The deadlines have passed for the following listings, or they are notices of new issues of life writing journals. We provide this information here for points of reference for scholars interested in trends in the field.

Workshop: „Identity Documents in Use” (University of Vienna, 22.9.–23.9.2022)

Organizer: Sigrid Wadauer

(FWF-Project “Co-Producing and Using Identity Documents. Habsburg Monarchy/Austria ca. 1850-1938”)

The workshop deals with the co-production and use of identity documents from a historical and interdisciplinary perspective. Establishing the identity of persons was (and still is) fundamental for a variety of tasks and operations of the state. In the course of the last centuries, various forms of identification and registration became subject to ever more precise state regulations and were adapted or fully taken over by state authorities. Yet, at the same time, practices of identification, registration and categorization of individuals were never exclusively a matter of statehood and citizenship, subject to governmentality, bureaucracy, surveillance and migration control. Identity papers were not exclusively produced and used by or vis á vis state authorities. Historically, various parties could be (and remained) involved in practices of identification and registration, ranging from religious organizations, trade or occupational associations, employers, unions, political organisations, landlords, welfare organizations, companies, creditors, or recreation clubs. Such parties provided information, produced data, checked documents, or even issued their own papers. They fulfilled tasks assigned to them, while following or adopting regulations issued by authorities with (greater or lesser) enthusiasm or accuracy. At the same time, the parties involved in such tasks often pursued their own agendas, producing and using papers for their own purposes. Individuals – who in most cases are seen as wholly subjected to identification, surveillance, or control – contributed to the production of their official identities in a variety of ways: by complying with official directives and cooperating with authorities; by initiating administrative processes themselves, (co-)producing information, forging documents or dealing with missing or incoherent documents; and by avoiding or boycotting identification. It is not always apparent or conclusively established where in such entanglements state bureaucracy started or ended.

In order to investigate why certain forms of identification functioned historically as successful or failed, or were altered, or varied in an international context, the workshop will reflect on the diversity of contexts and constellations in which documents were produced and used and in which the parties involved interacted in consensus or conflict.

The workshop will take place from 22.9.to 23.9. 2022 at the University of Vienna (Main building, Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna, TP, seminar room 1 and 4 in a hybrid format.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. To register, please send an email to sigrid.wadauer@univie.ac.at before 12.9.2022.

Program

22.9.2022 SR 1

9:00–9:20	Sigrid Wadauer (University of Vienna): Welcome and Introduction

	*Documents – Local Authorities – Migration*
	Chair: Sigrid Wadauer (University of Vienna)
9:20–10:00	Beate Althammer (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin): Registering Migrants in Prussian Cities (ca. 1880 to 1914)
10:00–10:40	Anne Winter (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) / Hilde Greefs (University of Antwerp / Zoom): Identity Documents of Foreign Migrants Arriving in Antwerp (1850–1910)

10:40–11:10	Coffee Break

	*Documents – Citizenship – Interactions*
11:10–11:50	Lida–Maria Dodou (University of Vienna / Austrian Archaeological Institute Athens): The Spectrum of Belonging: Austrian “de jure subjects”, “de facto subjects” and “protégés” in Fin–de–siècle Salonica

11:50–13:30	Lunch Break
	Chair: Jessica Richter (Institute of Rural History, St. Pölten)
13:30–14:10	Darren Wan (Cornell University): Brokering Citizenship: Illiteracy and Illegibility in the Production of Malayan Identity Documents, 1957–1963
14:10–14:50	Juanita Cox (University of London): Identification Documents: Practices and Perspectives from the Black British Caribbean Community

14:50–15:10	Coffee Break

	*Documents and Categorization*

15:10–15:50	Michal Turski (Center for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin): Meanders of Ethnic Registration and Categorization of Polish Germans in the Lodz Region during World War II.
15:50–16:30	Christiane Weber (Arolsen Archives/Germany): Who Decides Who is a DP? Post–World War II Identification Documents of Displaced Persons in the Arolsen Archives

16:30–16:50	Coffee Break
16:50–17:30	András László Pap (Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Legal Studies/Budapest / Zoom): Ethno-racial Identity in Documents: from Registration to Construction


23.9.2022 SR 4
	*Documents – Work, Control and Coercion*
	Chair: Beate Althammer (Humboldt University zu Berlin)
9:00–9:40	Paolo Raspadori (University of Perugia): Demographic and Social Control Tool. Staff Papers of Industrial Companies as Identity Documents of Italian Workers (First Half of the Twentieth Century)
9:40–10:20	Bernard Kusena (University of Zimbabwe): Forced Labour Recruitment and the Political Economy of Identity Documents: Clandestine Migration and Other Everyday Forms of Resistance in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1980

10:20–10:40	Coffee Break

10:40–11:20	Chris Holdridge (North–West University, Potchefstroom/South Africa): Convict Mobility and Emergent Regimes of Paperwork and Interpersonal Status in Port Cities of the Anglo World

	*Illicit Uses and Forged Documents*
	Chair: Johanna Wassholm (Åbo Akademi, Finland)
11:20–12:00	Cristina Diac (National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism of the Romanian Academy): Navigating Multiple Identities. Romanian Communists and their Travels Abroad

12:00–13:30	Lunch Break

13:30–14:10	Burak Sayım (New York University Abu Dhabi / Zoom): Crossing the Frontier: The Comintern, Forged Passports, and the Making of Interwar Border Regimes
14:10–14:30	Conclusions

With the kind support of:

FWF – Der Wissenschaftsfonds

Stadt Wien, MA 7 – Kultur, Wissenschafts- und Forschungsförderung

University of Vienna (FSP Global History, Department of Economic and Social History)

Contact Info:

PD Dr. Sigrid Wadauer

Department of Economic and Social History

University of Vienna

Universitätsring 1

1010 Vienna

Austria

https://www.sigridwadauer.com/

Contact Email:

Sigrid.Wadauer@univie.ac.at

URL:

https://wirtschaftsgeschichte.univie.ac.at/

Deadline for Submissions Sept. 10, 2022

Uppity Medieval Women Across the Globe

International Congress on Medieval Studies (Michigan USA hybrid), and other potential conferences

(9/10/2022; 5/11-13/2023)

In 1998, Vicki Leon published Uppity Women of Medieval Times, providing brief vignettes of primarily European medieval women fitting the description. As the field of Medieval Studies has been taking a global turn, this proposal seeks to put European uppity women into a deeper and more substantial conversation with their global sisters, such as the Japanese Lady Murasaki Shikibu, the Indian Nur Jahan, the Nigerian Queen Amina, and the Arabic Walladabint al-Mustakfi, to name a few. Uppity medieval women transgress their patriarchally assigned positions of immanence, often with the pen, the sword, and through sex. In an attempt to break new ground, we seek contributions that explore uppity medieval women––both historical and fictional–– from global perspectives. Comparative perspectives that trace similar experiences are highly encouraged. Reading the Middle Ages from a broader vantage point that illustrates how women worldwide were facing comparable experiences and challenges helps us understand the Middle Ages and feminism through a new lens.

Please email your 200-word abstract and a 100-word biography to Anita Obermeier (aobermei@unm.edu) and to Doaa Omran (Domran@unm.edu) by the 10th of September 2022.

We are having online and face-to-face sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS). Our two panels are titled “Assertive Medieval Women Across the Globe I” and “Assertive Medieval Women Across the Globe II (A Virtual Roundtable).” The deadline for abstract submission on the congress website is the 15th of September 2022. Here is the submission link: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi

We are also considering organising panels at Leeds International Medieval Congress (IMC) https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2023/ and the Medieval Association of the Pacific (MAP) https://www.medievalpacific.org/annual-conference/ .

