Literary London 28–29 June 2018
‘Conflict and Resolution’
Prof Max Saunders
Dr Laura Schwartz
David Caute
Proposals are invited for papers, comprised panels, and roundtable sessions, which consider any period or genre of literature about, set in, inspired by, or alluding to central and suburban London and its environs, from the city’s roots in pre-Roman times to its imagined futures. While the main focus of the conference will be on literary texts, we actively encourage interdisciplinary contributions relating film, architecture, geography, theories of urban space, etc., to literary representations of London. Papers from postgraduate students are particularly welcome for consideration.
2018 is the centenary year of the end of the First World War and the start of female suffrage in the United Kingdom. It also marks a half century since 1968, a year of social and political convulsions across the globe. Possible topics that might be addressed at the 2018 conference include:
- London, the world wars and their legacies
- The city as home front during distant conflict
- Imaginative engagements with London’s memorials and commemorative practice
- Guardsmen, Royal Arsenal and Navy Dockyards: the capital’s military presence in literature
- Struggles for suffrage and social justice
- The London Dockworkers’ Strike of 1889 and the rise of the labour movements
- The cultural materials of propaganda, protest and policing
- When the world took to the streets: London’s 1968
- Flashpoints over nationality and race: Evil May Day, the Battle of Cable Street, the Notting Hill Race Riots etc.
- Contesting and celebrating sexuality on the city streets from the Bawdy House Riots to Gay Pride
- Conflict and resolution in historical narrative: the literature of the Revolution and Restoration
- Satires of London Life – and the personal, social, and political conflicts which produce them
- Theatre and cinema wars
- Conflicted Londoners: from William Blake, Henry Jekyll, J. Alfred Prufrock and Anna Wulf to Boris Johnson
- Conflict and resolution in London-set genre fiction: thrillers, spy stories, romance, ‘future-war’ fiction
Submission deadline: 16 April 2018