CFP – Constructions of Identity 10

Conference dates: October 24-26, 2019

Anniversary Edition: History, Memory, and Accomplishment

Conference venue: Facultatea de Litere, str. Horea nr. 31, Cluj-Napoca (Romania)

Conference website: https://constructions10.wordpress.com

Conference email: english.ubbcluj@gmail.com

In 2019 the Faculty of Letters in Cluj and the Department of English proudly celebrate 100 years since professor Petre Grimm took on the position of lecturer of English, marking the beginning of what was to become the Department of English Language and Literature. In the context of a century of English studies in Cluj, under the overarching theme of “History, memory and accomplishment”, papers are invited in the area of English literary and cultural studies, literary theory, linguistics, on the following, but not only, topics: .

  • literature and history, a complicated contemporary relationship;
  • histories and anniversaries: morphologies of accomplishment;
  • narratives and archive: memorial modalities;
  • forgotten histories;
  • (cultural) memory, amnesia, and the ethics of remembering and commemoration;
  • historical memory and life-writing;
  • writing (in) the gaps: history, trauma, and the ethics of memory;
  • the translating eye: travel writing and historical memori(es);
  • cultural memory and recovering silenced histories;
  • cultural memory and the ethics of translation;
  • celebrating the past: public sites of memory;
  • new memorial technologies;
  • prospective memory and “archaeologies of the future”;
  • studies of English literature in non-English speaking countries;
  • the study of English, translation, and national literatures;
  • cross-linguistic perspectives on syntactic and semantic issues;
  • challenging syntactic and semantic models;
  • theoretical, general or comparative approaches to interface phenomena;
  • the diachrony of English and other languages;
  • understanding language acquisition;
  • contributions to linguistic typology;
  • pragmatics and oral discourse;
  • monolingual and bilingual speech.

Keynote speakers

Professor Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck, University of London)
Professor Susan Irvine (University College London)
Professor Patrick McGuinness (University of Oxford)
Professor Virgil Stanciu (Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca) Professor Larisa Avram (University of Bucharest)

Proposals

 Proposals of 20-minute papers should be submitted to english.ubbcluj@gmail.com by September 15th, 2019, in the form of an abstract not exceeding 200 words. If you wish to submit a paper for one of the panels below, please state so clearly or send it directly to (one of) the convenor(s). A selection of papers will be published. 

Panels

P1. Medieval and Manuscript Studies
P2. Shakespeare and History
P3. The Victorian and Neo-Victorian Fiction of Femininities and Masculinities 
P4. Objects of memory, the memory of objects
P5. Cross-linguistic challenges in theoretical linguistic

Conference fee

100 euro; 
50 euro for young researchers (under 26), PhD students. 
There will be an additional optional fee of 20 euro for a final dinner. 

Registration

The participants will be notified of their proposal’s acceptance / rejection. Registration procedure to be added soon.

Panels

Panels already proposed (more will be added following submissions)

P1. Medieval and Manuscript Studies

The panel invites papers on all aspects of medieval English and manuscript studies. Papers focusing on the Alfredian translations into Old English are particularly welcome.

Convenor:

Dr. Adrian Papahagi, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
(adrian.papahagi@lett.ubbcluj.ro)

Registration for this panel has been closed because we have reached the maximum number of participants. Thank you for your interest! 

P2. Shakespeare and History

The panel invites papers on Shakespeare’s use of history, from the Roman plays to his English kings.

Convenor:

Dr. Adrian Papahagi, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
(adrian.papahagi@lett.ubbcluj.ro)

Registration for this panel has been closed because we have reached the maximum number of participants. Thank you for your interest! 

P3. The Victorian and Neo-Victorian Fiction of Femininities and Masculinities

The aim of this panel is to explore the Victorian and Neo-Victorian novel from the perspective of gender, gender roles and representation and to provide a framework to discuss the literary output of the Victorian and contemporary periods with their gender specificities and the way individual characters and typologies are constructed – as conventional or non-conventional representations of men and women, in real or imaginary contexts. 

Convenors:

Dr. Adrian Radu, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca 
(adrian.radu@ubbcluj.ro) 
Dr. Octavian More, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
(octavian.more@lett.ubbcluj.ro)

P4. Objects of memory, the memory of objects

Objects as repositories of memory both constitute and transcend the capacity of the human to capture the past, crystallize the present or project a future. Acting simultaneously as “lieux de mémoire” and anticipations of what is to come, things cease being merely mnemonic prostheses and reveal themselves as causes, firmly locating the “human” within the materiality of the world. The panel invites papers considering the role of objects as agents of memory and their functions as nodes at the multiple intersection between the human and the nonhuman.

Convenors:

Dr. Petronia Popa-Petrar, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca 
(petronia.petrar@lett.ubbcluj.ro)
Dr. Carmen Borbely, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca 
(carmen.borbely@lett.ubbcluj.ro)

P5. Cross-linguistic Challenges in Theoretical Linguistics

Theoretical models are abstract representations of discernible patterns in selected data and subject to constant revision/ improvement upon expanding the data domain. Linguistic models are no exception: upon their emergence, no conceptual model is expected to incorporate the vast linguistic diversity of natural languages.  We invite participants to contribute with data across languages, dialects or historical stages that support, enrich or challenge existing models in semantics, syntax or pragmatics.

Convenors:

Dr. Adriana Todea, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca 
(adriana.todea@lett.ubbcluj.ro)
Dr. Imola Farkas, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca 
(imola.farkas@lett.ubbcluj.ro)

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