cfp.english.upenn.edu

The Aberystwyth University English and Creative Writing Postgraduate Conference in cooperation with the National Library of Wales has extended the deadline for abstracts for New Horizons: Crossing the Borderlands of the Humanities, the annual postgraduate conference to be held 11 May to 13 May 2011.

Have literature and the arts stagnated due to outdated concepts, irrelevant theories and unnecessary traditions? Do we idolise the critic’s choice of established writers even when they refuse to explore uncharted territories of originality and creativity? Are we failing to unify all areas of academia – however apparently alien – into functional and symbiotic components of the arts? Is this necessarily a bad thing? Should our ambition be to re-read the past in a way that helps to shape the future, by creating visionary works in studies and creative writing?

With the rise of interdisciplinary criticisms, new and exciting light has been shed on the humanities, whether new avenues into past or contemporary literature, art or history, new forms of fiction and poetry, or blended methodologies and criticisms. This conference will discuss various ways that the humanities might approach this new and open territory. Possible areas of discussion:
- Blended critical approaches to a subject in the humanities.
- How does contemporary theory enhance and enlighten the way in which we see traditional forms of literature and art?
- Dealing with cultural innovations and/or societal limitations with contemporary art.
- Using new ideas to re-examine old works and canonical texts.
- “Different aspects of the humanities perceive events in society and history in different ways”. How valuable is this statement to contemporary scholarship and what new perspectives can be drawn from the effects of this idea.
- New, untapped areas of study in the humanities.
- Examining the changing face of the humanities in light of technological and social revolutions.
- To what extent have new advances and discoveries in disciplines of science, medicine and the technologies shaped and moulded literature and art?
- Old ends, new beginnings.

The Postgraduate Conference Committee will consider abstracts from any of the humanities including – but not limited to – literary studies, creative writing, art and art history, philosophy, history, rhetoric and composition studies, film and television studies, communications, or education.
Besides panels from graduate students, the conference will feature a tour of the National Library, readings at the Arts Centre Bookshop and plenary talks from Professor Peter Barry (Aberystwyth University, author of Beginning Theory, and Literature in Context), Professor Mark Willhardt (Monmouth College; Monmouth, IL, USA, Dr Tiffany Atkinson (Aberystwyth University, author of Kink and Particle) and Tyler Keevil (Writer of the Year, Writers Inc of London).

Please send 300-word abstracts to postgradconference@aber.ac.uk by no later than Friday April 1st. If you are interested in giving your presentation in Welsh, please indicate on the abstract.