Transformation: Literature, Creative Writing, and Change
Thursday 28 June 2018
De Grey building, York St John University
To transform is to change. We live in a society gripped by change. In the span of a generation, for example, technology has fundamentally transformed the way we conduct our lives, from personal relationships to international politics. Literature has always been a site for the exploration of transformation, both of society and of the self. The world of literature is transforming, pushing towards openness and inclusivity. Technology has transformed how we consume literature and how literature is made available to us, allowing marginalised voices to gain an audience and creating communities of readers who transform their own and others’ understandings of texts.
This one-day symposium invites critical and creative reflections on transformation in contemporary literature and media (from 1971 onwards). We aim to address a number of topics related to transformation. How has criticism and scholarship responded to change? Does our understanding of the future transform our past? How are texts transformed by the sociopolitical climate in which they are created? How do texts, in turn, transform the world around it? How do readers or audiences transform the meaning of a text to suit their needs? How are texts transformed by the environment in which they are created or consumed? What transformations are happening in contemporary media and literature and what changes might we see going forward?
We welcome proposals from MA students for 15-20 minute critical or creative responses on the topic of transformation. Group proposals of up to three speakers are also welcome. We would also like to invite final year undergraduate students to submit individual proposals for 10-15 minute presentations. ‘Literature’ and ‘Creative Writing’ should be understood very broadly and we welcome proposals exploring film, media, television, digital platforms and texts, theatre, art, and music.
Submissions might address, but are not limited to, the following:
- Encounters and community – transformations of and through community
- Transformation of the self
- Transformation of a text
- ‘Transformative’ experiences: reading, texts, and subjectivity
- Transformation of the learning and writing environment
- How writing has transformed
- Conservation, preservation, reservation – resisting change
- Turning towards utopia/dystopia
- Retrospective transformation/anticipating change
- Eco-criticism, the environment, and ecological changes
- Digital pasts; analogue futures
- Being and becoming human/animal
- Transforming perspectives
- ‘Change history’: transforming ‘origin stories’
Please send abstracts of 300 words to Transformation.Symposium@gmail.com by 15 March 2018.