Transatlantic Studies Association
19th Annual Conference
Centre for International Studies, ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon
6-8 July 2020

 

Call for Papers

Submissions are invited for the 2020 Annual Conference

KEYNOTE LECTURES

Professor Andrew Moravcsik (Princeton University)

“Why meeting NATO’s 2% target would make Europe (and the West) less secure”

AND

Professor Anna Brickhouse (University of Virginia)
2020 Mayflower Lecture

   “From Lima to Lisbon: Earthquake History in the Making”       

Co-sponsored by the University of Plymouth:

 ‘Mayflower 400: Atlantic Crossings’ 

PLUS

A Roundtable discussion on:

Southern Transatlantic Connections and the Cold War

The TSA is a broad network of scholars who use the ‘transatlantic’ as a frame of reference for their work in a variety of disciplines, including (but not limited to): history, politics and international relations, and literary studies. All transatlantic-themed paper and panel proposals from these and related disciplines are welcome.

The conference is organised around a number of subject themes, each of which is convened by members of the conference programme committee. If you would like to discuss your paper or panel proposal prior to submission, please contact the relevant programme committee members. This year’s subject themes are:  

1. Diplomatic and international history (David Ryan, david.ryan@ucc.ie, Chris Jespersen, christopher.jespersen@ung.edu) 
2. Political and intellectual history (Joe Renouard, jrenoua1@jhu.edu, Ana Monica Fonseca, ana_monica_fonseca@iscte.iul.pt)  
3. Social, cultural and religious history (Kristin Cook, kc31@soas.ac.uk, Constance Post, cjpost@iastate.edu) 
4. International Relations and Security Studies (Luís Rodrigues, luis.rodrigues@iscte-iul.pt, Joe Renouard, jrenoua1@jhu.edu)  
5. Literature, film, and theatre (Donna Gessell, donna.gessell@ung.edu, Finn Pollard, fpollard@lincoln.ac.uk) 
6. Business and finance (Thomas Mills, t.c.mills@lancaster.ac.uk, António Monteiro, asousamonteiro@gmail.com) 
7. Latin America in a transatlantic context (Robert Howes, robert.howes@kcl.ac.uk, Pedro Seabra, pedro.seabra@iscte-iul.pt) 
8. Ethnicity, race and migration (Kristin Cook, kc31@soas.ac.uk, Ana Lúcia Sá, ana.lucia.sa@iscte-iul.pt)  

 

Special Subject Theme: ‘Mayflower 400: Atlantic Crossings’

The TSA is pleased to join the University of Plymouth, England in welcoming proposals that seek to place the Mayflower voyage within an Atlantic context, and that offer an opportunity to better understand, interrogate and develop the political, religious, scientific and economic forces which shaped the Atlantic world in this historical moment and beyond. In commemorating ‘Mayflower 400’, we seek to uncover and enable voices and identities which forged, or were forged by, Atlantic crossings of many kinds. The 2020 TSA conference thus welcomes scholars focusing on the Mayflower voyage and its legacies, or on early America from historical/cultural/literary perspectives. 

 

Other formats

In addition to the subject themes above, we welcome papers and panels on any aspect of transatlantic studies. Interdisciplinary papers and panels are particularly welcome, as are innovative formats, such as roundtables, workshops or multimedia presentations. 

 

Submission Instructions

Panel proposals should constitute three or four presenters and a Chair (as well as a discussant if desired). Panel proposals should be sent by email as one document attachment to tsalisbon2020@gmail.com, and include:

• 300-word overview of the panel theme;
• 300-word abstracts for each of the papers;
• 100-word author biographies;
• 2-page CVs for all participants.

The subject line of the email for panel proposals should read: ‘TSA Proposal-[Last name of panel convenor]-[Subject theme]’ (state ‘Other’ if not falling under listed themes) (E.g. ‘TSA Proposal-Smith-Diplomacy and International History’).

Individual paper proposals should be sent by email as one document attachment, and include:

• 300-word abstract for the paper
• 100-word author biography;
• 2-page CV.

