Rudyard Kipling and Europe – Call for Papers

 University of Bologna  6/7 September 2016

Confirmed Speakers:

Stephen Bann, University of Bristol

Howard J. Booth, University of Manchester

Jan Montefiore, University of Kent

Harry Ricketts, Victoria University of Wellington

Papers are invited that address Rudyard Kipling’s engagement with the history, politics, and culture of mainland Europe. Though he reached a huge audience there, Kipling’s response to, and impact upon, continental Europe has been little discussed – an omission this conference aims to address. More can be said than that he loved France and its culture and held negative views about Germany. In fact, his response to continental Europe was complex, and changed over time. Kipling had a keen sense of Europe’s history, whether political, religious and cultural. Importantly, the European and British Empire contexts – where Kipling is usually viewed in terms of the latter – are not wholly separate and distinct. The global politics of Kipling’s time was formed by competing, mostly European, nations, empires and political movements.

Possible themes for papers include

• Kipling and Italy, France, Germany or other nations of mainland Europe
• Kipling, Europe and modernity
• The translation, publishing history and reception of Kipling’s works in mainland Europe
• Kipling and European nationalism
• The wider European dimensions of the history of the British Isles, and its nations and regions, in Kipling’s writing
• Kipling and an independent Ireland
• Kipling, Britain’s empire and other European empires
• Kipling and the European theatres of the First World War
• Kipling and medieval Europe
• Kipling, travel and mainland Europe
• Kipling and the European Left
• Kipling, Europe and wartime propaganda
• Kipling and the rise of Fascism and Nazism
• Kipling, Europe and the United States
• Kipling and European writers and artists

A special issue of The Kipling Journal is planned arising from the conference (subject to its usual peer review process)

Proposals of 250 words for 20-25 minute papers should be sent to Prof. Monica Turci, University of Bologna, at the conference email address kiplingandeurope@gmail.com by 20 February 2016.