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Seminars

S.01. Cross-linguistic and Cross-cultural Approaches to Phraseology

• Prof. Tatiana Fedulenkova (Pomorsky State University)
  E-mail: taniafed@atnet.ru
• Prof. Anita Naciscione (Latvian Academy of Culture)
  E-mail: naciscione@parks.lv

As there is a growing interest in phraseological research, the seminar will focus on new theoretical perspectives and the latest developments in phraseology, including stylistic investigations in the field of phraseology, the issues of tradition vs creativity in the use of phraseological units in discourse, and cross-linguistic and cross-cultural research. The pedagogical implications of teaching the stylistic use of phraseological units also present great interest, both to native students and L2 learners. Participants are encouraged to present their theoretical conclusions and observations on the basis of systematic studies of empirical material.

S.02. Censorship across Borders: The Reception of English Literature in Twentieth-century Europe

• Dr. Alberto Lázaro (University of Alcalá)
  E-mail: alberto.lazaro@uah.es
• Dr. Catherine O'Leary (National University of Ireland)
  E-mail: catherine.m.oleary@nuim.ie

Many famous writers, such as Wells, Woolf, Joyce, Lawrence, Lessing and Rushdie, have suffered censorship throughout the twentieth century, with lasting effects on the publication and reception of their work in many countries. This seminar will explore the official reception and censorship of English literature in twentieth-century Europe, taking into account the social, political and historical context, and analysing the extent to which censorship was determined by national and international concerns. Papers may concentrate on a single author/text or address the question of censorship and reception more generally, looking at issues such as textual form, the mechanics of publishing and bookselling, library policy, obscenity, religion, politics, law, ideology, and government. Comparative analyses (authors, genres, systems) will also be welcomed.

S.03. The House of Fiction as the House of Life: Representation of the House in Literature and Culture, 1700-1900

• Prof. Francesca Saggini Boyle (University of Tuscia / University of Glasgow)
  E-mail: fsaggini@unitus.it
• Dr. Anna Enrichetta Soccio (University of Chieti)
  E-mail: esoccio@unich.it

From Paradise Hall to Howard's End, the house offers a deeply complex model of the world - both physical and metaphysical, literal and metaphorical - and may be taken as the shifting expression of a zeitgeist. The Convenors encourage the submission of proposals relating to the topic of the literary, visual and cultural representations of the house and the construction of the domestic space from divergent disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. Topics of discussion may include, but are not limited to, furniture and household objects, the poetics of rooms, professional domesticity, the house as the landscape of existence, utopian and dystopian house spaces, the negotiations of gendered spaces, and such house-based genres as sensation, mystery and detective fiction. Interdisciplinary approaches and and epistemological readings are particularly welcome.

S.04. Narrative Developments from Chaucer to Defoe

• Dr. Ebbe Klitgård (Roskilde University)
  E-mail: ebbek@ruc.dk
• Dr. Gerd Bayer (Erlangen University)
  E-mail: gdbayer@phil.uni-erlangen.de

This seminar aims to provide a platform for dialogue between different areas of English Studies. The goal of the seminar is to analyse how narrative technique developed from Chaucer throughout the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Panellists will investigate how narrative texts developed during that time. Papers will address issues like voice, narrative time, character development, genre, etc., keeping a diachronic approach at the centre of their readings. Ideally, the panel will stimulate comparative work across the centuries, reading early modem prose through the lens of Chaucer and medieval narratives.

S.05. Translation and Scottish Literature

• Prof. John Corbett (University of Glasgow)
  E-mail: j.corbett@englang.arts.gla.ac.uk
• Dr. Adele D'Arcangelo (Univesity of Bologna)
  E-mail: adele.darcangelo@unibo.it

Research and teaching on the impact of translation on the multilingual Scottish literary tradition has been growing in recent years, and this scholarly activity has been matched by increasing research into the reception of Scottish literature overseas, facilitated by the online Bibliography of Scottish Literature in Translation (http://boslit.nls.uk). Even so, the implications of intra- and inter-cultural literary translation for a national literature is still an under-researched and under-theorised topic. Papers are therefore invited on the topic of translation into and out of any of the languages of Scotland. We welcome both case studies and theoretical contributions.

S.06. History and Its Discontents: Reassessing The Political Unconscious and Its Legacy

Cancelled

S.07. Corpora in Discourse Analysis and in Language Teaching

• Dr. Markéta Malá (Charles University)
  E-mail: Marketa.Mala@ff.cuni.cz
• Dr. Paul Thompson (University of Reading)
  E-mail: p.a.thompson@reading.ac.uk

The seminar explores the nexus of three areas related to linguistics: corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, and ELT/ESP. It approaches the corpus as a resource rather than as a goal, focusing on the various ways corpus-based methods are employed in discourse analysis and in teaching / learning. This involves asking what types of structures and levels of language can be explored using corpora; what corpora can tell us about interaction; what the roles and mutual relationships of general and specialized corpora are; what corpus tools and interfaces are needed; as well as what dangers we face when working with corpora.

