OCCT TT Week 4 2019 Updates

Tonight is your last chance to attend the Weidenfeld lectures at St Anne’s! The 2018-19 Weidenfeld Visiting Professorship is held by the highly-esteemed Durs Grünbein, one of the foremost contemporary poets in Europe. Durs’s final lecture is called “For the Dying Calves (Für die sterbenden Kälber)” and will take place at 5.30 pm, Tsuzuki Lecture Theatre.

On Tuesday evening we enjoyed Durs’s lecture “The Aerial Warfare of Images (Im Luftkrieg der Bilder)”. Last night Durs read from recent work, especially his 2017 collection Zündkerzen (Spark plugs) and his forthcoming volume From a Book of Weaknesses: Selected Poems (2005-2017). In the Discussion Group’s second session, Richard Parkinson (Queen’s) introduced us to Ancient Egyptian literature by discussing three different translations of a poem.

Don’t forget to register for Oxford Translation Day. The Day is a great opportunity to learn more about translation and to listen to some of the world’s most acclaimed literary translators. To see the full programme and book tickets, go here: http://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/oxford-translation-day-2019.

OCCT Review is looking for editors! OCCT Review is a journal reviewing new books and trends in the fields of comparative criticism and translation studies, aiming to produce reviews quickly and to provoke debate. We encourage graduate students or early-career academics to join the OCCT Review team. Contact Eleni at Comparative.Criticism@st-annes.ox.ac.uk to find out how to apply. Applications close at the end of Week 6.

Events and CFPs

1. TUESDAY 25 JUNE 2019: OXFORD HISTORY OF THE NOVEL DISCUSSION

You are invited to a discussion that sheds new light on some of the most dynamic and significant writers from South Asia and South East Asia.

This event marks the publication of the tenth volume of The Oxford History of the Novel in English, a series which covers internationally recognised novelists and showcases under-represented writers and their work.

From the Cold War novels of Korea to the graphic novels of South Asia, this volume looks beyond orthodox ‘literary’ fiction to take a wide view of new developments in the genre, providing an unrivalled survey of the South and South East Asian anglophone novel since 1945 – including multi-volume historical epics, political fictions, and the process of publishing itself. The geographical reach is wide, including familiar and not-so-familiar authors from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Myanmar.

The discussion is intended to cover as much as possible. All are welcome: academics and general readers alike – indeed anyone interested in global writing and expanding the canon of literature. The panel includes Professor Patrick Parrinder, general editor of the series, the volume editor Alex Tickell, and contributors Andrew Biswell and Claire Chambers, Florian Stadtler, Pavan K. Malreddy, Kelly Tse and Anastasia Valassopoulos.

This FREE discussion will take place at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester on Tuesday 25 June 2019 at 6:30pm.

Book your FREE ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/oxford-history-of-the-novel-south-and-south-east-asia-tickets-61438669715
 

2. Call for papers

International Conference

S. Maria Capua Vetere (CE), 26-27-28th November 2019

Crossing Gender Boundaries.

Brave Women Living in Texts and Images

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” wrote Simone De Beauvoir in 1949 to synthetize the system of social and family conditioning which conformed little girls’ education to a mentality which viewed women as the (subordinate) ‘other’ from the masculine: as a varying embodiment of modesty, sweetness, weakness, chastity, obedience, domesticity, motherhood. On the contrary, women’s acts of firmness and courage have been interpreted as eccentric infringements, both peripheral and scandalous, especially when their purpose was to go beyond the boundaries of gender stereotypes, which are not only conceptual and metaphorical but also concrete and real.

Yet, a different and constructive meaning of ‘becoming a woman’ has been the multifaceted fil rouge of gender reflections and practices which are interwoven with literary and artistic representations. They have shown female subjects in search of a new identity and destiny beyond imposed boundaries. This also implies a different definition of courage and strength against millennial prejudices on infirmitas sexus and, vice versa, on the patriarchal label of the courageous woman as a manly woman.

By adopting an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach as well as a broad time frame that ranges from Antiquity to the present day, the Conference aims to focus on some textual and visual paths that allow the construction of a first typology of images, situations, motifs, andPathosformeln linked to the representation of women who not only disrupt the system of gendered attributes, but also challenge the validity of such a binary system.

