CFP: 14th SAAS (Spanish Association for American Studies) Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

14th SAAS (SPANISH ASSOCIATION FOR AMERICAN STUDIES) CONFERENCE, SALAMANCA, APRIL 10-12, 2019

UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA

17) “9/11 – An Image Which Continues to Shape Twenty-first-Century United States Culture”

Panel Chair: Clair A. Sheehan

Institution: University of Limerick, Ireland

E-mail: clair.sheehan@ul.ie

If, as the current SAAS conference theme, “The Image and the Word”, suggests, “[o]ur 21st century stands under the aegis of the image” (Boletin 27), then the most significant guiding cultural image of twenty-first century America has to be the hauntingly repetitive film of domestic passenger jets colliding with the physical embodiment of twentieth-century US power, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre.

This panel for the SAAS Conference in 2019 is calling for submissions which explore how the now iconic image created by the 9/11 terrorist attacks impacted on American society. Papers that track the origins of this incident within late 20th-century literature, and/or consider the limitations these events placed on writers who chose to use their work to address the shifting socio-political climate of the early 21st century, will be especially welcomed. The panel is particularly interested in papers which imagine how popular authors, both within the United States and across the world, have chosen to revisit this historic episode and its aftermath, but it will give equal consideration to submissions which compare the manner in which these events were interpreted and depicted in literature and film.

Potential authors could include, but are in no way limited to, Don DeLillo, Jonathan Safran Foer, Joseph O’Neill, Phillip Roth, Paul Auster, William Gibson, Khaled Hosseini, Salman Rushdi, Art Spiegleman, Barbara Kingsolver, Amy Waldman, Mohsin Hamid, Jonathan Franzen and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Deadline for papers: October 15th

Call for Papers

Sound Collectives: The Acoustics of the Social in American Film and
Literature

An International Conference

Dec. 7-8, 2018

Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt

Sound positions individuals as social subjects. The presence of human
beings, animals, objects, or technologies reverberates into the material
and virtual spaces we inhabit and produces distinct soundscapes that
render social practices audible. The assessment of a sonic phenomenon as
noise or music, as rallying cry or offense, as reassuring or disturbing
event reveals the social paradigms that govern our perception. As
Michael Bull and Les Back write in /The Auditory Culture Reader/, paying
critical attention to ?sound makes us re-think [?] how we relate to
others, ourselves, and the spaces and places we inhabit? (4). When sound
travels through space, it becomes a repository for the relational
activities that define a living environment. Narrative media like film
and literature can be considered as cultural sites where the capacity of
sound to register and to expose the stratifications and constitutive
processes of society is negotiated.

This conference wants to facilitate the interdisciplinary exchange on
acoustic concepts, discourses, and practices related to the social in
narrative media. It seeks to address the increasing interest in sound
studies as a research area for American studies, particularly when it
comes to American film and literary studies. Which sound collectives do
films and literary works register and how are these represented or
mediated? What are the societal functions of sound, noise, and music in
film and literature? What kind of debates, methods, and theoretical
approaches on sound are currently developed in the respective scholarly
fields? And how can film and literary studies learn from each other or
even join forces in their critical engagement with sound?

Possible topics could include, but are not restricted to:

– literary or cinematic orchestrations of sonic communities and
polyphonic soundscapes

– politics of sound and social critique in literature and film

– sounds of resistance or subversion

– social narratives in film scores or soundtracks

– aural representations of the public sphere

– sound, social formations, and aesthetics

– power relations, agency, and sound

– sound and ethnic or racialized formations

– sound and class

– sound and gender

– practices of silencing

– ethics of listening

– acoustic practices of participation

– sonic sites of migration, globalization

– sonic nostalgia or futuristic soundscapes in film and literature

Please send a 300-word abstract and a short CV to Nathalie Aghoro
(nathalie.aghoro@ku.de) by June 20, 2018.

