21st-Century European Literatures Conference

Fri Mar 20 10:51:04 UTC 2009

Dear Colleagues,

Please see below for a Call for Papers for the conference:

'21st-Century European Literature: Mapping New Trends'

to be held at the University of St Andrews, Scotland on September
15-17 2010.

We are inviting proposals either for individual papers or for panels by
September 1 2009.

I would be very grateful if you could bring the conference and this Call for
Papers to the attention of any of your colleagues who might be interested.
We look forward to welcoming you to Scotland next year.

Best wishes,
Claire Whitehead
Dept. of Russian
University of St Andrews

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON 21st CENTURY EUROPEAN LITERATURES
ST ANDREWS UNIVERSITY: 15-17th SEPTEMBER 2010

21st-Century European Literature: Mapping New Trends

CALL FOR PAPERS

Organising body: St Andrews University School of Modern Languages

Convenor: Professor Margaret-Anne Hutton, Department of French

Subject convenors:
British literature: Dr Sarah Dillon (sjd16 at st-andrews.ac.uk)
French-language literature: Prof. Margaret-Anne Hutton (mh80 at st-
andrews.ac.uk)
German-language literature: Dr Michael Gratzke (mg43 at st-andrews.ac.uk)
Italian literature: Dr Rossella Riccobono (rmr8 at st-andrews.ac.uk)
Russian literature: Dr Claire Whitehead (cew12 at st-andrews.ac.uk)	
Spanish literature: Dr Ricardo Fernàndez (rfr1 at st-andrews.ac.uk)

This major international conference offers scholars from six disciplines the
rare opportunity to come together to discuss what is happening in European
literatures now. We are seeking to map out emerging trends in a range of
national literatures with a view to putting together inter-disciplinary
panels which will reveal significant convergences, divergences and
cross-fertilisations in literary trends across Europe.  

The focus will be on post-2000 literature only. We invite you to tell us
what is new, right now, in the national literature you research; what
patterns are already discernible; what clusters of texts exploring common
themes, ethical or aesthetic imperatives, theoretical or generic
preoccupations, can be identified in the new millennium. This extreme
contemporary approach opens up fields of enquiry that inevitably have to be
explored speculatively. We encourage colleagues to take risks whilst
adhering to good practice in literary scholarship. The aim is to position
each literary text, author or topic presented in each paper within todays
cultural landscape. What is the trend? Why might it have emerged? What next?  

To facilitate communication we will be asking all contributors to present
their papers in English, though we may be in a position to offer some help
with translation should this prove to be crucial. 

The following list, which comprises just some of the possible trends which
might be explored, should be regarded as neither exhaustive nor in any way
prescriptive:  

Writing the future
	Responding to global risk
	(Post-) apocalyptic fictions
	Understanding time
	A new ethics
	Atheism and the messianic

Dealing with trauma
	The event
	Re-viewing WWII
	Archiving and memorialising the past
	Historical revisionisms
	9/11 and after

Re-working genres
	Literary engagements with the canon 
	Return to modernism - the end of postmodernism
	Science fiction in the mainstream
	New takes on old genres (crime, thriller, romance, historical novel, saga,
fairy-tale)
	Literary engagements with theory
	Skeuomorphism

Re-positioning Identities
	(Post-) Autofictions
	Blogosphere narratives: between essay and fiction
	New sexualities - Post-queer
	Family configurations
	Urban / rural dialogues
	Immigrant fictions 
	New (post-) nationalisms
	Diasporic identities
	The question of the animal 
	Science and technology

Submissions for papers and panels on any aspect of 21st- century literature
are welcome. This includes prose, drama and poetry. The St Andrews Poetry
Forum will be running panels concentrating on the newest developments in
European poetry.  Topics may include:

	Musicality and poetry
	Poetry and ethics
	Self-poetry and autobiographisms
	New mysticism
	Political, performative and heteroglossic poetry
	Gnoseological poetry
	Reworking poetic classics

All poetry proposals should be send to Dr Rossella Riccobono
(rmr8 at st-andrews.ac.uk).

PROPOSALS
DATE for SUBMISSION: 1 September 2009

(i) Individual proposals
Should be of 300-400 words, and must be in English. Please also supply a
short bio-bibliographical statement. Individual proposals should be
submitted electronically to the appropriate subject convenor (above). 

(ii) Panel proposals
Panels must cover at least three of the subjects (e.g. post queer
literature in France, UK and Germany). One proposal (in English) of 400-500
words should be submitted electronically to the conference convenor (Prof.
M-A Hutton).

Please also supply a short bio-bibliographical statement for each proposed
speaker. 

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