and material conditions of communities that have been marginalized, historically. LINK to CFP/to submit: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/1979 Contact: jlmason1@buffalo.edu Organizers/Co-Chairs: Nicole Crevar and Jessica Lowell Mason *

The Art of Non/Resilience for People with Disabilities

Northeast Modern Language Association Conference March 23-26, 2023. Niagara Falls, NY deadline for submissions:  September 30, 2022 contact email: mariaguarino07@gmail.com Submit abstract here: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20018 What is resilience for people with disabilities? What is recovery? Narratives of illness, trauma and disability are often framed to emphasize recovery. Reflecting on resiliency, constructed ideas of normalcy, and “crip time,” Ellen Samuels writes: “Disability and illness have the power to extract us from linear, progressive time with its normative life stages and cast us into a wormhole of backward and forward acceleration, jerky stops and starts, tedious intervals and abrupt endings” (2017). In working with disabled performers, disability scholar and artist Petra Kuppers notes the connection between the material oppression experienced by people with disabilities and the performance space. She writes: “Many of the performers’ physical experiences mirrored their silencing in, and exclusion from, representation. Some had no space for themselves, their bodies, their movements in the social and physical environment. They are excluded from life alone, from getting an apartment; conformed to a timetable of contact with medical practitioners, or the even more rigorous timetable of pills and injection. Their bodies can be invaded, as the law allows them to be drugged against their will and involuntarily hospitalized. Their physical and mental privacy is often under threat” (2005). Kuppers suggests there may be an added level of invisibility for people with disabilities because of the likely invasion of privacy through the process of disclosure. In offering up this context, Kuppers raises many questions about the production and spectacle of arts by people with disabilities. How do we see disability? How can we understand the tension of disclosure and hypervisibility? How do we build safer and more comfortable spaces for people with disabilities to present their art? How do relationships change after disclosure, and/or how do we recognize the need to pivot in states of crisis and illness? How do we recognize the work of disability artists? In his poem, “I am too pretty for some Ugly Laws,” Lateef McLeod speaks to these experiences of both invisibility, hypervisibility, and historical oppression. He says: “My mere presence//of erratic moving limbs//and drooling smile//used to be scrubbed off the public pavement” (2018). Through writing, poetry, acting, and many other mediums, we have the opportunity to convert the disabled bodymind from being solely what disabled performer Catherine Cole calls a “performer in a script [they] did not write” (2003). We can engage further and sit, stand, walk, seize, lay, etc in these spaces of disability, and ask what resilience and recovery means. We can also ask not only how disabled bodyminds are resilient, but how they are not. This is a call for creative submissions that explore representations of disability, resilience, and recovery. Submissions can include, but are not limited to: poetry, art, film etc. What is resilience? What is recovery? *

Deadline for Submissions Sept. 30, 2022

Call for Chapter Contributions Diaspora/Diasporas: Cross-cultural Ibero-Caribbean Texts and Context Editors: Irene M. F. Blayer (PhD), Brock University; Jo-Anne Ferreira (PhD), UWI Trinidad and Tobago; Dulce M. S. Scott (PhD), Anderson University We envision this edited collection to be interdisciplinary and multidimensional, thus incorporating a set of diasporic areas of research within the Ibero-Caribbean context. Chapters are double-blind peer refereed. An invitation to submit a paper in no way guarantees that the paper will be published; this is dependent on the review process. Unpublished and original papers, in English, Portuguese, Spanish, or French are welcome. Proposals that treat other topics not included below but that are of thematic relevance are welcome.

• • Storying the Ibero-Caribbean diaspora

• • Cultural histories in the context of diasporas and globalization

• • Place, history and collective memories /

• • Textualized identity

• • Testimonies, diaries, chronicles, letters, autobiographies

• • Migration and identity: the role of geographical place

• • The diasporic imaginary: Self in the textual narrative

• • Interfacing literary dialogues

• • Circulation and reception of diaspora literature

• • Bilingualism and multilingualism

• • Language and cultural identity

• • Translation and the trials of identity

• • Tradition and social change

• • Material and non-material culture

• • Sociology and psychology of the migrant experience

• • Oral vs. written narratives

• • Cross-generational narratives/ diaries, chronicles, letters

• • The economics of language policy in immigration

• • Language, dislocation, and exile

• • Cross-generational narratives

• • Ethnography of language

• • Re-imagining Ibero-American Insular spaces/worlds

Submissions The deadline for the receipt of abstracts (450-500 words) and a biographical note (300-350 words) is September 30, 2022.  Those invited to submit full chapters will be notified by December 30th, 2022. Complete chapter drafts should be approximately 4,500-6,500 words including endnotes and bibliography. Chapters must follow the MLA style rules, and will be due June 30, 2023. Prospective contributors should email all inquiries and submissions to: ibero.caribbean.diaspora@gmail.com * Studies in Travel Writing is seeking an Editor-in-Chief. Routledge–Taylor and Francis Applications must be submitted by 30 September. Think this could be you? Read more and apply today. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKKXgmLchNXmqgZMSGRFJPZqmWpvbPVpVcLKRxRGWrwzxBjlbpxKgchKwHRXFTCwHGwL * Deadline for Submissions September 30, 2022 Call for Chapter Contributions Diaspora/Diasporas: Cross-cultural Ibero-Caribbean Texts and Context Editors: Irene M. F. Blayer (PhD), Brock University; Jo-Anne Ferreira (PhD), UWI Trinidad and Tobago; Dulce M. S. Scott (PhD), Anderson University We envision this edited collection to be interdisciplinary and multidimensional, thus incorporating a set of diasporic areas of research within the Ibero-Caribbean context. Chapters are double-blind peer refereed. An invitation to submit a paper in no way guarantees that the paper will be published; this is dependent on the review process. Unpublished and original papers, in English, Portuguese, Spanish, or French are welcome. Proposals that treat other topics not included below but that are of thematic relevance are welcome.

• • Storying the Ibero-Caribbean diaspora

• • Cultural histories in the context of diasporas and globalization

• • Place, history and collective memories /

• • Textualized identity

• • Testimonies, diaries, chronicles, letters, autobiographies

• • Migration and identity: the role of geographical place

• • The diasporic imaginary: Self in the textual narrative

• • Interfacing literary dialogues

• • Circulation and reception of diaspora literature

• • Bilingualism and multilingualism

• • Language and cultural identity

• • Translation and the trials of identity

• • Tradition and social change

• • Material and non-material culture

• • Sociology and psychology of the migrant experience

• • Oral vs. written narratives

• • Cross-generational narratives/ diaries, chronicles, letters

• • The economics of language policy in immigration

• • Language, dislocation, and exile

• • Cross-generational narratives

• • Ethnography of language

• • Re-imagining Ibero-American Insular spaces/worlds

Submissions The deadline for the receipt of abstracts (450-500 words) and a biographical note (300-350 words) is September 30, 2022.  Those invited to submit full chapters will be notified by December 30th, 2022. Complete chapter drafts should be approximately 4,500-6,500 words including endnotes and bibliography. Chapters must follow the MLA style rules, and will be due June 30, 2023. Prospective contributors should email all inquiries and submissions to: ibero.caribbean.diaspora@gmail.com *

Resilient Bodies: Beyond the Margins of Life Writing

deadline for submissions: September 30, 2022 Northeast Modern Language Association contact email: kasia.peric@gmail.com Recent discussions in autobiography studies have increasingly shifted their focus to non-conventional forms of self-expression. In broader terms, life writing, which aims to reveal the self in all of its complexity, has inevitably evolved from a highly conventional genre to an open and ever-expanding practice that connects writing with other modes of representation. Discussions on autobiography have progressively become inclusive of non-literary forms of expression, such as performance, body and endurance art. The works of artists such as Marina Abramovic, Abel Azcona, Cindy Sherman, and Sophie Calle, just to name a few, experiment with various conventions of visual and live art to push self-expression beyond the margins of writing and into the public domain. Many of these artists, such as Marina Abramovic and Abel Azcona – in particular through their “endurance art” installations – deal with themes of physical and emotional resilience to address the question of personal identity. Similarly, the performance art installations of Cindy Sherman and Sophie Calle question the stereotypes of self-representation and test the limits of autobiography by experimenting with different identities in different social contexts. This session encourages the study of French and Francophone performance artists who work in the autobiography field which is an area that has been explored very little to date. Its purpose is to stimulate an interdisciplinary research and exchange between scholars from different fields and to promote French and Francophone art and culture. This session welcomes interdisciplinary research that examines various forms of self-expression from different fields of inquiry such as literature, the visual and fine arts. Proposals should be submitted in 250 words max. * Deadline for Submissions Sept. 30, 2022 Jean Monnet University, Saint-Etienne, France Thursday, 11 of May 2023^th and Friday, 12^th of May 2023 “Virginia Woolf: For a Poetics & Politics of Intimacy” International Conference – Société d’Études Woolfiennes Call for Papers Organised by ECLLA (Études du Contemporain en Littératures, Langues, Arts) with the support of the SEW and of CORPUS (UR-UPJV 4295) Confirmed keynote speakers: Elsa Högberg, Uppsala University and Christine Reynier, Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 University “They’ve just sent the second batch of proofs [of Passenger to Teheran] which I have swallowed at a gulp. […] I kept saying ‘How I should like to know that woman’ and then thinking ‘But I do’, and then ‘No, I don’t– not altogether the woman who writes this.’ I didn’t know the extent of your subtleties […]. Indeed it is odd that now, having read this, I have picked up a good many things I had missed in private life. What are they, I wonder, the very intimate things, one says in print? There’s a whole family of them. Its [sic] the proof to me, of being a writer, that one expresses them in print only […].” (The Letters of Virginia Woolf, vol. 3, 290-291) This excerpt from a letter written to Vita Sackville-West on the 15^th of September 1926, while Virginia Woolf was proof-reading her intimate friend’s account of journeying through Persia prior to its publication by the Hogarth Press, is a telling illustration of the rich entanglement between intimacy and writing opening onto the numerous ways in which Woolf explores this question. She expresses here the fundamental difficulty of knowing the other (even when the other is an intimate friend), which is also at the core of her reflection upon characterization, and the necessity of turning to the written word both to express one’s own mind and to grasp the subtleties of the human mind. The paradoxical necessity of going public in order to express one’s private thoughts explains Woolf’s reticence to commit herself to autobiography: “Also I’m uneasy at taking this role in the public eye – afraid of autobiography.” (TheDiary of Virginia Woolf, vol. 5, 141). Yet at the same time, intimacy is defined as being beyond words; intimacy is “knowledge” says Lily Briscoe as she conjures up the figure of Mrs Ramsay while resting her head on the woman’s lap, “but nothing that could be written in any language known to men.” (To the Lighthouse, 305). Yet again, that type of knowledge proves to be equally fallacious: “Who knows what we are, what we feel? Who knows even at the moment of intimacy? This is knowledge?” (To the Lighthouse, 390). Expressing life, the mind (her own and the others’) is indissociable from Woolf’s modernist project to reshape the novel and injunction to both the reader of modernist fiction and the writers of her own spiritual generation to “look within.” In her effort to define “the proper stuff of fiction” she claims that the spirit of life should be conveyed with “as little mixture of the alien and external as possible,” (“Modern Fiction” Essays 4, 160) enjoining her contemporaries to stress the inward life of their characters, in keeping with the etymology of the adjective “intimate” (which stems from the Latin “interior” and from the superlative “intimus”, the most interior or the inmost.) It is precisely with this injunction in mind that we propose to analyse intimacy and its political and ethical ramifications in Woolf’s oeuvre. For intimacy is as central to Woolf’s essays as it is to her fiction, and particularly her feminist essays. Both genres work through the political fabric of the intimate and in this respect might be seen to produce an original form of materialist feminism. Woolf’s radical endeavours flourished when she also had to navigate the atmosphere of “fear and suspicion” (VW in Marshik 3) that prevailed until the late 1920s, when censors and moralists still held a strong power over authors, printers and publishers as well as the general public (see Pease, Potter, Marshik & Pease). The literary strategies Woolf developed to circumvent censorship affect her representation of an embodied intimacy, turning the expression of the personal into an inevitably political gesture. In A Room of One’s Own she voices women’s experiences and concerns by adopting the guise of a persona, a certain Mary Beton, giving her a woman’s body in direct contact with the issues she seeks to theorise. It is also obvious that the privacy of the room of one’s own is in fact spurious as the outside world keeps impinging upon it, just as the letter written in answer to a middle-aged educated man in Three Guineas is in fact a very public kind of address. The frontier between inside and outside, confidentiality and publicity is very porous indeed, and Woolf’s political commitment is deeply rooted in her own personal experience as an educated man’s daughter. The question of intimacy has been central to Woolf studies and to modernist studies since the late 20^th century (Bagguley and Seymour, Berlant, Frost, Illouz, Minow-Pinkney among others), but it seems to have gained momentum in recent years with the emergence of the field of affect studies, with publications ranging from Jessica Berman’s 2004 article, to Elsa Högberg’s 2020 Virginia Woolf and the Ethics of Intimacy, to Jane Goldman’s 2021 chapter in Högberg’s Modernist Intimacies. Focusing primarily on four of Woolf’s modernist novels, Högberg’s 2020 study compellingly shows that the writing of intimacy and interiority is “configured as an aesthetic, but also ethical process.” In the wake of this thinking, arguing that Woolf “places intimacy at the centre of public and political as well as private relations”, we propose to examine how Woolf’s conception of intimacy, of human relations and of the self informs not only her fiction, but also her essays, auto/ biographies, diaries and correspondence. Woolf’s texts convey an ethical and a political stance which is inseparable from her poetics foregrounding introspection in a complex nexus of tensions and paradoxes which may be expressed in terms of the Woolfian concept of “vacillation” between within and without, secrecy and revelation, concealment and disclosure, the private and the public, the personal and the impersonal, the self and the other. These questions might equally be extended to consider the reception of Woolf’s work in France and the nature of the imprint of the intimate in the French response to Woolf, as it meets contemporary feminist thinking anachronistically (see Favre, Gérard, Jones, Lasserre, Meyer) This conference intends to bring together Woolf scholars ready to engage with the subject of intimacy from diverse theoretical standpoints. We therefore invite papers on the literary, aesthetic, ethical, political, philosophical and more broadly cultural aspects of Woolf’s œuvre, its origins, conception and reception both then and now. Topics of interest may include, but are not limited to: *Following the first definition one finds in the OED of the word “intimacy” as “the state of being personally intimate, intimate friendship or acquaintance, familiar intercourse, close familiarity”: relationship between Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury; an ethics of intimacy. Influence of George Moore’s Principia Ethica, the “Memoir Club contributions”, the Bloomsbury group founded on the idea of friendship and truth telling. Thursday evenings as a catalyst for the group’s politics of style. In connection with the new domesticity invented by Bloomsbury, one could also look at real or imaginary places of intimacy, Hyde Park Gate, Monk’s House, Charleston, etc. Virginia Woolf and friends/family: emulation and influence of Leslie Stephen, Lytton Strachey, Vanessa and Clive Bell, Roger Fry, etc. Role played by Leonard Woolf in her literary career, in furthering her fame even posthumously (the way he shaped her diaries in A Writer’s Diary, how he represented her in his own lengthy autobiography). The Hogarth Press and its impact on Woolf’s work. *Life-writing and autobiography: how to represent the other’s/one’s own intimacy. How Woolf’s conception of intimacy led her to revolutionize biography: the New Biography and her poetics of the individual. Diary writing vs letter writing: confessional aspect of these laboratories of the self and of her fiction. Role played by the editors of her correspondence/diaries, by her biographers, in shaping an “intimate” Woolf. The way her papers were published (trimmed and censored or published in their entirety), the way we are given access to Woolf’s innermost thoughts and what different literary critical periods have made of them, what these editorial processes say about Woolf, but also about our own reception of her texts/images and about our own era. *The fascination exerted by Woolf’s intimacy in recent works “recycling” her: her madness, her same-sex friendships are presented as a filter through which we are invited to read her fiction and essays. The way novelists have used her life as an inspiration; the modernist icon revisited (cf. The White Garden, a Novel of Virginia Woolf by Stephanie Barron, The Hours by Peter Cunningham or the recent movie Vita and Virginia, which, although they give a fictional, warped, partial and possibly erroneous version of Woolf, nevertheless add a complementary touch to the way Woolf is seen as part of the canon). *Woolf’s photographic practice and conception of photography: Reticence towards self-portrayal and intimacy but photography as a necessary means to record private daily life. Visual apprehension of the self/of the other, role of her albums in her creation of a family romance. Link with Julia Margaret Cameron, role of her father’s Mausoleum Book in creating a visual genealogy redefining familiarity. *Woolf’s aesthetic experiments and post-impressionism: towards an embodied formalism. *Corporeality, body and mind, the question of “incarnation”: how intimacy, love, the body are represented, or transcended, negated or circumvented but always fundamental in her oeuvre as sensory experience is seen as necessary to artistic creation. The imprint of the intimate in contemporary readings of Woolf and feminist responses to Woolf. *Woolf’s feminism as deriving from her ethics of intimacy, link between political space and private space. A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas: the narrator is embodied, telling her story rather than his story, the personal is political: gender and sex, the androgynous mind as the naturally creative mind. Giving voice to women’s private experiences. *Literature and psychoanalysis: relationship with Freudian psychoanalysis, simultaneous development of modern psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis and literary modernism. Resonances with Lacan’s concept of “extimité.” Woolf’s fiction as exploration of the unconscious (cf. “Modern Fiction” in which she claims that her generation should explore “the dark places of psychology.” (Essays 4, 162). Links with Kristeva’s definition of intimacy as a “continuous copresence between the sensible and the intelligible – a true continuity, beyond division.” (Intimate Revolt, 47) *Intimacy also means “closeness of observation, knowledge or the like” (cf. OED definition 1c) which may trigger reflections upon the intimacy between reader and writer: the reader’s affective investment in the novel’s content, link with the theory of reception. Intersection between the reader’s quest for meaning and the narrator’s quest for character. How reading and writing as intimate acts are possibly conducive to politically subversive acts of revolt. Woolf’s own practice as a reader, reviewer, and its effects on her writing. *Modernizing characterization: “Life and the Novelist” or how to express the character’s interiority, how to cope with the unknowability of the other in a creative way. Woolf’s “tunnelling process” and her “digging out beautiful caves.” (Diary 2, 272, 263). *Intimacy and modernism: looking within, expressing the modernist inward strand. The stylistic revolution of the stream of consciousness in promoting interiority, introspection and free indirect speech as a mode of intimate story-telling and in the twenties circumventing censorship. We welcome proposals for papers preferably in English on the above-mentioned topics or any other topic which you may find relevant to the theme of the conference. Please send abstracts of about 300 words together with a short biographical notice to woolfintimacy@gmail.com by 30^th September 2022. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 15^th  November 2022. Contact : Floriane Reviron-Piégay floriane.reviron.piegay@univ-st-etienne.fr Anne-Marie Smith-Di Biasio annemarie.dibiasio@gmail.com Scientific committee: Elizabeth Abel (University of California, Berkeley) Catherine Bernard (Paris-Cité) Anne Besnault (Rouen) Rachel Bowlby (University College London) Adèle Cassigneul (Toulouse) Claire Davison (Sorbonne Nouvelle) Chantal Delourme (Paris-Nanterre) Nadia Fusini (La Sapienza, Rome) Maggie Humm (East London) Mark Hussey (Pace University-New York) Catherine Lanone (Sorbonne Nouvelle) Marie Laniel (Picardie, Jules Verne) Frédéric Regard (Paris-Sorbonne) Floriane Reviron-Piégay (Jean Monnet, St Etienne) Anne-Marie Smith-Di Biasio (Institut Catholique de Paris) Works of reference: BERLANT, Lauren. Intimacy. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2000. BERMAN, Jessica. “Ethical Folds: Ethics; Aesthetics, Woolf,” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 50, n°. 1, Spring 2004, pp. 151-72. BERSANI, Leo & PHILLIPS, Adam. Intimacies. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2008. DELOURME, Chantal. Et une phrase… Virginia Woolf, écrire dans l’entre-deux-guerres. Paris : ENS Éditions, 2021. FAVRE, Valérie. Virginia Woolf et ses “petites sœurs” : Relire A Room of One’s Own au prisme de sa postérité littéraire, critique et féministe dans l’espace atlantique anglophone des années soixante à nos jours, PhD Dissertation, Lyon 2, 2021. GÉRARD, Valérie. Les Formes du chaos : sur l’art politique de V. Woolf. MF Éditions, 2022. GOLDMAN, Jane. “Burning Feminism: Virginia Woolf’s Laboratory of Intimacy” in HÖGBERG, Elsa, ed., Modernist Intimacies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2021, pp. 52-73. HÖGBERG, Elsa. Virginia Woolf and the Ethics of Intimacy. London: Bloomsbury, 2020. —, ed. Modernist Intimacies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2021. HUMM, Maggie. Talland House: A Novel. Berkeley, CA: She Writes Press, 2020. ILLOUZ, Eva. Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. London: Polity Press, 2007. JONES, Clara. Virginia Woolf: Ambivalent Activist. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2017. KRISTEVA, Julia. Intimate Revolt. The Powers and Limits of Psychoanalysis, 1997. Trans. HERMAN, Jeanine. New York: Columbia UP, 2002. LASSERRE, Audrey. Histoire d’une littérature en mouvement : textes, écrivaines et collectifs éditoriaux du Mouvement de libération des femmes en France (1970-1981), PhD Dissertation, Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, 2014. LIGHT, Alison. Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury. London: Penguin Books, 2007. MARSHIK, Celia.  British Modernism and Censorship. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. MARSHIK, C. & PEASE, A. Modernism, Sex, and Gender. London: Bloomsbury, 2019. MEYER, Suzel. Écrire l’histoire au féminin : autour de The Years de Virginia Woolf et des Années d’Annie Ernaux, PhD Dissertation, Strasbourg, 2020. MINOW-PINKNEY, Makiko. Virginia Woolf and the Problem of the Subject: Feminine Writing in the Major Novels. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers UP, 1987. PEASE, Allison. Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. POTTER, Rachel. Obscene Modernism. Literary Censorship & Experiment 1900-1940. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. REYNIER, Christine. Virginia Woolf’s “Good Housekeeping” Essays. New York and London: Routledge, 2019. SANGER, Tam & TAYLOR, Yvette, eds. Mapping Intimacies: Relations, Exchanges, Affects. London: Palgrave Macmillan 2013. SEYMOUR, Julie & BAGGULEY, Paul, eds. Relating Intimacies: Power and Resistance. London: Macmillan, 1999. WOLFE, Jesse. Bloomsbury, Modernism and the Reinvention of Intimacy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. (FWF-Project “Co-Producing and Using Identity Documents. Habsburg Monarchy/Austria ca. 1850-1938”) The workshop deals with the co-production and use of identity documents from a historical and interdisciplinary perspective. Establishing the identity of persons was (and still is) fundamental for a variety of tasks and operations of the state. In the course of the last centuries, various forms of identification and registration became subject to ever more precise state regulations and were adapted or fully taken over by state authorities. Yet, at the same time, practices of identification, registration and categorization of individuals were never exclusively a matter of statehood and citizenship, subject to governmentality, bureaucracy, surveillance and migration control. Identity papers were not exclusively produced and used by or vis á vis state authorities. Historically, various parties could be (and remained) involved in practices of identification and registration, ranging from religious organizations, trade or occupational associations, employers, unions, political organisations, landlords, welfare organizations, companies, creditors, or recreation clubs. Such parties provided information, produced data, checked documents, or even issued their own papers. They fulfilled tasks assigned to them, while following or adopting regulations issued by authorities with (greater or lesser) enthusiasm or accuracy. At the same time, the parties involved in such tasks often pursued their own agendas, producing and using papers for their own purposes. Individuals – who in most cases are seen as wholly subjected to identification, surveillance, or control – contributed to the production of their official identities in a variety of ways: by complying with official directives and cooperating with authorities; by initiating administrative processes themselves, (co-)producing information, forging documents or dealing with missing or incoherent documents; and by avoiding or boycotting identification. It is not always apparent or conclusively established where in such entanglements state bureaucracy started or ended. In order to investigate why certain forms of identification functioned historically as successful or failed, or were altered, or varied in an international context, the workshop will reflect on the diversity of contexts and constellations in which documents were produced and used and in which the parties involved interacted in consensus or conflict. The workshop will take place from 22.9.to 23.9. 2022 at the University of Vienna (Main building, Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna, TP, seminar room 1 and 4 in a hybrid format. Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. To register, please send an email to sigrid.wadauer@univie.ac.at before 12.9.2022. Program

22.9.2022 SR 1
9:00–9:20	Sigrid Wadauer (University of Vienna): Welcome and Introduction
	Documents – Local Authorities – Migration
	Chair: Sigrid Wadauer (University of Vienna)
9:20–10:00	Beate Althammer (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin): Registering Migrants in Prussian Cities (ca. 1880 to 1914)
10:00–10:40	Anne Winter (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) / Hilde Greefs (University of Antwerp / Zoom): Identity Documents of Foreign Migrants Arriving in Antwerp (1850–1910)
10:40–11:10	Coffee Break
	Documents – Citizenship – Interactions
11:10–11:50	Lida–Maria Dodou (University of Vienna / Austrian Archaeological Institute Athens): The Spectrum of Belonging: Austrian “de jure subjects”, “de facto subjects” and “protégés” in Fin–de–siècle Salonica
11:50–13:30	Lunch Break
	Chair: Jessica Richter (Institute of Rural History, St. Pölten)
13:30–14:10	Darren Wan (Cornell University): Brokering Citizenship: Illiteracy and Illegibility in the Production of Malayan Identity Documents, 1957–1963
14:10–14:50	Juanita Cox (University of London): Identification Documents: Practices and Perspectives from the Black British Caribbean Community
14:50–15:10	Coffee Break
	Documents and Categorization
15:10–15:50	Michal Turski (Center for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin): Meanders of Ethnic Registration and Categorization of Polish Germans in the Lodz Region during World War II.
15:50–16:30	Christiane Weber (Arolsen Archives/Germany):  Who Decides Who is a DP? Post–World War II Identification Documents of Displaced Persons in the Arolsen Archives
16:30–16:50	Coffee Break
16:50–17:30	András László Pap (Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Legal Studies/Budapest / Zoom): Ethno-racial Identity in Documents: from Registration to Construction
23.9.2022 SR 4
	Documents – Work, Control and Coercion
	Chair: Beate Althammer (Humboldt University zu Berlin)
9:00–9:40	Paolo Raspadori (University of Perugia): Demographic and Social Control Tool. Staff Papers of Industrial Companies as Identity Documents of Italian Workers (First Half of the Twentieth Century)
9:40–10:20	Bernard Kusena (University of Zimbabwe): Forced Labour Recruitment and the Political Economy of Identity Documents: Clandestine Migration and Other Everyday Forms of Resistance in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1980
10:20–10:40	Coffee Break
10:40–11:20	Chris Holdridge (North–West University, Potchefstroom/South Africa): Convict Mobility and Emergent Regimes of Paperwork and Interpersonal Status in Port Cities of the Anglo World
	Illicit Uses and Forged Documents
	Chair: Johanna Wassholm (Åbo Akademi, Finland)
11:20–12:00	Cristina Diac (National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism of the Romanian Academy): Navigating Multiple Identities. Romanian Communists and their Travels Abroad
12:00–13:30	Lunch Break
13:30–14:10	Burak Sayım (New York University Abu Dhabi / Zoom): Crossing the Frontier: The Comintern, Forged Passports, and the Making of Interwar Border Regimes
14:10–14:30	Conclusions

With the kind support of: FWF – Der Wissenschaftsfonds Stadt Wien, MA 7 – Kultur, Wissenschafts- und Forschungsförderung University of Vienna (FSP Global History, Department of Economic and Social History) Contact Info: PD Dr. Sigrid Wadauer Department of Economic and Social History University of Vienna Universitätsring 1 1010 Vienna Austria https://www.sigridwadauer.com/ Contact Email: * Deadline for Submissions Sept. 10, 2022 Uppity Medieval Women Across the Globe   International Congress on Medieval Studies (Michigan USA hybrid), and other potential conferences (9/10/2022; 5/11-13/2023) In 1998, Vicki Leon published Uppity Women of Medieval Times, providing brief vignettes of primarily European medieval women fitting the description. As the field of Medieval Studies has been taking a global turn, this proposal seeks to put European uppity women into a deeper and more substantial conversation with their global sisters, such as the Japanese Lady Murasaki Shikibu, the Indian Nur Jahan, the Nigerian Queen Amina, and the Arabic Walladabint al-Mustakfi, to name a few. Uppity medieval women transgress their patriarchally assigned positions of immanence, often with the pen, the sword, and through sex. In an attempt to break new ground, we seek contributions that explore uppity medieval women––both historical and fictional–– from global perspectives. Comparative perspectives that trace similar experiences are highly encouraged. Reading the Middle Ages from a broader vantage point that illustrates how women worldwide were facing comparable experiences and challenges helps us understand the Middle Ages and feminism through a new lens. Please email your 200-word abstract and a 100-word biography to Anita Obermeier (aobermei@unm.edu) and to Doaa Omran (Domran@unm.edu) by the 10th of September 2022. We are having online and face-to-face sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS). Our two panels are titled “Assertive Medieval Women Across the Globe I” and “Assertive Medieval Women Across the Globe II (A Virtual Roundtable).” The deadline for abstract submission on the congress website is the 15th of September 2022. Here is the submission link: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi We are also considering organising panels at Leeds International Medieval Congress (IMC) https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2023/ and the Medieval Association of the Pacific (MAP) https://www.medievalpacific.org/annual-conference/ . Since we are trying to get a critical manuscript for an edited volume, we are proposing this session for several conferences, although in different formats. *

Deadline for Submissions, Sept. 1, 2022

The Amsterdam School of Regional, Transnational and European Studies (ARTES) currently has a vacant Postdoc researcher position as part of the broader field Cultural Heritage and Identity. Postdoctoral researcher Amsterdam Diaries: Self-representation, Cultural Diversity, and Migration https://vacatures.uva.nl/UvA/job/Postdoctoral-researcher-Amsterdam-Diaries-Self-representation%2C-Cultural-Diversity%2C-and-Migration/751074902/ Faculty/Services:  Faculty of Humanities Educational level:  Promoted Function type:  Academic Staff Closing date:  1 September 2022 Vacancy number:  9819 The Amsterdam School of Regional, Transnational and European Studies (ARTES) currently has a vacant Postdoc researcher position as part of the broader field Cultural Heritage and Identity. Within this field the focus is on material and immaterial heritage, including digital Humanities and on Cultural Heritage and societal changes. ARTES is one of the five Research Schools within the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research. What are you going to do You will be part of an interdisciplinary research team that collects and analyzes diaries of ordinary people of the 19th and 20th centuries who wrote about their daily lives in Amsterdam. In the light of Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary in 2025, the team investigates what diaries can tell us about lived and narrated experiences of Amsterdam as a multicultural city. We will use a flexible conception of ‘diary’ in order to include other forms of self-representation, such as drawings or self-recorded stories on cassette tape. First, you will help organize a diary donating campaign in cooperation with the Dutch Diary Archive and the Amsterdam Museum in order to collect new diaries. We will focus on migrant ego-documents because these are underrepresented in archives and scholarly research. The task is to involve local communities and gain support to help build a more inclusive and diverse diary-collection. Knowledge of the history of migrants, as well as relevant languages, will be an asset. Second, you will study representations of self and the city in a selection of diaries from the newly gained materials as well as from archives such as the Dutch Diary Archive, Stadsarchief, Joods historisch Museum, Atria, Niod, Black Archives, IHLIA, and xpatarchive. The aim is to understand how individuals with diverse socio-cultural backgrounds express feelings of (non-)belonging, and in what ways they narrate their experiences of (intercultural) spaces, encounters and connections and their sense of what is familiar and foreign. Third, you will help developing tools from Digital Humanities to store and map historical information about diaries and diarists in their spatial and temporal contexts. You will contribute to creating a digital resource, similar to (or as part of) the Amsterdam Time Machine, which will enable users to ‘travel back in time and navigate the city on the levels of neighborhoods, streets, houses and rooms’ (https://www.amsterdamtimemachine.nl/). Ideally, this will connect stories from multiple perspectives to particular places such as streets, parks, bars and buildings. Your tasks and responsibilities:

• • conducting research, presenting intermediate research results at workshops and conferences and publishing two single-authored, peer reviewed articles;

• • participating in meetings of the project research group and developing a shared database;

• • co-organising knowledge dissemination activities.

What do you have to offer Your experience and profile:

• • a PhD in the Humanities;

• • excellent research skills demonstrated by a track record of publishing in high-ranking journals and/or with leading presses or a demonstrable capacity to develop such a record;

• • a strong cooperative attitude and willingness to engage in collaborative research;

• • enthusiasm for communicating academic research to non-academic audiences;

• • excellent command English.

What can we offer you The Postdoc researcher will be appointed at the Department of History, European Studies and Religious Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam and will conduct the research in ARTES. The employment contract will be for one year. Contingent on a positive performance evaluation the contract will be extended with one year. The employment contract is for 30,4-38 hours a week. Preferred starting date is 01 October 2022. The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week and relevant experience, ranges between € 3,974,00 to € 5,439,00. This sum does not include the 8% holiday allowance and the 8,3% year-end allowance. A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants. The Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities is applicable. What else do we offer

• • excellent possibilities for further professional development and education, including participation in a dedicated Research Training group;

• • an enthusiastic, inspiring and professional academic team;

• • the opportunity to collaborate with leading researchers at research institutes that – partly as a result of their interdisciplinary approach – are world renowned.

About us The University of Amsterdam is the Netherlands’ largest university, offering the widest range of academic programmes. At the UvA, 30,000 students, 6,000 staff members and 3,000 PhD candidates study and work in a diverse range of fields, connected by a culture of curiosity. The Faculty of Humanities provides education and conducts research with a strong international profile in a large number of disciplines in de field of language and culture. Located in the heart of Amsterdam, the faculty maintains close ties with many cultural institutes in the capital city. Research and teaching staff focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and are active in several teaching programmes. Want to know more about our organisation? Read more about working at the University of Amsterdam. Questions Do you have any questions or do you require additional information? Please contact:

• • dr. Guido Snel

Job application If you feel the profile fits you, and you are interested in the job, we look forward to receiving your application. You can apply online via the link below. The deadline for applying for this vacancy is 01 September 2022. Applications should include the following information (submitted in one pdf):

• • A letter of motivation.

• • A research proposal of 800-1000 words, explaining how you would approach the project thematically, conceptually and methodologically, within the timeline of the 2 years appointment.

• • A full academic CV, including a list of publications.

• • The names and contact details of two references who may be approached by the selection committee.

Only complete applications received within the response period via the link below will be considered. The interviews will be held in the course of the first weeks of September 2022. The UvA is an equal-opportunity employer. We prioritise diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for everyone. We value a spirit of enquiry and perseverance, provide the space to keep asking questions, and promote a culture of curiosity and creativity. If you encounter Error GBB451, reach out to our HR Department directly. They will gladly help you continue your application. No agencies please * Call for Contributors Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 393 (Twenty-First Century Indigenous Fiction Writers in the United States and Canada), edited by Derek C. Maus (State University of New York at Potsdam, which sits on unceded Haudenosaunee territory) deadline for submissions: August 1, 2022 I am seeking scholars – a range that includes doctoral students through emeritus/emerita faculty – interested in contributing to a new volume in Gale’s Dictionary of Literary Biography series. Upon its contracted publication in the summer of 2023, this resource will fill a massive gap in the biographical and bibliographic coverage of contemporary Indigenous authors of fiction living and working within the settler nations of the United States and Canada. It has been nearly a quarter-century since volume 175 of this series covered “Native American Writers of the United States” (1997) and although a handful of major figures from the latter half of the twentieth century have been covered in other DLB volumes, no comprehensive volume dedicated to a broad overview of post-“Native American Renaissance” Indigenous writing has yet been produced as part of this important reference source. With the publication of When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (ed. Joy Harjo, Leanne Howe, et al.) in 2020, Indigenous poetry received a major boost in mainstream visibility. Although the intent of that volume and the Dictionary of Literary Biography is somewhat different, my hope is that this volume can shine a similarly bright light on a broad sampling of Indigenous authors who have published works of fiction since 1997, the last time DLB published a volume exclusively focused on Indigenous writers. I would especially like to use this volume to cover a number of emerging or otherwise lesser-known writers who have not received previous attention within this series. For this reason, the list of names for whom I am seeking bio-/bibliographic entries includes numerous authors whose published body of work to date includes only one or two book-length works, often ones that appeared in the last few years. It is absolutely essential to recognize and to recontextualize such eminent authors such as Sherman Alexie, Louise Erdrich, Linda Hogan, Thomas King, and Gerald Vizenor, all of whom have all continued publishing fiction since their inclusion in vol. 175. However, no adequate overview of the full diversity of fiction published by Indigenous authors in the past two decades exists and this volume is well-positioned to fill that gap. Therefore, I have included more names of authors than can ultimately be covered in the volume, but I have done so with the hope of casting as wide a net as possible. If there are other authors who you believe merit coverage, please do not hesitate in suggesting them to me as there are surely gaps in my own experience of contemporary Indigenous fiction. Alongside authors of fairly conventional “literary” fiction, I have also included some authors primarily known for “young adult” fiction as well as some whose work is primarily graphic fiction. I have also included a handful of figures (e.g., Tomson Highway) who are known far more for their work in other genres than fiction. The essays in this collection should focus only on their subject’s published works of fiction since 1997, though there obviously will be occasions for making reference to earlier works and/or works in other genres/media. In recognition of the added logistical and mental/emotional complications brought on by the upheaval in academic working conditions, completed essays for the collection are due as e-mail attachments by August 1, 2022. The word-counts (which include bibliographic data) included for each entry in the linked spreadsheet are fairly firm, though they can be exceeded in some exceptional instances if negotiated in advance. Gale compensates authors in this series for entries at a rate of $40 per 1000 words (as listed in the spreadsheet); thus, a 3000-word entry earns $120, a 5000-word entry earns $200, etc. I sincerely wish this could be more, but I am grateful that any resources are being set aside to make this project a reality, because it is long overdue. If you are interested in contributing to this project, please send me an email at mausdc@potsdam.edu and I will send you the current list of “unclaimed” authors. If you have the time, the inclination, and the mental energy to contribute to this project, I sincerely invite you to do so. I am happy to answer any additional questions about the book, the series, or any other aspect of the project via e-mail. Derek C. Maus, editor   contact email: mausdc@potsdam.edu

Themed Journal Issue on “Narrative and Identity”

The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture deadline for submissions: July 10, 2022 lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz The call for papers for the next issue of the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture (Issue 11.1-2), on the general theme of ‘narrative and identity’, is now open. Article submissions on any aspect of the theme are encouraged. The Issue’s Editors particulalry invite articles on the following topics: – self-representation on social media – representations of disability and neurodiversity in popular culture – re-inventions of genre and viewership/readership in popular culture – alternative realities and modes of storytelling in (video) games – online fandoms and identity – popular icons The deadline for submissions of full articles (5-6k words) is 10 July 2022. The Journal is indexed in SCOPUS (among others), and its remit is broad and international. Further information about the Journal can be found here: https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-australasian-journal-of-popular-culture Please submit your articles for consideration (together with a short bio and insitutional affiliation) to both editors: Professor Lorna Piatti-Farnell (lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz) and Dr Ashleigh Prosser (ashleigh.prosser@uwa.edu.au). The Issue will be published (both in print and electronically) in December 2022 * Deadline for Submissions July 15, 2022 Call for Papers for proposed panel for South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) 2022 November 11-13, 2022 in Jacksonville, FL Autobiography: Changes in Form and Meaning This interdisciplinary panel welcomes submissions on any aspect of change within life writing. With the proliferation of modes available for what Anna Poletti has termed “self-life-inscription,” and a concurrent rise in hybrid genres such as autofiction that challenge the assumed boundary between truth and fiction in autobiographical narrative, it is clear that the scope of what is considered autobiography is changing. This panel seeks to articulate these changes and explore how they are impacting our understanding of the meaning and significance of life writing. Papers might explore changes in the medium of autobiography, such as social media, photography, film, graphic narratives, material collections, or performance. Papers might also address changes within established forms such as confession, memoir, the personal essay, or the diary. Theoretical considerations of change, transformation, or conversion within autobiography would also be welcome. By July 15^th, please submit an abstract of 250 words, a brief bio, and any A/V or scheduling requests to Kimberly Hall, Wofford College, at hallka@wofford.edu The SAMLA Conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront. For additional conference information, please see the SAMLA website: https://samla.memberclicks.net. *

CFP: Out of Confinement: Creativity in Constraint

Women in French Studies Special Issue (2024) July 15, 2022 contact email: youna_kwak@redlands.edu We invite article submissions for a special topics issue of Women in French Studies (2024) to explore work created by confined women and work that represents confined women, from the early modern period to the present-day. The special issue will explore how the confinement of women as depicted in fictional and non-fictional texts (in any media) informs, reflects and interrogates gendered conditions of existence. How have confined women been represented in literature, film and art? What kind of thinking or writing is produced by women out of conditions of confinement? What are the impacts of confinement on creative production? How does physical confinement change how we consume texts? In March 2020, the word confinement suddenly became an unwelcome part of our everyday lexicon, as lockdown, quarantine, and stay-at-home orders were issued worldwide to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Within the household, mandatory confinement exacerbated women’s perennially uneven obligation to engage in invisible labor—whether middle-class women working from home, or working-class women compelled to risk their health so that others could abide by the imperative to stay in. Both within and outside the home, women were disproportionately tasked with “essential,” racialized and gendered, structurally invisible forms of labor, including childcare, cleaning, healthcare, food preparation, and eldercare. Since the early modern period, accounts of women’s experiences in voluntary or forced confinement have been richly explored in works by French-language writers as diverse as Marie de France, Marguerite de Navarre, Assia Djebar, and Marie Darrieussecq, to name a few. On the one hand, representations of confinement can confirm that gender disparities are exacerbated when burdens are unequally shouldered by women during periods of confinement. On the other hand, representations of cloister or retreat that express the fantasy of liberatory or self-actualizing confinement, in explicitly repudiating familial or social obligations, can unsettle the caregiving roles traditionally assigned to women, as spouses, mothers, or daughters. We invite proposals from all historic periods, genres, and geographic regions. Suggested topics

• cloisters, convents
• imprisonment, incarceration
• internment
• segregated confinement (solitary confinement))/home confinement (house arrest)
• stay-at-home mothers (domestic confinement)
• the “hold” and conditions of enslavement
• COVID-19 “Stay-at-home” orders
• sanatoriums/illness/disease
• childbirth/bedrest
• anchorites and anchoresses
• hostage situations/kidnapping
• asylums
• disability, design and space
• bourgeois refuge, rural life, the “country house”
• artist studio, artist space, residency, retreat

Abstracts of 250-300 words, in French or in English should be sent to Youna Kwak (youna_kwak@redlands.edu) and Anne Brancky (anbrancky@vassar.edu) by July 15, 2022. Notification of acceptance will be made by September 1, 2022, with final drafts of selected articles due April 2023. Articles will be subject to peer review. Authors must be current members of Women in French at the time of publication. * Call for Papers Women and Hollywood: Tales of Inequality, Abuse and Resistance in the Dream Factory Edited by Karen McNally Abstract Deadline: Friday 15 July 2022 Responses to the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp defamation trial prompt numerous questions about the reception of Hollywood movie stardom as legal cases of abuse play out in the combined ages of television and social media. Moreover, the layered gender dynamics can be contextualized within a contemporary framework of exposure and resistance that includes the imprisonment of Harvey Weinstein on rape and sexual assault charges, and the pay inequalities publicized by actresses including Michelle Williams and Octavia Spencer. Amplified by the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, as well as by organizations and initiatives such as the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, issues of inequality and various forms of abuse have become central to our understanding of the female experience of contemporary Hollywood. Yet these narratives are far from revelatory, hidden or limited to a contemporary context. The power imbalances and mistreatment that have partly defined women’s careers in the American film industry are as long-established as they are persistent, built into the structure of Hollywood and stretching across its entire history. From the euphemistically- termed ‘casting couch’ to the control of stars’ reproductive choices, and from the indirect expulsion of female directors (O’Hara, 2021), to male ownership of women’s work (McLean, 2022) and the multiple limitations placed upon women of colour, the professional experience in Hollywood for women has consistently been different from that of their male colleagues. These inequalities have at the same time been both enacted and challenged in plain sight. Backstudio pictures (Cohan, 2019) and stardom films (McNally, 2021) disturb their promotion of Hollywood mythology with characters who negotiate their professional lives around these gendered obstacles; historical films and TV dramas revisit and revise these myths with alternative histories; and biopics, documentaries, press articles, television interviews, biographies, autobiographies and social media become sites of disclosure, resistance and activism. These storied spaces convey the extent to which abuse and inequality has become an historically pervasive and recognized aspect of women’s experience in the film industry and of the structural fabric of Hollywood. This volume seeks a range of original essays that explore film, television and other media narratives depicting inequality and abuse as part of women’s professional and personal lives in Hollywood. The book aims to address both fictional and non-fictional narratives and to explore historical and contemporary case studies. Areas of interest might include but are not limited to:

• Conflict between Hollywood mythology and exposure of female experience in backstudio pictures and stardom films
• Narratives of stars and other actors, directors, screenwriters, producers, costume designers
• Implicit and explicit exposure in scandal magazines
• The use of autobiography by female stars to construct alternative narratives
• Screen narratives of Hollywood as activism
• Documentary and alternative histories of Hollywood
• Intersectional inequality in the experiences of women of colour
• The male saviour and a patriarchal system
• Sexual abuse as professional control
• Depictions of the impact of ageism on women’s careers
• Fact and fiction boundary crossing in the biopic
• Specific eras of inequality for women in Hollywood
• Narratives of individual and/or collective challenges to inequality
• Press narratives of abuse cases
• The impact of social media on narratives of inequality and abuse
• Narratives of disappearance from the screen due to inequality or abuse
• Exposing vs normalizing inequality and/or abuse through its depiction
• Studio controls over relationships and reproductive choices
• Hollywood narratives framed through historical context
• The careless mistreatment of women’s bodies in narratives of Hollywood
• Hollywood’s emotionally abusive relationship with women
• The impact of women writers, directors and producers on the exposure of inequality and narratives of resistance

Chapter proposals should be submitted as a 300-400 word abstract to the editor, Dr Karen McNally, at womenandhollywoodbook@gmail.com by Friday 15 July 2022. Please include an author biography of 100-150 words. Final chapters will be 6,000 to 7,000 words and due by Friday 16 December 2022. Please feel free to email with any queries prior to submission of abstracts. A leading publisher is being approached for publication. Works Cited: Steven Cohan, Hollywood by Hollywood: The Backstudio Picture and the Mystique of Making Movies (Oxford: OUP, 2019) Adrienne L. McLean, All for Beauty: Makeup and Hairdressing in Hollywood’s Studio Era (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2022) Karen McNally, The Stardom Film (New York: Wallflower-Columbia University Press, 2021) Helen O’Hara, Women vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film (London: Little, Brown Book Group, 2021) ————————————————————— Dr Karen McNally Reader in American Film, Television and Cultural History London Metropolitan University Recent Publications: American Television during a Television Presidency (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2022) https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/american-television-during-television-presidency The Stardom Film (New York: Wallflower-Columbia University Press, 2021) http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-stardom-film/9780231184014 * Life Narratives: Self-referential Proclamations Journal of American Studies of Turkey (JAST): Special Issue on Life Narratives Guest edited by Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey Deadline for Full-Text Submissions: July 15, 2022 American life writing has a long tradition starting with the diaries, journals, and captivity narratives kept by Pilgrims and Puritans such as Mary Rowlandson’s The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682), to more canonized life writings such as Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (1791). In their seminal book Reading Autobiography  (2010), Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson point out that “autobiography” refers to the traditional western mode of life writing that emerged during the Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century. Unfairly discrediting other life narrating forms, autobiography refers to the traditional representative self-writing of sovereign individuals. Thus, Smith and Watson prefer “life writing” or “life narratives” as an all inclusive umbrella term instead of “autobiography,” or the more flexible term “memoir.” For postmodern and postcolonial critics, the “I” in self-representation is far from the coherent and unified essentialist individual of autobiographies. The self is a fragmented entity, created through the limitations of language and positioned in multiple discourses. In Autobiography and Postmodernism (1994), Leigh Gilmore observes the relationship between truth telling and agency as the core of all autobiographical narrations, complicated further by ideology, gender, identity, and authority. She views autobiographical acts as rooted in conventions and power relations by evoking Foucault’s conception of power, stating that self-referential narratives create “a cultural and discursive site of truth production in relation to the disciplinary boundary of punishment” (59). In whatever form they may appear, life narratives are part of our lives in an increasing and overwhelming amount. The recent global (semi)forced pandemic lockdowns have  augmented the sharing and observing of daily life. Trying out recipes, body training, playing instruments, singing, or demonstrating various hobbies on web-based platforms have become statements of existence or acts of self-assertion. In response to destabilized and unsafe public spheres, domestic enclosures have transformed into permanent sites of renewed interest in autobiographical acts. With this renewed “autobiographical turn” in mind, the guest editor of this issue of JAST seeks original, previously unpublished manuscripts on American life narratives, dealing with any period or subject. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Politics and poetics of American life writing
• Critical studies on American life narratives
• The limits, challenges, and possibilities of self-referential portrayals
• The role of memory, agency, and authority in life narratives
• Life writing in American poetry, novels or theater (fictionalized lives)
• Life narratives in performance and the visual arts (autobiographical videos, street performance, photography, exhibitions, etc.)
• Life narratives in TV series, movies, web-based channels, etc.
• Online lives (digital life stories, social media, dating apps, etc.)
• Genres of American life writing (apology, autofiction, autothanatography, biomythography, captivity narrative, diary, eco(auto)biography, gastrography, jockography, journal, letters, memoir, periautography, prison narratives, scriptotheraphy, slave narratives, spiritual narratives, travel narratives, witness narratives etc.)
• Popular culture and life writing
• American women’s life writing
• Immigrant and ethnic life narratives
• Family life-writing or collaborative life writing
• Public figures and celebrity life writing
• Graphic life narratives (autographics)
• Life writing and consciousness raising
• Activism and life writing
• Hybridity, diaspora, and (forced) displacement in life narratives
• Dis/ability and life writing
• The global pandemic and life narratives
• Teaching life narratives