S.08. From Hell to Paradise: The Lure of the Occult and Its Cultural Representations in Britain

• Prof. Pia Brînzeu (West University of Timisoara)
  E-mail: piabrinzeu@yahoo.com
• Prof. György Endre Szönyi (University of Szeged)
  E-mail: geszonyi@lit.u-szeged.hu
• Prof. Milena Romero Allué (University of Udine)
  E-mail: milenaria@libero.it

The seminar proposes to explore the rich British tradition of occult literary representations, linked to white or black magic. Scholars are invited to deepen the study of supernatural events, archetypes, and myths pointing the way to a transcendent heroic self and to the exaltation of paranormal powers and knowledge. The field allows the exploration of such challenging topics as alchemy, voodoo, and necromancy, witches, the life of famous occultists seen as literary characters, the use of astrology, visions of angels or demons, instruments of sorcery and everything else that goes beyond ordinary understanding and which have found their ways in literature from medieval romances to postmodern historical metafictions.

S.09. Transnational Identity Politics in British Literature

• Dr. Silvia Schultermandl (Karl-Franzens University)
  E-mail: silvia.schultermandl@uni-graz.at
• Dr. Sebnem Toplu (Ege University)
  E-mail: sebnem.toplu@ege.edu.tr

Multi-ethnic cultural studies have undergone a recent shift from multiculturalism to transnationalism as a result of heightened interconnectivity. This raises questions about how belonging shapes a person's identity, and about definitions of selfhood, definitions that address both internal and external notions of belonging. What is of particular interest here are the incongruences between internal and external notions of self. Our panel invites papers on contemporary British authors such as Monica Ali, Zadie Smith, Mohsim Hamid, Hanan Al-Shayky, Caryl Philips and Hari Kunzru, to name a few, with specific attention to the writer's treatment of internal and external notions of belonging, definitions of self and of identity politics in a transnational context.

S.10. Research and the Literary Periodical: Theory and Methodology

• Prof. Antony Rowland (University of Salford)
  E-mail: A.C.Rowland@salford.ac.uk
• Prof. Odin Dekkers (Radboud University Nijmegen)
  E-mail: O.Dekkers@let.ru.nl
• Dr. Usha Wilbers (Radboud University Nijmegen)
  E-mail: U.Wilbers@let.ru.nl

This seminar will explore the theory and methodology of periodical research. Scholars (in the Netherlands and UK, at least) take various and sometimes competing approaches to the study of periodicals and magazines. These will be explored: we may raise the question of whether it is desirable, after discussions about the theory of methodology, to come up with a shared methodology amongst international scholars. We are interested primarily in research methodologies surrounding periodicals (their publishing history, editorial policies etc.) and the increasing digitization of magazines and periodicals. The overall concern with methodological issues means that we are interested in contributors from different literary-historical periods.

S.11. Politeness and Interaction

• Dr. Milan Ferencik (University of Presov)
  E-mail: mmmo94@unipo.sk
• Dr. Jitka Vlckova (Masaryk University)
  E-mail: vlckova@phil.muni.cz

The seminar is intended to provide a forum for the discussion of linguistic and non-linguistic manifestations of politeness phenomena. It invites researchers of various multidisciplinary orientations to share the ways they perceive politeness phenomena as constituting a major factor which participates in structuring sociocultural interaction. It is open to practitioners working within any model of politeness and applying different methodologies on a variety of data. The focus will be placed on some of the central politeness-theoretical notions, such as scientific and lay conceptualization of politeness, different politeness models and their critique, universality of politeness, politeness and social theory, politeness and impoliteness, linguistic and non-linguistic politeness, data and methodology in politeness research, trends in politeness theorizing.

S.12. Ageing Studies: Age, Illness and the Question of Beauty in Contemporary Anglophone Cultures

• Prof. Roberta Maierhofer (University of Graz)
  E-mail: roberta.maierhofer@uni-graz.at
• Dr. Heike Hartung (Free University of Berlin)
  E-mail: heike.s.hartung@web.de

Modern medicine's success in prolonging life has led to demographic changes in many Western societies. This development has consequences for a culture's awareness of the last stage of life. One of the strategies of coming to terms with an extended old age is to enlarge the category of youth. The scientific control of the ageing process, however, is challenged by illnesses of the body and the mind. By problematizing age with reference to illness, Western concepts of identity and beauty are called into question. The seminar invites papers on representations of old age and illness in literature and film. Comparative approaches that focus intercultural and gendered perspectives are welcome.

