Wednesday 14 August 2013

Fame and glory: the classic, the canon and the literary pantheon

DEADLINE: 07 September 2013

Contributions are now invited for the 2013 edition of the MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities, an international, refereed online journal, aimed at postgraduate and early-career researchers. See attachment for full details.
 
How does society construct its literary heroes? From the works studied in schools and by scholars, to the authors commemorated in the Panthéon; from ancient texts reproduced throughout time, to twenty-first-century novels hailed as ‘modern classics’ by their first reviewers; all of these rely on the assumption that there is some sort of consensus on what makes a text or an author worthy of being remembered. What, though, are the criteria that enable individuals or their works to enter this illustrious company? The editors invite submissions on the theme of Fame and glory, across the literatures and cultures of Europe.*  
 
If you are considering submitting, please let us know by email as soon as possible. Articles, in English, of around 4000 words, should be sent to the Postgraduate Editors at postgrads@mhra.org.uk by 7 September 2013. Those selected for further consideration will then undergo a process of peer review, and the volume will be published online at the end of the year.
 
*N.B. History, library studies, education and pedagogical subjects, and the medical application of linguistics are excluded.

Romantic Locations: The Early Careers and Postgraduate Conference for the British Association for Romantic Studies

19th- 21st March 2014, Dove Cottage and the Jerwood Centre, Grasmere.

The BARS Early Careers and Postgraduate Conference for 2014 invites submissions for 15 minute papers on ‘Romantic Locations’. Our format for 2014 will be held over three days and two nights.

This conference will broadly be concerned with the roles played by places, spaces and the local in Romantic-period texts and thought. However, we invite delegates to address the theme creatively, reconsidering and challenging traditional interpretations of the importance of location for Romantic-era authors.  See attached document for possible themes. Along with panel sessions and two keynote addresses, the conference will feature a session on manuscripts run by the Curator of the Wordsworth Trust, Jeff Cowton.

Each panel paper will last fifteen minutes. Please send abstracts of up to 200 words to:
romanticlocations@gmail.com. For more information as it becomes available, including advice on accommodation and travel, please see: http://www.bars.ac.uk/locations.php.

Deadline for abstracts: Friday 15th November 2013. We aim to notify successful speakers by mid-December 2013.
 

Literature and Physical Culture Conference- 10-11 April, 2014

International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, Leicester
This interdisciplinary two-day conference re-examines the idea of sport in textual culture and seeks to reappraise the significance of physical culture beyond the traditional historical frameworks. The conference is interested in the inclusion of sport and physical culture within textual culture, and seeks to reassess sport’s place within the wider cultural landscape. It asks how sport and sporting lexis is transformed in subsequent cultural outputs from novels, poetry, theatre, films and television, and how its importance to the wider population is reflected and developed in these outputs. It is also interested in exploring the broader context of the changing nature of sport’s inclusion within literature from the late eighteenth century to the present.
Abstracts focusing on the pre-1800 period are also invited.

The conference committee (Chair: Victoria Dawson, Professor Tony Collins, Dr Claire Westall, Nicola Stead) welcomes abstracts of 250-300 words for 20 minute papers. Please send your abstract, plus a short biography to Victoria Dawson at
literatureandsport@hotmail.co.uk by 31 October 2013.

Call for Papers – Caribbean Postgraduate Network

The Caribbean Postgraduate Network invites abstracts of 250 words from Postgraduate students in Caribbean Studies for their annual workshop, taking place at the Institute for the Americas, University College London, on Friday 1st November 2013.
Postgraduate students located in discipline-based departments often find they are the sole scholar within their department working on the Caribbean. The Caribbean Postgraduate Network seeks to bring together students who share a common interest in the Caribbean to share their work with regional specialists in a friendly and informal setting. The workshop will feature student presentations on aspects of their work, with responses by convenors and questions encouraged from other participants.
We welcome submissions from postgraduate students across disciplines who are researching any aspect of the wider Caribbean and its diasporas. We encourage proposals from students at various stages within their postgraduate research. Participants will be invited to give a 20-minute presentation.  See attachment for full details.
Abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13 September 2013 to Rachel Thompson at pa901rt@gold.ac.uk with the subject heading ‘Caribbean Postgraduate Network’. Please include your university affiliation.

Beyond the Borders Poetry Conference Call for Papers

23rd November 2013 - University of East Anglia (UEA) School of American Studies
Plenary Lecture/Reading: Michael Palmer, Film Screening: Robert McTavish’s The Line Has Shattered (Vancouver’s Landmark 1963 Poetry Conference)
 
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most seminal events in modern American poetry, the Vancouver Poetry Conference 1963. Following the publication of Donald Allen’s prescient The New American Poetry in 1960, Warren Tallman and Robert Creeley gathered together a number of the New American poets (including Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, and Allen Ginsberg) in Vancouver for three weeks of poetry readings, public lectures, workshops and roundtable discussions on contemporary experimental poetics. To coincide with UEA’s own fiftieth anniversary, the School of American Studies will be hosting a one day conference to reassesses the continuing legacies of the Vancouver Poetry Conference and its participants. Please see attached flyer for suggested topics.
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to davidmccarthy.uea@gmail.com by Saturday 31st August 2013.

Second Meeting of the UoB Psy Lit Network: Friday October 11th 2013

The second UoB PsyLit Network meeting will be held on Friday 11 October, 2013, between 2-3pm in the Arts and Humanities building (room 104 – main campus) at the University of Birmingham.
 
Oliver Penny (University of East Anglia) will be delivering a 20 minute paper entitled ‘Empty Rooms: Style and Negativity in The Death of the Heart’ which looks at Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘The Death of the Heart’ through Andre Green’s work on the negative.
 
Texts to be read and discussed for this session:
 
Andre Green – ‘The Intuition of the Negative in Playing and Reality’
Andre Green
 
and Elizabeth Bowen’s – The Death of the Heart
elizabeth_bowen
 
PDF copies of Andre Green’s essay ‘The Intuition of the Negative in Playing and Reality’ will be circulated to all PsyLit members at least a week before the meeting.
 
More News:
 
A schedule is currently being put together for PsyLit for the academic year 2013/2014 with meetings to be held on the second Friday of every month during term time.
 
If you would like to attend future PsyLit meetings or would like more information, please email Matt Geary and Rosie Reynolds at uob-psylit@contacts.bham.ac.uk. You can stay up to date by following us on Twitter (@uob_psylit) or WordPress (http://uobpsylit.wordpress.com/).
 
Also, if your work explores the intersection between psychoanalysis and literature and you would like to give a 20 minute paper at one of our future meetings please submit a 100-200 word abstract to uob-psylit@contacts.bham.ac.uk.