CFP: Beyond the Book: Contemporary Cultures of Reading (UK) (1/15/07; 9/1/07-9/2/07)

First Call for Papers

Beyond the Book: Contemporary Cultures of Reading
A conference at the University of Birmingham, UK

1 & 2 September 2007

Keynote Speakers:
Janice Radway (Duke University) & Elizabeth Long (Rice University)

Book groups, Lit Blogs, on-line bookstores, book festivals, reader
magazines, 'One Book, One Community,' Reader's Guides, 'Richard & Judy's
Book Club,' Book TV, 'Canada Reads,' the 'Nancy Pearl Action Figure,'
'Tuesday Night Book Club,'... reading is hot!

This conference will explore the diverse formations, mediations,
practices and representations of reading and readers in the contemporary
moment. Cultures of reading are dynamic and complex: they involve not
only readers reading, but also multiple agencies including publishers,
booksellers, broadcast networks, national, regional and municipal
governments, and educational institutions. The aim of the conference is
to interrogate the relations among these agents and their investment in
the meanings of reading. The study of readers and reading encourages,
maybe demands, multi- and interdisciplinary analysis. We therefore
invite scholars from across the humanities and social sciences to
consider the contemporary meanings and experiences of reading in any
culture or location. Selected papers will be included in an edited
collection on contemporary cultures of reading/book cultures.

Possible topics for consideration:

* Reading as a form of popular culture
* Books & reading as cultural events
* Investigating reading and reader response: methodological
problems & strategies
* The production of readers and/or reading
* Books/Reading and/in/through the mass media
* Reading spaces
* Reading together: shared reading
* Reading as a medium of/for social change
* Reading practices
* Reading and the state

Please send proposals for 20-minute papers (abstracts of 200-300 words)
or complete three-person panel sessions (including abstracts for each
paper) by 15 January 2007 to: burrealz_at_adf.bham.ac.uk, using "BTB
proposal" as the subject line in your email. Proposals may also be sent
to:

Beyond the Book Conference
Department of American & Canadian Studies
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Beyond the Book is a three-year collaborative interdisciplinary
AHRC-funded research project investigating contemporary cultures of
reading. The transatlantic BTB team are: DeNel Rehberg Sedo (Mount
Saint Vincent University, Canada), Danielle Fuller, Anouk Lang & Anna
Burrells (University of Birmingham, UK).

Find out more about our research at: www.beyondthebookproject.org

--
Anouk Lang
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Beyond The Book
Department of American & Canadian Studies 
University of Birmingham 
Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT
email: a.e.lang_at_bham.ac.uk
tel: 0121 414 7568
fax: 0121 414 6866 
www.beyondthebookproject.org
www.uscanada.bham.ac.uk
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