The City & Literature
A Graduate Conference
Faculty of English Language and Literature
University of Oxford
September 20-21, 2003
Call for Papers
The City & Literature is a two-day conference taking place at Worcester
College, Oxford, over the weekend of September 20th-21st, 2003. It is
open to graduate students who are working on literature of any period.
Cities are important sites of modern literary and cultural production
but they are not limited in definition to the multicultural
metropolises of the last two centuries. From medieval to modern times
urban centres have facilitated the dynamic exchange of ideas whilst
themselves becoming subjects for writers across the genres. We hope to
investigate the ways in which cities encourage, challenge and occupy
the literary imagination, and to consider the future of metropolitan
writing.
Our definition of city literature is very elastic. For instance, papers
might focus on:
… a single author (e.g. Jonson, Baudelaire, Rushdie) or
representations of a single city
… utopias/dystopias
… cities and bodies
… film/t.v. presentations of city literature
… biographies of cities
… publishing and marketing centres
… journalism and/or creative nonfiction
… cities as sites of crime and/or conflict
… definitions of civic identity
Abstracts of 300 words, for 15-20 minute papers, should be sent to
[log in to unmask] or by post to Rachel Buxton, New College,
Oxford OX1 3BN, England. Suggestions for panel topics are also
welcome.
Closing date for proposals is February 1, 2003.
Please visit our website for more information:
http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/ego
Dr Peter Davies
School of European Languages and Cultures (German)
University of Edinburgh
David Hume Tower
George Square
Edinburgh
EH8 9JX
Tel.: 0131 650 3632
email: [log in to unmask]
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