UPDATE: Second International Doris Lessing Conference (UK) (9/30/06; 7/6/07-7/8/07 & journal issue)

THIRD CALL FOR PAPERS
SECOND INTERNATIONAL DORIS LESSING CONFERENCE
Friday 6th - Sunday 8th July 2007
Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK

Supported by the Doris Lessing Society and the Contemporary Women's
Writing Network (an English Association Special Interest Group)

The Guest of Honour, Doris Lessing, will be introducing the conference.

Keynote Speakers:
Professor Clare Hanson, University of Loughborough
Professor Virginia Tiger, Rutgers University
Professor Dennis Walder, Open University

DORIS LESSING: NATION, POLITICS AND IDENTITY

Doris Lessing is one of the UK's best-known novelists. Since 1950 when
her first novel was published, her fiction has confronted the 'big
issues' of the twentieth century: the violence of war and colonialism,
class and race inequalities, the appeal of nationalism and changes in
the role of women. The conference will explore Lessing's involvement in
left-wing politics, her status as a post-colonial writer and her key
role in second-wave feminism. It will also consider Lessing's position
as a 'British' writer and examine issues about nationality, 'race' and
decolonisation raised in her writing. In addition, the conference will
examine the narrative complexity and generic variety of Lessing's work.

A symposium of 3-5 of the best papers with a postcolonial focus will be
published in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature. Papers will also
be published in Doris Lessing Studies, the journal of the Doris Lessing
Society.

We encourage as broad a range of contributions as possible, but we
particularly welcome proposals for panels and individual submissions
that relate Lessing's work to the following:
        * Postcolonial criticism and theory;
        * Left-wing politics;
        * Gender identity and second-wave feminism;
        * Genre, including autobiography, science fiction, gothic,
fantasy and romance;
        * Trauma and the body;
        * Aging and memory;
        * Terrorism;
        * Becoming animal;
        * Pregnancy, maternity and culture.

Please send 300-word abstracts (as a Word Attachment) and proposals for
panels (which should include abstracts for each contributor) to
p.cook_at_leedsmet.ac.uk.

Panels have already been proposed on the following subjects:

Diaspora and Hybridity in the Works of Doris Lessing;
Doris Lessing's Short Stories;
Doris Lessing and Africa;
Aging: Lessing's Treatment of Men and Women in their Late Decades;
Putting the 'woman of letters' in her Place: Canon Formation and the
Lessing Canon.

If you wish to submit to these particular panels please consult the
details on the Leeds Met Cultural Studies website:
http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/as/cs/2E8D349B1B784BC19B92086DD3950444.htm
Deadline for abstracts to these panels: 31st August 2006

For further information contact Dr Susan Watkins
s.watkins_at_leedsmet.ac.uk, School of Cultural Studies, Leeds Metropolitan
University, Civic Quarter, Leeds, LS1 3HE=20

Deadline: 30 September 2006

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Received on Mon Sep 04 2006 - 18:53:03 EDT