The deadline for abstract submissions to the Katherine Mansfield Postgraduate Day, which will be held at Birkbeck in London on 23 November 2013, has been extended to 31 August.
Please see the attached CFP for more details.
Category: CFPs
MODERNIST COMMUNITIES
The inaugural international conference of the
French Society of Modernist Studies
25-26 April 2014
University of the Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3
Paris, France
Keynote speakers:
Jessica Berman (University of Maryland)
Linnell Secomb (University of Greenwich)
Call for papers
The aim of this two-day conference is to foster discussion on communities in the modernist period. As discursive constructs and historical practices, communities constitute a privileged phenomenon from which to understand the political and ethical regime of modernist texts, as well as the actual forms of collective experience in which writers and readers were involved. More than a decade after Jessica Berman’s landmark work on “the politics of community” in modernist fiction, we seek to explore the various ways in which communities were configured across genres and artistic media, but also to acknowledge the grounds of their historical and cultural specificity. We hope that this will lead us to distinguish various versions of the communal, from the ideal to the empirical, from the utopian to the everyday, from consensus to dissensus.
Communities can be recorded at a symbolic as well as a material level, both inside and outside modernist texts themselves. We therefore encourage a variety of critical approaches, ranging from historicist and sociological, to aesthetic and philosophical. Through this critical diversity, we are particularly interested in investigating the historicity of modernist communities: how can we identify the historical singularity of modernist communal forms? How can we account for the changing scales, spaces and media of communal thinking in the modernist period? This emphasis on a historical being-in-common—what Jean-Luc Nancy defined as the community of the contemporary—can fruitfully be coupled with a critical reading of various later theories of community, from Benedict Anderson’s “imagined communities” to Jacques Rancière’s aesthetic conception of “the common”. To what extent do modernist texts lead us to understand or challenge such theories? By taking a far-ranging approach to the concepts, forms, and historical practices of community, we hope to map out the plurality of this phenomenon, while recording its persisting elusiveness.
As the conference will inaugurate the creation of the French Society of Modernist Studies—Société d’Etudes Modernistes—, we seek to bring together scholars from all countries and hope to strengthen collaborations between French and international researchers.
Possible paper topics may include, but are not limited to:
– Communities across genres and literary forms
– Communities across artistic forms (painting, music, etc.)
– Writing, reading, and printing communities
– Academic communities and the institutional construction of modernisms
– Cultural communities and the ‘battle of the brows’
– Everyday communities: communal practices, communal occasions, communal emotions
– Utopian communities
– The places and spaces of community
– The temporalities of community
– National and transnational communities
– Technological and ecological communities
– Modernism and the discourses on community: international relations, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, psychology, sciences, etc.
– Modernism and later theories of community (Benedict Anderson, Jean-Luc Nancy, Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Rancière, etc.)
Organisers: Vincent Bucher (University of Grenoble 3) and Caroline Pollentier (University of Paris 3)
EA 4398 – PRISMES (VORTEX)
Scientific Committee: Isabelle Alfandary (University of Paris 3), Jessica Berman (University of Maryland), Catherine Bernard (University of Paris 7), Vincent Bucher (University of Grenoble 3), Antoine Cazé (University of Paris 7), Claire Davison-Pégon (University of Paris 3), Catherine Lanone (University of Paris 3), Laura Marcus (University of Oxford), Axel Nesme (University of Lyon 2), Caroline Pollentier (University of Paris 3), Linnell Secomb (University of Greenwich).
Papers will be delivered in English.
Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words and a short bio-bibliography to both organisers by 31 October 2013.
