CfP | Writing Beyond Borders (postgraduate conference)

University of Manchester’s School of Arts, Languages and Cultures Graduate School Inaugural Conference for Academic Year 2013-2014

Writing Beyond Borders

 

The University of Manchester, 20th September 2013

 

Opening Keynote Speaker: Dr Jean-Marc Dreyfus (Religion and Theology, Manchester)

Closing Keynote Speaker: Dr Claire Chambers (English Literature, York)

This conference aims to examine the ways in which reading, writing and researching literature intersects with conceptions of borders and border crossing. The conference arises from and seeks to expand debates in postcolonial studies and criticism surrounding boundaries (whether cultural, linguistic, historical, personal, economic, etc). As such, we welcome contributions from literary studies and complementary fields. Through this interdisciplinary approach, we aim to understand the varying methods used to answer questions such as:

  • Does a border inherently imply a binary, and on what terms?
  • It is possible to remove a border without removing one ‘side’, or to have two sides without a border?
  • Can individuals choose (how) to position themselves in relation to borders, or is a side inherently imposed? Can we inhabit borders?
  • Is a postcolonial world moving towards a borderless world, and if so, what would this look like or mean?
  • Are borderlines inevitable in a capitalist society?
  • How do human borderlines manifest themselves in the formal space of a text or book? How does this impact on our work as researchers?
  • What does it mean to write in a language other than your ‘mother tongue’? Does the concept of ‘mother tongue’ itself create or reinforce socio-historic borders?
  • Do changing borders demand changing methods?
  • Is there a possibility of border-transcending or borderless literature, or are such borderlines as language, gender, religion and nationality essential to literature?
  • What are the implications of a future borderless space?

 

We invite responses to these and related questions in the form of a maximum 300-word abstract for a 15-minute paper. Please email abstracts to writingbeyondborders@gmail.com by 5th July, 2013.

Please also include a title for the proposed presentation and details of your PhD topic, discipline and University.