S.13. Metaphors and Economic Thinking: The Various Roles of Metaphors in Economic Discourse

• Prof. Catherine Resche (University of Paris 2)
  E-mail: catherineresche@club-internet.fr
• Prof. Michael White (Complutense University)
  E-mail: white@filol.ucm.es

The focus of this seminar will be on the metaphorical dimension of the language of economics. Metaphors are not only used by the economic press to make economic notions more accessible to the general public; textbook authors, as well as researchers also resort to metaphors in their specialized discourse; so do, for example, official figures such as the Chairmen of Central Banks. Theory-constitutive metaphors have an impact on economic discourse and the metaphors used by economists and specialists can shape future research and influence the general public in its approach and reaction to economic problems. We invite papers on the various roles of metaphors in economic discourse.

S.14. Mediated Discourse in Native and Non-Native Lingua Franca English

• Prof. Margherita Ulrych (Catholic University of Milan)
  E-mail: margherita.ulrych@unicatt.it
• Prof. Juliane House (University of Hamburg)
  E-mail: jhouse@uni-hamburg.de

Mediated discourse encompasses a broad range of intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic forms of communication and recontextualization processes. While translation necessarily entails mediation, only recently have other modes of rewriting been investigated, including the editing and revision by native speakers of texts produced in English by non-native speakers to make them more accessible to the target audience. Despite the intervention of native-speaking editors and/or translators, features of lingua franca English find their way unobserved into the final drafts. The aim of the Seminar is to investigate features of English as a Lingua Franca in translations and other forms of mediated discourse produced in English by native and non-native speakers especially within international academic, institutional and professional settings where native English speakers are a minority.

S.15. Methodological Perspectives on Communicative Functions: Definition, Identification and Classification

• Assoc. Prof. Sara Gesuato (University of Padua)
  E-mail: sara.gesuato@unipd.it
• Assist. Prof. Francesca Bianchi (University of Salento)
  E-mail: francesca.bianchi@ateneo.unile.it
• Dr. Josef Schmied (Chemnitz University)
  E-mail: josef.schmied@phil.tu-chemnitz.de

The notion of communicative function is invoked in discourse studies to define speech acts, genres, text types, and to account for macro/micro properties of linguistic constructs like their rhetorical structure, lexical encoding, and addresser-addressee's role-relationships. Yet, it is an elusive notion, which may refer to: language's role in interaction, a text's purpose, the addresser's illocutionary intent, an utterance/move's semantic contribution to a communicative exchange. We aim to trace a standard characterization of the notion of function by exploring the relationships between functions and the encoding-decoding of meaning, and by discussing criteria for the definition, identification and classification of functions.

S.16. Wholeness, Healing, and Spirituality: African American Women's Revisions of the (Historical and Spiritual) Past

• Dr. Karla Simcikova (University of Ostrava)
  E-mail: Karla.Simcikova@osu.cz
• Dr. Silvia Castro (University of Málaga)
  E-mail: scb@uma.es

Since the 1980s, there has been a strong commitment on the part of African American women writers to revise the history and culture of North America in order to recast the understanding of the past. As Sally Keenan suggests, this commitment needs to be understood within the context of the postcolonial condition of the contemporary United States where 'internal colonization' has become the dominant experience of many African Americans. Taking her lead, this seminar invites critical responses to African American women writers' contributions to the revisioning of US history, namely from the perspectives of wholeness, spirituality, and healing.

S.17. British Poetry and Pop

• Dr. John Sears (Manchester Metropolitan University)
  E-mail: j.sears@mmu.ac.uk
• Dr. Raphaël Costambeys-Kempczynski (University of Paris 3)
  E-mail: raphael.costambeys@univ-paris3.fr

This session invites papers addressing the various relations between British poetry and popular music, from production and distribution to consumption and critical response. Topics might include but are not restricted to: pop/poetry crossover; pop poetry from the Mersey Sound to Jeremy Reed and beyond; pop as a poetic medium / poetry as a pop medium; pop and the democratisation of poetry; street poetry and intelligent pop; poetry and popular lyrical forms and traditions; the figures of poet and performer; poetry and popular genres (rap, punk, folk, soul); intertextual and other relations between poetry and pop traditions; institutional connections between the poetry and pop worlds.