Full-text manuscripts of between 6,000 and 8,000 words in MLA style (with parenthetical internal citations, a Works Cited page, minimal footnotes, and in Times New Roman 12-point font), should be emailed as Microsoft Word attachments to Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş (bilge.mutluay@gmail.com) by July 15, 2022. Please include an abstract (150 words), keywords, and a one-paragraph bio (150 words, written in the third-person) with all manuscripts. Topic inquiries are welcome prior to full-text submission. Contact Info: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş, Guest Editor Contact Info: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş Contact Email: bilge.mutluay@gmail.com URL: http://www.asat-jast.org/index.php/jast/call-for-papers * Deadline for Submissions: July 30, 2022 Spaces/Places of Growing Up: Mapping the Geographies of Childhood International Phygital Conference organized by The Department of English, Ramakrishna Sarada Mission Vivekananda Vidyabhavan, Kolkata. In collaboration with The Critical Childhoods and Youth Studies Collective 15th and 16th September 2022 deadline for submissions: July 30, 2022 ‘Growing up’ or the long and often arduous journey of (trans)formation from a child to an adult necessarily happens not only through developmental milestones (like important examinations or birthdays) but through countless exposures and experiences in the social/public and the personal/private worlds inhabited by the child. While parts of this process have been traditionally or normatively defined by aspects of child-rearing, pedagogy and cognitive psychology, the many and varied physical and virtual sites of this transformative journey have not drawn much critical attention or generated a scholarly discourse, particularly in the context of childhoods across the Indian subcontinent. The conference wants to draw attention to and critically review the varied spaces and places, which the child inhabits during the years of growing up – areas which open up exposures and provide the experiences that are a crucial part of that complex and elusive process of moving towards adulthood. Broadly speaking, such sites include the physical and the material as well as the imaginative, the psychological and the liminal  – in short, any sphere that is a part of childhood and affects the growing-up of the child. Pedagogy and leisure, nation and family, school and home, fantasy and trauma all engender spaces/places within which lessons and skills are learnt, rebellions and/or allegiances are enacted and socio-cultural identities are formed. Also interesting is the fact that in practice, the lived experiences of children within these spheres, at times overlap with the so-called ‘adult’ worlds and such cracks, seepages and contingencies also have significant roles to play in the journey to adulthood. The conference aims to review and critique these sites of growing-up, to assess their roles and impact in childhoods past and present. Papers can address (but are in no way limited to) any of the following physical, material, social and psychological spaces of childhoods: Homes, nurseries, kindergartens, schools, classrooms, playgrounds, parks, orphanages, refugee colonies, neighbourhoods Games, picnics, holidays, excursions, adventures, travel Books, comics, film and media, advertisements, songs, digital-games Fantasies, dreams, nightmares, trauma, illnesses, Nation, Race, Family, Caste, Gender While studies based on textual analysis are not excluded, we are looking forward to papers that are interdisciplinary and intersectional in nature.  We welcome proposals from scholars, professors, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, authors and practitioners from fields as diverse as Culture Studies, Psychology, Law, Human Rights, History, Sociology, Literature, Education, Design, Architecture, Media and Publishing. Please submit abstracts (300 words) for papers (15 minutes presentation time) along with a short bio-note (150 words) via email to conference@rksmvv.ac.in by 30th July 2022. The conference will have a segment devoted to student papers. Students are welcome to submit abstracts (300 words) for mini papers/poster presentations (not exceeding 10 minutes) along with a brief bio-note (150 words) via email to conference@rksmvv.ac.in by 30th July 2022. All presentations will be in English. In case of any queries prior to your submission please don’t hesitate to write to us. Conference venue: (For physical presentation) Auditorium, Ramakrishna Sarada Mission Vivekananda Vidyabhavan, 33, Sri Maa Sarada Sarani, Kolkata – 700055 (For virtual presentations) Zoom Important Dates: 30th July 2022 – Last date for submission of abstracts 10th August 2022 – Notification for selected papers 30th August – Tentative schedule and details regarding conference registration, paid accommodation (if needed by participants) etc. 7th September 2022 – Submission of full papers (7000 words) and AV presentations * Deadline for Submissions, July 30, 2022

CALL FOR CHAPTERS ‘STARS AND FRANCHISES’ EDITED COLLECTION

Sarah Thomas (University of Liverpool, UK) and Mark McKenna (Staffordshire University, UK) contact email: s.k.thomas@liverpool.ac.uk This edited collection seeks to examine the intersections between two significant media systems: stardom and the franchise. It will explore the convergences, tensions and inter-dependences that star-driven texts and franchise cultures have constantly negotiated within the entertainment industry, on a global, historical and multiplatform scale. It aims to analyse franchise sites and strategies as significant nexus where an understanding of stars is created, managed and interpreted, and to analyse the place and value of the star to media franchise production. Whilst not aiming to be exclusively contemporaneous in its outlook, the collection intervenes at a moment where Variety has argued that ‘IP, not actors, is the main attraction’ (Rubin & Lang 2021). A particularly Western-centric perspective, this statement is informed by – among other things – the increased dominance of Disney and the Marvel Universe and their pursuit of seemingly endless franchised, multiplatform entertainment that subsume countless Hollywood A-listers into those texts and contexts. From the digital de-ageing of established performers in the MCU, the rise of a young generation of stars (like Tom Holland) fluent in the fragmented media markets that often typify franchise cultures, to noteworthy conflicts around contract negotiations and image rights, and star ownership stakes in their franchise IP (Keanu Reeves and John Wick), significant shifts are occurring around star image, labour and agency in the midst of the asset value of media licensing and intellectual property. The star-franchise intersection represents a tension between distinct forms of media marketing. Whilst these ‘two modes of product differentiation may converge [they] do not easily coalesce’ with contemporary stars ‘under pressure to support franchise world development, not supplant it’ (Lomax 2020: 188). In intellectual property networks like franchises, ‘stardom and celebrity persona take a back seat, replaced by character brands’ (Johnson 2008: 217). And yet star identities, where the actor-signifier is foregrounded over the character-signifier, have persisted across franchise texts, industries and cultures. In the contemporary era,  stars like Harrison Ford and Jamie Lee Curtis stand as authenticating devices to anchor franchises, conveying ideas of legacy and nostalgia or as a means of negotiating digital aesthetics (see Knee and Fleming [2020] and Golding [2021]). The video game FIFA has integrated playable star ‘icons’ in its recent editions, like David Beckham and Dua Lipa. Hindi superstar Salman Khan stars in the popular Tiger franchise, while Shah Rukh Khan owns major stakes in international sports franchises. Historically, star-driven franchise properties include Bing Crosby and Bob Hope’s ‘Road to’ series, Peter Sellers and The Pink Panther series, and Tom Mix’s films, comics and radio shows. Cultural icons like Mexico’s El Santo, the UK’s Norman Wisdom or Carry On stars, and Hong Kong’s Kwan Tak-hing are all associated with a variety of franchised entertainment. These brief examples show the different relationships that can exist between star and property that the volume wishes to examine, each revealing how repetition, remediation and re-interpretation of stars through franchise properties work to extend a star’s economic and cultural value. The proposed edited collection will be submitted to Edinburgh University Press (EUP) as part of the ‘International Film Stars’ series.  While the subject matter will undoubtedly attract scholars interested in exploring the increased dominance of franchise cinema as Hollywood’s primary mode of production, and this is something that we wholeheartedly encourage, we are also keen to hear from contributors interested in exploring franchises and stars that fall outside of the Anglo-American experience. If you would like to discuss your ideas, please feel free to get in touch. Our collection seeks chapters that investigate the star-franchise intersection, including (but not limited to):

• Case studies of specific stars or franchise properties.
• Star-driven franchises.
• Franchises where the franchise IP exceeds that of the star(s).
• The paradoxical relationship between star identities and franchise texts where to support ongoing lives as multiplatform, historical entities, franchise properties often celebrate and dismiss the central star brands that exist within them.
• The impact of star persona and character creation over time where franchises provide a sustained environment to construct performance, image and identity through core texts, branded marketing content and other multiplatform extensions.
• Franchises in non-cinematic contexts
• Ideological and cultural readings of franchise stardom and star image.
• Absent or underdeveloped franchise stars and spaces, especially in terms of race, gender and sexuality
• Research that engages with questions of media industries and labour, thinking about what it means for star performers to work in a franchise environment.
• The impact of this on wider conceptions of star power and systemic entertainment infrastructures, economics, and legislations.
• Franchise stardom as product differentiation and marking/branding strategy, including promotional personae.
• The consideration of these (and other) issues within global, multimedia/multiplatform and historical contexts.
• Research that explores to what degree the contemporary Hollywood moment reflects broader uses and cultures in industries around the world and through different decades of production and cultural history.

Please send abstracts of 300 to 500 words and a brief biographical note of 150 words to s.k.thomas@liverpool.ac.uk

• Deadline for chapter proposals: 30 July 2022
• Notification of acceptance: 31 August 2022
• Full chapter submission: 31 June 2023

Further dates to be confirmed as the collection progresses. Editor bios: Sarah Thomas is Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. She researches screen performance and industrial approaches to stardom, with a current focus on digital and immersive media and franchise production. She is the author of the monographs Peter Lorre – Face Maker (Berghahn 2012) and James Mason (BFI Bloomsbury 2018), and co-editor of Cult Film Stardom (Palgrave 2013). Mark McKenna is Associate Professor of Film and Media Industries at Staffordshire University. His research focuses on media marketing and distribution, censorship and regulation and global media industries. He is the author of Nasty Business: The Marketing and Branding of the Video Nasties (EUP 2020) and the forthcoming Snuff (Liverpool University Press), and co-editor of Horror Film Franchises (Routledge 2021). References: Fleming, David H. & Adam Knee. 2020. ‘The analogue strikes back: Star Wars, star authenticity, and cinematic anachronism’, Celebrity Studies 11:2: 205-220 Golding, Dan. 2021. ‘The memory of perfection: Digital faces and nostalgic franchise cinema’, Convergence, 27:4: 855–867 *

International Conference ‘Touring Travel Writing II: Between Fact and Fiction’

deadline for submissions: July 31, 2022 full name / name of organization: CETAPS (Nova University) contact email: touringtravelwriting@gmail.com As indicated by the number in its title, this conference is the second in a series focused on travel writing studies. The first one, which took place in 2019, celebrated the 300th anniversary of the publication of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and its literary legacy. This second edition will celebrate the 100th anniversary of James Joyce’s modernist novel Ulysses (1922), which chronicles the itinerary of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day. 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. Date: September 8-9, 2022 Papers on the following topics are welcome: Anglophone travel writingon 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, Humanitiesand the Social Sciences Travelwriting, 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 Travelwriting and (in)tangible heritage Travelwriting and exploration Travelling as gentrification Travel writing, censorship and surveillance Travel writing and (auto)biography Travel writing and Otherness Travelwriting, politics and ideology Travel writing and ethics Travel writing, mobility and conviviality Mapsas 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 Keynote speakers: Carl Thompson (University of Surrey, UK) Maria de Fátima Outeirinho (Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto) Papers and pre-organized panels: The conference languages are English, Spanish 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 July 31st, 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 August 5, 2022. Registration fees: •Full fee: 80Euros • Students: 40 Euros (ID required) Payment must be made until August 20, 2022. After this date proposals will no longer be considered. For further queries please contact: cetaps@fcsh.unl.pt or touringtravelwriting@gmail.com or 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: PT500018 000321419114020 13 Tax identification number: 501559094 This is additional data your bank may require: Account Owner: FCSHUNL-Research Units Bank: BANCO SANTANDERTOTTA S.A. For PayPal payments, use the email: dgfc@fcsh.unl.pt Identify your payment referring to: CETAPS 610245 International Conference (TouringTravel WritingII). 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 & EUROzone) 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 * Deadline for Submissions: July 31, 2022

Communist Biographies – New perspectives, sources and discussions

A Special Issue of Securitas Imperii: Journal for the Study of Modern Dictatorships More than thirty years ago, the possibility of research on the history of the communist movement and regime opened up in Czechoslovakia as well in other former state-socialist countries. The few attempts to produce scholarly biographies of politicians and other personalities associated with communist ideology and practice stood somewhat apart from the multitude of topics, research areas, and methodological approaches. Rather, the period demand for “filling in the blanks” prompted the rapid publication of the “secrets” hidden in the archives on partial issues and cases. Biography, as a method attempting a comprehensive and at the same time essentially individualized treatment of a person’s life set in a broad political and social context, required long-term research, that was often at odds with the priorities of research institution and grant agencies. In the Czech milieu, moreover, priority was given to learning about the lives and fates of democratic and non-communist personalities who belonged among those famous “blanks”. However, the few biographies, which began to be published ten or more years after the political change of 1989, showed the exceptional potential of the biographical method in the study of communism as a fundamental phenomenon in the history of the 20th century. By taking the lives of individuals, whether political leaders or cultural and artistic figures, as examples, it was possible to address the deep internal contradictions and ambivalences that communism contained. The aim of the thematic issue is to provide a space for the discussion of the results achieved so far in the field of biography within the study of communism, both in the Czech and international context. It also aims to contribute to the debate on methodological problems and the future direction of this genre. In order to comprehensively understand the phenomenon of communism as an internationalist movement making a universalist claim, it is necessary to link different research contexts. We would be pleased if the forthcoming issue contributes to this goal. Editors welcome contributions from different fields of research: history, political science, cultural studies, philosophy, sociology, gender studies or any other related areas of interest. Topics may address (but are not limited to) the following aspects:

Biography as a method and genre of the history of communism

We welcome studies focusing on different aspects of the methodology of historical biographies, taking into account the context for the study of the communist movement in the national and international context. These aspects are in particular:

• implications of biographies for the study of the history of the communist movement and governance, including transnational perspective
• the limits and challenges of working with archival fonds and other types of sources such as personal papers, published diaries and memoirs or interviews
• trends, innovations and new impulses in the writing of historical biographies
• comparison of experiences and achievements in the field of biography in different national settings
• the development of professional and social demand for specialised biographies of communist figures in various countries of the former Western and Eastern worlds

Biographical studies focusing on various aspects of communism

We welcome biographical studies focusing on various aspects of belonging to the communist movement and identification with the communist ideology and its goals. These aspects are in particular:

• background, family and social origin
• biographies of the main personalities of the communist movement over time – their influence on the co-creation of personal history and the connection with the development of the movement
• shared identities and the relationship between them: nation, class, education, gender
• national, regional and local specifics in a universally defined movement; international experience of activity in the structures of the international communist movement
• motivation and context of involvement in the movement – the relationship between idealism and pragmatism, attitude to power and its use, the question of loyalty, conformity and party discipline and its limits
• devotion and willingness to self-sacrifice – experience of illegality, imprisonment and other forms of repression by anti-communist power
• experience of exile – political activity and living conditions of emigrants
• cases of apostasy, condemnation and party dissent – the experience of the victims of purges and repressions under Stalinism and further

We welcome both the elaboration of episodes and the evaluation of the overall life course for biographies of party leaders and top officials and communist intellectuals, artists and scientists, and ordinary rank-and-file. Studies using collective biography and comparative biography methods are also welcome. Contact Info: Adéla Rádková, Ph.D. Editor-in-chief Securitas Imperii: Journal for the Study of Modern Dictatorships Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes Czech Republic Contact Email:  securitas.imperii@ustrcr.cz URL:  https://securitas-imperii-journal.com/news/?lang=en

Themed Journal Issue on “Narrative and Identity”

The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture deadline for submissions: July 10, 2022 lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz The call for papers for the next issue of the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture (Issue 11.1-2), on the general theme of ‘narrative and identity’, is now open. Article submissions on any aspect of the theme are encouraged. The Issue’s Editors particulalry invite articles on the following topics: – self-representation on social media – representations of disability and neurodiversity in popular culture – re-inventions of genre and viewership/readership in popular culture – alternative realities and modes of storytelling in (video) games – online fandoms and identity – popular icons The deadline for submissions of full articles (5-6k words) is 10 July 2022. The Journal is indexed in SCOPUS (among others), and its remit is broad and international. Further information about the Journal can be found here: https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-australasian-journal-of-popular-culture Please submit your articles for consideration (together with a short bio and insitutional affiliation) to both editors: Professor Lorna Piatti-Farnell (lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz) and Dr Ashleigh Prosser (ashleigh.prosser@uwa.edu.au). The Issue will be published (both in print and electronically) in December 2022. * Deadline for Submissions July 15, 2022 Call for Papers for proposed panel for South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) 2022 November 11-13, 2022 in Jacksonville, FL Autobiography: Changes in Form and Meaning This interdisciplinary panel welcomes submissions on any aspect of change within life writing. With the proliferation of modes available for what Anna Poletti has termed “self-life-inscription,” and a concurrent rise in hybrid genres such as autofiction that challenge the assumed boundary between truth and fiction in autobiographical narrative, it is clear that the scope of what is considered autobiography is changing. This panel seeks to articulate these changes and explore how they are impacting our understanding of the meaning and significance of life writing. Papers might explore changes in the medium of autobiography, such as social media, photography, film, graphic narratives, material collections, or performance. Papers might also address changes within established forms such as confession, memoir, the personal essay, or the diary. Theoretical considerations of change, transformation, or conversion within autobiography would also be welcome. By July 15^th, please submit an abstract of 250 words, a brief bio, and any A/V or scheduling requests to Kimberly Hall, Wofford College, at hallka@wofford.edu The SAMLA Conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront. For additional conference information, please see the SAMLA website: https://samla.memberclicks.net. *

CFP: Out of Confinement: Creativity in Constraint

Women in French Studies Special Issue (2024) July 15, 2022 contact email: youna_kwak@redlands.edu We invite article submissions for a special topics issue of Women in French Studies (2024) to explore work created by confined women and work that represents confined women, from the early modern period to the present-day. The special issue will explore how the confinement of women as depicted in fictional and non-fictional texts (in any media) informs, reflects and interrogates gendered conditions of existence. How have confined women been represented in literature, film and art? What kind of thinking or writing is produced by women out of conditions of confinement? What are the impacts of confinement on creative production? How does physical confinement change how we consume texts? In March 2020, the word confinement suddenly became an unwelcome part of our everyday lexicon, as lockdown, quarantine, and stay-at-home orders were issued worldwide to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Within the household, mandatory confinement exacerbated women’s perennially uneven obligation to engage in invisible labor—whether middle-class women working from home, or working-class women compelled to risk their health so that others could abide by the imperative to stay in. Both within and outside the home, women were disproportionately tasked with “essential,” racialized and gendered, structurally invisible forms of labor, including childcare, cleaning, healthcare, food preparation, and eldercare. Since the early modern period, accounts of women’s experiences in voluntary or forced confinement have been richly explored in works by French-language writers as diverse as Marie de France, Marguerite de Navarre, Assia Djebar, and Marie Darrieussecq, to name a few. On the one hand, representations of confinement can confirm that gender disparities are exacerbated when burdens are unequally shouldered by women during periods of confinement. On the other hand, representations of cloister or retreat that express the fantasy of liberatory or self-actualizing confinement, in explicitly repudiating familial or social obligations, can unsettle the caregiving roles traditionally assigned to women, as spouses, mothers, or daughters. We invite proposals from all historic periods, genres, and geographic regions. Suggested topics

• cloisters, convents
• imprisonment, incarceration
• internment
• segregated confinement (solitary confinement))/home confinement (house arrest)
• stay-at-home mothers (domestic confinement)
• the “hold” and conditions of enslavement
• COVID-19 “Stay-at-home” orders
• sanatoriums/illness/disease
• childbirth/bedrest
• anchorites and anchoresses
• hostage situations/kidnapping
• asylums
• disability, design and space
• bourgeois refuge, rural life, the “country house”
• artist studio, artist space, residency, retreat

Abstracts of 250-300 words, in French or in English should be sent to Youna Kwak (youna_kwak@redlands.edu) and Anne Brancky (anbrancky@vassar.edu) by July 15, 2022. Notification of acceptance will be made by September 1, 2022, with final drafts of selected articles due April 2023. Articles will be subject to peer review. Authors must be current members of Women in French at the time of publication. * Call for Papers Women and Hollywood: Tales of Inequality, Abuse and Resistance in the Dream Factory Edited by Karen McNally Abstract Deadline: Friday 15 July 2022 Responses to the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp defamation trial prompt numerous questions about the reception of Hollywood movie stardom as legal cases of abuse play out in the combined ages of television and social media. Moreover, the layered gender dynamics can be contextualized within a contemporary framework of exposure and resistance that includes the imprisonment of Harvey Weinstein on rape and sexual assault charges, and the pay inequalities publicized by actresses including Michelle Williams and Octavia Spencer. Amplified by the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, as well as by organizations and initiatives such as the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, issues of inequality and various forms of abuse have become central to our understanding of the female experience of contemporary Hollywood. Yet these narratives are far from revelatory, hidden or limited to a contemporary context. The power imbalances and mistreatment that have partly defined women’s careers in the American film industry are as long-established as they are persistent, built into the structure of Hollywood and stretching across its entire history. From the euphemistically- termed ‘casting couch’ to the control of stars’ reproductive choices, and from the indirect expulsion of female directors (O’Hara, 2021), to male ownership of women’s work (McLean, 2022) and the multiple limitations placed upon women of colour, the professional experience in Hollywood for women has consistently been different from that of their male colleagues. These inequalities have at the same time been both enacted and challenged in plain sight. Backstudio pictures (Cohan, 2019) and stardom films (McNally, 2021) disturb their promotion of Hollywood mythology with characters who negotiate their professional lives around these gendered obstacles; historical films and TV dramas revisit and revise these myths with alternative histories; and biopics, documentaries, press articles, television interviews, biographies, autobiographies and social media become sites of disclosure, resistance and activism. These storied spaces convey the extent to which abuse and inequality has become an historically pervasive and recognized aspect of women’s experience in the film industry and of the structural fabric of Hollywood. This volume seeks a range of original essays that explore film, television and other media narratives depicting inequality and abuse as part of women’s professional and personal lives in Hollywood. The book aims to address both fictional and non-fictional narratives and to explore historical and contemporary case studies. Areas of interest might include but are not limited to:

• Conflict between Hollywood mythology and exposure of female experience in backstudio pictures and stardom films
• Narratives of stars and other actors, directors, screenwriters, producers, costume designers
• Implicit and explicit exposure in scandal magazines
• The use of autobiography by female stars to construct alternative narratives
• Screen narratives of Hollywood as activism
• Documentary and alternative histories of Hollywood
• Intersectional inequality in the experiences of women of colour
• The male saviour and a patriarchal system
• Sexual abuse as professional control
• Depictions of the impact of ageism on women’s careers
• Fact and fiction boundary crossing in the biopic
• Specific eras of inequality for women in Hollywood
• Narratives of individual and/or collective challenges to inequality
• Press narratives of abuse cases
• The impact of social media on narratives of inequality and abuse
• Narratives of disappearance from the screen due to inequality or abuse
• Exposing vs normalizing inequality and/or abuse through its depiction
• Studio controls over relationships and reproductive choices
• Hollywood narratives framed through historical context
• The careless mistreatment of women’s bodies in narratives of Hollywood
• Hollywood’s emotionally abusive relationship with women
• The impact of women writers, directors and producers on the exposure of inequality and narratives of resistance

Chapter proposals should be submitted as a 300-400 word abstract to the editor, Dr Karen McNally, at womenandhollywoodbook@gmail.com by Friday 15 July 2022. Please include an author biography of 100-150 words. Final chapters will be 6,000 to 7,000 words and due by Friday 16 December 2022. Please feel free to email with any queries prior to submission of abstracts. A leading publisher is being approached for publication. Works Cited: Steven Cohan, Hollywood by Hollywood: The Backstudio Picture and the Mystique of Making Movies (Oxford: OUP, 2019) Adrienne L. McLean, All for Beauty: Makeup and Hairdressing in Hollywood’s Studio Era (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2022) Karen McNally, The Stardom Film (New York: Wallflower-Columbia University Press, 2021) Helen O’Hara, Women vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film (London: Little, Brown Book Group, 2021) ————————————————————— Dr Karen McNally Reader in American Film, Television and Cultural History London Metropolitan University Recent Publications: American Television during a Television Presidency (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2022) https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/american-television-during-television-presidency The Stardom Film (New York: Wallflower-Columbia University Press, 2021) http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-stardom-film/9780231184014 * Life Narratives: Self-referential Proclamations Journal of American Studies of Turkey (JAST): Special Issue on Life Narratives Guest edited by Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey Deadline for Full-Text Submissions: July 15, 2022 American life writing has a long tradition starting with the diaries, journals, and captivity narratives kept by Pilgrims and Puritans such as Mary Rowlandson’s The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682), to more canonized life writings such as Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (1791). In their seminal book Reading Autobiography  (2010), Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson point out that “autobiography” refers to the traditional western mode of life writing that emerged during the Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century. Unfairly discrediting other life narrating forms, autobiography refers to the traditional representative self-writing of sovereign individuals. Thus, Smith and Watson prefer “life writing” or “life narratives” as an all inclusive umbrella term instead of “autobiography,” or the more flexible term “memoir.” For postmodern and postcolonial critics, the “I” in self-representation is far from the coherent and unified essentialist individual of autobiographies. The self is a fragmented entity, created through the limitations of language and positioned in multiple discourses. In Autobiography and Postmodernism (1994), Leigh Gilmore observes the relationship between truth telling and agency as the core of all autobiographical narrations, complicated further by ideology, gender, identity, and authority. She views autobiographical acts as rooted in conventions and power relations by evoking Foucault’s conception of power, stating that self-referential narratives create “a cultural and discursive site of truth production in relation to the disciplinary boundary of punishment” (59). In whatever form they may appear, life narratives are part of our lives in an increasing and overwhelming amount. The recent global (semi)forced pandemic lockdowns have  augmented the sharing and observing of daily life. Trying out recipes, body training, playing instruments, singing, or demonstrating various hobbies on web-based platforms have become statements of existence or acts of self-assertion. In response to destabilized and unsafe public spheres, domestic enclosures have transformed into permanent sites of renewed interest in autobiographical acts. With this renewed “autobiographical turn” in mind, the guest editor of this issue of JAST seeks original, previously unpublished manuscripts on American life narratives, dealing with any period or subject. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Politics and poetics of American life writing
• Critical studies on American life narratives
• The limits, challenges, and possibilities of self-referential portrayals
• The role of memory, agency, and authority in life narratives
• Life writing in American poetry, novels or theater (fictionalized lives)
• Life narratives in performance and the visual arts (autobiographical videos, street performance, photography, exhibitions, etc.)
• Life narratives in TV series, movies, web-based channels, etc.
• Online lives (digital life stories, social media, dating apps, etc.)
• Genres of American life writing (apology, autofiction, autothanatography, biomythography, captivity narrative, diary, eco(auto)biography, gastrography, jockography, journal, letters, memoir, periautography, prison narratives, scriptotheraphy, slave narratives, spiritual narratives, travel narratives, witness narratives etc.)
• Popular culture and life writing
• American women’s life writing
• Immigrant and ethnic life narratives
• Family life-writing or collaborative life writing
• Public figures and celebrity life writing
• Graphic life narratives (autographics)
• Life writing and consciousness raising
• Activism and life writing
• Hybridity, diaspora, and (forced) displacement in life narratives
• Dis/ability and life writing
• The global pandemic and life narratives
• Teaching life narratives

Full-text manuscripts of between 6,000 and 8,000 words in MLA style (with parenthetical internal citations, a Works Cited page, minimal footnotes, and in Times New Roman 12-point font), should be emailed as Microsoft Word attachments to Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş (bilge.mutluay@gmail.com) by July 15, 2022. Please include an abstract (150 words), keywords, and a one-paragraph bio (150 words, written in the third-person) with all manuscripts. Topic inquiries are welcome prior to full-text submission. Contact Info: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş, Guest Editor Contact Info: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bilge Mutluay Çetintaş Contact Email: bilge.mutluay@gmail.com URL: http://www.asat-jast.org/index.php/jast/call-for-papers

Themed Journal Issue on “Narrative and Identity”

The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture deadline for submissions: July 10, 2022 lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz The call for papers for the next issue of the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture (Issue 11.1-2), on the general theme of ‘narrative and identity’, is now open. Article submissions on any aspect of the theme are encouraged. The Issue’s Editors particulalry invite articles on the following topics: – self-representation on social media – representations of disability and neurodiversity in popular culture – re-inventions of genre and viewership/readership in popular culture – alternative realities and modes of storytelling in (video) games – online fandoms and identity – popular icons The deadline for submissions of full articles (5-6k words) is 10 July 2022. The Journal is indexed in SCOPUS (among others), and its remit is broad and international. Further information about the Journal can be found here: https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-australasian-journal-of-popular-culture Please submit your articles for consideration (together with a short bio and insitutional affiliation) to both editors: Professor Lorna Piatti-Farnell (lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz) and Dr Ashleigh Prosser (ashleigh.prosser@uwa.edu.au). The Issue will be published (both in print and electronically) in December 2022.

Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2022 Symposium, 5-6 August, 2022 Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter contact email: Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers From the Aurat March in Pakistan to the Shaheen Bagh protests in India, Muslim women have been at the forefront of political change and social upheaval, both in recent years and in the past. With Bangladeshi lawyer Sara Hossain as the recipient of the International Women of Courage Award in 2016 for reforming legislation on violence against women and Arooj Aftab as the first Pakistani woman to win a Grammy in 2022, these achievements are also not limited to any single sphere of cultural influence. And yet, the dominant narrative surrounding the experiences of Muslim women continues to focus on the oppressions they have faced, with little to no consideration given to the way they have overcome these challenges. As such, the category of ‘Muslim Woman’ has been essentialised in ethonographic, Orientalist and neo-liberal discourses since it began to be ‘studied’, a narrative that scholars and activists alike are seeking to challenge more and more every day. This essentialist discourse was recently highlighted across South Asia, thus proving the necessity of challenging such narratives. On March 15th 2022, the Karnataka High Court in India upheld a government order to deny entry to Muslim women who wear the hijab into educational institutions by ruling that the “hijab is not essential to Islam”. Two separate incidents of auctioning Muslim women online for ‘deals’ were reported within 8 months of each other between 2021-22 and the perpetrators of both were let off by the Delhi High Court on “humanitarian grounds”. In Sri Lanka, a similar anti-Muslim sentiment has been reverberating through the appeals of Buddhist monk group Bodu Bala Sena (BSS) to ban the burqa as a “sign of religious extremism”. Across the border in Pakistan, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) organised a ‘Hijab March’ in solidarity with the Muslim women in Karnataka in February 2022. Rather than focusing on freedom of choice, party leaders used the opportunity to take a stance against the Aurat March, an annual demonstration for women’s rights held across Pakistan on 8th March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Aurat March was, and is, constantly accused of violating haya (modesty), with particular reference made to“objectionable slogans” such as #MeraJismMeriMarzi. There is a long and often neglected history of Muslim women intervening in debates about ‘reform’, decolonisation and citizenship to assert their own interests and identities, pioneering the rise of feminist scholarship and activism in South Asia. From Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hosain to Kamila Shamsie, one can trace a history of Muslim women writers and thinkers who have fundamentally altered contemporary literary and political discourse. A careful examination of these narratives surrounding Muslim women’s intellectual and political existence validates the significant work of scholars like Shenila Khoja-Moolji and Yasmin Saikia, who have argued that attempts to emancipate Muslim women have had to contend with simultaneously imposing uniform, majoritarian models of femininity– whether it is colonial modernity or orthodox religiosity. Navigating these binaries of emancipation and oppression, Muslim women have carved their own identities to interrogate and subvert these categorisations. This symposium is an attempt to bring together scholars, thinkers, artists and activists to create such a discursive space for a timely conversation on Muslim women’s pasts and present. Each of our panels foregrounds the agential capacity of Muslim women in writing themselves and others, as they contend with shifting dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and caste, within and with relation to South Asia. This symposium hopes to disrupt the essentializing discourse on Muslim women’s identity by exploring the polyphonic nature of human subjectivities. Discussion topics may include but are not limited to:

• Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
• Protest, resistance, and activism
• Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
• Purdah, privacy and public discourse
• Marriage, family, and domesticity
• Technology; social media; cybercrime
• Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
• ‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
• Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
• Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
• Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

We invite established academics and early-career/PhD scholars within the fields of humanities and social sciences, and outside of these realms, as well as non-academic voices working on and representing Muslim women’s perspectives with reference to South Asia to present 20-minute papers, mixed-media presentations or any other forms of discussion on or around the above themes. Please send 300 word abstracts/presentation outlines including a short biography of not more than 100 words to tasavvurcollective@gmail.com. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st July 2022, and selected participants will be contacted with the final schedule by 15th July 2022. The symposium will be held online via Zoom on 5th-6th August 2022. Symposium organisers: Fatima Z. Naveed (University of Exeter), Sheelalipi Sahana (University of Edinburgh) and Zehra Kazmi (University of St. Andrews) of the Tasavvur Collective. Follow us on Twitter: @tasavvurcollect for updates. *

On (Re)Shaping Identity: Self-Portraiture and the Quotidian

PAMLA 2022 – Los Angeles, CA (November 11-13, 2022 – entirely in-person deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2022 Please contact presiding officer for this session, Ariana Lyriotakis, with any questions: lyriotaa@tcd.ie Special Session – CFP Persona and confessional poetry of the Postmodern period enact an undeniable relationship with the quotidian. But how do these poems explore a visual depiction and an expression of self-identity in ordinary life? This panel will explore the methods by which poets manipulate and reject aesthetic production in their poetry, while calling into question subjectivity and truthful composition. This special session will explore poetic self-portraiture and the shaping of identity within the bounds of the quotidian. John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is perhaps one of the more notable examples from this era; as a poetry firmly situated within the intermediality of poetic textual images and art, he addresses “the enchant of self with self” through personal depiction and aesthetic production. But what is revealed to the reader in these moments of vulnerability and self-appraisal? How can the poet be both subject and object, while constructing a poetic likeness amongst the commonplace? This panel seeks poetry of self-encounter, whether banal or familiar, to interrogate an inward/outward representation of the self within these constructs. Contributions are invited relating to any of the following aspects, as well as broader interpretations of the theme which may illuminate and elucidate in greater detail. Please be in touch if you have any questions or require further clarification.

• Depictions of the domestic and the visual
• Intermediality of poetic textual images and art
• Interrogations of the actual and the self
• Orality and performance in poetry
• Visuality of text and experimentation
• Mimesis and the composition of ordinary spaces
• Interdeterminacy and temporality

Abstracts must be submitted through the PAMLA website only. The web address for this session’s CFP is: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/18564 All panel participants/presenters must join PAMLA by July 1, 2022. https://pamla.ballastacademic.com CALL FOR PAPERS:  LIFE WRITING AS WORLD LITERATURE (book) Deadline for abstracts: July 1, 2022 Deadline for final essays: January 1, 2023 The series Literatures as World Literature by Bloomsbury Publishing aims to “take a novel approach to world literature by analyzing specific constellations — according to language, nation, form, or theme — of literary texts and authors in their own world-literary dimensions.” https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/series/literatures-as-world-literature/ The proposed volume will be dedicated to life writing. We use “life writing” as a broad term encompassing a wide variety of personal narratives. We also recognize the capaciousness of the term “world literature” and the accompanying challenges. By putting life writing and world literature into dialogue, we seek to explore their rich shared history, as well as new areas of research. Authors are encouraged to explore, among others the intersecting histories of the two fields debates in world literature concerning auto/biographical genres autobiographical texts outside the Western canons (East Asia, Latin America, Northern Africa, Middle East) autobiographical works as they move in translation through global contexts autobiographical works as they move across time and media (remediation, intermediality, etc.) the role of materiality in life writing visual narratives, new media, affective networks, and the role of life writing in participatory democracy autobiographical texts in “world literature” courses and in cultural diplomacy the role of autobiographical texts in eco or medical humanities the homogenizing effects of autobiographical technology and data bias Please submit abstracts of 350 words, along with a short bio, to the Editors: Helga Lenart-Cheng (hl4@stmarys-ca.edu) and Ioana Luca (ioana.luca@ntnu.edu.tw) by July 1, 2022. Helga Lenart-Cheng Associate Professor World Languages and Cultures Honors Program, Director Saint Mary’s College of California Book office hours here Forthcoming in 2022: Story Revolutions: Collective Narratives from the Enlightenment to the Digital Age *

Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2022 Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter contact email: Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers From the Aurat March in Pakistan to the Shaheen Bagh protests in India, Muslim women have been at the forefront of political change and social upheaval, both in recent years and in the past. With Bangladeshi lawyer Sara Hossain as the recipient of the International Women of Courage Award in 2016 for reforming legislation on violence against women and Arooj Aftab as the first Pakistani woman to win a Grammy in 2022, these achievements are also not limited to any single sphere of cultural influence. And yet, the dominant narrative surrounding the experiences of Muslim women continues to focus on the oppressions they have faced, with little to no consideration given to the way they have overcome these challenges. As such, the category of ‘Muslim Woman’ has been essentialised in ethonographic, Orientalist and neo-liberal discourses since it began to be ‘studied’, a narrative that scholars and activists alike are seeking to challenge more and more every day. This essentialist discourse was recently highlighted across South Asia, thus proving the necessity of challenging such narratives. On March 15th 2022, the Karnataka High Court in India upheld a government order to deny entry to Muslim women who wear the hijab into educational institutions by ruling that the “hijab is not essential to Islam”. Two separate incidents of auctioning Muslim women online for ‘deals’ were reported within 8 months of each other between 2021-22 and the perpetrators of both were let off by the Delhi High Court on “humanitarian grounds”. In Sri Lanka, a similar anti-Muslim sentiment has been reverberating through the appeals of Buddhist monk group Bodu Bala Sena (BSS) to ban the burqa as a “sign of religious extremism”. Across the border in Pakistan, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) organised a ‘Hijab March’ in solidarity with the Muslim women in Karnataka in February 2022. Rather than focusing on freedom of choice, party leaders used the opportunity to take a stance against the Aurat March, an annual demonstration for women’s rights held across Pakistan on 8th March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Aurat March was, and is, constantly accused of violating haya (modesty), with particular reference made to“objectionable slogans” such as #MeraJismMeriMarzi. There is a long and often neglected history of Muslim women intervening in debates about ‘reform’, decolonisation and citizenship to assert their own interests and identities, pioneering the rise of feminist scholarship and activism in South Asia. From Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hosain to Kamila Shamsie, one can trace a history of Muslim women writers and thinkers who have fundamentally altered contemporary literary and political discourse. A careful examination of these narratives surrounding Muslim women’s intellectual and political existence validates the significant work of scholars like Shenila Khoja-Moolji and Yasmin Saikia, who have argued that attempts to emancipate Muslim women have had to contend with simultaneously imposing uniform, majoritarian models of femininity– whether it is colonial modernity or orthodox religiosity. Navigating these binaries of emancipation and oppression, Muslim women have carved their own identities to interrogate and subvert these categorisations. This symposium is an attempt to bring together scholars, thinkers, artists and activists to create such a discursive space for a timely conversation on Muslim women’s pasts and present. Each of our panels foregrounds the agential capacity of Muslim women in writing themselves and others, as they contend with shifting dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and caste, within and with relation to South Asia. This symposium hopes to disrupt the essentializing discourse on Muslim women’s identity by exploring the polyphonic nature of human subjectivities. Discussion topics may include but are not limited to:

• Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
• Protest, resistance, and activism
• Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
• Purdah, privacy and public discourse
• Marriage, family, and domesticity
• Technology; social media; cybercrime
• Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
• ‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
• Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
• Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
• Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

We invite established academics and early-career/PhD scholars within the fields of humanities and social sciences, and outside of these realms, as well as non-academic voices working on and representing Muslim women’s perspectives with reference to South Asia to present 20-minute papers, mixed-media presentations or any other forms of discussion on or around the above themes. Please send 300 word abstracts/presentation outlines including a short biography of not more than 100 words to tasavvurcollective@gmail.com. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st July 2022, and selected participants will be contacted with the final schedule by 15th July 2022. The symposium will be held online via Zoom on 5th-6th August 2022. Symposium organisers: Fatima Z. Naveed (University of Exeter), Sheelalipi Sahana (University of Edinburgh) and Zehra Kazmi (University of St. Andrews) of the Tasavvur Collective. Follow us on Twitter: @tasavvurcollect for updates.

 *

Deadline for Submissions: July 1, 2022

Reimagining #MeToo in South Asia And the Diaspora (Edited Collection of Essays)

Dr. Nidhi Shrivastava contact email: shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu This edited volume seeks to examine how sexual violence and feminist interventions in South Asia and the Diaspora have been articulated in the context of but, more importantly, in opposition to the #MeToo Movement. We seek to understand how the feminist movement has radically diverged from the assimilationist discourse of the #MeToo Movement and, consequently, the Global North. The #MeToo movement has not made an impact at the grassroots level because it is hinged on the victim-survivor to speak up. In an era where the Global North has been a model for influencing change in the Global South, there has been an inconspicuous absence of recognition and impact of the #MeToo Movement. In addition, survivors’ testimonies lie at the center of the #MeToo movement, which demystifies victim-shaming and victim-blaming, legitimizing the survivor’s testimony as the unquestionable truth. Since 2017, the #MeToo movement has been successful in the conviction of Harvey Weinstein, who was at the center of the landmark trial. The #MeToo has had a significant impact worldwide on how we understand sexual harassment, rape, and gendered violence, especially in the US. However, this global women’s movement has had little reach in South Asia, where access to virtual platforms is limited, and hashtags are still unknown. The #MeToo Movement in South Asia and the Diaspora was taken up briefly by the media and entertainment industry but has failed to make a concrete impact in many ways. This can be attributed to multiple reasons – there are several regionally specific movements, such as the 2009 Pink Chaddi Campaign and 2011 #WhyLoiter campaign, that have been radically popular within the sub-continent. In the South Asian context, such testimonies are still taboo, which leads to survivors refusing to share and relive their experiences/narratives even if they have the means and access. Therefore, our edited volume seeks to problematize the #MeToo movement in order to reimagine and contextualize it in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora as a much-needed intervention to examine the implications of a transnational feminist movement. We wish to explore questions such as: how the #MeToo movement can move away from Hollywood/Bollywood/workplace and elitist exclusivity. How can it be more inclusive of non-white and marginalized voices? In light of the ongoing and increasing gender-based violence occurring in South Asia and the diaspora, our edited volume will reflect on these questions as we seek to understand new ways of formulating complex and nuanced gendered subjectivities vis-à-vis the lens of post-colonial feminism and intersectionality. Our focus shifts away from the traditional approaches of victimization to generate dialogue and hopefully create a new platform to break the silence and encourage discomforting narratives to normalize conversations surrounding this pivotal issue. Themes include but are not limited to the following:

• Pedagogy and Transformative Learning via #MeToo in the Classroom
• Queer/LGBTQI+ Spaces within #MeToo
• New Masculinities
• Contemporary Gender Movements and Resistances
• Caste, Gender, Class, and Social Spaces
• Problematization of #MeToo and ‘Speaking Up’
• New Modalities of Testimonies
• Resistance and Digital Feminist Interventions
• New Feminist Mediations
• Militarized Feminist Modernities
• Ageism
• Viral Videos
• Censorship, Cultural Production, and Minority Literature
• Mythologies, Legends, and Sexuality

We welcome informal queries, and potential contributors may submit a 500-750 word abstract and 2 page CV by July 1, 2022. Please direct queries to Dr Nidhi Shrivastava (Sacred Heart University), shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu, Dr Ruma Sinha (Syracuse University), rumas1@gmail.com, and Dr Billie T. Guarino (Jamia Milia Islamia), thoidingjam@gmail.com. Acceptance of the final articles is subject to double-blind peer review. The final deadline for submitting 5,000- 6,000-word articles will be November 15, 2022. * Deadline for Submissions June 30, 2022 Representations of Border Crossings in Media, Literature, and the Arts International Academic Conference:15-16 December 2022 MIDEX Centre, University of Central Lancashire (Research Strand: Representations of Migration, Diaspora and Exile in Media, Literature, and Art) CALL FOR PAPERS Border crossings delineate movement from a place, nation, and culture, inter alia, to another. Border crossers, Jane Jackson (2014) writes, can move temporarily or permanently, and crossings can be forced or voluntary, successful or unsuccessful, contemporary or historical. They can lead to multicultural identity formations, or to experiences and feelings of exclusion and isolation (Martin and Nakayama 2008). Because they are embodied experiences, they are determined by race, ethnicity, citizenship status, religion and gender, as well as by biopolitical and necropolitical practices, particularly, when deemed ‘irregular.’ Representations of border crossings play a key role in media, literature, visual, as well as performance arts. Historical and contemporary border crossings form a core segment of literary and artistic production as shown by the publication of literary and graphic migration narratives, museum exhibitions, installations in galleries and open public spaces, and via dance, music and theatre performances (Viljoen 2013). At the same time, representations of contemporary ‘irregular’ border crossings foreground the injurious implications of border control practices, as well as media responsibilities of a ‘crisis’ (Chouliaraki and Stolic 2017). For this conference, we invite papers that explore representations of border crossings in media, literature, and the arts. We seek to examine the kinds of narratives that can be told through media, artistic and literary attempts to speak about border-crossing subjects. We hope to determine the extent to which such representations cross borders themselves by being exposed to culturally different audiences (Friedman 2005). We further mean to investigate how border-crossing ‘selves’ and ‘others’, collective, or individual, become displayed in such representations and whether hegemonic, (neo-)colonial hierarchies become undone or reproduced through them. How can a person in the position of the ‘host,’ for instance, ‘imagine another without doing violence to [their] object of description’ (Black 2010: 1)? How can representations of liminal, border-crossing subjects disrupt narratives of modernity/coloniality (Schimanski and Wolfe 2013; Mignolo 2011)? Can such representations show ‘how changing perceptions of borders relate to shifting aesthetic practices’ (Wolfe 2014: 1; Schimanski and Wolfe 2007)? How do they illustrate that ‘as the border crosser crosses the border, new […] borders are created and crossed in the crosser’s own story, and in the story of the border itself’ (Schimanski 2006: 47)? What are the strategies that would enable nuanced interpretations of such representations (see Schimanski and Wolfe 2017)? We call for researchers and practitioners to submit proposals of up to 250 words for 20-minute presentations exploring border-crossings in literature, media and the arts. We also invite creative practitioners to submit performances, readings, (video) installations, and exhibitions, inter alia. The themes that can be explored include, but are not limited to: • Exilic, diasporic, migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking border crossers • Border-crossing, gender, and sexuality • Decolonial and postcolonial border-crossings • Border-crossing traumas • Border-crossing memories • Affective border-crossings • Border-crossing as an opportunity • Metaphorical, cultural, and linguistic border crossings Please submit your proposals to bordercrossing@uclan.ac.uk by 30th of June, 2022. References: Black, S. (2010), Fiction Across Borders: Imagining the Lives of Others in Late-Twentieth Century Fiction, New York : Columbia University Press. Chouliaraki, L. and T. Stolic (2017), ‘Rethinking Media Responsibility in the Refugee “Crisis:” A Visual Typology of European News’, Media, Culture & Society, 39(8):1162-77. Friedman, S. S. (2005), ‘Spatial Poetics and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things’, in J. Phelan and P. J. Rabinowitz (eds), A Companion to Narrative Theory, 192-205, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Jackson, J. (2014), Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication, London: Routledge. Martin, J.N. and Nakayama, T.K. (2008), Experiencing Intercultural Communication: An Introduction, New York: McGraw-Hill. Mignolo, D. W. (2011), The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options, New York: Duke University Press. Schimanski, J. (2006), ‘Crossing and Reading: Notes towards a Theory and Method’, Nordlit, 19: 41-63. Schimanski, J. and S. Wolfe (2007), ‘Entry Points: An Introduction’ in J. Schimanski and S. Wolfe (eds), Border Poetics De-Limited, 9-26, Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag. ____. (2013), ‘The Aesthetics of Borders’, in K. Aukrust (ed), Assigning Cultural Values, 235-250, Frankfurt: Peter Lang. ____. eds. (2017), Border Aesthetics: Concepts and Intersections, New York: Berghahn. Viljoen, H., ed. (2013), Crossing Borders, Dissolving Boundaries, Amsterdam: Rodopi. Wolfe, S. (2014), ‘Border Aesthetics/Border Works’, Nordlit, 31:1-5. * “’My strength, my comfort, my intense delight’: Women, Art and Lifewriting in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Universities Art Association of Canada annual conference Oct 27-29, University of Toronto. Deadline for abstracts: June 30. Like her contemporary Eugène Delacroix, British watercolourist Elizabeth Murray left the “West” in the early 1800s for the “Orient,” recording her adventures in extensive writings and images. However, while Delacroix’s journals and notebooks became widely celebrated, Murray’s account slid into obscurity—even though Delacroix’s journey lasted only six months and generated two articles, while Murray’s time in the region prompted her two-volume autobiography Sixteen Years of an Artist’s Life in Morocco, Spain, and the Canary Islands. Moreover, accounts by other women from that century—Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun; Elizabeth Butler—similarly languished, creating the sense that this era’s female artists neither left home nor published autobiographies. This panel aims to explode this misapprehension by convening discussions of lifewriting by women artists of the 1800s and earlier. We welcome proposals regarding all lifewriting forms (e.g. diaries, letters), with particular interest in accounts originating outside normative “Western” narratives, and/or regarding now-obscure autobiographies. Per standard practice, you need to join UAAC if your paper is accepted – but you don’t need to join to submit a proposal. Questions? creeve@ocadu.ca Application process and full conference CFP here. Charles Reeve OCAD University Chair, Liberal Studies Faculty of Arts & Science * CALL FOR PAPERS North-American Novelists’ Autobiographical Acts: Nonfictional Disruptions Aix-Marseilles University, 6/7 July 2023 Organizers: Sophie Vallas (Aix-Marseilles University, LERMA), Arnaud Schmitt (University of Bordeaux, CLIMAS) Deadline for Submissions June 30, 2022 Addressing the topic of autobiographical texts or memoirs published by novelists, what she calls “the literary writer’s autobiography,” Laura Marcus underlines that the reader’s awareness of the name and reputation of the author immediately confers a certain literary status on the autobiographical text: “Not all autobiographers are writers by profession, though there is a widespread assumption that the literary writer’s autobiography best defines the genre.” Far from the host of confessional memoirs, either by celebrities or unknown authors, a publishing phenomenon identified by Rockwell Gray as a “memoir boom” in his 1982 article “Autobiography Now,” and far from so-called autobiographical novels or autofictions which, according to Maurice Couturier, allowed many writers to “smuggle their own autobiographies,” this conference will focus on autobiographical texts—paratextually and unequivocally identified as such—published by American novelists, on “the literary writer’s autobiography” in other words, and on their influence on the perception of the overall work of their author. We will wonder how autobiographical acts happen, when they happen, in a career dominated by fiction, what their links with the fictional part of the work are or why they are often perceived as minor texts among a fictional body of major ones. Also, do they conjure up specific writing techniques, a separate creative space? The disruption caused by autobiographical texts in a literary work mostly devoted to the writing of fiction raises several questions concerning the artistic logic underlying them, the way they are embedded in the complete oeuvre of the author and the editorial and paratextual choices made for their publication. It often seems logical that authors should turn to life writing at the end of their career, an introspective act embracing their whole life, revisiting their own work. Mark Twain, who published a few chapters of his autobiography in the years prior to his death, decided nevertheless that its publication would be a posthumous act, a hundred years after his death more precisely (The Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2010). Other texts, also published late in their authors’ life, focus on the death of a relative or a friend while offering authors the opportunity to reflect on their own life, inexorably drawing to a close: Joan Didion’s autobiographical diptych, The Year of the Magical Thinking in 2005 (simultaneously mourning the death and celebrating the life of her husband, John Dunne) and Blue Nights in 2011 (doing the same for Didion’s adopted daughter, Quintana, who died in 2005), belongs to this crepuscular tradition in which writing almost amounts to issuing legal, performative acts standing for marriage, adoption, death. Such is also the case for Philip Roth’s Patrimony (1991). Conversely, some autobiographical texts herald the birth of an author: Paul Auster’s The Invention of Solitude (1982) delivered, in prose, the new voice of a poet and essayist who, from then on, would dedicate his career as a novelist to developing and fictionalizing many topics already present in this seminal memoir. Auster has gone on regularly publishing autobiographical narratives, each time revisiting his life from a different angle and adding new acts to the play of his life (The Red Notebook, 1995; Hand to Mouth, 1997; Winter Journal, 2012; Report from the Interior, 2013). For other autobiographical texts, what is at stake is less the moment when they get written, either at the beginning or at the end of a career, than their capacity of exploring the very art of their authors. In that case, they tend to exist as so many comments on the fictional works which they occasionally revisit. Joyce Carol Oates, for instance, has kept on analyzing the act of writing throughout the years ((Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities, 1974; The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art, 2003; A Widow’s Story. A Memoir, 2011; The Lost Landscape. A Writer’s Coming of Age, 2015). At the very opposite of Oates’ regular autobiographical practice, James Salter’s Burning the Days (1997) stands as a unique autobiographical text in a body of work otherwise entirely devoted to fiction, almost like a faulty act, even if the volume sounds like Salter’s powerful novels in terms of structure and voice, much to the delight of his readers. On the other hand, certain autobiographical texts, just like Richard Wright’s Black Boy (1945) for instance, can be seen as irreversible acts which eclipse the author’s fictional production. Philippe Lejeune once regretted that “the dirty habit of publishing diaries has resulted into most people writing their privacy while decked out in their very best attire.” Is a novelist, and even more so an established one, not tempted, indeed, to write their autobiography in their best array, drifting away from spontaneous, supposedly authentic autobiographical acts which tend to be nowadays published on social networks? Autobiography indeed involves an element of risk and exposure since it may, whether purposefully or not, allow the reader to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of fiction, and thus disrupt the construction of the figure of the author. Proposals may address, among other issues, the following: – The origin of the autobiographical act in a novelist’s career – The minor works/major works dialectics. – Stylistic specificities of autobiographical narratives versus fictional texts – The balance in an author’s oeuvre, and more specifically the place occupied by the autobiographical texts in the overall work – The reception of the autobiographical texts, often isolated or unknown – The dialogue between fictional and non-fictional texts within a work (Laura Marcus: “The literary writer’s autobiography also bears on, and frequently comments upon, his or her other works”) – The tools needed for analysis (similar, different?) to study the autobiographical texts – The persistence of a distance between the narrator and the author, even in an autobiographical text, similar to that embodied by the concept of implied narrator whose presence Jim Phelan, for example, detects even in referential texts such as Joan Didion’s The Year of MagicalThinking.