Since we are trying to get a critical manuscript for an edited volume, we are proposing this session for several conferences, although in different formats.

Deadline for Submissions, Sept. 1, 2022

The Amsterdam School of Regional, Transnational and European Studies (ARTES) currently has a vacant Postdoc researcher position as part of the broader field Cultural Heritage and Identity.

Postdoctoral researcher Amsterdam Diaries: Self-representation, Cultural Diversity, and Migration

https://vacatures.uva.nl/UvA/job/Postdoctoral-researcher-Amsterdam-Diaries-Self-representation%2C-Cultural-Diversity%2C-and-Migration/751074902/

Faculty/Services: Faculty of Humanities

Educational level: Promoted

Function type: Academic Staff

Closing date: 1 September 2022

Vacancy number: 9819

The Amsterdam School of Regional, Transnational and European Studies (ARTES) currently has a vacant Postdoc researcher position as part of the broader field Cultural Heritage and Identity. Within this field the focus is on material and immaterial heritage, including digital Humanities and on Cultural Heritage and societal changes. ARTES is one of the five Research Schools within the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research.

What are you going to do

You will be part of an interdisciplinary research team that collects and analyzes diaries of ordinary people of the 19th and 20th centuries who wrote about their daily lives in Amsterdam. In the light of Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary in 2025, the team investigates what diaries can tell us about lived and narrated experiences of Amsterdam as a multicultural city. We will use a flexible conception of ‘diary’ in order to include other forms of self-representation, such as drawings or self-recorded stories on cassette tape.

First, you will help organize a diary donating campaign in cooperation with the Dutch Diary Archive and the Amsterdam Museum in order to collect new diaries. We will focus on migrant ego-documents because these are underrepresented in archives and scholarly research. The task is to involve local communities and gain support to help build a more inclusive and diverse diary-collection. Knowledge of the history of migrants, as well as relevant languages, will be an asset.

Second, you will study representations of self and the city in a selection of diaries from the newly gained materials as well as from archives such as the Dutch Diary Archive, Stadsarchief, Joods historisch Museum, Atria, Niod, Black Archives, IHLIA, and xpatarchive. The aim is to understand how individuals with diverse socio-cultural backgrounds express feelings of (non-)belonging, and in what ways they narrate their experiences of (intercultural) spaces, encounters and connections and their sense of what is familiar and foreign.

Third, you will help developing tools from Digital Humanities to store and map historical information about diaries and diarists in their spatial and temporal contexts. You will contribute to creating a digital resource, similar to (or as part of) the Amsterdam Time Machine, which will enable users to ‘travel back in time and navigate the city on the levels of neighborhoods, streets, houses and rooms’ (https://www.amsterdamtimemachine.nl/). Ideally, this will connect stories from multiple perspectives to particular places such as streets, parks, bars and buildings.

Your tasks and responsibilities:

conducting research, presenting intermediate research results at workshops and conferences and publishing two single-authored, peer reviewed articles;
participating in meetings of the project research group and developing a shared database;
co-organising knowledge dissemination activities.

What do you have to offer

Your experience and profile:

a PhD in the Humanities;
excellent research skills demonstrated by a track record of publishing in high-ranking journals and/or with leading presses or a demonstrable capacity to develop such a record;

a strong cooperative attitude and willingness to engage in collaborative research;
enthusiasm for communicating academic research to non-academic audiences;
excellent command English.

What can we offer you

The Postdoc researcher will be appointed at the Department of History, European Studies and Religious Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam and will conduct the research in ARTES. The employment contract will be for one year. Contingent on a positive performance evaluation the contract will be extended with one year. The employment contract is for 30,4-38 hours a week. Preferred starting date is 01 October 2022.

The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week and relevant experience, ranges between € 3,974,00 to € 5,439,00. This sum does not include the 8% holiday allowance and the 8,3% year-end allowance. A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants. The Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities is applicable.

What else do we offer

excellent possibilities for further professional development and education, including participation in a dedicated Research Training group;
an enthusiastic, inspiring and professional academic team;
the opportunity to collaborate with leading researchers at research institutes that – partly as a result of their interdisciplinary approach – are world renowned.

About us

The University of Amsterdam is the Netherlands’ largest university, offering the widest range of academic programmes. At the UvA, 30,000 students, 6,000 staff members and 3,000 PhD candidates study and work in a diverse range of fields, connected by a culture of curiosity.

The Faculty of Humanities provides education and conducts research with a strong international profile in a large number of disciplines in de field of language and culture. Located in the heart of Amsterdam, the faculty maintains close ties with many cultural institutes in the capital city. Research and teaching staff focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and are active in several teaching programmes.

Want to know more about our organisation? Read more about working at the University of Amsterdam.

Questions

Do you have any questions or do you require additional information? Please contact:

dr. Guido Snel

Job application

If you feel the profile fits you, and you are interested in the job, we look forward to receiving your application. You can apply online via the link below. The deadline for applying for this vacancy is 01 September 2022.

Applications should include the following information (submitted in one pdf):

A letter of motivation.
A research proposal of 800-1000 words, explaining how you would approach the project thematically, conceptually and methodologically, within the timeline of the 2 years appointment.
A full academic CV, including a list of publications.
The names and contact details of two references who may be approached by the selection committee.

Only complete applications received within the response period via the link below will be considered.

The interviews will be held in the course of the first weeks of September 2022.

The UvA is an equal-opportunity employer. We prioritise diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for everyone. We value a spirit of enquiry and perseverance, provide the space to keep asking questions, and promote a culture of curiosity and creativity.

If you encounter Error GBB451, reach out to our HR Department directly. They will gladly help you continue your application.

No agencies please *

Call for Contributors

Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 393 (Twenty-First Century Indigenous Fiction Writers in the United States and Canada), edited by Derek C. Maus (State University of New York at Potsdam, which sits on unceded Haudenosaunee territory)

deadline for submissions: August 1, 2022

I am seeking scholars – a range that includes doctoral students through emeritus/emerita faculty – interested in contributing to a new volume in Gale’s Dictionary of Literary Biography series. Upon its contracted publication in the summer of 2023, this resource will fill a massive gap in the biographical and bibliographic coverage of contemporary Indigenous authors of fiction living and working within the settler nations of the United States and Canada. It has been nearly a quarter-century since volume 175 of this series covered “Native American Writers of the United States” (1997) and although a handful of major figures from the latter half of the twentieth century have been covered in other DLB volumes, no comprehensive volume dedicated to a broad overview of post-“Native American Renaissance” Indigenous writing has yet been produced as part of this important reference source.

With the publication of When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (ed. Joy Harjo, Leanne Howe, et al.) in 2020, Indigenous poetry received a major boost in mainstream visibility. Although the intent of that volume and the Dictionary of Literary Biography is somewhat different, my hope is that this volume can shine a similarly bright light on a broad sampling of Indigenous authors who have published works of fiction since 1997, the last time DLB published a volume exclusively focused on Indigenous writers.

I would especially like to use this volume to cover a number of emerging or otherwise lesser-known writers who have not received previous attention within this series. For this reason, the list of names for whom I am seeking bio-/bibliographic entries includes numerous authors whose published body of work to date includes only one or two book-length works, often ones that appeared in the last few years. It is absolutely essential to recognize and to recontextualize such eminent authors such as Sherman Alexie, Louise Erdrich, Linda Hogan, Thomas King, and Gerald Vizenor, all of whom have all continued publishing fiction since their inclusion in vol. 175. However, no adequate overview of the full diversity of fiction published by Indigenous authors in the past two decades exists and this volume is well-positioned to fill that gap. Therefore, I have included more names of authors than can ultimately be covered in the volume, but I have done so with the hope of casting as wide a net as possible. If there are other authors who you believe merit coverage, please do not hesitate in suggesting them to me as there are surely gaps in my own experience of contemporary Indigenous fiction.

