Living Between the Lines: Transgressive (Auto)Biography as Genre and Method
Location: Czech Republic
<http://www.h-net.org/announce/geography.cgi?geography=Czech%20Republic>
Conference Date:2010-10-28
Date Submitted: 2010-03-24
Announcement ID: 175117
This conference, open to scholars, authors, and non-specialists alike, aims
to promote the study of transgressive (auto)biography by investigating the
transformations and cross-continental influences that have proven central to
the development of (auto)biographies that bide between genres. Especially in
the last two decades, there has been a global renaissance in the production
of texts that purposefully and self-reflexively blur the distinction between
fiction and nonfiction in order to examine the multiple ways lives are
written and selves are constructed. The principal objective of this
conference is to situate the latest postmodern and postcolonial alternatives
into what appears to be a well-established tradition of transgressive
(auto)biographical writing in English.
On October 28th, the conference will begin with a round-table discussion by a
range of practicing (auto)biographers and scholars in this field. Among the
participants will be Rebekah Bloyd (USA), Sharon Butala (Canada), Donna
Coates (Canada), Amanda Hale (Canada), Theresa Kishkan (Canada), Raili
Marling (Estonia), Thomas McConnell (USA), Libora Oates-Indruchová (Czech
Republic), Richard Pickard (Canada), Randall Roorda (USA), Christopher Stuart
(USA), and Aritha Van Herk (Canada). A special issue of the bi-annual
scholarly journal “Brno Studies in English” (a print and open-source,
peer-reviewed publication of the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University), an
issue devoted to papers by these individuals and others, will be published
and made available by September 2010. This publication will serve as the
object of consideration during the round-table discussion.
The two-day conference that will follow will be comprised of seminars and
workshops on Transgressive (Auto)Biography. Some of the areas that will be
addressed are biography in fiction, dialogic (auto)biography, fictionalized
biography, innovative biography, literary biography, metabiography, pastoral
biography, and personal nonfiction.
Although there is no registration fee, please send an email by 15 September
2010 letting us know that you will be attending.
If you are interested in presenting a paper, an (auto)biographical essay,
workshop materials, or a poster at the conference, please send an abstract by
1 June 2010.
Michael Matthew Kaylor, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of English and American Studies
Faculty of Arts
Masaryk University
Arna Novaka 1
602 00 Brno
Czech Republic
Email: kaylor@mail.muni.cz
Visit the website at http://www.phil.muni.cz/wkaa/home/conference/biography