buchervincent@gmail.com
caroline.pollentier@hotmail.fr
The Fourth Biennial Conference of EAM
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 29.-31.8.2014
The fourth biennial conference of the European Network for Avant-garde and Modernism Studies will be held at the University of Helsinki, Finland, August 29-31 2014. The topic of the conference is
UTOPIA
Modernism and Avant-gardism are artistic languages of rupture. Both were directed against traditional ways of conceiving art, often assuming an antagonistic position in relationship to existing cultural and social institutions and relationships. This conference explores the utopian alternatives which Modernist and avant-garde artists offered to existing society. This was not always simply a question of taking an outside position: for example, the Russian avant-garde was co-opted by the early Soviet state in an uneasy – and temporary – alliance to give birth to the New Man. The 2014 EAM conference in Helsinki commemorates the centenary of the break-out of the First World War by taking as its starting point the many utopian dreams within European literature and arts as well as their collapse in the face of the horrors of war. The effects of the War lasted throughout the century, and the conference will also explore the utopian dimensions of the neo-avant-garde, be it that of the West which dreamed alternatives to conformism and consumer society, or of the East which sheltered alternatives to socialist dystopia. We thus invite proposals for contributions that deal with the alternatives that modernism and the avant-garde offered to existing reality: utopias; chimeras; dreams; abstractions; desires; myths; dystopias; cityscapes or impossible landscapes; politics or anti-politics; the body freed or harnessed; erotic or amatorial liberation; the retreat into private worlds or the mapping of bold alternatives; the avant-garde as alternative to or embodiment of the state; the utopian moment in the nihilistic or rebarbative art-work. We welcome contributions across all areas of avant-garde and modernist research or practice: art, literature, music, architecture, film, artistic and social movements, lifestyle, television, fashion, drama, performance, activism, design and technology.
Conference convenors and the EAM network chairs:
Prof. David Ayers
University of Kent, UK
Dr. Marja Härmänmaa
University of Helsinki, Finland
EAM-web page: http://www.eam-europe.be/
For all the enquiries about the conference, please contact us after August 1: eam-2014@helsinki.fi
Call for proposals
You may submit a proposal as a CHAIR or as an INDIVIDUAL. There are three different kinds of panel.
1) An OPEN PANEL consists of a CHAIR and 3-8 speakers. The CHAIR proposes the topic. Once the topic is accepted it is advertised as part of the cfp and individuals may apply to join the panel. The CHAIR decides which papers are accepted. Those individual proposals which are rejected are considered by the conference organizers for inclusion in other panels. Doctoral students may apply to an open panel.
2) A CLOSED PANEL consists of THREE or (exceptionally) FOUR speakers. One of the speakers is the CHAIR who makes the submission and supplies the details and proposals of all of the proposed participants. A closed panel may include no more than two doctoral students. These panels are ‘closed’ in the sense that they will include only the speakers whose names are submitted by the chair – they are of course presented before a conference audience.
3) A PEER SEMINAR has a CHAIR who proposes a topic and up to 12 participants. Once the topic is accepted it is advertised as part of the cfp and individuals may apply to join the seminar. The participants circulate short position papers (2000 words) one month before the seminar. The papers are discussed at the seminar. There is NO audience at the peer seminar which is closed to the rest of the conference. Doctoral students may apply to participate in a seminar and this can be a good way to get accepted to the conference for people whose work is at an early stage.
Therefore there are several ways to make a proposal to the conference:
1) you may propose to be the CHAIR of an OPEN PANEL [by September 30th 2013]
2) you may propose to be the CHAIR of a PEER SEMINAR [by September 30th 2013]
3) you may propose to be the CHAIR of a CLOSED PANEL [November 1st – January 30th]
4) you may submit an INDIVIDUAL PROPOSAL to join an OPEN PANEL [November 1st – January 30th]
5) you may submit an INDIVIDUAL PROPOSAL to a PEER SEMINAR [November 1st – January 30th]
6) you may submit an INDIVIDUAL PROPOSAL without specifying a panel and the organisers will assign your paper to a panel if accepted. [November 1st – January 30th]
You may apply by only ONE of these methods except that the CHAIR of a PEER SEMINAR may also be included as member of a CLOSED PANEL or may submit an individual proposal under (4) or (6).
Call for chairs
Those who are interested in acting as CHAIR of an OPEN PANEL or of a PEER SEMINAR in the Helsinki conference, are invited to submit a proposal to eam-2014@helsinki.fi by September 30, 2013. The proposal should include a brief presentation of the panel of approximately 150 words, the title of the panel, a short biodata of the chair(s), title, contact information, and the affiliation. Once the OPEN PANEL or PEER SEMINAR has been accepted, it will feature in the general call for papers and individuals may make a proposal to the chair who will select participants. Individuals whose proposal to a Panel is rejected will be considered for inclusion elsewhere in the conference by the scientific committee.