• Please submit an abstract of approx. 400 words and a short bionote to sophie.vallas@univ-amu.fr and arnaud.schmitt@u-bordeaux.fr by 30 June, 2022 at the latest.

Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2022 Symposium, 5-6 August, 2022 Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter contact email: Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers From the Aurat March in Pakistan to the Shaheen Bagh protests in India, Muslim women have been at the forefront of political change and social upheaval, both in recent years and in the past. With Bangladeshi lawyer Sara Hossain as the recipient of the International Women of Courage Award in 2016 for reforming legislation on violence against women and Arooj Aftab as the first Pakistani woman to win a Grammy in 2022, these achievements are also not limited to any single sphere of cultural influence. And yet, the dominant narrative surrounding the experiences of Muslim women continues to focus on the oppressions they have faced, with little to no consideration given to the way they have overcome these challenges. As such, the category of ‘Muslim Woman’ has been essentialised in ethonographic, Orientalist and neo-liberal discourses since it began to be ‘studied’, a narrative that scholars and activists alike are seeking to challenge more and more every day. This essentialist discourse was recently highlighted across South Asia, thus proving the necessity of challenging such narratives. On March 15th 2022, the Karnataka High Court in India upheld a government order to deny entry to Muslim women who wear the hijab into educational institutions by ruling that the “hijab is not essential to Islam”. Two separate incidents of auctioning Muslim women online for ‘deals’ were reported within 8 months of each other between 2021-22 and the perpetrators of both were let off by the Delhi High Court on “humanitarian grounds”. In Sri Lanka, a similar anti-Muslim sentiment has been reverberating through the appeals of Buddhist monk group Bodu Bala Sena (BSS) to ban the burqa as a “sign of religious extremism”. Across the border in Pakistan, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) organised a ‘Hijab March’ in solidarity with the Muslim women in Karnataka in February 2022. Rather than focusing on freedom of choice, party leaders used the opportunity to take a stance against the Aurat March, an annual demonstration for women’s rights held across Pakistan on 8th March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Aurat March was, and is, constantly accused of violating haya (modesty), with particular reference made to“objectionable slogans” such as #MeraJismMeriMarzi. There is a long and often neglected history of Muslim women intervening in debates about ‘reform’, decolonisation and citizenship to assert their own interests and identities, pioneering the rise of feminist scholarship and activism in South Asia. From Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hosain to Kamila Shamsie, one can trace a history of Muslim women writers and thinkers who have fundamentally altered contemporary literary and political discourse. A careful examination of these narratives surrounding Muslim women’s intellectual and political existence validates the significant work of scholars like Shenila Khoja-Moolji and Yasmin Saikia, who have argued that attempts to emancipate Muslim women have had to contend with simultaneously imposing uniform, majoritarian models of femininity– whether it is colonial modernity or orthodox religiosity. Navigating these binaries of emancipation and oppression, Muslim women have carved their own identities to interrogate and subvert these categorisations. This symposium is an attempt to bring together scholars, thinkers, artists and activists to create such a discursive space for a timely conversation on Muslim women’s pasts and present. Each of our panels foregrounds the agential capacity of Muslim women in writing themselves and others, as they contend with shifting dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and caste, within and with relation to South Asia. This symposium hopes to disrupt the essentializing discourse on Muslim women’s identity by exploring the polyphonic nature of human subjectivities. Discussion topics may include but are not limited to:

• Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
• Protest, resistance, and activism
• Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
• Purdah, privacy and public discourse
• Marriage, family, and domesticity
• Technology; social media; cybercrime
• Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
• ‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
• Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
• Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
• Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

We invite established academics and early-career/PhD scholars within the fields of humanities and social sciences, and outside of these realms, as well as non-academic voices working on and representing Muslim women’s perspectives with reference to South Asia to present 20-minute papers, mixed-media presentations or any other forms of discussion on or around the above themes. Please send 300 word abstracts/presentation outlines including a short biography of not more than 100 words to tasavvurcollective@gmail.com. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st July 2022, and selected participants will be contacted with the final schedule by 15th July 2022. The symposium will be held online via Zoom on 5th-6th August 2022. Symposium organisers: Fatima Z. Naveed (University of Exeter), Sheelalipi Sahana (University of Edinburgh) and Zehra Kazmi (University of St. Andrews) of the Tasavvur Collective. Follow us on Twitter: @tasavvurcollect for updates. *

On (Re)Shaping Identity: Self-Portraiture and the Quotidian

PAMLA 2022 – Los Angeles, CA (November 11-13, 2022 – entirely in-person deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2022 Please contact presiding officer for this session, Ariana Lyriotakis, with any questions: lyriotaa@tcd.ie Special Session – CFP Persona and confessional poetry of the Postmodern period enact an undeniable relationship with the quotidian. But how do these poems explore a visual depiction and an expression of self-identity in ordinary life? This panel will explore the methods by which poets manipulate and reject aesthetic production in their poetry, while calling into question subjectivity and truthful composition. This special session will explore poetic self-portraiture and the shaping of identity within the bounds of the quotidian. John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is perhaps one of the more notable examples from this era; as a poetry firmly situated within the intermediality of poetic textual images and art, he addresses “the enchant of self with self” through personal depiction and aesthetic production. But what is revealed to the reader in these moments of vulnerability and self-appraisal? How can the poet be both subject and object, while constructing a poetic likeness amongst the commonplace? This panel seeks poetry of self-encounter, whether banal or familiar, to interrogate an inward/outward representation of the self within these constructs. Contributions are invited relating to any of the following aspects, as well as broader interpretations of the theme which may illuminate and elucidate in greater detail. Please be in touch if you have any questions or require further clarification.

• Depictions of the domestic and the visual
• Intermediality of poetic textual images and art
• Interrogations of the actual and the self
• Orality and performance in poetry
• Visuality of text and experimentation
• Mimesis and the composition of ordinary spaces
• Interdeterminacy and temporality

Abstracts must be submitted through the PAMLA website only. The web address for this session’s CFP is: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/18564 All panel participants/presenters must join PAMLA by July 1, 2022. https://pamla.ballastacademic.com CALL FOR PAPERS:  LIFE WRITING AS WORLD LITERATURE (book) Deadline for abstracts: July 1, 2022 Deadline for final essays: January 1, 2023 The series Literatures as World Literature by Bloomsbury Publishing aims to “take a novel approach to world literature by analyzing specific constellations — according to language, nation, form, or theme — of literary texts and authors in their own world-literary dimensions.” https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/series/literatures-as-world-literature/ The proposed volume will be dedicated to life writing. We use “life writing” as a broad term encompassing a wide variety of personal narratives. We also recognize the capaciousness of the term “world literature” and the accompanying challenges. By putting life writing and world literature into dialogue, we seek to explore their rich shared history, as well as new areas of research. Authors are encouraged to explore, among others the intersecting histories of the two fields debates in world literature concerning auto/biographical genres autobiographical texts outside the Western canons (East Asia, Latin America, Northern Africa, Middle East) autobiographical works as they move in translation through global contexts autobiographical works as they move across time and media (remediation, intermediality, etc.) the role of materiality in life writing visual narratives, new media, affective networks, and the role of life writing in participatory democracy autobiographical texts in “world literature” courses and in cultural diplomacy the role of autobiographical texts in eco or medical humanities the homogenizing effects of autobiographical technology and data bias Please submit abstracts of 350 words, along with a short bio, to the Editors: Helga Lenart-Cheng (hl4@stmarys-ca.edu) and Ioana Luca (ioana.luca@ntnu.edu.tw) by July 1, 2022. Helga Lenart-Cheng Associate Professor World Languages and Cultures Honors Program, Director Saint Mary’s College of California Book office hours here Forthcoming in 2022: Story Revolutions: Collective Narratives from the Enlightenment to the Digital Age *

Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2022 Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter contact email: Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers From the Aurat March in Pakistan to the Shaheen Bagh protests in India, Muslim women have been at the forefront of political change and social upheaval, both in recent years and in the past. With Bangladeshi lawyer Sara Hossain as the recipient of the International Women of Courage Award in 2016 for reforming legislation on violence against women and Arooj Aftab as the first Pakistani woman to win a Grammy in 2022, these achievements are also not limited to any single sphere of cultural influence. And yet, the dominant narrative surrounding the experiences of Muslim women continues to focus on the oppressions they have faced, with little to no consideration given to the way they have overcome these challenges. As such, the category of ‘Muslim Woman’ has been essentialised in ethonographic, Orientalist and neo-liberal discourses since it began to be ‘studied’, a narrative that scholars and activists alike are seeking to challenge more and more every day. This essentialist discourse was recently highlighted across South Asia, thus proving the necessity of challenging such narratives. On March 15th 2022, the Karnataka High Court in India upheld a government order to deny entry to Muslim women who wear the hijab into educational institutions by ruling that the “hijab is not essential to Islam”. Two separate incidents of auctioning Muslim women online for ‘deals’ were reported within 8 months of each other between 2021-22 and the perpetrators of both were let off by the Delhi High Court on “humanitarian grounds”. In Sri Lanka, a similar anti-Muslim sentiment has been reverberating through the appeals of Buddhist monk group Bodu Bala Sena (BSS) to ban the burqa as a “sign of religious extremism”. Across the border in Pakistan, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) organised a ‘Hijab March’ in solidarity with the Muslim women in Karnataka in February 2022. Rather than focusing on freedom of choice, party leaders used the opportunity to take a stance against the Aurat March, an annual demonstration for women’s rights held across Pakistan on 8th March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Aurat March was, and is, constantly accused of violating haya (modesty), with particular reference made to“objectionable slogans” such as #MeraJismMeriMarzi. There is a long and often neglected history of Muslim women intervening in debates about ‘reform’, decolonisation and citizenship to assert their own interests and identities, pioneering the rise of feminist scholarship and activism in South Asia. From Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hosain to Kamila Shamsie, one can trace a history of Muslim women writers and thinkers who have fundamentally altered contemporary literary and political discourse. A careful examination of these narratives surrounding Muslim women’s intellectual and political existence validates the significant work of scholars like Shenila Khoja-Moolji and Yasmin Saikia, who have argued that attempts to emancipate Muslim women have had to contend with simultaneously imposing uniform, majoritarian models of femininity– whether it is colonial modernity or orthodox religiosity. Navigating these binaries of emancipation and oppression, Muslim women have carved their own identities to interrogate and subvert these categorisations. This symposium is an attempt to bring together scholars, thinkers, artists and activists to create such a discursive space for a timely conversation on Muslim women’s pasts and present. Each of our panels foregrounds the agential capacity of Muslim women in writing themselves and others, as they contend with shifting dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and caste, within and with relation to South Asia. This symposium hopes to disrupt the essentializing discourse on Muslim women’s identity by exploring the polyphonic nature of human subjectivities. Discussion topics may include but are not limited to:

• Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
• Protest, resistance, and activism
• Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
• Purdah, privacy and public discourse
• Marriage, family, and domesticity
• Technology; social media; cybercrime
• Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
• ‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
• Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
• Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
• Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

We invite established academics and early-career/PhD scholars within the fields of humanities and social sciences, and outside of these realms, as well as non-academic voices working on and representing Muslim women’s perspectives with reference to South Asia to present 20-minute papers, mixed-media presentations or any other forms of discussion on or around the above themes. Please send 300 word abstracts/presentation outlines including a short biography of not more than 100 words to tasavvurcollective@gmail.com. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st July 2022, and selected participants will be contacted with the final schedule by 15th July 2022. The symposium will be held online via Zoom on 5th-6th August 2022. Symposium organisers: Fatima Z. Naveed (University of Exeter), Sheelalipi Sahana (University of Edinburgh) and Zehra Kazmi (University of St. Andrews) of the Tasavvur Collective. Follow us on Twitter: @tasavvurcollect for updates.

 *

Deadline for Submissions: July 1, 2022

Reimagining #MeToo in South Asia And the Diaspora (Edited Collection of Essays)

Dr. Nidhi Shrivastava contact email: shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu This edited volume seeks to examine how sexual violence and feminist interventions in South Asia and the Diaspora have been articulated in the context of but, more importantly, in opposition to the #MeToo Movement. We seek to understand how the feminist movement has radically diverged from the assimilationist discourse of the #MeToo Movement and, consequently, the Global North. The #MeToo movement has not made an impact at the grassroots level because it is hinged on the victim-survivor to speak up. In an era where the Global North has been a model for influencing change in the Global South, there has been an inconspicuous absence of recognition and impact of the #MeToo Movement. In addition, survivors’ testimonies lie at the center of the #MeToo movement, which demystifies victim-shaming and victim-blaming, legitimizing the survivor’s testimony as the unquestionable truth. Since 2017, the #MeToo movement has been successful in the conviction of Harvey Weinstein, who was at the center of the landmark trial. The #MeToo has had a significant impact worldwide on how we understand sexual harassment, rape, and gendered violence, especially in the US. However, this global women’s movement has had little reach in South Asia, where access to virtual platforms is limited, and hashtags are still unknown. The #MeToo Movement in South Asia and the Diaspora was taken up briefly by the media and entertainment industry but has failed to make a concrete impact in many ways. This can be attributed to multiple reasons – there are several regionally specific movements, such as the 2009 Pink Chaddi Campaign and 2011 #WhyLoiter campaign, that have been radically popular within the sub-continent. In the South Asian context, such testimonies are still taboo, which leads to survivors refusing to share and relive their experiences/narratives even if they have the means and access. Therefore, our edited volume seeks to problematize the #MeToo movement in order to reimagine and contextualize it in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora as a much-needed intervention to examine the implications of a transnational feminist movement. We wish to explore questions such as: how the #MeToo movement can move away from Hollywood/Bollywood/workplace and elitist exclusivity. How can it be more inclusive of non-white and marginalized voices? In light of the ongoing and increasing gender-based violence occurring in South Asia and the diaspora, our edited volume will reflect on these questions as we seek to understand new ways of formulating complex and nuanced gendered subjectivities vis-à-vis the lens of post-colonial feminism and intersectionality. Our focus shifts away from the traditional approaches of victimization to generate dialogue and hopefully create a new platform to break the silence and encourage discomforting narratives to normalize conversations surrounding this pivotal issue. Themes include but are not limited to the following:

• Pedagogy and Transformative Learning via #MeToo in the Classroom
• Queer/LGBTQI+ Spaces within #MeToo
• New Masculinities
• Contemporary Gender Movements and Resistances
• Caste, Gender, Class, and Social Spaces
• Problematization of #MeToo and ‘Speaking Up’
• New Modalities of Testimonies
• Resistance and Digital Feminist Interventions
• New Feminist Mediations
• Militarized Feminist Modernities
• Ageism
• Viral Videos
• Censorship, Cultural Production, and Minority Literature
• Mythologies, Legends, and Sexuality

We welcome informal queries, and potential contributors may submit a 500-750 word abstract and 2 page CV by July 1, 2022. Please direct queries to Dr Nidhi Shrivastava (Sacred Heart University), shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu, Dr Ruma Sinha (Syracuse University), rumas1@gmail.com, and Dr Billie T. Guarino (Jamia Milia Islamia), thoidingjam@gmail.com. Acceptance of the final articles is subject to double-blind peer review. The final deadline for submitting 5,000- 6,000-word articles will be November 15, 2022. Deadline for Submissions June 30, 2022 Representations of Border Crossings in Media, Literature, and the Arts International Academic Conference:15-16 December 2022 MIDEX Centre, University of Central Lancashire (Research Strand: Representations of Migration, Diaspora and Exile in Media, Literature, and Art) CALL FOR PAPERS Border crossings delineate movement from a place, nation, and culture, inter alia, to another. Border crossers, Jane Jackson (2014) writes, can move temporarily or permanently, and crossings can be forced or voluntary, successful or unsuccessful, contemporary or historical. They can lead to multicultural identity formations, or to experiences and feelings of exclusion and isolation (Martin and Nakayama 2008). Because they are embodied experiences, they are determined by race, ethnicity, citizenship status, religion and gender, as well as by biopolitical and necropolitical practices, particularly, when deemed ‘irregular.’ Representations of border crossings play a key role in media, literature, visual, as well as performance arts. Historical and contemporary border crossings form a core segment of literary and artistic production as shown by the publication of literary and graphic migration narratives, museum exhibitions, installations in galleries and open public spaces, and via dance, music and theatre performances (Viljoen 2013). At the same time, representations of contemporary ‘irregular’ border crossings foreground the injurious implications of border control practices, as well as media responsibilities of a ‘crisis’ (Chouliaraki and Stolic 2017). For this conference, we invite papers that explore representations of border crossings in media, literature, and the arts. We seek to examine the kinds of narratives that can be told through media, artistic and literary attempts to speak about border-crossing subjects. We hope to determine the extent to which such representations cross borders themselves by being exposed to culturally different audiences (Friedman 2005). We further mean to investigate how border-crossing ‘selves’ and ‘others’, collective, or individual, become displayed in such representations and whether hegemonic, (neo-)colonial hierarchies become undone or reproduced through them. How can a person in the position of the ‘host,’ for instance, ‘imagine another without doing violence to [their] object of description’ (Black 2010: 1)? How can representations of liminal, border-crossing subjects disrupt narratives of modernity/coloniality (Schimanski and Wolfe 2013; Mignolo 2011)? Can such representations show ‘how changing perceptions of borders relate to shifting aesthetic practices’ (Wolfe 2014: 1; Schimanski and Wolfe 2007)? How do they illustrate that ‘as the border crosser crosses the border, new […] borders are created and crossed in the crosser’s own story, and in the story of the border itself’ (Schimanski 2006: 47)? What are the strategies that would enable nuanced interpretations of such representations (see Schimanski and Wolfe 2017)? We call for researchers and practitioners to submit proposals of up to 250 words for 20-minute presentations exploring border-crossings in literature, media and the arts. We also invite creative practitioners to submit performances, readings, (video) installations, and exhibitions, inter alia. The themes that can be explored include, but are not limited to: • Exilic, diasporic, migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking border crossers • Border-crossing, gender, and sexuality • Decolonial and postcolonial border-crossings • Border-crossing traumas • Border-crossing memories • Affective border-crossings • Border-crossing as an opportunity • Metaphorical, cultural, and linguistic border crossings Please submit your proposals to bordercrossing@uclan.ac.uk by 30th of June, 2022. References: Black, S. (2010), Fiction Across Borders: Imagining the Lives of Others in Late-Twentieth Century Fiction, New York : Columbia University Press. Chouliaraki, L. and T. Stolic (2017), ‘Rethinking Media Responsibility in the Refugee “Crisis:” A Visual Typology of European News’, Media, Culture & Society, 39(8):1162-77. Friedman, S. S. (2005), ‘Spatial Poetics and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things’, in J. Phelan and P. J. Rabinowitz (eds), A Companion to Narrative Theory, 192-205, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Jackson, J. (2014), Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication, London: Routledge. Martin, J.N. and Nakayama, T.K. (2008), Experiencing Intercultural Communication: An Introduction, New York: McGraw-Hill. Mignolo, D. W. (2011), The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options, New York: Duke University Press. Schimanski, J. (2006), ‘Crossing and Reading: Notes towards a Theory and Method’, Nordlit, 19: 41-63. Schimanski, J. and S. Wolfe (2007), ‘Entry Points: An Introduction’ in J. Schimanski and S. Wolfe (eds), Border Poetics De-Limited, 9-26, Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag. ____. (2013), ‘The Aesthetics of Borders’, in K. Aukrust (ed), Assigning Cultural Values, 235-250, Frankfurt: Peter Lang. ____. eds. (2017), Border Aesthetics: Concepts and Intersections, New York: Berghahn. Viljoen, H., ed. (2013), Crossing Borders, Dissolving Boundaries, Amsterdam: Rodopi. Wolfe, S. (2014), ‘Border Aesthetics/Border Works’, Nordlit, 31:1-5. * “’My strength, my comfort, my intense delight’: Women, Art and Lifewriting in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Universities Art Association of Canada annual conference Oct 27-29, University of Toronto. Deadline for abstracts: June 30. Like her contemporary Eugène Delacroix, British watercolourist Elizabeth Murray left the “West” in the early 1800s for the “Orient,” recording her adventures in extensive writings and images. However, while Delacroix’s journals and notebooks became widely celebrated, Murray’s account slid into obscurity—even though Delacroix’s journey lasted only six months and generated two articles, while Murray’s time in the region prompted her two-volume autobiography Sixteen Years of an Artist’s Life in Morocco, Spain, and the Canary Islands. Moreover, accounts by other women from that century—Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun; Elizabeth Butler—similarly languished, creating the sense that this era’s female artists neither left home nor published autobiographies. This panel aims to explode this misapprehension by convening discussions of lifewriting by women artists of the 1800s and earlier. We welcome proposals regarding all lifewriting forms (e.g. diaries, letters), with particular interest in accounts originating outside normative “Western” narratives, and/or regarding now-obscure autobiographies. Per standard practice, you need to join UAAC if your paper is accepted – but you don’t need to join to submit a proposal. Questions? creeve@ocadu.ca Application process and full conference CFP here. Charles Reeve OCAD University Chair, Liberal Studies Faculty of Arts & Science * CALL FOR PAPERS North-American Novelists’ Autobiographical Acts: Nonfictional Disruptions Aix-Marseilles University, 6/7 July 2023 Organizers: Sophie Vallas (Aix-Marseilles University, LERMA), Arnaud Schmitt (University of Bordeaux, CLIMAS) Deadline for Submissions June 30, 2022 Addressing the topic of autobiographical texts or memoirs published by novelists, what she calls “the literary writer’s autobiography,” Laura Marcus underlines that the reader’s awareness of the name and reputation of the author immediately confers a certain literary status on the autobiographical text: “Not all autobiographers are writers by profession, though there is a widespread assumption that the literary writer’s autobiography best defines the genre.” Far from the host of confessional memoirs, either by celebrities or unknown authors, a publishing phenomenon identified by Rockwell Gray as a “memoir boom” in his 1982 article “Autobiography Now,” and far from so-called autobiographical novels or autofictions which, according to Maurice Couturier, allowed many writers to “smuggle their own autobiographies,” this conference will focus on autobiographical texts—paratextually and unequivocally identified as such—published by American novelists, on “the literary writer’s autobiography” in other words, and on their influence on the perception of the overall work of their author. We will wonder how autobiographical acts happen, when they happen, in a career dominated by fiction, what their links with the fictional part of the work are or why they are often perceived as minor texts among a fictional body of major ones. Also, do they conjure up specific writing techniques, a separate creative space? The disruption caused by autobiographical texts in a literary work mostly devoted to the writing of fiction raises several questions concerning the artistic logic underlying them, the way they are embedded in the complete oeuvre of the author and the editorial and paratextual choices made for their publication. It often seems logical that authors should turn to life writing at the end of their career, an introspective act embracing their whole life, revisiting their own work. Mark Twain, who published a few chapters of his autobiography in the years prior to his death, decided nevertheless that its publication would be a posthumous act, a hundred years after his death more precisely (The Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2010). Other texts, also published late in their authors’ life, focus on the death of a relative or a friend while offering authors the opportunity to reflect on their own life, inexorably drawing to a close: Joan Didion’s autobiographical diptych, The Year of the Magical Thinking in 2005 (simultaneously mourning the death and celebrating the life of her husband, John Dunne) and Blue Nights in 2011 (doing the same for Didion’s adopted daughter, Quintana, who died in 2005), belongs to this crepuscular tradition in which writing almost amounts to issuing legal, performative acts standing for marriage, adoption, death. Such is also the case for Philip Roth’s Patrimony (1991). Conversely, some autobiographical texts herald the birth of an author: Paul Auster’s The Invention of Solitude (1982) delivered, in prose, the new voice of a poet and essayist who, from then on, would dedicate his career as a novelist to developing and fictionalizing many topics already present in this seminal memoir. Auster has gone on regularly publishing autobiographical narratives, each time revisiting his life from a different angle and adding new acts to the play of his life (The Red Notebook, 1995; Hand to Mouth, 1997; Winter Journal, 2012; Report from the Interior, 2013). For other autobiographical texts, what is at stake is less the moment when they get written, either at the beginning or at the end of a career, than their capacity of exploring the very art of their authors. In that case, they tend to exist as so many comments on the fictional works which they occasionally revisit. Joyce Carol Oates, for instance, has kept on analyzing the act of writing throughout the years ((Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities, 1974; The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art, 2003; A Widow’s Story. A Memoir, 2011; The Lost Landscape. A Writer’s Coming of Age, 2015). At the very opposite of Oates’ regular autobiographical practice, James Salter’s Burning the Days (1997) stands as a unique autobiographical text in a body of work otherwise entirely devoted to fiction, almost like a faulty act, even if the volume sounds like Salter’s powerful novels in terms of structure and voice, much to the delight of his readers. On the other hand, certain autobiographical texts, just like Richard Wright’s Black Boy (1945) for instance, can be seen as irreversible acts which eclipse the author’s fictional production. Philippe Lejeune once regretted that “the dirty habit of publishing diaries has resulted into most people writing their privacy while decked out in their very best attire.” Is a novelist, and even more so an established one, not tempted, indeed, to write their autobiography in their best array, drifting away from spontaneous, supposedly authentic autobiographical acts which tend to be nowadays published on social networks? Autobiography indeed involves an element of risk and exposure since it may, whether purposefully or not, allow the reader to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of fiction, and thus disrupt the construction of the figure of the author. Proposals may address, among other issues, the following: – The origin of the autobiographical act in a novelist’s career – The minor works/major works dialectics. – Stylistic specificities of autobiographical narratives versus fictional texts – The balance in an author’s oeuvre, and more specifically the place occupied by the autobiographical texts in the overall work – The reception of the autobiographical texts, often isolated or unknown – The dialogue between fictional and non-fictional texts within a work (Laura Marcus: “The literary writer’s autobiography also bears on, and frequently comments upon, his or her other works”) – The tools needed for analysis (similar, different?) to study the autobiographical texts – The persistence of a distance between the narrator and the author, even in an autobiographical text, similar to that embodied by the concept of implied narrator whose presence Jim Phelan, for example, detects even in referential texts such as Joan Didion’s The Year of MagicalThinking.

• Please submit an abstract of approx. 400 words and a short bionote to sophie.vallas@univ-amu.fr and arnaud.schmitt@u-bordeaux.fr by 30 June, 2022 at the latest.

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Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2022 Symposium, 5-6 August, 2022 Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter contact email: Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers From the Aurat March in Pakistan to the Shaheen Bagh protests in India, Muslim women have been at the forefront of political change and social upheaval, both in recent years and in the past. With Bangladeshi lawyer Sara Hossain as the recipient of the International Women of Courage Award in 2016 for reforming legislation on violence against women and Arooj Aftab as the first Pakistani woman to win a Grammy in 2022, these achievements are also not limited to any single sphere of cultural influence. And yet, the dominant narrative surrounding the experiences of Muslim women continues to focus on the oppressions they have faced, with little to no consideration given to the way they have overcome these challenges. As such, the category of ‘Muslim Woman’ has been essentialised in ethonographic, Orientalist and neo-liberal discourses since it began to be ‘studied’, a narrative that scholars and activists alike are seeking to challenge more and more every day. This essentialist discourse was recently highlighted across South Asia, thus proving the necessity of challenging such narratives. On March 15th 2022, the Karnataka High Court in India upheld a government order to deny entry to Muslim women who wear the hijab into educational institutions by ruling that the “hijab is not essential to Islam”. Two separate incidents of auctioning Muslim women online for ‘deals’ were reported within 8 months of each other between 2021-22 and the perpetrators of both were let off by the Delhi High Court on “humanitarian grounds”. In Sri Lanka, a similar anti-Muslim sentiment has been reverberating through the appeals of Buddhist monk group Bodu Bala Sena (BSS) to ban the burqa as a “sign of religious extremism”. Across the border in Pakistan, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) organised a ‘Hijab March’ in solidarity with the Muslim women in Karnataka in February 2022. Rather than focusing on freedom of choice, party leaders used the opportunity to take a stance against the Aurat March, an annual demonstration for women’s rights held across Pakistan on 8th March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Aurat March was, and is, constantly accused of violating haya (modesty), with particular reference made to“objectionable slogans” such as #MeraJismMeriMarzi. There is a long and often neglected history of Muslim women intervening in debates about ‘reform’, decolonisation and citizenship to assert their own interests and identities, pioneering the rise of feminist scholarship and activism in South Asia. From Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hosain to Kamila Shamsie, one can trace a history of Muslim women writers and thinkers who have fundamentally altered contemporary literary and political discourse. A careful examination of these narratives surrounding Muslim women’s intellectual and political existence validates the significant work of scholars like Shenila Khoja-Moolji and Yasmin Saikia, who have argued that attempts to emancipate Muslim women have had to contend with simultaneously imposing uniform, majoritarian models of femininity– whether it is colonial modernity or orthodox religiosity. Navigating these binaries of emancipation and oppression, Muslim women have carved their own identities to interrogate and subvert these categorisations. This symposium is an attempt to bring together scholars, thinkers, artists and activists to create such a discursive space for a timely conversation on Muslim women’s pasts and present. Each of our panels foregrounds the agential capacity of Muslim women in writing themselves and others, as they contend with shifting dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and caste, within and with relation to South Asia. This symposium hopes to disrupt the essentializing discourse on Muslim women’s identity by exploring the polyphonic nature of human subjectivities. Discussion topics may include but are not limited to:

• Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
• Protest, resistance, and activism
• Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
• Purdah, privacy and public discourse
• Marriage, family, and domesticity
• Technology; social media; cybercrime
• Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
• ‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
• Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
• Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
• Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

We invite established academics and early-career/PhD scholars within the fields of humanities and social sciences, and outside of these realms, as well as non-academic voices working on and representing Muslim women’s perspectives with reference to South Asia to present 20-minute papers, mixed-media presentations or any other forms of discussion on or around the above themes. Please send 300 word abstracts/presentation outlines including a short biography of not more than 100 words to tasavvurcollective@gmail.com. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st July 2022, and selected participants will be contacted with the final schedule by 15th July 2022. The symposium will be held online via Zoom on 5th-6th August 2022. Symposium organisers: Fatima Z. Naveed (University of Exeter), Sheelalipi Sahana (University of Edinburgh) and Zehra Kazmi (University of St. Andrews) of the Tasavvur Collective. Follow us on Twitter: @tasavvurcollect for updates. *

On (Re)Shaping Identity: Self-Portraiture and the Quotidian

PAMLA 2022 – Los Angeles, CA (November 11-13, 2022 – entirely in-person deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2022 Please contact presiding officer for this session, Ariana Lyriotakis, with any questions: lyriotaa@tcd.ie Special Session – CFP Persona and confessional poetry of the Postmodern period enact an undeniable relationship with the quotidian. But how do these poems explore a visual depiction and an expression of self-identity in ordinary life? This panel will explore the methods by which poets manipulate and reject aesthetic production in their poetry, while calling into question subjectivity and truthful composition. This special session will explore poetic self-portraiture and the shaping of identity within the bounds of the quotidian. John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is perhaps one of the more notable examples from this era; as a poetry firmly situated within the intermediality of poetic textual images and art, he addresses “the enchant of self with self” through personal depiction and aesthetic production. But what is revealed to the reader in these moments of vulnerability and self-appraisal? How can the poet be both subject and object, while constructing a poetic likeness amongst the commonplace? This panel seeks poetry of self-encounter, whether banal or familiar, to interrogate an inward/outward representation of the self within these constructs. Contributions are invited relating to any of the following aspects, as well as broader interpretations of the theme which may illuminate and elucidate in greater detail. Please be in touch if you have any questions or require further clarification.

• Depictions of the domestic and the visual
• Intermediality of poetic textual images and art
• Interrogations of the actual and the self
• Orality and performance in poetry
• Visuality of text and experimentation
• Mimesis and the composition of ordinary spaces
• Interdeterminacy and temporality

Abstracts must be submitted through the PAMLA website only. The web address for this session’s CFP is: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/18564 All panel participants/presenters must join PAMLA by July 1, 2022. https://pamla.ballastacademic.com CALL FOR PAPERS:  LIFE WRITING AS WORLD LITERATURE (book) Deadline for abstracts: July 1, 2022 Deadline for final essays: January 1, 2023 The series Literatures as World Literature by Bloomsbury Publishing aims to “take a novel approach to world literature by analyzing specific constellations — according to language, nation, form, or theme — of literary texts and authors in their own world-literary dimensions.” https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/series/literatures-as-world-literature/ The proposed volume will be dedicated to life writing. We use “life writing” as a broad term encompassing a wide variety of personal narratives. We also recognize the capaciousness of the term “world literature” and the accompanying challenges. By putting life writing and world literature into dialogue, we seek to explore their rich shared history, as well as new areas of research. Authors are encouraged to explore, among others the intersecting histories of the two fields debates in world literature concerning auto/biographical genres autobiographical texts outside the Western canons (East Asia, Latin America, Northern Africa, Middle East) autobiographical works as they move in translation through global contexts autobiographical works as they move across time and media (remediation, intermediality, etc.) the role of materiality in life writing visual narratives, new media, affective networks, and the role of life writing in participatory democracy autobiographical texts in “world literature” courses and in cultural diplomacy the role of autobiographical texts in eco or medical humanities the homogenizing effects of autobiographical technology and data bias Please submit abstracts of 350 words, along with a short bio, to the Editors: Helga Lenart-Cheng (hl4@stmarys-ca.edu) and Ioana Luca (ioana.luca@ntnu.edu.tw) by July 1, 2022. Helga Lenart-Cheng Associate Professor World Languages and Cultures Honors Program, Director Saint Mary’s College of California Book office hours here Forthcoming in 2022: Story Revolutions: Collective Narratives from the Enlightenment to the Digital Age *

Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:  July 1, 2022 Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter contact email: Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers From the Aurat March in Pakistan to the Shaheen Bagh protests in India, Muslim women have been at the forefront of political change and social upheaval, both in recent years and in the past. With Bangladeshi lawyer Sara Hossain as the recipient of the International Women of Courage Award in 2016 for reforming legislation on violence against women and Arooj Aftab as the first Pakistani woman to win a Grammy in 2022, these achievements are also not limited to any single sphere of cultural influence. And yet, the dominant narrative surrounding the experiences of Muslim women continues to focus on the oppressions they have faced, with little to no consideration given to the way they have overcome these challenges. As such, the category of ‘Muslim Woman’ has been essentialised in ethonographic, Orientalist and neo-liberal discourses since it began to be ‘studied’, a narrative that scholars and activists alike are seeking to challenge more and more every day. This essentialist discourse was recently highlighted across South Asia, thus proving the necessity of challenging such narratives. On March 15th 2022, the Karnataka High Court in India upheld a government order to deny entry to Muslim women who wear the hijab into educational institutions by ruling that the “hijab is not essential to Islam”. Two separate incidents of auctioning Muslim women online for ‘deals’ were reported within 8 months of each other between 2021-22 and the perpetrators of both were let off by the Delhi High Court on “humanitarian grounds”. In Sri Lanka, a similar anti-Muslim sentiment has been reverberating through the appeals of Buddhist monk group Bodu Bala Sena (BSS) to ban the burqa as a “sign of religious extremism”. Across the border in Pakistan, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) organised a ‘Hijab March’ in solidarity with the Muslim women in Karnataka in February 2022. Rather than focusing on freedom of choice, party leaders used the opportunity to take a stance against the Aurat March, an annual demonstration for women’s rights held across Pakistan on 8th March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Aurat March was, and is, constantly accused of violating haya (modesty), with particular reference made to“objectionable slogans” such as #MeraJismMeriMarzi. There is a long and often neglected history of Muslim women intervening in debates about ‘reform’, decolonisation and citizenship to assert their own interests and identities, pioneering the rise of feminist scholarship and activism in South Asia. From Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hosain to Kamila Shamsie, one can trace a history of Muslim women writers and thinkers who have fundamentally altered contemporary literary and political discourse. A careful examination of these narratives surrounding Muslim women’s intellectual and political existence validates the significant work of scholars like Shenila Khoja-Moolji and Yasmin Saikia, who have argued that attempts to emancipate Muslim women have had to contend with simultaneously imposing uniform, majoritarian models of femininity– whether it is colonial modernity or orthodox religiosity. Navigating these binaries of emancipation and oppression, Muslim women have carved their own identities to interrogate and subvert these categorisations. This symposium is an attempt to bring together scholars, thinkers, artists and activists to create such a discursive space for a timely conversation on Muslim women’s pasts and present. Each of our panels foregrounds the agential capacity of Muslim women in writing themselves and others, as they contend with shifting dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and caste, within and with relation to South Asia. This symposium hopes to disrupt the essentializing discourse on Muslim women’s identity by exploring the polyphonic nature of human subjectivities. Discussion topics may include but are not limited to:

• Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
• Protest, resistance, and activism
• Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
• Purdah, privacy and public discourse
• Marriage, family, and domesticity
• Technology; social media; cybercrime
• Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
• ‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
• Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
• Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
• Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

We invite established academics and early-career/PhD scholars within the fields of humanities and social sciences, and outside of these realms, as well as non-academic voices working on and representing Muslim women’s perspectives with reference to South Asia to present 20-minute papers, mixed-media presentations or any other forms of discussion on or around the above themes. Please send 300 word abstracts/presentation outlines including a short biography of not more than 100 words to tasavvurcollective@gmail.com. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st July 2022, and selected participants will be contacted with the final schedule by 15th July 2022. The symposium will be held online via Zoom on 5th-6th August 2022. Symposium organisers: Fatima Z. Naveed (University of Exeter), Sheelalipi Sahana (University of Edinburgh) and Zehra Kazmi (University of St. Andrews) of the Tasavvur Collective. Follow us on Twitter: @tasavvurcollect for updates.

