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

'21st-Century European Literature: Mapping New Trends'
to be held at the University of St Andrews, Scotland on September
15-17 2010

We are inviting proposals either for individual papers or for panels by
September 1 2009.

I would be very grateful if you could bring the conference and this Call for
Papers to the attention of any of your colleagues who might be interested.
We look forward to welcoming you to Scotland next year.

Best wishes,
Claire Whitehead
Dept. of Russian
University of St Andrews


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

21st-Century European Literature: Mapping New Trends

CALL FOR PAPERS

Organising body: St Andrews University School of Modern Languages

Convenor: Professor Margaret-Anne Hutton, Department of French

Subject convenors:
British literature: Dr Sarah Dillon (sjd16@st-andrews.ac.uk)
French-language literature: Prof. Margaret-Anne Hutton (mh80@st-
andrews.ac.uk)
German-language literature: Dr Michael Gratzke (mg43@st-andrews.ac.uk)
Italian literature: Dr Rossella Riccobono (rmr8@st-andrews.ac.uk)
Russian literature: Dr Claire Whitehead (cew12@st-andrews.ac.uk)       
Spanish literature: Dr Ricardo Fernàndez (rfr1@st-andrews.ac.uk)

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
(rmr8@st-andrews.ac.uk ).

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.