CALL FOR PAPERS

14^th SAAS (SPANISH ASSOCIATION FOR AMERICAN STUDIES) CONFERENCE, SALAMANCA, APRIL 10-12, 2019

UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA

“The Image and the Word:

Interactions between
American Literature, Media, Visual Arts and Film”

Panel: The Image and the Word in Early America

The interaction between word and image has been a transcendental issue in America since the first European settlements. From the Puritan sermons in which vivid images of Hell were used to terrify the audience in the churches to the first illustrated publications of the 18th century, the interaction between these two formats has been crucial for the development of the American collective imagination. However, the overwhelming word-image interactions from the 19th century to the present has often neglected the attention paid to those early productions.

Multidisciplinary studies have become one of the main strengths of the Humanities in the present, so a panel on this topic can be a good forum to discuss in-progress works or already complete studies. The aim and goal of this panel is to explore how “America” created hybrid productions from colonial days to 1800. Papers on illustrated editions are welcome as well as studies concerning Early American aesthetics, the vocabulary of “painting with words” in Early American oeuvres, etc.

Useful information:

• Panelists will have a maximum of 20 minutes for their presentations.
• Papers must be delivered personally and cannot be read by third parties.
• Non-members of SAAS (of all nationalities) are welcome to submit a panel proposal, but will be required to pay membership dues for one year (40 $) as well as the conference registration fee. Members of ASA (American Studies Association), need only to pay the conference registration fee.
• The organization of the conference is considering the publication of a volume with a selection of the papers presented there. However, this volume will not be a collection of proceedings and, consequently, the pre-selection process shall be rigorous. The acceptance of a paper proposal does not automatically guarantee its publication.

Please, send proposals for individual paper along with a short biographical note to Dr. José Manuel Correoso-Rodenas (JoseManuel.Correoso@uclm.es) before October 15 2018.

SANAS Biennial Conference

The Genres of Genre: A Conference on Form, Format, and Cultural Formations

Nov. 2 and 3, 2018, Lausanne

North American Studies have always had an intense but ambivalent relationship to genre, as these narrative patterns have participated in nationalist processes as well as in narratives of resistance. Emerging at the beginning of the twentieth century from concerns about naturalism and realism, American literary scholarship after WWII avoided the politicized post-war atmosphere by making the ‘romance’ the quintessential American novel genre, while cinematic genres such as the musical or the Western contributed to amplifying the mythic dimension of American self-definition. Since then, American Studies scholars have pioneered influential work on melodrama, the American Gothic, the jeremiad and other genres. Concurrently, Canadian literature’s prominent nation-building narratives were framed as documentary tales of regionalism, historical novels and social realism before evolving into dystopian and postmodern fiction, most famously by Margaret Atwood. Thus, among the recurring questions posed by genre is the conflicted relationship between literature/art and its social, historical, and cultural context. Terms such as ‘the political unconscious’ (Jameson), ‘cultural work’ (Tompkins), ‘narrative mode’ (Williams) and ‘performative’ (Austin, Turner) have been centrally determining, over the years, to help us understand how genres work and what they do. This conference therefore seeks to explore what roles genre plays in American and Canadian nation-building and counter-narratives, and how it evolves nowadays.

While the cultural concept of genre has been crucial in creating North American national literatures and identities, it shows equal potential for resistance, subversion and transformation of these constructed national characters. Thus, how does genre reconcile this seemingly contradictory potential for creating narratives of nation-building as well as counter-culture? How do feminist, queer, Indigenous, Latino/a, African-American/Canadian and Asian-American/Canadian writers use, appropriate, and subvert specific genres to resist and protest social injustices. How do they use genre to imagine alternative models or redeem social injustice? With Prof. Linda Williams (UC Berkeley), Prof. Ronald Schleifer (University of Oklahoma), and Prof. Sarah Henzi (University of Montreal), experts on the role of genre in North American studies as our keynote speakers, this conference proposes to be a space for a renewed discussion about what genre has meant for North American studies as well as American and Canadian culture, and what its future might be.

