Please note: the call for papers is now closed
The productive intersection of literature and politics has invigorated both fields from Plato’s utopian blueprint, The Republic ,to Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. Across forms and modes, history and place, through literary practice and theory, politics has challenged writers, readers and critics to think productively about the worlds in which they live, how these worlds came into being, and what the future might (or should) hold.
Simultaneously, literature has long depicted and dissected the very meat of politics: power, war, revolution, nationality, race, class, gender, industrialisation, diasporas and imperialism. More recently, the politics of sexuality, the environment, terrorism, the holocaust and indigeneity have excited creative and critical interest.
Literature continues to prompt public and academic discussion about questions of agency and identity, social organization and ideology, propaganda and censorship, history and the imaginary new worlds.
‘Literature and Politics,’ the third annual conference of the Australasian Association for Literature, aims to promote and provoke informed discussion on these and other topics between established and emerging scholars (including postgraduate students).
Papers are invited that address the complex relationships between literature and politics, including, but not limited to, the following issues:
Power Sexuality War Class Ideology Literary Forms Identity Colonialism and Postcolonialism Literary Modes Economics
Literature as a Discipline Revolution Propaganda Diaspora Gender Race Ethnicity The Environment The Holocaust Conservatism
Literary Theory Publishing Satire Speculative Fiction Religion Utopias National and Transnational Literature Genre Censorship
The literary works discussed might be drawn from any period and from any language (though all papers will need to be presented in English).
Proposals should be 250-300 words in length and sent via email to:
conference@aal.asn.au by 30 April 2009.