Alongside authors of fairly conventional “literary” fiction, I have also included some authors primarily known for “young adult” fiction as well as some whose work is primarily graphic fiction. I have also included a handful of figures (e.g., Tomson Highway) who are known far more for their work in other genres than fiction. The essays in this collection should focus only on their subject’s published works of fiction since 1997, though there obviously will be occasions for making reference to earlier works and/or works in other genres/media.

In recognition of the added logistical and mental/emotional complications brought on by the upheaval in academic working conditions, completed essays for the collection are due as e-mail attachments by August 1, 2022. The word-counts (which include bibliographic data) included for each entry in the linked spreadsheet are fairly firm, though they can be exceeded in some exceptional instances if negotiated in advance. Gale compensates authors in this series for entries at a rate of $40 per 1000 words (as listed in the spreadsheet); thus, a 3000-word entry earns $120, a 5000-word entry earns $200, etc. I sincerely wish this could be more, but I am grateful that any resources are being set aside to make this project a reality, because it is long overdue.

If you are interested in contributing to this project, please send me an email at mausdc@potsdam.edu and I will send you the current list of “unclaimed” authors. If you have the time, the inclination, and the mental energy to contribute to this project, I sincerely invite you to do so. I am happy to answer any additional questions about the book, the series, or any other aspect of the project via e-mail. Derek C. Maus, editor contact email: mausdc@potsdam.edu

Themed Journal Issue on “Narrative and Identity”

The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture

deadline for submissions:

July 10, 2022

lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz

The call for papers for the next issue of the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture (Issue 11.1-2), on the general theme of ‘narrative and identity’, is now open.

Article submissions on any aspect of the theme are encouraged. The Issue’s Editors particulalry invite articles on the following topics:

– self-representation on social media
– representations of disability and neurodiversity in popular culture
– re-inventions of genre and viewership/readership in popular culture
– alternative realities and modes of storytelling in (video) games
– online fandoms and identity
– popular icons

The deadline for submissions of full articles (5-6k words) is 10 July 2022. The Journal is indexed in SCOPUS (among others), and its remit is broad and international. Further information about the Journal can be found here: https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-australasian-journal-of-popular-culture

Please submit your articles for consideration (together with a short bio and insitutional affiliation) to both editors: Professor Lorna Piatti-Farnell (lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz) and Dr Ashleigh Prosser (ashleigh.prosser@uwa.edu.au).

The Issue will be published (both in print and electronically) in December 2022

Deadline for Submissions July 15, 2022

Call for Papers for proposed panel for South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) 2022

November 11-13, 2022 in Jacksonville, FL

Autobiography: Changes in Form and Meaning

This interdisciplinary panel welcomes submissions on any aspect of change within life writing. With the proliferation of modes available for what Anna Poletti has termed “self-life-inscription,” and a concurrent rise in hybrid genres such as autofiction that challenge the assumed boundary between truth and fiction in autobiographical narrative, it is clear that the scope of what is considered autobiography is changing. This panel seeks to articulate these changes and explore how they are impacting our understanding of the meaning and significance of life writing. Papers might explore changes in the medium of autobiography, such as social media, photography, film, graphic narratives, material collections, or performance. Papers might also address changes within established forms such as confession, memoir, the personal essay, or the diary. Theoretical considerations of change, transformation, or conversion within autobiography would also be welcome. By July 15^th, please submit an abstract of 250 words, a brief bio, and any A/V or scheduling requests to Kimberly Hall, Wofford College, at hallka@wofford.edu

The SAMLA Conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront. For additional conference information, please see the SAMLA website: https://samla.memberclicks.net.

CFP: Out of Confinement: Creativity in Constraint

Women in French Studies Special Issue (2024)

July 15, 2022

contact email:

youna_kwak@redlands.edu

We invite article submissions for a special topics issue of Women in French Studies (2024) to explore work created by confined women and work that represents confined women, from the early modern period to the present-day. The special issue will explore how the confinement of women as depicted in fictional and non-fictional texts (in any media) informs, reflects and interrogates gendered conditions of existence. How have confined women been represented in literature, film and art? What kind of thinking or writing is produced by women out of conditions of confinement? What are the impacts of confinement on creative production? How does physical confinement change how we consume texts?

In March 2020, the word confinement suddenly became an unwelcome part of our everyday lexicon, as lockdown, quarantine, and stay-at-home orders were issued worldwide to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Within the household, mandatory confinement exacerbated women’s perennially uneven obligation to engage in invisible labor—whether middle-class women working from home, or working-class women compelled to risk their health so that others could abide by the imperative to stay in. Both within and outside the home, women were disproportionately tasked with “essential,” racialized and gendered, structurally invisible forms of labor, including childcare, cleaning, healthcare, food preparation, and eldercare.

Since the early modern period, accounts of women’s experiences in voluntary or forced confinement have been richly explored in works by French-language writers as diverse as Marie de France, Marguerite de Navarre, Assia Djebar, and Marie Darrieussecq, to name a few. On the one hand, representations of confinement can confirm that gender disparities are exacerbated when burdens are unequally shouldered by women during periods of confinement. On the other hand, representations of cloister or retreat that express the fantasy of liberatory or self-actualizing confinement, in explicitly repudiating familial or social obligations, can unsettle the caregiving roles traditionally assigned to women, as spouses, mothers, or daughters.

We invite proposals from all historic periods, genres, and geographic regions.

CALL FOR CHAPTERS ‘STARS AND FRANCHISES’ EDITED COLLECTION

Sarah Thomas (University of Liverpool, UK) and Mark McKenna (Staffordshire University, UK)

contact email:

s.k.thomas@liverpool.ac.uk

This edited collection seeks to examine the intersections between two significant media systems: stardom and the franchise. It will explore the convergences, tensions and inter-dependences that star-driven texts and franchise cultures have constantly negotiated within the entertainment industry, on a global, historical and multiplatform scale. It aims to analyse franchise sites and strategies as significant nexus where an understanding of stars is created, managed and interpreted, and to analyse the place and value of the star to media franchise production.

Whilst not aiming to be exclusively contemporaneous in its outlook, the collection intervenes at a moment where Variety has argued that ‘IP, not actors, is the main attraction’ (Rubin & Lang 2021). A particularly Western-centric perspective, this statement is informed by – among other things – the increased dominance of Disney and the Marvel Universe and their pursuit of seemingly endless franchised, multiplatform entertainment that subsume countless Hollywood A-listers into those texts and contexts. From the digital de-ageing of established performers in the MCU, the rise of a young generation of stars (like Tom Holland) fluent in the fragmented media markets that often typify franchise cultures, to noteworthy conflicts around contract negotiations and image rights, and star ownership stakes in their franchise IP (Keanu Reeves and John Wick), significant shifts are occurring around star image, labour and agency in the midst of the asset value of media licensing and intellectual property.