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Deadline for Submissions: July 1, 2022

Reimagining #MeToo in South Asia And the Diaspora (Edited Collection of Essays)

Dr. Nidhi Shrivastava contact email: shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu This edited volume seeks to examine how sexual violence and feminist interventions in South Asia and the Diaspora have been articulated in the context of but, more importantly, in opposition to the #MeToo Movement. We seek to understand how the feminist movement has radically diverged from the assimilationist discourse of the #MeToo Movement and, consequently, the Global North. The #MeToo movement has not made an impact at the grassroots level because it is hinged on the victim-survivor to speak up. In an era where the Global North has been a model for influencing change in the Global South, there has been an inconspicuous absence of recognition and impact of the #MeToo Movement. In addition, survivors’ testimonies lie at the center of the #MeToo movement, which demystifies victim-shaming and victim-blaming, legitimizing the survivor’s testimony as the unquestionable truth. Since 2017, the #MeToo movement has been successful in the conviction of Harvey Weinstein, who was at the center of the landmark trial. The #MeToo has had a significant impact worldwide on how we understand sexual harassment, rape, and gendered violence, especially in the US. However, this global women’s movement has had little reach in South Asia, where access to virtual platforms is limited, and hashtags are still unknown. The #MeToo Movement in South Asia and the Diaspora was taken up briefly by the media and entertainment industry but has failed to make a concrete impact in many ways. This can be attributed to multiple reasons – there are several regionally specific movements, such as the 2009 Pink Chaddi Campaign and 2011 #WhyLoiter campaign, that have been radically popular within the sub-continent. In the South Asian context, such testimonies are still taboo, which leads to survivors refusing to share and relive their experiences/narratives even if they have the means and access. Therefore, our edited volume seeks to problematize the #MeToo movement in order to reimagine and contextualize it in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora as a much-needed intervention to examine the implications of a transnational feminist movement. We wish to explore questions such as: how the #MeToo movement can move away from Hollywood/Bollywood/workplace and elitist exclusivity. How can it be more inclusive of non-white and marginalized voices? In light of the ongoing and increasing gender-based violence occurring in South Asia and the diaspora, our edited volume will reflect on these questions as we seek to understand new ways of formulating complex and nuanced gendered subjectivities vis-à-vis the lens of post-colonial feminism and intersectionality. Our focus shifts away from the traditional approaches of victimization to generate dialogue and hopefully create a new platform to break the silence and encourage discomforting narratives to normalize conversations surrounding this pivotal issue. Themes include but are not limited to the following:

• Pedagogy and Transformative Learning via #MeToo in the Classroom
• Queer/LGBTQI+ Spaces within #MeToo
• New Masculinities
• Contemporary Gender Movements and Resistances
• Caste, Gender, Class, and Social Spaces
• Problematization of #MeToo and ‘Speaking Up’
• New Modalities of Testimonies
• Resistance and Digital Feminist Interventions
• New Feminist Mediations
• Militarized Feminist Modernities
• Ageism
• Viral Videos
• Censorship, Cultural Production, and Minority Literature
• Mythologies, Legends, and Sexuality

We welcome informal queries, and potential contributors may submit a 500-750 word abstract and 2 page CV by July 1, 2022. Please direct queries to Dr Nidhi Shrivastava (Sacred Heart University), shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu, Dr Ruma Sinha (Syracuse University), rumas1@gmail.com, and Dr Billie T. Guarino (Jamia Milia Islamia), thoidingjam@gmail.com. Acceptance of the final articles is subject to double-blind peer review. The final deadline for submitting 5,000- 6,000-word articles will be November 15, 2022 Deadline for Proposals June 20, 2022 Autobiography: a matter of geometry?XXI International Symposium of the Scientific Observatoryfor Written, Oral and Iconographic Autobiographical Memory, organized by: Mediapolis.Europa, cultural association http://mediapoliseuropa.com/ and Mnemosyne, o la costruzione del senso, Presses universitaires de Louvain https://pul.uclouvain.be/review/Rome (Italy), 2, 3, 4 November 2022 This call for papers aims to invite proposals that examine the relationship between a subject who narrates him/herself and the spatial dimension. This is not about seeing oneself in space, or casting a glance on space, but presenting oneself through a mental space. The subject can choose an omniscient or a partial vision, can interpose obstacles by asking questions on his/her identity, can find a way of observing him/herself from the outside. This call for papers intends to consider not fictional works but rather autobiographical ones. Under the register of fiction, the category of space has in fact many points of reference that can be inscribed into defined pathways: think of the themes of wandering, nomadic thought, utopia (u-topos: non-place), Foucault’s discourse on heterotopia, Kafka’s vision, and much more. The autobiographical pact, which remains a fixed point, obliges one to take existential responsibility as a single focal point. (Ph. Lejeune, 1975). In archaic Latin, the word existence means exsistere, ex + sistere. According to the Enciclopedia Treccani, in the language of philosophy, it is the state of every reality as it is, or, specifically, the state of a reality that can be the object of a sensory experience. In our case, this means that the subject that recounts his/her own existence chooses a place in which to situate, envision, project, pro-ject him/herself. For those who engage in their own autobiography, the complexity lies in being able to avail of an external eye. In Life of Hernri Brulard, Stendhal writes: “… what eye can see itself?” At the beginning of the 20th century, the expression biography of self underscores the distancing taken by the writer from him/herself. Dostoevsky talks about self-accounting regarding his novel The Double (1846). In the past fifty years, many video artists have focused their research on the use of video as an external eye. They have intended to contrast the vision that, beginning from the Renaissance, had wanted to objectivise space; according to Christine Van Assche, the point of view of the spectator [N.B.: stimulated by some work of video art] is no longer the single and unperturbed point of view of the observer of Brunelleschi’s ‘tablet’; it is already perturbed, unstable, moving, but inevitably, physically, psychologically, and intellectually active. Van Assche refers to Rosalind Krauss’ essay The Aesthetics of Narcissism (1976). On this matter, see also issue n. 48 (1988) of Communication. The theme of defining the subject’s mental space is at the heart of a significant part of contemporary art and particularly video art.   The longitude and latitude of the self ‘Super-ego, subconscious, to emerge, to remove’ are words that highlight the subject’s vertical position in space. Psychoanalysis has given prominence to this geometry of the psyche. Freud compares memory to the stratification of Roman excavations, an archaeology of memory (Civilization and Its Discontents [1930]). The subject’s relationship to space is one of the dominant themes, the very focal point, of existentialism, which, beginning with Kierkegaard, crosses our contemporaneity. In the chapter “The subjective truth, inwardness; truth is subjectivity” in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Crumbs (2009 [1846]), Kierkegaard places inwardness at the centre, which is a choice, a path, a posture, a centripetal movement. Even supposing an objective reality, to give a meaning to our cosmos, to our cosmoi, everything then returns to subjectivity: “for as Hamlet says, existence and non-existence have only subjective significance.” (2009 [1846], p. 163). The I = I (which comes from Fichte), is a constant in Kierkegaard’s thinking, which connects the subject’s identity to a permanent inward movement.  The Swiss psychiatrist Binswanger (1881-1966), defines Kierkegaard’s conception as ‘passion of inwardness’, meaning that one can assume oneself only beginning from within oneself. As already said, Kierkegaard insists upon the term ‘existence’ by underscoring how the self and only the self is in its isolation, in its being acontextual, it can determine itself by leaving external interferences at the margins. Little by little, Binswanger, a staunch follower of Kirkegaard, will come to Heidegger. Observing patients’ language and behaviour, he examines the “basic forms and perception of human Dasein” (1942), noting the importance of space in the vision that patients have of themselves. Binswanger observes that, in order to describe themselves, patients closely connect bodily sensitivity and affectivity to space. Thus Binswanger orients himself towards a method that he calls Daseinsanalysis, a term that clearly refers to Heiddeger’s Dasein. Heidegger writes: “Space is not in the subject, nor is the world in space. Space is rather ‘in’ the world in so far as space has been disclosed by that Being-in-the-world which is constitutive of Dasein. Space is not to be found in the subject, nor does the subject observe the world ‘as if’ that world were in a space; but the ‘subject’ (Dasein), if well understood ontologically, is spatial.” (Being and Time, 1972 [1927], p.145, Paragraph 24, “Space and Dasein’s Spatiality”). This way of thinking about space will represent a change compared to all previous philosophy, and it will be only the beginning of a series of reflections on the subject-space relationship. Sartre, Merleu-Ponty, Camus will undertake to develop aspects that go beyond Heidegger’s ontological discourse.   The space of the subject in language  In childhood and in pathological psychic states, it is through awareness of space that one manifests oneself. In The Psychology of Intelligence, Jean Piaget explains that space is a primary category of consciousness in children’s thinking (1967). “To bring back to earth” or “to be over the moon” are expressions of our Dasein, our existence. And even though myths and poetry allow us – through a universalizing metaphorical language – sensations, feelings, psychic experiences, the self nonetheless remains the original subject of what climbs or falls. (L. Binswanger 2012, p. 42). Binswanger, who starts from Heidegger, moves away from the latter’s ontological conception, which is his own, to immerse it in concrete cases. A whole vocabulary situates in space the acts of the patient’s dasein: vertiginous height, climbing, aerial altitude, the infinite, etc. (L. Binswanger 1971, pp. 237-245).   Some linguistic expressions reveal how the self situates itself in the space that it constantly places in relation to his/her own persona. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (2003 [1980]), in Metaphors We Live By (see paragraph “The ME-FIRST Orientation”], show how our way of recounting is modelled on a way of thinking in which the concept of up wins over that of down, front always precedes back, and here precedes there (Ibid., pp. 132-133). A whole cultural conception governs these forms of expression, in which the individual regards him/herself as at the epicentre in relation to the surrounding world that he/she modulates. The order of words was studied by William E. Cooper and John Robert Ross, 1975, World Order.   The subject’s framing of the world  Man frames the world and frames himself in the world. A metalanguage interprets the subject’s framing of the world, as Lotman writes. In particular, he talks about this in two essays on, respectively, the problem of artistic space in Gogol’s prose and the semiotics of cultural space, 1975 [1968]. The writing on Gogol constitutes an important methodological reference. The extremization of a longitudinal contextualization of existence is described by Borges in a paradoxical manner: “So complex is reality, and so fragmentary and simplified is history, that an omniscient observer could write an indefinite, almost infinite, number of biographies of a man, each emphasizing different facts; we would have to read many of them before we realized that the protagonist was the same”. (1974 [1943]. Borges highlights how, by longitudinally crossing a life, each time choosing only one aspect and ignoring the others, we would find ourself before many parallel lives of a single person. This reflection could be transposed as it is to autobiographical writing. Borges shows how fragile a linear description of existence is. In Lines–A brief history (2007), Tim Ingold calls ‘ghostly lines’ those that derive from abstractions and constitute points of reference in various cultures, especially the Western one. These lines have neither consistency nor colour (as a furrow in agriculture could be, for example). It is especially beginning from Euclid that the idea of the straight line dominates visual perception, from which geometric perspective will derive, which insists on presenting reality in a unidirectional manner. (2007, p. 159). Tim Ingold says that when we look at a starry sky, for example, we define the constellations of the stars by connecting them through abstract lines until we imagine structured figures. (Ibid., p. 49). This is completely normal in our Western vision. Moreover, the conviction that history is evolutionary has generated genealogical trees in which past generations, instead of being brought back to the roots, are placed on the branches. Instead of a lineage as it was in the representation of ancestors in ancient Rome, our Western civilization has created an upward progression, towards the future. (Ibid., pp. 104-109).   Lotman observes how, in the military field, front line is a watchword, an anticipatory geometry. And yet, those who experience war realize the difficulties in finding this vision, this geometry, in concrete experience. In the short autobiography Non-Memoirs (2001 [1994]) on the war years spent on different Soviet fronts, Lotman writes that it is difficult to write about war because only those who have never been to war know what it is. He argues that is like describing a huge space with no precise boundaries and no internal unity, pointing out that there is one war in winter and another in spring; one during retreat and another during defence and offence; one in the day and one at night; one in the infantry, another in the artillery, and a third one in the aviation; one for the soldier and another for the journalist arriving at the front. (Ibid., p. 50-51). In other words, the meaning that the individual and the community attribute to space is the result of processes of mutual semantization.   Marginalia and opacity  Authors and writers can choose particular habitats to avoid situating themselves and being seen in spaces that are, so to speak, conventional. We consider only two examples: Edgar Allan Poe’s Marginalia and Rousseau’s Confessions as seen by Starobinski in his book La transparence et l’obstacle. At the beginning of Marginalia (1844), Edgar Allan Poe writes: “In getting my books, I have always been solicitous of an ample margin; this not so much through any love of the thing in itself, however agreeable, as for the facility it affords me of pencilling suggested thoughts, agreements and differences of opinion, or brief critical comments in general.” And further on: “In the marginalia, too, we talk only to ourselves; we therefore talk freshly – boldly – originally – with abandonment – without conceit”. [Bold is ours]. To put events into perspective also means to omit, to put aside spaces and aspects of one’s own life. Just as Starobinski highlights regarding Rousseau’s Confessions. It is possible to play with transparency (to see everything) and the obstacle. Starobinski calls this strategy Poppaea’s veil. Tacitus writes about Poppaea: “Her conversation was charming and her wit anything but dull. She professed virtue, while she practised laxity. Seldom did she appear in public, and it was always with her face partly veiled, either to disappoint men’s gaze or to set off her beauty.” Annals XIII, 45. Poppaea did not want to conceal herself, she wanted to be glimpsed. A painting by an unknown artist from the School of Fontainebleau (1550-1560), in the MAH Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva, 1839, shows Sabina Poppaea wrapped in gauze, in a falsely modest pose. Starobinski wrote a long introduction to L’oeil vivant (1961), “Le voile de Poppée”, in which he argues that it is possible to intentionally interpose obstacles to the space of communication with the other, pointing out that that which is hidden is the other face of a presence. He asserts that Poppaea’s veil, which is both an obstacle and an interposed sign, generates an alienated perfection that, through her own escape, demands to be retrieved through our desire. By virtue of the interdiction posed by the obstacle, he continues, there appears a whole depth that passes as essential. He goes on to argue that fascination emanates from a real presence that forces us to prefer what she dissimulates, the remoteness that she prevents us from understanding, at the very moment in which she offers herself. (Ibid., p. 10). Starobinski’s subtle analysis takes into account our mental spaces, how they are constructed. Another important aspect concerns the influence on the construction of mental space due to circumstances less strictly subjective, so to speak: Foucault’s analysis of heterotopia (see Conference, 14 May 1967, Paris); the writings of Deleuze and Guattari on the concept of deterritorialization (1975) – ideas that allows us to understand the incidence of culture on the way of individually conceiving space. In conclusion: if for Kierkegaard, come what may, introspection will never be a matter of geography, yet we know that conceiving oneself in space is certainly different for an American Indian, or an Eskimo, or a New Yorker. As Henri Lefèvre’s studies indicate, mental space does not correspond to either knowledge in space, or on space; that is, mental space is not external to the subject (1968). And yet, this individuality of mental space, as Lefèvre illustrates, is the long-term result of our interaction with the world and exposure to the universe, to the semiosphere, in which we find ourself living.   Bibliographic references  -Beatrice Barbalato, 2018, “Le ‘FRONT’ sémantique de Non-memorie de Lotman”, 61-77. in (ed.) Cathérine Gravet, and al., with Serge Deruette, Pierre Gillis, Katherine Rondou, Cahiers Internationaux de Symbolisme, n. 149-150-151. -Raymond Bellour, Anne Marie Duguet, (dir.), 1988, Vidéo, Communication n. 48. -Ludwig Binswanger, 1942, Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschliche Daseins, Zurich, Niehans. – Introduction à l’analyse existentielle, 1971, translated from the German by J. Verdeaux and Roland Kuhn, preface by R. Kuhn and Henri Maldiney. – Rêve et existence, 2012 [1930], translation and introduction by Françoise Dastur, afterword by E. Basso, Paris, Vrin. -Caterina Borelli, 2018, «The House He Built : autobiografia in una casa», in B. Barbalato (dir.), Auto/biographie, polyphonie, plurivocalité, Mnemosyne n. 11, PuL, Presses universitaires de Louvain. https://ojs.uclouvain.be/index.php/Mnemosyne/article/view/14123 -Jorge Luis Borges, “On William Beckford’s Vathek” [1943] https://www.gwern.net/docs/borges/1943-borges-onwilliambeckfordsvathek.pdf -William Cooper and John Robert Ross, 1975, “World order”, pp. 63–111, R. E. Grossman and al. (eds.), Papers from the parasession on functionalism, Chicago, Chicago Linguistic Society. -Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari 1975, Capitalisme et schizophrénie-L’AntiOedipe, v. I, Parigi, Éditions du Minuit. -Michel Foucault 2004 [1967], Des espaces autres, 12-19, Érès “Empan” 2004/2, n. 54. -Sigmund Freud, first published in 1930, Civilization and Its Discontents, translation by James Strachey, https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/FreudS-CIVILIZATION-AND-ITS-DISCONTENTS-text-final.pdf -Martin Heidegger, 1972 [1927], Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd. -Tim Ingold 2007, Lines – A brief history, London-New York, Routledge. https://taskscape.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/lines-a-brief-history.pdf -Søren Kierkegaard, 2009 [1847], “The subjective truth, inwardness; truth is subjectivity,” p. 163, in Conclusive Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Crumbs, edited and translated by Alistair Hannay, Cambridge University Press. -Rosalind Krauss 1976, The Aesthetics of Narcissism, Cambridge. -Georges Lakoff, Mark Johnson, 2003 [1980], Metaphors We Live By, Chicago-London, The University of Chicago Press. -Henri Lefèvre, 1974, La production de l’espace, Paris, Anthropos. -Philippe Lejeune, Le pacte autobiographique, Paris, Seuil, 1975. -Yuri M. Lotman, 1975 [1968], “Semiotica dello spazio culturale”, 143-248, “Il problema dello spazio artistico in Gogol”, 193-248, translated by Sergio Molinari, in J. M. Lotman and Boris A. Uspenskij, Tipologia della cultura, edited by Remo Faccani and Marzio Marzaduri, translated from the Russian into Italian by Manila Barbato Faccani, Remo Faccani, Marzio Marzaduri, Sergio Molinari, Milano, Bompiani. -, 2001 [1994], Non-Memorie, Silvia Burini and Alessandro Niero (edited and translated), introduction by Maria Corti, Novara, Interlinea. Original Russian text “Ne-memuary”, 1994, in Lotmanovskij sbornik, I-C-Garant, Moscow. -Jean Piaget, “L’élaboration de la pensée”, pp. 129-165, in Ibid., La psychologie de l’intelligence, Paris, Colin, 1967. -Edgar Allan Poe, «Marginalia part I», 1844-1849, United States Magazine and Democratic Review, November 1844. http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/marg.pdf -Tacitus, Annals, from Tacitus, Complete Works of Tacitus, Alfred John Church, William Jackson Brodribb, Sara Bryant, edited for Perseus, New York. Random House, Inc., reprinted 1942. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D13%3Achapter%3D45 -Christine Van Assche 1992, Une histoire de vidéo, introduction to the catalogue of Musée d’Art moderne du Centre Pompidou, Vidéo et après, Paris, Éditions Carré.   Scientific Committee Beatrice BARBALATO, Mediapolis.Europa  May CHEHAB, Université de Chypre Fabio CISMONDI, Euro Fusion Antonio CASTILLO GÓMEZ, Univ. d’Alcalà de Henares Françoise HIRAUX, Univ. cath. de Louvain Giulia PELILLO-HESTERMEYER, Universität Heidelberg Anna TYLUSIŃSKA-KOWALSKA, Uniwersytet Warszawski Organization Irene MELICIANI, managing director Mediapolis.Europa   Symposium – Rome 2, 3, 4 November 2022Autobiography: a matter of geometry?Enrolments LANGUAGES ADMITTED FOR THE INTERVENTIONS: English, French, Italian, Spanish. Every speaker will speak in their chosen language; there will be no simultaneous translation. A rough passive understanding would be desirable. A) The deadline for the submission of papers is 20 June 2022. Candidates are asked to present an abstract of up to 250 words, with citation of two reference texts, and a brief curriculum vitae of up to 100 words, with possible mention of two publications, be they articles or books. These must be submitted online on the conference registration page of the http://mediapoliseuropa.com/ Website. The scientific committee will read and select every proposal that will be sent to the conference registration page of the http://mediapoliseuropa.com/ Website. For information, please contact the following: beatrice.barbalato@gmail.com, irenemeliciani@gmail.com. Notification of the accepted proposals will be given on 30 June 2022.   B) In regard to enrolment in the colloquium, once the proposal is accepted the fees are the following: Before 30 July 2022: 110,00€ From 1 to 30 August 2022: 130,00€ Enrolment cannot be accepted in loco. Ph.D. students: Before 30 July 2022: 75,00€ From 1 to 30 August 2022: 90,00€ Enrolment cannot be accepted in loco. Participation only 30,00 €   Virtual: All conference activities will be available through our webinar format. You will receive the conference link through the email address you provide in your registration. A) For information on registration fees, past symposia, the association’s activities, and the organising and scientific teams, please refer to our website:  http://mediapoliseuropa.com/ The association Mediapolis.Europa contributes to the publication of the journal Mnemosyne, o la costruzione del senso, Presses universitaires de Louvain, www.i6doc.com. Indexed as a scientific journal in: https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/erihplus/periodical/info?id=488665 Deadline for Application June 15, 2022

Vacancy for PhD researcher: “Broadcast Biographies. Innovations in Genre and Medium (1945-2020)”

by Birgit Van Puymbroeck The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Faculty of Languages and Humanities, Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies, is looking for a four-year full-time PhD researcher in the field of literary studies as part of the FWO funded research project “Broadcast Biographies. Innovations in Genre and Medium (1945-2020)”. 1. Project This project is situated at the intersection of life writing, literary radio studies and cultural memory studies. It examines the literary radio biography in Britain and (West-)Germany in the period 1945-2020 along three complementary lines: its production and reception history, its genre and media conventions and its cultural memory function. Despite the rich history of biographical writing on and for radio, little research exists on the radio biography as genre, let alone on its role as a potential catalyst for genre and media innovation. Neither the vast scholarship on life writing nor the field of radio studies have paid systematic attention to biographies created specifically for radio. Still, as this project aims to show, the radio biography gives us a unique insight in the ongoing mediation of life narratives and the history of radio itself. By writing lives for the radio, literary authors such as Alfred Andersch, Martin Esslin, Gerhard Rühm, Angela Carter and Tom Stoppard also chronicle the life of radio itself, reflecting on the possibilities and limits of both genre and medium. In this project, we mainly focus on productions by (post)modernist and neo-avant-garde authors. We aim to study the genre and function of the broadcast biography, including its role in the transnational exchange between the two central national broadcasting cultures in this project. 2. Position We offer a four-year full-time PhD position (subject to annual positive evaluation). The successful candidate will carry out the project as a doctoral researcher in close collaboration with the two supervisors at the Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossing (CLIC) at VUB (https://clic.research.vub.be/en/home). The candidate will write a doctoral dissertation on the subject of the radio biography, carry out archival work on selected authors and productions (in the UK and Germany), (co-)publish the results of the research in academic articles and books, present at national and international conferences and co-host scientific meetings. The candidate will complete the doctoral training programme of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at VUB (https://student.vub.be/en/phd/doctoral-training#doctoral-schools) and is expected to defend their doctoral dissertation in 2026. Please be aware that the position requires you to be present in the department on a regular basis (3 days per week). 3. Profile

• You hold a master’s degree in (literature in) English, (literature in) German, comparative literature (or a comparable degree) or you will have obtained this by the start date of this position.
• You demonstrate excellent study results. Previous academic experience (publications, conference presentations, etc.) will be considered an asset.
• You have a demonstrable interest in twentieth-century and/or contemporary literature, life writing, biography studies, literary radio studies, sound studies, media history or cultural memory studies. Previous experience with archival research will be considered an asset.
• You are an enthusiastic researcher, capable of conducting research both independently and in team.
• You are willing to conduct research stays abroad in function of archival research and knowledge exchange.
• You act in accordance with the rules regarding scientific integrity, as described in the VUB charter for researchers: https://www.vub.be/en/violations-of-scientific-integrityinbreuken-op-wetenschappelijke-integriteit#information-in-english`
• You have excellent academic English-language skills (oral and written). A good command of the German language is highly desirable.

4. Offer

• We offer a four-year full-time doctoral position (requiring enrolment as a doctoral student at VUB), subject to an annual positive evaluation.
• The planned starting date is 1 September 2022, or as soon as possible thereafter.
• You will receive a salary in one of the grades defined by the Belgian government. Depending on previous professional experience, the monthly tax-free salary varies from approx. € 2541 to max. € 2704 (EU staff) / approx. € 2318 to max. € 2466 (non-EU staff). In addition, you are provided with a shared office space and work laptop, library access, social and health benefits, and free access to Belgian public transport for your commute to campus.
• As an employee of VUB, you will work in a dynamic, diverse, and multilingual environment. For this function, VUB’s Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Etterbeek) will serve as your home base. Our campus is a green oasis in the capital city of Flanders, Belgium, and Europe, and has an excellent restaurant and extensive sport facilities. It is within easy reach (twenty minutes by public transport) of the city centre of Brussels and has a direct train connection to Brussels National Airport. Childcare facilities are to be found within walking distance.
• For more information on what it is like to work at VUB, go to www.vub.ac.be/en/jobs.

5. Application procedure Applications should include (in one PDF file): (1) a cover/motivation letter; (2) your academic CV with details about your bachelor and master qualifications (including grades) and your previous academic experience (if applicable); (3) a short text on how you envisage your contribution to the project, especially the doctoral dissertation that you would be working on (max. 1000 words). Please mention your approach, research question and potential cases; (4) the names of two referees. Also include (in a separate PDF file) a writing sample (e.g. your MA thesis, a research paper or academic article). Clearly mention your name on your writing sample. Please send your application by e-mail to both supervisors, Prof. dr. Inge Arteel (Inge.Arteel@vub.be) and Prof. dr. Birgit Van Puymbroeck (birgit.van.puymbroeck@vub.be). The deadline is 15 June 2022 (midnight, CET). Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed in the week of 4 July 2022 on the Humanities Campus of Vrije Universiteit Brussel or online. If you have any questions, please contact Inge.Arteel@vub.be or birgit.van.puymbroeck@vub.be. Deadline for Submissions June 15, 2022

Call for Book Chapters: “Narrative medicine: trauma and ethics”

Deadline: June 15, 2022 Vernon Press invites book chapter proposals to be included in a forthcoming scholarly volume on “Narrative medicine: trauma and ethics” edited by associate professor Anders Juhl Rasmussen and professor, MD, Morten Sodemann, University of Southern Denmark. Narrative medicine is a scholarly discipline based on narrative theory, close reading, phenomenological inquiry, and creative writing that fortifies clinical practices of all health disciplines with ways to honor the stories of people who seek and give care. Narrative medicine was created at Columbia University in 2000, and through partnerships the field has giving rise to narrative medicine courses worldwide that give students and clinicians the opportunity to read, write, and reflect on clinical experiences. In recent years, new art-based intervention studies with patients have evolved under the same heading as “system narrative medicine”. Narrative ethics was introduced in the 1990’s, and shared decision making in ethical dilemmas will always have a crucial role in narrative medicine. This book seeks to ask broad questions about how traumas are narrated and known, how they are conceived in society trough art and treated in the health care system by methods of narrative medicine. These kinds of trauma could be adverse childhood events, sexual abuse, natural disasters, or trauma related to armed conflict, terrorism, persecution, etc. We welcome proposals that are interdisciplinary in nature and can come from disciplines that include literary studies, cultural studies, media studies, anthropology, psychology, psychoanalysis, history, philosophy, sociology, etc. We seek book chapters that range from approximately 5000-6000 words in length to include in this edited collection. We invite chapter proposals that explore a wide variety of topics such as: – to what extend can traumatic events be narrated, known, and measured? – how does narratives in art shape commonly held beliefs in society about e.g. rape trauma? – how may clinicians learn to ethically encounter trauma patients through literature? – could an adoption of Trauma Informed Care practices supplement narrative medicine? – how can art-based intervention studies address shared decision making with trauma patients, e.g. in ethical dilemmas? – in which way can creative/expressive writing and close/shared reading help patients heal or repair from trauma? Please send a 300-word abstract, project title, and a brief bio in English to Anders Juhl Rasmussen and Morten Sodemann (Volume Editors) at: ajr@sdu.dk and msodemann@health.du.dk  by June 15, 2022. Contact Info: Anders Juhl Rasmussen and Morten Sodemann (Volume Editors) at ajr@sdu.dk and msodemann@health.du.dk Contact Email: ajr@sdu.dk Deadline for Submissions–between March 1 and June 1, 2022 Dear colleagues,   We are pleased to announce the call for papers to the dossier The auto/biographical space in university culture and extension, of the Revista UFG. Revista UFG is an international refereed journal based on the Federal University of Goiás, in Brazil, aimed at diffusion studies on different areas of knowledge applied to social practices, focusing on culture and extension at universities. Revista UFG welcomes article manuscripts, reviews, and visual essays submissions from all fields, including works from multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary areas.   The present call for papers departs from a critical-reflective movement that permeated many university practices since the pandemics, raising questions about individuals, groups, and institutions’ roles in teaching, research, and culture connected to communities beyond the academy. Creating spaces for active listening and sharing stories at the university has become essential in searching for innovative solutions and transformative narratives that may contribute to social justice and change beyond the university’s walls. This dossier welcomes reflections and expressions that stimulate the imagination about possible futures for post-pandemic university practices. We encourage texts departing from what we have learned so far, considering subjectivities, perceptions, and life stories that may point out other ways of doing and being in/with the world.   >> Submissions: from 1st March to 1st June 2022 >> Modalities: Articles, Essays, Reviews, Visual Essays >> Guidelines for submissions: https://www.revistas.ufg.br/revistaufg/about/submissions (please, on the website, click on the options on the right-side column for accessing translated content in English, Spanish or Portuguese).   If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward to receiving your submissions. Best, Manoela dos Anjos Afonso Rodrigues – UFG (manoelaafonso@ufg.br) Cláudia Mariza Mattos Brandão – UFPel (claummattos@gmail.com) * ReStorying Ageing: Older Women and Life Writing May 24^th, 2-6pm (Irish time; GMT+1), via Zoom (Booking link below) This webinar brings together researchers, writers and the public as part of the Bealtaine Festival 2022. Through presentations, discussions and readings, the online event will explore the empowering potential of women’s creativity and life writing, and the importance of recognising the diversity of women’s experiences as they grow older, experiences which are so often stereotyped in literature and culture. Speakers: Ashton Applewhite, Prof. Molly Andrews, Dr Mary McGill, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Dr Áine Ní Léime, Helen O’Rahilly, & participants from a life writing workshop for women aged 50 and older. Organisers: Dr Michaela Schrage-Frueh (School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, NUI Galway), Dr Maggie O’Neill (Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway) and Karen Hanrahan (University of Brighton / Moore Institute), in partnership with Age & Opportunity and with funding from the Irish Research Council. Attendance is free but booking is essential: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/restorying-ageing-older-women-and-life-writing-tickets-311983570257 *

In the Spaces Provided: Career Narratives and Academic Womanhood

Advance Contract: Routledge Press, Series in Auto/biography Studies Deadline for abstract: June 1st, 2022 Contact: ortiz@tcnj.edu In her introduction to Essays in Life Writing, Marlene Kadar suggests that self-expressive life writing can invite readers into the overwhelming “too muchness” of the subject’s life.[i] Career construction specialist, Larry Cochrane finds that the more functional career narrative minimizes the life story that individuals “may want and need to tell” in favor of articulating and promoting an academic brand. As Cochran quips, scholars must leave out “all that would captivate us in a good autobiography.”[ii] Ultimately, these two forms of self-representation are made to face opposite directions and academics are socialized to believe that these genres cannot trust one another. This thinking is more harmful than helpful for women academics who stand to benefit from inserting themselves into their work as a means to transform the historically male-defined terms upon which their disciplines and the profession at large have been built. As Alison Black rightly asserts of career narratives, “There is a richness to [women’s] individual experiences and stories that must not be reduced. From these can emerge a collective vision that speaks to our individual, emotional and embodied lives – lives which the neoliberal university too oft deems insignificant”[iii] In the Spaces Provided is an edited collection of auto-theoretical essays by women life writing scholars who explore their early-career, mid-career, late-career, and “alt-career” experiences with the documents that shape their professional careers: the institutional auto/biography of employment letters, curriculum vitae, tenure portfolios, promotion dossiers, professional bios, academic website profiles, and other self-authored narratives required by institutions to self-promote for opportunities and resources. I am seeking a diverse range of expert considerations of how life writing theory and practice enable our thinking about access to the highly regulated spaces of self-construction in academic career documentation. Contributors are invited to turn the lenses of life writing theory and methodology inward as self-aware subjects negotiating frameworks for writing and reviewing self-authored academic career documents. I encourage contributions that model a range of theoretical moves for exposing and subverting the traps of self-representation the repressive norms of professional review in which explorations of personhood – including experiences of gender, ability, sexuality, age, nationhood, race, and class – are inhibited. I invite contributions attuned to engagements with:

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[i] Kadar, Marlene. Essays on Life Writing: From Genre to Critical Practice. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1992, 4. [ii] Cochran, Larry R. “Narrative as a Paradigm for Career Research.” Methodological Approaches to the Study of Career, Richard A. Young and William Borgen, eds., New York: Praeger. 1990, 71-86. [iii] Black, Alison, “Women Activating Agency in Academia: Metaphors, Manifestos and Memoir, Alison L. Black and Susanne Garvis, eds., New York: Routledge, 25. Dr. Lisa Ortiz-Vilarelle [Pronouns: she/her/hers] Professor of English, The College of New Jersey Fulbright Research Chair in Society and Culture, Univ of Alberta, 2021-22 * Call for Papers Reading old age, the ageing body and memory in British and American literature and texts of culture Special Issue, The Polish Journal of English Studies Deadline for Submissions, June 1, 2022 Age studies point to all life stages as culturally and historically idiosyncratic, and complicated even more by various intersectional perspectives. Within this age(s)-focused field of analysis, humanistic and critical gerontologists as well as historians of old age issued an ardent call to redefine old age as equally ephemeral and multi-layered as any other life stage. Addressing the existing studies of the formative and foundational quality of youth and adulthood, gerontologists of various subdisciplines objected to seeing old age as simply the end of life, and to defining it as a precise point in time rather than a nebulous period with no exact opening temporal bracket. Thane (2000) in particular stressed the difficulty in defining old age in term of chronology only, proposing to view it as a functional and cultural category as well. More precisely, scholars noted, one is sooner made (to feel) old by culture and society than one perceives oneself as being such. Consequently, even if it is an essentially intimate and embodied lived experience, old age must be seen as an experience with a set of socio-cultural prescriptive and proscriptive rules of conduct and decorum as well as social sanctions and rewards. Addressing all of said emerging conceptual recalibrations, Gullette claimed that indeed age “could be the next analytic and hermeneutic concept to make cutting-edge difference” (2004: 106) in humanist research. . Having specifically worked on middle and old age in her research, she further noted that, just like with other necessary intersectionalities, to talk about ageing is to keep unravelling and disentangling “the din of representations, unseen internalizations, [and] unthinking practices” (Gullette 2004: 27). Old age can then be seen as simultaneously ”the culmination or the dreary denouement of life’s drama” (Cole 2006: xx), written as somatic and mental narratives of decline (Gullette 1997) as well as the most meaningful moment of human existence, “a time for recapitulating, connecting part to part, re-membering” (Carson 1987: xii), leading to wisdom only allowed to the members of this in-group. From such a dialectic other questions are engendered: Do we with age become the embodied repositories of knowledge and guardians of traditions? Do we need to properly perform old age as the various gerontideologies socialize us to do (Mangan 2013)? Are we our ageing bodies? How do our auto/self-narratives change with age? Can we “read the beginning in the end and the end in the beginning” (Baars 2016: 82)? This themed volume aims to critically address and further identify the meaning(s) behind and potentialities of old age and ageing. As growing and/or being old are not only subjective and embodied experiences but also socio-cultural phenomena, the points of departure in this collection are the three fundamentals in gerontological research: 1) old age, 2) the (ageing) body and 3) memory, the latter understood not only as recollecting one’s spatio-temporal past but, in particular, re-membering one’s somatic “past-ness”. Such intertwining of old age with memory inevitably invites studies of nostalgia, seen as both positive and negative approaches to and perceptions of one’s embodied past. We thus welcome papers that engage in age and gerontological readings within British and American literature and paraliterary texts of culture (i.e. ego-documents, conduct texts, philosophical tracts, etc.) across all historical periods. Book reviews within the field of literary age  studies or literary gerontology are welcome as well. Please send a 150-200-word abstract (titled Surname_PJES_Old age) together with a short biographical note to  Dr Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon at kbronkk@amu.edu.pl The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st June 2022. Notifications about proposal acceptance will be sent by 20th June 2022. The deadline for submission of completed papers is 1st November 2022. Planned publication: 2023. Bibliography Baars, Jan. 2016. “Concepts of age and aging”, in Geoffrey Scarre (ed.), The Palgrave handbook of the philosophy of aging (London: Palgrave Macmillan), 69-86. Carson, Ronald A. 1987. ‘Foreword’, in Thomas R. Cole and Sally Gadow (eds.), What does it mean to grow old? Reflections from the humanities. Durham: Duke UP, xi–xiv. Cole, Thomas R. 2006. The journey of life: A cultural history of aging in America. Cambridge: CUP. Gullette, Margaret M. Declining to decline: Cultural combat and the politics of the midlife. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1997. Gullette, Margaret M. 2004. Aged by culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cole, Thomas R., and Sally Gadow, eds. What does it mean to grown old? Reflections from the humanities. Durham: Duke UP, 1987. Mangan, Michael. Staging ageing: Theatre, performance, and the narrative of decline. Bristol: Intellect, 2013. Contact Info: dr Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland Contact Email: kbronkk@amu.edu.pl URL: http://pjes.edu.pl/issues/9-2-2023/ *

Call for Proposals: The Routledge Companion to Latinx Life Writing

Extended Deadline for Submissions June 3, 2022 Contributions are invited for consideration to be published in a collection of critical essays introducing readers to studies of Latinx life writing, a prominent and essential pan-genre within Latinx literature since Latinx literature began to be conceived as such. Life writing is a broad umbrella term that encompasses a number of genres in which authors take life and lived experience as their core subject. Within Latinx life writing, these genres include memoir, autobiography, and testimonio most centrally. The proposed handbook provides literary criticism of Latinx life writing focusing on its history, key themes and questions, and genres. The handbook will feature chapters on the trends and concerns of Latinx life writers across different historical periods, providing insight into various thematic and generic concerns as they evolve throughout Latinx cultural production.  Although this book is scholarly in nature, the tone will be broadly accessible in order to make the book suitable for a wide audience including graduate students, undergraduate students in community colleges and four-year universities, and classroom instructors. THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO LATINX LIFE WRITING is under contract with Routledge and is scheduled to be published in 2024. Please note that we are seeking essays of literary criticism; we are not seeking creative works of Latinx life writing at this time. We are seeking proposals specifically in the following areas:

• 19th century and U.S. occupation narratives (oral histories-narratives, correspondence, memories, diaries)
• Crónica, relatos, testimonios
• Fictionalized autobiographies/life writing in fiction/plays
• Corridos, folklore, oral forms
• Correspondence (in wartime or Latino veterans or because of family separation, etc.)
• Poetry of protest
• Coming of age autobiographical narratives
• Experimental autobiographical works
• Education testimonios
• Chicana and Latina “Third World” women of color feminist mixed genre writing
• Autobiographical narratives of exile
• LGBTQ+/Queer articulations
• Testimonios and new media (Digital Humanities, digital storytelling)
• Grief, trauma narratives
• Graphic narratives
• Undocumented narrative

We are seeking only original, never before published work at this time. Please submit a no more than two page abstract (approximately 500 words) of a chapter that you wish to be considered for this handbook by June 3, 2022 (the deadline has been extended), as well as a 2 page abbreviated curriculum vitae. Contact Info: For more information, contact co-editors Dr. Maria Joaquina Villaseñor, mvillasenor@csumb.edu or Dr. Christine Fernandez, chrfernandez@csumb.edu Contact Email: mvillasenor@csumb.edu * Dear IABA List Members,
 
We would like to let you know that the deadline for the call for entries into Biography’s annual annotated bibliography has been extended to Monday, May 15. Please see below for information on submission guidelines.
 
Biography’s annual annotated bibliography of critical and theoretical works on life writing is the most extensive reference of its kind, and before finalizing it, we want to make sure it is as timely, inclusive, and extensive as possible.
 
So if last year (from January to December 2021) you published, edited, or co-edited a book, wrote an article for a journal or an essay for an edited collection, or completed your doctoral dissertation, we would appreciate having that information, so that we can incorporate it into the list. (There is of course a very good chance that we have already included it, but this will make sure your work is noted.)
 
We would request the following information:
 
·      Full bibliographic information for each text, formatted according to MLA 9 style
·      A one-sentence annotation per text
 
We are especially committed to noting publications in languages other than English. If you could provide an annotation in English, however, that would be helpful.
 
We would appreciate getting the information by Monday, May 15. Please send your information to Zoë Sprott (gabiog@hawaii.edu).
 
Thanks in advance. This bibliography usually has between 1,400 and 1,500 entries, and represents the most extensive annual critical survey of the field. We want to make sure your work appears within it.
 
Zoë E. Sprott (she/her/hers)
Editorial Assistant and Reviews Editor
The Center for Biographical Research
Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly
1960 East-West Road
Biomed B104
Honolulu, HI 96822
Tel: (808) 956-3774
Email: gabiog@aikoy *

Autobiography Panel, 119th Annual PAMLA Conference

119th Annual Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association Conference Friday, November 11, 2022 to Sunday, November 13, 2022 UCLA Luskin Conference Center and Hotel in Los Angeles, California Hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles Deadline for Submissions, May 15, 2022 PAMLA’s Autobiography panel is currently accepting submissions for in-person sessions! “Autobiography creates a self as the right instrument to seek meaning.” -Patricia Hampl We are open to a wide range of papers which explore auto/biographical constructions of the self across genres, geographies, and modes. We are especially interested in papers attuned to the conference theme, “Geographies of the Fantastic and the Quotidian,” and welcome proposals which regard auto/biographical expression as a mode for mapping geographies within and around the self. In what ways do fantastic and quotidian places and spaces inform identity? How are place and space represented in auto/biographical texts? How might auto/biographical texts shape audience understandings of and orientations to particular places? How might auto/biographical representations of those places impact their physical geographies in material ways? We encourage presenters to explore auto/biography through interdisciplinary approaches, such as affect studies and cognitive science, theories of the archive and archival sciences, area studies, critical race theory, digital humanities, feminist and theories of gender, genre studies, materialism, media studies, queer theory, phenomenology, post- and decolonial studies, psychology, translation and adaptation studies, and more. Possible genres and topics could include but are not limited to: autofiction and biofiction, autotheory, collective autobiography, conquest and encounter narratives, diaries, documentary film, glitch feminism, intersectional subjectivity, lyric essays, maps, memoir, pedagogical applications for life writing, photography, social media, and other techniques of self-narration and self-fashioning. Submit an abstract directly through the Autobiography panel submission page, or search the PAMLA comprehensive Call for Papers. Contact Emily Travis (etravis@ucsc.edu) with any questions. About PAMLA and this year’s theme: The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association is a scholarly association designed for those teaching or conducting research in a diverse range of literary, linguistic, and cultural interests, both ancient and modern, in the United States and abroad. PAMLA members include faculty and students in language and literature departments in colleges and universities, as well as interdisciplinary scholars from other disciplines and independent scholars. This year’s theme, “Geographies of the Fantastic and the Quotidian,” invites scholars to consider the overdetermined landscapes both of the imagination and of everyday experience. Particularly fascinating might be explorations of the extraordinary, the exemplary, the “out of this world” sorts of places, real and figurative: the spaces of the fantastic and the bizarre. Conversely, the lived and experienced environments of the banal might spark equally fertile archaeologies of the everyday. For that is the allure of the often inscrutable or illegible cities of the imagination: they open up new territories

Contact Info:

Emily Travis, UC Santa Cruz

Contact Email:

etravis@ucsc.edu

URL:

https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/18492

2022 PAMLA | On (Re)Shaping Identity: Self-Portraiture and the Quotidian

November 11, 2022 to November 13, 2022Deadline for Submissions, May 15, 2022

Please contact the presiding officer for this session, Ariana Lyriotakis, with any questions: lyriotaa@tcd.ie CFP submissions must be submitted through PAMLA’s portal, as listed below. 119th session of PAMLA 2022 – Los Angeles, CA (November 11-13, 2022 – entirely in-person) Special Session – CFP “On (Re)Shaping Identity: Self-Portraiture and the Quotidian Persona and confessional poetry of the Postmodern period enact an undeniable relationship with the quotidian. But how do these poems explore a visual depiction and an expression of self-identity in ordinary life? This panel will explore the methods by which poets manipulate and reject aesthetic production in their poetry, while calling into question subjectivity and truthful composition. This special session will explore poetic self-portraiture and the shaping of identity within the bounds of the quotidian. John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is perhaps one of the more notable examples from this era; as a poetry firmly situated within the intermediality of poetic textual images and art, he addresses “the enchant of self with self” through personal depiction and aesthetic production. But what is revealed to the reader in these moments of vulnerability and self-appraisal? How can the poet be both subject and object, while constructing a poetic likeness amongst the commonplace? This panel seeks poetry of self-encounter, whether banal or familiar, to interrogate an inward/outward representation of the self within these constructs. Contributions are invited relating to any of the following aspects, as well as broader interpretations of the theme which may illuminate and elucidate in greater detail.

• Depictions of the domestic and the visual
• Intermediality of poetic textual images and art
• Interrogations of the actual and the self
• Orality and performance in poetry
• Visuality of text and experimentation
• Mimesis and the composition of ordinary spaces
• Interdeterminacy and temporality

Deadline: May 15, 2022. Abstracts must be submitted through the PAMLA website only . The web address for this session’s CFP is: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/18564 All panel participants/presenters must join PAMLA by July 1, 2022. https://pamla.ballastacademic.com

Contact Info:

Presiding Officer for this Special Session at PAMLA: Ariana Lyriotakis, Trinity College Dublin lyriotaa@tcd.ie *

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The Epistolary Research Network (TERN)

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CALL FOR PAPERS Telling Life Stories: Ethos, Positionality, and Structures of Narrative The reading and analysing of life stories offer multiple perspectives in understanding the self-reflexivity of authorial consciousness, the rhetorical/stylistic fashioning of ethos, and the fabulation/fictionality of narrative. Lived experiences, of the author as well as the reader, allow perception of meaning against the sedimented social, political, and cultural paradigms of the “master” or “grand narrative,” as Jean-François Lyotard puts in his seminal work, The Postmodern Condition (1979). The dialectic of human action and social reality within such narratives serves to map the interrelated progression of individuals and cultures throughout history. As a challenge to the uniform idea of art as a politicized structure, the heterogeneity introduced by popular culture introduces new questions surrounding emotional engagement and intellectual stimulation within the domain of production and reception of life writing; these questions are reflected in recent experiments with structure, style, and theme. Featuring the agential role of an individual in the larger social-political scheme, autobiographical writing represents a common structure of narrative experience. Even as authors seek to share lifeworlds, readers bring their own positionality and narrative experience to bear in response. The result is an intertexual dialogue, in which authorial expression allows independent enquiries to come to force. By engaging with life narratives and their readerly interpretation, we gather up resources to reexamine the role of narrative as an epistemology or ‘way of knowing,’ as well as to raise questions pertaining to the subjectivity of the author, the positionality of the reader, and the re-evaluation of factors affecting textual production. The narrative ethos of the writer writing, as reflected in the emotive engagement of the reader reading, highlights the shared experience of such discourse. Interpretation creates narrative models which reflect psychological underpinnings, as influenced by culturally available forms and content. Within this ethical/ethotic textual frame, the identity of the reader is projected along with the constructed identity of the author/protagonist/narrator. Within the current global pandemic, the existential premise of breathing, face-to-face contact/communication is, for the moment, withheld: we speak through masks–literally. Meeting online, we speak and listen, type and read through screen images and avatars, our living presences subsumed within the technologies of digital representation. This loss of intimacy leads us to revisit a question as old as Western classical rhetoric, though relevant today. It’s a question of ethos: that is, of constructing/representing/positioning the speaking/writing self within the textual space of language. Ethos unfolds within the structures of narrative, positioning the speaker/writer culturally and historically. Further, this unfolding is performed before (and on behalf of) the hearer/reader, who is invited into the textual space as (caring) witness and (critical) respondent. Such is a twofold premise of this issue. For this issue, we seek submissions that consider, challenge, or generate discussion about life narratives. Serious explorations/applications of emergent fields such as narrative therapy and trauma and memory studies are welcome. We are most interested in those that come from underrepresented perspectives, cultures, or positions that provide an additional view on our collective humanity. Please engage with the topics below or feel free to go beyond:

• Biopics and the fashioning of the self/persona
• Visual arts and autoethnography
• Travel journalism and indigenous cultures
• Everyday narratives in popular culture
• Documentaries and docufiction
• Folklife and community narratives
• Online personas and the plural selves/subjectivity
• Intersubjective and intertextual space of narrative
• Sovereignty of expression amidst media control
• Narrative politics in popular domain
• Revisioning exclusion in age of digitization
• Memoirs from the margins (LGBTQ+)
• Aborignal life narratives
• War diaries and journals
• Mass culture and the consumption of life narratives
• Reappraisal of historical figures in the times of hypernationalism

Submissions: Only complete papers will be considered for publication. The papers need to be submitted according to the guidelines of the MLA 8^th edition. You are welcome to submit full length papers (3,500–10,000 words) along with a 150 words abstract and list of keywords. Please read the submission guidelines before making the submission – http://ellids.com/author-guidelines/submission-guidelines/. Please feel free to email any queries to – editors@ellids.com. Please make all submissions via the form: https://forms.gle/ButBog95zvvFbyrS8 Submission deadline: 15th April, 2022 Website: http://ellids.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/journal.llids/

Contact Email:

editors@ellids.com

URL:

http://ellids.com

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“Writing Tasmanian Lives” Winter Symposium 22–24 June 2022 University of Tasmania   CALL FOR PAPERS About us  Writing Lives is a new research program based in the School of Humanities at the University of Tasmania, harnessing existing expertise and building capacity in critical studies of life writing, biography, oral history, microhistory, history of ideas, memoir, and personal writing such as letters and diaries. Our program is working to foster dialogue about life writing as a form and genre that crosses disciplinary boundaries and embraces possibilities offered by texts, objects, and nonhuman as well as human lives. We are also working to engage community and cultural sector partners both within lutruwita/Tasmania and nationally in this exciting research area. The symposium To showcase the many possibilities offered by this field of research, we are delighted to announce the call for papers for our first symposium, to be held online over the afternoons of Wednesday 22, Thursday 23 and Friday 24 June 2022. In this symposium we turn our focus to the local as we examine the challenges presented by the discipline and practice of biography and life-writing in and about Tasmania and Tasmanians. The symposium program will encourage discussion about what is at stake – critically, creatively, historically, and ethically – in writing the life stories of Tasmanians, whether historically well-known or hitherto uncelebrated. We are especially interested in exploring the following questions:

• What does it mean to write biography in lutruwita/Tasmania, about its residents (living or dead) or about the lives that have influenced our state’s history?
• How can we make personal histories and biographies in lutruwita/Tasmania visible to the broader community?
• How do we connect local life stories to national and international histories and communities?
• How does lutruwita/Tasmania feature in both human and more-than-human life stories throughout history?
• What role do collectors and archivists play in documenting and understanding Tasmanian lives?

Papers on the theme of Writing Tasmanian Lives, interpreted in its widest sense, drawing on scholarship and experience from the humanities, creative arts, social sciences, education, and natural science, and from other diverse fields such as library, museum, archives, and cultural studies, are encouraged. We also welcome papers that engage with broader questions about life writing and biography that go beyond the local context, such as:

• What is life writing and what forms should it take?
• Whose lives should we examine?
• How does the form of life-writing change with the needs of the subject?
• How can we celebrate diversity through life writing, amplifying the voices of people who have been pushed into the margins of history and literature?
• How can we decolonise biography?
• Where lives have not been thoroughly documented, how can we make imaginative use of archival material?

Plenary events include a keynote address by Dr Jessica White (UniSA), about her work writing an ecobiography of Georgiana Molloy, and a panel conversation on writing Indigenous lives. More information about keynote speakers and events will be circulated closer to the date.  Proposal submissions and registration Please email abstracts and proposals (200 words approx.) for a 20-minute presentation by Thursday, 14 April 2022 to: writing.lives@utas.edu.au Submissions should also include your name, institutional affiliation where relevant, e-mail address, the title of your proposed paper, and a short bio (50 words approx.). We will advise if your proposal has been accepted for inclusion in the program and provide further details of the registration process. Event delivery and registration At time of writing, this will be an online event with panel sessions delivered via Zoom. If possible, some of the keynote plenary sessions and workshops will also take place in person in nipaluna/Hobart. Whether we proceed with any live components will be dependent on the COVID-19 situation and any restrictions that are in place, which will be considered nearer the time. For further information, do not hesitate to get in touch at writing.lives@utas.edu.au We look forward to receiving your submission.

Contact Info:

Naomi Milthorpe, University of Tasmania

Contact Email:

writing.lives@utas.edu.au

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The Center for Biographical Research presents:

“Sweat and Salt Water: Generating a Testament to the Legacy of Teresia Kieuea Teaiwa”Thursday, March 31 at 12PM to 1:15PM (HST) on Zoom Zoom Meeting ID: 964 6893 6495 Password: 765773 Meeting link: https://hawaii.zoom.us/j/95496570215

Dr. April K. Henderson, Director of Va’aomanū Pasifika—Programmes in Pacific Studies and Samoan Studies, Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of WellingtonTerence Wesley-Smith, Professor (retired), Center for Pacific Islands Studies, UHMKaterina Teaiwa, Professor of Pacific Studies and Deputy Director – Higher Degree Research Training in the School of Culture, History and Language, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Australian National UniversityCosponsored by Hamilton Library, the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Hui ʻĀina Pilipili: Native Hawaiian Initiative, the Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, and the Departments of Ethnic Studies, Political Science, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies*

On 21 March 2017, Associate Professor Teresia Kieuea Teaiwa passed away at the age of forty-eight, precipitating an extraordinary outpouring of grief. Mourners referenced Teaiwa’s nurturing interactions, her innovative program-building, her feminist and political activism, her poetry, her Banaban/I-Kiribati/Fiji Islander and African American heritage, and her extraordinary ability to connect with people of all backgrounds.This talk will focus on Sweat and Salt Water, a collection of Teaiwa’s scholarly and creative contributions over a professional career cut short. Together, the editors will discuss how it honors her legacy in various scholarly fields, including Pacific studies, Indigenous studies, literary studies, security studies, and gender studies.

Katerina Teaiwa is an interdisciplinary scholar and artist of Banaban, I-Kiribati and African American heritage born and raised in Fiji. She is professor and deputy director Higher Degree Research in the School of Culture, History, and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, at the Australian National University. She was recently named the 2021 Australian University Teacher of the Year for her visionary approach to Pacific studies.April K. Henderson is senior lecturer and director of Va‘aomanū Pasifika—Programme in Pacific Studies and Samoan Studies at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. Her research focuses on the circulation of music and performing and visual art forms between the US, the Pacific Islands, and Aotearoa New Zealand. She serves on the editorial boards of Perfect Beat and Popular Communication, and co-edits the University of Hawai’i Press book series Indigenous Pacifics, with Professor Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua. University of Hawai’i Press book series Indigenous Pacifics, co-edited with Professor Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua.

Terence Wesley-Smith recently retired from the University of Hawai’i after more than three decades with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies. He is a former director of the center, and former editor of The Contemporary Pacific. Professor Wesley-Smith has written extensively about Pacific Islands studies as an interdisciplinary project.

