Literature and Transnational Studies: An Encounter between East and West
Hunan University of Science and Technology
(Xiangtan, China, May 28--31, 2015)
Since the rise of critical theory in the 1970s, nothing has reshaped literary and cultural studies more than its embrace of transnationalism. It has productively complicated the nationalist paradigm long dominant in these fields, transformed the nature of the locations we study, and focused our attention on forms of cultural production that take place in the liminal spaces between the real and imagined borders.
-- Paul Jay, Global Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies (2010)
However transnationalism is approached today in the “scholarly arena,” the recognized “transnational turn” is pressing for critical attention in not only American studies, transatlantic studies, but also literary and cultural studies in general. The “embrace of transnationalism” observed by Paul Jay has global consequences. If the territory of “the transnational turn” in literary studies is first mapped in the United States, it really does not take too long for its presence to be felt across the Atlantic or the Pacific in our Information Age. Globalization can be lived reality on our breakfast table, our computer monitor, and our topic for an academic event, whether it is a recentphenomenon or not. Organizers of the conference welcome proposals for individual papers, panels and roundtables on new trends in Anglo-American literary studies with a preferable focus on issues relevant to the critical framework of transnationalism. Possible topics may include but are not limited to the following issues:
- Challenges and opportunities of transnational studies
- English literatures and transatlantic studies
- Transnationalism and avant-gardism
- Transnationalism and utopianism
- Post-nationality and planetary citizenship
- Border studies
- Diaspora studies
- Global 9/11 literature and theatre
- Transnational writers
- Reception of transnational studies in China and beyond
- Transnationalism and Translation in Literary Studies
- Transnationalism and the Media
Submission Guidelines
Individual Paper Proposals: Please send a 300 word abstract for a 20-minute presentation, including the title of the paper, your name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, phone and fax number, and email address.
Panel Proposals: In addition to providing detailed contact information for each panel member, please send an abstract of no more than 600 words summarizing the panel and describing each paper.
Roundtable Proposals: In addition to providing detailed contact information for each participant, please send a title and an abstract of no more than 300 words for the proposed roundtable discussion topic.
Submission Deadline: Please email your proposals to hnustsfs@163.com and cc to lindalje@gmail.com no later than March 28, 2015. Registration fee upon arrival will be 130 US dollars for international delegates.
Prof. ZENG Yanyu, Dean & Conference Director
Dr. LING Jian-e, Assistant Director
Department of English, School of Foreign Studies
Hunan University of Science and Technology
2 Taoyuan Road, Yuhu District, Xiangtan, Hunan, P. R. China 411201
