Medieval and Modern Languages Graduate Network Conference addressing the question of distance (Oxford)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Medieval and Modern Languages Graduate Network Conference

19th June 2023, Taylor Institution Library, University of Oxford

Confirmed Keynote: Dr Karolina Watroba, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Modern Languages at All Souls College

This year’s MMLGN (Medieval and Modern Languages Graduate Network) conference addresses the question of distance. We welcome papers that engage this question in the literature, arts, and culture of any language, from the medieval period to the present day.

Distance is key to the history of literature and languages: authors have written about stories of travel and adventures since ancient times; languages, texts and motifs spread to regions far away from their origins and developed multiple variations. Today, the acceleration of cultural dissemination might seem to foster a global network of literary writing and research. Yet the last few years of the COVID-19 pandemic have made distance a newly insurmountable issue, as quarantines created obstacles in interpersonal communication, and archives and manuscripts were not as accessible as before. On the other hand, distance has also been easier to circumvent than ever, via the sudden prevalence of online teaching and videoconferencing.

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

- Correspondence, correspondence networks, and other forms of communication over distance

- Transnational literature

- Plurilingual practices of writing and reading

- Intertextuality; variability and commonality across space

- Distance and intellectual networks

- Diaspora literature

- Distance in interpersonal relations; effects of alienation and estrangement  

- Distance in/and travel writing, real and imaginary experiences of travel

- Distance and the archive: scattered documents

- Distance and digital humanities: technologies in research and humanities education

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We would like to invite postgraduate researchers and early career researchers to submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to oxmmlgn2023@gmail.com by April 15th, 2023.

The conference will take place in person at the Taylor Institution Library, University of Oxford, on 19th June 2023.

We have a limited budget and regret our inability to support the travel and accommodation costs of speakers.