CFP: [International] Welsh Writing: On the Edge

full name / name of organization: 
Katie Gramich
contact email: 

‘On The Edge: Margins and Peripheries in Welsh Writing’
ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2008
The focus of the twentieth annual conference of the Association for Welsh
Writing in English at Gregynog Hall in Powys, Wales, UK from April 4-6,
2008 will be ‘On The Edge: Margins and Peripheries in Welsh Writing.’ The
theme is open to a range of interpretations, both literal and symbolic. On
the literal (littoral?) level, Welsh writers have long been engaged in
representing the coastline and islands of Wales, from Allen Raine’s
Cardiganshire cliffs and caves to Dylan Thomas’s Rhossili and the marginal
estuary town of Under Milk Wood.More recently, Brenda Chamberlain and
Christine Evans have provided powerful poetic accounts of living on the
edge in Bardsey Island, while R. S. Thomas spent his later years probing
life out on the limb of the LlÅ·n peninsula. Other writers, like Emyr
Humphreys and Kate Roberts, have seen Wales on the uncomfortable edge of
Empire, while many Welsh works, like Raymond Williams’s Border Country,
have explored the liminal space between the rural and the industrial.
Welsh identities, too have frequently been represented as edgy and
fractured, such as in the multiple selves projected in the work of David
Jones, Dannie Abse, or Charlotte Williams. More recently, Welsh writers
have explored cultural, ethnic and linguistic margins in productive
experiments with form and symbolism, as in the writing of Lloyd Jones,
Gwyneth Lewis, or Peter Ho Davies. This conference will be an opportunity
to explore the various edges of Welsh writing: those places where the self
comes up against the something else which, arguably, defines it as what it
is.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Papers are invited on any aspect of the theme ‘On The Edge: Margins and
Peripheries in Welsh Writing.’ Both short papers (c. 20 minutes) or
longer ones (c. 50 minutes) will be considered; a brief abstract should be
submitted to the organizer for consideration by the deadline of December
14th, 2007. Organizer: Dr. Katie Gramich, School of English, Communication
and Philosophy, Cardiff University, Colum Drive, Cardiff,Wales, UK, CF10
3EU. Email: GramichK_at_cf.ac.uk; Telephone: 02920-875622.

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Received on Thu Aug 23 2007 - 10:42:40 EDT