CALL FOR PAPERS

‘Personal Story & Public Appearance’

Life Writing Workshop
28-29 September 2012, Tilburg University, Netherlands

Organiser: Programme Literature and Visual Art in the European Public Sphere, Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg University (http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/about-tilburg-university/schools/humanities/dcu/)

In this two-day workshop on life writing we shall explore representations of the self and constructions of identity in contemporary autobiographical texts and cultural products ranging from literary autobiographies and visual art to performances and portrayals of the self in documentaries, interviews, films, and digital media.
We invite scholars and researchers from the fields of literature, visual art, culture studies, history, ethnography, anthropology, and philosophy to explore representations of the self. The focus of this workshop is on the translation of personal experience to the represented or imagined story, publicly performed or otherwise made open to the view of all. Relevant questions are: How, and for what purpose, is the story effective? Who are the public/audience and what is their relationship to autobiographical products and their producers? Are audience members passive recipients or active negotiators, shapers, and creators of meaning and thus of the represented autobiographical identity? What expressive techniques are used to ‘translate’ and mediate personal experience? In what ways do different media combine to create new discourses of the self? We encourage submissions on topics such as: public confessions, the represented self in painting, film, and documentary, constructions of identity in digital story-telling, auto-ethnography.
Workshop papers will be made available to all participants on a password-protected website prior to the event so that they can be read in advance. Papers should be between 4000-5000 words. In the workshop each participant will be allocated a 30-minute slot, consisting of a brief presentation by the speaker (5-10 minutes) followed by discussion of the paper.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Dr Sanna Lehtonen, s.j.lehtonenuvt.nl. Abstracts should be accompanied by a brief biographical statement (max 150 words).
Deadline for abstracts: April 30, 2012
Deadline for submission of full papers: August 1, 2012

The submitters of abstracts will be notified of acceptance or refusal by the end of May 2012.