This looks to be an exciting conference on Fairy Tale and Fantasy and which overlaps with concerns about Gothic literature and YA fiction. The details have not been fully announced yet, but we will highlight them when they become available.
On 23 May 2015 the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy will host a PGR Symposium entitled “Wonderlands: Reading/Writing/Telling Fairy Tales and Fantasy.” Timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this event is primarily aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers, although other scholars and the general public will be welcome. We are seeking papers which explore all aspects of reading, writing, and telling fairy tales and fantasy. In particular, we invite discussion of wonder lands in fantastical literature, classic and modern fairy tales, and contemporary oral storytelling.
Possible topics of focus include, but are not limited to:
·Other worlds, otherworldliness, Wonderland, and wonder lands
·Relationships between reading, writing, and/or telling fantasy
·Contemporary scholarship in children’s and adult’s fantasy literature
·Storytelling as a vehicle for the fantastic
·Practice and performance of fairy tales
·Fantastical non-fiction
·Relationships between real and imagined wonder lands
·Meta-textual conversations with classic fantasy literature
·Imagining the fantastical world through illustrations and picture books
We also welcome paper submissions or panel presentations which include a creative or performative element.
We are delighted to announce that Professor Diane Purkiss will give the keynote lecture, five years after her inaugural lecture at the Sussex Centre in 2010. The day will also feature a lecture from illustrator John Vernon Lord and a performance from poet Steven O’Brien, and will close with a series of performances from professional storytellers which engage with the theme of wonder lands.
Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words (or panel proposals of 1000 words) and a short personal bio to the organisers, Joanna Coleman, Joanne Blake Cave, and Rose Williamson at wonderlands.symposium@gmail.com. The deadline for submission will be 31st January, 2015. Registration dates will be announced on the Sussex Centre website in the near future at http://www.sussexfolktalecentre.org.