Possible topics could include, but are not restricted to:

• How specific genres (e.g. the Western, social melodrama, crime fiction, rap, inaugural speech, jeremiad, combat film) have changed or been renewed
• New genres that have emerged in recent years (e.g. the series, video games, cli-fi, petro-fiction)
• The critical viability of the term ‘genre’ as opposed to ‘mode’ or narrative ‘form’ or other
• Theme-oriented vs. form-oriented genres (e.g. asylum fiction vs. found-footage films) – are these ‘really’ genres?
• Assessment of recent scholarly work on form (e.g. Caroline Levine)
• Revisiting of older scholarly work and its influence (e.g. Fredric Jameson)
• Narrative/poetic forms and national identity
• Hybridity and intersectionality of form
• Genre and gender
• Genre and race
• Genre and imperialism (e.g. adventure, imperial gothic)
• Genre and environmentalism/ecology (e.g. cli-fi, petro-fiction, eco-gothic, the naturalist essay, nature poetry, etc.)
• Genre and resistance or subversion
• The continuous revival and repurposing of the fairy tale
• New developments in the North American short story

Please send panel or paper abstracts of 200-300 words and a short biographical note of 100-150 words byApril 30, 2018 to sanas.conference2018@gmail.com. For more information visit www.unil.ch/sanas2018.

TRADITIONS AND TRANSITIONS

28-29 September 2018

SOFIA, BULGARIA

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES

SOFIA UNIVERSITY “ST. KLIMENT OHRIDSKI”

Second Call for Papers

The Department of English and American Studies at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” invites scholars to submit proposals for the international conference Traditions and Transitions – to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The conference is dedicated to the 90^th anniversary of the Department of English and American Studies at Sofia University and the 130^th anniversary of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. People celebrate anniversaries in order to commemorate what has been achieved so far and to envision what should be achieved in the future. The event aims to look back at a distinguished past, and ahead to a challenging future.

The conference seeks to bring together young and established scholars, and professors emeriti from academic institutions in Bulgaria and abroad, giving them a venue to debate and exchange views on traditions and transitions in the research in and the teaching of English-language-related disciplines.

The field of English and American Studies is in transition, as it seeks new approaches, and re-examines older ones, in order to address the multiple issues facing the development of English-language related disciplines required for participation in today’s global community. The organizers of this conference encourage papers using a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to developments in the field and a wide range of analytical perspectives (historical, artistic, literary, political, esthetic, ethical, linguistic, sociolinguistic, cognitive, etc.).

We invite individual abstracts and panel proposals in an array of topics, discussing traditions and transitions in any of the areas below:

• The study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa, and the Middle East, among other areas);
• The study of English linguistics (including English phonetics, phonology, syntax, morphology, semantics, pragmatics, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, text linguistics, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, and stylistics);
• The study of Anglophone cultures and societies with a special focus on the complexity and hybridity of cultural interaction, transnationalism and transculturalism; the movement between places, identities and cultures;
• Translation studies;
• Мedia studies, transmedia.

Abstracts for twenty-minute presentations and proposals for panels/workshops/ roundtable discussions to be submitted by 1 May 2018.

Please include the following in your submission:

• Name;
• Affiliation;
• Email address;
• Title of Abstract or Panel Proposal;
• Abstract (250 words)
• Bio (100 words)

Please address emails to TandTconf2018@gmail.com

For further information refer to the conference website: https://ttconference2018.wordpress.com/

Recovering May Alcott Nieriker’s Life and Work | A One Day Conference. June 28, 2018, Université Paris Diderot

https://mayalcottnieriker.com/

Keynote Speaker | Dr Daniel Shealy (UNC, Charlotte)