The list of the OPEN PANELS and PEER SEMINARS will be published on the conference web pages by the end of October.
The general call for papers of the conference is November 1 – January 30. Further information will be available in September on the EAM web page. In the general call for papers we will be accepting proposals for CLOSED PANELS, and individual proposals to join the listed OPEN PANELS and PEER SEMINARS. Individuals will also be allowed to send a proposal to the conference as a whole and the Scientific Committee will assign the paper to a panel, if accepted.
The participants will be informed about the acceptance of the papers by February 30.
The official languages of the conference are English, French and German. Both papers and entire panels are accepted in all the three languages.
The scientific committee of the EAM 2014 conference:
Professor Henry Bacon, University of Helsinki / Professor Natalia Baschmakoff, University of Eastern Finland / Professor Tomi Huttunen, University of Helsinki / Dr. Teemu Ikonen, University of Helsinki / Dr. Timo Kaitaro, University of Helsinki / Dr. Janna Kantola, University of Helsinki / Professor Pirjo Lyytikäinen, University of Helsinki / Professor Hannu Riikonen, University of Helsinki / Dr. Riikka Rossi, University of Helsinki / Professor Pekka Pesonen, University of Helsinki / Professor Kirsi Saarikangas, University of Helsinki / Professor Riikka Stewen, Academy of Fine Arts / Professor Harri Veivo, University of New Sorbonne / University of Helsinki
Tervetuloa Helsinkiin! – Varmt välkommen till Helsingfors! – Добро пожаловать в Хельсинки!
Welcome to Helsinki! – Bienvenu à Helsinki – Hertzlich willkommen nach Helsinki – Benvenuti a Helsinki! – Bienvenidos a Helsinki! – Tere tulemast Helsingisse! – Zapraszamy do Helsinek! –
Καλώς ήρθατε στο Ελσίνκι!
Listening to Literature, 1900-1950
12-14 March 2014 – KU Leuven
Keynote
Julian Murphet
(University of New South Wales, Sydney)
This three-day conference seeks to survey the impact of aural media (phonograph, gramophone, telephone, radio) and other major sound events of the first half of the twentieth century on the literature of the period. Through in-depth analysis of the different ways in which modernist and avant-garde authors reflected on and incorporated sound and aural technologies in their writings, we aim to explore the literary soundscape between 1900 and 1950.
The first half of the twentieth century – “the age of noise” in the words of its contemporaries – is littered with events crucial to the history of modern aurality. The phonograph and its successor, the gramophone, enabled man to record and replay sound. Telephone and radio enabled long distance verbal communication. The combustion engine filled the big city with its incessant mechanical drone. And of course there were the two World Wars, whose aural impact – deafening bombings, nerve-shattering sirens, the rhythmic stamping of marching feet and the continuous drone of planes overhead – can hardly be overestimated.
This conference aims to explore the impact of these and other related events on the literary landscape of the period, looking for the answers to such questions as:
• How is sound represented? What techniques are used to represent sound?
• What kinds of sounds are represented and how do they compare? What function do the represented sounds fulfill within the literary work?
• Was the representation of sound altered by the introduction of new aural media such as the phonograph or telephone?
• How were the various aural media themselves represented? What is their function within the literary work? How are they used as a literary motif or device in the work of particular authors?
• How can we study sound within the literary work? How does fictional sound relate to actual sound?
• Are there substantial differences in the treatment of sound within the period, for instance between modernism and the avant-garde, but also between authors, genres, generations? And if so, how can they be explained?
• How does the literary representation of sound relate to that of the other senses? Do they fulfill different functions within the literary work?
We welcome both theoretical and case-based studies on these and other questions central to the mapping of the literary soundscape between 1900 and 1950. Proposals (in English) should be sent to ltlconference@arts.kuleuven.be by 1 August 2013. These should contain a 300-word abstract as well as a short bio listing contact and affiliation details.
