[csaa-forum] CFP: Postgraduate/ECR conference - 'The View from Above: Cosmopolitanism and its Critics'

[Jay Daniel Thompson]

Dear colleagues,



Please find below and attached a Call for Papers for a 
postgraduate/early career researcher conference to be held at the 
University of Melbourne between 22-23 September 2014. Please feel free 
to forward this on to your respective networks.






The View from Above: Cosmopolitan Culture and its Critics An 
interdisciplinary conference for post-graduate students and early career
 researchers

Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 September 2014

University of Melbourne



Keynote speakers: 

Professor John M. Ganim, University of California, Riverside (on cosmopolitan medievalism)

Dr. Brigid Rooney, University of Sydney 
(on cosmopolitanism and suburbia in                  literature)



‘Cosmopolitanism’ connotes a dynamic, eclectic and sophisticated 
cultural sphere, one that transcends borders and national differences. 
Although the term is an ancient one, deriving from the Greek word 
kosmopolitês, its meaning has never been stable. The notion
 of the cosmopolitan is glamorous and in some respects elitist, 
suggesting a ‘luxuriously free-floating view from above’ (Bruce Robbins,
 Cosmopolitics, 1998). At the same time, it has utopian connotations of 
pluralism and universality.



In the last decade or so, discourses of cosmopolitanism have experienced
 a resurgence. The term is increasingly associated with 
multiculturalism, diasporic culture and the impact of globalisation. 
Critics have advocated new forms of ‘rooted’, ‘vernacular’,
 postcolonial and even ‘refugee’ cosmopolitanism, in an attempt to break
 away from Eurocentric canons and outmoded nation-based identity 
politics. But do these new accounts of cosmopolitanism resolve the 
tension between its egalitarian and elitist impulses?
 Are aspirations to cosmopolitanism still, as Simon Gikandi suggests, 
‘an essential mark of bourgeois identity and privilege’?



This conference invites participants to explore cosmopolitanism, both as
 a utopian project and as an object of critique. While the focus of the 
conference is on literature and literary criticism, we welcome papers 
addressing theatre, the visual arts, popular
 culture, translation and other forms of cultural expression in either 
contemporary or historical settings. We also strongly encourage 
contributions from creative writers.




Presenters may choose to focus on Australian cosmopolitanisms or address
 broader categories such as the postcolonial or the transnational.



Topics for discussion might include:



* old and new cosmopolitanisms (including the influence of classical, 
medieval and early modern texts on more recent understandings of the 
cosmopolitan)

* cosmopolitan sensibilities in colonial, postcolonial and diasporic literatures

* cosmopolitanism and class

* cosmopolitanism and the metropolitan/regional

* feminist engagements with cosmopolitanism

* cosmopolitanism and sexuality

* cosmopolitanism, advertising, popular culture and everyday life

* transnationalism and globalisation, parochialism and provinciality

* cosmopolitan readerships and polities; the role of translation

* creative practice and the cosmopolitan

* the text as a cosmopolitan space

* utopianism and cosmopolitan futures



The convenors welcome abstracts from postgraduate and early career 
researchers working in any field of the humanities, particularly 
literary studies, creative writing, theatre studies, history (including 
art history), cultural studies and translation studies.
 Please forward an abstract of no more than 250 words to 
viewfromaboveconference at gmail.com by Monday 19 May 2014.



Co-convenors:

Dr. Katie Hansord 

Catherine Noske 

Lucinda O’Brien 

Dr. Jay Daniel Thompson





Supported by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature


Warm regards, 

Dr. Jay Daniel Thompson
Book Reviews Editor 
Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature
Research Services Office
Level 2, David Myers Building
La Trobe University
Bundoora, Vic. 3086
Telephone: 0439 488 046
 		 	   		  
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