* Stories of Women Who Lost Their Beloved Ones
  The University of Hawai`i is conducting a study:
 
If you identify as a woman, 18 years old or older, and who have lost a beloved one (e.g., significant other, child, parent, siblings) and were one of their caregivers, please share your stories
 
Dr. L. Ayu Saraswati would like to invite you to participate in a research study.
 
The purpose of this study is to learn more about how women cope with the diagnosis and death of their beloved ones. 
 
Study volunteers will receive $ 10 Starbucks or equivalent gift certificate
 
To learn more about the study,
please email Dr. L. Ayu Saraswati at luhp@hawaii.edu  
http://drsaraswati.com

Books:
Saraswati, L. Ayu. Pain Generation: Social Media, Feminist Activism, and the Neoliberal Selfie (New York University Press, 2021) 
     Click here for the Instructor’s Guide
Saraswati, L.A. and Barbara Shaw, eds. Feminist and Queer Theory: An Intersectional and Transnational Reader (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Saraswati, L.A., Barbara Shaw, and Heather Rellihan, eds. Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Second Edition. (Oxford University Press, 2020) 
Saraswati, L.A. Seeing Beauty, Sensing Race in Transnational Indonesia (University of Hawaii Press, 2013) * The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Nice Things
 
Are you of Asian descent and are over 18 years old? 
Do you like to buy nice, luxurious, expensive items?
If the answer is YES…

The University of Hawai`i is conducting a study:

Dr. L. Ayu Saraswati would like to invite you to participate in a research study.
 
The purpose of this study is to learn more about why we buy nice, luxurious, expensive items, and whether gender, racial and class backgrounds shape our consumption pattern. 
 
Study volunteers will receive $ 10 Starbucks or equivalent gift certificate
 
To learn more about the study,
please email Dr. L. Ayu Saraswati at luhp@hawaii.edu
 
— http://drsaraswati.com
 
Books:
Saraswati, L. Ayu. Pain Generation: Social Media, Feminist Activism, and the Neoliberal Selfie (New York University Press, 2021) 
     Click here for the Instructor’s Guide
Saraswati, L.A. and Barbara Shaw, eds. Feminist and Queer Theory: An Intersectional and Transnational Reader (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Saraswati, L.A., Barbara Shaw, and Heather Rellihan, eds. Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Second Edition. (Oxford University Press, 2020) 
Saraswati, L.A. Seeing Beauty, Sensing Race in Transnational Indonesia (University of Hawaii Press, 2013) *

International Conference Childhood at War and Genocide: Children’s experiences of conflict in the 20th and 21st century – Agency, Survival, Memory and Representation Date: 24-26.10.2022 Location: Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ), Munich, Germany Children are the primary victims of wars, armed conflicts, and genocides. They perish first and in disproportionately large numbers.  Wars and genocides also destroy the family and family bonds, and that is so strikingly visible in the case of child survivors who are impacted for life with painful memories of the loss of parents, childhood, and community, and of displacement. Thanks to the last two decades of historical, sociological, anthropological, literary, and ethnographic research, scholars now know much more about the world of thinking, being, and feeling of Jewish and non-Jewish European children and youth, alongside their daily experiences, both during and in the aftermath of the Second World War. The mass of scholarly works on Jewish and non-Jewish child survivors and youth of the Nazi era, and the studies of the ways young survivors were treated by relatives, adoptive parents, social workers, medical staff, and respective states in the aftermath of the Second World War, is constantly growing. However, large research gaps remain, especially concerning the German war in the East. Similarly, specific histories of child survivors of other genocides in the twenty century and beyond are lacking. But thanks to the recent endorsement of child-centered historical methods and interdisciplinary approaches, the experiences and memories of child survivors of the post-1945 wars and genocides have also begun to be investigated. This offers us a new and vital opportunity for systematic and focused comparative studies of timely topics such as the role of a child’s gender and agency as well as different social groups and resources that enabled the children to survive; family status, gender, and adoption of orphaned children in the aftermath of war and genocide; and the child survivors’ official state status, rehabilitation, education, and displacement, among others. One of the main goals of the two-and-a-half-day international conference is to shed light on those topics and others, through comparative and transnational lenses. Our aim is not only to seek similarities and differences among cases but also to use one set of phenomena to understand the other. The conference organisers are interested in innovative contributions which tackle various historical and contemporary case studies of children and war and genocide. The organisers have three objectives. First, while the initial focus is on the Holocaust and the occupied European territories during the Second World War, we are also interested in taking a more global outlook at the experiences and representations of children who experienced, witnessed, and survived war and genocide during the twentieth and twenty-first century. Second, to explore similarities and differences in the experiences and life stories of displaced, orphaned, and also physically and mentally disabled young survivors of the Holocaust, and the genocides in Armenian, Rwandan, Cambodian, and Bosnian, among others. And third to examine the effect of war and genocide on children and childhood: on children’s emotions, needs and social identities; children’s social relations within family and friendship and long-life ties; and their role in the reconstruction of family in the aftermath of war and genocide. The spectrum of possible topics is deliberately broad to allow room for newer approaches and new questions. We especially welcome papers that relate to the following four thematic blocks: 1. The spaces of experience, agency, and survival of children and adolescents in wars and genocides. 2. The ideological wars against children: genocidal policies and practices and other forms of persecution of children by various political governments and state agents. 3. Similarities and differences in dealing with retrospective experiences of war and genocide. To what extent was it possible to inscribe and process what had been suffered in one’s own biography? To what extent were people sensitive to traumatic experiences of their children, and if so, which ones? What other ways and means of processing (film, literature, associations) exist? To what extent do states legally punish crimes committed against children? And which crimes and charges were in the center of attention? Finally, what consequences does the treatment of childhood in wars and genocides have for today’s culture of remembrance in the respective states? 4. Sources and testimonies: Children hardly leave any sources behind. The aim is to explore which sources and methods can be used to grasp and tell the story of childhood in war. We welcome ideas about hitherto little-known and unused sources. Limitations and methodological weaknesses can and should also be discussed. To Apply: We are seeking proposals for 15-20 minutes presentations in English. Applicants should send the title and abstract of their presentation (max. 350 words), a short biography (max. 200 words) including contact information, institutional affiliation, and a reference to 2-3 selected publications to zfhs@ifz-muenchen.de by 31 March 2022. Invited participants will be notified of their acceptance in the first half of May 2022. Further information: Travel and accommodation costs for invited participants will be paid for by the Center for Holocaust Studies. The organisers hope that the conference will take place at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, Munich, Germany. Given the uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic, we may also consider a hybrid or online format, or the potential postponement of the conference. A decision about this will be made in due time. Organisers: Joanna Michlic, UCL Centre for Collective Violence, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, IAS (UCL-ISA) Yuliya von Saal, Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) Anna Ullrich, Center for Holocaust Studies, Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) Tobias Freimüller, Fritz Bauer Institute (FBI) The conference is hosted by the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute of Contemporary History in cooperation with the Fritz Bauer Institute and the Institute of Advanced Studies at University College London.

Contact Info:

Contact Email:

zfhs@ifz-muenchen.de

URL:

https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/aktuelles/artikel/call-for-papers-childhood-at-war-and-genocide

Colleagues, The next of my monthly webinars, Let’s Talk Books at NMU, will feature Melissa Homestead discussing her recent book, The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis.  The webinar will be Friday, March 18 at 1:00 Eastern time. I’d love it if you could join us. The registration link is below. Lynn Domina You are invited to a Zoom webinar. When: Mar 18, 2022 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Topic: Let’s Talk Books at NMU – Melissa Homestead Please register: https://nmu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Rp0DfO6vR6GLA8u22e4cYg After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. * College Language Association and Black Auto/Biography Modern Language Association Convention, January 5-8, 2023, San Francisco, USA Deadline for Submissions: Tuesday, 15 March 2022 *

Transdisciplinary Trauma Studies: Trauma Through Contemporary and Historical Perspectives https://summeruniversity.ceu.edu/courses/transdisciplinary-trauma-studies-trauma-through-contemporary-and-historical-perspectivesCentral European University, Summer University Course Budapest, July 11–16, 2022 Application deadline: 28 February 2022The course will show how trauma is present in various areas of social and cultural life; how trauma-informed approaches help understand processes of othering and traumatization, and how they can help in building resilience. We aim to make our students familiar with innovative approaches in studying trauma in different academic fields, and provide them with capacities necessary for developing greater empathy: we would like our students to acquire knowledge and also to develop an awareness of the complexity of how trauma is interwoven into enduring forms of conflict or oppression, and how the long-term impact of trauma is present in our own time.Director: Anna Menyhért Faculty: Gillian Eagle, Thomas Fetzer, Gina Donoso, Mykola Makhortykh, Annie St. John-StarkCo-funded by the Open Society University Network (OSUN)

——————————————–

Prof. Dr. Anna Menyhért

Professor of Trauma Studies, The University of Jewish Studies, Budapest, HU

Summer University Course Director, Central European University, Vienna, AT–Budapest, HU

menyherta@or-zse.hu; MenyhertA@ceu.edu

*

Intimate Politics in Anglophone Women’s Writing

(University of Paris-Nanterre, 23-24 September 2022)

An international conference organized by FAAAM (CREA, EA 370)

In nineteenth-century romantic literature, especially poetry and personal writings, the notion of intimacy was understood as springing from the depths of an individual, untainted by cultural forces (hence closer to nature). Yet, as a number of studies have shown—most notably Foucault—intimate relationships are the product of social power structures deriving from a patriarchal gender hierarchy and reinforced by class and ethnic divides. The second-wave feminist slogan, “the personal is political,” coined by Carol Hanisch in 1969, drew our attention to the fact that aspects of women’s lives—housework, sex, familial relationships, etc. —were shaped by broader forces. We therefore invite scholars to examine “the personal is political” in all forms of women’s writings in English. In Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism (2007), Eva Illouz argues that the gender divisions that replicate the public and private spheres as well as divisions of labor are also based on emotions, without which men and women would not reproduce their roles and identities. An intense emotional culture participated in the development of capitalism. Twentieth-century America in particular witnessed the invasion of the public sphere by (Freudian) therapeutic discourse while, on the other hand, the private sphere was invaded by economic discourse. Thus, the private sphere of emotions was subjected to intense rationalization. Furthermore, the multiplicity of sexual and gender expressions in the twenty-first century challenges normative assumptions of intimacy that privilege heterosexual relationships and the biological family unit, consider binary cisgender identities as given, and view sexual or romantic desire as the only ground for developing intimate relationships. We invite participants to submit proposals treating the following themes: 1) The disclosure of intimacy as a double-edged sword for women in patriarchal cultures: empowerment, emancipation, but also increased vulnerability/exposure, backlash, commodification of intimacy. The #Metoo movement has considerably amplified the risks and benefits of disclosure. Women’s personal writings are especially subjected to this double bind. What definitions of intimacy do women’s writings offer? How are the paradoxes of intimacy interwoven in women’s writings, negotiated within the constraints of gender, ethnicity and class? How can women writers represent the experience of intimacy (between resistance to disclosure and the need/desire to recount)? What innovative narratives of intimacy do queer identities give birth to? 2) Intimate spaces: one of the ways in which we experience and conceptualize intimacy is through space (public and private spheres, and so on). Intimate relationships involve ideas of proximity and distance. Moreover, intimacy creates space. Historically, the birth of a private, intimate culture in the eighteenth century correlates with the transformation of the private abode: beds began to be relocated to more private rooms, and separate spaces for hygiene were created, to name but a few changes. Just as social spaces are ideologically constructed so that they reproduce gender divisions and roles, so too are intimate spaces. Thus, home has been considered as the female domain because of the representation of women as carers/nurturers. This representation conceals power relationships, and the fact that intimate spaces, like any other space, are heterogeneous and precarious (Rose 1993). Investing women with the role of carer/nurturer grew out of their capacity to reproduce, the uterine space being a site of much conflict and contention. Perceived as the presumed source of hysteria, of women’s assumed propensity for the domestic (Erikson’s inner space) and of the promise/threat of maternity, also described as the cave of the lost Sibyl in Mary Shelley’s introduction to The Last Man (1826), the uterus is often used as a metaphor for literary gestation. The body, and particularly the female body, with its convex and concave forms, its recesses and enclosed spaces, is often associated with the private and the intimate. As Gilbert and Gubar have pointed out, spatial imagery of enclosure and escape has characterized much writing by women (Madwoman 1979: 83, 85). From Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Yellow Wallpaper, 1892) to Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale, 1985), heroines have been restricted to rooms and roles. For female artists, the presence or absence of intimate spaces has affected their creative output, as Virginia Woolf powerfully demonstrated in A Room of One’s Own. Because of the elusive nature of spatial intimacy, women writers have sometimes imagined utopian/dystopian worlds to represent it. In Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s feminist utopia, Sultana’s Dream, women rule the world as society lives peacefully and prospers through their inventions of solar ovens, flying cars, and cloud condensers, which offer abundant, clean water to the population of “Ladyland.” And the men, who are deemed “fit for nothing,” are shut inside their homes. Participants may also question the role of virtual spaces in favoring/impeding intimacy. 3) Narrative intimacy: According to Lauren Berlant, the concept of intimacy rests upon the development of a story and a narrative. As the reader is not passive in the construction of meaning, reading can be viewed as an intimate experience. Creating and entering a relationship with a reader is sometimes a very strong motivation behind the act of writing—Ruth Ozeki has spoken of writing “embodied prose in order to elicit the same kinds of strong, physical, emotional responses, from the reader” (“Literature is a Kind of Mirror,” 2016). On the poetic side, in milk and honey (2014) and the sun and her flowers (2017), the “instapoet” rupi kaur devised a poetic space combining text and image to recreate personal experiences of – occasionally traumatic – intimacy, which readers have shared and responded to. What kinds of “engagement” (Rita Felski 2008) can occur and develop throughout the reading process and beyond it? To what extent is intimacy created by narrative techniques? What issues of power are at play between (female) author and reader/public? What narrative voices shape intimacy? Participants may also examine experimental, genre-defying works that women have used to turn intimacy and emotion into political concerns.   Genres to consider: theatre, poetry, personal writings (diaries, letters, memoirs), first person novels, autofiction, science fiction, epistolary novels, experimental, genre-defying works, prison narratives…. Please send a 300-400-word abstract (for a 20-minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of question/discussion) with a short bio-bibliography to: faaam.nanterre@gmail.com  FAAAM (Femmes Auteurs Anglo-AMéricaines) is a research seminar whose members share an interest in women’s writing and gender. We have published, in the wake of our two previous conferences, Women’s Life Writing and the Practice of Reading (Palgrave Macmillan 2018) https://link.springer.com/book/9783319752464 &  Text and Image in Women’s Life Writing: Picturing the Female Self (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) https://link.springer.com/book/9783030848743 Deadline for submissions: February 28^th, 2022 Notification of acceptance: March 31^st, 2022 Language of the conference: English Organizing and Scientific Committee: Claire Bazin (Université Paris-Nanterre), Nicoleta Alexoae-Zagni (Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis), Valérie Baisnée (Université Paris-Saclay), Corinne Bigot (Université Toulouse – Jean-Jaurès), Stephanie Genty (Université d’Évry-Paris/Saclay), Nathalie Saudo-Welby (Université de Picardie Jules Verne) Select bibliography:   Berlant, Lauren, Ed. Intimacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Boling, Patricia. Privacy and the Politics of Intimate Life. Cornell UP 1996. Cooke, Jennifer, Ed. Scenes of Intimacy: Reading, Writing and Theorizing Contemporary Literature. London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.   Dimen, Muriel. Sexuality, Intimacy, Power. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press, 2003. Felski, Rita. Uses of Literature. Malden, MA & Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2008. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, tr. Robert Hurley (Histoire de la sexualité, vol. 1, 1976; New York: Random House, 1978). Illouz, Eva. Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2007. Miguel, Christina. Personal Relationships and Intimacy in the Age of Social Media. Palgrave, 2018. Rose, Gillian. Feminism & Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

* * Date of Event, February 18, 2022 Colleagues, I’ve begun a new webinar series focused on scholars discussing their new books. The next episode will occur this Friday, Feb. 18, at 1:00 Eastern time. My guest will be Gail Okawa, discussing her book, Remembering Our Grandfathers’ Exile: US Imprisonment of Hawai’i’s Japanese in World War II.  I’d love for you to join us if you’re free. Registration information is below. Feel free to share this widely. Thanks, Lynn Domina ldomina@nmu.edu You are invited to a Zoom webinar. When: Feb 18, 2022 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Topic: Let’s Talk Books at NMU Please register for the date and time that works best for you: https://nmu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bznT6dkhTp-HPDFngGdLSQ After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. * Telling (Jewish) Lives: Biographers’ Reports / (Jüdische) Leben erzählen: Biographische Werkstattberichte All lectures in German German version see below Digital lecture series, winter term 2021/2022 Tuesdays, 6:15pm – 7:45pm (CEST/CET), online Prior registration requested: events-js@uni-potsdam.de Organized by Prof. Dr. Grażyna Jurewicz University of Potsdam, Institute of Jewish and Religious Studies Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg On the topic For some time now, there has been talk of a “biographical turn” in the historically working humanities. In Jewish Studies, too, the relevance of biographical research practice is continuously increasing. Based on this finding, the interdisciplinary lecture series held in German (Jüdische) Leben erzählen: Biographische Werkstattberichte [Telling (Jewish) Lives: Biographers’ Reports] offers insights into the historiographical and literary aspects of working on Jewish life stories. Jewish lives often embody subject positions whose biographical accessing and analysis pose considerable challenges to researchers. These are rooted in phenomena such as exile, diaspora, transculturality, multilingualism, and intersectionality, which seem to be inherent in Jewish history and which result in potentially discontinuous or fragmented worlds of experience. The consequence is an often markedly complex constellation of sources, which on the one hand complicate biographical investigations, but on the other hand can prove particularly revealing for the methodology of biography. In the context of retrospective reflection on the processes of their life history studies, the speakers describe such challenges and possible ways of dealing with them, using concrete examples. In doing so, they touch upon a number of general methodological questions and practical research problems of biographical writing, such as: the choice of protagonists of biographical narratives; the presence of biographers in their representations of other lives and their possible identification with their own “objects”; the handling of gaps in knowledge or the abundance of knowledge; literary aspects of biographical work as well as its ethical dimensions; the representability of the connections between the life to be biographed and the specific form of creativity that was practiced in this life. Along these and other case-specific aspects of life writing, the lecture series will discuss the conditions of the possibility of transforming traces of past lives as conveyed by various media into written narratives in order to gain methodological yields for biographical research practice within and outside Jewish Studies. Program 10/26/2021 Grażyna Jurewicz (Potsdam/Berlin): Prologue 11/2/2021 Beatrix Borchard (Hamburg/Berlin): Storytelling or Marking Gaps? Reflecting on the Handling of Biographical Source Material 11/9/2021 Ernst Piper (Potsdam): Between Intersectionality and Internationalism. Approaching Rosa Luxemburg 11/16/2021 Reiner Stach (Berlin): Kafka’s Life. A Research 11/30/2021 Verena Dohrn (Hannover): Family Biography as Literary Procedure. The Saga of the Oil Entrepreneurs Kahan from Baku 12/07/2021 Dominique Bourel (Paris/Kassel): Moses Mendelssohn and Martin Buber: Biography without Autobiography? 12/14/2021 Stefanie Mahrer (Bern/Basel): Salman Schocken. Topographies of a Life 01/11/2022 Katharina Prager (Vienna): “I can only understand it Hasidically…” – Jewishness in the Lives of Berthold and Salka Viertel 01/18/2022 Claudia Willms (Frankfurt am Main): Historiography from below? Franz Oppenheimer and Biographical Research from a Cultural Anthropology Perspective 01/25/2022 Efrat Gal-Ed (Düsseldorf/Augsburg): Nobody’s language. Itzik Manger – a European Poet. On the Biographical Textual Process 02/01/2022 Jacques Picard (Basel/Zurich): The Clock That Is Still Ticking. On Subjects and Objects in Biographical Research 02/08/2022 Philipp Lenhard (Munich): The Pitfalls of the Archive: On the Biography of Friedrich Pollock 02/15/2022 Christina Pareigis (Hamburg): Shamanistic Voyages. Review of the Making of an Intellectual Biography of Susan Taubes 02/22/2022 Stephan Braese (Aachen): To Biographize Hildesheimer: Workshop – Expedition – Laboratory 03/01/2022 Alfred Gall (Mainz): “I don’t belong anywhere, because I am from somewhere else”: Constellations of Biography and Science Fiction in Stanisław Lem’s Work *** German Version Digitale Ringvorlesung, Wintersemester 2021/2022 (Jüdische) Leben erzählen: Biographische Werkstattberichte dienstags, 18:15–19:45 Uhr (MESZ/MEZ), online Anmeldung: events-js@uni-potsdam.de Veranstaltet von Prof. Dr. Grażyna Jurewicz Universität Potsdam, Institut für Jüdische Studien und Religionswissenschaft Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg Zum Thema Seit geraumer Zeit ist in den historisch arbeitenden Geisteswissenschaften von einem „biographical turn“ die Rede. Auch in den Jüdischen Studien nimmt die Relevanz der biographischen Forschungspraxis kontinuierlich zu. Von diesem Befund ausgehend bietet die interdisziplinäre Ringvorlesung „(Jüdische) Leben erzählen: Biographische Werkstattberichte“ Einblicke in die historiographischen und literarischen Aspekte der Arbeit an jüdischen Lebensgeschichten. Jüdische Lebensläufe verkörpern häufig Subjektpositionen, deren biographische Erschließung Forscher:innen vor erhebliche Herausforderungen stellt. Diese gründen in Phänomenen wie Exil, Diaspora, Transkulturalität, Mehrsprachigkeit und Intersektionalität, die der jüdischen Geschichte scheinbar inhärent sind und aus denen potenziell diskontinuierliche bzw. fragmentierte Erfahrungswelten resultieren. Das Ergebnis sind oft ausgesprochen komplexe Quellenkonstellationen, die biographische Untersuchungen einerseits erschweren, sich aber andererseits für die Methodologie der Biographie als besonders aufschlussreich erweisen können. Im Rahmen retrospektiver Reflexion über die Entstehungsprozesse ihrer lebensgeschichtlichen Studien schildern die Referent:innen an konkreten Beispielen solche Herausforderungen und den möglichen Umgang mit ihnen. Dabei berühren sie eine Reihe allgemeiner methodologischer Fragen und forschungspraktischer Probleme biographischen Schreibens, etwa: die Wahl von Protagonist:innen biographischer Narrative; die Anwesenheit der Biograph:innen in ihren Darstellungen fremder Leben und ihre eventuelle Identifikation mit den eigenen „Objekten“; den Umgang mit Wissenslücken bzw. der Wissensfülle; literarische Aspekte biographischer Arbeit sowie deren ethische Dimensionen; die Darstellbarkeit der Zusammenhänge zwischen dem zu biographierenden Leben und der je spezifischen Form der Kreativität, die in diesem Leben wirksam wurde. Entlang dieser und weiterer fallspezifischer Aspekte lebensgeschichtlichen Schreibens werden in der Ringvorlesung die Bedingungen der Möglichkeit diskutiert, medial vermittelte Spuren vergangener Leben in schriftliche Erzählungen zu transformieren, um damit methodologische Erträge für die biographische Forschungspraxis inner- und außerhalb des Faches Jüdische Studien zu gewinnen. Termine 26.10.2021 Grażyna Jurewicz (Potsdam/Berlin): Prolog 02.11.2021 Beatrix Borchard (Hamburg/Berlin): Storytelling oder Lücken markieren? Nachdenken über den Umgang mit biographischem Quellenmaterial 09.11.2021 Ernst Piper (Potsdam): Zwischen Intersektionalität und Internationalismus. Annäherung an Rosa Luxemburg 16.11.2021 Reiner Stach (Berlin): Kafkas Lebenswelt. Eine Recherche 30.11.2021 Verena Dohrn (Hannover): Familienbiographie als literarisches Verfahren. Die Saga der Ölunternehmer Kahan aus Baku 07.12.2021 Dominique Bourel (Paris/Kassel): Moses Mendelssohn und Martin Buber: Biographie ohne Autobiographie? 14.12.2021 Stefanie Mahrer (Bern/Basel): Salman Schocken. Topographien eines Lebens 11.01.2022 Katharina Prager (Wien): „Ich kann es nur chassidisch begreifen…“ – Jüdischsein in den Leben von Berthold und Salka Viertel 18.01.2022 Claudia Willms (Frankfurt am Main): Geschichtsschreibung von unten? Franz Oppenheimer und die kulturanthropologische Biographieforschung 25.01.2022 Efrat Gal-Ed (Düsseldorf/Augsburg): Niemandssprache. Itzik Manger – ein europäischer Dichter. Zum biographischen Textverfahren 01.02.2022 Jacques Picard (Basel/Zürich): Die Uhr, die noch tickt. Von Subjekten und Objekten in der Biographieforschung 08.02.2022 Philipp Lenhard (München): Die Tücken des Archivs: Zur Biographie Friedrich Pollocks 15.02.2022 Christina Pareigis (Hamburg): Shamanistic Voyages. Rückblick auf die Entstehung einer intellektuellen Biographie über Susan Taubes 22.02.2022 Stephan Braese (Aachen): Hildesheimer „biographieren“: Werkstatt – Expedition – Labor 01.03.2022 Alfred Gall (Mainz): „Ich gehöre nirgendwo hin, denn ich bin anderswoher“: Konstellationen von Biographie und Science-Fiction bei Stanisław Lem — Prof. Dr. Grażyna Jurewicz Universität Potsdam Institut für Jüdische Studien und Religionswissenschaft Am Neuen Palais 10 | 14469 Potsdam | Raum 1.11.0.04 Telefon: +49 (0) 331 977-1284 E-Mail: grazyna.zuzanna.jurewicz@uni-potsdam.de * Re: REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS – Freelance Story Writer for Hispanic Access Introduction Hispanic Access Foundation is a national 501(c)(3) organization that connects Latinos with partners and opportunities to improve lives and create an equitable society. Our vision is that all Hispanics throughout the U.S. enjoy good physical health, a healthy natural environment, a quality education, economic success and civic engagement in their communities with the sum of improving the future of America. In the spirit of our mission and vision, Hispanic Access wants to highlight 52 stories from our various networks. We work nationwide with faith leaders, conservation focused individuals, Black, Indigenous, Latinos, and other people of color, and other community leaders. With these stories, we want to amplify the voices of those that we work with through our social media and website. The Stories Hispanic Access Foundation will provide its freelance writer with the story ideas, corresponding network members and their contact information. The writer will then take this information to conduct interviews in order to produce a total of 52 (400 – 700 word) stories. The breakdown of stories/networks provided will be similar to this: o Conservation (11 total Stories) Por La Creación Faith-Based Alliance Latino Conservation Week Our Heritage, Our Planet Film Week o Hispanic Leadership Network (11 total Stories) HLN Retreat 2022 HLN Cohort Members o MANO Project (11 total Stories) US Fish and Wildlife Service National Park Service US Forest Service MANO Alumni o Organization (11 total Stories) Latino Advocacy Week Board Members Staff o Our Dreams Scholarship (4 total Stories) o COVID Vaccine Initiative (4 total Stories) What We Expect Here are our guidelines for these stories: ● 400-700 words ● 3-5 high quality photos from the individual to attach to the story. (We will provide guidance on what is needed for the feature photo and the quality of other images. Writer will not need to take the images, simply instruct the contact on what’s needed and coordinate their reception.) ● Written in the third-person perspective ● Bilingual (English and Spanish) — it is likely that some of our members prefer to be interviewed in Spanish. Budget We will pay $100 for each story written, budgeted up to $5,200 for 52 stories. ● Funds can be distributed after every 5-10 stories submitted or as a lump sum at the end of thecontract, depending on writer preference. Timeline Our preferred timeline is outlined below, however, it is open to modifications based on schedule and availability. Additionally, we would look to have a monthly 1 hour check-in beginning on February 1st. ● January 21 – Proposals Due ● January 25 – Contract Awarded ● February 11 – First 3-5 Stories Due ● March 11 –8 Stories Due ● June 1 – 8 Stories Due ● August 1 – 8 Stories Due ● October 1 – 8-10 Stories Due ● December 1 – Final 8 Stories Due Submission Requirements We’re not looking for a lengthy proposal.Your proposal should include the following items, which will inform the selection process: ● Writing Samples: provide PDFs or links to 3 examples that demonstrate your writing abilities when it comes to writing features/profiles.. ● Budget: provide a budget proposal that includes your fees, as well as any additional costs that should be considered. ● Timeline: We outlined the tentative timeline above, please outline the timeline from your perspective. ● Spanish Language Proficiency: Please highlight your Spanish language capacity (native/bilingual, conversational, professional). Point-of-Contact For questions about the scope of work, please contact: ● Evelyn Ramirez, Digital Communications Associate, evelyn@hispanicaccess.org Deadline for Submission Proposals should be received no later than Monday, January 21, 2021. Submissions should beemailed to Evelyn Ramirez at evelyn@hispanicaccess.org. Proposal Reviews/Calls/Selection Proposals will be reviewed by staff. Calls may be scheduled by Hispanic Access Foundation if necessary. *

CfP: Modern Travel, Modern Landscapes: Connections and Exchanges in Europe c. 1850-1950

(1/28/2022; 7/6-7/2022)

This conference is intended as the first in a series of events to discuss travel writing in modern history and literature. It is organised by Jana Hunter (University of Oxford) and Christian Drury (Durham University) – please see a call for papers below. Christian Drury Department of History Durham University christian.j.drury@durham.ac.uk Modern Travel, Modern Landscapes Connections and Exchanges in Europe c. 1850-1950 6th and 7th July 2022 University of Durham Travel was central to shaping identity in Europe between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth century. Representations of place, as well as personal, cultural and institutional connections, informed and structured travel at this time. Travellers within Europe and from outside shaped an understanding of what Europe was and is in a global, imperial context. As Kate Hill has put it, “under the influence of technological and colonial change, spaces, narratives themselves, and cultural encounters all took on a greater measure of flux as the nineteenth century progressed. The provisional nature of the modern categories of home and away were forged in the nineteenth century”. This conference calls for papers on travel in this period, especially travel writing which considers landscape and modernity as key themes. Considering travel narratives, both published and private, as well as other texts, images and sources, allows us to consider these historical connections in greater detail, while taking travel as a practice, together with the structuring themes of landscape and modernity, will enrich our understanding of European history in the period. Modern Travel, Modern Landscapes looks to engage with a rich diversity of subjects including but not limited to: history and history of science, geography and natural sciences, art history and visual culture (photography and film), as well as architecture and urban studies. We are particularly interested in understanding how travel and landscape can be perceived and experienced  by an individual. As such, we encourage submissions which explore not only physical travel, but also ‘armchair travel’ through the consumption of the representations of place. We will consider broadly four main themes: Identities Identities are formed by travel and travel is influenced by identities. In modern Europe, the identity of the traveller, as well as those they travel with, are crucial for thinking about who can travel and where. We welcome submissions that consider these identities of travel, as well as the forms their depictions of travel take and how connections are – or are not – made.

• How does a traveller identify with a place and with travelling?
• Who can travel and where? Who can choose their travel?
• Who claims authority to speak about the place travelled to and through?
• How is Europe represented by travellers from the rest of the world?
• How does the travellee respond? How can hidden or marginalised actors be included?

Infrastructure Travellers need ways of getting to places and their forms of travel affect their representations of place. However, infrastructure is more than transport and we encourage submissions which take a broad approach to discussing the way in which travel was structured and communicated.

• How do different types of travel affect travel narratives?
• Who is a tourist and does it matter? How can we diversify the idea of infrastructure?
• How are travellers influenced by existing discourses?
• What is the relationship between infrastructure and landscape?

Time and temporalities Time may not be at the heart of travel writing, but it does present itself in a number of different ways. There are a number of ways to read time and temporality in travel writing, encapsulating notions of history, encountered in the environment, or even in terms of progression. We welcome submissions that explore how travellers experienced, perceived, and considered temporalities and in turn, informed their audiences back at home.

• How has time been represented, coded and understood by travellers?
• How do travellers and/or travellees apply meaning to time and temporality?
• To what extent can we consider temporality to be a dimension of travel experience?
• How did encroaching modernity shape ideas of time?
• How was time experienced in different spaces and environments?

Borders and frontiers A number of different borders and frontiers were crossed by travellers, which not only played into the travellers’ cultural identity and perception of the self, but also fed into the wider understanding of the society and cultures they were encountering. We welcome discussions that explore physical boundaries and frontiers, for example geopolitical and military, but also encourage submissions discussing racial, gender, and sexual frontiers or that focus on how economic, linguistic, national and aesthetic borders were negotiated.

• What different frontiers exist?
• How did frontiers influence identities?
• When, where, and how were frontiers challenged, faced, and crossed?
• Did they create new tensions or categories?
• Are frontiers in opposition to one another?

Please send an abstract of up to 300 words and a short biography of no more than 100 words to Jana Hunter and Christian Drury (mtml2022@gmail.com) by Friday 28th January 2022.

Contact Info:

Christian Drury and Jana Hunter Durham University/University of Oxford

Contact Email:

mtml2022@gmail.com

URL:

https://mtml2022.wordpress.com/call-for-papers/

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Call for Proposals: The Routledge Companion to Latinx Life Writing

Abstracts Due–January 28, 2022

Contributions are invited for consideration to be published in a collection of essays introducing readers to Latinx Life Writing, a prominent and essential pan-genre within Latinx literature since Latinx literature began to be conceived as such. Life writing is a broad umbrella term that encompasses a number of genres in which authors take life and lived experience as their core subject. Within Latinx life writing, these genres include memoir, autobiography, and testimonio most centrally. The proposed handbook provides a broad overview of the Latinx life writing in terms of its history, key themes and questions, and genres. The handbook will feature chapters on the trends and concerns of Latinx life writers across different historical periods, providing insight into various thematic and generic concerns as they evolve throughout Latinx cultural production.  Although this book is scholarly in nature, the tone will be broadly accessible in order to make the book suitable for a wide audience including graduate students, undergraduate students in community colleges and four-year universities, and classroom instructors. THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO LATINX LIFE WRITING is under contract and scheduled to be published in 2024. We are seeking proposals specifically in the following areas:

• 19th century and U.S. occupation narratives (oral histories-narratives, correspondence, memories, diaries)
• Crónica, relatos, testimonios
• Fictionalized autobiographies/life writing in fiction/plays
• Corridos, folklore, oral forms
• Correspondence (in wartime or Latino veterans or because of family separation, etc.)
• Poetry of protest
• Coming of age autobiographical narratives
• Experimental autobiographical works
• Education testimonios
• Chicana and Latina “Third World” women of color feminist mixed genre writing
• Autobiographical narratives of exile
• LGBTQ+/Queer articulations
• Testimonios and new media (Digital Humanities, digital storytelling)
• Grief, trauma narratives
• Graphic narratives
• Undocumented narratives

We are seeking only original, never before published work at this time. Please submit a no more than two page abstract (approximately 500 words) of a chapter that you wish to be considered for this handbook by as well as a 2 page abbreviated curriculum vitae. Please send any questions and your abstract for the chapter you wish to be considered to the volume editors,  Dr. Christine Fernandez (chrfernandez@csumb.edu) and Dr. Maria Joaquina Villaseñor (mvillasenor@csumb.edu).

Contact Info:

Professor Maria Villaseñor, California State University, Monterey Bay; Professor Christine Fernandez, California State University, Monterey Bay

Contact Email:

mvillasenor@csumb.edu

Call for submissionsPlacing Disability: Personal Stories of Embodied GeographyEdited by Susannah B. Mintz, Professor, Skidmore College, smintz@skidmore.edu and Gregory Fraser, Professor, University of West Georgia, gfraser@wga.edu**Soliciting 350-word abstracts for original 10-15 page essays on the subject of disability and location, according to the geographical regions listed below. Complete description of the project follows. Please send questions about the project to both editors. Abstracts due Jan. 15, 2022.We will be seeking completed auto-critical essays for a collection under review at Palgrave-Macmillan. Titled Placing Disability: Personal Stories of Embodied Geography, the collection will present original work that addresses the experience of disability in particular geographical locations. We are interested in essays that directly engage the question of what it is like to be disabled in a specific place, for a collection that will be organized according to geographical type. Placing Disability will expand on current work focused on disability and eco-criticism or disability and spatial theory by situating authors’ reflections on the meaning of embodiment in distinct physical places and by grounding (quite literally) the discourse of disability awareness and activism in personal experience. We imagine a collection that will be as useful in the creative writing workshop as in a Disability Studies seminar or a class on environmental literature, as appealing to general readers of memoir as to scholars of contemporary body theory or the Anthropocene.The book will be organized in terms of topographies and vistas rather than being bound by the map. This will encourage dialogue between writers within certain kinds of landscapes (the beaches of Florida compared to Colombia, the cities of North America compared to South Asia) as well as between regions themselves (urban spaces compared to prairies or mountains). Some regions are quite unique—the Pacific Northwest, as one example—but most types of location have specific “instances.” Organized according to these conceptual places (listed below), the collection will stimulate writers’ and readers’ understanding not just of disability experience generally but also of the meaning of physical place and how identities are constructed, experienced, and represented in relation to geography.The writers collected in Placing Disability will propose that disability identity cannot be divorced from location. The book will thus offer its readers what we call a series of geocripistemologies, as authors explore issues of movement, work and play, community and activism, cultural and artistic production, love and sex, access and social services, family, memory, and maturity—informed by the places they inhabit. Like Nancy Mairs, who throughout her collection Waist-High in the World asks readers to rethink the most mundane of life’s tasks no less than the most philosophical conundrums of existence from her position in a wheelchair, “the height of an erect adult’s waist,” or Eli Clare, who writes in Brilliant Imperfection that it is his “shaky balance” that grants him a certain “intimacy with the mountain[s]” of Vermont, Placing Disability’s authors will show us where disability happens as a fresh and exciting way of conceiving of what disability means to our collective grasp of the human condition.Our collection adds the important element of location to an increasingly sophisticated cultural and critical conversation about disability. Essays in Placing Disability will resist the pressure to draw conclusions or declare priorities; our goal is not to determine that it is “better” to be disabled here rather than there, but instead to seek out a multitude of geo-embodied realities. We envision a collection of high literary and philosophical quality that will represent what is possible in terms of imagining regional disabilities in the fullest possible sense. We ask that writers straddle the creative/scholarly threshold—in the manner of Clare and Mairs—braiding theoretically inflected examinations of place with personal, perhaps lyrically told, tales.

About the Editors

Susannah B. Mintz is a professor of English at Skidmore College. She has published extensively as a writer of creative nonfiction, with essays in American Literary Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, Epiphany, Ninth Letter, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She was the winner of the 2014 South Loop National Essay Prize and a finalist for both the 2010 William Allen nonfiction prize and the Epiphany chapbook contest in 2015. Her work has received special mention from Best American Essays 2010 and the Pushcart Prize Anthology 2018. A short memoir titled “Match Dot Comedy” appeared as a Kindle Single in 2013. A specialist in disability studies and scholar of autobiography, she is also the author of four monographs, including Unruly Bodies: Life Writing by Women with Disabilities (2007), Hurt and Pain: Literature and the Suffering Body (2014), and The Disabled Detective: Sleuthing Disability in Contemporary Crime Fiction (2019), and co-editor of three volumes: a critical anthology on the essayist Nancy Mairs, the Long Eighteenth Century volume of Bloomsbury’s forthcoming Cultural History of Disability, and the two-volume Gale-Cengage reference work Disability Experiences. A memoir called Love Affair in the Garden of Milton: Poetry, Loss, and the Meaning of Unbelief is just out from LSU Press. www.susannahbmintz.com Gregory Fraser is Professor of English at the University of West Georgia University, outside Atlanta. He is the author of four poetry collections: Strange Pietà (Texas Tech University Press, 2003), Answering the Ruins (2009), Designed for Flight (2014), and Little Armageddon (2021), all from Northwestern University Press. He is also the co-author of the workshop textbook Writing Poetry (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008) and the critical writing textbook Analyze Anything (Bloomsbury, 2012). Fraser’s poetry, which often addresses themes of disability, illness, and place, has appeared in journals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, and The Gettysburg Review. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his writing, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Conceptual regions: Coastlines The far North and the far South The Desert The Northwest The Country The Heartland The City The Burbs

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Registration is now open for the Southern Lives Workshop, which runs from Monday 6 – Tuesday 7 December. This is a hybrid event: attendees can choose to register for either online or in-person attendance. Click here to register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/southern–lives–workshop-tickets-194992727497Location: Wolfson College, with sessions on 6 Dec at the Pitt Rivers Museum and TORCH.Co-organised by Elleke Boehmer and Katherine Collins, this event brings together writers and scholars in the oceanic humanities, postcolonial and Global South studies and polar studies, to explore how the high southern latitudes are imagined through life-writing. With kind thanks to the British Academy Small Grants fund and the Leverhulme Trust for their support.Please see the Workshop Schedule, which is included below, for more information.All the best,The OCLW Team

Schedule: Southern Lives Workshop

MONDAY 6 December 202113:30-14:30: Group visit to the Pitt Rivers Museum.15:00-16:15: Welcome to the workshop & Southern Lives book proposal discussion.16:15-16:30: Short break16:30-17:30: First paper session: Knowing and unknowing the South (Elleke Boehmer, Katherine Collins, Bernhard Schirg)TUESDAY 7 December 202109:30-10:30: Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos (Coimbra): Responses, On Southern Lives, followed by Q and A.10:30-11:00: Tea/Coffee11:00-12:15: Second paper session: ‘Far southern resonances and images’ (Elizabeth Leane, Carolyn Philpott, Joanna Price, Joe Shaughnessy, Priyanka Shivadas)12:30-13:15: Lunch13:15-14:30: Third paper session: ‘Perspectives on time, change, the environment’ (Confidence Joseph, Charne Lavery, Isaac Ndlovu, Emma Parker)14:30-15:00: Coffee/tea15:00-16:15: Fourth paper session: Imagining southern spaces (Sarah Comyn, Archie Davies, Porscha Fermanis, Cristóbal Pérez Barra, Pablo Wainschenker)16:15-16:30: Short break16:30-17:15: Feedback17:15-18:00: Light buffet dinner 18:00-19:30: Final session: Creative-critical crossovers in the South (Elizabeth Lewis Williams, Khutso Mabokela, Louis Rogers) Close Oxford Centre for Life-Writing Wolfson College Linton Road Oxford OX2 6UD https://www.oclw.web.ox.ac.uk

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CFP: Popular Culture Association Annual Conference-Biographies Area (Virtual Conference–April 13-16, 2022)–Submission Deadline Extension: 12/5/21

The Popular Culture Association will be holding its annual conference virtually  April 13-16, 2022. The Biographies Area is soliciting papers that examine the connections between biography and popular culture. Papers and full panel presentations regarding any aspect of popular culture and biography are encouraged. Potential topics might include: – Biography and entertainment, art, music, theater – Biography and film – Biography and criminal justice – Television programs about biography – Biography and urban legends – Biography and folklore – Biography and literature – Scholarly Biography – Controversial Biography – Psychoanalysis and Biography – Historical Biography – Political Biography – Autobiography Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session.  Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. On your submission, please include title of paper, abstract, and contact information. Submission Deadline Extension: 12/5/21 Please go to this link to submit your paper:  https://pcaaca.org/conference/submitting-paper-proposal-pca-conference  Please direct any queries to the Biographies Area chair: Susie Skarl Associate Professor/Urban Affairs Librarian UNLV Libraries Las Vegas, NV 89154 susie.skarl@unlv.edu OR susieskarl@gmail.com

Contact Info:

Susie Skarl Associate Professor/Urban Affairs Librarian UNLV Libraries Las Vegas, NV 89154

Contact Email:

susie.skarl@unlv.edu

* Moving Biography Summer School

International summer school in Beirut, 1-8 June 2022 Deadline for Applications: 30 November 2021 The Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) in collaboration with the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Global (De)Centre (GDC) invites doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to apply for an international Summer School, entitled Moving Biography, that will take place in Beirut/Lebanon from 1 to 8 June 2022. Our Summer School will explore the various etymologies and connotations that the term “biography” carries in different languages and their various complexities. The English term “biography” comes from the Greek words “bios” (life) and “graphia” (writing). As such, the word expresses a tension between conceptions of life as a narrative (everyone has a biography), and the actual practice of writing about particular lives. The genre of biography socializes us into expectations for our own lives. In contrast, the Arabic term “sīra” conceives of biography as a journey. Deriving from the verb “sāra” (to travel), it has been used, in particular, to refer to “al-sīra al-nabawiyya” (the prophetic biography), the life journey of the Prophet Muhammad. Al-sīra al-nabawiyya constitutes a key source of Islamic studies, next to the Qur’ān and the “ḥadīth” (tradition). Whose stories get written and what they include profoundly shapes how we understand the world and whose lives matter within it. Biographies tend to conform to notions of nation, ethnicity, religion, or class, despite the opportunity, articulated in the Arabic “sīra”, for following lives across boundaries. Probing the sometimes messy contradictions between real-life stories and conceptions of self, between personal and communal identities, Moving Biography brings together different perspectives from a range of disciplines (anthropology, art history, cultural studies, gender studies, literary studies, history, political studies, and sociology) to question disciplinary assumptions and decenter the genre. Moving Biography will focus on three main themes: (1) questions of data (2) the act of creation, and (3) the importance of the social and historical context of biographies.

1. We will use the topic of biography as a broad, generative umbrella under which to explore cultural and intellectual inequality. The destinations towards which lives move and their means of travel reveal not only the unequalness of infrastructures of circulation but also the radical inequalities characterizing the landscapes within which lives get lived. How do fiction and non-fiction merge in the writing of lives? How do biographies deal with uncertainties and gaps in the life stories/journeys that are recorded? These questions are all the more urgent when archival research is restricted, be it by war, other social and political conditions, or the very form of the archive itself. Biography forces us to rethink what counts as relevant data. Does an author’s fiction count as data? How do we conceive of autobiographical writing in works of fiction? Would records of quaint past-time activities or other ephemera count for a politician or a prophet? Observing the compliance of biography with certain scholarly boxes encourages new methodologies including considerations of ownership, archival management, and social infrastructure.
2. Biography can shed an important light on creation. Two models dominate: creation as an isolated, personal act, or a connected, interactive, ongoing one that may or may not involve others. These lead, in turn, to two tactics: to embed the individual in the cultural/historical context in which he or she lived, or to tell the story of an intellectual, literary, or artistic movement or genre. Our interdisciplinary, comparative perspective suggests that creation is never purely individual. Methodologically, we explore how the circulation of ideas affected important thinkers, and wonder at how such networks have not been studied systematically for individuals who live(d) at the social margins. We also include the things an individual makes—the transient, ephemeral acts of imagination—as part of the biography of a person or community, even if no single stylistic motive or outcome unifies them.
3. We will use the topic of biography to rethink disciplines and social institutions. How are biographies conceived in different spatial and temporal settings and in different academic disciplines? Biography offers a method for rethinking personhood/social being. What constitutes “a life” cross-culturally in and through time? How are sets of biographies related to “generational” contingencies and concerns? As C. Wright Mills argued, one cannot separate a biography from history and context. What notions of history and time does biography foreground? How do past, present, and future converge in real-life stories? In what ways are social persons or the idea of biographical founders essential to the endurance and effervescence of academic disciplines? An in-depth discussion about these questions will prompt greater reflexivity in each of our disciplines.

