AICED-27

THE 27th ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT,

UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST

5-6 June 2026

CALL FOR PAPERS

Representations of

Crime in Literature and the Arts

University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures

7-13 Pitar Moș Street, Bucharest, Romania

Keynote Speakers:

Shaul Bassi, Ca' Foscari University, Venice

Ricardo Etxepare (Research Center on the Basque Language and Texts)

Felicity Hand, Autonomous University, Barcelona

Gianina Iordăchioaia (University of Graz)

Raluca Sinu (“Transylvania” University of Brașov)

LITERATURE AND CULTURAL STUDIES SECTION

The solving of crimes, mysteries and enigmas is as old as mankind itself. The Old Testament is replete with punishments for misconduct and immoral behaviour. Sophocles’ Oedipus the King provides an early example of the discovery of a hidden past; Seneca’s revenge tragedies paved the way for the gore of much current cinema. Likewise, artists have often depicted gruesome murders, Bellini and Gentileschi being outstanding examples.  Crime can cover a wide variety of deviant acts, ranging from robbery, tax evasion and slander to mass murders and even genocide. These crimes have been represented in diverse and graphic ways in literature, art, and media more broadly. 

Murder, sex, and money are intricately linked in what has generically been called crime fiction, with its diverse characters ranging across class, age, gender identity, and ethnicity. In his article “The Typology of Detective Fiction,” Tzvetan Todorov claims that crime fiction in many of its various sub-forms has a special relationship with the past. The central event, usually the murder, takes places in pre-narrated time, and the actual investigation is almost a kind of narrative archaeology in which a mysterious past event is excavated through its reconstruction in the present. The central characters of crime in literature, art, film, or television can be grouped into victims, perpetrators, innocent bystanders, witnesses, and suspicious characters, who frequently appear to be haunted by their memories and past traumas. This harking back to the past is reminiscent of Svetlana Boym’s concept of restorative nostalgia, which is associated with social and political conservatism. On the other hand, there is a strong tradition of radical fiction that looks to the past not for comfort and stability, but in order to challenge historical myths and collective memories of unity, order, and security. With its emphasis on the surprising and the mysterious, on secretive landscapes and characters, and often on the excessive fascination with violence, deviance, and all forms of transgression, the Gothic novel was crucial for the emergence of crime fiction, and their identifying features overlap to a certain extent. “Crime can be presented as ‘Gothic’ through the themes of the returning past, the psychologically unstable protagonist, the celebration of excess, and the emphasis on surfaces” (Spooner, 2020: 257). Modes like the Gothic and the Weird have often been employed in order to frame and define crime and the actors involved, whether they are victims, perpetrators, accomplices, or bystanders.

Recognizing that crime is an umbrella term that incorporates various sub-forms, many of which have just recently appeared, this conference is dedicated to exploring the manner in which criminal acts have been represented across a wide variety of media and genres, and the various narrative strategies and generic features that have been employed in order to address local, national, cultural, and global phenomena.

Topics may include, but are not restricted to:

• Geographies of Crime: Real and Symbolic Boundaries
• Changes in the Ideology of Law and Order
• Crime and Cultural Diversity
• Technology and the Media: Cybercrime
• Crime and Speculative Fiction
• The Psychology of the Criminal Mind as Reflected in Literature and the Arts  
• Early Forms of Crime Writing
• Postcolonial Crime and Detection
• Crime, Ethnic Identity, and Social Justice
• Representations of Genocide and Mass Murder
• Crime and Sexual Violence
• Implicated Subjects (Rothberg), Bystanders and Accomplices
• Crime and Transgression
• Crime and the Figure of the Child
• Crime and the Environment 
• Crime and the Gothic
• Structures and Networks of Criminality
• Representation of Crime in Music and Fine Arts
• Crime (in) Film and Television
• Crime (in) Comics and Video Games
• The Detective and the Anti-Hero
• Less Serious Criminal Offences
• Crime, Expiations, and Redemption
• True Crime

Works Cited

Boym, Svetlana, The Future of Nostalgia, Basic Books, 2001.

Spooner, Catherine, “Crime and the Gothic” in A Companion to Crime Fiction. Eds.  Charles J. Rzepka & Lee Horsley. Wiley-Blackwell, 2020:  245-257.

Todorov, Tzvetan, “The Typology of Detective Fiction,” in Crime and Media Ed. Chris Greer, [1966] 2010: 291-30.

N. B. The organising committee reserve the right to reject any abstracts or interrupt any presentations/discussions that might instigate the participants to conflict or intolerance.