The subject line of the email for paper proposals should read: ‘TSA Proposal-[Last name of presenter]-[Subject theme]’ (state ‘Other’ if not falling under listed themes) (E.g. ‘TSA Proposal-Smith-Other).

 

Travel Grants

The TSA particularly welcomes proposals from new members and junior scholars. Travel grants are available to support early career scholars presenting a paper at the conference. As a result of funding from the Halle Foundation, the TSA is able this year to offer a number of additional travel grants to support early career scholars presenting a paper on any aspect of relations between the United States and Germany.

If wishing to apply for a travel grant, applicants should indicate this in the body of the email when submitting their paper or panel. If papers are believed to qualify for Halle Foundation funding, this should be indicated. In addition to the materials requested above, travel grant applicants should include a brief statement explaining why it is important for them to attend the TSA conference, and an outline of the principal costs entailed. For further details about TSA travel grants, see the TSA website: www.transatlanticstudies.com. 

 

Deadline for panel and paper proposals: 27 January 2020
All paper and panel proposals, and travel grant applications, should be sent to the conference email: tsalisbon2020@gmail.com.

 

NB: The working language of the conference will be English.

Contact details and further information

 

Chair of TSA: Christopher Jespersen: christopher.jespersen@ung.edu 

 

Vice-Chair of TSA: Thomas Mills: t.c.mills@lancaster.ac.uk 

 

Secretary of TSA: Kristin Cook: kc31@soas.ac.uk

 

Local Organiser: Luís Rodrigues, luis.rodrigues@iscte-iul.pt 

 

www.transatlanticstudies.com 

Juliet McLauchlan Prize

An annual prize is awarded by the Joseph Conrad Society (U.K.) for an essay on any aspect of the works and/or life of Joseph Conrad. The prize is dedicated to the memory of Juliet McLauchlan, a much loved Conradian and former Chair of the Society, by encouraging writing from new Conradians. The value of the prize is 200 pounds sterling.

The essay competition is designed to foster work by new Conradians and emergent scholars, including undergraduates, postgraduates and independent scholars of any age, subject to the proviso that entrants should not have held a full-time academic appointment for more than three years. Essays must be original and not previously published, between 5000 and 7000 words in length, in English. and typed double-spaced.

The competition is now open  and the final date for acceptance of entries is 15th May 2020. The essays will be judged by a panel of Joseph Conrad Society committee members and the winning entry will be announced at the Society’s Annual International Conference in July. Winning and commended essays will be favourably considered for publication in The Conradian.

Entries, accompanied by a brief c.v. and current address, should be sent to: The Secretary, Joseph Conrad Society (U.K.), c/o P.O.S.K., 238-246 King Street, London W6 ORF, England. Should you wish your essay to be returned, please send a S.A.E. with your entry.

21st Annual Virginia Woolf BIRTHDAY LECTURE

“Singing Songs of Sixpence? Virginia Woolf, Ethel Smyth & the languages of music”

Claire Davison, Professeur de Literature Moderniste, University Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris

Saturday 25 January 2020, 2.00pm (doors 1.30pm)

MAL 532, Main Building, 5th floor, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London. WC1E 7HX

Afterwards, at 3.15pm: wine reception, dining room, Tavistock Hotel, WC1H 9EU

£20 Virginia Woolf Society members/ students & concessions, £25 non-members

The price includes a wine reception at the Tavistock Hotel to follow the lecture and a printed copy of the lecture to be posted.

For tickets please apply to Lynne Newland, send cheques to 84 Waterman Way, London, E1W 2QW, giving email address for receipt of payment; or pay by BACS to Virginia Woolf Society GB, sort code 09-06-66; acct no 40411044. Bank Santander. Reference: initial/surname/BL e.g. LNEWLAND BL. If paying by BACS please notify Lynne at lynne@newlandmail.com.

Lecture theatre maximum is 75 so please apply promptly.