In order to explore the above, we invite the participation of 20 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in the humanities and social sciences engaged in research relating to biography/sīra in the Middle East and in other regions, in particular in the global south, to join us in Beirut for a one-week Summer School in June 2022. The school will be preceded by a preparatory phase kicked off by a series of keynote lectures and the launch of an online platform, in which the selected participants can upload summaries of their ongoing projects, expand on their research questions, share literature and start an informal exchange in the run up to the Summer School. The one-week school will convene an interdisciplinary group of students and faculty who will each bring their own disciplinary background and assumptions to the conversation. It will be organized around a combination of plenary talks by invited scholars, working sessions by the Summer School organizers about the theoretical issues at stake, and workshops where participants will present their ongoing research in small groups to get feedback and critique. Three field visits to institutions and initiatives in Lebanon that are implicated in the forming of biographies and one plenary discussion with practitioners from the field will form an integral part of the Summer School. We believe it is especially important to hold the Summer School in Beirut, to highlight the importance of international scholarly exchange at a time of crisis and to understand the challenges one faces when thinking about biography and the fragility of data. Confirmed speakers include Marilyn Booth (University of Oxford), Kirsten Buick (University of New Mexico), Wilhelm Hemecker (University of Vienna), Tarif Khalidi (American University of Beirut), Jean Said Makdisi (writer and scholar), Lina Saneh Majdalani (independent artist), Sherene Seikaly (University of California, Santa Barbara), Daniel Schönpflug (Institute for Advanced Study Berlin) and Salim Tamari (Birzeit University). Travel to/from Beirut and accommodation will be covered. The program is aimed at researchers in the humanities and social sciences from the region and abroad who will present their ongoing projects in relation to the topic of biography. The researchers’ work should be clearly relevant to the themes of the Summer School and use original source material. The working language will be English. The application should be in English and consist of

•  a CV
• a 3 to 5-page outline of the project the applicant is currently working on
• the names and contact details of two potential referees (no letters of recommendation required)

to be sent by Email in one PDF document no later than 30 November 2021 to movingbiography@orient-institut.org The Summer School is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and organised by Peggy Levitt, Wellesley College/Harvard University Nadia von Maltzahn, Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) Sonja Mejcher-Atassi, American University of Beirut (AUB) Kirsten Scheid, American University of Beirut (AUB). It is a partnership between the Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB), the American University in Beirut (AUB) and the Global (De)Centre (GDC). The Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) The Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) is an academically independent German research institute and part of the Max Weber Foundation. It is mainly funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It conducts interdisciplinary research on the Arab world and the region of West Asia and North Africa at large. Its research community comprises long-term research associates from Germany and short-term visiting fellows from all over the world, who represent the major disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, including Islamic and Arab studies, history and anthropology of the Middle East, as well as sociology and political sciences. The OIB aims to foster academic relations across the MENA region and increasingly conducts its research in transregional perspectives. See https://www.orient-institut.org/about/ The American University in Beirut (AUB) Founded in 1866, the American University of Beirut bases its educational philosophy, standards, and practices on the American liberal arts model of higher education. A teaching-centered research university, AUB has around 800 instructional faculty and a student body of around 8,000 students. The University encourages freedom of thought and expression and seeks to graduate men and women committed to creative and critical thinking, life-long learning, personal integrity, civic responsibility, and leadership. See https://www.aub.edu.lb/AboutUs/Pages/default.aspx The Global (De)Centre (GDC) The Global (De)Centre (GDC) is a platform bringing together a growing network of interdisciplinary scholars, creative practitioners and managers, and activists from across the world who are committed to challenging intellectual and cultural inequality. The GDC seeks to deconstruct and reconstruct by looking closely at how the methods and categories we have traditionally used to create knowledge bring to light certain “truths” while obscuring others. We are also committed to charting a constructive way forward—to create new ways of producing and disseminating knowledge and new social interventions—that unsettle longstanding cultural and intellectual hierarchies and bring a wider range of actors and epistemologies into conversation with one another (reconstruction). All four Summer School organizers are members of the GDC. See http://globaldecentre.world/gdc/about-gdc

Related date:

November 30, 2021

Hybridity in Life Writing: How Text and Images Work Together to Tell a Life Organizers: Clare Brant (King’s College London), Arnaud Schmitt (Bordeaux University & LARCA, Université de Paris) Venue: Université de Paris, Paris, 7–8 July, 2022 Keynote Speaker: Pr. Teresa Bruś (Wrocław University)

• Please submit an abstract of approx. 250 words and a short bionote to

clare.brant@kcl.ac.uk and arnaud.schmitt@u-bordeaux.fr by 30 November, 2021 at the latest. It might seem that, to some extent, almost all visual content in autobiographical texts is visual aid. But what is it in aid of? Of the text, somehow. Victor Burgin notes that “we rarely see a photograph in use which does not have a caption or a title, it is more usual to encounter photographs attached to long texts, or with copy superimposed over them. Even a photograph which has no actual writing on or around it is traversed by language when it is ‘read’ by a viewer.” As powerful as images can be, and they frequently outshine the text that precedes or follows them, their narrative potential is nevertheless tethered to the text that introduces them or comments them a posteriori. In other words, the text has the first or last word, it frames the picture and, in a way, ‘tames’ its impact: a picture is at the text’s service. And yet, it can also be argued that images contradict texts in the same Derridean way as texts and more particularly words contradict each other, or at least unsettle themselves. In Picture Theory, W. J. T. Mitchell states that he wants “to concentrate, however, on the kinds of photographic essays which contain strong textual elements, where the text is most definitely an ‘invasive’ and even domineering element.” Thus, even if and when they are supposed to work together, words and images in a memoir establish a balance of power, one that requires investigation as the autobiographical narrative of a hybrid memoir depends on this very balance. From a historical point of view, this balance of power may also result from the evolution of each medium’s status, as an art form or cultural artefact. For instance, it can be argued that the first memoir written by a photographer is Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature. Teresa Bruś claims that “The Pencil of Nature, presented to the public in 1844, is the first autobiographical book of a photographer. […] aligning the ‘art’ of photography with a rhetorical, if not a literary, project.” But in Photography and Literature, François Brunet points out that, contrary to what might have been expected, Talbot’s effort had little effect on the publishing world, and this “estrangement of photography from literature,” with the odd exception, lasted until the end of the 19^th century. According to him, nothing much happened before the beginning of the 20^th century and “the growing recognition of photography as a distinct art form.” It makes sense that photography’s relation with literature very much depended on its evolving status.[1] On a more positive note, hybridity may also be seen to operate beyond this semantic and cultural balance of power and to aim at an additional meaning created thanks to intermediality at a level where, despite their intrinsic cognitive features and differences, text and images are able to produce content that they would not have been able to produce had they been kept separate. In a way, it hinges on how a book balances text and images, how it ‘monitors’ intermediality. But Gilles Mora writes that “photography has rarely generated autobiographical works able to exist without the support of language” (“la photographie a rarement produit des œuvres autobiographiques qui puissent se passer de l’appui du langage”). Maybe because one of the main (if not the only) functions of photographs in life writing is to authenticate. Roland Barthes is mostly responsible for the widespread belief that photography is better at accessing the past than words, principally through two assertions he made in Camera Lucida: “it [photography] does not invent; it is authentication incarnate. […] Every photograph certifies a presence” (“elle [la photographie] n’invente rien ; elle est l’authentification même. […] Toute photographie est un certificat de presence”) and “It seems that Photography always carries its referent with it […]” (“On dirait que la Photographie emporte toujours son référent avec elle […]”). The role of non-photographic images in hybrid memoirs or autobiographical works is thus more complex as paintings for instance do not have this ability to authenticate and similarly to words do not “carry their referent with them.” However, in a post-PhotoShop age, the way photographs have the ability to tamper with or even falsify “their referent” can be seen as highly problematic in an autobiographical context. The same can be said about graphic memoirs, a booming field, as drawings are also very low on the ‘authentication scale’. Nevertheless, Narratologist Robyn Warhol made the following remark regarding them: “The juxtaposition of cartooning with verbal memoir offers methods of representing subjectivity that are unprecedented in traditional autobiography. Indeed, as Versaci asserts ‘while many prose memoirists address the complex nature of identity and the self, comic book memoirists are able to represent such complexity in ways that cannot be captured in words alone’.” But is this “subjectivity” represented separately or jointly? And in the latter case, how? Also not as authenticating as photographs, paintings remain nevertheless a potential narrative resource for any autobiographer. In The Privileged Eye, Max Kozloff reminds us that “a main distinction between a painting and a photograph is that the painting alludes to its content, whereas the photograph summons it, from wherever and whenever, to us.” It might only be “alluding to a content,” but a painting in a memoir simply is another form of hybridity and a way for an author to diversify the work’s content. Stanley Cavell wrote that we might say that “a painting is a world” and that “a photograph is of the world” but a painting in many ways continue to allude to the world, and more precisely to the autobiographer’s world. Finally, beyond the intermedial question, there is the issue of autobiography, and more specifically autobiography at the beginning of the 21^st century, a different type from previous centuries, one more informed of the limits of referential writing and more than ever aware of its importance; one also that has often outgrown its usual vessel—even though the latter remains its most prestigious one in terms of official recognition­—and has branched out into social and often more visual media (just one example among so many: the renowned American photographer Stephen Shore’s Instagram account on which he posts one picture everyday). Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson have identified and explored “the visual-verbal-virtual contexts of life narrative” which have multiplied through for example performance and visual arts, autobiographical films and videos, and variously curated online lives. Véronique Montémont rightfully points out that Philippe Lejeune, one of the most prominent life writing theorists, “does not mention photography because for him autobiography involves enunciation, a narrator in other terms.” And yet photography has entered the field of autobiography in a multitude of ways. In Picturing Ourselves: Photography & Autobiography, Linda Haverty Rugg sums up her study’s main objectives thus: “This book explores the intersection of these two debates—the point at which photographs enter the autobiographical act. What (or how) do photographs mean in the context of an autobiography?” The aim of this symposium is to explore the point at which an image, any image, whether fixed or moving (in vlogs for instance), enters the autobiographical act and confronts the verbal form. Keynote Speaker: Pr. Teresa Bruś (Wrocław University), author of the forthcoming Face Forms in Photography and Life Writing of the 1920s and 1930s

• CFP: Popular Culture Association Annual Conference-Biographies Area (11/15/2021; 4/13-16/2022) Seattle, USA

Biography, Film and Film History, Journalism and Media Studies, Music and Music History, Popular Culture Studies

The Popular Culture Association will be holding its annual conference in Seattle, Washington, April 13-16, 2022. The Biographies Area is soliciting papers that examine the connections between biography and popular culture. Papers and full panel presentations regarding any aspect of popular culture and biography are encouraged. Potential topics might include: – Biography and entertainment, art, music, theater – Biography and film – Biography and criminal justice – Television programs about biography – Biography and urban legends – Biography and folklore – Biography and literature – Scholarly Biography – Controversial Biography – Psychoanalysis and Biography – Historical Biography – Political Biography – Autobiography Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session.  Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. On your submission, please include title of paper, abstract, and contact information. Submission Deadline: 11/15/21 Please go to this link to submit your paper:  https://pcaaca.org/conference/submitting-paper-proposal-pca-conference 

Contact Info:

Susie Skarl Associate Professor/Urban Affairs Librarian UNLV Libraries 4505 S. Maryland Pkway Las Vegas, NV 89154

Contact Email:

susie.skarl@unlv.edu

* * * *

“Ecce mulier”: Female celebrity culture and the visual arts around 1900 Call for papers Image and Narrative 24.2 (2023) Guest edited by Carlijn Cober, dr. Floris Meens and dr. Tom Sintobin, this issue will focus on representations and self-representations of female key figures during the fin de siècle of the 19^th century. By combining visual, narrative and historiographical analyses, we aim to gain insight into how female artists, authors, actors, musicians, salonnières, scholars and muses both functioned within the cultural field and have been ‘imagined’ or imagined themselves during their lifetime and beyond. Research questions can concern either literal or figurative interpretations of terms relating to both ‘image’ and ‘narrative’. In the case of literal visual imaginations, possible questions would be: How are female figures depicted in visual media, such as photographs, films, paintings, sketches, or cartoons? Against which background, in what posture, in whose company? Does that depiction follow, establish or transgress norms? How – through what media and in which circles – were these images established, distributed or consumed, both synchronically and diachronically? What was the relationship between various forms of representations and the women’s fame? Who was responsible for these depictions: did women have agency and to what extent can they be seen as a coproduction? In the case of figural forms of imagination, questions could be: How did famous or influential women construct or fashion their own image? How are they visible in literary texts, poetry, diary entries, biographies, letter exchanges, plays, operas, operettas and songs? What role did they play within the cultural imagination? How have they been imagined, within which framework, in what role or position, in relation to whom? How have either their image or narrative evolved over time, during their life or ours? How can we render them visible or highlight different perspectives of them? We are looking for articles with an average length of 5000 words (including notes and bibliography) that together address a wide range of methods and approaches related to this topic, and original interpretations of both ‘image’ and ‘narrative’. Those interested to contribute can submit an abstract of maximum 250 words and a cv to eccemulier.cfp@gmail.com by October 1^st, 2021. The deadline for the first drafts will be March 1^st, 2022 the final deadline July 1^st, 2022.

Contact Email:

C1.Cober@let.ru.nl

* Deadline for Submissions 9/30/2021

2022 Magarey Medal for Biography Applications Open

The Magarey Medal for Biography is awarded biennially to the female person who has published the work judged to be the best biographical writing on an Australian subject. The 2022 Medal will be awarded for a book published in 2020 or 2021. For the 2022 round, the Magarey Medal will be administered by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL). Intentions to submit an application are due 30 September 2021 and applications close 31 January 2022. Details here: https://theaha.org.au/awards-and-prizes/magarey-medal-for-biography/

*

New Developments in 20th- and 21st-century Life Writing

(9/30/2021; 3/10-13/2022) Baltimore, USA

contact email:

eiglerf@georgetown.edu

New Developments in 20th- and 21st-century Life Writing (Panel for NEMLA conference, March 10-13, 2022, Baltimore MD) Forms and approaches to self-representation continue to diversify as the landscape of possible media, tools, subjects, and cultural accounts is growing. Historically, life writing genres such as biography, autobiography, memoir, correspondence and ancestral documentation have been used as archival, political and sociological resources. However, the value and use of life writing extends far beyond these textual forms and practical uses. In an increasingly mobile and interconnected world, issues of subjectivity, identity, belonging, self-constitution and dialog become more pressing, particularly in response to social and cultural upheaval. Examples include Walter Kempowski’s so-called collective diary Echolot or Katja Petrowskaja’s autofictional family history Vielleicht Esther. The panel looks at voices and perspectives that have gained new traction in recent decades. In particular, we invite papers that consider genre developments within Life Writing with an eye towards methods, forms and interpretations that broaden the range of voices and subject positions we explore. While significant research regarding Life Writing has been undertaken within the field of German Studies in recent years, we also welcome proposals from other disciplines and fields. Please submit a 250-300 word proposal through the NeMLA submission portal by September 30, 2021: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/19545 If you have any questions regarding the panel, please contact the organizers: Friederike Eigler (eiglerf@georgetown.edu) and Samantha Grayck (scg86@georgetown.edu). *

Ethics of Witnessing

NeMLA (9/30/2021 3/10-13/2022 Baltimore USA

contact email:

dalkanoi@xula.edu

In the aftermath of mass atrocities, where the humanity is both the subject and object of a destructive process, the historical truth is almost impossible to access. On the one hand, perpetrators have tendency to deny their responsibility in committing atrocities, and on the other hand, victims’ experience remains unspeakable due to the impact of trauma. After the Holocaust, researchers from different disciplines focused on the possibility of transmission of the traumatic events related to the atrocities, as well as the obstacles that are faced during this process. One of the interesting areas of research in this regard is the victim-perpetrator encounter and the dynamics of witnessing in relation to the historical truth. This panel investigates the dynamics of witnessing and its representations through the artistic production. Deadline for submissions–9/30/2021. *

Rock Music Icons

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2021

full name / name of organization:

For the Record

contact email:

bmcparland@bobmcparland.com

Well-developed essays on major rock music artists are sought for publication in the For the Record book series. These essays should extend beyond biography into some aspects of the artist’s creative work. Of particular interest are essays on rock performers who have made an impact since 1980 and essays that discuss the artist’s music, iconic status, and cultural significance. Of course, essays on Elton John, David Bowie, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and other major figures who made their mark before 1980 are also welcome. Proposals of about 200-300 words may be sent from July through September 30, 2021 and should indicate the direction of your essay. Essay proposals and inquiries may be sent to Dr. Robert Mc Parland at bmcparland@bobmcparland.com or mcparlandr@felician.edu Complete essays of 5,000-6,500 words will be due by the end of 2021.

*

Legacies of Trauma: The Tragedy of Before and After deadline for submissions: September 30, 2021 Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies contact email: llids.journal@gmail.com CALL FOR PAPERS For a Special issue Of Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies Legacies of Trauma: The Tragedy of Before and After In the last couple of decades, life-writing has come to be seen as a singular site of reclaiming unclaimed experiences of trauma. Despite the apparent crisis of representation, a wide array of strategies and innovations are employed in life-writings towards the cause of conveying trauma. Life-writing in its various avatars dealing with trauma foreground the insight that trauma is not only a “drama of past event, but also, even primarily, a drama of survival” (Rubin). For the autobiographical subject, modalities of articulation and testimony present grounds for recovery of selfhood, leading to a possibility of re-engagement with the lifeworld. In putting together the fragments of memory, life-writing potentially counters trauma through the enactment of witnessing one’s own trauma in telling and its transmissibility to the reader, through whom the questions of secondary victimhood come to be seen as another determinant in the complex signification towards the experience of trauma. However, language miserably gives way to its own splintering before the overwhelming traumatic experience and fails to remain a witness thereof. Nevertheless, across different genres of expression, including digital and hybrid ones, dilatation of conventional idiom of expression with a view to register creatively what resists or slips away is crucial. Subjects living as survivors of life-threatening events take to different means of expression. The complexity of textualizing trauma is such that the narrative oftentimes betrays a great deal about how the subject re-constitutes itself to come to terms with the experience, thereby underlining themes of truth telling and reconciliation in the face of trauma. However, one of the complex threads of survivor’s narrative is the interpellation of memory in the act of composing a narrative. It also brings to fore an aporia inherent in the very enterprise of representing trauma that is typically taken as unrepresentable. Delayed response to trauma, fragmented memory, complexity of experience, denial, and fear of persecution dislocate the subject from its history, culture, and context. This call for paper stems out of the realization that there is much to be reckoned with in the experience and imprint of traumatic experiences in life, which seem to be hinged to the tenor of (our) times. Representations of trauma abound in photography, cinema, paintings, memoirs, testimonials, etc., giving a spectrum of positions to engage and tease interdisciplinary lines of inquiry. Scholars are invited to explore the area by engaging and going beyond the following thematics:

• Partition Literature/Literature of Crisis and Trauma
• Restorative Function of Art
• Tropes/Metaphors and Articulation of Trauma
• Modernity and Trauma
• Memory Studies and Trauma
• Disability Studies and Trauma
• Trauma in Pre-modern Life-writing
• Life-writing and Childhood Trauma
• Construction of the Childhood/Figure of Child in the Survivor’s Narrative
• Intergenerational/Transgenerational Trauma
• Historical Trauma and Methods of Recuperation
• Testimonial Projects and Legal Framework
• Limits of Representation in Autobiography
• PTSD in Non-Western Narratives
• Construction of Trauma and Politics of Trauma
• Pathography and Limits of Autobiography
• Trauma and Scriptotherapy
• Trauma and Public Memory
• Pandemic and Trauma
• Exile and Trauma
• Refugee Crisis and Trauma
• Representation of Trauma through Photographs

Submissions: Only complete papers will be considered for publication. The papers need to be submitted according to the guidelines of the MLA 8th edition. You are welcome to submit full length papers (3,500–10,000 words) along with a 150 words abstract and list of keywords. Please read the submission guidelines before making the submission – https://ellids.com/author-guidelines/submission-guidelines/. Please feel free to email any queries to – editors@ellids.com. Submission deadline: 30th September, 2021 Website – https://ellids.com/ Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/journal.llids/

*

NEMLA 2022: Family Inheritance in Original Creative Work (9/30/2021; 3/10-13/2022) Baltimore, USA

Writers inherit much from their families: stories, material wealth, trauma, discipline, genetic traits, knowledge, and other legacies. What do we do with this heritage and how do we make it our own in our original creative productions? Will the legacy become a heirloom seed that produces exquisite blooms or a hereditary disorder that wilts inspiration on the vine? Bestselling memoirists Mary Karr, Sherman Alexie, Ocean Vuong, and many others have famously shaped family trauma into achingly poignant works of art, begging us to ask if such pain is a necessary ingredient of their success. On the other hand, poets such as Robert Hayden and Ruth Stone have eulogized family members through art, thereby immortalizing the positive aspects loved ones have left behind. This panel will explore these positive and negative inheritances through readings of creative works followed by a panel discussion. Writers are invited to interpret the theme of inheritance broadly, to read a 10 to 15-minute excerpt of the poetry fiction, or creative non-fiction (including memoir) that showcases their inheritance, and participate in a discussion of how writers make use of what their families leave them. Please submit a 200-250-word abstract of your presentation, including how it applies to the theme of inheritance, and a two-page excerpt of the creative work you will read.  Submit to https://www.cfplist.com/ by September 30, 2021. Contact Info:

Dr. Betina Entzminger English Department Bloomsburg University bentzmin@bloomu.edu

Contact Email:

bentzmin@bloomu.edu

*

#MeToo and Contemporary Literary Studies (NeMLA panel)

deadline for submissions:

September 30, 2021

Mary K. Holland and Heather Hewett, SUNY New Paltz

contact email:

hollandm@newpaltz.edu

#MeToo and Contemporary Literary Studies: panel accepted for the 2022 NeMLA conference (March 10-13, 2022; Baltimore, MD) While feminist literary scholars have been examining the relationship between literature and rape for decades, the #MeToo movement has reenergized this work. Building on recent scholarship (Serisier 2018; Field 2020; Holland and Hewett 2021), and along with forthcoming work (Gilmore; Hobbs), this panel considers the range of critical frameworks with which literary critics are addressing gender, identity, violence, and power. Reassessing these aspects of experience and representation in light of this movement calls for a rethinking of the critical practices we use to produce scholarship and theory about literature and culture, and requires rereadings of literature and authors whose participation in or critique of rape culture has yet to be made visible, or whose work can be revisited to shed light on the current moment. The panel is particularly interested in transnational, transcultural, and intersectional approaches that attend to genre and genre-blurring; publication and reception; rape culture outside and inside academia; the interconnections between written literature and social media; narratives about sexual violence, racism, and colonialism authored by BIPOC authors; queer violence and survivorship; and the recent outpouring of published literature, particularly memoir and lifewriting, about sexual violence, testimony, trauma, and healing. Most broadly, this panel will ask how current theoretical and critical approaches are positioned in the long history of literary activism against sexual violence, and what role literature and literary studies can play in the project of ending sexual violence and rape culture. More specific topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Rethinking critical practices in light of #MeToo.
  • Ways in which intersectional analyses of #MeToo narratives might provide another context for interpreting creative work, particularly texts that explore bodily violence, trauma, and survivorship;
  • How #MeToo, and social media more broadly, interacts with traditionally published life narratives and changes the possibilities of creating, sharing, and using personal narratives;
  • Ways in which sexual politics in the university or publishing world inhibit critical work that unmasks misogyny and sexual abuse;
  • Ways in which critics might silence themselves when writing about misogynistic texts or texts that support rape culture;
  • Implications of authorial accusations of sexual abuse for critical readings of authors’ work (eg, Junot Diaz, Sherman Alexie).

• • Reconsiderations of canonical authors whose sexual politics have so far escaped scrutiny (eg, Coetzee, Updike; this list may include female authors);
  • Readings of lesser known texts that critique rape culture in effective ways;
  • How young adult literature treats sexual assault and rape culture (Erik Cleveland and Sybil Durand published on this topic in 2014);
  • How sexual assault is normalized even in otherwise female-empowering literature, film, or TV;
  • How depictions of sexual assault and rape culture in contemporary texts differ from those in earlier texts, because of changes in the law, cultural changes, political movements, etc;
  • Texts that draw parallels with the current political and social climate of backlash against women’s rights.Feminist rereadings of authors or specific texts whose misogyny, rape culture, and/or scenes of sexual harassment, abuse, or rape have yet to be identified and critiqued by critics.

Please submit your abstract using the NeMLA conference portal: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/19291

NeMLA 2022 – Representing Care and Being Together in Refugee Writing (9/30/2021; 3/10-13/2022) NEMLA, Baltimore USA

Please consider submitting an abstract for the following panel at the 2022 Northeast Modern Language Association Conference to be held from March 10-13, 2022, in Baltimore, MD. Abstracts are accepted from June 15 to September 30, 2021. Submit abstracts at the NeMLA portal: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/login This panel invites papers that attend to new perspectives on the representation of refugee histories and experiences in literature. The figure of the refugee has been the subject of much political and philosophical debate, ranging from discussions about the “bare life” of the refugee (Agamben 1995) to their being subjects of humanitarian violence (Nyers 2006). More recent investigations in literary studies have focused on the misrepresentation or absence of refugee histories in post/colonialism, diaspora studies and modernity such as with David Farrier’s Postcolonial Asylum: Seeking Sanctuary Before the Law, Lyndsey Stoneridge’s Placeless People: Writing, Refugees and Rights and Daniel Coleman’s et al. Countering Displacement: The Creativity and Resilience of Indigenous and Refugee-ed Peoples. More can be said, however, about the representation of refugee experiences and histories of care, desire, and aspiration in literature. What experiences other than violence and trauma remain to be elucidated in refugee writing? How is refugee writing envisioning alternative ways of caring and being together? Paper topics include but are not limited to:

• Representations of refugees in graphic novels and memoirs
• Refugee memoirs and testimonials
• Refugees in film and television
• Collaborative writing projects
• Experiences and histories of refuge or asylum in opera and musical theatre

If you have any questions, please contact Jonathan Nash (Universisty of Victoria) at jnash33@uvic.ca

*

CFP: Biographies as “Probes” of Transformation? ‘Agency’ of Nazi Perpetrators after 1945 in the Federal Republic, the GDR and Austria

Workshop at the University of Vienna, 03-04 March 2022 The workshop focuses on political biographies of perpetrators of National Socialism after 1945, with a regional emphasis on West Germany, the GDR and Austria. Research on Nazi perpetrators published in recent years has increasingly concentrated on the definition of the concept of perpetration, on the identity and agency of Nazi perpetrators, and on the conditions for their participation in the crimes. In doing so, however, the “prehistory” during the German Empire, World War I, the Weimar Republic, and the First Republic was incorporated into the political biographies of the perpetrators. Further activities of the perpetrators after the end of the “Third Reich” are only mentioned as the aftermath of National Socialism, in the “politics of the past”, and are rarely interpreted as the prehistory of post-National Socialist societies. Moreover, transformation processes around the macro-historical caesura of 1945 are primarily analyzed from a structuralist perspective. Studies on this topic tend to focus on the examination of (federal) ministries, using the year 1945 as a marker of collapse and new beginning (which is also constituted in the biographies), and thus, contribute to the construction of a dichotomy of continuity and breaks. The individual perspectives of the biographical subjects, however, hardly become visible. Adopting Thomas Etzemüller’s approach of viewing biographies as instruments or “probes” (“Sonden”), into an integrated social history “in order to understand the functioning of society”, we will consider and examine – on the basis the biographies of female and male perpetrators in National socialism – society and the individual not as separate entities, but as constituents involved in a reciprocal relationship. In this context, we will discuss and question in the workshop the dichotomy of macro- and micro-perspectives as well as the concepts of “structure” and “agency”. Workshop papers may address, but are not limited to the following questions: – Perpetration: How did individual perpetrators deal with their participation in Nazi crimes? How is their participation integrated into the narrative of their own biography? Did they hide, legitimise, or deny their participation? What strategies did they use? – Careers and networks: How did perpetrators react to system collapses and changes? Who succeeded in integrating into new systems and who did not? Which agents were able to use their qualifications and “expertise” acquired under National Socialism and how? How did system changes influence private and professional networks and functional elites? – Integration: How did former Nazi perpetrators integrate into new systems? How did integration possibilities differ for perpetrators, especially with regard to elites? Where did integration succeed, where did it fail? – Structure: The conditions and norms of post-National Socialist societies influenced and confronted the perpetrators first in the occupation zones, later in Austria, the GDR and FRG. How did the developing societal structures, constitutional systems, and norms influence the perpetrators’ decisions to act? – Legality and illegality: Who fled? Who maintained their legal existence and who entered illegality? What can be determined about the relationship between actual and feared prosecution and how did this influence the actions of the perpetrators? How did (feared) prosecution affect (dis)integration processes? Application: We particularly encourage doctoral students in history and related disciplines to apply. Proposals should include an abstract describing the topic, relevance, empirical basis, and methodological approach of your paper, as well as a short CV of the applicant. Please send your proposal, which must not exceed two pages, as one PDF file to taeterbiografien.ifz@univie.ac.at by 30 September 2021. Conference languages are German and English. Travel and accommodation costs can be reimbursed to a limited extent.

Contact Info:

taeterbiografien.ifz@univie.ac.at Oliver Gaida / Kathrin Janzen / Stefan Jehne / Yves Müller

Contact Email:

taeterbiografien.ifz@univie.ac.at

URL:

https://zeitgeschichte.univie.ac.at/news-events/detailansicht/news/call-for-papers-biographien-als-sonden-der-transforma…

* Deadline for Submissions 9/15/2021 Announcement: Call-for-Papers This slightly revised call is for abstracts for a scholarly, international edited collection entitled, Cultural Representations of the Second Wife: Literature, Stage, and Screen. Currently I am seeking a number of academics and professionals in the field who might like to send me an abstract for consideration for inclusion in the book. Due to effects of the covid-19 pandemic 2020-21, and the strain this has placed on people and businesses (including academics and universities world-wide), the deadline for abstracts for this project has been extended. New deadline for abstract submissions: 15 September 2021 The aim of this scholarly edited collection is to reveal how the personal expectations and actual experiences of the second wife may differ from the social and cultural expectations and realities of the role of the second wife; and how the second wife may be perceived in the popular and social culture of various cultures, in screen, stage, and literary productions and pop culture narratives. In any culture, religious and cultural beliefs are inseparable, and intrinsic one to the other, and are important to the marriage  customs and laws of that particular culture or society. Regardless of whether a culture is mainly monogamous or polygamous, one female figure that attracts attention is the second wife. A woman may become the “second wife” either by fact or by custom, or by religious law, or by de facto relationship, or by concubinage. In most though not necessarily all cultures, and according to the religious and cultural beliefs and laws of a culture, as well as the civil laws of that country, a man who has been but is no longer married may remarry; and in some cultures also, a man who is currently married may marry or take a second wife who may or may not have been formerly married to some different man. In some other cultures, cultural customs, or religious dictates, or accepted practices, or inheritance factors, forbid men who are divorcees or widowers to remarry. Similarly, and perhaps more so than with men, some cultures forbid widows or divorced or abandoned women from remarrying. It is generally understood that whether she is welcomed by her new in-law family, or not, the first wife as a new wife, brings with her some baggage into the new relationship, into the life of the man she weds, and hence into the family into which she marries, and ultimately into that society; but perhaps this is more so in the case of the second wife.  From antiquity to the present, like the first wife, the second wife features in stories, anecdotes, and jokes, and in both high and low culture, but in a way that is vastly different to how the first wife is depicted. The concept of the second wife is an important part of social and cultural history and ritual in most societies, world-wide, yet it would seem that to date, there are no published scholarly edited collections, no academic books, on representations of the second wife from the angle suggested in this cfp. In can be said that in any culture, the role of the second wife may differ to that of a first wife. The act of becoming and the experience of being a second wife may also be somewhat different to that of being a man’s first wife. Questions arise: within any culture, regardless of her status as a woman, what are the implications for a woman who marries a widower or divorced man? Likewise, what are the implications for a second wife in a polygamous relationship? Some suggestions for potential contributors to consider, and that could be addressed, may include but are not limited to are:

• What are the cultural and social duties of the second wife; what are the cultural expectations of her; and what are her personal realities and expectations, as represented in the popular culture of a particular culture/society? Is it possible to detect differences or sameness between the fictionalized portrayals and the realities and social dictates of that culture?
• How do class, ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and possibly history, shape representations of the second wife, as indicated in the popular screen, stage, and literary productions of any one particular culture?
• What is the range of ways in which the second wifeis represented in the popular/social culture of the various societies?
• Are there any powerful cultural or socially historical antecedents for the representation of the second wife in popular/social culture, as screen, stage, and literary productions?
• What are the creators and/or the producers intentions behindtheir portrayals of the second wife; what are the messages or lessons they intend for their audiences through these depictions?
• How would we establish the underlying cultural, historical, or production motivations for particular depictions of the second wife?

How often, if at all, are these representations told from the point-of-view of the second wife herself?

• Is there a difference between the ways in which the second wife is represented in cinematic film to that in small screen, and between those mediums to representations in drama, and to literature? Or in these representations, is there a reasonably broad consensus between these genres?

This collection of scholarly essays will make an intervention in the field: it will be the first of its kind to make a comprehensive study of what being a second wife means to and for the woman, the family, the community, the culture, and the society to which she belongs; to explore whether or not there are characteristic features of the second wife between cultures that may have either some similarity, or that are totally dissimilar, in popular belief and popular culture; to document and record how various eastern and western societies perceive and represent the socially and culturally important figure of the second wife in screen, stage, and literary works and pop culture narratives; to indicate if there is agreement or difference between the various cultures on how the figure of the second wife is represented in popular culture to the viewing/reading audiences; to establish a new and dynamic area of theoretical research crossing family studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, social history, gender studies, social studies, and the humanities in general; to point the way to possible future cross-disciplinary work through examining various peoples and societies by way of cultural representations of the second wife; and to permit scholarly consideration of the extent to which the creators and producers of narratives about the second wife place this figure on the perimeter of society or at its center. Submission instructions: At this initial stage, in lieu of “chapters,” this proposed work, Cultural Representations of the Second Wife, calls for extended abstracts for consideration for inclusion in the book.

1. The extended abstracts must be more than 1,000 and less than 1,500 words.

Full-length chapters of 6,000 – 7,000words each (including notes but excluding references lists, title of work, and key words) will be solicited from these abstracts.

1. Please keep in mind that your essay-chapter will be written from your extended abstract. Your abstract will carry the same title as your essay-chapter.
2. To be considered, an abstract must be written in English, and submitted as a Word document.
3. When writing your abstract use Times New Roman point 12,and 1.15 spacing.
4. At the beginning of your extended abstract, immediately after the title of your work and your name, add 5 to 8 keywords that best relate to your work.
5. Use the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition.
6. Since this work is intended for Lexington Books, USA, please use American (US) spelling not English (UK) spelling, and not Australian English spelling;
7. Use the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary;
8. Use endnotes and not footnotes, use counting numbers not Roman numerals, and keep the endnotes to a bare minimum, working the information into the text where possible;
9. Do cite all your work in your extended abstract as you would in a full chapter:

a) in the body of the abstract, add parenthetical in-text citations (family name of author and year, and page number/s) (e.g. Smith 2019, 230); b) fully reference all in-text citations in detail and in alphabetical order, in the References list at the end of your abstract;

1. Please send your abstract as a Word document attached to an email;
2. To this same email please also attach, as separate Word documents, the following:

• Your covering letter, giving your academic title/s, affiliation, your position, and your home and telephone numbers, your home address, and your email contact details;
• A short bio of no more than 250 words;
• Your C.V., including a full list of your publications and giving the publishing details and dates, and including those in press, and published.

Editor: Dr Jo Parnell, PhD, Researcher and Honorary Associate Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, College of Human and Social Futures, University of Newcastle, Australia. Papers should be forwarded to: Jo Parnell at: Jo.Parnell@newcastle.edu.au  or annette.parnell@newcastle.edu.au or joandbobparnell@bigpond.com Dr Jo Parnell. | Honorary Associate Lecturer School of Humanities and Social Science College of Human and Social Futures M: +61 (0)421 993 253 E: Jo.Parnell@newcastle.edu.au W: newcastle.edu.au/profile/Jo-Parnell International author and editor Latest books: Representation of the Mother-in-Law in literature, film, drama, and television (Lexington Books USA, 2018). New and Experimental Approaches to Writing Lives (Macmillan International Higher Education, Red Globe Press, 2019). The Bride in the Cultural Imagination: Screen, Stage, and Literary Productions (Lexington Books USA, 2020). Taking Control: the critical and creative uses of digital tools in the now, the foreseeable future, and beyond, in screen, literature, and the visual arts. culture (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2021/22). Writing Australian History on Screen: cultural, sociological, and historical depths in television and film period dramas “down under,” with Julie Anne Taddeo (Lexington Books, USA, forthcoming 2021/22). Cultural Representations of the Second Wife: Literature, Stage, and Screen (Lexington Books, USA, forthcoming 2021/22). The University of Newcastle University Drive, Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia

Life Narrative Futures: 

An International Auto/Biography Association (IABA) networking event for graduate students and early-career researchers

Sponsored by the IABA SNS, and the IABA regional chapters

Friday 29th October, 2021 (Australian CST)

Call for Expressions of Interest

Dear colleagues,

On behalf of the IABA Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe chapter convenors, I am pleased to announce this on-line networking event aimed at linking graduate students and Early-Career-Researchers (ECRs) across the globe who are working on life narrative projects. 

In their special issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies “What’s Next? The Futures of Auto/Biography Studies” (2017) Ricia Anne Chansky and Emily Hipchen aimed to give “established and emerging scholars from multiple disciplines the time and space to enter into lively discourse on our possible futures.” The result was an incredibly timely multivocal, interdisciplinary conversation about where we are heading as a discipline. 

Such conversations seem even more important now. 2020/2021 have been especially challenging periods for graduate students and ECRs. Travel restrictions have affected networking opportunities, and IABA would like to acknowledge this by organising this event aimed at supporting and celebrating emerging scholars.

Format: Via Zoom conferencing, graduate students/ECRs will be placed in small groups and will make short, informal presentations about their projects. Each group will also contain an established IABA scholar who will act as a mentor in offering feedback on the projects in their small group.

The event will be held virtually in an ‘around the world’ format with the aim of accommodating different time zones in an inclusive way.

To participate in this event, please make a submission of approximately one page as a Word doc including the following information:

• Your name;

• University, Department/Faculty affiliation;

• 50-word bio;

• Thesis or current project title;

• Short abstract for your project;

• Two-three challenges emerging from your research project/topic;

• Questions /issues you would like to discuss with your fellow graduate students/ECRs.

The extended deadline for submissions in September 10, 2021. Please make your submission to: iaba.asiapacific@flinders.edu.au

Any questions, or for more information, please contact the organizers: 

iaba.asiapacific@flinders.edu.au

Kind Regards, Kate Douglas (Flinders University, Australia), on behalf of the IABA regional chapters and IABA SNS.

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

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Call for Digital Submissions Proposals – Ongoing

a/b: Auto/Biography Studies is building a YouTube channel dedicated to highlighting and extending the journal’s content, upcoming book releases, and projects and conversations related to life narrative and identity studies more broadly.

We’re hoping that you’ll help us expand our online content and/or contribute to building a digital archive by submitting proposals for contributions to our new YouTube channel. We can support content in any language and are able to provide translation, transcription, and closed captioning services.

Possible Topic Ideas include:

· Trailers promoting upcoming book releases, special issues of journals, conferences, CFPs, and other happenings;

· Interviews between scholars at any stage in their careers or between scholars and life narrators, especially as pertinent to publications, conferences, and other activities;

· Oral histories of the field;

· Image-driven or other multimodal research relevant to life narrative; and

· Issues that intersect with life narrative, especially those that relate to social justice and human rights.

Have an idea? We’d love to hear it! Submit your proposals—300-500-words—in .pdf format to Jessica Lauer and Orly Lael Netzer at [abstudiesdigital@gmail.com]. Be sure to include your name, affiliation, email address, and a short bio with your proposal.

Don’t have an idea, but would still like to participate? No worries! While we’re glad to consider all submissions, we also have a wish list of projects that we’d like to undertake. If you’re willing to take on a topic from our wish list related to journal content or a publication in the Routledge Auto/Biography Studies book series, we’d be delighted to work with you.

Queries may be directed to the Digital Content Editors, Jessica Lauer and Orly Lael Netzer at [abstudiesdigital@gmail.com].

Thank you for being a part of our digital future!

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International Symposium | Digital Expressions of the Self

National Institute of Technology Silchar / University of Hyderabad / Goldsmiths University of London

contact email:

nehagupta_rs@hum.nits.ac.in

Concept Note This symposium engages with the digital forms of expressions of the self. It explores the ways in which, for instance, digital techniques now allow the construction of selves that often rely more on algorithms than any ‘original’ referent. Consider, for example, how algorithms simulate images, voices etc. and have become the basis for facial-biometric recognition, and similar datafication concerning the self. This shift is indicative of what we might term posthuman condition. Along these lines, we are interested in papers that engage with how expressions enhanced by algorithms produce multiple, fractured selves. Following Deleuze, we invite papers that engage with how the in-dividual has become ‘dividual’ in societies of post-control vis-a-vis the introduction of digital technologies. Finally we are interested in how people experiment with creative expressions of the self. ​Constructing the self in the digital sphere may involve processes of experimentation that in turn allow one to experience the self in multiple ways. This is mediated of course by the apparatus of the digital-codes and algorithms. Digital self-expression occurs both consciously and explicitly, and subconsciously and indirectly. Taking this as a point of departure, this symposium examines the broad range of digital expressions of the self. Panel 1: Affect, Fandom and Liveness in Popular Culture, 8 Sep, 2:40–3:45 P.M. (Indian Time) 1)Live Performance and the Media: A Methodological Reflection on Analysing Stand-up Comedy in India — Madhavi Shivaprasad, Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India 2) Yo Yo Matlab Aapka Apna : Locating Affect and Gender in Online Fandom of Yo Yo Honey Singh — Prashastika Sharma, Ambedkar University, Delhi,  India 3) Digital Expression from the Shadow States: The in-betweeners in the Late-capitalist Era — Sagorika Singha, The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India Panel 2: The Self and/as Subject, 8 Sep, 4:45–6:00 P.M. (Indian Time) 1) Defining Our Google Self: Our Self Perception Meets The Platform Society — Oshri Bar-Gil, The Program for Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv,  Israel 2) A New Normal: Social Media, Vanishing Cultural Values and the Digitalisation of Pregnancy among Nigerian  Women — Henrietta Eshalomi, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria 3) The Reality of the Internet and Its Effect on the Individual — Simran Tapaswi, Student, IIT Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar, India Panel 3: Being Seen, Being Social, 9 Sep, 2:40–3:45 P.M. (Indian Time) 1) “Why do Indians Cry Passionately on Insta?”: Grief Performativity and Ecologies of Commerce of ‘Crying Videos’ — Soma Basu, Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland 2) Instagram and Ambiguities of Female Sexual Imagery — Cheshta Arora, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, India 3) (Re)Imagining the Khasi tribe on social media — Rajani K Chhetri, Department of Mass Communication, Assam Don Bosco University, Guwahati, Assam, India Panel 4: The Performative and the Political, 9 Sep, 4:45–6:00 P.M. (Indian Time) 1) No Politics on My Island: Animal Crossing and Politics of Digital Self-expression in China — Lin Song Department of Communication, University of Macau 2) “Revolution Will Not Happen on Facebook… but Propaganda can”: Political Practices, Strategies and Communities in Web 2.0 — Akansha Tyagi [1] & Abhishek Kumar [2] [1] Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India; [2] Department of Humanities and Social Science, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India 3) “Azadi’s Political until You’re Pressing Play”: Digital Platforms and Hip-hop in India — Debarun Sarkar Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai, India Closing panel: Exploring identity and selfhood in digital spaces Keynote 1) Prof Ayona Datta, University College London (4:00 – 4:30 P.M. IST, 8th Septemper, 2021) 2) Dr Nimmi Rangaswamy, IIIT-Hyderabad (4:00 – 4:30 P.M. IST, 9th Septemper, 2021 Register using this link: https://tinyurl.com/DigitalExpressions You can find the Book of Abstracts here: https://tinyurl.com/DEBookofAbstracts

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Dear colleagues and friends, 

You are invited to the Emotional Culture and Society seminar “New Forms of Self-Narration one year on: A conversation on young women’s life narratives” on Wednesday 8 September from 9:30 to 11:00 CET. If you are in Pamplona, you are welcome to join us in room M05 in Edificio Amigos. 

You can also join us online via Zoom: https://unav.zoom.us/j/96186125471?pwd=RHYyY1B6a1l6SUQ3YkdObndOd0dUQT09. 

Author Ana Belén Martínez García will be discussing her book along with Dr. Kate Douglas from Flinders University. Roundtable chaired by Dr. Rosalía Baena.

About the book: 

This book is a timely study of young women’s life writing as a form of human rights activism. It focuses on six young women who suffered human rights violations when they were girls and have gone on to become activists through life writing: Malala Yousafzai, Hyeonseo Lee, Yeonmi Park, Bana Alabed, Nujeen Mustafa, and Nadia Murad. Their ongoing life-writing projects diverge to some extent, but all share several notable features: they claim a testimonial collective voice, they deploy rights discourse, they excite humanitarian emotions, they link up their context-bound plight with bigger social justice causes, and they use English as their vehicle of self-expression and self-construction. This strategic use of English is of vital importance, as it has brought them together as icons in the public sphere. New Forms of Self-Narration is the first ever attempt to explore all these activists’ life-writing texts side by side, encompassing both the written and the audiovisual material, online and offline, and taking all texts as belonging to a unique, single, though multifaceted, project.

We hope you can join us.

All the best,

Ana

Ana Belén Martínez García Associate Professor of English ISSA School of Applied Management Amigos Building, Office 5090 31009 Pamplona – Spain Tel. +34 948425600 (802814) www.unav.edu/issa New Forms of Self-Narration

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Deadline for Submissions September 6, 2021

Finding Meaning: Oral History, Power and Emotions

21-22 April 2022, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, Pau – France The history of emotions is one of the most notable progressions in the field of history in the last few decades, and in recent years an astonishing number of articles and books has focused specifically on emotions in history. With this “emotional turn” (Boddice, 2018: 72), historians have determined that emotions change over time, and are thus a subject deserving of historical inquiry. Perhaps more importantly, emotions are at the center of human experience and therefore at the center of our history: “human emotions are neither timeless nor universal, but rather shaped by historical and cultural circumstances” (Thomson, 2019: 1). Emotions are both the effect and active cause of historical events. In addition, as argued by Boddice, focusing on emotions enables “to rehabilitate the unsaid – the gestural, affective and experiential – of traditional historical narratives” (Boddice, 2019: 10). He even proposes to refer to various labels – such as “feelings” and “affective experiences” – so as to open possibilities for the expression and interpretation of emotions (14). Feelings have also been the focus of oral historians for many decades before this historical turn towards emotions. The key findings of oral historians are not so much the events that narrators recall, but the “meanings and feelings” relating to those events, in line with Alessandro Portelli’s argument that it is the subjectivity of oral history interviews that constitutes an invaluable contribution to the field, as it allows the researcher to analyze how the interviewee gives meaning to personal experience; this, in turn, is indicative of the collective construction of meaning (Portelli, 1981: 96-107). Accordingly, the primary aim of this conference is to explore the relevance and possibilities of finding meaning in oral history interviews. The conference organizers wish to explore oral history’s potential to record, interpret and make sense of emotions in historical experiences in the Americas, the United Kingdom and Ireland, but also across global geographical and cultural areas. The narrative element becomes key to the understanding of these meanings, which cannot be revealed by any other type of source. The plot, the way narrators choose to organize their story, and shifts in the pace of the narration, as, for example, when only a few words are devoted to talking about experiences which lasted a long time, or the exact opposite, can unveil the subjectivity of human experience. Paying careful attention to language, particularly language used to express feelings and emotions can also help researchers to go beyond the constraints of internalized cultural boundaries, which shape memory (Anderson and Jack, 1991: 11-26). Feelings and emotions can give meaning to activities and events, as for example when certain emotions are silenced because they do not sit nicely with the prevailing collective narrative of a certain event. The purpose of this conference is to re-center the role of oral history in the history of emotions on the one hand, as well as the role of emotions in history and oral history on the other. Indeed, oral history offers the unique possibility to study the way in which experiences are remembered as well as the relationship between individual and collective memory. “Individual remembering is affected by cultural narratives about the past” (Thomson, 2019: 2) and emotions are essential in this process because they are “impacted by social relations and cultural expectations” (Thomson, 2019: 2). Joanna Bourke focused on fear and anxiety in an article published in 2003 (Bourke, 2003: 111-133), in which she argued that humans narrate their emotions by conforming to certain narrative structures. Bourke shed light on the dialogical nature of the link between the personal emotion and the collective emotional environment of a society. This paves the way for further studies on the shifts in the way people narrate certain emotions and the subsequent ways in which these shifts may also alter their subjective experience. The other facet of the study of emotions that the conference organizers wish to explore is its relationship with power which, despite its complexity, has yet to be fully problematized. Bourke writes: “emotions such as fear do not only belong to individuals or social groups: they mediate between the individual and the social. They are about power relations” (Bourke, 2003: 124). Fear – and emotions more generally – are the product of a society and of given “power relations”, but they may also contribute to reforming them, as shown by the history of the evolving status of women or minorities in society. More precisely, are emotions experienced differently because of one’s gender and/or one’s identity, as suggested by Boddice (2018: 100-122)? It may also be argued that emotions can be empowering: in the context of war and conflict for example, oral testimonies indicate strong interrelations between affective experiences and agency. The organizers of the conference also wish to assess the extent to which oral history as a methodology is empowering when it gives agency to participants who have traditionally been excluded from more classic approaches to historical research. Paradoxically, emotions may also be indicative of situations of domination and subordination, and of a person’s powerlessness. From a methodological perspective, how could historical analysis enhance the narratives which include expressions of feelings and emotions? Alistair Thomson offers some insight into this in his most recent work on emotions in oral history (Thomson, 2019: 1-11). The sound of personal testimony can further our understanding of the emotions and their historical and cultural meanings. Speakers can add emphasis by increasing volume, or adding well-timed pauses; excitement and emotion can be shown by a change in the speed of the speech, whereas slowing down might express difficult moments. Silences are widely studied by oral historians, as they often mean painful moments, a struggle with the narrator’s own memory, or even embarrassment or shame. Thomson writes: “the voice can suggest warmth and pleasure, anger and disappointment, sarcasm or disapproval” (4), and how would one interpret the meanings of laughter, sobs or tears? Furthermore, the organizers propose to include both the interviewing process and analysis carried out by the same researcher as well as the so-called “secondary analysis”, or the analysis of pre-recorded interviews which have been (or are about to be) deposited in sound archives around the world by someone else. This practice of reusing past interviews is somewhat controversial and frowned upon on the basis that an oral history interview is not a “data-bank”, offering empirically neutral material that anyone at any moment in time can draw upon. This attitude has been referred to as the “naive realism” of the researcher, with the argument that interview data are “socially constructed”, and are not “simply facts that are free of theoretical presuppositions” (Bornat, 2010: 43-52). Yet, following Joanna Bornat’s argument in favor of the practice of revisiting past interviews, the organizers of the conference would also like to explore the possibilities for historical research offered by the exploitation of the many hundreds of hours of recorded interviews held in sound archives, some of which are even available on line. The underlying ambition will be to identify a scientific framework in which such a research method could become an interesting (re)source and could eventually open up new research prospects. The themes to be investigated include (but are not limited to) the following:

• The relations between emotions, history and oral history

Emotions as cultural, social, political and/or historical constructs The role of emotions in the construction of memory; “memory composure” The meanings and feelings of human experience Emotions and historical experience

• Historicizing emotions
• Emotions and causation
• Emotions, empowerment and activism; emotions and power relations (domination, subordination)
• Emotions in the context of war and conflict
• Emotions and gender
• Emotions, racial and ethnic issues

Proposals seeking to explore methodological issues will be welcome, such as:

• The advantages and drawbacks of reusing past interviews / interviews conducted by someone else; Methodological approaches to secondary analysis
• Methods for finding and interpreting emotions; Interpreting silence / what is not said

The organizers will welcome proposals from specialists in History, Oral History, Geography, Civilisation Studies, Social Sciences, Political Sciences, Law and Transitional Justice. The geographical scope will include – but will not be limited to – the Americas, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and proposals taking a comparative and interdisciplinary approach will be particularly welcome. The proposals should preferably focus on the 20^th and 21^st centuries. This international, cross-disciplinary conference will be held in English and French. Please send a 300-word abstract in English or in French to Joana Etchart and Simona Tobia : joana.etchart@univ-pau.fr and stobia@univ-pau.fr by September 6^th 2021 The acceptance or rejection of proposals will be announced in October 2021

Contact Info:

Simona Tobia – s.tobia@univ-pau.fr Joana Etchart – joana.etchart@univ-pau.fr

Contact Email:

s.tobia@univ-pau.fr

URL:

https://alter.univ-pau.fr/fr/activites-scientifiques/manifestations-scientifiques/colloques/a-la-decouverte-du-sens-hist…

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Deadline for Submissions September 1, 2021

Request from the editor of Markers: Annual Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies

We are currently seeking article submissions for the 2022 issue of Markers, the scholarly journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies. The subject matter of Markers is defined as the analytical study of gravemarkers, monuments, tombs, and cemeteries of all types and encompassing all historical periods and geographical regions. Markers is of interest to scholars in anthropology, historical archaeology, art and architectural history, ethnic studies, material culture studies, American studies, folklore and popular culture studies, linguistics, literature, rhetoric, local and regional history, cultural geography, sociology, and related fields. Articles submitted for publication in Markers should be scholarly, analytical, and interpretive, not merely descriptive or entertaining, and should be written in a style appropriate to both a wide academic audience and an audience of interested non-academics. Authors are encouraged to send a query email outlining a project before sending a manuscript. Queries and submissions to Markers should be sent to Editor Elisabeth Roark, Professor of Art History and Museum Studies at Chatham University, at roark@chatham.edu, before September 1, 2021.

