THE 15TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND CULTURAL POLICIES -
"THE PAST IN THE PRESENT "

which is to be held in Craiova, Romania,
September 29 – October 1, 2016

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin –
That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past…
                                               (Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, 3.3.169-71)

As Shakespeare already knew four centuries ago, even the newest-looking thoughts can only be expressed in pre-existing words, and as his own posthumous fame shows, the most innovative works of art may one day have the status of established monuments.  But in twenty-first century culture, when the arts are frequently mediated via an online world that habitually calls its unprecedentedly novel activities ‘curating’, has the distinction between the old and the new collapsed? And what is the pre-history of our current anxiety about how to salvage and revivify the traditions, artefacts and artworks of the past? After modernism, perhaps even after post-modernism, how stand the relations between now and then? 
This conference invites papers, from every discipline in the humanities, about all aspects of how the past has inhabited and shaped the present, and about how the present has demanded the revaluation or even the forgetting of the past: whether on the traditions of the Gothic, in which ghosts walk among the living and the dead hand of history is mighty yet; or on the adaptation of old cultural forms and materials into new media; or on the invention and development of the museum and of the academy; on the heritage industry and its discontents; on linguistic change, decay and renewal; on the relations between archaeology and artistic innovation; on presentism, historicism, or anachronism.

     
 
  • * Interdisciplinary approaches to literature
  • * American literature
  • * Commonwealth literature
  • * Shakespeare studies
  • * Gender studies
  • * Communication and understanding
  • * Approaches to discourse and text analysis
  • * Linguistics
  • * Translation studies
  • * Cultural studies
  
     

Submission instructions
Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. The registration form below should be sent to conferencecraiova2016@gmail.com by August 10, 2016. Notification of acceptance will be sent by August 20, 2016. The language of the conference is English.

Conference fees:
- participants presenting papers: 250 Lei / 60 EUR
- attendance without presentation: 70 Lei
The fee will be paid upon arrival.
A selection of papers will be published after the conference. The conference fee includes the publication of the volume, the conference folder and badge, certificate of participation, most of the refreshments during scheduled breaks, lunches, and cocktail reception.
The fee does not include travel expenses, accommodation and the social programme.

Social programme:
Thursday September 29
A play at the “Marin Sorescu” National Theatre, Craiova (optional)
Saturday October 1
One-day trip to “taste” traditional Romanian attractions (optional)

Further information
A second circular will be mailed to those who have returned the preliminary registration form. Accommodation details will be available on the conference website.
http://litere.ucv.ro/sites/site_conferinta_en_2016/

For any conference-related queries, please contact: conferencecraiova2016@gmail.com