ONLINE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATABASE OF RESEARCH ON THE EAST ASIAN WAR OF 1592-1598

Online Bibliographical Database of Research on the East Asian War of 1592-1598

Autonomous University of Barcelona

Dear colleagues,

We would like to announce a new research tool that has been launched at the Autonomous University of Barcelona as part of our European Research Council-funded project on Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Invasions of Korea.

CFP: AUTOFICTION AND HUMOUR (AUTUMN 2021)

Autofiction and Humour

Special Issue of Life Writing (Autumn 2021)

One of the main features of autofictional literature is its so-called ability to “sit on the fence” (Lejeune) and be simultaneously fictional and referential. Throughout the theoretical discussions on autofiction this has overshadowed some of its other features. This special issue explores one of them, namely the as-of-yet rarely addressed humorous dimension of autofictional writing, including the aesthetic, narrative and social function(s) of humour in autofictional literature. In 1996, Marie Darrieussecq, a French scholar who almost overnight became a literary celebrity with the publication of Pig Tales (Truismes), published an article entitled “Autofiction, a non-serious Genre” (“L’Autofiction, un genre pas sérieux”) in which she ironically lauded autobiography only to better support autofiction’s creativity and its noncommittal attitude toward reality. Even if Darrieussecq meant “non-serious” to denote a less respected, frowned-upon subcategory of autobiographical discourse, now almost 50 years after Doubrovsky first coined the term, it’s worth considering if indeed autofiction is a non-serious mode of writing, although along a different understanding of the non-serious than Darrieusecq’s.

Freud defined humour as a defence mechanism, a way of keeping reality at bay while still focusing on it. This could also describe the way autofiction relates to autobiographical practices and their attempt to describe somebody’s reality. Judging for example by the grandiloquent buffoonery of Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park, the wry self-deprecating tone of Ben Lerner’s 10:04, and by how J.M. Coetzee pokes fun at his alter-ego in Scenes from Provincial Life, at times verging on self-parody, it seems high time to consider autofiction’s humorous dimension.

One of the comic features of autofiction lies in its capacity to mock the seriousness of the genre it seemingly belongs to and, taking Darrieussecq’s rhetorical twist as a perfect example, seems to sneer at autobiography’s desperate dependence on facts and memory knowing that both have been shown to be fluctuating and labile (see for instance Mark Rowlands’s Memory and the Self: Phenomenology, Science and Autobiography, 2017). Even if a writer such as Mary Karr scathingly pointed out in The Art of Memoir (2015) that this aspect has often been regarded as carte blanche by some memoirists to publish blatant lies, she also rightfully reminded us that this inherent fallibility of our memory doesn’t call into question the validity of autobiography as long as it’s aware of this flaw. Another comic feature stems from an amused, sometimes ironic outlook on life and on those who try to put it on paper. In other words, autofiction often generates “ironic signals with regard to the reality of reported facts” (“signaux ironiques quant à la réalité des faits rapportés,” Colonna). Of course, this doesn’t imply that autofictional literature foregoes all claims to narrate any form of reality, but it frequently does so through tongue-in-cheek humour. As noted by Yves Baudelle, even in more serious autofictions such as Chloé Delaume’s or Camille Laurens’s, often conjuring up ghosts and the general theme of Thanatos, this “phantasmagoria is only tolerated in a humorous mode, which bestows upon it both its specificity and its function” (“cette fantasmagorie n’est tolérée que sur le mode humoristique, ce qui lui confère à la fois sa spécificité et sa fonction”). Thus, autofiction’s very referential logic could be described as “apotropaic.” In Ariadne’s Thread, J. Hillis Miller, focusing on realistic fiction’s essential flaw, wonders why “this dissolution of its own fundamental fiction [is] as constant a feature of realistic fiction as the creation of the fiction of character in the first place,” suggesting that “the function is apotropaic. It is a throwing away of what is already thrown away in order to save it.” Is autofiction trying to save autobiography and simultaneously make a joke out of it? This might be the very core of its ironical nature.

We encourage cross-disciplinary and comparative approaches and papers discussing primary texts in any language. Proposed articles may consider the humorous dimension(s) of autofictional literature through themes like, but not limited to, those listed above.

Practicalities and schedule:

• Deadline for proposals (300 words): 20 June 2020
• Authors will be notified if their proposal can be accepted for peer review by the end of July.
• Deadline for sending in first drafts of papers: 1 November 2020
• Peer-review process and corrections: January-March 2021
• Final publication: Autumn 2021

All submissions need to be sent with a brief bio, which includes title, institutional affiliation and e-mail address.

To read the journal’s instructions for authors click here

Please submit to: Alexandra Effe (alexandra.effe@wolfson.ox.ac.uk), Marie Lindskov Hansen (marie.lindskov.hansen@fu-berlin.de), Arnaud Schmitt (arnaud.schmitt@u-bordeaux.fr)

Contact Info: 

• Contact Email: marie.lindskov.hansen@fu-berlin.de

CFP: THE STORIES WE TELL: MYTHS, LEGENDS, AND ANECDOTES ABOUT TEA - UC DAVIS

"The Stories We Tell: Myths, Legends, And Anecdotes About Tea - UC Davis"

January 21, 2021

The Global Tea Initiative for the Study of Tea Culture and Science (GTI) at the University of California, Davis, seeks proposals for 30-minute presentations for its Sixth Annual Colloquium. The event will held at the UC Davis Conference Center, Thursday, January 21, 2021.