Contact Info:

Elisabeth L. Roark Professor of Art History and Museum Studies Chatham University Pittsburgh, PA 15232

Contact Email:

roark@chatham.edu

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Teaching Women Travellers of the Eighteenth Century

deadline for submissions:

September 1, 2021

full name / name of organization:

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

contact email:

tiffany.potter@ubc.ca

ABO’s pedagogy series, Concise Collections on Teaching Eighteenth-Century Women,seeks submissions for an article grouping on Teaching Women Travellers in the Eighteenth Century. This Collection: This collection focuses on the teaching of literary and historical texts, as well as other forms of artistic production, created by and about female travellers in the long eighteenth century. Articles should provide ideas on how a specific text or aspect of the artist/discourse/writer can be taught most effectively and to best impact in different university and college contexts, and thus increase the profile of women travellers in eighteenth-century studies classrooms. Submissions should focus on a strategy for teaching a single text or group of short texts, or will locate an approach or module within the context of a commonly-taught course or framing (in the context of a survey, for example, or course on the novel or theatre, on the sister arts, on gender and sexualities, on travel literatures, on transatlantic/continental dialogues, on studies of empire and colonialism). The Series: ABO’s Concise Collections pedagogy series seeksto promote the teaching of eighteenth-century women writers and artists who remain underrepresented in university classrooms, beyond a small collection of now-canonical authors. Each issue will have a curated collection of 4-6 articles on teaching the work of a specific woman or group of female creatives, mixing essays focused around teaching individual works with pieces suggesting ways to bring these women into common course topics and syllabi. “Teaching Charlotte Lennox” will appear in Spring 2022; “Teaching Women Travelers” in Fall 2022; and “Teaching Mary Prince” in Spring 2023. We also welcome submissions on open topics in teaching 18C women, for inclusion in our regular Pedagogies section of the journal. Submit proposals by September 1 2021 to pedagogy editor tiffany.potter[at]ubc.ca, or complete articles by 15 March 2022 to the ABO platform: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/submit.cgi?context=abo ABO is peer reviewed and indexed in the MLA Bibliography

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Prose Studies Special Issue Call for Papers: “Struggle & Hustle: Queer Nonfiction Prose” (8/13/2021)

Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism invites submissions for a special issue devoted to exploring trans and queer mutual aid, support, and networks in all genres and periods of nonfiction prose. This issue seeks to delve into the ways in which trans and queer writers have mobilized nonfiction prose to make visible marginalized identities, disseminate underground knowledge, and fashion networks of care and family. From Victorian pamphlets on “female husbands” to contemporary web-based grassroots medical guides like Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, trans and queer people have long both been written about and written popular nonfiction prose. Such writing has both served to create fraught narratives of pathology and, often simultaneously, enabled LGBTQIA+ people of diverse lived experiences to reflect their realities and write themselves and their communities into being. Likewise, in memoirs like Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness and Jacob Tobia’s Sissy, nonfiction prose’s sense of immediacy and materiality works to insist on the self-defined reality of people who challenge conventional notions of the gender, sexuality, gender expression, race, disability, class, geography, size, immigration status, sex work, and to imagine what a thriving self and community can look like. Moreover, in this context, LGBTQIA+ nonfiction prose must be considered in terms of the material conditions of its production, including queer and trans presses and editors. Topics of interest might include, but are not limited to:

• Social and medical advice manuals by, for, and/or about LGBTQIA+ people
• LGBTQIA+ organizations and their publications
• Colonial/post-colonial trans and queer identities
• Writing the self in queer and trans memoir
• Queer and trans networks in magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and zines
• Digital representations and networks of LGBTQIA+ identities
• Historic and contemporary tensions between “queer” and “trans”
• Queering and transing prose archives
• Charting LGBTQIA+ genealogies through nonfiction prose
• Legal and medical nonfiction prose and LGBTQIA+ people
• LGBTQIA+ visual culture and nonfiction prose
• Protest and activist ephemera from ACT UP to Black Lives Matter
• Pandemic LGBTQIA+ isolation and/or networks of care

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About the Journal: Prose Studies (https://bit.ly/prosestudiesaims) is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the study of nonfiction prose in all historical and contemporary contexts. The journal is committed to publishing rigorously argued scholarship from diverse theoretical and interpretive approaches.

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To Submit: Please send article proposal abstracts of 500 words to Lisa Hager (hagerl@uwm.edu) by the extended deadline of August 13, 2021. Early submission is welcome as are queries or letters of interest. Completed manuscripts of 8,000–9,000 words will be due February 1, 2022.

Contact Info:

Lisa Hager Associate Professor of English & Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Director, LGBTQIA Resource Center Co-Editor, Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism Pronouns: they, them, theirs University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee at Waukesha 1500 North University Dr. Waukesha, WI 53188-2720 Office: 129 Westview hagerl@uwm.edu || http://www.lisahager.net/ || @lmhager

Contact Email:

hagerl@uwm.edu

URL:

https://bit.ly/prosestudiesaims

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Illness Writing in Lebanon: Converging Pathologies and Lived Narratives Since August 4, 2020

This is a call for creative critical personal texts, what Life Writing defines as essays, addressing the cultural ills in the Lebanese context. The solicited essays, unlike conventional academic works, allow for a more creative and self-reflexive approach, and are first-person, lived narratives. The macro narrative of illness in Lebanon arguably consists of two synergistic categories of illness: first, the deep-seated disease of patriarchy and partisanship and its visceral consequences on economy and environment, which, second, are transposed into a spectrum of somatic and psychological diseases, including cancer, mental ailments, and most recently the widespread traumas of the August 4, 2020 blast. The combined narrative of both types of illness, their converging causes and effects, suggests that the people’s revolution that started in 2019 – later stymied by the pandemic, coeval with the apocalyptic Beirut Port explosion – was the route through which people’s efforts to voice their grievances and seek radical reforms were conjoined. Knowing that illness writing ties inextricably to its culture of origin, an emerging corpus of Lebanese life writing concomitant with the revolution, pandemic, and Port explosion highlights the causal intersection between the physical and cultural ills that frame these narratives. Illness writing may therefore serve as a means of expressing and drawing attention to, if not also processing, the different facets of illness that currently shape the Lebanese predicament. As illness’s sundry roots (here, patriarchy) and the routes it fosters (here, revolution) are interrogated and celebrated, respectively, such lived stories gain pressing significance. Taking this mode of life writing as its focus, this special issue seeks to explore how writers in the Lebanese context engage with experiences of illness in its various permutations. Contributors are invited to consider, but are not restricted to, the following themes:

• The August 4, 2020 explosion and its aftermath
• Writing the pandemic
• Negotiating selves, challenging authority
• Activist texts
• Queerness and revolution
• Gender and otherness
• Bullying
• (De)stigmatizing illness
• Coming-of-age
• Nonviolent micro-aggressions, non-normative behaviors
• The Syrian refugee crisis
• Ecological concerns and auto/biography
• Migrant lives
• Vicarious trauma and the Lebanese expatriate
• The elision of sexual minorities from COVID-19 emergency workflows

Submission Instructions

Life Writing publishes both “essays” and “articles.” This special issue will focus upon essays and we particularly invite such submissions. These would be critically informed, creative personal essays, which differ from academic articles in that a high level of analysis and referencing is less important, but the reflexive ‘I’ should filter the subject matter. On the continuum from discursive/analytical to creative, these essays will fall somewhere in the middle. For an example of how this approach might be expressed, see Linus Hagström’s “Becoming a Traitor” (LW 18.1, 2021). Production Timeline: Deadline for abstracts (150-250 words): August 20, 2021 Notification of abstract acceptance: September 20, 2021 Essay submissions (3,500-5,500 words, not including notes and references): March 20, 2022 Essay acceptance (pending peer review): June 20, 2022 Revisions and resubmissions: July 20, 2022 Publication: Online first after acceptance, and later in a forthcoming issue of Life Writing. If you are unsure if the particular form of creative writing that you have in mind would suit this special issue of Life Writing, please contact the guest editor, Dr. Sleiman El Hajj. Queries, as well as abstract and essay submissions (as WORD documents), should be sent to the following address: sleiman.elhajj@lau.edu.lb. Submissions need to include a brief author bio and e-mail address. https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/illness-writing-lebanon/?utm_source=TFO&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=JPG15743

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Sleiman El Hajj, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Creative and Journalistic Writing Departments of English and Communication Arts Beirut Campus/Lebanese American University 01-786 456 Ext. 1238

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Extended deadline: new deadline for submissions: 31 July 2021  Life Writing: Transnationalism, Translingualism, Transculturalism November 20-23, 2021, The University of Adelaide, in collaboration with the University of South Australia and Flinders University. *please note: this conference can be attended online or in-person. Website: https://arts.adelaide.edu.au/french-narratives/conference Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Prof. Ricia Chansky, University of Puerto Rico, Prof. Anne Pender, University of Adelaide Prof. Liu Jialin, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Transnationalism is an increasingly popular phenomenon, reflecting and responding to the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states. The current global pandemic has brought issues of interconnectivity sharply into question. In this context, this conference will explore life narratives across a broad variety of contexts. By discussing life narratives, including in a variety of languages, this conference aims to expand the boundaries of literary studies and its relationships with other media and nations. Papers may consider themes such as:

• Narrating and imagining the migrant experience
• Refugee and asylum seeker narratives
• Life writing in languages other than English
• Life writing and translation
• Translingual and multilingual narratives
• Coming of Age narratives (especially across nations and media)
• Childhood life writing
• Ethics of storytelling
• Activist narratives
• Cultural memory across nations, languages and media.
• Autobiographies, letters and diaries
• Life narratives in popular culture (music, film, theatre, games)
• Visual life narratives (photography, graphics, social and digital media, visual arts etc.)
• The histories and futures of life writing studies across disciplinary boundaries
• Methods, genres, and definitions in life-writing/autobiographical/life story/ego-document research

Submissions: The conference will be held in two modes, incorporating face to face and zoom sessions. We invite both 20 minute individual presentations and 90 minute full panel, roundtable, or workshop sessions. We encourage interdisciplinary submissions that foster dialogues across theory, methodology, genre, place, and time. We invite not only traditional conference papers and panels, but also innovative presentation formats and creative sessions. Please submit a max. 300-word abstract and a 150-word bio to Dr. Christopher Hogarth at iabaadelaide2021@gmail.com by 31 July. Organising Committee: Professor Natalie Edwards natalie.edwards@adelaide.edu.au, Dr. Christopher Hogarth christopher.hogarth@unisa.edu.au, Dr. Kylie Cardell kylie.cardell@flinders.edu.au, Professor Kate Douglas kate.douglas@flinders.edu.au IABA Asia-Pacific emerges from the central disciplinary association for auto/biography scholars—The International Auto/Biography Association (IABA). IABA was founded in 1999 as a multidisciplinary network that aims to deepen the cross-cultural understanding of self, identity and experience, and to carry on global dialogues about life writing/narrative. IABA Asia-Pacific aims to foster new region-specific conversations and to encourage regional participation in the global IABA conference. Our goal is to develop scholarly networks between life narrative scholars and practitioners in the Asia-Pacific region that support the circulation and publication of high-quality life narrative theory, practice, and pedagogy. This conference forms part of an Australian Research Council funded Discovery Project on Transnational Narratives of Migration to Australia (Natalie Edwards and Christopher Hogarth, DP190102863). *

CALLING ALL LIFE WRITERS!Do you engage in, produce, teach, or write about any of the following?

• Ethnography or duoethnography
• Autoethnography or autotheory
• Biography or educational biography
• Autobiography or memoir
• Life history or life narrative
• Oral history or family history
• Testimonio
• Collective biography or prosopography

If so, we warmly invite you to submit a proposal for the 37^th Annual Conference of the International Society for Educational Biography (ISEB) being held in partnership with The Society of Philosophy and History of Education (SOPHE) Annual Conference September 30 – October 2, 2021 at the Clayton Plaza Hotel, St. Louis, MissouriSUBMISSION INFORMATION: We welcome all those who work with life writing—teachers, graduate students, academics, social workers, and independent scholars—to submit a proposal.  The Conference Program Committee invites presentations in the following formats:

1. Paper or presentation (individual or co-authored) on completed or in-progress research or methodological approach.
2. Panel consisting of at least three panel members with related papers or presentations.
3. Roundtable discussion on an open pedagogical, methodological or research issue.
4. Structured Posters

To be considered, please complete the Proposal Form and include an abstract of up to 300 words to describe your proposal. The Conference Program Committee will review your proposal and notify you promptly.  Those interested in previous conference information can find it at the ISEB Archive.CONFERENCE INFORMATION: Conference Dates:  September 30-October 2, 2021 Location: Clayton Plaza Hotel, St. Louis, MO: http://www.cpclayton.com/ Booking a Room:  When you contact the hotel, please register in the SOPHE room block. Deadline for Proposals:  July 31, 2021.  Proposals received after this date will only be evaluated if there is room in the program. Presenter deadline for ISEB registration: September 15^th, 2021, after which time you will not appear in the program.COVID-19 UPDATE: While we recognize our members are extremely busy in these times, we remind you we welcome paper, panel, round table abstracts, and more.  We fully anticipate that the conference will take place as planned; at the same time, we are monitoring the plans and procedures recommended by the CDC for organizations staging large events and gatherings. The executive team is considering all possible options that will keep our membership safe, including the possibility of virtual sessions.CONFERENCE REGISTRATION/DATES: Advanced Registration: August 15, 2021. Registration Deadline: Only presenters who are current in ISEB membership dues and have paid the conference registration fee will be listed in the Conference Program. Conference Registration: Members of both organizations will be responsible for paying separate conference registration and organizational membership fees.  Registration will include admission to both ISEB and SOPHE paper presentations, poster sessions, and workshops. ISEB Membership: In addition to the conference registration fee, presenters must be members of ISEB.  Membership includes a one-year subscription to the ISEB journal Vitae Scholasticae.  Please note:  If a presenter wishes to present as part of/at both ISEB and SOPHE, they will need to pay one conference fee, but both membership fees. Registration Costs:

Registration	Advance	Late/On Site
Conference Registration + Full ISEB Membership	$245	$280
Student Conference Registration + Student ISEB Membership (no journal)	$50	$50
Conference Registration + Full ISEB + SOPHE Membership	$295	$320
Student Conference Registration + Student ISEB + SOPHE Membership (no journal)	$80	$80

Registration link: To register for the conference, please CLICK HERE.ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS: ISEB is an organization dedicated to the exploration of biography in writing, teaching, research, and other professional endeavors.SOPHE is an organization dedicated to promote research and teaching in the historical, philosophical, ethical, and social foundations of education.Please note:  When considering submitting your proposal, SOPHE and ISEB are small but historic organizations that maintain an important space for foundational and biographical scholarship. As the financial pressures and demands in higher education continue to shift, we are working to preserve these important spaces of community and scholarship. Acceptance to our conference means that we are reserving a space for you on the program and organizing the program accordingly. No-shows can have devastating effects for us and for other participants who might have attended in the space we have reserved for you. We ask for you to send early registration if possible and, if accepted, please prioritize your attendance to aid us in our mission of providing a venue for the important work of our members past, present, and future.JOURNAL: Participants have the opportunity to submit their papers for consideration for publication in our journal that we have been publishing for near 40 years, Vitae Scholasticae: The Journal of Educational Biography. We welcome all forms of work on life writing scholarship, teaching, and methodology.QUESTIONS? For questions or concerns, please contact Dr. Edward Janak, Program Committee Chair, at Edward.Janak@utoledo.edu.  Please reference “ISEB” in the subject line of your email.

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Fans, Fandoms, and Celebrity Studies for NEPCA 2021

deadline for submissions:

August 1, 2021

full name / name of organization:

Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA)

contact email:

jonesmc@delhi.edu

The Fan, Fandoms, and Celebrity Studies area encourages submissions that focus on interrogating the ideas and the ideals of fans and fandoms, and why we idolize celebrities. We welcome submissions from all theoretical and philosophical perspectives. We are open to submissions in any area of fan and celebrity studies including but not limited to:

• Creation and authenticity of fandoms
• Fandoms, diversity and inclusion
• Celebrity marketing, advertising, and public relations
• Social media use and celebrity status
• Defining fandoms
• Fandoms and politics
• Celebrities and illness
• Sport fandoms and celebrities
• Issues of fame and what it means to be famous in our culture
• Fandom comparisons between cultures
• Trust and value of celebrity
• An individual celebrity

2021 Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) will be a virtual conference held between Thursday, October 21-Saturday, October 23, 2021. Please note that proposals are due by August 1, 2021. Presentations will be limited to 15 or 20 minutes in length depending on the final panel size. Singular presentations or full panels can be submitted for consideration.  Proposals can be submitted on the NEPCA Conference page or by going directly to the submission form here. Please select “Fan, Fandoms, and Celebrity Studies” as your designated area. Please address any questions about submissions to the area chair, Shelly Jones, at jonesmc@delhi.edu

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CALL FOR PAPERS Life Narratives: Prismatic World of the Author and Beyond, Special Issue of Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies (7/15/2021) India The interconnectedness between life and writing, explored in life narratives, subscribes to the axiom of endorsing a transparency regarding the nature of the self who is writing—not only to the readers, but to the author itself who may find a moment of oneness between life and writing. This generates multiple possibilities of interpretation embedded in the questions of truth, memory, and agency of the writing subject. While establishing the subject as the prism of narration, these narratives of subjectivity are punctuated with impulses to understand one’s own life, memorialize one’s experiences, record one’s encounters with the animate and the inanimate, or even a will to preserve the unity of one’s own identity. At the center of life narratives then are located the self-projections of the artist, either underscoring or playing with the apparent unity of author, narrator, and protagonist. But despite this focus on the artist-subject, life narratives keep engaging with epistemological enquiries that often go beyond what the author intends to promote—the act of personal recollection offering unintended consequences despite the concerns being focused upon individuality, subjectivity, interiority, or authenticity associated with the specular figure of the author. Though overtly committed to personal memory, life narratives also uncover performativity inscribed in the very form, seen as the element of deliberate stylization, that draws attention to the limits of self-expression when structural and creative considerations come into play. Representation of subject, style of writing, or the pattern of self-disclosure gets reflected in plurality of forms that are both sedimented and fluid in structure. These innovative narrative structures are evolved to offer something which is an exception to the normative identification through overlapping of various genres: fiction, non-fiction, autofiction, poetry, memoir, autobiography, digital testimony, etc. Extending well beyond any coherent theoretical coordinates to streamline its disparate forms, life narratives are as much constructed by an individual artist-subject as they are the product of his intersecting textures of historical, social, political, economic, and cultural contexts. Concerning the Issue 5.1 with the exploration of life narratives in different shapes and formats, LLIDS invites scholars to deliberate upon forms of articulation and presentation of life narratives by either focusing on the themes given below or branching beyond:

• Forms of Expression and Configuring Autobiographical Subject
• Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern Life Narratives
• Narrativizing Memory in Life Narratives
• Self-Portraits as Life Narratives
• Life Narratives and Post Truth
• Life Narratives as Metanarratives
• Biomythographies
• Thanatographies
• Temporality in Life Narratives
• Gendered Perspective in Self-Representation
• Confession and Life Narratives
• Figuring Reader in Life Narratives
• Experiments with Language in Life Narratives
• Formation of Identity through Life Narratives
• Paratextual Elements in Life Narratives
• Life Narratives in Translation

Submissions: Only complete papers will be considered for publication. The papers need to be submitted according to the guidelines of the MLA 8^th edition. You are welcome to submit full length papers (3,500–10,000 words) along with a 150 words abstract and list of keywords. Please read the submission guidelines before making the submission – http://ellids.com/author-guidelines/ submission-guidelines/. Please feel free to email any queries to – editors@ellids.com. Please make all submissions via the form: https://forms.gle/RpiCuga6g4igf2BW7 Submission deadline: 15th July, 2021 Website – http://ellids.com/ Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/journal.llids/

Contact Email:

editors@ellids.com

URL:

http://ellids.com/

* REMINDER — Call for Contributions Autobiography, Ethics, and Relations Proposal deadline: July 15, 2021 Editor: Orly Lael Netzer (PhD), University of Alberta Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press  The first two decades of the twenty-first century have seen a growing interest in personal stories across media and markets, from photo-journalism, to letters, social media posts, memoirs, documentaries, and performance or installation art. True accounts of experience have been used to protest sexual violence, institutional racism, and neo-colonial practices of occupation; personal stories have been situated as transformative acts of resiliency, healing, survivance, and resurgence; and autobiographical acts have been mobilized to call for humanitarian response to crises of forced displacement and migration. While these interventions are not unprecedented, they highlight two key aspects of auto/biographical acts and their use in contemporary cultures across the globe — namely, the pivotal roles of relationality and ethics. Contending with auto/biographical ethics means interrogating the relationships and power dynamics that shape individuals’ and communities’ experiences, alongside the relationships embedded in the representation, mediation, and reception of these experiences. In other words, it means accounting for the intrinsic relations between ethics and politics, exploring what truths autobiographical texts speak to while also asking whose lives are represented, how, by whom, for whom, and for whose profit. Autobiography, Ethics, and Relations — a peer-reviewed edited collection under advance contract with Wilfrid Laurier University Press — will interrogate the ethical challenges, risks, responsibilities, and potentialities embedded in local and global practices of auto/biography. To explore these issues, I invite contributions attuned to questions of agency, responsibility, and accountability to true stories and to the individuals and communities whose lives have been represented in auto/biographical works across mediums, periods, and locations. The collection as a whole will not offer firm conclusions, nor will it readily solve ethical challenges or dilemmas. Instead, I encourage contributions that speak to wider issues and relationalities (rather than offer an analysis of a single work), offering provocations while carefully situating them in specific cultural, historical and material contexts. The collection will be organized around three interlinked categories —production, circulation, and reception — and potential discussion topics may address (but are not limited to) one or more of the following: Production

• The ethics of telling, discovering, recording, or collaborating to represent lived experience 
• The power dynamics and ethical concerns embedded in collaborative production of life stories
• Responsible practices of working with auto/biographical subjects, documents, and communities
• Producing life stories in/for community settings (e.g. community-based workshops or projects)
• Reproducing auto/biographical accounts in translation, restoration, or revised editions
• Considerations of harm, exploitation, access, implication, consent, benefit, and agency of auto/biographical subjects and their communities

Circulation:

• The ethics of archiving, curating, anthologizing, and promoting true stories
• The circulation and use of life stories for/ as social justice activism Life stories vis-à-vis human-rights discourse
• Approaches to life stories in history, ethnography, sociology, archeology, etc.

Reception:

• The use of life stories in discourses of state/ international recognition and redress
• The ethics of remembrance, memorializing lives, or commemorating trauma
• Ethical approaches to reading life writing (privately and publicly)
• Auto/biographical ethics in discourses of testimony and witnessing
• Audiences’ responsibilities to true stories and the communities whose experiences are shared

I welcome contributions from emerging or established scholars, artists, writers, curators, or activists, as well as educators, librarians, editors, publishers, and journalists, or archivists. Please send a short abstract (~300 words) and a brief biography (100 words) to Dr. Orly Lael Netzer (laelnetz@ualberta.ca) by July 15, 2021. Those invited to submit full chapters will be notified by August 15, 2021. Please note the manuscript will undergo a full peer-review process. Complete chapter drafts should be approximately 7,500-9,000 words including endnotes and bibliography and will be due Jan. 30th, 2022. Citations will follow the Chicago 17th Manual of Style (Author/Date style). If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out via email. I look forward to reading your submissions, Orly

Call for Papers: Unknown stories of intermediaries in women’s migration: men, women and non-binary people (7/10/2021) Edited collection

Editors: Alexandra Yingst (University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland) Stellamarina Donato (LUMSA University, Rome, Italy) Call for Papers: Recent scholarship has promoted gender equality in the field of female migration. Although generally seeking to record stories on the experiences of migrant women, scholars are also working to uncover the lesser-known stories of men, women, and non-binary people who played a part in the migration of women. This collection of essays aims to record the forgotten stories of people who positively or negatively impacted female migration. Stories can be about social network formers/maintainers, migrant smugglers, human traffickers, and more. We propose an edited collection of stories that show how everyone, no matter what gender they identify as, plays a role and is involved in female migration. Stories may be about people both past and present. Following Donna Gabaccia’s work on gender in migration studies, we want to stress the importance of including literature on gender studies in this volume. This volume will present a strong theoretical focus with innovative research methods from multiple disciplines across the humanities, social, and political sciences. An example of such literature would be the work of social theorists like Butler, Fraser, and historians like Scott, who focused on gender as a subjective process and not a determinant natural factor. Gender identification is a crucial point to consider when addressing unknown stories of migrant women because it challenges the vulnerability paradigm that has populated the debate for decades (Reysoo & Verschuur, 2004; Grotti et al., 2018) and therefore goes beyond the complementarity between men and women as the status quo (Andaya, 2007; Grami, 2018) and limited male-female comparisons (Donato et al., 2006; Erdal & Pawlak, 2018). In this regard, this collection considers women’s migration and gender equality (O’Neil et al., 2016) as two issues that should always coexist and aims at stressing their ties throughout the essays. Objectives: In this edited volume, we will show how all genders (not only women) have importantly been involved in female migration. By studying their social networks and resources that assisted the migration process, we also aim to challenge the widespread belief that migrant women are always vulnerable. Finally, we will challenge the effect of gender constructs found in migration studies (i.e., how migrant issues are often dichotomized). We also plan to bring together researchers from different disciplines who have a story to tell about the intermediaries, men, women and non-binary identifying people, who directly impacted the personal experiences of migrant women. Each chapter should also refer to those specific themes that are often related to women’s migration, such as stigma, vulnerability, determinism, double standard. Therefore, we would like to collect contributions that have the following elements: a)  Present a lesser-known story of an intermediary who assisted in the migration of women. b)  Briefly introduce the background of this person. c)  Describe how this person positively or negatively changed the position of female migrants. d)  Clearly specify how the unknown story of the intermediary provides new insights to women’s migration studies. e)  Follow a bottom-up approach to storytelling, from the specific story to the theory. We envisage this edited volume to present the lesser-known stories of people involved in women’s migration through a sectional division by the typology of migration (labor migrants and highly skilled and business migrants; irregular, illegal, or undocumented migrants; refugees, asylum seekers; constrained migration; family migration, etc.). List of Potential Sections (3 chapters in each section): Labor migrants, highly skilled and business migrants; Irregular, illegal, or undocumented migrants; Forced migration, refugees and asylum seekers; Family migration Submission Procedure: Contributors are invited to send by July 10, 2021 an abstract proposal of approximately 350 words clearly explaining the relevance of their contribution to the edited volume, as well as a short biography of themselves. Abstracts should be sent to both Alexandra Yingst (aly3@hi.is) and Stellamarina Donato (s.donato@lumsa.it). Authors will be notified by August 30, 2021 about the acceptance of their proposal. Full chapters (ca. 6000 – 8000 words, including bibliography) are expected to be submitted by February 30, 2022. Publisher: The edited volume’s manuscript will be proposed for publication to Women on the Move’s book series at Manchester University Press or Palgrave Macmillan. It is expected to be published by mid-2023.

Contact Info:

Alexandra Yingst (University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland) and Stellamarina Donato (LUMSA University, Rome, Italy)

Contact Email:

aly3@hi.is

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Announcement: Call-for-Abstracts Deadline for submission: 1^st July 2021 SPECIAL ISSUE OF LIFE WRITING: CALL FOR ABSTRACTS MERITOCRACY AND LIFE WRITING

Editor:  Professor D. L. LeMahieu

Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois, 60045, USA

lemahieu@mx.lakeforest.edu

Michael Young’s satire The Rise of the Meritocracy (1957) popularized a new term that gained wide currency in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.  Both the social democratic Left and the neo-liberal Right endorsed the notion that intelligence plus effort equaled merit.  Intended to displace an elitism based on birth or social privilege, meritocracy promised upward mobility to those with the talent and work ethic to earn success.  Yet, as meritocracy congealed into a self-sustaining elitism, the concept has attracted intense criticism from meritocrats themselves as well as nativists and populists excluded from positions of power.  The life writing of meritocrats discloses the complex subjectivities of upward mobility during a period of accelerating social change and raises the question of what constitutes merit. Abstracts are invited addressing any of the topics below. Abstracts should be between 300 and 500 words and include the author’s institutional affiliation if any. Include 5 or 6 keywords for your approach to the topic. Due date for abstracts: Thursday 1st July, 2021. Abstracts should be emailed to the journal’s guest editor at lemahieu@mx.lakeforest.edu Authors will be notified as to whether the complete paper would be welcome for submission by 16th August, 2021. Final due date for completed papers if abstract is accepted: 1st December 2021. Completed papers should be 6,000-8,000 words long, and must follow the Instructions for Authors on the journal’s website for referencing, endnotes, UK spelling, etc. Papers will be submitted for blind peer review. This may take about 2 months. Papers that are recommended for publication following peer review will be published online in Life Writing during 2022, with print publication in a special issue to follow. Topics: – Meritocratic life writing before the term was coined (Roman “new men”; beneficiaries of the Chinese examination system; Victorian self-help discourse) – Education, scholarships, and social class in meritocratic narratives – Gender and meritocracy – Race and meritocratic life writing – Structure and personal agency in meritocratic life writing – Meritocratic virtue: the personal qualities it takes to succeed – Marxism and meritocratic life writing – Meritocratic medical doctors, lawyers and jurists – Politicians and their advisors – Business women and business men – Childhood and the origins of personal ambition – Meritocrats and personal trauma, including terminal illness narratives – Typologies of meritocratic life writing – Meritocratic academics and the transformation of higher education – Meritocratic life writing and identity politics – How meritocrats process, critique, or ignore their own privileges – Meritocratic dissenters, including populists and nativists – Meritocratic theologians and the challenges of secularism – Ghost writing the lives of famous meritocrats including entertainers – Neoliberal life writing – Mentors in meritocratic life writing

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Being Out of Place: Deconstructing Travel Narratives in Postcolonial Arab Literature(via Zoom)

July 1, 2021

contact email:

travelconference2021@gmail.com

Conference Director Dr. Soumaya Bouacida, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Conférence Date:: 20 th Decembre, 2021 Keynote Speakers -Dr. Robert Clarke is a senior lecturer in English studies, and Head of Discipline, English, in the school of Humanities at the University of Tasmania. He is the editor of several books and issues such as Celebrity Colonialism: Fame, Power and Representation in Colonial and Postcolonial Cultures(2009), “Travel and Celebrity Culture”(special issue in Postcolonial Studies), and The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Travel Writing (2018) –Dr.Nouri Gana is professor of Comparative Literature & Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is the author of Signifying Loss: Toward a Poetics of Narrative Mourning, and the editor of The Making of the Tunisian Revolution: Contexts, Architects, Prospects and of The Edinburgh Companion to the Arab Novel in English. The Head of the Conference Organizing Committee Mr. Toufik Laachouri, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Members of the Conference Organizing Committee Dr.Soumaya Bouacida, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Dr.Zeyneb Benhenda, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Dr. Roumeissa Silini, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Dr. Naima Harbi, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Dr. Bochra Bouteraa, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Ms .Assia Nekakaa, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Ms. Fouzia Krim University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Mr. Malek Benkhalaf Dr. Mounir Karek Dr. Djihed Messikh University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Ms. Imen Bouchagour, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Ms.Fatima Zohra Laidi, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Ms. Fatima Bouglouf, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Ms.Imen Chraita, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Ms. Imen Achouri ,University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Ms. Selwa Hadibi, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Msr. Nabila Dendani, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Ms. Nour Elhouda Boudrouma, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Mr. Zin El-din, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria The Head of Conference Reading Committee Dr. Zeyneb Benhenda, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Members of the Conference Reading Committee -Dr.Soumaya Bouacida, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria -Dr. Roumeissa Silini, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria Dr. Hayette Harbi, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria -Dr. Hichem Souhali, University of Batna 02, Batna, Algeria -Dr. Moufida Zaidi, University of Mentouri, Costantine, Algeria – Prof. Nadir Kaouli, University of Batna 02, Batna, Algeria -Dr. Leila Djaafri, University of Batna 02, Batna, Algeria -Dr. Farida Lebbal, University of Batna 02, Batna, Algeria -Dr. Mohamed Seghir Halimi, Ourgla University, Ouargla, Algeria -Dr. Ahmed Bashar, Biskra University, Biskra, Algeria -Dr. Nadir Idri, Bejaia University -Dr. Youcef Awad, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan -Dr. Tahrir Hamdi, Open Arab University, Amman, Jordan -Dr.Lina Saleh, Al Balqa Applied University, Salt, Jordan -Dr.Samira Al-Khawaldeh, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan -Dr. Aba-Carina Parlog, West University of Timisoara, Roumania -Dr. Mariam F. Alkazemi, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA – Dr. Mounir Karek, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria -Dr.Salim Sista, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria -Dr. Camilia Bechiri, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria -Mr. Abdelmalek Ben khalef, University of 20th August 1955, Skikda, Algeria                                                                                                                            Call for Papers  I occasionally experience myself as a cluster of flowing currents. I prefer this to the idea of a solid self, the identity to which so many attach so much significance. These currents, like the themes of one’s life, flow during the waking hours, and at their best they require no reconciling, no harmonizing. They are “off” and may be out of place, but at least they are always in motion, in time, in place, in the form of all kinds of strange combinations moving about, not necessarily forward, sometimes against each other, contrapuntally yet without one central theme. Edward Said In this passage that is taken from Out of Place(1999), a text that dovetails memoir with the travel narrative, Edward Said reads himself as an embodied form of diversity and as a celeberation of a heterogeneous identity since he is ‘a cluster flowing currents’: he is Arab and Christian, Palestinian and American, the Anglophone “Edward” and the Arabic “Said”. Such complex identification comes as a result of his geographical mobility and continuous travel between Cairo and New York, Beirut and London, Jerusalem and Boston, Dhour and Paris. More pointedly, travel is a vehicle through which one can explore how his relationship to a place can shape his own experiences and, thus, his own identity. Travel is not only limited to human beings, but also diseases can travel the globe. Travelling diseases become embricated with the history of different cultures and play a central role in travel writing. In the ongoing wake of COVID-19, the normative modes of travel have witnessed some interruptions, which leads to the mounting of paranoia among people who have been displaced from their homes like migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Regulations on travel have left this category of people stranded; they face intense deprivations in their right to economic welfare, limited access to school, poor health care, and threats to their safety and protection. Travel narratives were vital for Said’s Orientalist project because they include accounts of ‘other’ places and peoples that construct distinctions between “the Orient” and “the Occident” and that depict the “ East” as inferior and uncivilized. The description produced by the imperial eye is considered as a justification for colonial projects and imperial expansionism. However, for postcolonial writers and mainly Arab ones, travel texts can convey accounts that defy colonial discourses by deconstructing the binary oppositions of the colonial travel writings, decentering the Western eye and reconceptualizing the relationship between centre and periphery through creating contact zones .This conference, therefore, attempts to examine these debates by exploring the major scholarly works on travel writing by postcolonial Arab writers. This conference fosters a creative dialogue between leading academic researchers and scholars who are willing to exchange and share their experiences and results on all aspects of travel in postcolonial Arab writings and in case of serious situations such as the spread of pandemics (Corona virus is a case in point) . It also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers to discuss the most recent trends and concerns in the field of travel writing. We would like to take stock of the scholarship concerning travel in Postcolonial Arab literature and we kindly invite prospective authors to contribute to the conference through the submissions of their original research abstracts, papers and e-posters. The topics that could be explored in the conference include but are not limited to: -Travel and constructions of race, class, and gender -Constitutions of ‘self’ ad ‘other’ in travel writing -Travel and diaspora -Travel and transculturation -Travel and displacement -Travel and politics of exile -Travel and gastronomic culture -Travel and Topophilia -Nostalgia/ Solastalgia ,Memory and Trauma in travel writing -Travel and language -Contact zones and the relationship between travelers and travelees -Travel and Pandemics Paper proposals of up to 250 words in English and a brief biographical note should be sent by 1st July 2021 to travelconference2021@gmail.com. The contributors will be asked to send their full papers by  Novembre, 15 th in order to submit them as a special issue in Quraterly Arab journal after going through a reviewing process..No fees are recommended for this conférence.

* * Deadline for Submissions April 15, 2021 Announcement: Call-for-Papers This call is for abstracts for a scholarly, international edited collection entitled, Writing Australian History on Screen: cultural, sociological, and historical depths in television and film period dramas “down under”. Due to effects of the covid-19 pandemic 2020-21, and the strain this has placed on people and businesses (including academics and universities world-wide), the deadline for abstracts for this project has been extended. New deadline for abstract submissions: 15 April 2021. It could be said that Australia’s unique history has shaped the diversity of its peoples, and the Australian life-styles of today. Australia is both a very ancient and a very young nation. The diverse Australian Indigenous peoples were and still are the First Australians, and the true owners of the land. Despite the British Empire’s 1770 claim on the land as one of its colonies, and white Australia’s announcement of Australia as a nation with the birth of Federation in 1901, “Australia” was in fact a nation long before that; and so long before the British deportation of convicts to Australia and the subsequent arrival of the Anglo-Celtic-European settlers; and the supposed much earlier arrival of Chinese traders; and the much later arrival of the many different nationalities during the Gold Rushes. In more modern times, there is also the extensive immigration from many different nationalities and cultures, and Australia’s intakes of refugees. All these peoples, whether born in Australia or naturalized, are Australians though some hold dual citizenship. The Australian nation’s history is closely tied to the national and cultural identity. In many countries, but perhaps more so in Australia, there is no single or fixed national identity. In actuality, an  Australian national identity does not exist rather there is a process of something that is unfurling or “becoming” some semblance of a sort of truth; there is no one history rather many diverse histories that overlay or color each the other; there is no one heritage or culture rather divers heritages and cultures; there is no one religion rather many; all of which sit together, side-by-side, and despite the common myths, not always so well or easily. Numerous writers note that in the Australian society there is a “visible” fracture, and also a disconnectedness between what many Australians have imagined themselves to be a part of in the past. The Australian histories, what came before and what has happened since, and how this has been incorporated or interpreted, together with the Australian environment and the geography of the land, and with Australia’s unique type of multiculturalism, has helped to shape what is variously described as the Australian character, and the society. Australian television and film period dramas are involved in conversations about who the Australian peoples were, and who they are now in the current time. These types of productions work, or rework, the numerous factors involved in “telling” the Australian story, and in so doing explicitly and implicitly bring to light the many various issues that are as relevant to the Australian society today as they were in the period portrayed on screen. In exploring the deeper issues, these sorts of filmic dramas capture and convey something of the atmosphere/s of a particular time. Admittedly, these same issues may have been viewed differently and drawn different responses in the past to what happens now. Of course, with period dramas, the angle from which the issues are approached, the way in which past times are depicted, and the questions that arise from these discussions,  also depend to some degree or another, on the writer/s and the producer/s own points-of-view and particular agendas and artistic skills, as well as the message/s intended for, or inadvertently conveyed to, the viewer. It can be said that Australian television and film  period dramas raise big questions for the Australian society of today to ponder. Staying specifically with those produced in Australia, examples of these types of period dramas are: the hugely popular television series, The Sullivans (aired 1976-1983); Against the Wind (released in 1978); Redfern Now (aired 2012-2013); A Place to Call Home (premiered in 2013); and the much-loved films, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (first screened in 1978); Rabbit Proof Fence (released in 2002); The Dressmaker (released in 2015); Ladies in Black (premiered in 2018). Some suggestions for potential contributors and questions that could be addressed may include but are not limited to:

• What are some of the cultural and/or social aspects and issues raised in a particular Australian television/ or film period drama?
• What are, and how do these types of productions convey, the differences or sameness between the fictionalized portrayals and the realities of the times, and social dictates of the Australian culture then in relation to those of today?
• In Australian television and filmic period dramas, how might class, ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and history, shape these representations for the viewers?
• Are there cultural or historical antecedents for consideration of portrayals of the Australian outlook in small and-or large screen period dramas?
• How are the Australian viewpoints expressed in any one or two or more Australian period screen dramas conveyed to the viewer, and what might be the producers motivations in each case?
• What makes Australian period drama TV/films distinct from (maybe even bolder than), say, their British counterparts? What happens when British dramas present Australia on film (for example, “Banished” (first released 2015) )?Is Australian history sometimes just a different backdrop or central to interrogating specific issues/themes?
• How do these Australian dramas restore marginalized histories and voices?
• Chapters about late 20^th-c dramas as well as recently popular ones are encouraged, and could include APTCH, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, Love Child, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Australia, My Brilliant Career, Gallipoli, Anzac Girls, Emma’s War, and more.

Submission instructions: At this initial stage, in lieu of “chapters,” this proposed work, Writing Australian History on Screen, calls for extended abstracts for consideration for inclusion in the book.

• The extended abstracts must be more than 1,000 and less than 1,500 words.

(Full-length chapters of 6,000 – 7,000words each (including notes but excluding references lists, title of work, and key words) will be solicited from these abstracts.)

• Please keep in mind that your essay-chapter will be written from your extended abstract. Your abstract will carry the same title as your essay-chapter.
• To be considered, an abstract must be written in English, and submitted as a Word document.
• When writing your abstract use Times New Roman point 12,and 1.15 spacing.
• At the beginning of your extended abstract, immediately after the title of your work and your name, add 5 to 8 keywords that best relate to your work.
• Use the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition.
• Since this work is intended for Lexington Books, USA, please use American (US) spelling not English (UK) spelling, and not Australian English spelling;
• Use the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary;
• Use endnotes and not footnotes, use counting numbers not Roman numerals, and keep the endnotes to a bare minimum, working the information into the text where possible;
• Do cite all your work in your extended abstract as you would in a full chapter.

1. a) in the body of the abstract, add parenthetical in-text citations (family name of author and year, and page number/s) (e.g. Smith 2019, 230); b) fully reference all in-text citations in alphabetical order, in the References list at the end of your abstract;

• Please send your abstract as a Word document attached to an email;
• To this same email please also attach, as separate Word documents, the following:
• Your covering letter, giving your academic title/s, affiliation, your position, and your home and telephone, your home address, and your email contact details;
• A short bio of no more than 200 words;
• Your C.V., giving your publications to date, and the publishing details and dates.

Editors: Professor Julie Anne Taddeo, Research Professor of History, University of Maryland, USA, and Dr Jo Parnell, Conjoint Research Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Science, College of Human and Social Experience, University of Newcastle, Australia. Papers should be forwarded to both editors: Julie Anne Taddeo taddeo@umd.com Jo Parnell Jo.Parnell@newcastle.edu.au  alternatively annette.parnell@newcastle.edu.au  or joandbobparnell@bigpond.com * Deadline for Submissions, April 3, 2021 Announcement: Call-for-Papers This call is for abstracts for a scholarly, international edited collection entitled, Cultural Representations of the Second Wife: Literature, Stage, and Screen. Currently I am seeking a number of academics and professionals in the field who might like to send me an abstract for consideration for inclusion in the book. Deadline for abstracts: 3 April 2021. In any culture, religious and cultural beliefs are inseparable, and intrinsic one to the other, and are important to the marriage  customs and laws. Regardless of whether a culture is mainly monogamous or polygamous, one female figure that attracts attention is the second wife. A woman may become the “second wife” either by fact or by custom, or by religious law, or by de facto relationship, or by concubinage. In most though not necessarily all cultures, and according to the religious and cultural beliefs and laws of a culture, as well as the civil laws of that country, a man who has been but is no longer married may remarry; and in some cultures also, a man who is currently married may marry or take a second wife who may or may not have been formerly married to some different man. In some other cultures, cultural customs, or religious dictates, or accepted practices, or inheritance factors, forbid men who are divorcees or widowers to remarry. Similarly, and perhaps more so than with men, some cultures forbid widows or divorced or abandoned women from remarrying. It is generally understood that whether she is welcomed by her new in-law family, or not, the first wife as a new wife, brings with her some baggage into the new relationship, into the life of the man she weds, and hence into the family into which she marries, and ultimately into that society; but perhaps this is more so in the case of the second wife.  From antiquity to the present, like the first wife, the second wife features in stories, anecdotes, and jokes, and in both high and low culture, but in a way that is vastly different to how the first wife is depicted. The concept of the second wife is an important part of social and cultural history and ritual in most societies, world-wide, yet it would seem that to date, there are no published scholarly edited collections, no academic books, on representations of the second wife from the angle suggested in this cfp. In can be said that in any culture, the role of the second wife may differ to that of a first wife. The act of becoming and the experience of being a second wife may also be somewhat different to that of being a man’s first wife. Questions arise: within any culture, regardless of her status as a woman, what are the implications for a woman who marries a widower or divorced man? Likewise, what are the implications for a second wife in a polygamous relationship? This scholarly edited collection will reveal how the personal expectations and actual experiences of the second wife may differ from the social and cultural expectations and realities of the role of the second wife; and how the second wife may be perceived in the popular and social culture of various cultures, in screen, stage, and literary productions and pop culture narratives. Some suggestions for potential contributors to consider, and that could be addressed, may include but are not limited to are:

• What are the cultural and social duties of the second wife; what are the cultural expectations of her; and what are her personal realities and expectations, as represented in the popular culture of a particular culture/society? Is it possible to detect differences or sameness between the fictionalized portrayals and the realities and social dictates of that culture?
• What are the distinctions between how the second wife has been typically represented in jokes and anecdotes, to that in popular and social culture as literature, film, drama, and television?
• How do class, ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and possibly history, shape representations of the second wife?
• Are there any powerful cultural or socially historical antecedents for the representation of the second wife in popular/social culture, as screen, stage, and literary productions?
• What are the creators and/or the producers intentions behindtheir portrayals of the second wife; what are the messages or lessons they intend for their audiences through these depictions?
• How would we establish the underlying cultural, historical, or production motivations for particular depictions of the second wife?
• How often, if at all, are these representations told from the point-of-view of the second wife herself?
• What is the range of ways in which the second wifeis represented in the popular/social culture of the various societies?
• Is it possible to identify contemporary writers of popular culture in literature, film, and drama, who center their work on representations of the second wife? Do any of these writers illuminate individual representations of the second wife figure in a new and innovative way?
• Is there a difference between the ways in which the second wife is represented in cinematic film to that in small screen, and between those mediums to representations in drama, and to literature? Or in these representations, is there a reasonably broad consensus between these genres?

This collection of scholarly essays will make an intervention in the field: it will be the first of its kind to make a comprehensive study of what being a second wife means to and for the woman, the family, the community, the culture, and the society to which she belongs; to explore whether or not there are characteristic features of the second wife between cultures that may have either some similarity, or that are totally dissimilar, in popular belief and popular culture; to document and record how various eastern and western societies perceive and represent the socially and culturally important figure of the second wife in screen, stage, and literary works and pop culture narratives; to indicate if there is agreement or difference between the various cultures on how the figure of the second wife is represented in popular culture to the viewing/reading audiences; to establish a new and dynamic area of theoretical research crossing family studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, social history, gender studies, social studies, and the humanities in general; to point the way to possible future cross-disciplinary work through examining various peoples and societies by way of cultural representations of the second wife; and to permit scholarly consideration of the extent to which the creators and producers of narratives about the second wife place this figure on the perimeter of society or at its center. Full-length chapters of 6,000 – 7,000words each (including notes but excluding references lists, title of work, and key words) will be solicited from these abstracts. The extended abstracts must be more than 1,000 and less than 1,500 words.

