Shakespeare and Science Fiction
The Anglia Ruskin Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy (CSFF)
Anglia Ruskin University
28 April, 2018

Despite science fiction’s associations with modernity and popular culture, it seems haunted by the literary canon. Shakespeare, in particular, has had a significant influence on the genre. Many texts and films rework or allude to Shakespeare’s plays. A well known example is Forbidden Planet (1956) which reimagines The Tempest in space. More recently, Iain Pears wove plot strands from As You Like It into the complex triple narrative of his novel Arcadia (2015).

Shakespeare has appeared as a character in many science fiction texts. Often in these he becomes a kind of touchstone for humanity – In the Doctor Who episode ‘The Shakespeare Code’ (2007) the Doctor refers to him as ‘the most human human there’s ever been.’ His plays sometimes have the power to prove that the earth should be spared from alien wrath – at other times they represent a consolation for the scattered remnants of humanity after a terrible catastrophe.

Over the decades writers have repeatedly been drawn to encounters between Shakespeare and non-humans – robots, aliens, post-humans – imagining their possible responses to his work. Science fiction has also had an impact on the way Shakespeare’s plays have been adapted and performed. In his 2016 BBC production of the play, Russell T. Davies transplanted A Midsummer Night’s Dream from ancient Athens to a dystopian future.

Papers are invited for a one-day conference on all aspects of the intersection between Shakespeare and science fiction. Proposals are welcomed from researchers at all stages of their career, including postgraduate students, independent scholars and creative writers.

Please send a 300 word abstract and a CV to sarah.brown@anglia.ac.uk by Friday 6 October 2017.

A Gender and Medieval Studies Group and Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship Joint Conference
Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford
8-10 January, 2018

The glittering beauty of the Alfred Jewel, the rich illustration of the Lindisfarne Gospels, the dominating Great West Window of York Minster, the intricate embroidery of the Bayeux Tapestry, the luminous Maestà of Duccio, the opulent Oseberg ship burial, and the sophisticated imagery of the Ruthwell cross are all testament to the centrality of the visual to our understanding of a range of medieval cultures.

Constructed at and across the intersections of race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, national identity, age, social class, and economic status, gendered medieval identities are multiple, mobile, and multivalent. Iconography – both religious and secular – plays a key role in the representation of such multifaceted identities. But visual symbols do not merely represent personhood. Across the range of medieval media, visual symbolism is used actively to produce, inscribe, and express the gendered identities of both individuals and groups.

The 2018 Gender and Medieval Studies Conference welcomes papers on all aspects of gender, identity and iconography from those working on medieval subjects in any discipline.

Papers may address, but are not limited to:

• Sight and Blindness
• Visible and Invisible Identities
• Visual Languages
• Colour and Shade
• Icons and Iconoclasm
• Light and Darkness
• Collective and Individual Identities
• Orthodox and Heretical imagery
• Aesthetics
• Subject and Motif
• Convention and Innovation

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers. Please email proposals of approx. 200 words to gmsconference2018@gmail.com by Monday 4 September 2017. We will also consider proposals for alternative kinds of presentation, including full panel proposals, performance and art; please contact the organisers to discuss.

A conference for everyone

Corpus Christi College’s auditorium is fully wheelchair accessible, has accessible toilets, and features a hearing loop for those using hearing aids. Please contact us if you have specific accessibility needs you would like to discuss. We plan to provide a private lactation space.

It is hoped that the Kate Westoby Fund will be able to offer a modest contribution towards (but not the full costs of) as many postgraduate student travel expenses as possible. We are exploring other avenues to make the conference financially feasible for postgraduates and early career scholars to attend.

Pacific Partnership in Late Antiquity 

University of Auckland, New Zealand 

July 11-13 2018

The Pacific Partnership in Late Antiquity would like to invite proposals for papers at a conference to be held at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, July 11-13 2018.

Proposals can be for papers in any area of late antique, early medieval, or Byzantine studies, and the conference is intended to provide a venue for scholars in these fields around the Pacific Rim.

Abstracts for 20 min papers should be 250-300 words in length and submitted to Lisa Bailey (lk.bailey@auckland.ac.nz) by 1 October 2017.

Registration for the conference will be $65 for academic staff, but will be free for graduate students thanks to a generous subsidy from the Australasian Society for Classical Studies. Details on registration will follow at a later point.

Please contact Lisa if you would like to be added to the mailing list for the Pacific Partnership in Late Antiquity. 

Shakespeare and his Contemporaries
The IASEMS Graduate Conference at the British Institute of Florence

Conversions In Early Modern British Literature and Culture
Florence,
20 April, 2018

The 2018 IASEMS Graduate Conference at The British Institute in Florence is a one-day interdisciplinary and bilingual English-Italian forum open to PhD students and researchers who have obtained their doctorates within the past 5 years. This year’s conference will focus on the theme of conversion, a fascinating phenomenon, a promise of newness that blends elements of individual experience with larger problems of historical change.

The ideological and spiritual life of early modern Britain finds a special interpretative key in the notion of conversion, whether perceived as an individual response to a religious and political challenge, a community reaction to political upheaval, or a social change brought about by the innovations of modernity.

The goal of this Conference is to develop an understanding of conversion that will address epistemological, psychological, political, spiritual and technological kinds of transformation, perceived both as subjective and collective change. Therefore conversion is to be understood in its broadest possible sense, and nor merely as a religious phenomenon.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

forms of conversion, sacred and secular, i.e., awakening to a new faith, an intensification of existing beliefs, an embracing of a (radical) political movement, etc.

• conversional thinking and practice
• early modern textual ‘conversions’, i.e., from manuscript to print, from one format to another, from one genre to another
• relationships among transformation, freedom and power
• forms of religious dissent in early modern British culture
• religious change and gender
• how early modern English theatre and other theatrical practices represent, adopt, transform, relocate forms of conversion
• conversion narratives
• the phenomenon of forced conversion
• authenticity and pretense in conversion
• religious conversion as catalyst of other transformations (e.g., translation, alchemy, enthusiasm, etc.)
• technologies of transformation

Candidates are invited to send a description of their proposed contribution according to the following guidelines:

• the candidate should provide name, institution, contact info, title and a short abstract of the proposed contribution (300 words for a 20-minute paper), explaining the content and intended structure of the paper, and including a short bibliography;
• abstracts are to be submitted by Sunday 29 October 2017 by email to ilaria.natali@unifi.it;
• all proposals will be blind-vetted. The list of selected papers will be available by the end of November 2017;
• each finished contribution should not exceed 20 minutes and is to be presented in English (an exception will be made for Italian candidates of departments other than English, who can give their papers in Italian);
• Candidates whose first language is not English will need to have their proposals and final papers checked by a mother-tongue speaker
• participants will be asked to present a final draft of the paper ten days before the Conference.
• Selected speakers who are IASEMS members can apply for a small grant
  (http://www.maldura.unipd.it/iasems/iasems_about.html)

For further information please contact Ilaria Natali (ilaria.natali@unifi.it)