New Flann O’Brien Publication: Call For Papers

Flann O’Brien & the Nonhuman:
Animals, Environments, Machines

eds. Katherine Ebury, Paul Fagan, John Greaney

Recent years have seen a remarkable rise in studies dedicated to the nonhuman turn in Irish literary and modernist contexts. Yet this proposed collection posits that the writing of Brian O’Nolan (pseud. Flann O’Brien, Myles na gCopaleen) constitutes a significant gap in these critical conversations. This is a body of writing acutely suited to the concerns of animal studies, ecocriticism, ecofeminism, object oriented ontology, cyborg theory and posthumanist approaches, but which remains conspicuous by its absence in these debates. This volume of essays addresses and corrects this critical lacuna.
At first blush, readers might think of The Third Policeman’s uncanny landscapes and the ‘monstrous exchange of tissue for metal’ in the atomic hybridisation of people and bicycles; or of the cast of At Swim-Two-Birds, which includes the bird-man Sweeney, the Pooka MacPhellimey, and a cow who is called as a star witness in the author’s show trial. But this is an oeuvre in which conventional narratives of the human-nonhuman binary are troubled at all turns, whether in the author’s high modernist novels as Flann O’Brien, his newspaper columns, Irish-langauge work, and writing for stage, radio and television as Myles na gCopaleen, or his diverse short stories, non-fiction, and letters under an arsenal of pseudonyms and personae. For instance, in this broader canon we observe the brutal, rain-soaked landscapes, Irish-speaking pigs, and seals of An Béal Bocht; the protagonist’s strange metamorphosis into a train in ‘John Duffy’s Brother’; the columns’ recurrent concern with steam men, writing machines and pataphysical inventions; the donkey’s tragedy in the late-career teleplay The Man with Four Legs; or Rhapsody in Stephen’s Green, O’Nolan’s stage adaptation of Karel and Josef Čapek’s The Insect Play.
The editors invite proposals for chapters on all approaches to O’Nolan’s broader body of writing and its creative reception that are relevant to the volume’s themes, but are particularly interested in submissions that address:

• O’Nolan’s Animals
  • O’Nolan’s Environments, Landscapes, and Ecologies
  • O’Nolan and the Anthropocene
  • O’Nolan’s Machines
  • O’Nolan’s Technologies
  • Planes, Trains and Bicycles: O’Nolan’s Vehicles
  • O’Nolan and the Posthuman
  • O’Nolan and the Spectral
  • O’Nolan and Nonhuman/Geological Time
  • O’Nolan and Eco-Criticism/Eco-Feminism/Eco-Marxism
  • Vibrant Matter: O’Nolan and Object Oriented Ontology
  • Queering the Nonhuman in O’Nolan
  • Gendered Animals, Environments, Machines in O’Nolan
  • Agriculture, Food, and Eating Animals in O’Nolan
  • Technologies of Clothing in O’Nolan
  • Becoming-Animal in O’Nolan
  • O’Nolan and the Gaze of the Animal
  • O’Nolan and Biopolitics/Ecopolitics
  • Fuel, Energy, Extraction, Consumption
  • Coastlines, Islands, Archipelagos
  • Urban Landscapes

Please send bios and abstracts of no more than 500 words to k.ebury@sheffield.ac.uk, paul.fagan@univie.ac.at, and john.greaney@ucd.ie by 1 February 2020.

Successful proposals will be invited to return a viable draft chapter of 6,000-7,000 words by 1 July 2020.

Nominations are sought for the 2020 Election of the British Association for Modernist Studies (BAMS) Executive Steering Committee.

On 31st December 2019, the three-year terms of eight members of the BAMS Executive Steering Committee will come to an end. We now invite nominations for membership of the Steering Committee, along with up to two Postgraduate Representative positions.

Nominations will now be accepted up to 1 Jan 2020, and the online election will take place 10-31 Jan 2020.

Executive Steering Committee

Nominees for membership of the steering committee will ideally be in academic posts, as members are expected to take a turn in hosting executive meetings and the annual postgraduate training symposium, and to fund their attendance at BAMS events and meetings (financial support is provided for postgraduate representatives only). Members of the steering committee attend approximately two committee meetings a year, organise an annual postgraduate training symposium, operate membership of the association, maintain and develop BAMS’s online presence, support existing modernist programmes and events (such as the several modernism centres and seminars) and generally promote modernist activity in Britain. The next BAMS conference is at the University of Bristol in 2021.