The star-franchise intersection represents a tension between distinct forms of media marketing. Whilst these ‘two modes of product differentiation may converge [they] do not easily coalesce’ with contemporary stars ‘under pressure to support franchise world development, not supplant it’ (Lomax 2020: 188). In intellectual property networks like franchises, ‘stardom and celebrity persona take a back seat, replaced by character brands’ (Johnson 2008: 217). And yet star identities, where the actor-signifier is foregrounded over the character-signifier, have persisted across franchise texts, industries and cultures. In the contemporary era, stars like Harrison Ford and Jamie Lee Curtis stand as authenticating devices to anchor franchises, conveying ideas of legacy and nostalgia or as a means of negotiating digital aesthetics (see Knee and Fleming [2020] and Golding [2021]). The video game FIFA has integrated playable star ‘icons’ in its recent editions, like David Beckham and Dua Lipa. Hindi superstar Salman Khan stars in the popular Tiger franchise, while Shah Rukh Khan owns major stakes in international sports franchises. Historically, star-driven franchise properties include Bing Crosby and Bob Hope’s ‘Road to’ series, Peter Sellers and The Pink Panther series, and Tom Mix’s films, comics and radio shows. Cultural icons like Mexico’s El Santo, the UK’s Norman Wisdom or Carry On stars, and Hong Kong’s Kwan Tak-hing are all associated with a variety of franchised entertainment. These brief examples show the different relationships that can exist between star and property that the volume wishes to examine, each revealing how repetition, remediation and re-interpretation of stars through franchise properties work to extend a star’s economic and cultural value.

The proposed edited collection will be submitted to Edinburgh University Press (EUP) as part of the ‘International Film Stars’ series. While the subject matter will undoubtedly attract scholars interested in exploring the increased dominance of franchise cinema as Hollywood’s primary mode of production, and this is something that we wholeheartedly encourage, we are also keen to hear from contributors interested in exploring franchises and stars that fall outside of the Anglo-American experience. If you would like to discuss your ideas, please feel free to get in touch.

Our collection seeks chapters that investigate the star-franchise intersection, including (but not limited to):

Case studies of specific stars or franchise properties.
Star-driven franchises.
Franchises where the franchise IP exceeds that of the star(s).
The paradoxical relationship between star identities and franchise texts where to support ongoing lives as multiplatform, historical entities, franchise properties often celebrate and dismiss the central star brands that exist within them.
The impact of star persona and character creation over time where franchises provide a sustained environment to construct performance, image and identity through core texts, branded marketing content and other multiplatform extensions.
Franchises in non-cinematic contexts
Ideological and cultural readings of franchise stardom and star image.
Absent or underdeveloped franchise stars and spaces, especially in terms of race, gender and sexuality
Research that engages with questions of media industries and labour, thinking about what it means for star performers to work in a franchise environment.
The impact of this on wider conceptions of star power and systemic entertainment infrastructures, economics, and legislations.
Franchise stardom as product differentiation and marking/branding strategy, including promotional personae.
The consideration of these (and other) issues within global, multimedia/multiplatform and historical contexts.
Research that explores to what degree the contemporary Hollywood moment reflects broader uses and cultures in industries around the world and through different decades of production and cultural history.

Please send abstracts of 300 to 500 words and a brief biographical note of 150 words to s.k.thomas@liverpool.ac.uk

Deadline for chapter proposals: 30 July 2022
Notification of acceptance: 31 August 2022
Full chapter submission: 31 June 2023

Further dates to be confirmed as the collection progresses.

Editor bios:

Sarah Thomas is Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. She researches screen performance and industrial approaches to stardom, with a current focus on digital and immersive media and franchise production. She is the author of the monographs Peter Lorre – Face Maker (Berghahn 2012) and James Mason (BFI Bloomsbury 2018), and co-editor of Cult Film Stardom (Palgrave 2013).

Mark McKenna is Associate Professor of Film and Media Industries at Staffordshire University. His research focuses on media marketing and distribution, censorship and regulation and global media industries. He is the author of Nasty Business: The Marketing and Branding of the Video Nasties (EUP 2020) and the forthcoming Snuff (Liverpool University Press), and co-editor of Horror Film Franchises (Routledge 2021).

References:

Fleming, David H. & Adam Knee. 2020. ‘The analogue strikes back: Star Wars, star authenticity, and cinematic anachronism’, Celebrity Studies 11:2: 205-220

Golding, Dan. 2021. ‘The memory of perfection: Digital faces and nostalgic franchise cinema’, Convergence, 27:4: 855–867

International Conference ‘Touring Travel Writing II: Between Fact and Fiction’

deadline for submissions:

July 31, 2022

full name / name of organization:

CETAPS (Nova University)

contact email:

touringtravelwriting@gmail.com

As indicated by the number in its title, this conference is the second in a series focused on travel writing studies. The first one, which took place in 2019, celebrated the 300th anniversary of the publication of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and its literary legacy. This second edition will celebrate the 100th anniversary of James Joyce’s modernist novel Ulysses (1922), which chronicles the itinerary of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day.

CETAPS (Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, Universidade Nova, Lisbon) and CELIS (Centre de Recherches sur les Littératures et la Sociopoétique, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand) once again join efforts and organise this international conference which aims to be a locus of debate on the many facets of travel writing, a research area that has emerged as a relevant topic of study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in the last few decades.

Date: September 8-9, 2022

Papers on the following topics are welcome:

Anglophone travel writingon the Portuguese-speaking world
Lusophone travel writing on the Anglophone World
Travelling to write
Travel writing, the novel, poetry and drama
Travel writing as report
Travel and visual culture
Travel writing, Humanitiesand the Social Sciences
Travelwriting, gender and power
Travel writing, (post)colonial discourse and decoloniality
Travel writing and (forced) migration
Travel writing, imagined communities and imagology
Travel writing and tourist culture
Travelwriting and (in)tangible heritage
Travelwriting and exploration
Travelling as gentrification
Travel writing, censorship and surveillance
Travel writing and (auto)biography

Travel writing and Otherness
Travelwriting, politics and ideology
Travel writing and ethics
Travel writing, mobility and conviviality
Mapsas travel narratives
Travel,Fantasy, Children’s Literature and Young Adult Fiction
Sound/Food/Smell/Touch/Visual/Ecoscapes in Travel Writing
Travel writing in/as translation
Utopian and dystopian travel narratives
Science and travel writing
History of Travel Writing
Travel writing: theory and criticism
Intertextuality in travel writing
The rhetorics of travel writing
Teaching Travel Writing

Keynote speakers:
Carl Thompson (University of Surrey, UK)
Maria de Fátima Outeirinho (Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto)

Papers and pre-organized panels:
The conference languages are English, Spanish and Portuguese. Speakers should prepare for a 20-minute presentation. Please send a 300-word abstract, as well as a short biographical note (100 words), by July 31st, to:

touringtravelwriting@gmail.com

Proposals for papers and pre-organized panels (in this case, please also include a brief description of the panel) should include full title of the paper, name, institutional affiliation, contact details, a short bionote and AV requirements (if any).

Notification of abstract acceptance or rejection will take place by August 5, 2022.

Registration fees:
•Full fee: 80Euros
• Students: 40 Euros (ID required)

Payment must be made until August 20, 2022. After this date proposals will no longer be considered.

For further queries please contact:
cetaps@fcsh.unl.pt
or
touringtravelwriting@gmail.com
or
mzc@fcsh.unl.pt

Delegates are responsible for their own travel arrangements and accommodation.The conference website will soon provide useful information.

