Call for Papers
4th Annual Graduate Student Conference for Romance Languages and Literatures at University of Buffalo, March 27-28, 2015
The Biggest Comebacks: Tenacious Resurgence of Cultural Topoi
Scholars of every epoch may experience in them a rather uncanny déjà vu: The themes of seasoned and cutting-edge blockbusters like The Walking Dead, Twilight, and Dracula, which share commonalities with the first European “tabloids” and miscellanea featuring stories of miracles, gruesome crimes, and monstrosities. Widely interpreted as signs of a 17th-century state of mind, the fascination with the grotesque, uncanny, macabre, and apocalyptic is just as alive and well today as it was then, and serves as an instrument of critique of modern concerns of mass consumerism and loss of individuality in a globalizing, capitalist world.
At this conference we would like to discuss the biggest comebacks of your area of research in a quest for a common ground and connecting junctures that point to similar patterns of human thinking and behavior. In the same way in which the Baroque, for instance, has resurfaced in diverse shapes and forms at various moments of literary history, implying a struggle shared among different generations of art movements, what genres, tropes, metaphors, themes, leitmotifs, transformations, and patterns of movement have been revitalized and reframed in your field of research? What has allowed these to transplant themselves into cultural products spanning across centuries? Which conclusions and lessons can we draw from these findings?
The conference committee welcomes proposals that explore patterns and concepts that have resurged to relevance after a period of absence or dormancy in any type of text of any era, as well as of any discipline (literature, linguistics, classics etc.) and critical approaches.
Suggested content areas include but are not limited to:
Language sur-/revival
Diachronic and historical linguistics
Myth and folklore
Neo-Baroque
Zombies, Monsters, Walking dead
Atypical and monstruous sexualities
Peripheral culture
The fantastic and uncanny
This conference will provide a collaborative environment for students and faculty to present and discuss their work in an intellectual and dynamic atmosphere. Presentations should be no more than 20 minutes long, technology will be provided upon request.
Proposal Submission by January 15, 2015
• 250-word abstract in English, institutional affiliation, and research interests.
• Preference will be given to presentations in English, but communications in the major
Romance languages will be considered upon request and depending on demand.
• Please email submissions and enquiries to ubromance@gmail.com.
Looking forward to reading your proposal,
The RLL Conference Committee