CALL FOR PAPERS: Peripheral Modernisms International Conference
23 March 2012
Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies,
School of Advanced Study, University of London
The last decade has witnessed renewed scholarly interest in modernist
and avant-garde studies. The study of Modernism as a global phenomenon
and the exploration of the links between modernity and postcoloniality
constitute some of the distinctive features of this new scholarship. As
a fitting end to the decade, the 2010 Modernist Studies Association
Conference proposed to appraise Modernism's 'claims to globality' by
re-examining transnational 'Modernist Networks'. However, the resurgence
of modernist studies invites a re-examination of the cultural and
aesthetic complexities of the early twentieth century that revisits the
notions of 'peripheral modernities' introduced by Harootunian in 2000.
Benita Parry further argued in 2009 that the notion of periphery extends
to a larger geo-political expanse than the colonized regions under
global capitalism and that Harootunian's concept should include such
regions as Eastern and Middle Europe and the Mediterranean.
This conference proposes to reappraise critical approaches to modernist
movements from European regions generally regarded as peripheral,
including Eastern and Middle Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as
from beyond Europe in both area-centred and comparative cross-cultural
frameworks. In doing so, it aims to reassess the contributions made by
these peripheral modernisms to a global aesthetic of Modernism that
accounts for its geographic variety and cultural diversity. We aim to
address the following questions: does Modernism have a more disparate
and heterogeneous nature than has been suggested so far? Can we identify
likenesses and differences between peripheral modernisms? Do peripheral
modernisms evince their ambivalence toward modernity in especially
distinctive ways? To what extent does peripheral modernity prefigure
postmodernity, as argued by Beatriz Sarlo in 2001?
Confirmed keynote speaker: Benita Parry (University of Warwick)
We welcome proposals in or around the following research areas:
* modernist routes between the global North and South
* the dialectic of the urban or cosmopolitan and the rural and
regional
* the negotiation of global and local encapsulated in Roland
Robertson's 'glocalization'
* hybrid or migrational identities
* the role of periodicals and ephemera in facilitating exchanges
between metropolitan and peripheral modernisms and within the latter
* issues of translation and reception
* issues of synchronicity or simultaneity (or lack of)
Please send paper proposals of up to 250 words in English by 13 June
2011 to:
Dr. Patricia Silva McNeill: [log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
and Dr. Katia Pizzi: [log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Dr Katia Pizzi
Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies
School of Advanced Study
University of London
Stewart House
Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU.
Tel. n. 02078628962
Fax. n. 02078628672
Email: [log in to unmask]
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