Payment:
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Student Fee: 41,71€ (PT & EUROzone)
42,31€ (Rest of the World)
Please send a copy of your confirmed payment to: cetaps@fcsh.unl.pt

Event website:http://www.touringtravelwriting.wordpress.com

Deadline for Submissions: July 31, 2022

Communist Biographies – New perspectives, sources and discussions

A Special Issue of Securitas Imperii: Journal for the Study of Modern Dictatorships

More than thirty years ago, the possibility of research on the history of the communist movement and regime opened up in Czechoslovakia as well in other former state-socialist countries. The few attempts to produce scholarly biographies of politicians and other personalities associated with communist ideology and practice stood somewhat apart from the multitude of topics, research areas, and methodological approaches. Rather, the period demand for “filling in the blanks” prompted the rapid publication of the “secrets” hidden in the archives on partial issues and cases. Biography, as a method attempting a comprehensive and at the same time essentially individualized treatment of a person’s life set in a broad political and social context, required long-term research, that was often at odds with the priorities of research institution and grant agencies. In the Czech milieu, moreover, priority was given to learning about the lives and fates of democratic and non-communist personalities who belonged among those famous “blanks”. However, the few biographies, which began to be published ten or more years after the political change of 1989, showed the exceptional potential of the biographical method in the study of communism as a fundamental phenomenon in the history of the 20th century. By taking the lives of individuals, whether political leaders or cultural and artistic figures, as examples, it was possible to address the deep internal contradictions and ambivalences that communism contained.

The aim of the thematic issue is to provide a space for the discussion of the results achieved so far in the field of biography within the study of communism, both in the Czech and international context. It also aims to contribute to the debate on methodological problems and the future direction of this genre. In order to comprehensively understand the phenomenon of communism as an internationalist movement making a universalist claim, it is necessary to link different research contexts. We would be pleased if the forthcoming issue contributes to this goal.

Editors welcome contributions from different fields of research: history, political science, cultural studies, philosophy, sociology, gender studies or any other related areas of interest.

Topics may address (but are not limited to) the following aspects:

Biography as a method and genre of the history of communism

We welcome studies focusing on different aspects of the methodology of historical biographies, taking into account the context for the study of the communist movement in the national and international context. These aspects are in particular:

implications of biographies for the study of the history of the communist movement and governance, including transnational perspective
the limits and challenges of working with archival fonds and other types of sources such as personal papers, published diaries and memoirs or interviews
trends, innovations and new impulses in the writing of historical biographies
comparison of experiences and achievements in the field of biography in different national settings
the development of professional and social demand for specialised biographies of communist figures in various countries of the former Western and Eastern worlds

Biographical studies focusing on various aspects of communism

We welcome biographical studies focusing on various aspects of belonging to the communist movement and identification with the communist ideology and its goals. These aspects are in particular:

background, family and social origin
biographies of the main personalities of the communist movement over time – their influence on the co-creation of personal history and the connection with the development of the movement
shared identities and the relationship between them: nation, class, education, gender
national, regional and local specifics in a universally defined movement; international experience of activity in the structures of the international communist movement
motivation and context of involvement in the movement – the relationship between idealism and pragmatism, attitude to power and its use, the question of loyalty, conformity and party discipline and its limits
devotion and willingness to self-sacrifice – experience of illegality, imprisonment and other forms of repression by anti-communist power
experience of exile – political activity and living conditions of emigrants
cases of apostasy, condemnation and party dissent – the experience of the victims of purges and repressions under Stalinism and further

We welcome both the elaboration of episodes and the evaluation of the overall life course for biographies of party leaders and top officials and communist intellectuals, artists and scientists, and ordinary rank-and-file.

Studies using collective biography and comparative biography methods are also welcome. Contact Info:

Adéla Rádková, Ph.D.

Editor-in-chief

Securitas Imperii: Journal for the Study of Modern Dictatorships

Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes

Czech Republic Contact Email: securitas.imperii@ustrcr.cz URL: https://securitas-imperii-journal.com/news/?lang=en

Themed Journal Issue on “Narrative and Identity”

The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture

deadline for submissions:

July 10, 2022

lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz

The call for papers for the next issue of the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture (Issue 11.1-2), on the general theme of ‘narrative and identity’, is now open.

Article submissions on any aspect of the theme are encouraged. The Issue’s Editors particulalry invite articles on the following topics:

The Issue will be published (both in print and electronically) in December 2022.

Deadline for Submissions July 15, 2022

Call for Papers for proposed panel for South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) 2022

November 11-13, 2022 in Jacksonville, FL

Autobiography: Changes in Form and Meaning

The SAMLA Conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront. For additional conference information, please see the SAMLA website: https://samla.memberclicks.net.

CFP: Out of Confinement: Creativity in Constraint

Women in French Studies Special Issue (2024)

July 15, 2022

contact email:

youna_kwak@redlands.edu

We invite proposals from all historic periods, genres, and geographic regions.

Themed Journal Issue on “Narrative and Identity”

The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture

deadline for submissions:

July 10, 2022

lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz

The call for papers for the next issue of the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture (Issue 11.1-2), on the general theme of ‘narrative and identity’, is now open.

Article submissions on any aspect of the theme are encouraged. The Issue’s Editors particulalry invite articles on the following topics:

The Issue will be published (both in print and electronically) in December 2022.

Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:

July 1, 2022

Symposium, 5-6 August, 2022

Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter

contact email:

Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com

Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers

From the Aurat March in Pakistan to the Shaheen Bagh protests in India, Muslim women have been at the forefront of political change and social upheaval, both in recent years and in the past. With Bangladeshi lawyer Sara Hossain as the recipient of the International Women of Courage Award in 2016 for reforming legislation on violence against women and Arooj Aftab as the first Pakistani woman to win a Grammy in 2022, these achievements are also not limited to any single sphere of cultural influence. And yet, the dominant narrative surrounding the experiences of Muslim women continues to focus on the oppressions they have faced, with little to no consideration given to the way they have overcome these challenges. As such, the category of ‘Muslim Woman’ has been essentialised in ethonographic, Orientalist and neo-liberal discourses since it began to be ‘studied’, a narrative that scholars and activists alike are seeking to challenge more and more every day.

This essentialist discourse was recently highlighted across South Asia, thus proving the necessity of challenging such narratives. On March 15th 2022, the Karnataka High Court in India upheld a government order to deny entry to Muslim women who wear the hijab into educational institutions by ruling that the “hijab is not essential to Islam”. Two separate incidents of auctioning Muslim women online for ‘deals’ were reported within 8 months of each other between 2021-22 and the perpetrators of both were let off by the Delhi High Court on “humanitarian grounds”. In Sri Lanka, a similar anti-Muslim sentiment has been reverberating through the appeals of Buddhist monk group Bodu Bala Sena (BSS) to ban the burqa as a “sign of religious extremism”. Across the border in Pakistan, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) organised a ‘Hijab March’ in solidarity with the Muslim women in Karnataka in February 2022. Rather than focusing on freedom of choice, party leaders used the opportunity to take a stance against the Aurat March, an annual demonstration for women’s rights held across Pakistan on 8th March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Aurat March was, and is, constantly accused of violating haya (modesty), with particular reference made to“objectionable slogans” such as #MeraJismMeriMarzi.

There is a long and often neglected history of Muslim women intervening in debates about ‘reform’, decolonisation and citizenship to assert their own interests and identities, pioneering the rise of feminist scholarship and activism in South Asia. From Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hosain to Kamila Shamsie, one can trace a history of Muslim women writers and thinkers who have fundamentally altered contemporary literary and political discourse. A careful examination of these narratives surrounding Muslim women’s intellectual and political existence validates the significant work of scholars like Shenila Khoja-Moolji and Yasmin Saikia, who have argued that attempts to emancipate Muslim women have had to contend with simultaneously imposing uniform, majoritarian models of femininity– whether it is colonial modernity or orthodox religiosity. Navigating these binaries of emancipation and oppression, Muslim women have carved their own identities to interrogate and subvert these categorisations. This symposium is an attempt to bring together scholars, thinkers, artists and activists to create such a discursive space for a timely conversation on Muslim women’s pasts and present.