S.18. Digital Aesthetics - Digital Games

Cancelled

S.19. Literary and Cultural Representations of the Child

• Dr. Margarida Morgado (College for Higher Education, Castelo Branco)
  E-mail: morgadofrazao@mail.telepac.pt
• Katherina Dodou (Uppsala University)
  E-mail: katherina.dodou@engelska.uu.se

With its apotheosis in the Romantic period the child figure became firmly established as a major component in Western culture. The past decades have witnessed an increased interest in the child and childhood as historically contingent constructions and have opened up new ways of considering their roles of children and young people in the cultural imagination. Against the history of child representations and recent cultural research about the child this seminar will critically engage with the multiplicity of interdisciplinary perspectives on this central cultural and literary theme. We invite contributions addressing constructions of the child in literature and culture from the Romantic period to the present and across several disciplinary fields.

S.20. Shakespeare and Discourse Stylistics

• Dr. Mireille Ravassat (University of Valenciennes)
  E-mail: mireilleravassat@yahoo.fr
• Dr. Lene Petersen (University of the West of England)
  E-mail: Lene.Petersen@uwe.ac.uk

From copia to stylistic reticence, Shakespeare's playtexts map out the extreme limits and impasse of verbal communication. The present seminar aims at assessing and highlighting the discourse strategies and structures at stake in conversational exchange and interaction in the very process of capturing the world of human understanding and relationships. Such a process involves the difficulty, sometimes the impossibility, and the exhilaration of mediating that world through language. Shakespeare's playtexts should be envisaged as being rooted in a cultural and rhetorical context in which meaning (and the difficulties of conveying meaning) is a collaborative construction, involving author, text, culture, and reader. Papers are welcome on the range of Shakespeare's negotiations with the problematics of the production of meaning. Areas of exploration include semantics, pragmatics, and semiotics.

S.21. Meaning Construction: Functionalist, Cognitivist and Constructionist Approaches

• Prof. Annalisa Baicchi (University of Pavia)
  E-mail: annalisa.baicchi@unipv.it
• Prof. Francisco Gonzálvez-García (University of Almería)
  E-mail: fgonza@ual.es

The seminar aims to promote the interaction and collaboration among researchers interested in recent functionalist, cognitivist and/or constructionist approaches with special focus on present-day English. Specifically, the seminar is intended to be a forum for the discussion of virtually any theoretical and/or descriptive/applied aspect concerning grammar, the lexicon and discourse, and in particular controversial areas such as: the relationship between syntax and all facets of meaning construction, the boundaries between grammar and the lexicon, argument structure configuration, the interaction between lexical and constructional templates, pragmatic inferencing, implicature and illocutionary meaning, and the potential of metonymic operations in speech act configuration.

S.22a. Lingua Franca English in Use

• Dr. Tim Caudery (University of Aarhus)
  E-mail: engtc@hum.au.dk
• Prof. Anna Mauranen (University of Helsinki)
  E-mail: anna.mauranen@helsinki.fi

Awareness of globalization issues has focused increasing attention on the use of English as a lingua franca in communicative contexts where the participants do not share the same mother tongue. This seminar is open for papers on studies of the use of lingua franca English in various settings (academic, commercial, diplomatic, etc.) and of the characteristics of lingua franca English itself as it has developed in such contexts.

S.22b. The Impact of Lingua Franca English

• Dr. Tim Caudery (University of Aarhus)
  E-mail: engtc@hum.au.dk
• Prof. Anna Mauranen (University of Helsinki)
  E-mail: anna.mauranen@helsinki.fi

Awareness of globalization issues has focused increasing attention on the use of English as a lingua franca in communicative contexts where the participants do not share the same mother tongue. This seminar is open for papers on studies of the use of lingua franca English in various settings (academic, commercial, diplomatic, etc.) and of the characteristics of lingua franca English itself as it has developed in such contexts.

S.23. Modern English Syntax: Historical and Comparative Approaches

• Dr. Jonathan White (University of Dalarna)
  E-mail: jwh@du.se
• Dr. Johanna L. Wood (University of Aarhus)
  E-mail: engjw@hum.au.dk

Syntactic changes that have occurred in English over the past 1500 years have affected both clausal and nominal domains. Some of these changes have occurred in other languages and language families, some have not. Many Romance languages and non-standard varieties of English have multiple negation; standard English does not. Most Germanic languages have developed a dedicated definite article; most Slavic languages have not. This workshop invites comparative approaches (e.g. between English and other languages or between different stages within English) to these and other changes, for example: group genitives, the syntax of numerals, changes involving the verb-second constraint, OV-VO word order, and main verb movement.

