The call for papers is now live for Modernisms and Modernities East, West and South: Comparing Literary and Cultural Experiences, to be held at Fudan University, Shanghai, July 19-22, 2017.
Abstracts are requested by 1 October 2016.
About the conference
Convened by Fudan University (China), Universität Hamburg (Germany), Macquarie University (Australia)
Modernism has often been critiqued for being homogenising and Eurocentric. Yet, modernity was experienced differently by different societies and cultures, each pursuing their own specific historical trajectory. Across the world in societies as different as China, Australia, the US and Europe, modernist literature and art were, in very different ways, crucial mediators of modernity. This conference will survey diverse experiences of modernity and the place of modernist art and aesthetics in those experiences. Implicit in this discussion is the question of what survives of modernist practices and modernity as a project beyond the known debates around modernism and postmodernism towards a new relevance in the era of globalisation and climate change.
Topics may include
Papers can discuss the experience of modernity in particular societies, literatures and cultures, or comparatively. Themes may include, but are not limited to:
- Aesthetic strategies across different media (from the avant-garde to digital experi- mentation)
- Intercultural encounters, transnational identities
- Travel, migration, cosmopolitanism
- Self and other, subjectivities
- Gender and sexuality
- Race, ethnicity, plurality
- Class and social justice
- Imperialism, decolonisation and post-colonialism
- Metropolis, urban and suburban spaces
- Shanghai as a site of cultural encounters
- Nature, ecology, sustainability, ecopoetics
- Scientific discourse, technology
- Ethics, religion and spirituality
Further information
The conference language will be English.
Please send abstracts of 250 words for 20-minute presentations to: modernisms.iaa@uni-hamburg.de by 1 October 2016.
Conference Conveners
Prof. Dr. Susanne Rohr (Department for English and American Studies, Universität Hamburg)
Prof. Dr. Ute Berns (Department for English and American Studies, Universität Hamburg)
Prof. Dr. Zhu Jianxin (Vice Chair of English Department, Fudan University)
Prof. Dr. Jian Sun (Vice Chair Academic Committee of College of Foreign Languages & Literature, Fudan University)
Prof. Dr. Nick Mansfield (Dean, Higher Degree Research, Macquarie University)
Dr. Toby Davidson (English Department Internationalisation Representative, Macquarie University)
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