** Apologies for Cross Posting **
Second Call for Papers
Beyond the Book: Contemporary Cultures of Reading A conference at the
University of Birmingham, UK
1 & 2 September 2007
Keynote Speakers:
Janice Radway (Duke University) & Elizabeth Long (Rice University)
Book groups, Lit Blogs, on-line bookstores, book festivals, reader
magazines, 'One Book, One Community,' Reader's Guides, 'Richard & Judy's
Book Club,' Book TV, 'Canada Reads,' the 'Nancy Pearl Action
Figure,' 'Tuesday Night Book Club,'... reading is hot!
This conference will explore the diverse formations, mediations, practices
and representations of reading and readers in the contemporary moment.
Cultures of reading are dynamic and complex: they involve not only readers
reading, but also multiple agencies including publishers, booksellers,
broadcast networks, national, regional and municipal governments, and
educational institutions. The aim of the conference is to interrogate the
relations among these agents and their investment in the meanings of
reading. The study of readers and reading encourages, maybe demands, multi-
and interdisciplinary analysis. We therefore invite scholars from across
the humanities and social sciences to consider the contemporary meanings
and experiences of reading in any culture or location. Selected papers
will be included in an edited collection on contemporary cultures of
reading/book cultures.
Possible topics for consideration:
* Reading as a form of popular culture
* Books & reading as cultural events
* Investigating reading and reader response: methodological problems &
strategies
* The production of readers and/or reading
* Books/Reading and/in/through the mass media
* Reading spaces
* Reading together: shared reading
* Reading as a medium of/for social change
* Reading practices
* Reading and the state
Please send proposals for 20-minute papers (abstracts of 200-300 words) or
complete three-person panel sessions (including abstracts for each paper)
by 15 January 2007 to: [log in to unmask], using "BTB proposal" as
the subject line in your email. Proposals may also be sent to:
Beyond the Book Conference
Department of American & Canadian Studies University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK
Beyond the Book is a three-year collaborative interdisciplinary AHRC-
funded research project investigating contemporary cultures of reading.
The transatlantic BTB team are: DeNel Rehberg Sedo (Mount Saint Vincent
University, Canada), Danielle Fuller, Anouk Lang & Anna Burrells
(University of Birmingham, UK).
Find out more about our research at: www.beyondthebookproject.org
|