S.24. Ethics and Trauma in British Fiction since the 1960s

• Prof. Susana Onega (University of Zaragoza)
  E-mail: sonega@unizar.es
• Prof. Jean-Michel Ganteau (University of Montpellier 3)
  E-mail: jean-michel.ganteau@univ-montp3.fr

Since the mid-1990s, trauma theory has given attention to war novels, multicultural novels relating trauma with Jewish history or Jewishness, and Holocaust novels written by authors of Jewish origin. Whether such themes appear in realistic or more experimental narratives, we would like to address the relations between ethics and trauma. Thus, the seminar proposes an ethical reading of British novels since the 1960s dealing with war trauma; sexual trauma; the mental disorders ailing a consumerist and hedonist society; environmental-related trauma; trauma of a more impersonal type linked with cultural haunting; or trauma of any other kind.

S.25. The Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien: Medieval and Modern

Cancelled

S.26. Bodies and Performativity in Multicultural British Fiction

• Dr. Petra Tournay-Theodotou (European University Cyprus)
  E-mail: ptournay@cycollege.ac.cy
• Dr. Sofia Muñoz-Valdivieso (University of Malaga)
  E-mail: simunoz@uma.es

Judith Butler has famously argued that there is no original core to (gender) identity, but only repetitions of identity and layers of performances. This conception of identity may be limiting as well as liberating. It may condemn the subject to merely reiterate pre-defined roles or, on the contrary, allow the subject to manipulate non-essential or constructed identities. According to this latter view the subject can hence take an active role in his/her identity formation. For this session we would like to invite contributions that examine how conflicting notions of identity have been explored in multicultural British fiction (e.g. Jackie Kay, Caryl Phillips, Hanif Kureishi, Andrea Levy, Leone Ross, Zadie Smith) as it is the racialised (gendered) body that is most vulnerable when it comes to identity formation.

S.27. Representing 'New' Britain

• Dr. Hanne Tange (Aarhus School of Business)
  E-mail: hta@asb.dk
• Dr. Peter Leese (Jagiellonian University)
  E-mail: peterjleese@yahoo.co.uk

Within the past decade, a new kind of identity politics has emerged in response to events such as devolution, the Good Friday Agreement, the Iraq war, and the London bombings. This seminar focuses on the manifestation of such changes in contemporary British culture, asking how cultural planners and creative artists have engaged with questions of British, national, regional, or ethnic identity. We would like to invite papers on identity relating to all areas of cultural life, including literature, historiography, visual arts, music, film and TV, museums, fashion, tourism, journalism, and advertising.

S.28. Changing Narratives in British Media

• Dr. Slavka Tomascikova (P.J. Safarik University)
  E-mail: slavka.tomascikova@upjs.sk
• Jim Bee, MA (Queen Margaret University)
  E-mail: JBee@qmu.ac.uk

In postmodern society narrative strategies are applied in films, commercials, television news bulletins, adverts, comics, or newspapers. The poststructuralist approach stresses perspective, subjectivity of interpretation and, consequently, the individual who creates and/or interprets the narrative as a form of representation and inner structure. We are interested in receiving abstracts for papers exploring narrative strategies in British media within the frameworks of mass media theory, communication studies, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and media literacy. Suggested topics for papers may include, but are not limited to narrative and genre, narrative and language, narrative and issues of class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and politics.

S.29. A Full-Bodied Society?

• Prof. François Poirier (University of Paris 13)
  E-mail: fpoirier@univ-paris13.fr
• Prof. Logie Barrow (University of Bremen)
  E-mail: tandecki@uni-bremen.de

To judge from all too many histories of English-speaking countries, they were peopled by bodiless beings, free from disease as well as from the joys of the flesh, while other histories, by contrast, lay heavy emphasis on the physical nature of humankind, fraught with unquenchable lust and unavoidable ailments. This seminar invites papers that would examine the way the body can be or has been dealt with in social and cultural terms within English-speaking societies, past and present. Papers on health policies and public sanitation or medical practice as well as on food and drink consumption are as welcome as studies on sexuality, ageing or PE.

S.30. Film Studies: Fragmentary Forms and Totalizing Narratives

• Dr. Jukka Tiusanen (University of Vaasa)
  E-mail: jukka.tiusanen@uwasa.fi
• Dr. Camelia Elias (Roskilde University)
  E-mail: camelia@ruc.dk

This seminar examines forms of fragmentation and coherence in either deliberate or accidental forms in both older and contemporary films, including their complex production, distribution and reception. Films necessarily consist of fragments and disjointed stills, scenes, sequences, yet their very enjoyment presupposes that audiences fill in the gaps and produce internal narratives of sometimes conjectural coherence. We expect submitted papers to discuss actual films, and we invite contributions on these closely connected issues: film and meaning, authorship, characterization, performance, transmission, spectatorship, cognition and emotion, concepts of seeing in film. We are also interested in films as traumatizing fragments and foreign bodies that viewers experience as hurtful.