The first day of the conference will cater specifically to postgraduate students, enabling young and promising scholars to present their research and collaborate with their peers.
This conference is organized by the Leuven-based research team MDRN. For more information, visit http://www.mdrn.be. If you have any further questions, please contact tom.vandevelde@arts.kuleuven.be or tom.willaert@arts.kuleuven.be.
Third international ESPRit conference
Backroom Business: The Production of Periodicals
10-11 April 2014
Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Proposals deadline: October 1, 2013
This conference seeks to explore every aspect related to the production of European periodicals, from the early eighteenth century to the present day. Papers could address issues of financing, sponsoring, editing, designing, advertising, printing and digitization. We are for instance interested in what Barbara Onslow called the “back-room workers”: the printers, typesetters, engravers and illustrators who are often invisible in periodical histories. We invite scholars to send in proposals for 15 to 20 minute talks on the above themes, both dealing with individual magazines and discussing wider trends, such as the evolutions in the production of periodicals. We especially look for papers that reach beyond national borders and challenge traditional literary-historical boundaries. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
Editors and editing
Financing and sponsoring
Printing and digitization practices
Photography, illustrations, and advertising
Periodicals as producers of culture
Please send a 250 word proposal for a 15 to 20 minute presentation by August 15 to the conference organizers at esprit@let.ru.nl. A selection of papers will be published in a special issue of the future ESPRit e-journal.
Categories
CFP Ordinary/Everyday/Quotidian
Ordinary/Everyday/Quotidian
An International Two-Day Conference
The ordinary and the everyday are intuitively self-evident, yet notoriously elusive. Efforts to define “ordinary language” or “everyday practice” have preoccupied thinkers across many disciplines: philosophers, historians, sociologists, political theorists, geographers and critics of literature and the visual arts. And these subjects demand more attention from scholars working on race, class, gender and sexuality, as well as food studies and the digital and medical humanities. Yet existing efforts have rarely engaged in dialogue with their counterparts in other disciplines. We call for papers from scholars in all these fields to join in a spirited dialogue at an international, two-day conference to be held at the University of York, 26 and 27 September 2013.
Scholars in all disciplines are invited to ponder, celebrate, and critique the quotidian, ranging from the furtive pleasures of pop to the dubious delights of junk: “Does it glow at the core with personal heat, with signs of one’s deepest nature, clues to secret yearnings, humiliating flaws? What habits, fetishes, addictions, inclinations? What solitary acts, behavioral ruts?”
Confirmed events include keynote addresses by:
· Prof. John Roberts (History of Art, Wolverhampton)
· Dr. Jennifer Baird (Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck)
· Dr Bryony Randall (English, Glasgow)
It will culminate in a colloquium chaired by Prof Ben Highmore (Cultural Studies, Sussex) and featuring:
· Prof. Michael Sheringham (French, All Souls Oxford)
· Dr. Holger Nehring (History, Sheffield)
· Dr. Rupert Read (Philosophy, UEA)
· Dr. Michael White (History of Art, York)
· Dr. Neal Alexander (English, Nottingham)
What do the terms everyday, ordinary and quotidian mean at the beginning of the twenty-first century? This conference will confront head-on the challenges and opportunities presented by the interdisciplinary nature of such an enquiry.
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to oeqyork2013@gmail.com by 16 August; general enquiries are also welcome. You can also visit our website at: http://www.york.ac.uk/modernstudies/conferences/oeq/
The Long Modernist Novel: A Comparative Conference
http://dorothyrichardson.org/conferences/LMN.html
Please note change of dates to 23-24 April 2014
Birkbeck College, London.
Confirmed speakers: Michael Bell (Warwick), Eveline Kilian (Humboldt), Laura Marcus (Oxford), Jeremy Tambling (Manchester).
Deadline for Abstracts 14 December 2013.
