Chaos // Order

william blake

The MML Graduate Network Conference 2017 are hosting a conference on 'Chaos // Order'. The Greek word 'chaos' means gap and abyss. According to Greek mythology, Chaos was the first thing to exist, and then generated Day and Night. Ovid calls Chaos a 'coarse mound' of things 'at strife among themselves'. But what exactly is the 'gap' that chaos creates? What fills it? What lies on either side? Is order the flipside of the 'coarse mound' represented by chaos? Can order be generated from chaos, and if so, how? Is chaos something to be avoided, and order something to strive for? What are some of the ways in which humans have responded to the problems, challenges and consequences of chaos and/or order? In a current global situation that has been described as 'apocalyptic', in which the ecological system supporting us is at risk, what can languages and literatures - and the broader Humanities - add to the debate about the future of the human race?

The MML Graduate Network invite papers of maximum of 20 minutes from graduates of the university on themes including (but not limited to) the following:

- Conceptualisations or representations of chaos and/or order

- Apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, or dystopian settings or scenarios

- Psychological health/disorder

- Natural disasters

- Conflict and/or conflict resolution

- Conceptualisations or representations of the Anthropocene

- Theories and visions of world order

- Disobedience and/or obedience

- Conformity/non-conformism

- Social upheaval

- Anarchy

- Protest

- Randomness and/or predictability

- Fate, destiny, fortune

- Natural law

- The legal system

- Intersections of literature and mathematics

- Totalitarianism

- Epistemological/conceptual ruptures, paradigm shifts

- Subversion

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to ml-grad-net@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk by the 1st of April 2017.

This conference is a joint venture between the Oxford Medieval and Modern Languages Graduate Network and the TORCH Crisis, Extremes and Apocalypse Network.