ENSFR Annual Conference — Manchester October 23-25, 2023: Short Fiction: Landscape and Temporality

In The Country and The City (1973) the Welsh cultural theorist Raymond Williams wrote that the landscapes of the country are associated ‘with the idea of a natural way of life: of peace, innocence, and simple virtue’, whereas, city is associated with ‘the idea of an achieved centre: of learning, communication, light (p.1. 1973). Williams goes on to claim that ‘powerful hostile associations’ have developed between the city and country, with the ‘city as a place of noise, worldliness and ambition’ and ‘the country as a place of backwardness, ignorance, limitation’ and that the ‘contrast between country and city’ is a ‘fundamental’ approach to literary representations to these different landscapes. (p.1. 1973). This conference will aim to consider the work that short story writers have done in supporting, disputing and subverting these claims in their depictions of landscapes. It will aim to consider a plethora of landscapes including, but not limited to, rural, urban, barren, populated, cosmopolitan, pastoral, flourishing, dying, futuristic, ancient, native, foreign, hostile, welcoming.

The other strand of short fiction writing that this conference will consider is depictions of temporality. Michael Trussler, in his paper in Contemporary Literature, writes that ‘short stories seem particularly concerned with investigating the nature of temporality. An elemental human experience is the chronological progression of time; we respond to this rudimentary condition by essentially narrativizing this process through linking events into a continuous series. Short stories intimate, however, that translating events into a continuum potentially reduces the ‘meaning’ of an event to its relative significance within an ongoing series. Opposed to synoptic assimilation (the method most historians and novelists favour), short stories maintain that the narratives we tell ourselves often mask the incongruities of existential temporality’ (p.599-600, 2002). This conference will aim to consider the relationship that the short story form has in its depictions of temporality and ask does the short story form do things uniquely, that other literary forms don’t do, in its depiction of temporality.

This conference will also engage with Mikhail M. Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope. In The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, Bakhtin defines a chronotope as ‘time space’, which allows literary critics to analyse how the ‘intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships’ is ‘artistically represented in literature’ (p.84. 1981). Bakhtin goes on to state that in a chronotope, ‘Time […] thickens […and] becomes artistically visible’, and space becomes ‘charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and history’ (p.250. 1981.) We aim to bring together scholars with an interest in examining these tensions and the different ways in which short story depicts landscapes and temporality. The conference’s goal is not to look at the short form in antagonism to other literary forms, but rather, we invite papers that cross-examine the marginal spaces that short fiction occupies and the intersections between landscape and temporality, that the short story form can shine a light upon.

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DEADLINE EXTENSION [FEBRUARY 28 2023] Call for Papers: “Short Forms in the Classroom: Breaking Down Boundaries” University of Angers, France, 10-12 July 2023

The University of Angers is organizing a closing conference for the Short Forms Beyond Borders (SFBB) pedagogical innovation project (European Erasmus + “Strategic Partnerships”) July 10-12, 2023. These three days will be structured as a “Multiplier Event,” i.e. a conference which aims to share the results of the project and initiate a reflection about its impact through the organization of conferences, workshops, and round tables. The SFBB project draws connections between research and innovative pedagogy through a focus on “short forms.” The diverse objects of study and tools in short formats can be the following: news, micro-news, tweets, pitches, Facebook or Instagram posts, short videos, short fiction, fanfiction, short films, news flashes, street art, cartoons, songs, etc.

The conference will be addressed to not only short form specialists but also primary and secondary school teachers interested in pedagogy and didactics. It also aims to reach a wider audience who might be curious to know more about these short forms which have always been associated with education, but are particularly present in contemporary modes of information and communication, often in ways of which we are not aware.

This interdisciplinary and international meeting will allow the partners of the project to present the results of their activities in innovative pedagogy with short formats to not only the pedagogical and scientific community, but also to researchers from various disciplines in the humanities, languages and social sciences. We would like to continue to reflect upon these short forms that we often struggle to define and therefore welcome presentations or activities (innovative forms are welcome) about the following topics

– Short forms and pedagogical practices

– Short literary, audiovisual and cultural forms

– Short forms and tourism

– Short forms and social mediation

– Short forms and migration

– Etc.

Languages of the conference: English and French

In person attendance is required (no online presentations will be allowed), but a hybrid format will be considered for foreign audiences to attend the discussions and conferences.

A peer-reviewed publication is planned for conference presentations.

Please send a brief (300 word) description of your proposed presentation, along with a brief (150 word) bio-bibliography to the following addresses by 28 February 2023 [deadline extension]:

Cécile Meynard: cecile.meynard@gmail.com

Michelle Ryan: michelle.ryan-sautour@univ-angers.fr

Emmanuel Vernadakis: emmanuel.vernadakis@univ-angers.fr

Short Fiction in Theory and Practice 12.2

Vol. 12.2 , the second of two special issues on ‘the health of the short story’ guest-edited by Lucy Dawes Durneen is now available.  Lucy’s editorial
‘Breaking ourselves open: Recovery and survival in the short form’  reflects on the process of editing and arranging articles that speak to and across the individual issues, and the way in which this itself mirrors the short story’s trifold ability to diagnose, observe and potentially suture together resolutions for the challenges of the human condition, both within the boundaries of the text, and as a discrete tool for personal recovery.

Other articles discuss pandemic literature; medical short stories in the 1890s; the early 20th century US writer Fanny Hurst; monstrous motherhood in Renaissance short fiction; and running writing workshops for health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are creative contributions from Moy McCrory, Virginia Hartley and the Chilean author Carolina Brown, who is also in conversation with Lucy Dawes Durneen. Plus book reviews on the modern short story and magazine culture and the German short story by  Aleix Tura Vecino and Livi Michael.

ENSFR Annual Conference Lisbon 2022: Short Fiction as World Literature Oct.27-29

Registration is now open for the 2022 ENSFR conference, Short Fiction as World Literature  hosted by the University of Lisbon, School of Arts and Humanities Centre for Comparative Studies October 27-29th.

Keynote Speakers are:

Helena C. Buescu (University of Lisbon)

Stefano Evangelista (University of Oxford)

Olivia Michael (Manchester Metropolitan University)

 

To register, please click on the link below and fill in a simple two-step registration and payment form: