[Bilimsel Haber] Call for Papers - Beyond the Book: Contemporary Cultures of Reading

[gpultar at kulturad.org]

First Call for Papers

Beyond the Book: Contemporary Cultures of Reading
A conference at the University of Birmingham, UK

1 & 2 September 2007

Keynote Speakers:
Janice Radway (Duke University) & Elizabeth Long (Rice University)

Book groups, Lit Blogs, on-line bookstores, book festivals, reader  
magazines, 'One Book, One Community,' Reader's Guides, 'Richard &  
Judy's Book Club,' Book TV, 'Canada Reads,' the 'Nancy Pearl Action  
Figure,' 'Tuesday Night Book Club,'
 reading is hot!

This conference will explore the diverse formations, mediations,  
practices and representations of reading and readers in the  
contemporary moment.  Cultures of reading are dynamic and complex:  
they involve not only readers reading, but also multiple agencies  
including publishers, booksellers, broadcast networks, national,  
regional and municipal governments, and educational institutions. The  
aim of the conference is to interrogate the relations among these  
agents and their investment in the meanings of reading. The study of  
readers and reading encourages, maybe demands, multi- and  
interdisciplinary analysis.  We therefore invite scholars from across  
the humanities and social sciences to consider the contemporary  
meanings and experiences of reading in any culture or location.   
Selected papers will be included in an edited collection on  
contemporary cultures of reading/book cultures.

Possible topics for consideration:
• Reading as a form of popular culture
• Books & reading as cultural events
• Investigating reading and reader response: methodological problems &  
strategies
• The production of readers and/or reading
• Books/Reading and/in/through the mass media
• Reading spaces
• Reading together: shared reading
• Reading as a medium of/for social change
• Reading practices
• Reading and the state

Please send proposals for 20-minute papers (abstracts of 200-300  
words) or complete three-person panel sessions (including abstracts  
for each paper) by 15 January 2007 to:  burrealz at adf.bham.ac.uk, using  
"BTB proposal" as the subject line in your email. Proposals may also  
be sent to:

Beyond the Book Conference
Department of American & Canadian Studies
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Beyond the Book is a three-year collaborative interdisciplinary  
AHRC-funded research project investigating contemporary cultures of  
reading.  The transatlantic BTB team are: DeNel Rehberg Sedo (Mount  
Saint Vincent University, Canada), Danielle Fuller, Anouk Lang & Anna  
Burrells (University of Birmingham, UK).

Find out more about our research at: www.beyondthebookproject.org



DeNel Rehberg Sedo, PhD
Assistant Professor
Director, Atlantic Canada Comm. Issues Research Lab
Co-director, Beyond the Book research project
MSVU
Halifax, NS b3m 2j6  Canada

(www.msvu.ca)
(www.beyondthebookproject.org)
902.457.6478