Call for papers

2012 Annual International Conference of the Institute of English Cultures and Literatures

Grievings

Date: 20-23 September 2012
Location: University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland

Although generally resented and deemed unfavourable for individuals, societies and nations, grief, grievance, and grieving, along with a complex list of epithets that could in various situations, under varying circumstances, accompany them – racial grief, political grievance, protracted grieving, chronic grief, traumatic, unresolved grievance – nevertheless occupy a notorious place in culture and its manifestations in literature, art, history, science, or politics. Confused experiences of melancholia, grief, nostalgia, shame, anguish, hate, longing, and jealousy continue to permeate cultural productions across historical moments, literary epochs, and political sympathies. It is these veneers that we intend to uncover and dismantle, thus – dissolve, or, assuming yet a different approach, assemble into larger entities exhibiting common patterns of formulaic imagining.

The name Grievings comes with several emphases in mind – we place great impact on attempts to explore questions of how globalization has affected modes of grieving, how it has altered the subjects/objects over which we grieve, and finally, how grievances have come to adopt the shape of ultimatums, sometimes escalating into forms of sabotage, schizophrenia, or even outright military conflict.

Conference Chair, Professor Zbigniew Bialas, and Program Committee Members, Dr. Pawel Jedrzejko and Julia Szoltysek, M.A, welcome proposals for 20 minute papers from scholars working in all areas of literary and cultural studies. We invite paper abstracts on all aspects of grudging, grieving, mourning and longing.

We are particularly interested in proposals which explore literary/cinematographic representations of the phenomena under investigation from a wide array of scholarly proveniences, perspectives and attitudes, and encourage presentations on the potential intersections of grievings and politics; grievings and history; grievings and globalization; grievings and (post)colonization/(post)colonialism; grievings and trans/multi-culturalism.

We have the honour to announce that Prof. Tabish Khair (Aarhus University, Denmark; author of Filming and The Bus Stopped), and Prof. Horst Tonn (University od Tuebingen Germany) have been invited to deliver plenary lectures.

In keeping with the conference’s theme, individual paper proposals may want to address the following issues: Trauma and traumatic haunting, Racial/ethnic grief, Melancholia, Mourning, Imperialisms, Sickness, Madness, Compulsion, Obsession, Terror, Violence.
Interpretations of the conference themes ranging from the predictable to the surprising are highly encouraged. Interdisciplinary perspectives are particularly welcome since all these topics in themselves stretch across several disciplines: history, literary studies, psychology, linguistics, political sciences, educational sciences, ethnology, gender/queer studies, anthropology, sociology. Graduate students are most welcome to participate. Please submit your 300-word abstracts using the link below by by April 15th, 2012.
To do this, prepare the following info: title, professional affiliation, e-mail address, phone number, AV requirements, a short biographical note Papers should be delivered in English.

Please use this link to submit your paper proposal. Should any questions arise, please do not hesitate to contact us! at grievings@us.edu.pl

On behalf of the Program Committee,
Pawel Jedrzejko

Website: www.grievings.us.edu.pl -- grievings@us.edu.pl