modernist studies

Yeats Kyoto Symposium 2018

2018 International Yeats Society Symposium, Kyoto

The 54th Annual Conference of the Yeats Society of Japan

Dates: December 15ｰ16, 2018 

Venues: Clock Tower Centennial Hall of Kyoto University and Kashokaku Noh Theatre 

Themes:  Any topic on Yeats is welcome, but the following theme is particularly encouraged:

“Yeats and Laughter”

   Topics may include:

-thematic concerns on laughter in Yeats poems/plays

-cultural considerations on Yeatsean humor and Modernism

-laughter in post-Yeats poets/writers

-Yeats and Kyogen

-laughter in Irish folklore and mythology

The idea of a “lost generation” still has a hold on the popular imagination over ninety years after it was popularized via the epigraph of The Sun Also Rises.  For literary scholars and historians, though, that idea is critically worn-out if not simply useless.  This panel seeks to understand anew this old idea.  Questions to be addressed include but are not limited to:

How has the idea of the lost generation been critically and historically misunderstood and/or abused?

What exactly is the content of a literary text, and how does it affect the experience of reading?  How should critics approach a text's overt elements and ideas?  A lengthy and currently influential tradition of thought has emphasized literary form in a variety of creative ways, but very little has been done to explain how critics should think about content.  This panel will bring together six scholars, who will each briefly (in 8 to 10 minutes) offer a definition of literary content and an example from a particular text.  Please submit an abstract for such a paper, along with a one-page CV, to pfessenbecker at gmail.com by March 15.

Note: this is a non-guaranteed special session, and requires MLA approval.  

Critical Essays on Arthur Machen

edited by Antonio Sanna

The Graphic City — Urban Studies After The Visual Turn

…From the rear platform of a fast ‘El’ train,
I watched the city’s undulating lights
And felt about my heart the antique pain
That man has always felt for beauty’s signs.
And often I was wildly moved to test
Myself against the city’s gleaming lines,
To feel their edges touch my bare brown breast!

—from “Song of New York” by Claude McKay (1926)