Each of our panels foregrounds the agential capacity of Muslim women in writing themselves and others, as they contend with shifting dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and caste, within and with relation to South Asia. This symposium hopes to disrupt the essentializing discourse on Muslim women’s identity by exploring the polyphonic nature of human subjectivities.
Discussion topics may include but are not limited to:

Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
Protest, resistance, and activism
Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
Purdah, privacy and public discourse
Marriage, family, and domesticity
Technology; social media; cybercrime
Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

We invite established academics and early-career/PhD scholars within the fields of humanities and social sciences, and outside of these realms, as well as non-academic voices working on and representing Muslim women’s perspectives with reference to South Asia to present 20-minute papers, mixed-media presentations or any other forms of discussion on or around the above themes. Please send 300 word abstracts/presentation outlines including a short biography of not more than 100 words to tasavvurcollective@gmail.com. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st July 2022, and selected participants will be contacted with the final schedule by 15th July 2022. The symposium will be held online via Zoom on 5th-6th August 2022.

Symposium organisers: Fatima Z. Naveed (University of Exeter), Sheelalipi Sahana (University of Edinburgh) and
Zehra Kazmi (University of St. Andrews) of the Tasavvur Collective. Follow us on Twitter: @tasavvurcollect for updates.

On (Re)Shaping Identity: Self-Portraiture and the Quotidian

PAMLA 2022 – Los Angeles, CA (November 11-13, 2022 – entirely in-person

deadline for submissions:

July 1, 2022

Please contact presiding officer for this session, Ariana Lyriotakis, with any questions: lyriotaa@tcd.ie

Special Session – CFP

Persona and confessional poetry of the Postmodern period enact an undeniable relationship with the quotidian. But how do these poems explore a visual depiction and an expression of self-identity in ordinary life? This panel will explore the methods by which poets manipulate and reject aesthetic production in their poetry, while calling into question subjectivity and truthful composition.

This special session will explore poetic self-portraiture and the shaping of identity within the bounds of the quotidian. John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is perhaps one of the more notable examples from this era; as a poetry firmly situated within the intermediality of poetic textual images and art, he addresses “the enchant of self with self” through personal depiction and aesthetic production. But what is revealed to the reader in these moments of vulnerability and self-appraisal? How can the poet be both subject and object, while constructing a poetic likeness amongst the commonplace? This panel seeks poetry of self-encounter, whether banal or familiar, to interrogate an inward/outward representation of the self within these constructs.

Contributions are invited relating to any of the following aspects, as well as broader interpretations of the theme which may illuminate and elucidate in greater detail. Please be in touch if you have any questions or require further clarification.

Depictions of the domestic and the visual
Intermediality of poetic textual images and art
Interrogations of the actual and the self
Orality and performance in poetry
Visuality of text and experimentation
Mimesis and the composition of ordinary spaces
Interdeterminacy and temporality

Abstracts must be submitted through the PAMLA website only.

The web address for this session’s CFP is: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/18564

All panel participants/presenters must join PAMLA by July 1, 2022.

https://pamla.ballastacademic.com

CALL FOR PAPERS:

LIFE WRITING AS WORLD LITERATURE (book)

Deadline for abstracts: July 1, 2022

Deadline for final essays: January 1, 2023

The series Literatures as World Literature by Bloomsbury Publishing aims to “take a novel approach to world literature by analyzing specific constellations — according to language, nation, form, or theme — of literary texts and authors in their own world-literary dimensions.” https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/series/literatures-as-world-literature/

The proposed volume will be dedicated to life writing. We use “life writing” as a broad term encompassing a wide variety of personal narratives. We also recognize the capaciousness of the term “world literature” and the accompanying challenges. By putting life writing and world literature into dialogue, we seek to explore their rich shared history, as well as new areas of research.

Authors are encouraged to explore, among others
the intersecting histories of the two fields
debates in world literature concerning auto/biographical genres
autobiographical texts outside the Western canons (East Asia, Latin America, Northern Africa, Middle East)
autobiographical works as they move in translation through global contexts
autobiographical works as they move across time and media (remediation, intermediality, etc.)
the role of materiality in life writing
visual narratives, new media, affective networks, and the role of life writing in participatory democracy
autobiographical texts in “world literature” courses and in cultural diplomacy
the role of autobiographical texts in eco or medical humanities
the homogenizing effects of autobiographical technology and data bias

Please submit abstracts of 350 words, along with a short bio, to the Editors: Helga Lenart-Cheng (hl4@stmarys-ca.edu) and Ioana Luca (ioana.luca@ntnu.edu.tw) by July 1, 2022.

Helga Lenart-Cheng
Associate Professor
World Languages and Cultures
Honors Program, Director
Saint Mary’s College of California
Book office hours here
Forthcoming in 2022: Story Revolutions: Collective Narratives from the Enlightenment to the Digital Age

Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:

July 1, 2022

Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter

contact email:

Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com

Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers

Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
Protest, resistance, and activism
Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
Purdah, privacy and public discourse
Marriage, family, and domesticity
Technology; social media; cybercrime
Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

*

Deadline for Submissions: July 1, 2022

Reimagining #MeToo in South Asia And the Diaspora (Edited Collection of Essays)

Dr. Nidhi Shrivastava

contact email:

shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu

This edited volume seeks to examine how sexual violence and feminist interventions in South Asia and the Diaspora have been articulated in the context of but, more importantly, in opposition to the #MeToo Movement. We seek to understand how the feminist movement has radically diverged from the assimilationist discourse of the #MeToo Movement and, consequently, the Global North. The #MeToo movement has not made an impact at the grassroots level because it is hinged on the victim-survivor to speak up. In an era where the Global North has been a model for influencing change in the Global South, there has been an inconspicuous absence of recognition and impact of the #MeToo Movement. In addition, survivors’ testimonies lie at the center of the #MeToo movement, which demystifies victim-shaming and victim-blaming, legitimizing the survivor’s testimony as the unquestionable truth.

Since 2017, the #MeToo movement has been successful in the conviction of Harvey Weinstein, who was at the center of the landmark trial. The #MeToo has had a significant impact worldwide on how we understand sexual harassment, rape, and gendered violence, especially in the US. However, this global women’s movement has had little reach in South Asia, where access to virtual platforms is limited, and hashtags are still unknown. The #MeToo Movement in South Asia and the Diaspora was taken up briefly by the media and entertainment industry but has failed to make a concrete impact in many ways. This can be attributed to multiple reasons – there are several regionally specific movements, such as the 2009 Pink Chaddi Campaign and 2011 #WhyLoiter campaign, that have been radically popular within the sub-continent.

In the South Asian context, such testimonies are still taboo, which leads to survivors refusing to share and relive their experiences/narratives even if they have the means and access. Therefore, our edited volume seeks to problematize the #MeToo movement in order to reimagine and contextualize it in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora as a much-needed intervention to examine the implications of a transnational feminist movement. We wish to explore questions such as: how the #MeToo movement can move away from Hollywood/Bollywood/workplace and elitist exclusivity. How can it be more inclusive of non-white and marginalized voices?

In light of the ongoing and increasing gender-based violence occurring in South Asia and the diaspora, our edited volume will reflect on these questions as we seek to understand new ways of formulating complex and nuanced gendered subjectivities vis-à-vis the lens of post-colonial feminism and intersectionality. Our focus shifts away from the traditional approaches of victimization to generate dialogue and hopefully create a new platform to break the silence and encourage discomforting narratives to normalize conversations surrounding this pivotal issue.