Call for Papers
One of the most remarkable events in the history of early twentieth-century literature was the almost simultaneous emergence in different national cultures of a new form: the long modernist novel. Characterised by a wholesale rejection of the conventions of the nineteenth-century novel, the long modernist novel opened itself up to narrative experiments with impressionism, point of view, and alternative states of consciousness, from fugue, to dream, to the banality of the everyday. Both a response to and an intervention into the conflicting temporalities of early twentieth-century modernity, the long modernist novel sought to bring all the resources of earlier narrative forms to bear on the present, stretching the conventions of representation to their limits and beyond. Not excluding early precursors by Henry James or Romain Rolland, a non-exhaustive list would include:
Marcel Proust A la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927)
James Joyce, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake (1914-1939)
Dorothy Richardson, Pilgrimage (1915-1938/1967)
Thomas Mann, Der Zauberberg (1924)
Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans (1911/1924)
Alexander Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929)
Robert Musil, Ein Mann ohne Eigenschaften (1930-1943/1978)
John Dos Passos, USA (1930-1936)
Virginia Woolf, The Years (1937)
While all these novels have received individual attention and authors such as Proust and Joyce have attracted a wealth of criticism, very little work has been done on the long modernist novel as a form in itself. Equally, and perhaps understandably given the demands each text makes on the reader, comparative work has been limited. The purpose of this conference is to begin the critical work of defining the long modernist novel and to initiate comparative studies of the form. The organisers hope that this conference the volume of essays that will follow will stimulate new critical discussion of this unique literary form.
Comparative papers that address at least two long modernist novels are invited. Topics of discussion might include.
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Structuring duration: the long modernist novel’s use and reconfiguration of a variety of pre-existing narrative forms – epic, Bildungs/Künstleroman, memoir, historical narratives; and its incorporation of new popular forms – genre fiction, headlines, advertising – to create a new kind of fiction.
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The long modernist novel and the 1914-1918 war. Many long modernist novels (Mann, Proust, Richardson) were begun before the First World War and finished or published afterwards. The war appears sometimes directly (Proust), sometimes marginally (Mann), and sometimes implicitly (Musil), but it is almost always an acknowledged or unacknowledged point of reference.
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The long modernist novel’s reconfigurations of narrative chronologies to represent brevity at length, and duration in abbreviated form (the day in the life, the life in the day), the uses of digression, flashback, epiphany, and mémoire involuntaire.
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Works or work? Many long modernist novels are sub-divided, often appearing in instalments. Should the individual parts, e.g. Richardson’s ‘Chapter-Volumes’ such as Pointed Roofs or Proust’s De côté de chez Swann (or even Combray) be treated as individual works or parts of a larger whole? Should all Joyce’s prose fictions, from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake be treated as separate or as one work? How far does the long modernist novel rewrite the conventions of what a literary work is?
In addition to these topics, we would also welcome papers on cultural geography, gender, queer theory, the city, empire, popular culture, early twentieth-century new media technologies
Titles and short abstracts should be sent to Scott McCracken at s.mccracken@keele.ac.uk.
The Conference is organised by the Dorothy Richardson Society, www.dorothyrichardson.org with the with the support of the Northern Modernism Seminar and the British Association of Modernist Studies.
