Since Fight Club earned Chuck Palahniuk notoriety, critical praise and derision and a committed cult following on the heels of the 1996 novel publication and 1999's David Fincher film adaptation starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham-Carter and Jared Leto, the author and his work have struggled to find critical legitimacy. His reputation, especially at public readings, has been built upon accentuating all the ways grotesque horror can become comically absurd.

South Atlantic Modern Association (SAMLA) Conference 

Friday November 2 to Sunday November 4, 2018 in Sheraton Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama. 

The journal continent invites submissions for a special issue on the topic of “Apocryphal Technologies.” While the term “technological imaginary” is often used to describe how technologies are invested with utopian aspirations that prevent users from sensing legitimate disappointments, frustrations, or malfunctions, the term “apocryphal technology” refers to technological imaginaries that are more explicitly dubious, suspicious, or fraudulent. It also refers more specifically to technologies that are actually designed, built, and implemented (as opposed to the purely theoretical) and that are openly endorsed by their designers, promoters, and users (as opposed to the obviously impossible).

The superhero-as-outsider has been a narrative told for decades since Superman’s parents sent him on a rocket from Krypton to Earth. The immigration narrative is closely aligned with extraterrestrial heroes, including refugees such as the Martian Manhunter and Icon. Yet a superhero does not have to be from another planet to experience the process of immigration: in just X-Men, Charles Xavier, Deadpool, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Storm all work outside their nations of birth, and Magneto forms Genosha as an international sanctuary for mutants persecuted by their governments. Recent films such as Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther examine the challenges of being forced out of one’s home and taking on the role of an exile.

Carlos Reygadas is a twenty-first century Mexican auteur of international acclaim. His opera prima, Japón (2002), was awarded the Caméra d’Or Special Mention at Cannes. After his second and third features were nominated for the Palme d’Or, his fourth feature, Post Tenebras Lux (2012), again nominated for the Palme d’Or, won the award for best director. Reygadas’s poetic and experimental use of images, along with his subversive approach to traditional cinematic representations of Mexican life, has opened up an array of possibilities of interpretation for audiences and critics alike.

Reading and Writing the World:  Perception and Identity in the Era of Climate Change

An International Conference organised by EMMA (Etudes Montpelliéraines du Monde Anglophone) in collaboration with CECILLE (Centre d'Etudes en Civilisations, Langues et Lettres Étrangères)

5-6 April 2019
Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, France
Site Saint Charles

Keynote speakers:
Thomas Dutoit, Université de Lille 3, France (confirmed)
Bénédicte Meillon, Université de Perpignan UPVD, France (confirmed)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Humanities, Special Issue:

“Disturbances of the Home/land in Anglophone Postcolonial Literatures”

Call for Papers: