cfp.english.upenn.edu

In defiance of the traditional notion of essentially separate genres, writers of fiction frequently include poetic elements in their texts. To give some examples: in Arcadia, Philip Sidney inserts poems and songs of his own creation into the narrative; in The Romance of the Forest: Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry, Ann Radcliffe routinely interrupts the narration to quote established poets or present her own lyric compositions; in The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood subtly alludes to numerous classic poems, for instance by equipping her main character with two “oven mitts in the shape of a red owl and a navy blue pussycat.” Other works of fiction, such as Nabokov’s Lolita and Dickens’s “The Chimes,” include rhythmic passages that lend the texts a verse-like quality. The aim of the conference is to explore the forms and functions of poetic elements in narrative texts from different historical periods.
The symposium will take place at the most welcoming (and architectonically very interesting) conference center “Wolfsburg” (http://www.die-wolfsburg.de/) at Mülheim in the Rhine-Ruhr area of Germany.
As the emphasis of the Connotations symposia is on critical debate, talks should not be longer than 30 minutes, leaving another 30 minutes for discussion.
Please submit proposals of about 200 words’ length by November 1, 2012, to:
Prof. Matthias Bauer
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Department of English
Wilhelmstr. 50
72074 Tübingen
Germany

symposium2013@connotations.de
http://www.connotations.uni-tuebingen.de/symposium2013.htm