S.31. Reading and Trust in Managed Learning Systems

• Dr. Roy Sellars (University of Southern Denmark)
  E-mail: roy@ko.sdu.dk
• Dr. Sarah Wood (University of Kent)
  E-mail: S.Wood@kent.ac.uk

Never trust the company, trust the product, would be an update of D. H. Lawrence's axiom suitable for many European universities in 2008. What happens to reading in learning systems characterised by managerialism and the hypertrophy of the economic? Management now has a lot to say about reading: it is expensive and inefficient, and if we insist on it, we'd better be quick about it. What does reading have to say about management? And: can trust, as a mechanism for promoting consumer loyalty, at the same time offer a way of approaching the teaching and reading of literature that exceeds commodification? We invite presentations from colleagues working on issues of management, trust, and critical pedagogy.

S.32. Literary Journalism and the Canon

• Dr. John S. Bak (University of Nancy 2)
  E-mail: Email: john.bak@univ-nancy2.fr
• Dr. David Abrahamson (Northwestern University)
  E-mail: d-abrahamson@northwestern.edu

While literary journalism has generally been considered an American phenomenon, whose writers include Capote, Mailer, Wolfe, Agee, and Didion, today it is practiced and studied world-wide. And as journalists look more and more to literary devices to tell their stories, and fiction writers to immersion reporting to lend a phenomenal reality to their narratives, scholars of literary journalism have concerted their efforts to define the genre's emerging academic discipline. One immediate issue has surfaced: how will the classic examples of literary journalism over the last century or more be regarded within a given nation's growing literary canon? This seminar will examine to what extent literary journalists past and present - from the U.S. and the U.K., but also from Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa - have contributed to palliating the quarrel of fact versus fiction and have (re)shaped our notion of what constitutes a national 'literature'.

S.33. Models of Authorship at the Turn of the Millenium: An Interdisciplinary Approach

• Dr. Lourdes López-Ropero (University of Alicante)
  E-mail: lourdes.lopez@ua.es
• Prof. Christian Moraru (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)
  E-mail: c_moraru@uncg.edu

The notion of authorship has undergone major historical shifts from classical antiquity to the postmodern critique of the author. But even as the concept has been questioned by such poststructuralists as Roland Barthes or Kathy Acker, intellectual property law continues to strengthen the Romantic model. This seminar invites papers exploring the politics of authorship and the issues it raises - creativity, originality, tradition, imitation and its ethics, rewriting, plagiarism, copyright infringement. Among other aspects related to authorship, we would like to ask the participants to discuss how such issues are represented in literary and cultural texts produced in late 20th and early 21st century under the impact of geopolitical redistributions, demographic rearrangements, accelerated cultural flows, and new communication technologies.

S.34. Continuation or Change? Literatures in English in the New Millennium

• Assoc. Prof. Jaroslav Kusnír (University of Presov)
  E-mail: jkusnir@fhpv.unipo.sk
• Dr. Stanislav Kolár (Ostrava University)
  E-mail: s.kol@volny.cz

At the beginning of the millennium, in British, American and other literatures in English there seems to be a tendency to either return to a more traditional neo-realistic or modernist writing on the one hand (Graham Swift, Jonathan Franzen), or to further extend the possibilities of postmodern literature. This session seeks papers that will (1) give an analysis of the tension between the above tendencies as manifested in British, American and/or other literatures in English (the comparative approach is welcome); (2) analyse a manifestation of this tension in particular literary works; (3) analyse the possible change either in traditional (neo-realistic) or in experimental poetics as manifested in the works of particular authors.

S.35. Life Writing: Writing Lives

• Dr. Sean Matthews (University of Nottingham)
  E-mail: Sean.Matthews@nottingham.ac.uk
• Dr. Inger H. Dalsgaard (University of Aarhus)
  E-mail: engihd@hum.au.dk

The purpose of this seminar is to define and exemplify the increasingly popular genre 'life writing' in academic terms. In order to move beyond the stereotype of mass-market biographies we need critical discussion of different forms and definitions of life writing. We welcome papers seeking to identify and explain the contours and interfaces between producers, subjects and consumers of life writing; between memory and writing; between emotion and narration; fact, fiction and documentary styles; between personal and cultural history and between new textual technologies, e.g. on the Web, and the life of a text.

