[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: The City in the Text (9/15/06; NEMLA, 3/1/07-3/4/07)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

The City in the Text: Setting as Signifier

The choice of a particular city, an urban setting, signifies more than a
geographical and historic context. The literal place presents a range of
images that present symbolically an author's memories, relationship, and
use of a city to transform mimesis into artistic representation. While
Joyce's use of Dublin for Ulysses is probably one of the first texts to
come to mind, many authors use their text to introduce the city as a
central presence, even character, in their texts. For example, some
authors whose works could be considered are Dante's Inferno, many novels
by Dickens, Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables, Williams's Paterson,
Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, or Gilchrist's use of New Orleans in
stories. The Paris mapped out by Hemingway is not the same as the Paris
depicted in iconic images of ravaged faces by Baudelaire. The New York
of Edith Wharton is not the New York of Paul Auster. This panel will
explore the representation of cities in an individual text and the way
each presentation shapes a particular literary text. It asks presenters
to raise the question, "How can we theorize about the presence of the
city as a signifier in the text?"

Texts may be from any time period and genre and from any literary tradition.

Deadline for 250 word abstracts is Sept. 15, 2006.

Send abstracts to: Marilyn Rye, mrye at fdu.edu or via US mail to Fairleigh
Dickinson University, 285 Madison Avenue M-MS1-01, Madison,NJ 07940,
USA. 973-443-8343. Include name and affiliation, email and postal
addresses and home and office phone #s and AV requirements (if any).


          ==========================================================
               From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List