cfp.english.upenn.edu

Radical Bowen
Edited by Patricia Juliana Smith and Jessica Gildersleeve

From experiments in language and identity to innovations in the short story and life narratives, Elizabeth Bowen’s work informs debates about literature in its most radical forms. The editors of this collection seek new scholarship on Bowen’s inventiveness and the ways in which her work offers new perspectives on narrative and narrative theory. Essays addressing one or more texts, dealing with historical, biographical or archival material, or exploring Bowen’s engagement with or influence on other writers, are equally welcome.

Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

Biographical material, including Bowen’s personal and literary relationships
Discussion of Bowen’s modernity and/or postmodernity
Gender and sexual identity
Experiments in voice and language
Intersections with historical events (eg WWII)
Innovations in the novel, the short story, the essay, the auto/biography, travel writing...
Fascination with the new, including fashion and technology
Bowen and literary theory
Reappearance of ghosts, the supernatural, the strange
Bowen’s politics

This collection seeks to articulate the ways in which Bowen revolutionised writing over a significant portion of the twentieth century through new approaches to her work.
Essays should be 5000-7000 words and adhere to MLA style.
Submissions should be received by 30 October 2012.

Queries and submissions should be directed to the editors:
Patricia Juliana Smith, engpjs@hofstra.edu
Jessica Gildersleeve, j.gildersleeve@griffith.edu.au