INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON 21st CENTURY EUROPEAN LITERATURES
ST ANDREWS UNIVERSITY: 15-17th SEPTEMBER 2010


21st-Century European Literature: Mapping New Trends


CALL FOR PAPERS

DATE for SUBMISSION: 1 September 2009

PARTICIPANTS INCLUDE WRITERS:
Tullio Avoledo
Dmitri Bykov
Dietmar Dath
Ken MacLeod
Camille de Toledo


Organising body: St Andrews University School of Modern Languages

Convenor: Professor Margaret-Anne Hutton, Department of French

Subject convenors:
British literature: Dr Sarah Dillon ([log in to unmask])
French-language literature: Prof. Margaret-Anne Hutton (mh80@st-
andrews.ac.uk)
	German-language literature: Dr Michael Gratzke ([log in to unmask])
	Italian literature: Dr Rossella Riccobono ([log in to unmask])
	Russian literature: Dr Claire Whitehead ([log in to unmask])
Spanish literature: Dr Ricardo Fernàndez ([log in to unmask])


This major international conference offers scholars from six disciplines the
rare opportunity to come together to discuss what is happening in European
literatures now. We are seeking to map out emerging trends in a range of
national literatures with a view to putting together inter-disciplinary panels
which will reveal significant convergences, divergences and
cross-fertilisations in literary trends across Europe.

The focus will be on post-2000 literature only. We invite you to tell us what is
new, right now, in the national literature you research; what patterns are
already discernible; what clusters of texts exploring common themes, ethical or
aesthetic imperatives, theoretical or generic preoccupations, can be identified
in the new millennium. This extreme contemporary approach opens up fields of
enquiry that inevitably have to be explored speculatively. We encourage
colleagues to take risks whilst adhering to good practice in literary
scholarship. The aim is to position each literary text, author or topic
presented in each paper within today’s cultural landscape. What is the trend?
Why might it have emerged? What next?

To facilitate communication we will be asking all contributors to present their
papers in English, though we may be in a position to offer some help with
translation should this prove to be crucial.

The following list, which comprises just some of the possible trends which might
be explored, should be regarded as neither exhaustive nor in any way
prescriptive:


Writing the future
•	Responding to global risk
•	(Post-) apocalyptic fictions
•	Understanding time
•	A new ethics
•	Atheism and the messianic

Dealing with trauma
•	The event
•	Re-viewing WWII
•	Archiving and memorialising the past
•	Historical revisionisms
•	9/11 and after

Re-working genres
•	Literary engagements with the canon
•	Return to modernism - the end of postmodernism
•	Science fiction in the mainstream
•	New takes on old genres (crime, thriller, romance, historical novel, saga,
fairy-tale)
•	Literary engagements with theory
•	Skeuomorphism

Re-positioning Identities
•	(Post-) Autofictions
•	Blogosphere narratives: between essay and fiction
•	New sexualities - Post-queer
•	Family configurations
•	Urban / rural dialogues
•	Immigrant fictions
•	New (post-) nationalisms
•	Diasporic identities
•	The question of the animal
•	Science and technology


Submissions for papers and panels on any aspect of 21st- century literature are
welcome. This includes prose, drama and poetry. The St Andrews Poetry Forum
will be running panels concentrating on the newest developments in European
poetry.  Topics may include:

•	Musicality and poetry
•	Poetry and ethics
•	Self-poetry and autobiographisms
•	New mysticism
•	Political, performative and heteroglossic poetry
•	Gnoseological poetry
•	Reworking poetic classics

All poetry proposals should be send to Dr Rossella Riccobono
([log in to unmask]).


PROPOSALS

DATE for SUBMISSION: 1 September 2009

(i) Individual proposals
Should be of 300-400 words, and must be in English. Please also supply a short
bio-bibliographical statement. Individual proposals should be submitted
electronically to the appropriate subject convenor (above).

(ii) Panel proposals
Panels must cover at least three of the subjects (e.g. ‘post queer literature in
France, UK and Germany’). One proposal (in English) of 400-500 words should be
submitted electronically to the conference convenor (Prof. M-A Hutton).

Please also supply a short bio-bibliographical statement for each proposed
speaker.


-- 
Dr Michael Gratzke
Department of German
The University
St Andrews
KY16 9PH
Scotland

[log in to unmask]
phone *44-1334-463671

The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland: No SC013532


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