Author: modernistudies

Rebecca West: Celebrity, Publicity, Memory

New York University, September 21-22, 2013

Keynote Speaker: Faye Hammill

Centering on the contested and still-evolving reputation of Rebecca West, this conference explores the processes by which a celebrity writer passes into cultural memory. How have scholars selectively created their own Rebecca Wests? How do recent cultural representations reinforce or contest her reputation? How did West’s peers create or contribute to the memory of West? How did West’s manipulation of her own image affect the way she is remembered? How does the history of West’s celebrity—the shaping and misshaping of her image—compare to that of other writers and artists of her period? Are women writers, and West, remembered primarily in a gender context? How can we understand West in light of recent theorizing of modernist celebrity by critics such as Aaron Jaffe and Faye Hammill? And what does West’s work contribute to conceptualizing larger aspects of personal and cultural memory?

These questions, and others, can productively frame discussions of West’s fictional and non-fictional work. We also welcome abstracts on other topics related to West’s voluminous oeuvre.

Please send abstracts of up to 200 words by June 15, 2013, to Ann Norton at anorton@anselm.edu

Date of event: 16-17 November 2013
Venue: Queen Mary, University of London, E1 4NS
Closing date for submissions: 14 June 2013
Keynote speaker: Jeffrey Kripal (Rice University)

This meeting will explore the theme of altered consciousness in relation to popular culture, psychology, philosophy, religion, medicine and literature during the period 1918-1980.

Many literary and popular authors and performers during the mid twentieth century represented altered states of consciousness in their work, responding to and participating in research relating to such topics as interplanetary contact, ESP, clairvoyance, telepathy, mind-altering drugs, psychic therapies, spiritualisms, shamanism, erotics, conversion, revivals, somnambulism, precognition, distraction, group mind, multiple personality, hypnotism, lucid dreaming, Vedanta, hysteria and automatism.

What was the continuing legacy of nineteenth-century approaches to mind and spirit? How did work at the fringes of psychiatry and psychology intersect with mind sciences that consolidated their authority during the mid-twentieth century? What are the key interactions between European, North American and non-Western sources? How did investigations cross the borders between arts, sciences, religion, education and the military?

Priority will be given to submissions that show potential for sparking discussion across disciplinary boundaries, and are accessible to a non-specialist audience.

We are especially keen to hear from women contributors, and those whose work extends beyond British and North American contexts.

Please send a talk summary of approx 300 words and author bio of approx 50 words to: altconsc@qmul.ac.uk by 14 June 2013.

Speakers accepted onto the programme will have 20 minutes to speak.

This event is generously supported by: the British Society for the History of Science, and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Centre for the History of the Emotions, and the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary, University of London.

Reminder: Call for Papers due May 31

Remediating the Avant-Garde: Magazines and Digital Archives
Princeton University
October 25-26, 2013

The Blue Mountain Project at Princeton University is a a freely available electronic repository of art, music, and literary periodicals that both chronicle and embody the emergence of cultural modernity in the West. We are currently digitizing 34 titles published in Europe and the United States between 1850-1923, in French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish, Finnish, and Danish.

The Blue Mountain Project is seeking paper proposals for a two-day conference, to be held in Princeton, New Jersey on October 25th and 26th, 2013. The keynote speaker will be Johanna Drucker, Breslauer Professor of Bibliographical Studies in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA.

Context of inquiry
The aim of our conference is to explore the fertile conceptual and practical ground where traditional area studies, periodical studies, digital humanities, computer science, and library and information science converge. We are interested in how these fields inform each other and challenge us to think and create in new ways, both as builders of digital resources and as scholars and teachers of avant-garde periodicals. The following set of questions will frame the conference discussions:

· What intellectual and technological insights emerge when we attempt to represent avant-garde periodicals – their specific aesthetic, material, and social features; format; diverse historical, linguistic and national specificities – in the digital environment?
· What are the potentials, and what are the risks, for intellectual engagement with avant-garde periodicals when they are remediated in the digital environment? What positive and/or negative impact can the application of new methods of representation and analysis have on both short-term research and teaching and longer-term understanding of this material?
· Can we define a set of priorities, or best practices, for representing avant-garde periodicals in the digital environment?

Papers sought
We welcome, in particular, papers that touch upon topics such as:
– aspects of remediating visual, verbal and musical texts
– methods of representation (e.g. bibliographic description and analysis, ontology design, text encoding, linked data, interface)
– methods of analysis (e.g. full-text searching, data mining, visualization, GIS, topic modeling)
– dynamics of control by reader/user vs. control by system/format
– pedagogical practices

Submission details
Paper proposals (abstract 500 words, plus short author bio) due: May 31, 2013
Acceptance notification: June 15, 2013
Send proposals and inquiries to: Natalia Ermolaev: nataliae@princeton.edu

This conference is being made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For more information on the Blue Mountain Project, please visit: http://library.princeton.edu/projects/bluemountain