CALL FOR PAPERS
Trusting and Distrusting the Digital World in Imaginative Literature
University College Dublin, Ireland
7-9 June 2023
*Keynote Speakers:*
Prof. William Davies (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Prof. Ellen Rutten (University of Amsterdam)
This conference aims to connect two prominent scholarly conversations of
the contemporary moment: concerning, on the one hand, the ways in which the
digital age has shaped (and been shaped by) human trust relations; and on
the other, how digital technologies have intersected with the traditions
and practices of imaginative literature. We seek to bring together scholars
interested in either or both of these fields of inquiry for an
interdisciplinary dialogue on trust, the digital, and the literary.
Scholars across a wide variety of disciplines – including sociology,
philosophy, political science, anthropology, psychology, management and
organisation studies – have recognised the importance of the digital
revolution for thinking about trust. The interpersonal and institutional
forms of trust that characterised human relations in the pre-modern and
modern periods have been impacted and in many ways transformed by
technological innovations linked to computing, the internet, social media,
and big data. Meanwhile the relationship between literature and digital
technology has become a significant concern in contemporary literary
studies. Scholars in the field have asked what impact the shift from print
to digital formats has had on reading and critical practice; how we should
study “born-digital” texts including hypertext, electronic literature, and
post-internet poetry; what new possibilities digital technology offers for
the empirical analysis of literature; and how the internet and digital
media have been represented in literary works.
In connecting these two conversations, this conference seeks to advance the
interdisciplinary scholarship on trust and the digital world by
incorporating the insights of imaginative literature and literary studies.
How do literary representations of the digital world shape our trust and
distrust of that world? How has the transition to digital life challenged,
asserted or transformed bonds of trust, and how has imaginative literature
responded to and represented those changes? How have literary texts (print
or digital) dealt with the affective nature of trust through their content
and form? How has the digitisation of literary production and consumption
shaped and been shaped by the ways in which readers relate to texts?
Topics for papers might include, but are not limited to, the following:
-
- Trusting (in) the digital world
- Transformations of trust in the digital age
- Unreliable narration in the digital age
- Big data and imaginative literature
- Cryptocurrency and its literary representations
- Blockchain, trust, and literary form
- AI writing and trust
- Interpersonal, institutional, and “distributed” trust
- Cognitive and affective trust
- Digital ecologies of trust
- Digital surveillance and its literary representations
- Representations of digital interaction in contemporary literature
- Anticipations o f the digital in earlier literature
- Digital futures in imaginative literature
- Literary histories of trust
- Literary institutions in the digital age
- The authority of “literature” in the digital age
- The literary critic in the digital age
- Online reviewing and the question of trust
- Trusting new literary formats
- Trusting the digital economy in contemporary literature
- Digital sociologies of literature
Abstracts of 200-300 words for 20-minute papers and an author bio of max
100 words should be submitted by e-mail attachment to [log in to unmask]
by 13 February 2023. We also welcome joint proposals for panels of three
papers, or panels with innovative formats.
We welcome paper proposals from researchers who are based at institutions
around the world, whose research stems from a variety of disciplines and
languages, and who are at any career stage. Some bursaries will be
available to support the participation of early career and precariously
employed researchers. We are aiming not to charge any entrance fee for the
conference.
Applicants will be informed by early March as to their inclusion in the
conference programme. Please also note that we intend to pursue publication
avenues stemming from the conference theme.
This conference forms part of the Irish Research Council-funded project
“Imaginative Literature and Social Trust, 1990-2025.” The website for the
project is www.trustlit.org.
Dr Adam Kelly & Dr Katerina Pavlidi
(UCD School of English, Drama and Film)
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