cfp.english.upenn.edu

On the 8-9 April 2011, Brunel University will hold the ‘New Cultures of Ageing Conference’, an interdisciplinary event focusing on representations of ageing in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Keynote speakers include Fay Weldon and Will Self. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/acad/sa/artsub/english/engresearch/fcmap/c...

The ‘Older Women and Life Story Narratives in Fiction: Memory, History and Reliability’ panel at the New Cultures of Ageing conference invites submissions that examine the themes of ageing (older women), life story narratives, memory, history and reliability in works of fiction. Possible topics for the panel could include:

• The function of memory and time
• How older women are represented in the text
• Age-related conditions such as dementia, Alzheimer’s etc.
• Reliability of older narrators
• Life story narratives
• The blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction
• Autobiography/biography/Memoir
• The act of writing

The panel already includes a paper on Memory, History and Reliability in Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize, with focus on the novel’s 83-year-old narrator, Iris Chase-Griffen.

Many other texts offer possibilities, for example:

• Chalcot Crescent by Fay Weldon
• The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
• Wise Children by Angela Carter

Papers may wish to consider the above themes, novels and authors but are by no means restricted to them.

Papers accepted to the panel will be published in a post-conference collection entitled ‘Fiction and Ageing’ which will hopefully be published online in the journal Entertext.

For consideration, please submit expressions of interest and a 200-word abstract to Emma.Filtness@brunel.ac.uk no later than DECEMBER 1st 2010.