II CALL FOR PAPERS

THE AMERICAN LITERARY WEST: A TERRITORY WITHOUT BORDERS?
III INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
UPV/EHU (UNIVERSITY OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY)
VITORIA-GASTEIZ, SPAIN, OCTOBER 8-10, 2014

The III International Conference on “The American Literary West,”
organized by the REWEST research group (UPV/EHU, University of the Basque
Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain) will address the literary representation
of the American West, centering on the different meanings, connotations,
and implications of the term “border” in our present century when used
in connection with this peculiar region. We invite papers exploring
theoretical and practical aspects of the West as a pluralistic literary
space, with a special attention to twenty-first century western texts that
renew and revise the traditional imaginary of western American literature.
The symposium will privilege transnational and interdisciplinary approaches
aiming to understand properly a genre whose iconography has moved well
beyond both national limits and literary borders. Of particular interest
will be the complex relationships between literature and a series of
socio-political, economic, and cultural events that have taken place in the
present century, as illustrated by 9/11 and its aftermath, the economic
recession, globalization, immigration, feminism, interculturality or the
contemporary environmental crisis. Similarly, we will also examine the
transnational characteristics of the American West, discussing the literary
representation of the American West beyond US borders. The conference will
also extend the analysis of western iconography to other artistic
manifestations beyond writing, exploring the cultural transfers between
literature and other cultural phenomena. Certainly, the long-lasting
cultural transfers and intertextual links between western writing and
western movies will be a major issue in this conference. However, this
forum will also address other cultural and artistic manifestations that
interact, overlap, and interrelate with western writing in complex, often
dialogic ways, as exemplified by television, music, photography, art,
digital art, video-games, the internet, sports, comics and graphic novels,
or translation.

We welcome presentation abstracts on these and related questions. Possible
topics include but are not limited to:

-        the influence of the cultural myths of the Old West and the
western in the present century
-        the West as an exceptional region as opposed to the West as an
inherent part of American culture
-        motion vs. roots in the American West
-        the impact of urbanization and technology
-        the interaction between identity and the western landscape
-        changing interpretations of sense of place in the American
West
-        migrations and diasporas in the West
-        minority western narratives
-        environmental literature of the American West
-        voices of protest
-        reimagining women in the West
-        western masculinities
-        bordercrossing
-        western mythologies
-        the American West in popular culture
-        science fiction and the West
-        Western American Music or Music and Western images
-        The West in the Web
-        Digital West
-        Western images in comics and graphic novels
-        Sports and the West

Please send 300 word abstracts (also a short bio and five key words, not
included in the 300 words limit) to the following email address:
[log in to unmask] by APRIL 30, 2014. Papers may be presented in English,
Spanish or Basque, though the official language of the conference will be
English.

CONFIRMED PLENARY SPEAKERS:

-        Krista Comer (Rice University, Texas)
-        Susan Kollin (Montana State University)
-        Kirmen Uribe (Writer): Bilbao-New York-Bilbao, Mussche….
-        Willy Vlautin (Writer): The Motel Life, Northline, Lean on
Pete, The Free…
-        Special interactive performance by David Fenimore (University
of Nevada, Reno)
-        Plenary round table “The Global Literary West” with Jose
Aranda (Rice University, Texas), Neil Campbell (University of Derby, UK)
and Alan Weltzien (University of Montana, Western)

The Organizing Committee[1]

REWEST[2]

III International Conference on “The American Literary West”



Vínculos:
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[1] http://rewestresearchinggroup.blogspot.com.es/
[2] http://www.ehu.es/en/web/rewest/home