Call for Papers | Deadline 31st January 2018

May Alcott Nieriker was a nineteenth-century American painter who lived as a single woman in Paris between the years of 1870-1879. At a time when women were not admitted to the beaux arts and were forced to pay double in tuition at the private ateliers, May daringly travelled alone to pursue a career at the age of thirty. She made a great impact on the Parisian art scene: being exhibited at the Paris Salon twice (1877, 1879), and publishing a book, Studying Art Abroad and How to Do It Cheaply (Roberts Brothers 1879), providing practical advice for other young American women who wished to pursue careers in painting in Europe. Beyond Paris, her career began with a book of sketches of the homes of famous authors from her hometown of Concord, Massachusetts (Concord Sketches, 1869), and she also lived for a short period in London—being exhibited at the Dudley Museum (1877), where she was also allegedly hailed by Ruskin as ‘the only artist worthy to copy Turner’.

However, May continues to remain in the shadow of her more famous sister, Louisa May Alcott, and, as Judy Bullington has observed, her life and achievements are consistently ‘enmeshed’ with the fictional character of Amy March of Little Women (‘Inscriptions of Identity,’ 2007). Recovering May Alcott Nieriker’s Life and Work is a one-day conference, opportunely held in Paris, that aims to gather new interest for, and invite new perspectives on, any aspect of the life and work of this forgotten transatlantic artist, a painter and a writer and a figure of the troubled Parisian scene of the 1870s. Of particular interest are the new contexts of reception of her oeuvre, both her painting and her writing, new archival work, the question of co-authorship (notably with her sister Louisa) and creditation, the mapping of (transatlantic and European) artistic networks in the 1870s.

The symposium will feature the work of postgraduate students of the AHRC CHASE consortium. It is open to academics, independent researchers and international postgraduates from a variety of disciplines: Americanists, nineteenth-century historians, biographers, literary scholars, art historians and artists with an interest in the Alcott family from across the world.

Topics can include, but are not limited to:

• May Alcott Nieriker’s visual art, especially her portrayal of enslaved and freed people in such works as La Négresse (1879) and the lost portrait, “The Prince of Timbuctoo” (1877)
• The political dimension of her art in the context of French and international politics.
•  May Alcott Nieriker’s epistolary output and life-writing, housed at the Houghton Library, Harvard, her articles for the Boston Evening Transcript and Youth Companion, and her unfinished novel, An Artist’s Holiday (1873), co-authored with Louisa May Alcott.
• The importance of Studying Art Abroad: And How To Do It Cheaply (1879) (notably in shaping our understanding of the lifestyle and challenges facing nineteenth-century woman artists, especially those who were expatriates)
• Mapping May Alcott Nieriker’s Paris.
• May Alcott Nieriker and her contemporaries (artistic networks, expatriate networks, influence of, and on her peers)
• May Alcott Nieriker’s life: relationship with her husband Ernst Nieriker, her attempts to combine an artistic career with domestic life.
• May Alcott Nieriker’s influence on Louisa May Alcott’s portrayal of female artists in such works as A Marble Woman (1865), the Little Women trilogy (1868-1886), Psyche’s Art (1868), An Old Fashioned Girl (1869), and Diana and Persis (1879).
• May Alcott Nieriker’s relationships with the wider Alcott family: her father Bronson Alcott and mother, Abigail May, and her three sisters, Anna Bronson, Louisa May and Elizabeth Sewall.
• May Alcott Nieriker’s reception from biographers and critics, and her portrayal in popular culture and fiction, including works such as Jeanine Atkins’ 2015 novel, Little Woman in Blue, and Elise Hooper’s 2017 novel, The Other Alcott.

Scientific committee: Azelina Flint (University of East Anglia), Cleo Humphreys (University of East Anglia), Cécile Roudeau (Université Paris Diderot-LARCA), Christopher Timms (University of Essex), Heather McKnight (University of Sussex), Elise Hooper, author of The Other Alcott (2017)

This conference is sponsored by the University of East Anglia, the Université Paris Diderot, the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England (CHASE), the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the University of Essex and EKCCHO