Deadline for submissions: March 1, 2017
Full name / name of organization: The British Library
Contact email: Americas@bl.uk
CFP: Russia in American Literature
13 July 2017
The British Library, London
2017 will mark the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, one of the defining events of the past century. The conference ‘Russia in American Literature’ aims to explore the literary relationship between Russia and the United States during the long twentieth century. From the influence of Soviet literary criticism on the American writers associated with the Left during the 1930s, to the spy fictions of the Cold War, we aim to examine how the politics and culture of Russia and the Soviet Union have been represented and reimagined in American literary texts.
The conference is a companion event to the British Library’s summer 2017 exhibition ‘Russian Revolution: Hope, Tragedy, Myths’. We welcome paper proposals that explore representations of Russia and Russian culture in American literature. Subjects could include (but are not limited to):
Parallels between the Russian and American traditions
The influence/impact of Russian literature on American writers
Dostoevsky and American literature
American writers in the Soviet Union
Representations of Russia in émigré literature
US debates around literary models and ideas such as Socialist Realism, Revolutionary Romanticism and proletarian literature
American travel narratives of Russia
Writers and McCarthyism
Cold War literature, including popular fiction, science fiction and spy novels
Keynote speaker: Dr Sue Currell (University of Sussex)
Proposals must be a maximum of 250 words and include a title as well as a short biography (in a single word document). Please send your proposal to Americas@bl.uk with the subject line ‘Russia in American Literature’ by 1 March. Please contact the conference organiser, Mercedes.Aguirre@bl.uk, with any questions.