Call for papers
International Conference, organized by Anne Besnault-Levita and Anne-Florence Gillard Estrada
March, 27-28 2014, Rouen University
Université de Rouen – laboratoire ERIAC : http://eriac.net/beyond-the-victorian-and-modernist-divide/
Keynote speakersProfessor Michael Bentley, University of St. Andrews
Professor Melba Cuddy-Keane, University of Toronto
Professor Melba Cuddy-Keane, University of Toronto
Ezra Pound’s injunction to “make it new!” or Virginia Woolf’s “on or about 1910” statement have long been used in order no support a version of modernism as a strictly aesthetic revolution — or crisis — implying an essential break with Victorian art, culture and ideology. In the last decade, however, the crucial transition between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been variously reassessed. In the wake of the new modernist studies and of the recent revaluations of the Victorian period, a growing body of scholarship now challenges traditional periodisation by examining the existence of overlaps and unexplored continuities between the Victorians, the post-Victorians and the modernists. Once separated by a critical and cultural break, Victorian and modernist scholars have become preoccupied with a similar search for cultural and aesthetic complexities that make it possible to move beyond doxic discourses and fixed dichotomies: the past and the present, outer life and inner life, materiality and spirituality, tradition and innovation, ideology and aesthetics.This international conference would like those scholars to join forces and contribute to this new phase in the Victorian-modern debate from a broad range of perspectives across the disciplines: literature, criticism, the visual arts, history, science and philosophy. The emergence or re-emergence of ideas such as the “modern”, the “new” or “change” at the turn of the century is an indisputable fact that we want to acknowledge and re-contextualize by examining the different meanings and practices they encompass. From there, we wish to explore the birth and perpetration of two critical meta-narratives and their interdependence: the myth of “high modernism” and the myth of “Victorianism”. If there is no clear repudiation of history and heritage on the modernists’ part, if “rupture” was a useful fiction, if the challenge to traditional aesthetics and ideology was already a Victorian preoccupation, then we definitely need to remap modernism and Victorianism simultaneously.The papers that we call for are meant to contribute to a trans-disciplinary publication whose synopsis could be the following, although it is far from being fixed.I- Periods, words, labels: historicizing and contextualizing the idea of the “break”
II- Victorian, Edwardian and modernist literature: unexplored lines of filiation
III- Art history, aesthetic philosophy and the visual arts across the Victorian/Modernist divide
IV- Science, philosophy, ideology: landmarks for a new history of ideas
V- New approaches to identity, gender and the self: from mid-Victorians to modernist ideologies and practices.
Scientific Committee
Pr Catherine Bernard, University Paris-Diderot — France, XXth-century literature and art
Dr. Anne Besnault-Levita, University of Rouen — France, British Modernism, genre and gender studies
Pr Michael Bentley, Université of St. Andrews — UK, XIXth-century and early XXth-century British politics
Pr Myriam Boussahba-Bravard, Université Paris Diderot — Paris 7, France, XIXth-century social and political history, women’s history and gender history
Pr. Laurent Bury, University of Lyon 2 – France, XIXth-century literature and visual arts, President of the Société Française d’Etudes Victoriennes et Edouardiennes (S.F.E.V.E.)
Pr Melba Cuddy-Keane, University of Toronto Canada — modernism, narratology, globalism/internationalism, and book history/print culture
Dr Stefano Evangelista, University of Oxford— UK, XIXth-century English literature, comparative literature, Aestheticism and Decadence, gender and visual culture
Pr Isabelle Gadoin, University of Poitiers — France, XIXth-century literature, art history and visual arts
Pr Elena Gualtieri, University of Groningen — Netherlands, modern English literature and culture, visual arts
Dr Anne-Florence Gillard-Estrada, University of Rouen — France, XIXth-century English literature, art criticism and visual arts, Aestheticism and Decadence
Pr Catherine Lanone, University of Paris 3 — France, XIXth-century and literature
Pr Laura Marcus, New College, Oxford — UK, XIXth- and XXth-century literature and culture
Pr Christine Reynier, University of Montpellier — France, modernist literature, XXth-century literature
Dr Philippe Vervaecke, University of Lille 3 – France, XIXth- and XXth-century social and political history
The proposals (300 to 500 words with a short biographical notice) should be sent to both Anne Besnault-Levita (annelev@club-internet.fr) and Anne-Florence Gillard-Estrada (af.gillardestrada@orange.fr) by September 15th 2013. Notification of acceptance: October 15th, 2013.
See the selected bibliography as well as the forthcoming information on the conference website: http://eriac.net/beyond-the-victorian-and-modernist-divide/
Katherine Mansfield and France
International conference organised by the Université Paris III—Sorbonne Nouvelle in conjunction with the Katherine Mansfield Society
19–21 June 2014
Guest speakers will include C. K. Stead and Gerri Kimber
2014 seems the ideal year to celebrate Katherine Mansfield’s lifelong attachment to France, and her passionate involvement with all things French: not just the language, literature and the arts, but the everyday world too, from recipes and customs to the contemporary socio-political context, transport, economics and of course the devastating impact of the war. France for Mansfield was a land of transit, a haven to escape to and a place of exile; it was an adopted home and a sad reminder of how far away those she loved were; life the other side of the Channel was sometimes a source of wonder and inspiration, at others the trigger for comic irony and bitter satire.
