Modernist Moves
Keynote Speakers
Susan Stanford Friedman, Virginia Woolf Professor of English and Women’s Studies and Sally Mead Hands Bascom Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Andrew Thacker, School of English, De Montfort University and Chair, British Association for Modernist Studies
Overview
“Modernist Moves” aims to reconsider our understanding of modernism by situating the modernist aesthetic as an affective response to a world where a sense of place and spatial relations are undergoing fundamental change. The word “move” may refer to a change of position or location, feelings and emotions that touch individuals, and the impetus to act by making something happen. In a modernist context, these ‘moves’ call to mind the interplay between modernism as an era of changing relations to space, the emergence of a new sense of affect, and the wider engagement with the world through writing as action or engagement. Please click here for the programme.
Possible lines of inquiry
Key questions/issues to be addressed include:
· What is the relationship between motion and emotion? How are poetics and literary modes of production shaped by this interaction?
· How do we track the interplay of affect and space throughout a writer’s career, taking into account various representations in fiction, literary criticism, public engagement, life writing, and non-fiction works. How is an author moved by changing spatial relations?
· How do writing and other forms of public engagement move readers to new ways of imagining or understanding the world? How are writing and activism related? Does an emphasis on “modernist moves” shed light on the role of the public intellectual, artist, or literary critic?
· What spatial paradigms and discourses trouble or affect the writer? Are there discrepancies or continuities in public/private relations to space through writing?
· What communities of readership does the writer aim to move?
· What role do literary circulations play in producing affective relations across borders? What is the impact of modernist writing in terms of the transnational imaginary?
· What role does affect play in the socially transformative potential of modernism? Here speakers might consider social upheaval, precarious conditions, uneven development, terror, war, empire, states of exception, citizenship, cosmopolitanism or the expatriate experience, pacifism, refugee/migrant experiences, and other concerns with the changing world order.
Other approaches are also welcome. Speakers may wish to focus on the multiple meanings of modernist moves or consider one or more of its concerns with (a) motion/mobility, (b) emotion and affect, and (c) impact or the potential for social transformation.
Deadline: 1 October 2012
Please submit an abstract (250 words) or panel proposal (for three papers) to ModernistMoves@brunel.ac.uk. Please remember to include your name, affiliation, and a short bio statement. For panel proposals, please also provide a short statement outlining the rationale for the panel.
Inquiries
If you have questions about the event, please contact Wendy Knepper at wendy.knepper@brunel.ac.uk.
Sponsorship
Funding for this event has been provided by a BRIEF award from Brunel University. We also acknowledge the support of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing and the Brunel Gender & Sexuality Research Centre.
Where to Stay
If you would like to stay overnight, there are several options on or near the Brunel campus. Click here for a campus map.
On campus, The Lancaster Suite, Lodge & Spa offers reasonably priced accommodations. You may contact them by phone at (01895) 268001 or by email at lancaster-staff@brunel.ac.uk.
Near campus, at junction 4 of the M4, there is a Holiday Inn http://www.holidayinn.com/hotels/us/en/london/lonno/hoteldetail There is also a Travelodge in Uxbridge, http://www.travelodge.co.uk/ which is located near the tube/bus station and the centre of town.
Where to Eat
On campus, you will find Costa Coffee, serving drinks, pastries, and sandwiches, and a pub-style student eatery called “The Hub.” In Uxbridge, there are a number of eating options, including Pizza Express, Nonna Rosa, The Three Tuns, Nando’s, The Slug & Lettuce, and cafes.