• Please keep in mind that your essay-chapter will be written from your extended abstract. Your abstract will carry the same title as your essay-chapter.
• To be considered, an abstract must be written in English, and submitted as a Word document.
• When writing your abstract use Times New Roman point 12,and 1.15 spacing.
• At the beginning of your extended abstract, immediately after the title of your work and your name, add 5 to 8 keywords that best relate to your work.
• Use the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition.
• Since this work is intended for Lexington Books, USA, please use American (US) spelling not English (UK) spelling, and not Australian English spelling;
• Use the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary;
• Use endnotes and not footnotes, use counting numbers not Roman numerals, and keep the endnotes to a bare minimum, working the information into the text where possible;
• Do cite all your work in your extended abstract as you would in a full chapter:Submission instructions: At this initial stage, in lieu of “chapters,” this proposed work, Cultural Representations of the Second Wife, calls for extended abstracts for consideration for inclusion in the book.

1. a) in the body of the abstract, add parenthetical in-text citations (family name of author and year, and page number/s) (e.g. Smith 2019, 230); b) fully reference all in-text citations in detail and in alphabetical order, in the References list at the end of your abstract;

Please send your abstract as a Word document attached to an email;

• To this same email please also attach, as separate Word documents, the following:
• Your covering letter, giving your academic title/s, affiliation, your position, and your home and telephone numbers, your home address, and your email contact details;
• A short bio of no more than 250 words;
• Your C.V., including a full list of your publications and giving the publishing details and dates, and including those in press, and published.

Editor: Dr Jo Parnell, Conjoint Research Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Science, Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Newcastle, Australia. Papers should be forwarded to: Jo Parnell at: Jo.Parnell@newcastle.edu.au  or annette.parnell@newcastle.edu.au or joandbobparnell@bigpond.com Deadline for Submissions, March 31, 2021 CFP–Four Life Writing Forum Panels, Modern Language Association (3/5/2021; 1/6-9/2022) Washington DC, USA Documenting Isolation How do life writers make meaning of selves and experiences in/of isolation in or through their texts? Papers examining historical and/or contemporary life narratives of isolation invited. Submit 300-word abstract and bio. Deadline for submissions: Friday, 5 March 2021 Megan Brown, Drake U (megan.brown@drake.edu ) Laurie McNeill, U of British Columbia (laurie.mcneill@ubc.ca ) Transnational Black Auto/biography Papers on Black life writing engaging African diasporic transnationalism, self-representation, Black liberation, political activism, and/or intellectual analysis, from precolonial petitions to BLM auto/biographies and beyond. 300-word abstract and bio. Deadline for submissions: Friday, 5 March 2021 Joycelyn K. Moody, Joycelyn Moody (joycelyn.moody@utsa.edu ) Angela Ards, Boston C (ardsa@bc.edu ) Memoir as Politics How do life stories in various forms reflect and comment on political and social issues? Papers may address (but are not limited to) memoirs by politicians and other public figures. 300-word abstract and brief bio. Deadline for submissions: Friday, 5 March 2021 Angela Ards, Boston C (ardsa@bc.edu ) John David Zuern, U of Hawai‘i, Mānoa (zuern@hawaii.edu ) Stories of Destierro How to craft contemporary life stories of destierro: expulsion, banishment, and deportation? Who’s telling these stories, and in what forms? 300-word proposals focused on Greater Mexico and beyond. Deadline for submissions: Friday, 5 March 2021 Sergio Delgado Moya, Emory U (sdelga4@emory.edu ) John David Zuern, U of Hawai‘i, Mānoa (zuern@hawaii.edu )

Deadline for Submissions March 1, 2021

Call for contributions to a Journal of Scandinavian Cinema In Focus section highlighting Musical Biopics and Musical Documentaries from the Scandinavian countries This is a call for short subject contributions (2000-3000 words) focusing on how Scandinavian film and television have presented musicians, singers, bands and orchestras in biopics and documentaries. We welcome submissions that – after a quick theoretical introduction and concise contextual background – offer discussions of topics such as: – the film’s role within cultural memory – usually restricted to a single national market and often catering to a certain age group’s intragenerational memories – the handling of generic conventions; from narration and characterization to the selection of music, casting choices and staging of performances – the function of music in specific films and film genres – marketing and authentification discourses, including media coverage of stars and their work with particular roles and performances, as well as screenwriters’ and directors’ use of biographies, interviews, original footage and recordings – national and international reception of such films Please send contributions to Anders Marklund (anders.marklund@litt.lu.se) and Ewa Mazierska (EHMazierska@uclan.ac.uk) by 1 March 2021. Make sure that you follow the most recent Notes for contributors, available at Intellect’s journal pages: https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-scandinavian-cinema. The publication of the In Focus section will coincide with the eighth Lübeck Film Studies Colloquium discussion of the topic and with screenings of select musical biopics and documentaries at Lübeck’s Nordic Film Days festival. These events are arranged in October/November 2021 – with more information available (in due course) online at https://www.nordische-filmtage.de/en/index.html.

Deadline for Submissions March 1, 2021

2021 Oral History Association Annual Meeting CFP: “Moving Stories” (3/1/2021; 10/17-21/2021)

The OHA’s Call for Proposals for the 2021 Annual Meeting is now open! Find the portal here: https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/oha/oha21. Find additional tips and guidelines for submitting here: https://www.oralhistory.org/submission-guidelines/. Keep an eye out for additional information about the Annual Meeting here: https://www.oralhistory.org/annual-meeting/. The deadline for submission is March 1.  Proposal Queries may be directed to: Nikki Yeboah, 2021 Program Co-chair (San Jose State University, nikki.yeboah@sjsu.edu) Sara Sinclair, 2021 Program Co-chair (Columbia University, ses2235@columbia.edu) Amy Starecheski, OHA Vice President (Columbia Oral History MA Program, aas39@columbia.edu) For submission inquiries or more information, contact: Faith Bagley, Program Associate, 615-898-2544, oha@oralhistory.org Contact Info: Oral History Association Box 193/Middle Tennessee State University Murfreesboro, TN. 37132 Contact Email: oha@oralhistory.org URL: http://oralhistory.org

Deadline for Submissions March 1, 2021

Biographers International Organization (BIO) is accepting applications for The Hazel Rowley Prize $2000 for an Exceptional Book Proposal from a First-time Biographer This prize is given to the author of an exceptional book proposal for a full-length biography. In addition to the $2,000 award, the winner will have their proposal evaluated by an established literary agent. They will also receive a year’s membership in BIO, along with registration for the annual BIO conference, and publicity for the author and project through the BIO website, The Biographer’s Craft newsletter, and social media. The prize advances BIO’s mission to reach talented new writers in the genre. The deadline for applications is March 1, 2021. For further information and application instructions, see https://biographersinternational.org/award/hazel-rowley-prize/#apply

* Deadline for Submissions February 28, 2021 “Literary [Non-]Fiction in Times of Crisis”, 13th May to the 15th May 2021 (Submission Deadline 2/28/2021) CRISIS: “a time of great danger, difficulty, or confusion when problems must be solved or important decisions must be made” (OED) The fall of the Berlin Wall; refugee movements across Europe; Brexit; political populism; divided societies in Europe and USA; or the pandemic of Covid-19 – it is almost unlikely to formulate a complete list of crises that have emerged in recent times. The notion of crisis, however, is by no means confined to the socio-political realm and its grand narratives/grand challenges. Personal, religious and identity crises seem idiosyncratic in essence, but are in reality experiences shared collectively by different cultures and generations. The idea that crises are not only destructive or arresting, but rather necessary for progress and/or self-development is communicated not only by means of historical accounts or political analyses, but also via personal life reviews as well as fictional, literary works. Literary [non-]fiction is, after all, the most multi-faceted medium of communication. Many times the individual’s need for literary (self-)expression is driven by the need to make sense of the surrounding reality [also by highlighting different versions of reality] and contextualize one’s personal, socio-political or environmental crisis. Facing a political/cultural/social/religious predicament, authors are often driven by an imperative to voice their disagreement over transgressions/half-truths/ lies/manipulations, which eventually makes one unable to turn away from the presumed obligation to right a wrong. This is why Nadine Gordimer once said that writing about ‘public policies’ [sensu largo], particularly if their impact on the social fabric is negative, corresponds to writing about morality. Department of English Literature and Literary Linguistics is pleased to announce its conference, “Literary [Non-]Fiction in Times of Crisis”, to be held online at Adam Mickiewicz University from the 13th May to the 15th May 2021. The conference’s objective is to explore both writerly and non-writerly involvement, analyses and suggestions regarding descriptions of and possible solutions to the ills of a given society/community/individual and collective mindsets. Our intention is to set up an interdisciplinary dialogic space for academics interested in restoring the strength of referentiality in [non-]fiction writing, with the overall aim to make textual reality relevant again. Our invitation is addressed to researchers from various fields of scholarly investigation, including literary studies, culture studies, film studies, identity studies and other interdisciplinary studies. Suggested topics include but are not restricted to: SECTION I Socio-Political crisis in texts Session Chairs: prof. dr hab. Liliana Sikorska [sliliana@amu.edu.pl] and prof. UAM dr hab. Ryszard Bartnik [rbartnik@amu.edu.pl] * Black Lives Matter * Wars [culture wars/terrorist extremism] * Arab Spring [and other ‘revolutions’] * Minority and human rights * Brexit * Political transitions of divided societies SECTION II Psychological crisis in texts Session Chairs: dr Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon [kbronkk@amu.edu.pl] and prof. UAM dr hab. Dominika Buchowska-Greaves [drusz@amu.edu.pl] * Narration and representation of personal or collective trauma * Crisis of identity and belonging * Rites of passage in human life [motherhood/fatherhood; middle age/old age, crisis of faith] * Sexual/gender assault/abuse/asymmetry SECTION III Environmental crisis in texts [Ecocriticism] Session Chairs: dr Jeremy Pomeroy [jerpom@amu.edu.pl] and dr Jacek Olesiejko [olesiejk@amu.edu.pl] * The crisis of Anthropocene * Climate change * Pan- and epidemics SECTION IV ‘Institutional’ crisis in texts Session Chairs: dr Marta Frątczak-Dąbrowska [mfratczak@amu.edu.pl] and dr Joanna Jarząb-Napierała [joanna.jarzab@amu.edu.pl] * Crisis of democracy * Crisis of neoliberalism * The [re]birth of populism * Crisis of the state [Truth/Trust/Rule of law] Authors are encouraged to prepare 20 minute presentations in English. Abstracts of around 300-500 words should be submitted to crisisandliterature2021@amu.edu.pl by the 28th February 2021 [in the event of any technical problems use the alternative email address crisisrb@amu.edu.pl]. In addition, we would like to inform about that the Department of English Literature and Literary Linguistics is planning to launch, presumably in 2022, a postconference publication, in cooperation with Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM. The full-length papers to be considered for this volume shall be peer-reviewed and must not be under consideration by any other journal or publication. * Deadline for abstracts: 27 February 2021 Announcement: Call-for-Papers This call is for abstracts for a scholarly, international edited collection entitled, Writing Australian History on Screen: cultural, sociological, and historical depths in television and film period dramas “down under”. Deadline for abstracts: 27 February 2021. It could be said that Australia’s unique history has shaped the diversity of its peoples, and the Australian life-styles of today. Australia is both a very ancient and a very young nation. The diverse Australian Indigenous peoples were and still are the First Australians, and the true owners of the land. Despite the British Empire’s 1770 claim on the land as one of its colonies, and white Australia’s announcement of Australia as a nation with the birth of Federation in 1901, “Australia” was in fact a nation long before that; and so long before the British deportation of convicts to Australia and the subsequent arrival of the Anglo-Celtic-European settlers; and the supposed much earlier arrival of Chinese traders; and the much later arrival of the many different nationalities during the Gold Rushes. In more modern times, there is also the extensive immigration from many different nationalities and cultures, and Australia’s intakes of refugees. All these peoples, whether born in Australia or naturalized, are Australians though some hold dual citizenship. The Australian nation’s history is closely tied to the national and cultural identity. In many countries, but perhaps more so in Australia, there is no single or fixed national identity. In actuality, an  Australian national identity does not exist rather there is a process of something that is unfurling or “becoming” some semblance of a sort of truth; there is no one history rather many diverse histories that overlay or color each the other; there is no one heritage or culture rather divers heritages and cultures; there is no one religion rather many; all of which sit together, side-by-side, and despite the common myths, not always so well or easily. Numerous writers note that in the Australian society there is a “visible” fracture, and also a disconnectedness between what many Australians have imagined themselves to be a part of in the past. The Australian histories, what came before and what has happened since, and how this has been incorporated or interpreted, together with the Australian environment and the geography of the land, and with Australia’s unique type of multiculturalism, has helped to shape what is variously described as the Australian character, and the society. Australian television and film period dramas are involved in conversations about who the Australian peoples were, and who they are now in the current time. These types of productions work, or rework, the numerous factors involved in “telling” the Australian story, and in so doing explicitly and implicitly bring to light the many various issues that are as relevant to the Australian society today as they were in the period portrayed on screen. In exploring the deeper issues, these sorts of filmic dramas capture and convey something of the atmosphere/s of a particular time. Admittedly, these same issues may have been viewed differently and drawn different responses in the past to what happens now. Of course, with period dramas, the angle from which the issues are approached, the way in which past times are depicted, and the questions that arise from these discussions,  also depend to some degree or another, on the writer/s and the producer/s own points-of-view and particular agendas and artistic skills, as well as the message/s intended for, or inadvertently conveyed to, the viewer. It can be said that Australian television and film  period dramas raise big questions for the Australian society of today to ponder. Staying specifically with those produced in Australia, examples of these types of period dramas are: the hugely popular television series, The Sullivans (aired 1976-1983); Against the Wind (released in 1978); Redfern Now (aired 2012-2013); A Place to Call Home (premiered in 2013); and the much-loved films, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (first screened in 1978); Rabbit Proof Fence (released in 2002); The Dressmaker (released in 2015); Ladies in Black (premiered in 2018). Some suggestions for potential contributors and questions that could be addressed may include but are not limited to: ·  What are some of the cultural and/or social aspects and issues raised in a particular Australian television/ or film period drama? ·  What are, and how do these types of productions convey, the differences or sameness between the fictionalized portrayals and the realities of the times, and social dictates of the Australian culture then in relation to those of today? ·  In Australian television and filmic period dramas, how might class, ethnicity, culture, race, gender, and history, shape these representations for the viewers? ·  Are there cultural or historical antecedents for consideration of portrayals of the Australian outlook in small and-or large screen period dramas? ·  How are the Australian viewpoints expressed in any one or two or more Australian period screen dramas conveyed to the viewer, and what might be the producers motivations in each case? ·  What makes Australian period drama TV/films distinct from (maybe even bolder than), say, their British counterparts? What happens when British dramas present Australia on film (for example, “Banished” (first released 2015) )?Is Australian history sometimes just a different backdrop or central to interrogating specific issues/themes? ·  How do these Australian dramas restore marginalized histories and voices? ·  Chapters about late 20^th-c dramas as well as recently popular ones are encouraged, and could include APTCH, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, Love Child, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Australia, My Brilliant Career, Gallipoli, Anzac Girls, Emma’s War, and more. This collection of scholarly essays will make an intervention in the field: it will be the first of its kind to make a comprehensive study of Australian screen period dramas, to explore whether or not there are characteristic features of the Australian history/histories, culture, and psyche; to establish a new and dynamic area of theoretical research in history, social history, gender studies, cultural and social studies, and the humanities in general; to point the way to possible future work in an ever-expanding field of cross-disciplinary fields through examining various portrayals of Australian histories and the peoples; and to permit scholarly consideration of the extent to which the producers of Australian history narratives for screen, establish popular representations of periods that are an intrinsic part of the Australian society and culture as a whole. Submission instructions: At this initial stage, in lieu of “chapters,” this proposed work, Writing Australian History on Screen, calls for extended abstracts for consideration for inclusion in the book.

1. The extended abstracts must be more than 1,000 and less than 1,500 words.
2. (Full-length chapters of 6,000 – 7,000words each (including notes but excluding references lists, title of work, and key words) will be solicited from these abstracts.)

· Please keep in mind that your essay-chapter will be written from your extended abstract. Your abstract will carry the same title as your essay-chapter. ·  To be considered, an abstract must be written in English, and submitted as a Word document. ·  When writing your abstract use Times New Roman point 12,and 1.15 spacing. ·  At the beginning of your extended abstract, immediately after the title of your work and your name, add 5 to 8 keywords that best relate to your work. ·  Use the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition. ·  Since this work is intended for Lexington Books, USA, please use American (US) spelling not English (UK) spelling, and not Australian English spelling; ·  Use the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary; ·  Use endnotes and not footnotes, use counting numbers not Roman numerals, and keep the endnotes to a bare minimum, working the information into the text where possible; ·  Do cite all your work in your extended abstract as you would in a full chapter. a) in the body of the abstract, add parenthetical in-text citations (family name of author and year, and page number/s) (e.g. Smith 2019, 230); b) fully reference all in-text citations in alphabetical order, in the References list at the end of your abstract; ·  Please send your abstract as a Word document attached to an email; ·  To this same email please also attach, as separate Word documents, the following: ·  Your covering letter, giving your academic title/s, affiliation, your position, and your home and telephone, your home address, and your email contact details; ·  A short bio of no more than 200 words; ·  Your C.V., giving your publications to date, and the publishing details and dates. Editors: Professor Julie Anne Taddeo, Research Professor of History, University of Maryland, USA, and Dr Jo Parnell, Conjoint Research Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Science, Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Newcastle, Australia. Papers should be forwarded to both editors: Julie Anne Taddeo taddeo@umd.com Jo Parnell Jo.Parnell@newcastle.edu.au  alternatively annette.parnell@newcastle.edu.au  or joandbobparnell@bigpond.com Deadline for Submissions February 23, 2021 Women in the Nineteenth Century—Traveling, Writing, Speaking Margaret Fuller Society American Literature Association Conference Boston, July 7–11, 2021 The writings of such women as Margaret Fuller, Catharine Sedgwick, Rebecca Cox Jackson, Betsey Stockton, Caroline Kirkland, Frances E. W. Harper, Eliza Potter, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, and Anna Julia Cooper, to name only a few, show the wide range of women’s reasons for and responses to travel. This panel proposes to question ways of thinking about traveling, including theorizing as well as representations (or silencings) of travel in the writings of Fuller and other women travelers, especially women of color. Whether focused on genres traditionally thought of as travel writing or on other modes in which women wrote and spoke, we would like to interrogate how motivations, encounters, itineraries, geographical locations, traveling equipment, and audiences have shaped literary, cultural, and political expressions in Fuller’s works and in that of women of her century. We are especially interested in ways that race and class, as well as gender, might have impeded or influenced modes of traveling and modes of writing about it. By including writing by Fuller and 19th-century women travelers, this panel aims to explore how these writers conceptualize travel, how they approach it as a topic, and how they respond to travel’s capacity to register physical and imaginative experiences, or to highlight or circumvent obstacles and impossibilities. We welcome papers from scholars at any career stage. Paper proposals of 250-500 words and a short vita should be sent to Sonia Di Loreto (sonia.diloreto@unito.it) and Jana Argersinger (argerj@gmail.com) by February 23, 2021. Please note if you will require A/V for your presentation. * Deadline for Submissions, February 15, 2021 The Legacies of Exchange by 19th-Century Black Women Society for the Study of American Women Writers Triennial Conference November 4-7 2021, Baltimore, Maryland We propose a panel for the SSAWW Triennial Conference “American Women Writers: Ecologies, Survival, Change” in Baltimore, Maryland, November 4-7, 2021: This panel highlights forms of representation and exchange by black women that look beyond narratives of enslavement. We welcome papers that explore how nineteenth-century black women built networks of kinship and support through forms of correspondence (letters, periodicals, allusions) and materials that illustrate artistic intimacies (albums, scrapbooks, autograph books, marginalia, ephemera). Building on the work of scholars like Nazera Sadiq Wright and Jasmine Nichole Cobb, we ask: what ecologies and networks are illuminated when we look at these items? We are especially interested in discussions of archival resources, recovery work, sentimentality, citizenship, and writing as care-taking. By February 15th, please send your abstract (250-300 words), institutional affiliation, contact information, and a brief bio (no more than 50-60 words) to Victoria Baugh at vlb57@cornell.edu or Charline Jao (cj422@cornell.edu). * Call for Papers:  Fragmented, Evolving, Precious: Scholarly Writing across Life Contexts  500-word proposals with 50-word bios due 15 February 2021 Scholarly writing can be a scattered process, with research and composing time eked out in fits and starts as teaching, administrative, and familial responsibilities can overwhelm even the most dedicated scholars’ best intentions for scheduled writing time. Writing and research processes also change over time as circumstances change–as graduate student life morphs into tenure-track or adjunct life; as single life morphs into partnered life, or vice versa; as faculty have children who require different intensities of attention at different stages; as bodies are or become differently dis/abled; and/or as administrative roles replace writing time with back-to-back meetings. This collection seeks to examine, explain, and even exult in how writing processes change over time by exhibiting what is both lost and gained through successive rounds of transformation and adaptation. How do writers, in their own words, respond to significant disruptions of their established processes? How do they develop “writing workflows” (Lockridge and Van Ittersum) to meet new demands, or that are capable of responding to unstable conditions? How do they understand the variables that prompt changes and what resources do they draw on to meet that change? This kairotic moment finds many scholars newly challenged to develop different writing processes as they wrestle with new ways to teach, administrate, parent, and navigate the world. As various researchers (Boice, Tulley) have demonstrated, scholars successfully produce scholarship even when their focus and time are fragmented. Boice recommends that faculty writers ensure their writing success in part by arranging “external situations to ensure regular writing productivity.” Boice’s advice articulates well with the “environmental-selecting and structuring practices (ESSPs)” Paul Prior and Jody Shipka describe in their study of scholarly writers’ processes. What this collection takes up in part is the current context in which many scholars are, due to pandemic restrictions such as school and library closures, unable now to “arrange external situations to ensure regular writing productivity” as they have in the past. These same pressures also call scholars to respond to the neoliberal demands of limitlessly increasing personal productivity. Drawing inspiration from Jessica Restaino’s pledge to “determine anew [her] use value” as a scholar (137) after a devastating personal loss, this collection seeks to determine anew the use value of scholarly writing and the processes that produce it, both within and beyond the context of losses, constraints, and adaptations associated with Covid. We want to explore how scholars have navigated various workflow changes throughout various phases of their lives and careers. The pandemic context provides an opportunity to examine how writing processes can be adapted. When the most reasonable “normal” writing advice may be impossible to follow and writing is necessarily slowed and further fragmented, might writing activity be also deepened and made more precious? We seek both personal and scholarly contributions that examine the advantages and possibilities as well as the frustrations concomitant with evolving scholarly writing processes. We invite proposals for chapters that take up, challenge, or augment questions such as these:

• How have you reinvented your writing process(es) at one or more stages of your scholarly career or for different types of projects?
• What resources or tools have you adopted for that reinvention? What was your affective experience before, during, and after?
• How does your personal engagement with writing processes shape your engagement with process scholarship or writing studies writ large, or vice versa?
• How does your teaching of writing shape your own writing processes?
• How does your scholarly writing occur within your home, work, and community context?
• How is your scholarly writing process affected by gendered, raced, and/or classed work-life expectations?
• What are the possibilities and challenges associated with your scholarly writing process?
• How could past examples of ideal and/or problematic scholarly writing processes speak to the present? How do you relate to your past processes?
• What do you see as the challenges of creating or sticking to a productive process, and/or how do you push back against a culture that over-values speed and “productivity”?

Submit 500-word proposals and 50-word bios no later than 15 February 2021. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 15 March 2021. Full chapter drafts (6000-8000 words including Works Cited) will be due 1 July 2021. Requested revisions will be due 1 October 2021. Please send queries and proposals to: fragmented.writing@gmail.com. Kim Hensley Owens Derek Van Ittersum * Deadline for Submissions, 15 February, 2021 Contemporary South Slavic Victimhood Narratives and Performances in Arts and Cultures Founding myths of South Slavic nation-states have been centred around victimhood narratives since the emancipatory struggles within several occupying empires. Rarely have those narratives been stand-alone founding myths – they were interwoven with narratives of the heroic and the oppressed. Notions of being ‘a historic victim’ (or a victim of history) can be found among all South Slavs, not only in the post-Yugoslav region. The political function of such founding myths in in the construction of collective identities has been a research focus of South Slavic and South Eastern European Studies for quite some time already. The instrumentalization of victimhood narratives in the process of South Slavic nation-state formations, also in the context of Yugoslavia’s breakup and the Yugoslav Wars, has been explored, yet less attention has been given to victimhood narratives and performances in the very current South Slavic regions and contexts. We are interested in narratives and performances of South Slavic victimhood in arts (literature, theatre, performance, film, music and art), in media and in places and performances of remembrance (memorial days, memory in public space, museums and memorials). Therefore, we are inviting scholars from different fields (South Slavic Studies, Film and Media Studies, Theatre and Performance Studies, Art History, Cultural and Memory Studies and other closely related disciplines) to contribute to the edited volume “Contemporary South Slavic Victimhood Narratives and Performances”. Proposals for research articles will be peer reviewed for an edited book to be published by a reputed publisher in 2022. Original and unpublished texts are invited (but not restricted to) the following areas and research questions:

• How have already established victimhood narratives changed after the end of the Yugoslav Wars?
• What new victimhood narratives have emerged in the 2000s until today?
• How are South Slavic victimhood narratives intertwined and are they mutually dependent?
• Are new narratives and performances of victimhood changing former constructions of collective identities?
• Who are perpetrators and victims in new victimhood narratives in arts and culture and what is the role of the spectator (bystander)?
• What are the aesthetic strategies in various art forms to de-construct and question those narratives?
• What are the roles of South Slavic victimhood discourses in the diaspora?

Proposals consist of a short abstract (250-300 words, including 3-4 keywords) and a short bio note of the author. Last date of submission of abstracts to the editors is February 15^th 2021, to be sent to: senad.halilbasic@univie.ac.at and miranda.jakisa@univie.ac.at The authors will be notified within 4 weeks The first draft of selected contributions is due in August 2021 (length: 5.000-7.000 words) Contact Email:  senad.halilbasic@univie.ac.at URL:  https://suedslawistik.univie.ac.at/ *

CFP: Promising Journeys, Perilous Roads: Women’s Journey Narratives in Neoliberal India (Edited Collection)

Deadline for Submissions: February 10, 2021

Call for chapter proposals (With a strong publishing interest from Lexington Books, USA) Traditionally, men have had more access than woman to Indian public spaces, especially the cities, roads, and streets. Not surprisingly, then, the presence of women in patriarchal public spaces such as roads poses a threat to traditional spatial associations of the home and the woman that in turn are significant in the construction of Indian femininity. More important, women on Indian roads have felt threatened and experienced numerous and unbelievable instances of violence, some of which in the recent past have been globally and vocally condemned. Curiously, if narratives of traveling, self-sufficient women and their outdoor experiences remain scarce, what is rarer are theoretical and critical discourses surrounding and analyzing women’s predicaments on the road. Stressing this, academicians such as Manish Madan and Mahesh K. Nalla in their study tilted “Sexual Harassment in Public Spaces: Examining Gender Differences in Perceived Seriousness and Victimization” (2016) note that while a considerable amount of research has been done on  domestic violence in India, which mostly occurs indoors in private spaces, “the treatment of women in the public sphere, particularly with regard to sexual harassment (one of the most pervasive forms of violence against women)” (1) has only received public attention post the notorious Nirbhaya rape case (2012) due to media coverage and international outcry. Likewise, keeping mainly the Nirbhaya rape case and the gang rape of a young photo-journalist in Mumbai (2013) as a contextual backdrop, Shilpa Phadke in her article “Unfriendly Bodies, Hostile Cities Reflections on Loitering and Gendered Public Space” argues that the “overarching narrative appears to be that [Indian] cities are violent spaces that women are better off not accessing at all” (50). Arguably, while empirical and data driven research has to some extent taken into account the issue of women’s travel experiences, theoretical research dealing with fictionalized representations of women’s road journeys in millennial India is palpably missing. The present edited collection attempts to bridge this unfortunate gap in scholarship. Where international research is concerned, the issue of women’s safety within public spaces such as the road has been a central problematic for space theorists and feminist geographers such as Linda McDowell, Gillian Rose, and Doreen Massey who declare that spaces are governed by patriarchal power relations which exclude women. Doreen Massey, for instance, in Space, Place, and Gender (1994) claims that “spatial control, whether enforced through the power of convention or symbolism, or through the straightforward threat of violence, can be a fundamental element in the constitution of gender” (180). According to feminist geographers therefore public spaces such as roads are inherently gendered and exclude women with the threat of sexual violence. In a deeply patriarchal society such as India, spatial politics along with explicit and implicit threats of violence plague millions of women who try to accesses public spaces, beginning with the roads. In neoliberal India, especially after Nirbhaya rape case, one encounters a growing engagement with women’s travel narratives most significantly on several OTT (over-the-top) digital platforms including Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos. Many fictionalized series telecast on these platforms have presented the problem of female vulnerability within public spaces to expose physical, mental, sexual, and epistemic violence that traveling women face. Here Richie Mehta’s Delhi Crime proves to be a powerful case in point. Likewise, mainstream Hindi films such as Chhapaak (2020) in the recent past have also exposed how women are extremely vulnerable to the male gaze and to patriarchal violence, especially on the roads. Literature, too, has responded to this vexed issue and writers such as Janhavi Acharekar and Namita Gokhale have attempted to reveal how structural violence mars the outdoorsy experiences of many Indian women. Other fictionalized narratives that underscore women’s promising albeit perilous road journeys include films such as Nagesh Kukunoor’s Dor (2006), Leena Yadav’s Parched (2015), Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s Pink (2016), Ashtar Sayed’s Maatr (2017), Ravi Udyawar’s Mom (2017), and Gopi Puthran’s Mardaani 2 (2019). In addition, there are also well-received web series such as The Good Girl Show (2017) and She (2020) which unravel the regressive rape myths, stigma, victim-blaming, and misogyny that are entrenched in Indian society and channeled against women exploring the world outside their homes. The present volume entitled Promising Journeys, Perilous Roads: Women’s Journey Narratives in Neoliberal India hopes to inaugurate a much-needed scholarly discussion on women and their experiences on the road in the present times. By focusing on the complex negotiations that women make with the challenges posed by the gendered space of the road, this edited collection hopes to bring together critical and scholarly voices that together address a deep rooted and pressing problem fettering Indian women’s mobility today. It invites essays that attempt critically informed analyses of literature, graphic novels, films, web series, and other popular cultural representations of Indian women’s experiences on the road, and ultimately initiate localized feminist interventions against gendered violence. Themes addressed may include, but are not limited to: •    Literary representations of Indian women’s vulnerability on the road •    Graphic narratives of female road journeys •    Films, web series, television, popular culture vis-à-vis violence and spatial politics •    Sororities and female bonding in the face of violent road journeys •    Wandering mothers: women, violence, and caregiving on the road •    Women’s aging, destitution, and violence of the road •    Rape myths, stigma, and sexual offences •    Intrusive male gaze and objectified female bodies •    Class, caste, female oppression, and violent roads •    Female fortitude, resistance, and survival on gendered roads Lexington Books, USA has expressed a strong interest in publishing this edited collection. Please submit an abstract of 750 words and a short CV by February 10, 2021 to Swathi Krishna S. swathi@iitrpr.ac.in and Srirupa Chatterjee srirupa@la.iith.ac.in The final articles will be 6000-7000 words in the latest MLA Handbook format and will be due by August 31, 2021.

* Deadline for Submissions–Feb. 5, 2021

The Register & Visitors’ Book in Historical Scholarship: A Virtual Colloquium, June 1, 2021

The value of the institutional guest book/register as a source has become evident in recent historical scholarship. Studies have engaged registers from a broad range of approaches and interests, including the histories of travel and tourism, book history, historical geography, literary tourism, and legal history. The form, legal status, and uses of these books varied markedly by site and jurisdiction: in some, their completion was required by law. In others, the ‘visitors’ book’ was a site of whimsical inscription, filled with prose, verse, and illustration. The material affordances of the books, and the regimes of surveillance enacted over them, also varied widely. In many cases, institutions maintained both the legally compulsory register and a voluntary book for guests’ inscriptions. As scholars have unearthed these books in local, regional, and national archives, explored the legal, economic, social, and cultural contexts in which they were used—as tools of surveillance, as business records, as tableaux for leisure travellers—and used them extensively as sources in historical scholarship, they have developed fruitful intellectual exchanges. Beyond places of accommodation, research has encompassed books that were at other institutions and sites—stately homes, museums, universities, and places associated with the lives of famous authors, for instance—in the early modern and modern periods. On Tuesday 1 June 2021 a workshop will bring together scholars using these books as evidence in diverse historical research programmes. We invite participation (through pre-circulated papers to be discussed in the virtual event) from scholars working on a range of projects that employ these sources in historical research, including (but not limited to):

• Hotel guest books and registers as legal and social instruments
• Guest books and registers as sources for the study of mobility and tourism markets
• Institutional visitors’ books and practices of inscription and reading
• Cultures of travel illuminated by guest books
• Practices of travel illustration as revealed in guest books and related sources
• Transnational vs national dimensions of guest book use
• Early modern forms of the institutional guest book

Please submit a title and 250-word proposal, as well as a one-page résumé, by Friday 5 February 2021 to Kevin James at kjames@uoguelph.ca, to whom any enquiries may also be directed.

Contact Info:

Professor Kevin James Scottish Studies Foundation Chair and Professor of History University of Guelph Guelph, ON N1G 2W1 Canada

Contact Email:

kjames@uoguelph.ca

* Interdisciplinary Studies in Diasporas Irene Maria F. Blayer and Dulce Maria Scott ISSN: 2378-0975 www.peterlang.com/view/serial/ISD Interdisciplinary Studies in Diasporas opens a discursive space in diaspora scholarship in all fields of the humanities and social sciences. The volumes published in this series comprise studies that explore and contribute to an understanding of diasporas from a broad spectrum of cultural, literary, linguistic, anthropological, historical, political, and socioeconomic perspectives, as well as theoretical and methodological approaches. The series welcomes original submissions from individually and collaboratively authored books and monographs as well as edited collections of essays. All proposals and manuscripts are peer reviewed. For more information, or if you’d like to discuss a proposal, please contact: : Dr Irene Blayer, Series Editor, iblayer@brocku.c Dr Dulce Scott, Series Editor, dmscott@anderson.edu Dr Philip Dunshea, Acquisitions Editor , p.dunshea@peterlang.com. * Deadline for Submissions, February 1, 2021 Biographers International Organization (BIO) is pleased to announce the inauguration of the Frances “Frank” Rollin Fellowship $2000 for an Exceptional Biography-in-Progress about an African American Subject Named for the first African American biographer, the Frances “Frank” Rollin Fellowship awards $2,000 to an author working on a biographical work about an African American figure or figures whose story provides a significant contribution to our understanding of the Black experience. This fellowship also provides the recipient with a year’s membership in BIO, registration to the annual BIO conference, and publicity through BIO’s marketing channels. The Rollin Fellowship aims to remediate the disproportionate scarcity and even suppression of Black lives and voices in the broad catalog of published biography. This fellowship reflects not only BIO’s commitment to supporting working biographers but to encouraging diversity in the field. Deadline for applications: February 1, 2021. To apply, go to https://biographersinternational.org/award/the-frances-frank-rollin-fellowship/#apply * Deadline for Submissions, January 16, 2020

The Howard University Graduate English Student Association’s 5th Annual Conference

Forging Identities: Agency, Voice, and Representation in African American Literature and Beyond

Deadline for Submissions: January 16, 2021 Conference Date: March 26, 2021 Conference Location: Zoom Keynote Speaker: Dr. Keith D. Leonard, Author of Fettered Genius In her 1993 Nobel Lecture, the late Toni Morrison said, “Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.” Throughout the history of the African diaspora, Black people have demonstrated the power of language and cultural narratives to (re)envision, (re)imagine, and (re)articulate notions of identity. To interrogate and investigate the complex relationship between narratives of artistic production and identity formation, The Graduate English Student Association invites presentations, panels, and roundtables for its fifth annual conference on the theme Forging Identities: Agency, Voice, and Representation in African American Literature and Beyond. We ask participants to consider how art and language both mediate the imposition of identity and continually birth new forms of identifying. How do literature and cultural creations aid in the crafting of multilayered, complex identities that represent Blackness beyond binaries and monoliths? How do Black artists both confront their oppression and envision their liberation? This conference, then, invites interrogation of cultural production from the Black Diaspora (e.g., music, drama, visual art, literature, and so on) as it conveys discourse on notions of identity (e.g., race, class, gender, sexuality, and so on). Papers from a variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches will be considered. Possible fields of study include literature, including African, African Amerian, and Caribbean literatures; history, performance studies, women and gender studies, and so forth. Possible topics include but are not limited to the following: identity formation in a transnational context; expressions of intersectionality within artistic practice; rhetorics of identity, including digital rhetoric; performing identity in virtual spaces; interrogating diversity, identity, and color blindness in “post”-racial America; identifying through speech acts, articulations, and spoken word; controlling images and misrepresentation; social media and autobiographical writing; navigating the intersections: race, gender, and sexuality; diversity and education, including literacy. Send a 250-word abstract and a short bio to gesasecretary@gmail.com by the January 16, 2021.

* Newsletter Biography Institute November 2020 New series Biography Studies started successfully In the new series Biography Studies (Brill) two first volumes have been published. Hans Renders and David Veltman edited the volume Different Lives. Global Perspectives on Biography in Public Cultures and Societies, whereas Maarten Zwiers and Jelte Olthof were responsible for the publication of Profiles in Power. Personality, Persona, and the U.S. President. On Biografieportaal.nl and in The Biographer’s Craft reviews were published in praise of Different Lives. Both parts are now available in the bookshops. From the cover of Different Lives Internationally acclaimed biographies are almost always written by British or American biographers. But what is the state of the art of biography in other parts of the world? Introduced by Richard Holmes, the volume Different Lives offers a global perspective: seventeen scholars vividly describe the biographical tradition in their countries of interest. They show how biography functions as a public genre, featuring specific societal issues and opinion-making. Indeed, the volume aims to answer the question: how can biography contribute to a better understanding of differences between societies and cultures? Special attention is given to the US, China and the Netherlands. Other contributions are on Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Iceland, Iran, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, and South Africa. Hubert van den Berg hosts workshop at Biography Institute Professor Hubert van den Berg (Palacky university, Czech Republic) will provide a workshop at the Biography Institute on Thursday 19 November, 13-16 hrs. via Zoom. During this workshop, he will discuss ways to avoid trodden paths in archival research. Van den Berg wrote extensively on the historical avant-garde in the Netherlands, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. In 2017, his book Dada, een geschiedenis appeared at Vantilt publishers. People that are interested to attend the workshop online, can send a mail to the Biography Institute. David Veltman publishes article on Les Plats Pays.com The francophone website Les Plats Pays.com now features an article by David Veltman, PhD student at the Biography Institute, on the friendship between the Flemish painter, Felix de Boeck and the Walloon poet Maurice Carême. More information can be found on the website www.biografieinstituut.nl. For subscribing to and unsubscribing from this newsletter, please email biografie.instituut@rug.nl

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Subject: Teaching Life Writing Conference Dec 10-11: Registration is Open Dear Colleagues, Registration for the December 10-11 Teaching Life Writing (virtual) Conference is now open! Register Here: https://subline.ualberta.ca/Registration/Create/57?eventItemDef=476 If your paper or round-table presentation has been accepted, please register now. The cost is $5 CD. Do you just want to attend the conference? You can! Register, pay the fee and you will have access to the whole conference. The program is almost ready. When we release it, we will give you instructions about attending the conference in the Round the World format. Promote the conference in your networks! Like us on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/lwconf), follow us on Twitter (@lifewritingconf) and check the main conference page (https://subline.ualberta.ca/portals/57) for updates about the conference. We are looking forward to welcoming you soon! The Teaching Life Writing Conference Team (Orly Lael Netzer, Julie Rak, Amanda Spallacci) email: lwconf@ualberta.ca Dear IABA List Members, We are working on Biography’s annual annotated bibliography of critical and theoretical works on life writing, the most extensive reference of its kind, and before finalizing it, we want to make sure it is as timely, inclusive, and extensive as possible. So if during the last year (from December 2019 to December 2020) you have published, edited, or co-edited a book, written an article for a journal or an essay for an edited collection, or completed your doctoral dissertation, we would appreciate having that information, so that we can incorporate it into the list. (There is of course a very good chance that we have already included it—we work on this all year!—but this will make sure your work is noted.) We would request the following information: ·      Full bibliographic information for each text, formatted as per MLA 8 style ·      A one-sentence annotation per text We are especially committed to noting publications in languages other than English. If you could provide an annotation in English, however, that would be helpful. We would appreciate getting the information by Friday, December 4. Please send your information to Zoë Sprott (gabiog@hawaii.edu). Thanks in advance. This bibliography usually has between 1,400 and 1,500 entries, and represents the most extensive annual critical survey of the field. We want to make sure your work appears within it. — * Dear IABA-L Members The Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has been holding a weekly seminar series since 1987–this week’s talk will be session number 761. COVID-19 has forced us online, but the upside is that the seminars can now be attended virtually from virtually anywhere, so we thought that especially for those in somewhat congenial time zones, and with an interest in the Pacific–though the topics range beyond that–it would make sense to tell when the seminars are, and also that they will be posted on the Center’s YouTube channel in a permanent archive. Hope to “see” you, if something catches your interest. Craig Howes, Director, Center for Biographical Research * BROWN BAG BIOGRAPHY Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa THURSDAYS, 12:00 NOON–1:15 PM Hawaiian Standard Time • ONLINE VIA ZOOM DISCUSSIONS OF LIFE WRITING BY & FOR TOWN & GOWN All are welcome to attend. For more information about the weekly events, please visit the Center for Biographical Research’s website http://manoa.hawaii.edu/cbr/ FALL 2020 SCHEDULE October 22: “Roots and Routes along Keaukaha’s Seashore: Tidalectic Repertoires of Place” Halena Kapuni-Reynolds, Doctoral Candidate, Department of American Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Cosponsored by the Departments of History, Political Science, and Anthropology, the Museum Studies Program, and Hamilton Library Meeting ID: 954 2305 5123 Password: EDV55r October 29: “A Biography of Haunting: Crafting Historical Fiction Set in Post-Annexation Hawai`i” Kristiana Kahakauwila, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Cosponsored by Hamilton Library Meeting ID: 914 7320 9610 Password: 3KRqBF November 5: “‘The Depth of Darkness’: Genealogies of Race and Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century Hawaiian Literature” Joyce Pualani Warren, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Cosponsored by Hamilton Library Meeting ID: 939 8234 2880 Password: 001PS8 November 12: “James Macrae and the Voyage of HMS Blonde” Brian Richardson, Hamilton Library, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Cosponsored by the Departments of History and Political Science, and Hamilton Library Meeting ID: 920 6909 2145 Password: VYh10D November 19: “​Materializing Queer Genealogies at Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill” Dr. Emily West, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Cosponsored by the Department of History and Hamilton Library Meeting ID: 954 9489 9581 Password:  kZYY3y November 24 (TUESDAY):​ “​Nationalism and the Transformation of Land into Sovereign Territory” Nandita Sharma, ​Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the International Cultural Studies Program, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Cosponsored by the Departments of History, Political Science, and Anthropology, the Center for South Asian Studies, and Hamilton Library Meeting ID: ​945 6312 3936 Password: 385314 December 3: “George Birdwood Before He Was ‘Sir George Birdwood’: The Bombay Years, 1854–1868” Peter H. Hoffenberg, Associate Professor of History, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Cosponsored by the Department of History, the Center for South Asian Studies, and Hamilton Library Meeting ID: 965 3776 2074 Password: 354W83 * * Deadline for Submissions, November 16, 2020 * Deadline for Proposals, November 16, 2020

CFP: Popular Culture Association Annual (PCA) Conference–Biographies Area: June (11/16/2020; 6/2-5/2021) Boston, MA, The Biographies Area is soliciting papers that examine the connections between biography and popular culture. Papers and full panel presentations regarding any aspect of popular culture and biography are encouraged. Potential topics might include: – Biography and entertainment, art, music, theater – Biography and film – Biography and criminal justice – Television programs about biography – Biography and urban legends – Biography and folklore – Biography and literature – Scholarly Biography – Controversial Biography – Psychoanalysis and Biography – Historical Biography – Political Biography – Autobiography Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session.  Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. The deadline is November 16, 2020. To submit an abstract, please visit: https://pcaaca.org/conference/submitting-paper-proposal-pca-conference Submissions will only be accepted through the PCA website. Individuals must be current, paid members to submit to the conference. Please direct any queries to the Biographies Area Chair: Susie Skarl Associate Professor/Urban Affairs Librarian UNLV Libraries Las Vegas, NV 89154 susie.skarl@unlv.edu OR susieskarl@gmail.com

Contact Info:

Susie Skarl Associate Professor/Urban Affairs Librarian UNLV Libraries Las Vegas, NV 89154 susie.skarl@unlv.edu OR susieskarl@gmail.com

Contact Email:

susie.skarl@unlv.edu

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Deadline for Submissions, Nov. 13, 2020

CFP: Stardom and Fandom: Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference (11/13/20; 2/22–27/2021) USA

For the 2021 Conference, SWPACA is going virtual! Due to concerns regarding COVID-19, we will be holding our annual conference completely online this year. We hope you will join us for exciting papers, discussions, and the experience you’ve come to expect from Southwest. Proposals for papers and panels are now being accepted for the 42nd annual SWPACA conference. One of the nation’s largest interdisciplinary academic conferences, SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas, each typically featuring multiple panels. For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit http://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/ 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, both current and historical Studies focused on specific fandoms – films, television programs, books, bands, etc. Fandom and loss – how fans cope when beloved things come to an end The reciprocal relationship between stars and fans Impact of celebrity and fame on identity construction, reconstruction and sense of self Reality television, YouTube celebrities, Influencers 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, Tumblr, conventions) Celebrity and the construction of persona Pedagogical approaches to teaching stardom and fandom Fans, Stans, Antis and ‘haters’ Fan shame, wank, 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 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. For information on how to submit a proposal for a roundtable or a multi-paper panel, please view the above FAQs and Tips page. SWPACA will offer registration reimbursement awards for the best graduate student papers in a variety of categories. Submissions of accepted, full papers are due January 1, 2021. SWPACA will also offer registration reimbursement awards for select undergraduate and graduate students in place of our traditional travel awards. For more information, visit http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/. Registration for the conference will be open and available in late fall. Watch your email for details! In addition, please check out the organization’s peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, at http://journaldialogue.org/ If you have any questions about the Stardom and Fandom area, please contact its Area Chair, Dr. Lynn Zubernis, Professor, West Chester University, at lzubernis@wcupa.edu. We look forward to receiving your submissions!

Contact Info:

Lynn Zubernis PhD Professor, West Chester University Area Chair, Stardom and Fandom

Contact Email:

lzubernis@wcupa.edu

URL:

http://www.southwestpca.org

* Deadline for Submissions November 25, 2019 The Journal of Epistolary Studies has just published its first issue. I invite you to visit the website at https://journals.tdl.org/jes/index.php/jes to view it. I hope everyone will also consider contributing to a future issue! Best, Gary Schneider, Editor Editor, JES * Deadline for Submissions, November 15, 2019 * * Deadline for Submissions, November 8, 2019 * Posted November 2, 2019

Further Update on IABA Website, from Julie Rak

Hello Everyone,

Sorry, posted the wrong link for the 2020 CFP. Here is the one that works: https://sites.google.com/ualberta.ca/iaba/calls-for-papers?authuser=0 Thanks all! Take care, Julie Rak — Julie Rak Professor, Department of English and Film Studies University of Alberta Humanities Centre 3-5 Edmonton, AB T6G 2E6, Canada ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), Treaty 6/Métis Territory Website: https://sites.google.com/ualberta.ca/julie-rak/home

Update on IABA Website, from Julie Rak

Hello IABA friends and fans,

Thanks to all organizers for the IABA Europe and IABA Americas sections for excellent conferences. I’m writing to let you all know that the Call for Papers for the 2020 IABA World conference to be held in Finland is now on the IABA web site. Please have a look, and share it widely with your colleagues beyond life writing studies. The Conferences section of the site is now updated–we can look forward to an IABA Asia-Pacific CFP soon, I hope! https://sites.google.com/s/0B3LGuUnUnOHfR1VuSG5VNWx3VWc/p/0B3LGuUnUnOHfSF9HT0dBdVlaYUk/edit Take care, Julie Rak — Julie Rak Professor, Department of English and Film Studies University of Alberta Humanities Centre 3-5 Edmonton, AB T6G 2E6, Canada ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), Treaty 6/Métis Territory Website: https://sites.google.com/ualberta.ca/julie-rak/home

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Deadline for Submissions August 18, 2019

Deadline for Submissions August 15, 2019

Call for Book Proposals: Practicing Oral History

The Routledge book series Practicing Oral History is accepting proposals for new titles on applied oral history. Series editor Nancy MacKay will be at the Archives* Records conference in Austin, Texas, August 1-7 and happy to meet in person to discuss your book idea. Contact Nancy at nancymackay@gmail.com for a detailed prospectus or to discuss your project. The series is devoted to applied oral history. Books should address one of three approaches to oral history: best practices for a specific stage or skill within the oral history life cycle, oral history adapted to a specific professional community, or using oral history to achieve a specific goal.

Contact Info:

Nancy MacKay Series Editor, Practicing Oral History (Routledge)

Contact Email:

nancymackay@gmail.com