Mansfield’s biographers have minutely charted out her constant channel crossings in the years 1914–1923. Her letters, notebooks and stories all point to the different repercussions of France and French culture on her vivid imagination. Recent critical studies have explored both the story of Mansfield’s reception in France and the various influences French arts had on her own creative output. But the time now seems ripe to bring together scholars, researchers and students to try and piece together an overall picture of Mansfield in France and ‘une Mansfield française’.
Suggested topics for papers might include:
v Mansfield and French arts and literature: her reception in France; Mansfield as reader, critic and reviewer of French arts in Great Britain; her influence on contemporary and later French authors; translations and the publication history of her works in French.
v The French influence on Mansfield: French language and culture in her education and apprenticeship years; France as a setting for her stories; French life recorded in the journals in early story sketches; her readings of key French authors and their influence on her works; French aestheticism, fin-de-siècle and early-twentieth-century philosophy.
v Mansfield and French life and society: as journalist and eye-witness of war-torn France; a satirist of local habits and customs; a bemused observer of expatriate and émigré life; Paris and the French Riviera as the specific locations that have become so much associated with her work, but also French geographies of displacement, both real and affective.
v Mansfield, the polyglot, cultural ambassador and cosmopolitan: France as a step outside Englishness; forms of cultural otherness, alienation and renewal through the meeting and mixing of identities; language as empowerment and disempowerment; nationalism versus the political repercussions of border crossing; bilingualism; redefining the self as other; Mansfield the European.
v Mansfield and Frenchness as a means of thinking between: cross-dressing, role-play, borrowed identities, impersonation; travesty, but also Frenchness itself seen from within and without, from the privileged outsider’s point of view, the ‘devenir français’ from Mansfield’s perspective.
v Biographical, linguistic, literary, sociological, political comparative . . . all approaches are welcome in this endeavour to embrace Katherine Mansfield’s French life.
Our exploration of the various French avenues in her life, works and afterlife will take place in the heart of Paris, and time out will be programmed into the conference to enable all those who attend to obtain a very literal sense of place and setting. Possible Mansfield-inspired walks within Paris itself and additional excursions to the immediate environs will be suggested later.
The three-day conference will also include an alternative, intercultural approach to Mansfield’s French life in the form of a cello recital given by London-based cellist Joseph Spooner and New Zealand pianist Kathryn Mosley with a programme of early twentieth-century French music and works by Arnold Trowell.
Please submit abstracts of 250 words plus a bio-sketch of 50 words to the conference organisers : kminparis@gmail.com
Deadline for abstracts: December 31st 2013
Organisers:
Claire Davison, Caroline Pollentier, Anne Mounic, Anne Besnault-Levita
THE MEDIATED CITY
– two multidisciplinary conferences examining “the city”…… a virtual, filmic, social, political and physical construct.
CONFERENCE 1.
Place: London
Dates: 01-03 April 2014
Host: Ravensbourne (University)
CONFERENCE 2.
Place: Los Angeles
Dates: October 2014 (TBC)
Host: Woodbury University
Outline:
The nature of the city is a contested concept. For architects it is generally a question of bricks and mortar – a physical entity. For human geographers it is a place of human interaction and engagement. For filmmakers it is a site for action and futuristic nightmare. For animators and computer programmers it becomes a virtual world – a second life, a SIMulated city. For sociologists, it is a defining aspect of cultural identity. For political activists and theorists, it is a place to ‘occupy’ and the site of the polis.
THE MEDIATED CITY conference offers a platform for multiple and diverse examinations of the city. It aims to bring people together from diverse backgrounds and fragment, multiply and reconfigure our readings of the city; to offer multiple and conflicting discipline perspectives. The intention is to share views of the city as physical entity, online community, film set, photographic backdrop, geographical map, sociological case study, political metaphor, digital or video game etc…. – to examine it as a mediated and shared phenomenon.
Key dates – Conference 1 – London
15 September 2013. Deadline for abstracts / initial proposals
15 January 2014. Deadline for full papers / detailed proposals
01 April 2014. Conference –1
For full details visit: http://architecturemps.com
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