Modernism upturned the critical as well as the artistic conventions, spanning the
period from the last quarter of the 19th century in France and from 1890 in Great Britain and
Germany to the start of the Second World War. The feeling that a new start ought to be made,
in politics and society as much as in art, was accentuated by the War and its immediate
aftermath. In the opening phase of the modern movement the centre was Europe. Partly as a
result of the political disorder and the discarding of Modernism by the Bolshevik regime in
the Soviet Union, it tended to move westward; and America’s social and technological
modernity also matched the art’s novelty. We are still influenced by modernism, and
according to Malcolm Bradbury, ‘it still remains integrally woven into our contemporary
awareness’. Americans like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot bridged the space
between the British and American traditions. They settled permanently in Europe but many
others returned, to quote H.L.Mencken, ‘wrapped in the American flag’: Robert Frost, Ernest
Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Katherine Ann Porter, Sinclair Lewis,
Eugene O’ Neill, and a multitude of others. They are the writers who knew that a new land,
and a new language needed new rhythms, new genres, new themes, ‘new thresholds, new
anatomies’, as Hart Crane put it. Some of their writing was insistently American in
diction, theme and style. Others returned to the heritage of the mother country, embracing a
new formalism. Still others adopted a cosmopolitan approach, turning to foreign languages
and literary traditions for new forms and themes. Some focused on aspects of their own
histories; others, on the political events or cultural movements- the Civil War, the Harlem
Renaissance- that marked their times. Soon they changed the map of modern American
literary thinking.
The aim of this conference is to provide an intellectual congregation to discuss what is
American modernism, and what is Americanism, and how is it different from the cultural

tradition of Western Europe. This conference invites college and university students and

research scholars to reevaluate modernist American literature and its impact on a world

which seems to be impervious to the dangers of another world war.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

The Inventions of American Modernism and its Relevance Today

Immigrant Writing

American Fiction and Popular Culture

Confessional Poetry

The Beat Generation

The Art and Politics of Race

Harlem Renaissance

Women Writers

Postmodernity in American Prose

Chicano and Latino Writing

 Adaptations and other Media Forms

Asian American Writing

Submission Guidelines:

 An abstract of 300 words with a maximum of 5 (five) relevant keywords is to be submitted

by 22nd July, 2025.

 The accepted presenters have to submit a first draft of 3500– 4000 words including

footnotes on the conference date at the registration desk itself (the same should be sent

to english.rkm@gmail.com ) for consideration for publication in a conference

proceeding with ISBN.

 A separate MS Word file should be submitted containing the article title, followed by

the author’s name, affiliation and communication details.

 Abstract & Full Paper are to be submitted only in MS Word format, typed in Times

New Roman, 14-point Heading and 12-point normal text with 1.5 spacing & 10 points

with 1.0 spacing for footnotes).

 Maximum of two authors are allowed for one paper.

 Citation Mode: MLA 9.

Important Dates:

Abstract Submission Deadline--- 22nd July ( english.rkm@gmail.com )

Notification of Acceptance---26th July

Date of Conference: November 11& 12, 2025

Registration fees: UG/PG students: Rs. 300

Research Scholars: Rs. 500

Contact: english.rkm@gmail.com

Convenor: Dr. Dibakar Sarkar, Assistant Professor of English, Ramakrishna Mission

Residential College (Autonomous), Narendrapur