CfP: The Transnational Markets of Literary and Artistic Nationalisms in the Long 19th Century

Proposed seminar for the Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association at Utrecht, The Netherlands, July 6-9, 2017

Organizer: Levente T. Szabó (Babes-Bolyai University, Romania)

tszabo.levente@ubbcluj.ro, tszabolevente@gmail.com

Modern literary and artistic nationalism was probably one of the best-selling ideas of the long nineteenth century and its transnational spread was intimately intertwined with the rise of modern market culture. In spite of the popular belief, the rise and spread of literary nationalism was one of the most transnational phenomena of the period, one of the most enthralling and most often consumed symbolic good on the global market of ideas. The languages of nationalism and the languages of money created a highly succesful and highly contested global literary framework that is partly accountable for the modernization of the literary field, the emergence of a series of literary patterns and memorable fictional accounts.

This seminar is devoted to the multifold aspects of this entangled relationship of literature, nationalism and market culture in the long nineteenth century. We are open to a wide interpretation of this relationship from case studies to methodological interventions that may include:

-          the national as a modern literary transnational brand, the literary and artistic national as a „brand loyalty”

-          forms of economic nationalisms in the literary field

-          national authors as transnational literary celebrities

-          authors and figures of literary fiction as symbolic national commodities

-          the emerging markets of modern national classics

-          national literature as national currency, vindicative strategies

-          the transnational creation, reception and impact of the national prizes

-          the role of the states in intervening and creating literary and artistic markets

-          the transnational success of ”banal” (Michael Billig) literary nationalisms

-          contested ethnic and national markets of the „national authors”

-          overlapping and conflicting national markets of the historical novel

-          the role (”market”) of speculation in the spread of literary nationalisms

-          the nationalization of copyright / droit d’auteur, overlapping and conflicting national legislations of copyright, transnational conflict over copyright

-          financial panics and bubbles in transnational forms of literary nationalism

We invite contributions that are able to foreground how literary capitalism and literary nationalism went hand in hand in shaping one of the most powerful and global modernization process in the global literary field.

Formal submissions of paper proposals must be made to the ACLA website between September 1 and September 23, 2016. You will find the ACLA annual conference website at http://www.acla.org/annual-meeting

Please note: the posting of this call for papers on the ACLA website does not guarantee acceptance of the seminar by the conference organizers. The ACLA Program Committee will review all seminar proposals and notify seminar organizers of acceptance or rejection in October.

Should you need any further information regarding this seminar, please e-mail Levente T.