CALL FOR PAPERS

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL DJUNA BARNES CONFERENCE

21-22 September 2012

An International Conference hosted by The Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, in association with Birkbeck College, University of London.

Guest Speakers:
Daniela Caselli (University of Manchester)
Melissa Jane Hardie (University of Sydney)
Scott Herring (University of Indiana)
Teresa de Lauretis (University College Santa Cruz, CA)

The work of author, poet, playwright, journalist, visual artist and sometimes reluctant modernist Djuna Barnes (1892 – 1982) has continued to beguile, excite and inspire readers and has, over the years, produced its own voluminous and varied critical history. While Barnes has often been treated as a somewhat peripheral figure in relation to modernism, recent studies, graduate research activity, and research focused on questions of literary history and modernism continues to reveal a deepening body of research that increasingly values Barnes's importance as a central modern writer.

The First International Djuna Barnes Conference presents itself as a timely opportunity to reflect upon this complex critical history and consider the shape and scope of Barnes scholarship and twentieth century literary studies today. International and interdisciplinary in focus, this conference hopes to reflect the diversity of Barnes's own artistic practice, cohering a diverse and dispersed research community of scholars and postgraduate students interested in Barnes either directly, tangentially, or in relation to other frames of cultural-historical studies which might open up further possibilities for investigation and discussion.

We warmly invite papers on any aspect of the work of Djuna Barnes. Topics could include, but are by no means restricted to the following:

Barnes's Canon:

• anachronism
• propriety
• canonicity
• legibility
• narrative
• genre

Barnes's Form:

• poetics of form
• modes of reading
• staging Barnes
• aesthetic approaches
• a 'Barnesean' style?

Teaching and Reading Barnes:

• close analyses
• pedagogical issues
• Barnes and the syllabus
• difficulty

Barnes and Others:

• Beckett
• Stein
• Woolf
• Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
• Emily Holmes Coleman
• Mina Loy
• Eliot
• Joyce
• little magazines and journals
• publishers

Barnes in Context

• trauma
• biography
• history
• gender
• identity
• race
• sexuality
• animality
• alterity
• feminist and queer poetics

Barnes and Modernity:

• modernism
• late modernism
• questions of canon formation and canonicity
• critical histories
• methodological and theoretical approaches
• new directions in research

Please send proposals of no more than 300 words in length for 15–20 minute papers (or 500 word proposals for panels of 3 papers). Please also include: affiliation and position, details if applicable of graduate work, and research interests to djunabarnes2012@gmail.com by 30th March 2012. Decisions will be announced by June 2012.

Main Organisers: Caroline Knighton & Cathryn Setz (University of London, Birkbeck College).

Organising Committee: Claire Conilleau (Université Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle), Alex Goody (Oxford Brookes), Elizabeth Pender (University of Cambridge), and Joanne Winning (Birkbeck College).

CLICK HERE FOR THE DJUNA BARNES RESEARCH SEMINAR.

The School of Advanced Study is part of the central University of London. The School takes its responsibility to visitors with special needs very seriously and will endeavour to make reasonable adjustments to its facilities in order to accommodate the needs of such visitors. If you have a particular requirement, please feel free to discuss it confidentially with the organiser in advance of the event taking place.

Enquiries: Jon Millington, Events Officer, Institute of English Studies, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel +44 (0) 207 664 4859; Email jon.millington@sas.ac.uk.