The newly founded Swiss Association of Medieval and Early Modern English Studies (SAMEMES) would like to announce its first Conference and Call For Papers.
The conference proposes to focus on some of the numerous critical and theoretical interests common to our institutionally divided disciplines, whether they relate to modes of textual production and reception (the advent of print culture does not spell out the demise of manuscript production, nor do these two forms of textuality reflect the wide range of literary transmission and reception, which is further affected by intermediality), to formal or thematic continuities and discontinuities (processes of cultural memory and/or amnesia), or whether they concern the effects of social and political change in (gendered and transgendered) construction
of textual identities. Current theoretical approaches to literary history require that the study of diachronic and synchronic relationships between texts – pretexts and intertexts – take into account mechanisms of cultural transmission, as well as of gender and identity construction.
With these emphases in mind, we plan to organize a two-day conference on
Pretexts, Intertextualities, and the Construction of Textual Identity at the University of Berne, on 3 – 4 October 2008
The conference is open to all interested participants, whether or not they are members of SAMEMES. The conference fee of 60 francs will be waived for members only. Distinguished guest speakers include Stephen Orgel (Stanford University), Ad Putter (University of Bristol) and David Wallace (University of Pennsylvania). A selection of papers will be published in a special issue of SPELL (Swiss Publications in English Language and Literature). The organizers invite interested scholars to submit proposals for short papers (presentation time 20 minutes). Send your proposals by 31 January 2008 to Professor Margaret Bridges (margaret.bridges_at_ens.unibe.ch), Institut für Englische Sprachen und Literaturen, Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät der Universität Bern, Unitobler, 3012 Bern, Switzerland. All proposals must include the following information: name and affiliation of proponent, contact details, title of paper, abstract of 150-200 words.
For further information contact the conference organizer, Margaret Bridges
(margaret.bridges_at_ens.unibe.ch), or (from early 2008) visit the Association’s website (www.samemes.org), which also describes the procedure for application for membership to SAMEMES.
