[Please reply to Amy Cutler <mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Geography and Twentieth Century British Poetry
RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London, 1-3rd September 2010
Call for Papers
http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Confe
rence/AC2010.htm
Convenor:
Amy Cutler (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Research Group Affiliations:
Social and Cultural Research Group
Abstract:
This session will provide a forum for exploring issues to do with landscape
and twentieth century poetry. Poets have a long-standing concern with ‘land
writing’, the etymological meaning of ‘geography’. Contributions are invited
on any theme within the wider context of the evolving relationship between
poetry and geography, although the focus of the session will be on the
British Isles. It will aim to investigate how and why, in the space of a
small island which is so tightly mapped and familiar, poets may use
linguistic or other means to escape this system of representation. The focus
of papers may be theoretical or textual, but notice should be taken of the
tools that allow poetry and geography to meet, and with which they may
unearth the wilderness, futurity and sites of negotiation in the landscape.
Hayden Lorimer (2008) has written of the growing attraction between
geographers and the discipline of poetry. To develop this further, the
afternoon session will be followed by an evening reception and poetry
readings by leading poets who draw upon landscape and other geographies in
their work. The following have been approached and have indicated their
willingness to participate: Peter Riley (Tracks and Mineshafts, Snow Has
Settled (…) Bury Me Here, Excavations, A Map of Faring, The Llŷn Writings),
Allen Fisher (Place, Brixton Fractals, The Topological Shovel) and Iain
Sinclair (Conductors of Chaos). The two events will bring together
geographers and scholars of poetry, and it is therefore hoped that they will
lead to valuable multi-disciplinary exchanges regarding the problematic
nature of land writing in the new century. The event is supported by the
Landscape Surgery at Royal Holloway.
Suggested themes for the afternoon panel include, but are not
limited to:
* A textual study of any British poet, or poetic text, contributing to or
using geographical discourses in the twentieth century
* A study of any specific region, topography or landmark as it appears in
poetic works
* Landscape enclosure, regionalism, human land use history, industrial
history, and heritage practices as specific to the British landscape, and
therefore to British poetry
* The relationship between poetry and archaeological discourses and
practices
* The space of poetry as a mode of representation of the materiality of
landscape
* The Ordnance survey map, the aerial survey, and their impact on British
poetry
* The nature of boundaries in both landscape and poetry
* The relationship between landscape and poetry in other national or
transnational traditions and their influence on British poetry (the American
poets and ‘geophilosophers’ Charles Olson and Ed Dorn are an important
example)
Abstracts (250 words maximum) should be submitted to
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> by
February 19th 2010, including the following information: name, affiliation,
contact email, and technical requirements.
--
www.amycutler.wordpress.com <http://www.amycutler.wordpress.com>
|