Call for Papers: "Anti- and Neo-Realism in Twentieth-Century Literature," a workshop at the Congress of the ICLA: International Comparative Literature Association, Hong Kong, 10-17 August 2003 http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak4/fr41/Engel/kongresse/icla/welcome.htm. Since the end of Realism/Naturalism and the triumph of Symbolism the literatures and arts of Modernism followed an aesthetics and poetics of anti-realism. Of course, there were many counter-movements but the aesthetic discourse of the larger part of the twentieth century was clearly dominated by an aesthetics which decried "mimesis" and
pleaded for "abstraction," "expression," "surrealism," "experiment," or even for a radical "linguistic turn" (or for "concrete art," respectively). From the end of the 80s, however, one notes in literary texts (esp. in American, African, European and Asian novels) and in criticism (gender studies, new historicism, cultural studies) a new (renewed?) interest in realism, representation, social and cultural contexts and in "litterature engagee." The workshop will be open to all questions which concern this struggle between anti- and neo-realists. Presentations can be given in English or French and should not exceed 20 minutes. The deadline
for proposals is 29 January 2003 to Christine Baron at gcf.baron@noos.fr or Manfred Engel at manfred.engel@fernuni-hagen.de.