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From: Events listings and announcements for English literature, language and cultural studies [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Professor Chris Hopkins
Sent: 16 October 2015 14:36
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Subject: The Auden Generation and After: Conference at Sheffield Hallam University - 
17 June 2016

DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS NOW EXTENDED TILL FRIDAY 15th JANUARY 2016

2016 marks 40 years since the publication in 1976 of Samuel Hynes’s seminal account of the literature of the thirties: The Auden Generation: Literature and Politics in England in the 1930s. With its central focus on the interrelations between public and private, the book remains required reading for those interested in the writing of the period. This conference takes the 40th anniversary of its publication as occasion to consider the shifts which have taken place, in the intervening decades, in our attitudes towards the decade’s literature (or literatures). Successive accounts have sought to refine and/or modify the way we view the period by laying more emphasis on, for example, writing by women or working-class authors, or by bringing once-prominent but neglected authors of the thirties back into the canon. Others have sought to shed new light on works by figures such as Orwell, MacNeice, Spender or Auden. With this in mind, the following questions are offered as possible or suggested points of departure for those interested in contributing a paper:

-       How far do existing accounts reflect the diversity of the period’s writing?
-       To what extent is 30’s literature still marginalized within accounts of twentieth-century literary history more widely?
-       How is ‘the 1930s’ still justified as a literary-historical period?
-       How far are the reputations of such major figures as Auden, MacNeice, Isherwood or Orwell, among others, enhanced or compromised by their continued associations with the period?
-       Why do other important twentieth-century figures (such as Graham Greene, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Storm Jameson or Naomi Mitchison, among others) remain under-represented within accounts of the period?
-       Has the importance and influence of thirties women's writing been fully recognised?
-       Is there yet adequate recognition of the working-class writing of the period?
-       Why does 30s drama in particular remain among the more neglected areas of the period’s writing?
-       To what extent is criticism of 30s literature still informed by a perceived dichotomy between modernism and realism?
-       How are 30s literatures situated against the broader literary tradition?
-       How far, and in what ways is our appreciation of 30s literature directed or dominated by ‘extra-literary’ concerns such as culture, politics, class, ideology, gender and so on?
-       To what extent has criticism of thirties writing ‘bypassed’ developments in critical theory?
-       What particular postcolonial perspectives might be brought to bear on the period’s writing?

Papers need not necessarily be limited to the above areas. Both single author and topic-based papers are welcomed, provided the focus is on British writing produced or published during the decade.

- Professor Chris Hopkins and Dr Neil Miles, Humanities Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University

Please send abstracts (300 words) and a brief biography (300 words) by 15 January 2016 to Dr Neil Miles: [log in to unmask] and Professor Chris Hopkins: [log in to unmask]