Keynote speakers: Jacqueline Fabre-Serris (Université de Lille) and Ita Mac Carthy (Durham University)

We welcome abstracts for 20-minute papers from PhD students, post-doc students and researchers. We will also accept proposals for complete panels of up to 3 papers. Topics may include, but are not confined to, textual or visual representations of:

- women who perform strong gestures and acts of courage by claiming them as gender subversions;

-  women who perform trades and activities considered as a male prerogative;

- women who abandon their domestic space to engage in forms of struggle or militancy, thus invading fields which are traditionally assigned to men such as the political and military fields;

- women who join other women to set up female communities;

- women who manifest bizarre behaviour as a form of protest against gender constraints;

- women who perform gender-crossing.

Submission deadline is 30th June 2019. All proposals, in English or Italian, must be sent in PDF format to cristina.pepe@unicampania.it  or elena.porciani@unicampania.it and should include:

a. author’s name and surname

b. academic or institutional affiliation

c. a short CV

d. title of the proposal

e. abstract (no more than 350 words)

f. author’s e-mail address

All applicants will be informed of the outcome of their submissions by 31th July 2019.

Conference participation is free of charge. However, travel and accommodation expenses will not be covered, but the organizing committee will provide information to this regard.

Please feel free to contact us for further queries or any clarification you should need.

3. Aesthetic Time, Decadent Archives

Goldsmiths, University of London

18-19 July 2019

Keynote: Joseph Bristow (UCLA), ‘Decadent Historicism’

Registration now open!

This two-day conference, co-organized by the British Association of Decadence Studies (BADS) and the Aestheticism and Decadence Network, will explore the ‘archival turn’ in Aestheticism and Decadence studies and investigate Aestheticist notions of history, temporality, and periodization. Our aim is to extend discussion of the Aestheticist and Decadent archive beyond the bounds of the fin de siècle, to foreground a long history of Aestheticism and Decadence that looks back to their roots in the ancient world and ahead to their continuing presence in Modernism, neo-Victorianism, Steampunk and other twentieth and twenty-first century literature and art.

Further information and provisional programme here: https://bads.gold.ac.uk/atda

Tickets available from Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/aesthetic-time-decadent-archives-tickets-57688196950

Please email ATDA@gold.ac.uk if you have any questions.

4. SOCIETY FOR PIRANDELLO STUDIES: ESSAY COMPETITIONS

The Society for Pirandello Studies invites entries into two essay competitions, one for undergraduates and the other for bona fide postgraduate students.

The life and/or writings of Luigi Pirandello shall constitute at least half of the essay’s subject; e.g. a balanced discussion of Pirandello and one other writer is acceptable.

After initial consultation with a tutor or supervisor the essay must be the entrant’s own unaided work.

Entries are acceptable from anywhere in the world, but the essay must be written in English. It must not exceed 3,000 words in length if entered into the undergraduate competition or 5,000 if entered into the postgraduate competition.

No abstract is required. A bibliography may be appended at the competitor’s discretion and is not included in the word-count.

The essay must adhere to the style of Pirandello Studies, or of the MHRA or the MLA.

The essay must be submitted electronically to enza.defrancisci@glasgow.ac.uk by 1 July 2019. By the same date a message must be sent to the same address by the entrant’s tutor or supervisor stating that the entrant is a registered undergraduate or a bona fide postgraduate student and that, as far as the writer is aware, beyond initial consultation the essay is the entrant’s own unaided work.

The entry must be submitted as a Word document in the font Times New Roman, 12-point.

The entry must indicate for which competition it is intended and include the entrant’s name, the academic institution where they are registered and the name and e-mail address of their tutor/supervisor.

The prize in each competition will be publication of the winning essay in the Society’s journal Pirandello Studies, volume 40 (2020), whose editor may advise the author about modifications prior to publication.

In each competition the judges reserve the right to award no prize if they deem no entry to have reached an appropriate standard.

The results of the competitions will be communicated by electronic mail to all entrants by 2 September 2019.

The judges’ decisions will be final and no correspondence about them will be entered into.