Themes include but are not limited to the following:

Pedagogy and Transformative Learning via #MeToo in the Classroom
Queer/LGBTQI+ Spaces within #MeToo
New Masculinities
Contemporary Gender Movements and Resistances
Caste, Gender, Class, and Social Spaces
Problematization of #MeToo and ‘Speaking Up’
New Modalities of Testimonies
Resistance and Digital Feminist Interventions
New Feminist Mediations
Militarized Feminist Modernities
Ageism
Viral Videos
Censorship, Cultural Production, and Minority Literature
Mythologies, Legends, and Sexuality

We welcome informal queries, and potential contributors may submit a 500-750 word abstract and 2 page CV by July 1, 2022. Please direct queries to Dr Nidhi Shrivastava (Sacred Heart University), shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu, Dr Ruma Sinha (Syracuse University), rumas1@gmail.com, and Dr Billie T. Guarino (Jamia Milia Islamia), thoidingjam@gmail.com. Acceptance of the final articles is subject to double-blind peer review. The final deadline for submitting 5,000- 6,000-word articles will be November 15, 2022.

Deadline for Submissions June 30, 2022

Representations of Border Crossings in Media, Literature, and the Arts

International Academic Conference:15-16 December 2022

MIDEX Centre, University of Central Lancashire

(Research Strand: Representations of Migration, Diaspora and Exile in Media, Literature, and Art)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Border crossings delineate movement from a place, nation, and culture, inter alia, to another. Border crossers, Jane Jackson (2014) writes, can move temporarily or permanently, and crossings can be forced or voluntary, successful or unsuccessful, contemporary or historical. They can lead to multicultural identity formations, or to experiences and feelings of exclusion and isolation (Martin and Nakayama 2008). Because they are embodied experiences, they are determined by race, ethnicity, citizenship status, religion and gender, as well as by biopolitical and necropolitical practices, particularly, when deemed ‘irregular.’ Representations of border crossings play a key role in media, literature, visual, as well as performance arts. Historical and contemporary border crossings form a core segment of literary and artistic production as shown by the publication of literary and graphic migration narratives, museum exhibitions, installations in galleries and open public spaces, and via dance, music and theatre performances (Viljoen 2013). At the same time, representations of contemporary ‘irregular’ border crossings foreground the injurious implications of border control practices, as well as media responsibilities of a ‘crisis’ (Chouliaraki and Stolic 2017).

For this conference, we invite papers that explore representations of border crossings in media, literature, and the arts. We seek to examine the kinds of narratives that can be told through media, artistic and literary attempts to speak about border-crossing subjects. We hope to determine the extent to which such representations cross borders themselves by being exposed to culturally different audiences (Friedman 2005). We further mean to investigate how border-crossing ‘selves’ and ‘others’, collective, or individual, become displayed in such representations and whether hegemonic, (neo-)colonial hierarchies become undone or reproduced through them. How can a person in the position of the ‘host,’ for instance, ‘imagine another without doing violence to [their] object of description’ (Black 2010: 1)? How can representations of liminal, border-crossing subjects disrupt narratives of modernity/coloniality (Schimanski and Wolfe 2013; Mignolo 2011)? Can such representations show ‘how changing perceptions of borders relate to shifting aesthetic practices’ (Wolfe 2014: 1; Schimanski and Wolfe 2007)? How do they illustrate that ‘as the border crosser crosses the border, new […] borders are created and crossed in the crosser’s own story, and in the story of the border itself’ (Schimanski 2006: 47)? What are the strategies that would enable nuanced interpretations of such representations (see Schimanski and Wolfe 2017)?

We call for researchers and practitioners to submit proposals of up to 250 words for 20-minute presentations exploring border-crossings in literature, media and the arts. We also invite creative practitioners to submit performances, readings, (video) installations, and exhibitions, inter alia. The themes that can be explored include, but are not limited to:

• Exilic, diasporic, migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking border crossers

• Border-crossing, gender, and sexuality

• Decolonial and postcolonial border-crossings

• Border-crossing traumas

• Border-crossing memories

• Affective border-crossings

• Border-crossing as an opportunity

• Metaphorical, cultural, and linguistic border crossings

Please submit your proposals to bordercrossing@uclan.ac.uk by 30th of June, 2022.

References:

Black, S. (2010), Fiction Across Borders: Imagining the Lives of Others in Late-Twentieth Century Fiction, New York : Columbia University Press.

Chouliaraki, L. and T. Stolic (2017), ‘Rethinking Media Responsibility in the Refugee “Crisis:” A Visual Typology of European News’, Media, Culture & Society, 39(8):1162-77.

Friedman, S. S. (2005), ‘Spatial Poetics and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things’, in J. Phelan and P. J. Rabinowitz (eds), A Companion to Narrative Theory, 192-205, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Jackson, J. (2014), Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication, London: Routledge.

Martin, J.N. and Nakayama, T.K. (2008), Experiencing Intercultural Communication: An Introduction, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Mignolo, D. W. (2011), The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options, New York: Duke University Press.

Schimanski, J. (2006), ‘Crossing and Reading: Notes towards a Theory and Method’, Nordlit, 19: 41-63.

Schimanski, J. and S. Wolfe (2007), ‘Entry Points: An Introduction’ in J. Schimanski and S. Wolfe (eds), Border Poetics De-Limited, 9-26, Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag.

____. (2013), ‘The Aesthetics of Borders’, in K. Aukrust (ed), Assigning Cultural Values, 235-250, Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

____. eds. (2017), Border Aesthetics: Concepts and Intersections, New York: Berghahn.

Viljoen, H., ed. (2013), Crossing Borders, Dissolving Boundaries, Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Wolfe, S. (2014), ‘Border Aesthetics/Border Works’, Nordlit, 31:1-5.

“’My strength, my comfort, my intense delight’: Women, Art and Lifewriting in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.”

Universities Art Association of Canada annual conference Oct 27-29, University of Toronto.

Deadline for abstracts: June 30.

Like her contemporary Eugène Delacroix, British watercolourist Elizabeth Murray left the “West” in the early 1800s for the “Orient,” recording her adventures in extensive writings and images. However, while Delacroix’s journals and notebooks became widely celebrated, Murray’s account slid into obscurity—even though Delacroix’s journey lasted only six months and generated two articles, while Murray’s time in the region prompted her two-volume autobiography Sixteen Years of an Artist’s Life in Morocco, Spain, and the Canary Islands. Moreover, accounts by other women from that century—Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun; Elizabeth Butler—similarly languished, creating the sense that this era’s female artists neither left home nor published autobiographies. This panel aims to explode this misapprehension by convening discussions of lifewriting by women artists of the 1800s and earlier. We welcome proposals regarding all lifewriting forms (e.g. diaries, letters), with particular interest in accounts originating outside normative “Western” narratives, and/or regarding now-obscure autobiographies.

Per standard practice, you need to join UAAC if your paper is accepted – but you don’t need to join to submit a proposal. Questions? creeve@ocadu.ca

Application process and full conference CFP here.

