WITH APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING

First-person writing, four-way reading

The Standing Committee for the Humanities of the European Science Foundation announces a three-day international cross-disciplinary Research Conference, to run at Birkbeck, University of London 1-3 December 2011. The conference brings together scholars from four academic fields – literature, history, medical humanities and ethnography – and from 23 countries to discuss a common object of research: first-person writing. Four keynote speakers, 16 invited panellists and 45 break-out panellists will present papers and there will be four workshops.

The term ‘writing’ is meant literally: the first-person material on which the project focuses is textual rather than oral, whether published or unpublished. The time-period covered is from the early modern period to the present day. Though the language of the conference will be English, material in any language may be referred to (using originals, translations and/or parallel texts).

The term ‘reading’ is meant primarily in a metaphorical sense: how do scholars from these four fields investigate, interpret or, more broadly, ‘use’ first-person texts, what differences can be found in their methods and applications, and how can they debate these commonalities and differences in fruitful ways? It is hoped that, after the conference, further international and interdisciplinary research collaboration will be developed.

THE CONFERENCE IS COORGANISED BY:

Naomi Segal (UK): literature

François-Joseph Ruggiu (FR): history

Petter Aaslestad (NO): medical humanities

Kristin Kuutma (EE): ethnography

Among the invited speakers are (alphabetically):

Arianne Baggerman (NL)

Rita Charon (USA)

Marie Darrieussecq (FR)

Brian Hurwitz (UK)

Alexander Kiossev (BG)

Giorgio Pressburger (IT)

Nigel Rapport (UK)

Philip Rieder (CH)

Michael Sheringham (UK)

Amy Shuman (USA)

Claudia Ulbrich (DE)

Yuri Zaretsky (RU)

For full details and the Call for Subsidy Applications (deadline 31 July), see http://www.esf.org/research-areas/humanities/strategic-activities/first-person-writing-four-way-reading.html or http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/our-research/conferences/first-person-writing-four-way-reading/first-person-writing-four-way-reading.

TO BOOK A PLACE AT THE CONFERENCE, SEE: https://www2.bbk.ac.uk/first-person/ Places are limited.

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