S.36. American Little Magazines and Innovative Voices on Language and the Self

• Assoc. Prof. Manuel Brito (University of La Laguna)
  E-mail: mbrito@ull.es
• Prof. Hélène Aji (University of Maine)
  E-mail: helene.aji@univ-lemans.fr

American little magazines associated with poetic innovation embodied a new writing with intellectual discoveries about the individual in society and politics in the period 1970-2000. In this sense, poststructuralist concepts were joined by Marxism, and other values set forth by Ludwig Wittgenstein or Jacques Derrida. This proposed seminar will focus on the proliferation of these magazines, and how they were commonly grounded on intellectual dissent, and the centrifugal forces around a diverse cultural America. Suggestive questions, like is 'signification' still proliferating everywhere? Or, does this indefatigable privateness still prevail at the beginning of the 21st century? Survival and tensions in particular literary groups can be analyzed.

S.37. Utopian Futures/The Futures of Utopia

Cancelled

S.38. Bakhtin and Shakespeare: Critical Perspectives

• Assoc. Prof. Michael Skovmand (University of Aarhus)
  E-mail: engmik@hum.au.dk
• Prof. Martin Procházka (Charles University)
  E-mail: martin.prochazka@ff.cuni.cz

Considering how little Bakhtin wrote on drama in general or Shakespeare in particular, it is striking how popular Bakhtinian approaches to Shakespeare have become over the last thirty years. Focusing in particular on the notions of the 'carnival', 'heteroglossia', 'polyphony' and 'chronotope', the workshop will explore the ways in which Bakhtin-inspired criticism has illuminated or crippled contemporary understanding of Shakespeare's plays in the context of Renaissance culture and vis-à-vis other recent approaches to performing, poetics, discourse and ideology.

S.39. Tourism between Tradition and Innovation

• Dr. Robert C. Thomsen (University of Aarhus)
  E-mail: engrt@hum.au.dk
• Dr. Jody W. Pennington (University of Aarhus)
  E-mail: engjwp@hum.au.dk
• Dr. Claire E. A. Campbell (Dalhousie University)
  E-mail: Claire.Campbell@dal.ca

The focus of this seminar will be cultural tourism in Anglophone societies, defined broadly to include, for example, heritage, coastal and eco-tourism. In recent years, many tourism industries in western societies have experienced decline in terms of visitors and revenue. This has forced destination marketers to reconsider the value of attractions on offer, and the form chosen to represent them. The challenge in this regard has been to achieve and agree on a balance between tradition and innovation, which can boost the industry while retaining a degree of authenticity (in itself a much disputed concept). The conveners welcome proposals which consider any aspect of these developments, as well as historical dimensions of tourism in the English-speaking world.

S.40. The Intersection of English Education Practices and Workplace Needs

• Suvi Isohella, MA (University of Vaasa)
  E-mail: sis@uwasa.fi
• Dr. Constance Kampf (Aarhus School of Business)
  E-mail: cka@asb.dk

How effective are current English language education practices in international content-oriented curricula such as Marketing and Management as well as translation and technical communication for learners' career needs in working life? How do the linguistic, rhetorical and communication foundations for English language education connect with current industry issues such as language policy, Project Management, etc.? This seminar invites scholars and instructors to look at current and future directions in education for content-oriented curricula in English, as well as translation and technical communication through a combination of perspectives rooted in Linguistics, Culture, Communication, Rhetoric and Knowledge Communication.

S.41. Wartime Shakespeares: A European Perspective

• Dr. Ton Hoenselaars (Utrecht University)
  E-mail: Ton.Hoenselaars@let.uu.nl
• Dr. Clara Calvo (University of Murcia)
  E-mail: ccalvo@um.es

This seminar studies the fortunes of 'Shakespeare' in wartime during the 20th and 21st centuries, addressing the question how the complex condition of war - involving the choice of alliances, the maintenance of neutrality, or the expression of a pacifist, anti-war stance - has affected various national Shakespeare traditions in Europe as well as relations between Europe and the rest of the world. We invite papers devoted to topics including Shakespeare on stage and screen, in fiction and in translation. We are also interested in discussions of Shakespearean examples involving actors, directors, soldiers, poets, academics, politicians, journalists and publishers; the fate of theatre structures and library collections in times of political turmoil; and the so-called afterlives of wartime Shakespeare in postwar poetry, drama, fiction, film, and academe.

S.42. Intertextuality

• Prof. Neil Forsyth (University of Lausanne)
  E-mail: Neil.Forsyth@unil.ch
• Dr. Onno Kosters (Utrecht Univerity)
  E-mail: onnokosters@orange.nl

The term 'Intertextuality' has been used in so many ways since it was introduced by Kristeva in the late sixties that it may no longer retain much meaning, at least without further definition. How, then, are we to account for all the ways in which we move beyond what the authors of various texts (Milton, Blake, Joyce are some pertinent examples) may consciously intend in the way of allusion? What, indeed, has happened to the notion of the multiple discursive contexts of a 'text'? This seminar will review some of the ways in which the original idea has migrated. Early Modern scholars, for example, may be unaware of developments in more modern fields, or among medievalists, all of whom are welcome to participate.