Continuing the structure initiated two years ago, our conference will also offer a number of thematic panel streams that will allow participants to group around their main fields of research and for which potential participants are asked to send their proposals both to the conference email address (listed below) and to the panel stream organizer:

Crime and Criminality in the Early Modern World (panel stream organiser:Alina Bottez, University of Bucharest, alina.bottez@lls.unibuc.ro)

Crime and the Gothic Imagination (panel stream organisers: Roxana Oltean, University of Bucharest, roxana.oltean@lls.unibuc.ro, and Hande Tekdemir, Visiting Professor, Research Institute of the University of Bucharest, hande.tekdemir@gmail.com)

Criminal Afterlives: Framing and Reframing the Victorians in the Neo-Victorian Imagination (panel stream organiser:Eliana Ionoaia, University of Bucharest, eliana.ionoaia@lls.unibuc.ro)

Representations of Crime in Postcolonial and Ethnic American Fiction and Film (panel stream organiser: Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru, University of Bucharest, sabina.draga.alexandru@lls.unibuc.ro)

Visualizing Crime: Perpetration in American Popular Culture (panel stream organiser:Dragoș Manea, University of Bucharest, dragos.manea@lls.unibuc.ro)

White-Coat Stories: Medicine, Criminality, and Murder (panel stream organisers:Roxana Doncu, “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, roxana.doncu@umfcd.ro; Monica Manolachi, University of Bucharest, monica.manolachi@lls.unibuc.ro; Lorena Mihăeș, University of Bucharest, lorena.mihaes@lls.unibuc.ro)

Panel proposals on any other topics connected to the conference theme are welcome. Potential panel organisers are welcome to submit full panel proposals to the conference email listed below.

Two round tables will be organized to commemorate important figures of English and American Studies in Romania:

- one in memoriam Professors Ana Cartianu and Leon Levițchi: Canonic Figures of Mediaeval, Renaissance, and Victorian Culture.

- one in memoriam Professor emerita Monica Bottez: Landmarks of British, American, and Canadian Literature.

All those interested in contributing short academic papers on these topics or evocations of the three late academics are welcome to contact Alina Bottez, University of Bucharest, alina.bottez@lls.unibuc.ro.

Conference presentations must be in English and will be allocated 20 minutes each, plus 10 minutes for discussion. Prospective participants are invited to submit abstracts of up to 200 words. Proposals should be in .doc or .docx format and also include (within the same document): name and institutional affiliation, the title of the proposed paper, a short bio note (no more than 100 words), 5 keywords, and the participant’s e-mail address. Proposals for panel streams (to be organised by the participants) will also be considered. Please submit all proposals to our email address: conf.eng.litcult@lls.unibuc.ro.

Deadline for proposals: 15 February 2026

Conference fee:

Early bird: 100 Euro or 500 lei (by 1 April 2026)

Regular: 120 Euro or 600 lei (by 30 April 2026)

MA students and PhD Candidates: 50 Euro or 250 lei

Payment details will be communicated to the participants upon acceptance.

A selection of papers from the conference will be published in the University of Bucharest Review (ISSN 2069–8658) – listed on SCOPUS, EBSCO, ERIH PLUS and DOAJ. See the guidelines for contributors at https://ubr.rev.unibuc.ro/.

For further details and updates, see: https://engleza.lls.unibuc.ro/conferinte/. Enquiries regarding the Theoretical and Applied Linguistics section of the conference, which will be running at the same time, should be sent to AICED.linguistics@gmail.com.

We look forward to receiving proposals and welcoming you in Bucharest.

Organising and Selection Committee:

Dr Alina Bottez (coordinator)

Dr Alexandra Bacalu

Dr Eliana Ionoaia

Dr Dragoș Manea

Andreea Moise

Dr Andrei Nae

Dr Andreea Paris-Popa

Dr Oana-Alis Zaharia

Advisory Board:

Dr Nazmi Ağıl (Koç University, Istanbul)

Prof. Bart Eeckhout (University of Antwerp)

Prof. José Manuel Estévez-Saá (University of A Coruña)

Dr Felicity Hand (Autonomous University of Barcelona)

Prof. Carl Lavery (University of Glasgow)

Prof. Thomas Leitch (University of Delaware)

Dr Chris Louttit (Radboud University, Nijmegen)

Prof. Domnica Rădulescu (Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia)

Prof. Kerstin Shands (Södertörn University)

Nicolas Tredell (University of Sussex)