Existing committee members are eligible for re-election at the conclusion of their term of office for one further period of three years. Although it is expected that some members of the committee currently eligible to nominate for re-election will do so, there will be in total 8 vacant positions on the Executive, and prospective new members are very warmly invited to stand.

Candidates for the Executive Committee require a nomination from an existing member of BAMS and must themselves be members of the association. Instructions for joining BAMS can be found on the website: https://bams.ac.uk/membership/. The final selection will be made through an on-line election process open to all BAMS members.

Candidates are asked to submit a brief biography as well as a 250-word proposal (as a Word doc.) outlining their vision for the future of BAMS, their suitability for the role, and their envisaged contribution to the association. Nominees may, if they wish, express interest in one of the vacant named officer positions – Secretary, Treasurer, External Relations, Vice-Chair, Chair (normally an existing committee member), Post-PhD representative – though it cannot be guaranteed that these positions will be available in the first instance.

The name of the nominator should be included in the proposal. Applications should be emailed to the BAMS Chair, Tim Armstrong (t.armstrong@rhul.ac.uk) no later than 1 Jan 2020.

Information about the Exec Committee positions can be directed to:

Tim Armstrong (Outgoing Chair) t.armstrong@rhul.ac.uk

Cleo Hanaway-Oakley (Membership Secretary) cleo.hanaway-oakley@bristol.ac.uk

 

Postgraduate Representatives

Nominations for 2 two-year postgraduate representative positions are also sought from registered doctoral students in their first or second year of study (or PT equivalent). The elected representatives will join Polly Hember (2019–21) and Cécile Varry (2019-21). Responsibilities include attending two Exec meetings a year and helping out with PG events and workshops (travel expenses paid). Responsibilities shared between the four PG reps include editing The Modernist Review, running BAMS social media, answering info@BAMS.ac.uk emails and sending welcome emails to new members. There are also opportunities to launch new initiatives such as the BAMS networking day organised by our current PG reps.

Candidates are asked to submit a brief biography as well as a 250-word proposal (as a Word doc.) outlining their vision for the future of BAMS, their suitability for the role, and their envisaged contribution to the association.

Candidates for the Postgraduate Representative positions do not require a nomination from an existing member of BAMS. They must themselves be members of the association. Instructions for joining BAMS can be found on the website: https://bams.ac.uk/membership/. The final selection will be made through an on-line election process open to all BAMS members.

Applications should be emailed to the BAMS Chair, Tim Armstrong (t.armstrong@rhul.ac.uk) no later than 1 Jan 2020.

Information about the positions can be directed to:

Tim Armstrong (Outgoing Chair) t.armstrong@rhul.ac.uk

Cleo Hanaway-Oakley (Membership Secretary) cleo.hanaway-oakley@bristol.ac.uk

Polly Hember (postgraduate rep 2019-21) Polly.Hember.2018@live.rhul.ac.uk

Cécile Varry (postgraduate rep 2019-21)  cecile.varry@gmail.com

A one-day symposium —
Call for Proposals

Hosted by the Department of English and the Sexual Cultures Research Group

Queen Mary University of London

Friday 15 May 2020

Keynote Speaker: Dennis Denisoff (McFarlin Chair of English, University of Tulsa,

author of Aestheticism and Sexual Parody and Sexual Visuality from Literature to Film)

The symposium committee invites papers from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds, including literature, sexuality and gender studies, history, visual art, film, and environmental studies, that interpret any aspect of the symposium theme of ‘Politics and Desire in a Decadent Age’.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

• Urban sexual communities or conflicts
• The sexual imagination and colonial decadence
• Sexual identity in mass consumerism
• Desires and the environmental humanities
• Trans politics
• Feminist fantasies
• Desires and the decadent movement
• Science and medicine of decadence
• Gendered and erotic ecologies
• Cultural rot
• Intersections of race, indigeneity, and gender
• Ignored, invisible, and secreted desires
• Decadent occultures

Proposals of up to 250 words for 15-minutes papers (along with a 100-word biographical note) should be submitted by 1 February 2020 to Catherine Maxwell: c.h.maxwell@qmul.ac.uk.