Charles Reeve

OCAD University

Chair, Liberal Studies

Faculty of Arts & Science

CALL FOR PAPERS
North-American Novelists’ Autobiographical Acts: Nonfictional Disruptions

Aix-Marseilles University, 6/7 July 2023
Organizers: Sophie Vallas (Aix-Marseilles University, LERMA), Arnaud Schmitt (University of Bordeaux, CLIMAS)

Deadline for Submissions June 30, 2022 Addressing the topic of autobiographical texts or memoirs published by novelists, what she calls “the literary writer’s autobiography,” Laura Marcus underlines that the reader’s awareness of the name and reputation of the author immediately confers a certain literary status on the autobiographical text: “Not all autobiographers are writers by profession, though there is a widespread assumption that the literary writer’s autobiography best defines the genre.” Far from the host of confessional memoirs, either by celebrities or unknown authors, a publishing phenomenon identified by Rockwell Gray as a “memoir boom” in his 1982 article “Autobiography Now,” and far from so-called autobiographical novels or autofictions which, according to Maurice Couturier, allowed many writers to “smuggle their own autobiographies,” this conference will focus on autobiographical texts—paratextually and unequivocally identified as such—published by American novelists, on “the literary writer’s autobiography” in other words, and on their influence on the perception of the overall work of their author. We will wonder how autobiographical acts happen, when they happen, in a career dominated by fiction, what their links with the fictional part of the work are or why they are often perceived as minor texts among a fictional body of major ones. Also, do they conjure up specific writing techniques, a separate creative space? The disruption caused by autobiographical texts in a literary work mostly devoted to the writing of fiction raises several questions concerning the artistic logic underlying them, the way they are embedded in the complete oeuvre of the author and the editorial and paratextual choices made for their publication.
It often seems logical that authors should turn to life writing at the end of their career, an introspective act embracing their whole life, revisiting their own work. Mark Twain, who published a few chapters of his autobiography in the years prior to his death, decided nevertheless that its publication would be a posthumous act, a hundred years after his death more precisely (The Autobiography of Mark Twain, 2010). Other texts, also published late in their authors’ life, focus on the death of a relative or a friend while offering authors the opportunity to reflect on their own life, inexorably drawing to a close: Joan Didion’s autobiographical diptych, The Year of the Magical Thinking in 2005 (simultaneously mourning the death and celebrating the life of her husband, John Dunne) and Blue Nights in 2011 (doing the same for Didion’s adopted daughter, Quintana, who died in 2005), belongs to this crepuscular tradition in which writing almost amounts to issuing legal, performative acts standing for marriage, adoption, death. Such is also the case for Philip Roth’s Patrimony (1991). Conversely, some autobiographical texts herald the birth of an author: Paul Auster’s The Invention of Solitude (1982) delivered, in prose, the new voice of a poet and essayist who, from then on, would dedicate his career as a novelist to developing and fictionalizing many topics already present in this seminal memoir. Auster has gone on regularly publishing autobiographical narratives, each time revisiting his life from a different angle and adding new acts to the play of his life (The Red Notebook, 1995; Hand to Mouth, 1997; Winter Journal, 2012; Report from the Interior, 2013).
For other autobiographical texts, what is at stake is less the moment when they get written, either at the beginning or at the end of a career, than their capacity of exploring the very art of their authors. In that case, they tend to exist as so many comments on the fictional works which they occasionally revisit. Joyce Carol Oates, for instance, has kept on analyzing the act of writing throughout the years ((Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities, 1974; The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art, 2003; A Widow’s Story. A Memoir, 2011; The Lost Landscape. A Writer’s Coming of Age, 2015). At the very opposite of Oates’ regular autobiographical practice, James Salter’s Burning the Days (1997) stands as a unique autobiographical text in a body of work otherwise entirely devoted to fiction, almost like a faulty act, even if the volume sounds like Salter’s powerful novels in terms of structure and voice, much to the delight of his readers. On the other hand, certain autobiographical texts, just like Richard Wright’s Black Boy (1945) for instance, can be seen as irreversible acts which eclipse the author’s fictional production.
Philippe Lejeune once regretted that “the dirty habit of publishing diaries has resulted into most people writing their privacy while decked out in their very best attire.” Is a novelist, and even more so an established one, not tempted, indeed, to write their autobiography in their best array, drifting away from spontaneous, supposedly authentic autobiographical acts which tend to be nowadays published on social networks? Autobiography indeed involves an element of risk and exposure since it may, whether purposefully or not, allow the reader to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of fiction, and thus disrupt the construction of the figure of the author. Proposals may address, among other issues, the following:
– The origin of the autobiographical act in a novelist’s career
– The minor works/major works dialectics.
– Stylistic specificities of autobiographical narratives versus fictional texts
– The balance in an author’s oeuvre, and more specifically the place occupied by the autobiographical texts in the overall work
– The reception of the autobiographical texts, often isolated or unknown
– The dialogue between fictional and non-fictional texts within a work (Laura Marcus: “The literary writer’s autobiography also bears on, and frequently comments upon, his or her other works”)
– The tools needed for analysis (similar, different?) to study the autobiographical texts
– The persistence of a distance between the narrator and the author, even in an autobiographical text, similar to that embodied by the concept of implied narrator whose presence Jim Phelan, for example, detects even in referential texts such as Joan Didion’s The Year of MagicalThinking.

Please submit an abstract of approx. 400 words and a short bionote to sophie.vallas@univ-amu.fr and arnaud.schmitt@u-bordeaux.fr by 30 June, 2022 at the latest.

Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:

July 1, 2022

Symposium, 5-6 August, 2022

Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter

contact email:

Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com

Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers

Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
Protest, resistance, and activism
Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
Purdah, privacy and public discourse
Marriage, family, and domesticity
Technology; social media; cybercrime
Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

On (Re)Shaping Identity: Self-Portraiture and the Quotidian

PAMLA 2022 – Los Angeles, CA (November 11-13, 2022 – entirely in-person

deadline for submissions:

July 1, 2022

Please contact presiding officer for this session, Ariana Lyriotakis, with any questions: lyriotaa@tcd.ie

Special Session – CFP

Depictions of the domestic and the visual
Intermediality of poetic textual images and art
Interrogations of the actual and the self
Orality and performance in poetry
Visuality of text and experimentation
Mimesis and the composition of ordinary spaces
Interdeterminacy and temporality

Abstracts must be submitted through the PAMLA website only.

The web address for this session’s CFP is: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/18564

All panel participants/presenters must join PAMLA by July 1, 2022.

https://pamla.ballastacademic.com

CALL FOR PAPERS:

LIFE WRITING AS WORLD LITERATURE (book)

Deadline for abstracts: July 1, 2022

Deadline for final essays: January 1, 2023

Please submit abstracts of 350 words, along with a short bio, to the Editors: Helga Lenart-Cheng (hl4@stmarys-ca.edu) and Ioana Luca (ioana.luca@ntnu.edu.tw) by July 1, 2022.

Tasavvur Collective’s 2022 Symposium – ‘Writing Muslim Women in South Asia’

deadline for submissions:

July 1, 2022

Tasavvur Collective, Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Exeter

contact email:

Tasavvurcollective@gmail.com

Symposium Concept Note and Call for Papers

Narratives of gender, sexuality and queerness Agency and artistic expression in Muslim women
Protest, resistance, and activism
Nationalism, nation and gender; Partition(s) Space, place and temporality
Purdah, privacy and public discourse
Marriage, family, and domesticity
Technology; social media; cybercrime
Sair: narratives of travel, cosmopolitanism and mobility
‘Modern’ Muslim women; self-fashioning in the age of empire
Sharif Ladki: reform, education and girlhood
Zaat: intersections of caste and gender in South Asian Islam
Begumati Zubaan: gender and multilingualism

*

Deadline for Submissions: July 1, 2022

Reimagining #MeToo in South Asia And the Diaspora (Edited Collection of Essays)

Dr. Nidhi Shrivastava

contact email:

shrivastavan@sacredheart.edu

Themes include but are not limited to the following:

Pedagogy and Transformative Learning via #MeToo in the Classroom
Queer/LGBTQI+ Spaces within #MeToo
New Masculinities
Contemporary Gender Movements and Resistances
Caste, Gender, Class, and Social Spaces
Problematization of #MeToo and ‘Speaking Up’
New Modalities of Testimonies
Resistance and Digital Feminist Interventions
New Feminist Mediations
Militarized Feminist Modernities
Ageism
Viral Videos
Censorship, Cultural Production, and Minority Literature
Mythologies, Legends, and Sexuality