Submission Deadline:  June 1, 2020

We welcome proposals that take any approach from the humanities and social sciences, to the sciences and health, to business and farming, and from anywhere in the world. All must address the colloquium's theme: The Stories We Tell: Myths, Legends, and Anecdotes about Tea. We aim for a mix of papers on culture and science (broadly conceived), which together will present a representative global perspective. Whether papers address such topics as production, connoisseurship, health benefits, social practice, or the narratives that lead to successful marketing and connections with consumers, academic and industry experts are invited to share their expertise at this event.

Papers will be considered for inclusion in a peer-reviewed anthology published by an academic press.

The event includes networking opportunities between the scientific, academic, industry, and community members, and promises to provide a vibrant atmosphere for collaboration and learning across the disciplines.

To apply, please go to: click here

Please contact globaltea@ucdavis.edu. for any additional question with the subject line: GTI #6 proposal question.

Contact Information:

Katharine P. Burnett, Ph.D. - (Founding Director, Global Tea Initiative for the Study of Tea Culture and Science Advisor, Graduate Program in Art History, Associate Professor, Chinese Art History)

Department of Art and Art History

University of California, Davis

160 Everson Hall

1 Shields Ave.

Davis, California 95616

Email: globaltea.ucdavis.edu

URL: click here

Another URL: click here

Tel: (530) 752-0285

Fax: (530) 752-6750

CFP: LONELY NERDS? SPECIAL ISSUE OF EXCHANGES. THE INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH JOURNAL

Call for papers: Lonely Nerds?

We are seeking expressions of interest in contributing to a special issue of Exchanges. The Interdisciplinary Research Journal.

We are looking for contributions to our special issue exploring fictional representations of nerds and loneliness across various media and cultures.

Traditionally associated with a particular niche culture, nerds entered the mainstream through popular formats such as the highly successful TV show The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019) in the early 21st Century. Besides, the pervasiveness of the popular image of nerds has crossed linguistic borders and depictions of nerds are frequent beyond the Anglo-American context, as attested by the term “nerd” being widely used in languages such as Italian or German.

Although nerds are a frequent subject of cultural representations, and academic studies on them are slowly increasing, there is still a dearth of comprehensively structured comparative studies. Most studies on nerds remain firmly anchored in North American culture: Kathryn E. Lane’s recent anthology Age of the Geek (2018), for example, analyses the influence of television, film, and social media on spreading the stereotype in the US and asks the question why American culture can accept a geek character in the media but not in real life. Whilst Lane claims that “the nerd stereotype is accepted as is” it becomes clear that nerds nonetheless often occupy the position of the “other”. This suggests that the term “nerd” is used as a “label” for shifting perceptions of what is deviant from the norm, which correlates with Kam's analysis of the germane Japanese notion of otaku (2015). Our issue will identify relevant parallels with other marginal identities across cultures and explore them in a comparative transnational context and across different media.

The second main premise of the special issue is to challenge the perception of the nerd as the lonely “other”. The 2016 entry in the Oxford English Dictionary defines a “nerd” as “an insignificant, foolish, or socially inept person; a person who is boringly conventional or studious. Now also: specifically a person who pursues an unfashionable or highly technical interest with obsessive or exclusive dedication.” Although more specific definitions are up for debate, it is clear that nerds are closely associated with anti-social behaviours, isolation, obsessive interests (especially for technology and popular culture) or mental pathologies. Within nerds’ supposed confinement and isolation, loneliness is an aspect that is often associated with their interaction with and consumption of technology, particularly since the rise of the tech industry in the 1980s and 1990s. At the turn of the 21st century, technological advancements such as the rise of the internet, Artificial Intelligence and advancements in robotics have complicated notions of loneliness in the context of human-machine interaction. On the one hand, people are constantly tethered together in machine mediated interactions, but are still feeling lonely; on the other, Sherry Turkle argues for a “robotic moment” (2011), when people are ready to accept machines as partners and mediators so that technology becomes the tool with which loneliness can be defeated. This conflicting assessment of technology’s potential to solve the central societal issue of loneliness mirrors the broader polarised discussion of whether machines will solve problems or lead us down a dystopian path (Husain 2017).

Through its analysis of artistic takes on nerds, our issue aims to intervene in the debate about technologies' and popular media’s influence on social bonds, with a particular focus on loneliness. We suggest a broad understanding of loneliness that includes a wide range of societal issues such as stances vis-à-vis society, the positionality of nerds within or outside of it, their intergroup behaviour dynamics and belonging, their feeling of loneliness both derived from physical and/or emotional isolation, or even conceptualised as loneliness within a group.

The issue will hence analyse varying cultural representations of the nerd’s relationship with society in order to critically discuss how various art forms approach the notion of the “lonely nerd”. We want to ask questions such as: Can we still find common characteristics in representations that are not overtly about nerds? Is loneliness inextricable from any representation of nerds, or do we see narratives where nerds actually become, quite anti-canonically, the centre of their community, as small as it may be? And if so, what do these representations tell us about their culture? Are they representational? If this is the case, how can it be used to interrogate relevant phenomena of isolation and loneliness in general?

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, fictional explorations of nerds and loneliness in relation to gender, ethnicity, (mental) health, genius, social status and space, as well as their questioning of traditional cultural representations and genres.

Abstracts of up to 300 words and queries should be submitted to lonelynerds2021@gmail.com by 18th May 2020. Articles should be written in English. Please note: We are also planning a preparatory workshop for accepted submissions, that will be held at SOAS (London) in spring 2021.

Contact information:

Name: Dr Filippo Cervelli - Senior Teaching Fellow in Japanese (SOAS, University of London)

Email: fc15@soas.ac.uk

Name: Dr Benjamin Schaper - Stipendiary Lecturer in German (St Hugh’s College / St Anne’s College, University of Oxford)

Email: benjamin.schaper@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk

Other contact email: benjamin.schaper@t-online.de