Version française: <http://www.unl.ac.uk/literary-beasts/french.shtml>.
__________________________________________________________
LITERARY BEASTS
An interdisciplinary BCLA workshop conference on animal representation
in today's literature.
London, Thursday 16th, Friday 17th and Saturday 18th September 2004
Institute of Romance Studies Senate House, University of London
Call for papers
In every cultural tradition, animals have been symbols or tools
allowing human beings to distance themselves and their society from
nature. Intellectual movements of the 20th century, particularly
psychoanalysis and structuralism, have opened new perspectives in
interpreting this important animal presence in today's literature.
The current shift away from universal standardised values towards
values favouring diversity and difference is expressed through a vision
of the animal which is no longer exclusively or essentially archetypal.
Non-human creatures can indeed symbolise our ancestral fears and
desires as well as the eternal dilemma linked to our perceptions of
ourselves as half-angel/half-beast, but they reveal above all the
perplexities and perversities of our present human condition. The quest
for the self is currently seen as inseparable from the quest for the
other, and the animal, other par excellence, clearly reflects our
conception of otherness. Animals in today's writing function not only
as mirror images of ourselves, or as pointers to boundaries which
separate us from other living forms. Our view of non-human creatures
currently tends to move beyond anthropocentrism. Animals can therefore
also reveal our sense of relationship to life, and emerge as agents
showing the ways in which we treat and conceive the other: in turn
subject or object of closeness, exclusion, innocence, exploitation or
persecution.
Interdisciplinarity has also contributed to extending this literary
vision of otherness through animal representation. Disciplines such as
anthropology, biology, ethics, ecology, ethnology, philosophy and
sociology are an integral part of such a representation and of the
questions it raises.
Animals and animality across literatures will be considered in this
interdisciplinary context, particularly through the themes of
linguistic communication, power, body perception and sexuality, species
interdependency, imaginary projections about or rejection of the other.
Different literatures, with an emphasis on French and English writing,
will be considered.
Projected date and venue: 16th/17th/18th of September 2004, Senate
House, Institute of Romance Studies, University of London
A selection of papers will be published by the Centre de Recherches en
Littératures Modernes et Contemporaines, Université Blaise Pascal,
Clermont-Ferrand and the British Comparative Literature Association
Organiser: Lucile Desblache, London Metropolitan University,
l.desblache@londonmet.ac.uk
Conference website: <http://www.unl.ac.uk/literary-beasts/>.
Kindly send your proposals for papers or panels in English or in French
(around 300 words) by Friday 16th April 2004 to:
Lucile Desblache
Department of Humanities, Arts and Languages
London Metropolitan University
166-220 Holloway Road
London N7 8DB
United Kingdom
===============================================
From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
CFP@english.upenn.edu
Full Information at
http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/
or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
===============================================
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Dec 31 2003 - 05:39:01 EST