S.43. All Manners of Silence: Non-Verbal Communication in the Long 18th Century

• Dr. Vera Alexander (University of Aarhus)
  E-mail: engval@hum.au.dk
• Dr. Lena Steveker (Saarland University)
  E-mail: steveker@mx.uni-saarland.de

Silence as an ambivalent means of communication is still under- and misrepresented in literary scholarship. Proverbially, silence is said to speak 'louder than words', while being regarded as equivalent to saying nothing, or having nothing to say: 'silence is consent'. Some interpretations causally link silence with ignorance - 'the best substitute for brains is silence' - whereas others extol its wisdom, as in 'silence is golden'. This seminar will explore literary representations of silence as a direct and indirect means of power. Participants are invited to debate issues such as silence and social norms and forms; patterns of (dis)empowerment on different (extra)textual levels; hermeneutic functions of silence; structural and interactive functions of silence as plot element and in relation to irony and humour.

S.44. Towards the Bicentenary: New Bearings in European Dickens Criticism

• Prof. Michael Hollington (University of Toulouse)
  E-mail: wahlverwandschaften@gmail.com
• Dr. Holly Furneaux (University of Leicester)
  E-mail: hf35@leicester.ac.uk

This seminar will provide a forum for participants to discuss new foci in European Dickens criticism at a time of renewed energies connected with the approaching bicentenary in 2012. One obvious example of such renewal is an emerging focus on the history of Dickens criticism and reception in a range of European countries hitherto largely neglected by the Anglo-American Dickens industry. But there are many other lively new developments - in Dickens and the radical tradition, in gender studies, in film studies, in the interdisciplary study of text and illustration, and not least in the neglected area of Dickens's representation of sexuality. Participants are invited to contribute, either by focussing on the topic of Dickens studies in their own country, or by exploring any emergent trend in Dickens criticism.

S.45. Writing-Machines and Literature

• Dr. Peter Simonsen (University of Southern Denmark)
  E-mail: petsim@litcul.sdu.dk
• Dr. Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)
  E-mail: ucmgjsn@ucl.ac.uk

When the principal of the Royal Institute for deaf-mutes in Copenhagen, Rasmus Malling-Hansen, invented the Writing Ball in 1865, he became a pioneer of an ongoing technological revolution. Since then, mechanical, electric and digital typewriters have provided office workers and other writers with new means of producing, mediating, distributing and storing discourse. This seminar will explore the significance of writing-machines in modern literature and culture. Contributions may focus on the role of discourse technologies in the formation of modern literature and culture involving, but not restricted to, issues of secretarial culture, body culture, gender, media, technology and globalization.

S.46. Teaching English as a Language of Translation

• Dr. Anca Greere (Babes-Bolyai University)
  E-mail: anca.greere@softwaredesign.ro
• Dr. Mihaela Cozma (West University of Timisoara)
  E-mail: mcozma@litere.uvt.ro

This seminar invites contributions on issues related to the teaching of English for or through translation with elicitation of problematic aspects in general English classes, ESP and translator-training programs. Debates on the following questions are welcomed: Is translation an exercise for language acquisition? How is English dealt with in translation classes (specific methodology)? Are English classes in translator-training different? What is being taught: standard English or international/global English? What is the impact of English translations on pedagogical practices in standard language classrooms vs. translator training? Additionally, we expect to touch upon other methodological and pedagogical aspects such as curriculum development, syllabus design and in-class training methodology specific for training programmes where English is taught as a language of translation and/or a language of global communication/mediation.

S.47. Emergent Minds: Thinking with Feeling

• Dr. Corinne Saunders (University of Durham)
  E-mail: c.j.saunders@durham.ac.uk
• Dr. María Nieves Pascual Soler (University of Jaén)
  E-mail: npascual@ujaen.es

This seminar will explore the emergence of ideas of consciousness and the mind-body relationship in literature from the medieval period onwards, with a special emphasis on the interrelation of science, medicine and the arts. The focus will be on the ways that literature has always engaged with discourses such as medicine and philosophy, but has also proposed alternative models of reasoning which incorporate affect and engage with moral thinking. Modern science has also moved away from Cartesian reductionism to bring together mind and body, and incorporate notions of affect and thinking in cognitive models. Contributors are invited to explore the topic of thinking with feeling in relation to any literary period or writer.

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Last modified: 19 August 2008