Utopian Spaces: Call for Papers

“Utopian Spaces of British Literature and Culture, 1890-1945”

18 September 2009

University of Oxford (United Kingdom)

The focus of the conference is on the spatial manifestations, geographies and practices of Utopianism, rather than on Utopianism as a category of millenarian anticipation. Papers are invited which address the various material and imaginary spatial forms of the Utopian impulse. How do certain spaces become associated with particular political or aesthetic visions of modernity? Does the Utopian bear a particular affinity to some spaces, rather than to others? Is the Utopian impulse articulated as a desire for order or anarchy?

Papers are invited on any aspect, historical and/or theoretical, of the conference theme. Topics may include but are not limited to:

• the political, religious, aesthetic nature of Utopian spaces

• the city as a Utopian space

• imaginary, geographical and textual maps

• representations of Utopian spaces in literature and other media (e.g. painting, film, architecture)

• theoretical considerations of Utopian ‘places’ and geographies (Walter Benjamin, de Certeau, Henri Lefebvre, Guy Debord and others)

• mobility and transport

• racialized Utopian spaces

Send an abstract of no more than 250 words in length, including name, position and institutional affiliation to utopianspaces@ell.ox.ac.uk. Deadline for submission: 30 June 2009. For further information, visit http://www.utopianspaces.org

Gender & The City: Call for Papers

The editors of the inter- and multidisciplinary journal Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies have recently announced a call for papers/poetry/fiction/artwork pertaining to a special issue devoted to exploring reciprocal relationships between gender and the city:

"For many decades feminist scholars in numerous and diverse fields have studied the importance of gender in constituting cities and the role of urban places in constructing gender. We want to develop a vigorous cross and inter-disciplinary conversation about these relationships of gender and the city. We therefore call for papers and creative works that analyze urban political, social, economic, and cultural experiences, institutions, and representations; the urban environment, including interior and exterior spatial arrangements and architecture; and the role of women in this dynamic relationship of gender and the urban."

Frontiers accepts submissions of creative works such as artwork, fiction, and poetry, as well as scholarly papers. To read more, click here.

Image above: Film still from Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse (1962).