CFP: Justine at 50: Durrell's Novel and its Times (9/15/06; 20th-C., 2/22/07-2/24/07)

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CFP: "/Justine /at 50: Durrell's Novel and its Times" (15 September
2006; 22 – 24 February 2007)

The Thirty-fifth Annual 20th-Century Literature and Culture Conference
University of Louisville
22 - 24 February 2007

The years between the early 1950s and the mid 1960s witnessed a strange
rich after-blooming of literary Modernism. An impressive array of new
works—striking in conceptual scope and ambitious in narrative
experimentation—signaled that the search for bold fictional forms had by
no means died out with what was once called "High Modernism":

    * Beckett's "Trilogy"—/Malloy/ (1951), /Malone Dies/ (1951), and
    /The Unnamable/ (1953)
    * Ellison's /Invisible Man/ (1952)
    * Robbe-Grillet's /Les Gommes/ (1953)
    * Bellow's /The Adventures of Augie March/ (1953)
    * Gaddis's /The Recognitions/ (1955)
    * Kerouac's /On the Road/ (1957)
    * Durrell's /The Alexandria Quartet/ (1957-1960)
    * Burroughs' /The Naked Lunch/ (1959)
    * Borges' /Ficciones /(1962, English translation)
    * Lessing's /The Golden Notebook/ (1962)
    * Nabokov's /Pale Fire/ (1962)
    * Pynchon's /V./ (1963)
    * Cortázar's /Rayuela /(1963)
    * Rhys' /Wide Sargasso Sea/ (1966)

All of these experimental fictions situate themselves somewhere on the
crossing between modernism and postmodernism, marking the discovery of a
stunning new literary terrain.

The International Lawrence Durrell Society invites submissions for
papers discussing the epochal shifts in literary style which occurred
during the 1950s and the 1960s. The coming year seems especially
auspicious for a retrospective. 2007 marks the 50th anniversary of the
publication of /Justine /(1957), the first volume of Lawrence Durrell's
/Alexandria Quartet/. /The Alexandria Quartet/ has often been cited
as marking a decisive shift in direction for the twentieth-century
novel, and writers as various as William Burroughs, Gore Vidal, Harold
Bloom, and Rita Dove have given recognition to the work's significance.
Yet the critical divisions inspired by /Justine /and /The Alexandria
Quartet/ also in some way recall that these works had their beginnings
during a time of upheaval, as literary styles and tastes were developing
in ways for which literary historians still are struggling to account.
 
We invite discussion of texts from the 1950s and 1960s—as well as
further discussion of Durrell's /Justine/—with the aim of opening a
dialogue about the shifts and tensions characteristic to this period of
"later Modernism." Possible topics might include but are not limited to:
 

    * Later Modernism's shift to Postmodernism—the works of Durrell,
    Beckett, Ellison, Gaddis, Burroughs, Borges, Lessing, Nabokov,
    Pynchon, &c.
    * Modernist style and Orientalist critique
    * Self-reflexive texts and the seeds of Postmodernism
    * Literary self-consciousness and the Modernist Legacy
    * New Criticism's sense of Irony and Postcolonialism's sense of
    sincerity
    * Postcolonial Communities within Modernism (Subversive Colonials,
    Colonizing and Colonized Modernisms, &c.)
    * Anti-Modernist Realism
    * Anti-Realist Postmodernism
    * Writers, Spies, and Diplomats: British and American dominion in
    the shadow world
    * Changing intellectual origins of the writer
    * From History to Myth—(re)writing the past
    * Coming to terms with the Second World War—Manning, Waugh, and Durrell
    * The Beats—especially /On the Road/ (1957)
    * The Cult Novel

DEADLINE: 15 September 2006

PLEASE SUBMIT ALL PROPOSALS TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS:

By Email w/attachment (preferred):

slighcl_at_wfu.edu

~ or ~

By Post:

Charles L. Sligh
Department of English
Wake Forest University
C-201 Tribble Hall
Winston-Salem, NC 27106

Include your name, professional affiliation, addresses (including
e-mail), and a phone number.

The Thirty-fifth Annual 20th-Century Literature and Culture Conference
will be held at the University of Louisville, 22 - 24 February 2007.

Please see the conference's official website for additional information:

http://www.louisville.edu/a-s/cml/xxconf/

--**********************Charles L. SlighDepartment of EnglishWake Forest Universityslighcl_at_wfu.edu********************** ========================================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP_at_english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://cfp.english.upenn.edu or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu ==========================================================Received on Wed Jul 12 2006 - 16:30:51 EDT